A Ranger's Journey (PGR x Male Reader)

Liv

'Thinking'

"Speaking"

"[Intercomms/Radio Transmission]"

*noises*

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Sector 20 - 270 Kilometers Away From Forsaken Forward Operating Base
Artificial "Biome"
Commander (Y/n) "Ranger" Schmitt - Gray Raven
1212 Hours

More than thirty minutes have passed since the three found each other, and within that timespan, they also wandered around, trying to find the thing that's causing troubles to their auditory, visual, and kinesthetic senses. But so far, they have found nothing but small pockets of Corrupted walking around, searching for something to kill. But unfortunately for them, they came across a squad of warriors that have lost one of their own, and they are not playing around.

"Clear." Lee said, looking at the group of Corrupted slumped down in front of them.

(Y/n) and Lee reloads almost simultaneously, while Lucia flicks her sword to the side, throwing off oil and small metal parts that got stuck in her blade.

"Ammo count." (Y/n) replied, slapping the bolt of his rifle.

"Still enough to get us through." Lee answered. The trio then walked around the open area. "If I'm not mistaken, these sensory deprivations are caused by specialized 'EM Projection' devices that can alter the electromagnetic fields of nearby spaces. Rather than deceiving our organs directly, it's more like covering a fictional piece of veil over the real world."

"So that sensory discrepancy we felt earlier... that was a form of maladjustment to the augmented space?" Lucia queried.

Lee nods, though not fully certain. "I think so. But humans have long found other ways to deceive their senses. Even without considering the quality of the EM projectors, the cost still doesn't make up for this tech."

"So how can we disable the EM projections?" Lucia asked.

"Brute force." (Y/n) answered with confidence. "We find the main power source, and destroy it. Even if I wanted to find them all, I can't detect them on radar. We might be facing off against tons of projectors and don't have much time destroying every single one of them."

"I agree with your plan, Commandant, but we don't know where the main power souce is yet. That is still our biggest issue." Lee elaborated. "But there's one method."

"Which is?"

"This."

Lee took out a small square-shaped pendant from his collar. "This is a souvenir Murray gave me."

"Murray... That's your brother at Babylonia, right?" Lucia asked.

"Yes, we talk occasionally."

"That's... nice."

"Do you not have family in Babylonia?"

"..."

"Lee, we can talk about that later. Now's not the time." (Y/n) stopped them from straying off from the main topic. "Your device. What does it do?"

"This toy is a mini graviton detector." Lee began. "Just something you can buy in the souvenir shops near the living quarters. 'Find me from anywhere', that was it's motto. Of course it was just commercial talk. This right here has a small detection area, is highly inaccurate, and gets disrupted easily. But for us, if we simply move along and record its reactive signals, we can theoretically deduce a vague but usable map. And from it, we can find the location of the projectors."