It's been a very long day...
I had entered Vault 120, saved a lost child, slaughtered a bunch of aquatic mutant monsters, and then ended the reign of a tyrannical Davy Jones cosplayer with a real-life kraken.
I had passed out from exhaustion and woken up an hour later, cradled against Lady's chest.
"Thanks, Lady, but I'm getting up now," I said before shambling upright and stretching myself out like a cat that had just woken from a nap.
"Jonny's out?" I asked.
Lady nodded. "He closed his eyes not long after you did."
I hummed in acknowledgment before looking around the Overseer's lab... or what was left of it.
I pulled out a sweet roll and bit into it to replenish my calories. My abilities require quite a few calories to function properly, and I had burned a lot throughout the day. Even with the survival syringes I had used, I still felt hungry.
"Lady, you've assisted me wonderfully on this mission. Get some rest while I work." I pulled out a pillow and a rolled-up blanket and handed them to her.
Lady blinked, then accepted them and held them tightly. I could tell she was also tired, but she didn't move to lie down. Instead, she continued to stare at me for a moment before I turned and started walking away.
It's subtle, and her face doesn't show it much, but she was very pleased to be praised by me. And she held the pillow and blanket like they were sacred gifts from her god... She's perfect! I don't regret choosing her to be my loyal right hand.
Ainz had Albedo. I have Lady. What could possibly be better for someone like me? A person who rejected the traditional ideals of love and instead walks a path of selfishness.
I mused about that as I tiredly trudged past the wreckage of terminals and overturned, destroyed Vita-Tanks.
I opened my Pip-Boy and checked the status of the main quest.
All objectives had been met except for the last one: Become the Overseer of Vault 120.
'All right. End of the road...' I thought as I moved step by step toward the Overseer's dorm, which was attached to the central lab.
The vault door hissed as I pressed the button. It opened to reveal a short stairwell leading down into a subterranean room, with an Overseer's desk positioned in the center. Behind the desk were screens displaying images of several locations throughout the vault.
There were four attached rooms, two on either side of the office. The first room on the left led to a restroom. Toilet, sink, shower, nothing too special about it.
The second room on the left was the Overseer's bedroom. Inside was a standard room with a king-sized bed, a closet, and a vanity. It didn't appear that the Davy Jones wannabe had slept in there, as there was dust everywhere and no evidence that the room had been lived in.
The first room on the right was of particular interest to me, as it contained filing cabinets and servers that handled the vault's data.
The second room on the right held a storeroom. And when I opened the door, I found... absolutely nothing. Mostly empty shelves and a few sparse canned goods. But yeah, it was a little disappointing.
After looking around, I settled down behind the Overseer's desk. I wiped the dust off the terminal's screen and then booted it up.
A login screen appeared, so I plugged my Pip-Boy into the terminal and used the Vault-Tec master code to gain access to the root files. Then I created a local ID for myself, adding myself to the list of residents, and increased my status to Overseer by labeling the previous one as deceased.
Incredibly easy. The master code is way too overpowered.
The second I finished, a chime rang out from the system, and a large amount of EXP suddenly filled my bar.
[Main Quest—The Depths of Vault 120: Investigate the situation inside Vault 120. Reward: ???, 55,000 XP, 30,000 caps.] Complete.
I watched as my level bar flashed multiple times in quick succession. Then the reward panel appeared, and I finally learned what the ??? had been hiding.
Reward: Geneticist perk, Genetics Workbench, Seller's Market (OPEN).
My jaw hit the floor. There were three mystery rewards, and all of them sounded like good things.
I opened the first, which was a new perk called Geneticist.
[Geneticist: Grants knowledge of genetics. Automatically rises in rank alongside the Science perk. Also required to craft certain recipes or plans at the Genetics Workbench. Current rank—Advanced.]
'Nice! It's a bonus perk that scales off the Science perk. Meaning that when I raise the Science perk, the corresponding level of genetic knowledge will be included. I won't have to dump perk points into Geneticist.'
The basic and advanced knowledge entered my head.
Science was a perk that granted general knowledge about a wide range of subjects, but this perk specialized in genetics.
RNA and DNA structures... Proteins and cellular functions... Gene expression and variations...
I now understood a lot more about what these scientists had been doing. I felt confident that I could begin designing my own plasmids using the existing ones as templates and modifying them to produce different effects through the induced mutation of targeted cell clusters.
The human body suddenly felt very... moldable.
'I need to be careful with that train of thought. I don't want to be like these people who abandoned their humanity...'
My gaze shifted to the next item: the Genetics Workbench.
It's exactly what you would expect. It's a system workbench that I can use to manufacture gene-editing tonics and serums. I would have to build a settlement workbench here before I could place it down.
I was planning to do that anyway, so I'd get to see what the bench looked like and familiarize myself with using it.
The last reward was probably the best, a mod that allowed me to sell items to the system store for caps. The selling price was obviously going to be much lower than the buying price, in true Fallout fashion, but I was okay with that since I now had a clear and consistent way to make caps.
I'll need to test what can be sold and for how much, but my plans just got accelerated by a lot. Not that I was really in a rush anyway.
With my rewards sorted out, I checked my status...
Frank Winter, 19 (+50)
Lvl: 34 > 45
S-7
P-6
E-7 > 8
C-9 > 10
I-17 > 20 (maxed)
A-11 > 12
L-10 > 15
Perks: Swift Learner, Hard Bargain, Educated, Lady Killer, Advanced Science, Advanced Robotics, Advanced Chemist, Adamantium Skeleton, Action Boy, Advanced Gunslinger, Field Medic, Advanced Hacker, Rad Resistance, Gun Nut, Rad Child, Sneak, Dodgy, Advanced Nuclear Physicist, Advanced Brawler, Local Leader
Perk Points: 19
Mutations: Healing Factor, Speed Demon, Marsupial, Timeless, Rad-ical, Electro-Bolt
Augments: "PHOENIX" Monocyte Breeder Implant
Caps: 33,187 > 63,187
[A/N: The stats have a cap of 20, which is considered the peak possible for a human. The cap is a soft cap, meaning he can't add any more points to it, but he can boost it through mutations, gear, etc. There's no hard cap on stats. The sky's the limit in that regard. I wasn't sure if I'd previously explained how stats work. My own memory is bad. Lol.]
I placed points into Intelligence and reached the soft cap of 20. Something amazing happened when I did. I suddenly received another bonus perk for hitting the cap.
[Total Recall: You have pushed the limits of the human mind and unlocked the ability to recall perfectly any memory that exists within your mind with crystal-clear clarity.]
'Amazing! So hitting the soft cap on a stat could grant a bonus perk like this?!'
Twenty is considered the peak of what a human is capable of, and with a perk like this, I could remember things I might have forgotten. Even the finer details wouldn't be lost when I experienced things in the future.
I tried recalling my fifth birthday, and the details of the day became clearer than the vague memories I had of it before.
The family dog tearing up the piñata... The bounce castle with cartoons printed on the material... The taste of the cake... And the feelings I had at the time. Happiness, anger, bliss, annoyance.
I recalled the sensations and everything I had thought I'd forgotten.
I was suddenly able to remember everything as long as I willed myself to.
The one downside... Everything I now looked at, tasted, heard, felt, or smelled provided more memory triggers than a normal person would experience. This would likely lead me to develop a habit of thinking about random things simply because I was reminded of them at unexpected times.
It would take some time to adjust, but all in all, this was a very good upgrade.
The other stat I boosted was Luck, bringing it to 15, since I knew how important that stat actually was. I decided that it would be the next one I'd raise to the soft cap.
I could only salivate at the thought of what kind of effect maxed-out Luck would give me, along with whatever perk I received.
I added some points to Agility and Endurance to improve my combat efficiency, and one to Charisma to bring it to an even 10.
Given that I was now recognized as the Overseer by the system but hadn't quite been accepted as Overseer publicly, a bit more Charisma wouldn't hurt.
But before I went to convince the people, I still needed to finish taking over the vault's systems.
I sealed off the Hephaestus dome completely for the time being, as there might still be some lingering mermen, and the tunnel leading to their underwater nests hadn't been sealed off yet.
I then reconfigured the defense system to ignore humans and target any nonhumans.
If there were any lingering fish faces in Poseidon or anywhere else in the vault, they were about to have a very bad and final day.
The turrets and robots within the facility would become hostile toward them, and they wouldn't survive. The system stated that there were still six Assaultrons, eight Protectrons, and four Robobrains active within the facility. And the majority of the turrets were still online.
With that done, I logged out of the terminal and exited back into the lab. Jonny was slumped against a slab of concrete, and Lady was curled up on a bedroll.
The lab was a disaster zone. I walked over to an intact console next to the moon pool and shut the moon pool's seal.
Just in case Cthulhu grew a pair of balls and decided to come back to get revenge on me for hurting it.
Next, I cleared some space in the center of the room, purchased a settlement workbench, and placed it there.
This was the center of the entire vault and the perfect place for it.
The bench cost 10,000 caps, and I planned to put two more in other locations soon. So the 30,000 caps I had just received from the quest rewards were about to disappear almost as soon as I'd earned them.
Once the bench was set up, I checked the settlement stats.
There were power supply issues, no food supply, insufficient water reserves, and 117 settlers. I definitely had some work to do.
I decided that could wait and returned to the Overseer's room, where I plopped down on the bed. I needed more rest, and I had another long day tomorrow.
I lay there in my nightwear after putting my armor away. I stared up at the ceiling for a moment, waiting for sleep to claim me, when I noticed a painting on the wall.
"Ugh, so ugly!" I exclaimed aloud.
I brought up the settlement interface, targeted the painting, and deleted it for scrap.
"Huh?" The painting vanished, revealing a wall safe. "Clever little bastards. I should have guessed there would be something hidden in here."
With a newfound burst of motivation, I postponed sleep and approached the safe.
My lockpicking skills were still trash since I had yet to take a perk in it, believing I could brute-force locks in reality. But I didn't want to damage my new room, so I refrained from trying.
I went back to the Overseer's terminal, logged in again, and searched for a connection to the safe. Sure enough, I found a command hidden deep within the system that unlocked it.
I heard a click and returned to the bedroom to check.
The safe had cracked open, and I excitedly swung it open the rest of the way.
I reached inside and pulled out the only item in the safe.
But once I grabbed it and saw what it was, my hands trembled for a moment.
It was a silver briefcase with a logo printed on one side.
A circle of stars surrounding a large capital E...
"Oh, fuck..."
<><><><>End Of Volume One<><><><>
[A/N: Well I decided that this is the end of the first Volume. I wrote more chapters than I expected to, to get here. But I think it turned out okay. And I know I am pretty lazy and rarely have bursts of motivation to write but this fic isnt dying yet I promise. The next Volume will explore the growth of his new organization Cerberus, as well as building new settlements, acquiring new personel and technology and preparing for a journey to the West Coast where the events of Fallout 1 will be adapted.
I might not reply to comments but feel free to leave ideas or criticisms. I can handle it. Thanks for reading.]