Chapter 28: Target

Another day passed uneventfully, and the tension only grew despite not having been attacked again. 

We would arrive in only three more days. 

For the most part, I had been focusing on learning what I could from Plex. And the surprising part was how I actually made some progress. 

Through practicing the formation that Maxwell gave me, I was able to hone control over my Aura. And through Plex’s teachings I was actually able to restrain it, just slightly. 

If wasn’t enough to make a big difference. Plex said that Aura was like a shining light. Being able to restrain it only made the light dimmer, and I couldn’t dim it much. To him, my Aura was still as obvious as daylight. 

But the fact that I could even attempt to conceal it was shocking enough. It was so much so that he basically stopped teaching me after calling me a freak. 

Plex was one of the few people who knew that I hadn’t even activated my first Authority when I arrived at the Capital. So to go from that to actually exercising control over Aura in only a bit over half a year was baffling to say the least. 

I understood this as well, but it wasn’t like I could apologize. Not even I knew why this was coming easily to me. Was I supposed to explain my talent somehow?

Then again, I wondered in the back of my mind if my talent had something to do with the fact that I came from another world. My Authorities and summons were obviously tied to my origins, so perhaps I really was given something special upon arrival. 

Well, to suddenly be thrown into a world of magic when I came from a world of nothing but science was a jarring change, so it was only right that I was given something to ensure my life here. Consider it compensation for being murdered by a robot truck. 

I found myself smiling. 

During the fourth day of travel, the scouts were on full alert at all times. We were expecting attacks at every hour of the day, and I was beginning to understand what Plex had told me at the beginning of our trip. 

People either became anxious or complacent as time went on, and the convoy had chosen the former. 

Nobody went without their gear on, and the atmosphere was constantly somber. It was like they were expecting to die or something, which made those with relatively good moods sour. 

I was included. I wasn’t anxious, but it was difficult to be around a bunch of people with such bad moods. At some point, I was basically praying for the battle to hurry up and get here so that these knights would get out of their head and just swing a sword around. 

And maybe that’s exactly why they waited so long. It was a mind game. 

The fourth day passed slowly, but it passed, and nothing happened even during the night. Plex told me to get some sleep and even to sleep in as long as I could. He said that they would strike when we were most vulnerable, and that was when everyone was tired. 

Sure enough, the fifth day rolled around, and nothing happened so long as the sun was up. As soon as the moon came out though and night fell, it happened. 

“Enemy spotted!”

There was a yell, and from under my covers, my eyes shot open. 

The entire convoy woke up. We hadn’t even gotten an hour of sleep, but we were forced out of bed. 

And not long after, I heard the exxplosions. 

Except, unlike the first time, this explosion rocked the entire Hunker. I was thrown out of my bed as the vehicle quaked, threatening to roll onto its side. 

But it righted itself under gravity, and everyone continued to rush out. 

“Have fun, John!”

Plex yelled while disappearing, causing me to scoff before rushing to my turret. 

Peeking through the window, I spotted an enemy convoy toward both our front and back. We were brought to a standstill, and the frontmost and rearmost vehicles were being raided. 

Spells also came en masse, flipping the smaller trucks and exploding amidst our knights. They were responding with trained reactions, but several already had wounds. 

I didn’t delay, communing with my scoped rifle and taking aim. 

My priority, as discussed with the Captain, was to take out the warlocks. That was my only job, and how many people died hinged on my performance. 

It was a lot of pressure, especially now that it was time to make true on my promises. But I pushed myself to step up. 

Judging by the strength of their spells and what seemed like thick magical barriers in front of them, I could guess that the warlocks were more powerful this time around. So I empowered my rifle with a large amount of Psyka before finding my target and pulling the trigger. 

*BANG*

An explosion rang out through the battlefield as I felt the gun recoil into my arm. On the other end, I could see the warlock drop with blood spraying from his neck. It seemed I missed both his head and his chest, but managed to hit the side of his neck, taking out an artery. 

Well, he was also about 110meters away, this intuitive sense of distance coming from the memories within the rifle. 

With that shot, I shook off some of my nerves.

“You’re good, John. You’re good at your job. Just keep shooting. Slow and steady…”

I took a deep breath, settling my heart before taking aim again. 

However, before I could shoot another target, I suddenly saw a spell fly toward me. 

I ducked, and there was a large explosion of fire. 

“Ow! Warm!”

I winced as a tongue of fire licked my face, singeing some of my facial hair and burning me a bit. 

After taking a moment, I put on my air mask before lifting back up. 

However, I could see more spells coming at me. I ducked as another fireball threatened to burn my air mask. 

“Shit. They know its me. I can’t shoot like this…”

I realized that they had prepared specifically for me. Without me, they would have an easier time taking out the knights. 

I couldn’t allow it, so I moved to another turret. But after firing a single shot, I was once again suppressed. 

“Fuck! Fine! I’ll go meet you myself! Since when have I been scared of close combat?!”

Pulling out of the turret, I kicked open the door of the Hunker and headed outside. 

All around me, I could seen knights battling each other. The strength they wielded gave me goosebumps, reminding me just how weak I was in front of those types of Magi. 

But I was being protected by them, and I couldn’t let those damned warlocks do as they pleased. 

So I ran to a good location before taking aim, finding a warlock and firing. 

*BANG*

My gun flashed, and another warlock died. Of course, I was also spotted, and because they saw me beyond the metal fortifications of the Hunker, I was attacked. 

I quickly ran behind one of the trucks as a spell hurdled toward me. Not all the ranged spells were fire, but they all had the familiar flashes of magic spells, giving them away. 

After that spell exploded where I was once standing, I relocated and fired off another shot. 

That shot didn’t kill the warlock though, his barrier stopping it. 

“These guys are strong…”

I muttered before relocating once again. I had to keep moving and shooting. 

And since that previous warlock was strong, I avoided him and targeted the others. 

Over time, I managed to kill four more warlocks with empowered shots. I also found 3 warlocks were were strong enough to block my bullets. 

But with the pressure eased, the knights were doing noticeably better. In fact, we were pushing them back. I also wasn’t getting focused as much, giving me more room to shoot. 

And it was all downhill from there. Our momentum snowballed as I continued to shoot those strong warlocks. I couldn’t kill them since they kept strengthening their barriers, but my efforts still made them hide away. If they didn’t avoid me, then I would eventually pierce through. But if they hid away, then they couldn’t attack the knights. 

In fact, I managed to kill one because he thought he could strengthen his barrier before I could fire twice. Unfortunately, he underestimated my fire rate and one of my bullets snuck through after shattering his barrier, blowing a hole through his head. 

However, perhaps because I stayed in one spot for longer than normal, another spell was thrown at me. 

And it wasn’t one from one of the weak warlocks. Those I had killed. 

No, one of the strong ones decided to focus on me. 

And I barely noticed when the spell was already heading toward me. 

I saw as a large ball of water came flying in my direction. It didn’t look harmful, but I could feel the magical energy contained inside of it, which made me panic. 

In that moment, my jacket lit up with purple lines. I felt my mind speed up, everything around me suddenly moving in slow motion. 

And I threw my body out of the way, my muscles straining themselves to move as I commanded. 

Thankfully, that was enough to avoid eating the entire spell with my body. 

I dodged, the spell landing beside me. But then it exploded, and I was hit with a dense wave of water backed by shockingly powerful pressure. 

It was like being hit with a shockwave. The water dug into my side, and while it was stopped by the jacket, the impact stilled slammed into my arm and shook my organs. 

I was thrown a small distance, tumbling around before coming to a stop. 

“Agh…”

I groaned as my head spun, but the adrenaline going through my body forced me to wake up despite the pain. 

I lifted my head, barely taking in the surrounding sights and making sure there were no enemies. 

I managed to catch a glimpse of the warlock who launched that spell, and the sight was a bit shocking. 

There was a knife going through his chest, and from over his shoulder, I could see Plex smiling at me. 

Plex dropped what was now a corpse before disappearing once again. 

I sighed, deciding that it was okay to take a few more seconds on the floor. 

With that, the battle was basically over. 

By the time I pulled myself up, the last few enemy knights were killed while any remaining warlocks were killed by Plex. I didn’t even have the chance to shoot anymore.

But I had done enough. A majority of the warlocks were killed by me despite having been suppressed for a while, taking away almost all the pressure on the knights. 

I even killed one of the strong ones. When I remembered how I was actually being paid for killing enemies, I couldn’t help the foolish grin that surfaced. 

“Heh, I’ve been counting too. This is gonna be one hell of a pay check.”

“John!”

My head suddenly turned at the call of the Captain. He came walking over with a half smile. 

“Thank you John, once again. You helped us immensely.”

“It’s alright, Captain. How is everyone?”

“Well, this battle wasn’t as forgiving as the first.”

The Captain explained the casualties. We had sustained a few deaths and several injuries. The healers would need to work overtime to heal all the wounded.

We were also stopping for a time in order to recuperate. Heading forward would only be throwing ourselves into more enemies. In fact, the Captain was entertaining the idea of driving the convoy backward for a while in order to recover before pushing forward once again, just in case there were enemies headed our way. 

But all things considered, we were still doing very well. They had expected many more deaths than this. I alone was saving many lives with my efforts. 

Well, I had to eat the explosion of a spell in the end, but otherwise I was getting off lightly. 

“I also apologize for not being able to protect you. There’s not much we can do about spells, so we couldn’t keep you from getting suppressed. Still, your performance was great despite that.”

The Captain gave his apologies, but I just reassured him. I had worked around it, and I couldn’t expect perfect conditions while everyone was fighting for their lives. 

After a short discussion, we separated, the Captain leaving to gather reports and help out. On the other hand, I retreated to the Hunker where I took off my coat and took a look at my injury. 

My arm was bruised, as was my side, the surrounding skin turning a bit purple. But otherwise, I was completely fine. My head hurt more than anything, and I would have no issue shooting a gun right now if I needed to. 

The coat really was an amazing item. At the same time though, I wondered what level that warlock had been at. That attack was powerful, and if not for my coat’s abilities, I wouldn’t have reacted in time to dodge as much as I did. And in that situation, the blast from the water spell would have done far more damage than it did. 

“Authority 6? I’ve only really had experience with Authority 4’s and 5’s, so I’m probably right since he was quite a bit stronger. You know, I wonder how strong people within these mafias are at the higher ranks?”

As I questioned, I suddenly saw Plex walk into the Hunker. I decided to ask and waved him down. 

“Plex!”

“Yes, my name is Plex.”

“How strong was the warlock you killed?”

“Authority 5, at its height.”

“Oh.”

I guess my estimation was a bit off. The strong warlock I killed probably wasn’t at Authority 6 either. 

But this also gave me a reference for my limits. 

“So I probably can’t kill an Authority 6 Warlock.”

“Not unless you catch them off guard, and that gets rarer the higher their level. Plus, you can’t compare these guys to those of the military, at least not the good ones. There are some techniques called Perpetual Spells that a Warlock can maintain at all times, and they almost always use it for Mana Barriers. So you won’t be able to instantly kill anybody competent, not unless you get much more powerful than you are. And many of these guys within the mafias aren’t quite competent, at least not at the lower levels.”

“Hm. Disappointing.”

“Hey, be grateful you can kill anybody above your level anyway. I’ll give it to you John. Your summons really are something special. But they aren’t impossible to fight against. You’ll figure this out as you climb the ranks and become less able to kill those far above you.”

“Yea, I figured.”

I could only nod, because I had thought of those things too. 

The only reason I didn’t fret though was because my enemies were beginning to shift. In the future, I would be fighting more beasts than people, and they required a different set of tactics. Intelligence was much less of a problem. Instead, sheer power and crowd control was the name of the game. At least from what I’ve experienced so far. 

But so long as I was at the Magisterium, I knew that I would probably continue to take on jobs in the black market, especially if my services were requested like in this case. 

So I would still need to hone my skill in the art of human warfare, because right now, fighting people was far deadlier than fighting beasts. 

It was with these thoughts that I retired for the night. I didn’t particularly care about what the Captain had planned for the convoy. My only job was to respond when needed. 

But, in the back of my mind, I was also worried about the target on my back that seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. 

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