Shadow Slave

The room provided to Sunny was a far cry from the luxurious cabin he had enjoyed on the train. It was small, spartan, and lacked windows due to being located deep underground. The designers of the military bunker did not even install a false one, so the walls lacked the lifelike projections of the outside.

Not that Sunny cared about such things. In fact, he quite liked the solid nature of his temporary quarters. Perhaps things would have been different if he did not possess the ability to escape to the surface with the help of Shadow Step, but since he did, the fear of being buried under countless tons of stone and soil was not bothering him too much.

The room reminded him of his hidden lair in the ruined cathedral of the Dark City, which was a pleasant bonus.

Sitting on a narrow bed, Sunny sighed and projected the screen of his communicator on the opposite wall. Leaning back, he then got lost in thought for a few minutes.

In the next day or so, he would have to make a lot of important decisions. There were a lot of things to consider. While the task seemed daunting, he was rather excited to start.

'It's like playing a game… only without checkpoints and real human lives at stake. Including mine. So… uh… I guess nothing like a game, actually.'

The first thing he did was acquaint himself with the default set of assets provided to his future cohort by the government. This generous and highly optimized array of premium gear and equipment included everything to cover the basic needs of his unit during their deployment in Antarctica, from thermoregulated outerwear to priceless spelltech medical kits and beyond.

The centerpiece of the set was, without a doubt, an advanced all-terrain personnel carrier that was going to serve as the mobile home of his cohort in the future. This heavily armored transport vehicle resembled an angular, high-tech mix between a turtle and a rhinoceros.

…Of course, Sunny only knew what a rhinoceros was because he had looked up the extinct beast after learning that the APC was colloquially known as Rhino. It was hard to believe that the massive thing was an actual animal and not a strange Nightmare Creature.

Despite its prodigious size and thick armor, the Rhino armored personnel carrier was capable of moving with immense speed across various terrains. It could even climb mountains without too much problem, provided that the driver knew what they were doing.

with even more robust armor, inordinately powerful

room for improvement. In fact, the interface offered Sunny a lot of opportunities to enhance the APC much further. These additional augmentations were going to cost him

going to be responsible for keeping his cohort mobile, it would also serve as the logistical core of their deployment. Its importance was already apparent due to the fact that

Covetous Coffer, of course. Thanks to his loyal toothy chest, Sunny would be able to more or less double his cohort's storage space. That alone gave him a lot of flexibility as far as spending contribution points on

important… however, it is also

to mess with technology in various ways. The military vehicle certainly included several measures to minimize that effect, but it would still be prudent of him to beef this aspect up. After all, no one knew what would happen if dozens, or even hundreds of Gates came to exist in the area around the APC at the same

was something for Sunny to think about later,

he knew what he was dealing with, he had a clearer picture of what kind of Awakened

one interface and opening another, he rubbed his

is not going to

***

each containing the personnel file of one of the best Awakened soldiers stationed in the port. Most

of them would be his own

a while, Sunny was

the Awakened's Aspect and Abilities, their service record, and psychological profile, as well as

own powers, but also work well with each other both in terms of combat ability and interpersonal compatibility. The former was already hard enough, but the

government possessed contrarian and antisocial personalities. People who chose the life of service were predisposed to having a

enough to balance out their agreeableness

Flaws of these elite soldiers. Not even the government servants were comfortable sharing something like that with their employer. Each file only mentioned how severe the