[ D day - 3 ] [ 15 H : 18 M : 23 S ] [ County city N ]
Another man would have thought over the options.
Vikram knew what he wanted. It's his home first, and his family first.
He is not the kind of fool who can't even look after his family, yet discusses public policy with the prime minister on twitter every day.
If there's no shelter where he could keep them safe, then there's no point even if he has millions of 'loyal till death' underlings.
The underlings are loyal to him, not his family.
Some of the worst decisions in history are made by over zealous loyal men.
At this time, he did not know how world altering the effect of his decision was.
Nor did he know how much of a loss he had made, for judging a random persian looking guy as a terrorist, but not a mercenary.
For now though, Vikram has chosen shelter without hesitation.
[ Congratulations !!! You are the first in the world to activate a first order resource orb. ]
[ You have chosen shelter as the first sequence. ]
[ Setting shelter as the main resource for the world 1287. ]
[ you have acquired a grandshelter token. ]
Vikram opened his inventory.
[ Mutant : Vikram ] [ Evolution specimen H-2234 ]
[ Evolver + 3 ]
[ All nighter : C ]
[ Enduring muscles : C + ]
[ Strong muscles : B ]
[ Hard bones : A ]
[ Super recovery : Ex+ ]
[ nightvision : C ]
[ agility : D ]
[ Dexterity : D ]
[ explosive muscles : S ]
[ Poison resistance : D ]
[ Golden skin : B ]
Fragments
[ Material +1274 ]
[ Inventory + 100 ]
[ Tokens + 1 ]
Tokens
Vikram skipped the inventory when he saw all the men's wallets and cell phones were there. He would discord them at a later time, when he had made some sort of site, where he could at least leave an obituary for these men.
Moreover, there's no guarantee that the identities in there are their real identities. All the same, he would keep that record.
Other than inventory, there's only a minor change to his genes.
[ Hard bones : A ] was a surprise. He did expect the skeletal frame was unnaturally strong, also that the boss's genetic drop is always a scale above rest. Even so, A is a little too high for just bones.
On the other hand, what in the world is stronger than oxen ? he wondered.
After a minute, it occurred to him.
Horses.
As long as horses exist, the other creatures are not considered strong muscles, probably.
After some thought, it did occur to him though the oxen is extremely big, terrifying and otherwise, they are still animals of prey. Also, they are not particularly fast, merely strong. Punch power means nothing if your opponent is faster than you.
The truly strong muscles must belong to predatory animals, such as lions.
All in all, it's not a bad harvest.
Moreover, increasing bone strength means that his wing armor would increase in its endurance.
Most importantly, now, he could get out of this damn portal.
He expected to get out of the county city by twelve in the noon. Right now, it's almost evening.
Even if he flies at his fastest, he would take at least four hours to reach the capital.
There's barely enough time to join the traffic at the check post.
Ofcourse, at this point, he could not just fly into the state capital despite having camouflage.
First and foremost, there could be hidden military air surveillance.
Second, the state capital is full of skyscrapers built with random city planning.
He will be like a balloon flying around in a forest of needle trees.
Thus, if he is flying, he must get on the road at the first toll station that allows him inside the city.
He has to do all this, while trying to avoid becoming a random roadkill. Even with all his improved genes, a collision with a truck could definitely kill him.
He has seen five portals enroute, all right besides the highway.
If one of those portals break, the entire high-way would be trashed.
Vikram felt a bit sad about it. India is barely catching up with the transport systems of developed countries. This highway is the pride of the nation - it made life incredibly easy for many people.
Going forward, even during the apocalypse, as long as they keep these routes open, not many places would lack for food or rescue.
Only, Vikram watched the live news as flew towards the capital city.
Now that he has strong bones, all he needs to do is open his wings like a glider, activate camouflage, and keep following the highway to the state capital.
There are no skyscrapers here, nor would anyone look into the sky during the day, so he's free to watch the tv on his smartphone.
Vinod sent a message, and Virat also sent a message.
Vikram saw both his brothers go crazy with his cash, former buying up all the unnecessary live broadcast material, later buying up all the gaming material.
However, Vinod also bought every last item Vikram ordered him to, including the tower gardens, seeds and the seedlings. So, Vikram decided to forgive his brothers.
That's good.
Then, Vikram turned to international news.
For now, countries' responses have been mixed.
America called back all of it's army, including peace corps, ambassadors, and otherwise, save for the ones stationed in Europe, who are given a choice to stay or return.
There is no lock down, but citizens are advised to stay within their homes and stock up on commodities.
All super markets sold out all over the world, as the world turtles up for the D-day.
Middle eastern countries vacated the villages around the portals, increasing security near the oases. They mostly abandoned their coastline, increasing guard around oil wells.
Europe is split, while England decided to not touch a single portal, Germany set out to clear all portals.
Half of France and its neighbors voted for the army to enter portals, while Greece and the eastern europe followed England's approach, moving away from portals.
All of them called a temporary truce, withdrawing their border patrol to protect their interior.
China moved away it's people from the cities by force, moving them into camps and empty cities in the Gobi desert, inner Mongolia, and Siberia, but that's only prediction, not fact, given the country closed off international relations for the time being. In addition, they called back all personnel, unless the citizen wants to abandon their nationality.
North Korea announced Its intent to conquer South Korea, while South Korea did all the army muster. On top of that, they are the first to embrace this entire phenomena in a truly 'web novel ' way, creating a hunters association, where a person could be either a hunter or a soldier.
The richer of the south asian countries followed the trend, where the people who registered as soldiers could buy arms from tomorrow, while the ones registered as hunters have to pay double the price for the same thing.
India's situation ? Well, that's going to be broadcast after the advertisements.
Vikram cursed away the TV stations happily, while checking the stock price of his own measly thirty shares of the TV station. The prices skyrocketed for all the news channels.
He returned to his messages to check messages from Vinod once more.
' The army has opened recruitment. Virat and I are stopping by the hospital to record height and weight. I will book an appointment for you tomorrow. '
' I registered with your aadhar, you should get a message by now. Go and verify in the link. They say special ration stores for soldiers would open from tomorrow. '
Vikram opened the link, where he verified with a code.
[ Your soldier registration code is 0xxxxx]
[ Welcome to Indian Army, private Vikram. We appreciate your bravery and courage during these tough times. Every hand is another shield in protecting our freedom and sovereignty. May you find pride and joy in your service with the Indian Army. ]
He got a message from the government.
Vikram shrugged and returned to the news.
It's about time advertisements are ending.
Despite her best efforts, the news anchor looked far too excited. For any one watching for the first time, it will look like she's being serious, but a person who's watching news every day could tell, the girl is especially hyped up in this segment.
Perhaps she knows the entire nation is watching her, as she gives out these words.
" Now the time has come for the news you are eagerly waiting for. The senate meeting finished at four o'clock today. The prime minister has announced the decrees for the crisis.
Section one forty four has been amended to take on it's mildest form. The military patrols will remain active in all the cities.
All cargo could travel highways, including high end luxuries.
Shopping in groups larger than five would require permission from your nearest military county officer. The curfew is lifted in all its entirety from six in the morning to nine in the morning, and three in the evening to seven in the evening, to allow for commuters and shoppers to go to their workplace.
The voluntary soldier force would receive missions through county military officers, as well as through president and tri-commanders.
The voluntary soldiers who enlisted using Aadhar could use any of the nearest hospitals to record their height, weight and health status, as well as the temporary recruiting stations the army sets up on the check post.
Further down, the country is divided in to red zones, yellow zone and green zones, with social distancing norms coming back … "
Vikram saw a stretch of highway, got down and pulled up his motorcycle.