Chapter 2: Gundam Seed

Inside the darkness, Xiao Ran felt that he dreamt for a long time. He was like a bystander watching the history and general occurrences from a textbook, but when he wanted to move further he couldn’t escape his dream like state. After a while though, he sobered up. Opening his eyes, he found himself inside a clean and bright five meters square room that was adorned with a bed, a wardrobe and a table, its look is simple but emits a heartwarming feeling.

Not giving him any chance to acclimatize to his surroundings, a vibrating wave came from his left hand, a smartwatch that wasn’t there before could be seen on it, with a series of messages displayed on its screen.

“Mission World: Gundam Seed.”

“This is a group beginner mission, difficulty: Unknown.”

“This mission will be split into main tasks, 100 beginners will participate on it, upon completion of three main tasks everyone will get a basic reward and 1000 battle points, you will also be allowed to return to the Prometheus Fortress.”

“Main Task 1: Safely escape from the satellite colony of Heliopolis within eight hours (ongoing).”

“Failure Penalty: None.”

“Main Task 2: Will be revealed after completing the MT 1”.

“Syncing with the world’s language, all words that you see or hear will be automatically translated into your native language.”

“Gained basic knowledge of the world (temporary), will be removed after leaving it.”

“This world belongs to the beginner worlds series. You can obtain your own new mobile suit in it. However, you will be forced to accept the branch task that accompanies the acquired mobile suit. If the mission fails, you will not obtain the MS and will lose Battle Points according to its class. If your BP became negative… you’ll be terminated.”

“It is forbidden to tell anything related to the Prometheus Fortress to the inhabitants of this world.” flashed the warning

“Current Achievement Points: 0”

“Character Display Panel, Real Area No. 678, your attributes are as follows: Hit 〈2〉Skill 〈1〉Reflex 〈6〉Spirit 〈8〉Constitution 〈3〉” All participants’ vital parts will be canceled, including the heart. The fatal parts such as head will become critical parts. If the critical parts are hit, the participant won’t die immediately, but will lose twice as much health. The health will be calculated by multiplying your Constitution by x10. Your current health is 30. If your health value hits zero, you will die. If it’s less than 10 you will have a debuff, less than 5 you will be unable to carry out any activity, if your spirit hits zero you’ll fall into coma.

After he finished reading the information, the smartwatch, seeming to know Xiao Ran was done, changed its screen into a countdown displaying his remaining 8 hours. The watch had 2 options on it, the character panel and the mission panel, of course they were only visible to who was wearing it.

Rubbing his aching head due to the system inputting the history and development of Gundam Seed’s world, Xiao Ran exhaled: “The system wouldn’t let the participants enter the mission world without knowing anything. In general, information such as division of powers, factions, some major events, and names of places would be given.

“The information known by all participants should be the same. It should also be consistent with the external perception of the normal people from this world. The only difference is that we, the participants, have different identities and we don’t know each other. No, it should be said that I’m the exception since I’m the only one who knows them.

“Since the other participants don’t know the story’s plot, they can only participate passively on the task, but I’m different because of my familiarity with it, with this I could gain more benefits while completing my missions.”

Xiao Ran suppressed his excitement and smiled “I’m sure I can leave Heliopolis before the 8 hours are up, even if there is no penalty for failing the task. Because once Zaft initiates their attack, this satellite colony will be disintegrated in around 6 hours and there’s no chance for a human to survive such a situation.”

Xiao Ran stood up from the bed, opened the wardrobe and chose a set of casual wear, while thinking, “I have four ways of safely leave Heliopolis within 8 hours.

“The first would be to buy a ticket to Earth ignoring everything, but it has the downside of ruining my opportunity to come in contact with the story characters.

“Second, following the story line, entering the shelter is the most common way, but I think most other participants will be forced to choose this one unless they’re very lucky, and interacting with the plot should be hard if I’m within a shelter. The faction of the rescue team also needs to be taken into account, if it’s Orb or Plant then it’s good. But if it’s the Earth Army’s, just think about getting drunk.

“Third, the easiest way to join the story line is to be on the battlefield and join Kira Yamato and his friends without entering the shelter, I never expected that the work arranged for me by the system would be what would help me getting into contact with them.”

The last one would be to go to the opposite direction of Kira, towards the Gundam Factory, where Orb’s “G-Weapons” manufacturing plant is located and infiltrate it until Yzak Joule and company appeared, with this I could not only escape. But also go through less dangerous fights due to being within a Mobile Suit.

This method made Xiao Ran’s heart jump twice, but in the end, he smiled: “I don’t have the ability to finish the task even with a MS, and I still need to know my abilities to get the most benefits. The best method is the third, after all, with my familiarity with the story I could gain more benefits for myself.”

Tidying his clothes, Xiao Ran turned his head and looked at the only table in the room, on top of which was a laptop, due receiving this world’s common sense he wasn’t troubled on how to use it at all. In a short while, he booted it up and searched for a few needed things.

“Well, as a college teacher assistant, it’s perfectly normal for me to look for my students’ information right?” Xiao Ran stretched out while searching, quickly finding what he needed: “Kira Yamato, Kato’s student, this school really guides students to become model ones… Prof. Kato’s classroom… there.”

Acquiring the information he needed, Xiao Ran took the laptop and got ready to leave the room, reaching the electronic door though, he couldn’t help shivering from excitement. Sighing to calm himself, Xiao Ran walked with a firm pace.

Walking down the corridor of the dormitory, Xiao Ran kept a relaxed and laid-back look. Appearing just like your average day-to-day person. The kind of person that nobody would look at for more than a second. He is doing this to not arouse the attention of other people. Of course, these other people are the participants.

Looking at the sky of this satellite, Xiao Ran unconsciously revealed an excited smile. Though this fluctuation of emotion would only be seen by someone looking closely at him. However, this wouldn’t happen as people should be thinking of him as a mob character.

If someone examined the surroundings thoroughly, they would see that the colony was divided in three huge parts. However, Xiao Ran currently has no intent of exploring it. Because who knows what would happen next and where could he encounter the Story characters. His best chance was to go directly to the Institute of Technology.

Following the path people that looked like students were walking through, they all stopped at a bus stop. Xiao Ran didn’t see any suspicious looking person, nor any of the story characters.

Checking the 8 hours countdown, Xiao Ran saw that 40 minutes already elapsed. He felt some anxiousness in his heart, but dwelling on it too much wouldn’t wield anything, so he queued up and waited as people one by one left by bus. When the stop was almost clear, Xiao Ran was stunned by seeing the vehicle of the colony’s guards passing through.

“What happened?” This question had just flashed in Xiao Ran mind when everyone around him took out their phone and connected to the network.

A young girl that was looking at her pink cellphone suddenly covered her mouth and exclaimed” “Oh my god!! Someone is taking hostages at the station!!”