The Genius Mecha Pilot Wants to Survive - Chapter 01

I’ve arrived in space.

I’m fucked. There was no need for deep contemplation; I knew it immediately.

I am fucked. I could tell just by looking at my clothes and surroundings. I possessed someone.

Where did I end up? The space warfare game I enjoy, .

Usually, when you think of war games, something comes to mind. Games like Battlefxxld or Call of Dxty where you become a single soldier, capturing points and fighting.

Or games like Total Wxr or Stxrcraft where you directly control troops to fight.

Cosmos Story. Or ‘Cosmos’ for short, is a game that lets you do both. No, it’s a game with even more diverse methods than those two.

You start as just a soldier. Like a typical FPS game. And if you set your mind to it, you can stay a soldier until the end.

Of course, your rank and equipment improve as you progress, but you can also go all the way as a frontline assault trooper. It’s a story of becoming a frontline hero who has received multiple medals.

Or, you can get promoted and naturally change your position to become a captain who grows a single ship as they please. You can scale it up even further and become a general leading a fleet. It’s the commander route, where you are revered as a pan-galactic hero while watching over the fleet you built.

The military branches are also diverse. You experience the war from perspectives created individually for each one. It’s a game with many directions of progression, like the branches of a well-grown tree. A story of living as a single individual in the space age. Literally, Cosmos Story.

I ended up there out of the blue.

‘Of course, I’ve beaten it on the highest difficulty with all sorts of job classes, but…’

It’s not like I used mods, and it’s not like the game was so insanely difficult that no one had beaten the highest difficulty.

‘Why me…’

Such thoughts crossed my mind, but I immediately shook them off.

Let’s stay calm for now. I took a deep breath and looked around.

It’s not a 2.5-ton truck, but the soldiers are sitting in two rows facing each other as if they were in one.

It’s a standard transport ship layout. I’m not sure exactly when I possessed this body, but given the circumstances, there’s a high probability it’s the game’s tutorial. Because the tutorial definitely starts like this.

Just then, the guy in front of me, who was chatting, started raising his voice about his own tales of valor.

This scene. Yes, this is the opening scene. I snapped to my senses and gripped the safety bar tightly with both hands.

There is only one thing I need to do right now. Today, right now. How to survive the tutorial.

Kwa-gwang!

Along with an explosion, red flames soared behind the guy in front of me. The hull shook as if there had been an earthquake. Through the breached front wall, I could see monsters in the distance.

Red lights signaling an emergency flashed, and warning alarms blared.

Those alarms seem to make things even more chaotic. The other soldiers are already in a state of panic. Is this it? Am I going to die in a crash?

I also felt a sliver of anxiety, but I gripped tight and held on.

‘If it’s the tutorial, it will make an emergency landing successfully.’

Whether you can call it a success is ambiguous. It’s a landing close to a crash, and a few more people die because of it.

The player character faints, and after someone wakes them up in a hurry, the game proceeds in earnest as they fight the monsters that entered through the hole.

‘It’ll go according to the game, right…?’

The red light turns on, fueling the anxiety. The scenery outside, visible through the gap in the hole, passes by rapidly.

Ku-gu-gu-gung!

It begins to land with a rough sound. A massive amount of dust flies through the gap, and the transport ship, unable to even deploy its wheels, shakes like a wave along the ground.

Even though I had secured my body with the safety bar, the shaking was immense, but I gritted my teeth and held on.

Because I kept my mind tightly focused, fortunately, I didn’t lose consciousness like in the game.

‘From now on.’

I hit the safety bar button, which wasn’t pressing easily, to release it. I immediately grabbed the mounted rifle as well.

In the game, you panic because of the monster that entered while you were unconscious. Right in front of your eyes, a soldier’s head gets blown off. And when the monster approaches me, another soldier helps. While that soldier is in danger, you release the safety bar and take out your gun to provide support.

When I first played the game, I watched that video and secretly got sweaty palms. Because it expressed the tension so well.

Such dangerous situations are fun to watch on screen, but I don’t particularly want to experience them myself. I finished preparing first and shouted to wake the soldiers up.

“Get up! If you don’t want to die, get up!”

Since this part is the timing when I would have been unconscious, I don’t know when the enemy might rush in.

I don’t even remember the face of the NPC who saved me in detail.

Glancing at them roughly coming to their senses, I took a sitting firing position with the muzzle pointed toward the hole.

The position that only requires pressing a single button in the game was incredibly uncomfortable when I started doing it myself.

One or two people started getting up, arming themselves, and waking the person next to them.

That was when it happened. A disgusting sound, like someone who had smoked two packs a day their whole life gathering phlegm, was heard.

“Keu-reu-reu-reuk.”

At that sound, the chaotic interior instantly went quiet. Except for the few who had unluckily died, most were recruits.

Jeo-beok.

Beyond the hole, gunshots and shouting could already be heard. Even so, everyone could hear the smaller footsteps.

Jeo-beok. Teo-eok.

The alien footsteps echoing on the metal transport ship. The quadrupedal monster that finally revealed itself looked similar to a wolf. The difference was that instead of fur, it had tough-looking skin, and key areas were protected by exoskeletons here and there. And the fact that it was much larger than a wolf, about the size of a lion or a tiger.

The monster race I had only seen on the game screen. The Kilug’s most basic unit. It was a Kepper.

“Fire!”

I shouted and pressed the trigger hard.

A heavy recoil traveled up my shoulder. My first time firing in automatic. I felt that the recoil of the automatic fire was stronger than I thought, but I held on by gripping the barrel tightly.

Du-du-du-du. The red warning lights signaling the emergency were still flashing, and the muzzle flash flickered along with them, creating a chaotic scene.

All these lights felt rather unreal. Nevertheless, the acrid smell of gunpowder and the recoil of the gun felt on my shoulder reminded me that this was reality.

One Kepper instantly became a beehive from the panicked recruits’ spray-and-pray.

‘Actually, it’s a waste of ammo.’

If they had been a bit calmer, they could have caught it while saving ammo. There was no need for so many people to spray fire like this either.

I let out a deep breath, reloaded, and grabbed magazines from the corpses.

I stood in front of the breached outer wall. Honestly speaking, I don’t want to go out.

But I have to go out, right.

“Fu-u-ck, those dog-like Kilug bastards! You’re all dead!”

An excited voice was heard from behind. It looked like he was forcing himself to say it to hide his trembling hands.

I wasn’t much different. But let’s stay calm. Let’s stay calm. I repeated to myself and went out through the hole.

Outside was already a battlefield. It was an emergency landing, but it was near the landing site. Many transport ships were already spitting out troops.

I could see a swarm of Keppers running from afar. Even though it was sporadic, it felt like they were swarming without rest. The recruits had expressions of being terrified by the sheer volume.

My hands were also trembling slightly, but I know that this amount isn’t the true Kilug volume. A fully grown colony’s forces cover the horizon.

This is a colony that hasn’t fully grown yet. Even so, the fact that there’s that much volume shows just how fucked the difficulty of this game is.

Just then, a rough voice was heard from the side.

“You idiots over there! Where is the squad leader?”

Looking at the armband, it’s a platoon leader. My transport ship buddies just stare at each other blankly.

For reference, this is also one of the branching points. As it’s a tutorial branch, it can change however much as you progress, and although it can be seen as the absolute foundation of the standard route.

If you step up and answer here, you get selected as the temporary squad leader, and if you stay quiet, you just play as a soldier.

The play perspective doesn’t change drastically. Up to this point, the tutorial is an FPS. It’s just that if you choose to be the squad leader, options to give additional commands or make choices in minor parts appear.

If you’re taking the commander route, it’s not a bad method because it’s an opportunity to gain a little more points. Aside from that, for survival, it was less dangerous, so I had to step up.

“He’s dead.”

Huh? Someone answered in my place.

Originally, when I, the player, woke up from being unconscious. That guy was the one who became the first prey to the Kepper that entered the transport ship.

‘Wait, this snowballs like this?’

Wouldn’t this snowball lead to my death? An anxious feeling crept up.

In the meantime, we had to move according to orders. Using the transport ship, or its debris. Rocks. We use various covers to steady our bodies and fire.

The loud emergency lights aren’t flashing like a moment ago, but the noise and muzzle flash of the firearms have become even more intense.

Following the squad leader’s orders, we rush to the cover in front.

“Heo-eok. Heo-eok.”

I was out of breath quickly. Even at level 1 in the game, the stamina stat wasn’t this low, so it was strange. Stabilizing my trembling breath, I mounted the gun on the rock.

I saw Keppers running from afar.

Although I never shot a perfect score until discharge, I was a decent marksman who usually hit 18~19 rounds.

I calmly set it to burst fire and shot.

Ta-da-tang! Ta-dang-tang!

I calmly take down one Kepper at a time. Unlike automatic fire, burst fire was manageable in terms of recoil.

The place to aim is between the front leg shoulder and the neck. The head area has a fairly thick skull, so sometimes it doesn’t die in one burst.

However, the enemy wasn’t a stationary target. It was running like crazy, and hitting a moving target was not as easy as I thought.

Eventually, when the front line started to be pushed back, the savior finally appeared.

Ku-ung. Ku-ung.

Heavy footsteps felt with every step.

Wi-ing. Cheol-keong. The driving sound of metal interlocking with metal.

Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu. A bipedal robot spewing powerful firepower.

The Coalition’s main armored combat weapon. It was a Titan.

Tu-ta-ta-ta! The rifle noise I felt until just now wasn’t even noise.

The mighty sound of gunfire spread across the battlefield, and the Keppers’ blood soaked the ground.

The small ridge started to be cleared. It seemed like we could advance now, but not yet.

Ku-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu!

Along with a strange noise, the ground split, and a drill popped out.

To be precise, it’s not a drill. It’s the Tunnel Serpent, a Kilug monster and building.

The drill-like mouth splits into several branches. The dripping saliva lets you know it’s a living creature. What was visible inside the opened mouth wasn’t an uvula or esophagus.

It was a massive swarm of Keppers. Like its name, it started spitting out a massive amount of troops from the mouth of the creature that acts as a tunnel.

In an instant, the front line is disrupted again. A Titan that was a few meters away explodes as its breastplate is shattered by the drill of the Tunnel Serpent that burst through the ground.

Should I shoot the enemies swarming from afar? Should I shoot the ones coming through the tunnel? The chaos intensifies.

Kwa-gwa-gwang! In the midst of this, even Kilug artillery fire falls.

It was a living hell.