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
The stones hit the target practice, not the wall or the post nearby. It hit the dummy. A crashing, but brief sound reverberated through my eardrums as the portal and my system notified me about hitting my target. The number shown on the top side part of my view decreased from one hundred to ninety, telling me that I eliminated one puppet. And that puppet I struck with the stone stopped moving in front of me. The last time I saw the target dummy stop moving was my first time strolling inside this training room. I never thought that the day would come that I would see this figure staring at me without moving around. “I hit it! I HIT IT!” I chirruped.Every cell inside my body cheered for my achievements. Although I had defeated the Wyvern and the Grim Reaper, this was my first time that I had felt like achieving something with such difficulty. Defeating monsters and portals was one thing. But learning a new skill from my own abilities was something different. Since I was already in t
“But what if they die because of me? Why would I let them risk their lives for me, when I am the one with the sniper system?” I asked, and demanded for an answer.I already had my ice cream in my hands, but it was starting to melt throughout our conversation. But I didn’t mind it for now. All I wanted was to hear Vulcan’s explanations and his ideas through this topic. Vulcan placed the plastic bag on the table and opened the wrapper from his ice cream. He also bought an ice cream for himself when he gave one to me. His ice cream also showed signs of melting, especially on his cone.“The hardest part about this job is that we can’t save everyone. There will be casualties far beyong what you’ve seen. And if that happens, everyone you love will be on the line. “Do you really think the people around you are defenceless? Even though you have an overpowered ability, it doesn’t mean that the people around you are powerless. You need to rely on yourself, not from your power alone. But just
When Vulcan exploded the dummy, the number from my top view decreased. Since I had already defeated ten dummies earlier, there were only ninety nine target practice left for me to battle. But in this case, I had to protect them. However, everything changed when Vulcan told me about his new challenge and destroyed the target mannequin behind me. As soon as that happened, the ninety dummies became eight-nine really quick. It just meant that Vulcan was ahead of me, showcasing his power. But the real struggle didn’t lie within this battle. It was because of the battle’s descriptions. Vulcan and I needed to treat the dummies like they were people I had to save, and the old man was an enemy. He told me that this was my training, apart from taking down those dummies earlier, which already became different. I was moving in an uncharted area, but the setting felt the same. It was because this happened when I was inside the portal.Whenever I entered a portal, the instructions to defeat the d