Arnold's ears were ringing and deafened by an annoying tinnitus, his Hit point bar was completely depleted after his self-inflicted headshot, so any shot that he received after this would directly harm his actual body. The bar had a countdown of a few minutes until the hit point started to regenerate again, but now Arnold was a bit occupied with his headache to care about it. As expected, the hit point completely absorbed any pain he would receive, yet the destruction of it caused him an immense headache for some reason he was not aware of. Clutching his head with his free hand, Arnold fell to his knees behind cover, unable to move without falling over because of his headache.
Unfortunately, the battlefield was only getting more heated uncaring of his inability to fight back. On his side, was June who was shocked by what had just transpired, but once June noticed that Arnold was physically unharmed despite receiving a point-blank headshot, she immediately shifted her attention back to defending against their attacker. She saw some of the enemies were preparing to throw grenades at their position. She managed to shoot some of them before they managed to throw the grenades, causing them to explode beside their feet. But the problem wasn't solved just yet, the enemies realised that they weren't a match against the Doll in a gunfight, so they started lobbing explosives from behind cover instead.
Her body was already pushed to the limit and was on the brink of shutting down due to overheating. Arnold wasn't in the condition to fight optimally either, he tried to force his body to move and fight despite the immense headache, but it was wholly inefficient with his trembling hands. He was already clutched by fear of death once again, but it was also that fear that gave him strength to fight despite his body in less than fine condition. He immediately felt the direct effect of the absence of Hit Points, the presence of pain which he had not felt ever since he received the system. When a grenade exploded not far from his position, he could feel his lung forcefully compressed by the blast and some of the fragments scratched his skin and caused him to bleed. In a panic, Arnold immediately tries to use his healing magic, yet he belatedly realises that his mana has also been depleted from his overusing the magic shield sometime earlier.
They needed to get out of there fast, holding their position was never an option. June slung her rifle behind her back and then proceeded to drag the trembling Arnold to another cover farther back. The bullet fire from the enemy has lessened by a lot, but the number of grenades being thrown in their general position was too overwhelming. Once they hid behind a new cover, Arnold despite his trembling managed to load a new magazine, his last magazine, into the rifle, the enemy fighter Arnold defeated didn't bring a lot of ammunition on him.
Despite having his rifle already loaded with ammunition and ready to fire, Arnold didn't dare to pop out his head out the cover and shoot again. Knowing his safety insurance was still unavailable, he was frozen in place waiting for the right time to strike back… or waiting for June to fire first. Seeing that June hadn't fired her rifle too, Arnold thought that it was safer to also not offer his head to the enemy. Arnold could hear multiple explosions of grenades being blindly lobbed by the enemy to their previous position. He peaked from behind cover and saw the car that they had previously used to hide had been reduced to a fiery metal rubble, which reminded him of his car from his previous life. Arnold gripped his rifle strongly and gulped spit nervously, he felt so many things at the moment, mostly fear and other kinds of fear. Then slowly, his vision darkened, blurry almost static images and noises filled his senses and mind, memories of his death and what happened after it started to resurface from the void of his memory, like the inexplicable horror from the deepest of hell it threatened to swallow him whole and plunge him into things he doesn't recognise, things he would never be able to recognize and process with human logic, yet he feared with his soul. Slowly, he was losing grip of reality and he felt like his mind slipping into what he could only call purgatory, it was dark, it was suppressing, it was cold, it was hot, he was alone… surrounded by his torturers which wasn't a thing yet existed as a creature he couldn't see nor recognise with his senses, they were something he couldn't perceive and make sense of, only exist to be feared by him. He-
"…Sir! Sir Arnold! Wake up! Get yourself together!"
Then he heard June calling for him and all the static images reverted to the normal sight of the physical world. He was sweating bullets and he was already in a different place, he was dragged away when he was out of his mind, probably using the stretcher he was sitting on currently. His hands still trembling, clutching the grip of his rifle strongly like it was his mother's hand, his mind was still partially out of it.
"G-God! June! I was dead! Again!"
"No Sir, you're not dead, you're safe now."
Hearing the usual calming, reassuring tone of June's voice, Arnold gradually calmed down and started to register his surroundings with clarity of mind. The scenery was still as chaotic with the strewn about abandoned cars, yet he heard the sound of gunfire coming from farther away than he remembered, there was no grenade explosion either. His Hit points are also already fully restored and a quarter of his mana bar has already filled. Then he noticed the presence of several armed T-dolls around him, some stared at him with concern some keeping watch of the surroundings. His brain felt like it recognized them but his worse mental state failed to connect the neuron needed to access said memory.
Noticing his confusion, June provided him with the much-needed context of what happened.
"Sir Arnold, they're T-dolls from Griffin & Kryuger here to help us. The Founder was a friend of one of the high-ranking Griffin commanders, so he was able to solicit a rescue team for you. Right now, we are heading to the extraction point not far from here, from there we will be brought by car to the hotel where that Griffin Commander was staying and then wait until someone from the sanctuary will pick us up."
Once he heard the names Griffin and Kryuger, Arnold finally connected the dots about why he was familiar with the dolls surrounding him. Yet, his cloudy mind still failed to accurately name each doll based on his memory nor did he remember the name of the firearms they were using. What he focused on more right now was the gradually dissipating memory of what he saw a moment ago, it seemed like his subconscious mind already knew how to deal with this particular inexplicable memory of his during post-death-pre-reincarnation hellscape. He tried to remember yet it fell short, he couldn't put his finger on it nor did he know what exactly he had to put his finger on to remember, so he soon gave up his attempt.
He tried to walk but failed since he felt his feet were like jelly, fortunately, his slow heal magic capable of restoring strength to his feet once he tried it out. Still not letting go of the rifle he scavenged from the defeated enemy, he obediently followed the Griffin T-doll escort and soon met with their escape car, a black van with a similarly dark-tinted window. Where the car was waiting, was a police barricade with armed police lined the blocked road, eyeing their group with caution. However, it seemed like their arrival was already expected as the police only nodded to the driver before leaving them alone to their business.
The extraction team was a convoy because Arnold saw the Griffin T-dolls board another 2 black sedans before he got into the van. The trip towards the hotel where the Griffin Commander stayed was rather uneventful. Arnold also noticed that once the convoy got far enough from the fighting site, there wasn't any tension in the air and the citizens were walking about with their lives completely unbothered by the firefight that was happening just a few kilometres away from them. The stark difference between the two scenes makes it feel like both came from a different world despite only being separated a few kilometres away from each other.
Soon, they arrived in the parking lot of a hotel and he was once again escorted by the doll to the highest floor of the hotel. At first, Arnold thought that he would be brought to meet this Griffin Commander, but it turns out the commander was pretty busy and he was brought into an empty room instead. The room was spacious and decorated like it was made to house kings, luxurious red and golden yellow seemed to be the main theme of the room. He sat on top of a sofa which was so soft it felt like he would get absorbed by it, in front of him was a marble table whose price tag might put him in generational debt, though he was pretty sure everything inside the room was worth more than his yearly salary from his old world. He was lost about what to do in his current situation. June was off to the side probably contacting the someone who would be picking him up. Not wanting to disturb her, Arnold got off the very clingy sofa and walked toward the balcony to try to enjoy the sight of the city. He tried to enjoy himself but his attention kept drawn to the black smoke coming from a part of the city where he was fighting for his life not long ago. He could see a battle helicopter encircling the area and sometimes firing its cannon at a target that he couldn't see from the balcony.
"Is the battle still ongoing? I had expected that the authorities with advanced technologies like this world would be able to wrap up something like this quickly, seems I was wrong."
Arnold expected a very sci-fi-ish quick response and very swift lethality, though he also wondered that the authorities might have wanted to limit the damage to the city infrastructure by limiting the amount of power deployed to deal with the terrorists.
While was off inside his imagination, the door to his room suddenly opened and then a man wearing an expensive-looking coat and a leather top hat with a cane entered the room followed by the T-dolls that escorted him before. Despite using a cane, the man himself was standing straight like a bulwark with an authoritative air which commanded respect and awe, Arnold instinctively straightened his posture at the sight of the elderly man. Despite the man being a head shorter compared to Arnold, Arnold doesn't dare to stare at his eyes as he feels like a single mistake would get him executed. This might have been an exaggeration on Arnold's part but he truly felt that way at the moment.
"Hah, you don't need to be so tense, I don't bite."
Sitting on the very luxurious sofa where Arnold was sitting before, the elderly man showed a very energetic smile and laughed a bit at the visibly nervous Arnold.
"Suck to be you, Young'un. I heard this is the first time you got out in months and you already got caught in an anti-governmental terrorist attack. Either you're just having a very bad day or you have a very bad karma. Anyway, you're safe here and Howard's people will come to pick you up soon, just wait a bit."
One of the T-dolls brewed a coffee for both of them and then the old Griffin Commander, Leopold Königsjäger, gestured for Arnold to sit on the sofa opposite him. Arnold barely managed to calm down after he saw that he was the only one in the room who was tense. While Arnold was nervous and didn't know what to do, Leopold suddenly started a random topic out of nowhere.
"I too haven't been outside for quite a while; do you know why? It's because officially, I died in an assassination years ago, but my death was highly exaggerated and I was just recuperating in some hospital somewhere in the stick. The doctor who saved my life was Howard Morrison, you know him too, he is the head of the mental ward you're in right? I heard your situation is rather special, enough to have a T-doll as your bodyguard."
Leopold looked at June who was standing silently behind Arnold, she only nodded in response. Arnold on the other hand was pretty confused, "What does he mean by special condition? Well, I'm well aware that Nurse June being converted into a T-doll was a bit strange, but I think the 'special condition' he meant and what I think is different, so, let's just nod and see how it goes, I guess…"
Uncaring of the listener's reaction, Leopold continued his talks which soon derailed into him talking about his feats during the third world war. What should've been a yawning party turned out to be quite an interesting story as the veteran spoke of his feats from a tactical perspective and sometimes even pulled Arnold into a discussion about how some event should've gone to get a better outcome. Arnold himself turned out to be more enthusiastic about the topic than he thought initially and even formed some ideas of his own which were approved by the veteran as feasible. Gone was the tension and nervousness inside Arnold as he was getting excited about forming tactical plans which would be reviewed by the old veteran to be either criticized or approved. More than half of the plans Arnold made were flawed and a quarter of it was mediocre at best, yet it only lighted a fire inside him to get more creative and resourceful with his plan-making. Both men were so busy with their talks that they didn't realize the time had flown for hours.
0o0o0
A/n: Eh new year motivation strikes I guess, hehe
Also, I think as the new year aspiration, I need to fix my schedule. Usually I just suddenly get an idea for a chapter out of nowhere at a very random time then I drink a few glasses of coffee, then as my heart beats like a jackhammer from the caffeine, I write my idea down in a race of who reaches the final dot first, my story or my life biography.
