“You might not notice, but you’ve snuck around with me since day one!” I said, and brought a chair for the two of us to sit in. Hina complied and sat beside the empty chair as I continued my sentences. “It doesn’t look like it, but you’re the only one who pushes me forward. Do you remember how I fought the Wyvern from the hybrid portal?”Hina shook her head. “No…”“I wanted to save those people not because of charity. It’s all because of you. When I came face to face with the Wyvern, I knew I was about to lose. But I didn’t. I didn’t let the Wyvern win. If I die from the monster, who would cook you a decent meal? You can’t even cook rice, Hina.”“HEY!” Hina cried, but I carried on.“I mean, I wanted to save them and all. But that’s not my point. My point is that you’re my moral compass. I don’t want to give you a world where portals exist. And a lot of people died because of me, which is why I understand what you’re feeling right now. If there’s anyone who could understand your feeli
I didn’t expect anything from Vulcan’s training ground. This place was meant to be a smith, so why would a sniper range be in an artisan room? As it turned out, the portal changed within the owner’s shop. And for Vulcan, the smith had morphed as well.When I entered the place, my eyes quickly glided at the walls surrounding the room. The training grounds were as big as a mansion where it could fit an entire zoo inside. And when I glared at my fore, training dummies greeted my eyes. Those were going to be my training partners for today, which were made of stacked hays and cottons for their clothing. From afar, those figures looked like scarecrows. But when I trundled forward, the training targets, which I had assumed were puppets, had monstrous and distorted features incomparable from Hina’s golems.When I came face to face with the hellish marionettes, every cell inside my body yelled for me to run away. I wanted to, but what was the point of entering this place if I would be afraid o
When the bullet ran into the dummy, it didn’t explode. Instead, the shot pierced through the figure and created a hole right off its body. The hole continued onward until my bullet found a formidable surface that could stop the bullet’s momentum. I didn’t know how or when that would happen, but it wasn’t my concern. All I knew and learned from this attempt was that physical bullets had the ability to pierce through anything as long as I had higher levels and my bullets were stronger than the ones it could hit.But I couldn’t determine how high level I should be so my bullets would pierce through my enemies. Although I got what it meant, sometimes, the levels weren’t enough to gauge the bullet’s power and the monster. However, that didn’t matter for now. This ability wasn’t reliable. Even so, if I compared the magical bullet to the physical one, the physical shell dealt the most damage. It may not have the splash damage from the arcanic shots, the physical shell penetrated the physical
It might have already been a couple of hours until the first time I went here and trained. And I had already fired a thousand bullets since the last time I remembered. However, none of the shots I let out hit my targets. Every time my bullet flew towards my target practice, they would hit the wall instead of the dummies. I swore to god that those bullets should have hit my dummies. But it didn’t. No matter how hard I tried and aimed my scope at the figurines, none of them hit.I didn’t know what to do until then. And when I checked for the time, it was already midnight. I forgot that my body needed rest, since I had been wandering outside and visited Hina. Although seeing her rejuvenated my mind, my body had told me otherwise.But before I could leave this place, I wanted to try one last thing. I didn’t have to master all of these obstacles. All I had to do was to familiarise myself and do a run-through about what I could improve before training my abilities hardcore. According to Oc
“Welcome to the real training grounds, kid. I specially designed this place for you. I know that you need to train yourself and your sniper, so here we go!” After saying those words, Vulcan introduced me to the newly improved training site. It was the same place as before, but there were some features that I didn’t recognise. The place that I saw earlier wasn’t the real deal. This was. We were still inside a training hall, but the place became gargantuan. The floor was still made of marble. However, the room now had a second floor. That upper level differed from the others, especially the entire training course and the little corners became something more than just tiny spaces. It could even fit ten mice, enough to make a horde. According to Vulcan, the entire training field was built in with fascinating designs. The two of us could modify the site if we wished to train on a flat floor or in whacky terrain. Nevertheless, any challenge could be good to me. But, first and foremost, I
There were one hundred dummies clustered in this room, and this training room had two floors. Everything surrounding this building was distorted. None of them aligned. But instead of whining about the environment, I had to deal with it and come up with a plan to achieve my goal. But how could I even put a dent on those dummies if they moved as fast as a fucking famished hyena? The answer was simple. First, I had to try what I could and hit them like I usually did. With that in mind, I held my sniper and aimed elsewhere. For starters, I put my line of sight in front of me. There was a bloody mannequin before me, which should probably be a freebie. After all, every hit counts. And if I managed to hit one, that would be nine instead of ten for a meal. When the time kicked in, I finally pulled the trigger and fired what was in front of me. For a second, I glimpsed at the puppet dashing right before my eyes. However, the occurrence was something more than what I had initially expected.
“That’s enough, kid. You did well for today. But, sadly, you’re not allowed to eat dinner,” Vulcan uttered, as he opened the door leading to the training area’s exit. “Why? I’m the one who paid for our meal! It came from my hard earned money!” I cried, sounding desperate in front of an old man. “I know. But I made this training session for you. If you want to eat, go eat. But don’t use this place.” “If I can’t use this place, who else would?! I’m your guest, goddammit!” I cursed, as my stomach grumbled. “Nobody except for you.” After we ended our conversation, Vulcan and I headed outside the training area. He told me that I was free to use this place whenever I liked. However, the old man also told me that I needed to look out for my health. “Your mind might want to train, but your body wouldn’t.” Those thoughts echoed inside my head, as I hit the sack without crunching anything inside my mouth. When tomorrow came, I went to the main hall and saw capsules of some sort and a dece
“I have to brute force everything. If this sniper can do it, I should do it. There’s nothing else that I can do besides that, old man,” I said, while blankly staring at his disappointed face. “Move aside and let me just… pull this trigger once more and try.”“Even if you try, Aoi, you’re never going to hit them,” Vulcan, who kept calling me by my name, caught my attention. He had never been this concerned for me when the two of us first met. When Vulcan finally noticed that I lent my ears to him, he placed his arms, which were crossed earlier, on his face and massaged his temples. “You don’t understand, Aoi. The key is not depending on your powers. The ability comes from you, not the sniper. You’ve been relying on the damn weapon!” Vulcan yelled as if he was spelling it out for me.But I didn’t care and carried on with what I had in mind. Even though I paid attention to Vulcan, his words didn’t produce meaning inside my head. All I could think of remained the same. I must take down f