Test (4)

Gyeo-ul recalled the old-fashioned Western duels.

However, only the needed skills were the same. The purpose of the test was entirely different. The 21 feet from the shooting position to the target was the boundary where automatics and blades became equal. If the skirmish range got any closer, the probability of a knife wielder defeating a gunman increased dramatically.

“If it’s all right, I’d like to go first.”

Joanna requested understanding about the order.

“Why is that?”

At the question from temporary instructor First Lieutenant Skylar, the FBI detective glanced sideways at Gyeo-ul.

“Because I know First Lieutenant Han Gyeo-ul’s skill. Going afterward is too much pressure.”

And then, she switched to address the other. That’s all right, isn’t it, Gyeo-ul? Gyeo-ul nodded. The instructor also agreed.

“As you wish, agent Gibson. It’s not a test you can prepare for by seeing it in advance anyway.”

With that, joanna took her position. The instructor announced the procedure.

“The fixed target test is held in the order of unarmed shooting, handgun shooting, then rifle shooting. If you wish, you can also record extra results with your specialty firearm. Remember, the records from here will be reflected in future operation activities. This is according to the Department of Intelligence’s mission-specific risk assessment.”

This meant that the CIA agents, under Team Leader Chadwick, decided each time which personnel and gear to deploy. However, joanna, as the supervisor, had the right to be the observer for every mission. Thus, skylar’s words could also be interpreted as an attempt to limit her supervision rights under the pretext of skill and safety. Shifting responsibility to the Intelligence Department by invoking “risk assessment” was just a bonus.

Joanna was trying to break through these checks by pure skill.

‘If I insisted on rules and principles, I could smooth things over somehow… But I probably wouldn’t earn proper cooperation. The Intelligence Department and the strike force don’t seem to get along very well either.’

How nice would it be if the world ran according to principles? Justification was justification, and opposition was still opposition.

Gyeo-ul recalled the organization’s structure here. He remembered something from a passing page during the briefing, brought up now by “Memory”-based intelligence correction. It was a blurry and half-erased hologram image. Gyeo-ul could fill in the incomplete parts from his own memory and inference.

The chain of command wasn’t clear. The command authority nominally belonged to Team Leader Chadwick of the Intelligence Department, but the Special Strike Force—outside of White Skull—had long been from different affiliations. In other words, the team leader’s command authority only went as far as requesting cooperation from the strike force. Seen kindly, it was horizontal; seen harshly, it was a loose partnership.

Given the importance of the mission, it was almost odd that such a framework had formed.

‘The more important the business, the more people wish to interfere, I guess.’

It could be a power struggle between the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Department, or a reflection of the CIA’s diminished status. How much value would traditional international espionage have in a world on the brink of doomsday? Most of the global organizational network would have collapsed, and manpower would have been similarly lost.

There must still be agents active. Many nations wanted support from the United States, and assessing their situation was important. Plus, it was necessary to gather information on special mutants distributed overseas. These things were probably the reasons for the CIA’s continued existence.

“I’m ready.”

Joanna’s voice while standing with her back to the target. She held both hands up at head height. Her pistol was still holstered. A stance and condition that assumed complete defenselessness. The flexibility in her relaxed shoulders showed her experience. After all, there is such a thing as composure born of tension.

First Lieutenant Skylar turned the remote control behind his back.

A stretched-out silence filled the air, taut as a string.

Beep—

*Clack!* The sound of the pistol flying from the holster. Joanna spun, like a scene broken in a video. The moment her drawn arm straightened in a direct line, the sights were already exactly at eye level. A flashing blaze. *Thunk,* and the target was punctured. The edge of the vital area stood out under the red lights.

Fwooo. She let out a long breath she had been holding, then checked the time. The timer recorded the time in reaction to the gunshot.

“0.92 seconds. Disqualified.”

Skylar declared coldly.

Gyeo-ul thought anew how harsh the criteria were. On average, it took an adult male about 1.5 seconds to sprint the 21 feet. It took about the same time to aim and shoot a handgun. So, if one could draw, spin, and aim for the vital spot in less than that time, it was already at the level of an experienced shooting instructor.

Joanna’s record of 0.92 seconds was about 60% of 1.5 seconds. That is, simply calculated, she could neutralize an attacker at only 13 feet—just under 4 meters—behind her with a single shot.

If the hypothetical opponent was an Olympic sprinter, maybe not…

He had heard that no one in White Skull ever went over 0.8 seconds, but Gyeo-ul now doubted that was true.

“I’ll try again.”

When Joanna requested, skylar nodded. He looked as if her skill had surprised him.

The target’s position was readjusted. Presumably, to prevent her muscle memory from shortening the time on a repeat try.

Whoosh! Joanna’s presence went calm as she prepared. It was the process of gathering all her focus from crown to the tips of her toes.

Beep—

*Cha-rreuk!* *Bang!* It was like the wind had blown. The muzzle bounced with the recoil as the target shook in response. The new hole was closer to the center of the vital spot than before. Gyeo-ul sensed the shortened gap. So small a decrease, it wouldn’t have been perceptible in a blink. But in real action, it was enough to decide life or death.

First Lieutenant Skylar paused briefly.

“…0.84 seconds. Disqualified.”

Perhaps this time, for sure, joanna showed a brief emotion. *Tack.* Her forehead and the pistol slide tapped together. She repeated this a few times.

With his broad focus, Gyeo-ul noticed the reactions that the concentrated Joanna failed to see—the feigned calm, the surprise.

The FBI agent tried again and again after that. But in this test, dropping below one second, shaving off 0.01 seconds, was the realm where world-class experts competed with innate talents.

Even after repeated tries, joanna could not break through the 0.84-second wall.

In actual combat, it was a record for shooting down an attacker thrusting in from just 3.5 meters behind. Against an opponent directly in front, she could draw and shoot at a distance that could be stabbed immediately—a remarkable ability.

Though she didn’t reach the passing line, the eyes of the White Skull members present didn’t seem to care about that. That’s right, Gyeo-ul thought; his earlier hunch had been correct. Even if every member had under 0.8 seconds, it must be a story of their individual top records.

Joanna accepted her imperfect record and asked to proceed to the next stage. Aptitude varied by method. She seemed to be encouraging herself.

‘Was this training called the Tueller Drill?’

Gyeo-ul recalled memories from cycles where he couldn’t stop the apocalypse. The person who first taught him this drill was a certain officer at a precarious survivor outpost. While teaching Gyeo-ul shooting, the man had said he served at the birthplace of the Tueller Drill.

That birthplace was Salt Lake City, according to him. Gyeo-ul had been curious at the time, asking wasn’t that the world headquarters of the Latter-day Saints Church? He had never imagined public order was so bad there that training like this was needed.

At this, the officer—whose name he could no longer recall—burst out laughing. He said there hadn’t been a quieter, more boring city. As an aside, he explained that since the 2000s, only two officers had died in the line of duty: a Sergeant, and a detective. In a country with liberal firearm carry, that was a remarkable record.

The man went on to say this shooting method was originally meant so shooting wouldn’t be necessary.

“Kid, to put it simply, this is a rule of sorts. The more practiced you are in this drill, the more confidence you have not to shoot anyone who’s beyond 21 feet. It was designed to reduce police firearm misuse in the first place, and some even suggested spreading this method to civilians to reduce excessive defense with guns. After all, the gap between homicide and self-defense can be paper-thin. Well, that’s life, isn’t it? It’s hard to get good results unless you’re quite skilled…”

But regardless of the original intent, it was now officially counted as a major combat skill. And what Joanna was currently undergoing was far removed from the pure Tueller Drill—it wasn’t originally designed as a vital-area shooting drill.

Come to think of it, what among human inventions remained exactly as originally intended?

Gyeo-ul reflected on various examples. Afterlife Insurance was one of them.

A hasty thought occurred to him here. Was this the difference between “a person” and “the people”? An individual could be pure, but “the people” could not. The more of “the people” there were, the further they strayed from “a person.”

Pursuing this line of thought, Gyeo-ul laughed inwardly. He just wanted to have faith in people’s better nature. That there may still be hope out there. He had no basis for it, except for a single rose.

*Chklk.* The sound of a pistol slide being racked called his attention back. Joanna, holding her pistol with both hands, her upper body angled forward, was awaiting the signal. It was still the fixed target shooting test. The difference was that this time she started with her pistol already drawn.

The timer buzzed. Joanna, half-turned, fired one-handed. *Baang!* The ballistic meter registered a hit. Time: 0.82 seconds. Even skipping the holster-draw step hadn’t saved much time.

Retry, retry, retry, retry.

The hand is faster than the eye. More time is consumed by aiming than by drawing.

In fact, at Joanna’s level, the role of sight had dropped to the extreme. Just as Gyeo-ul relied on technical augmentation, she relied on the experience engraved in her body. The eyes only recognized the target, while the act of aiming was handled by acquired unconsciousness. This was commonly called muscle memory.

Technical augmentation was, in some ways, like muscle memory that exceeded human limits.

“I think this is my limit. I’m sorry I couldn’t pass the standard.”

Having finished even the rifle shooting, joanna raised a hand. But even as she expressed regret, the light was still alive in her eyes. The pride of someone who built their skill through effort and did their utmost.

Some of the White Skull members watching whistled.

With his heightened senses, Gyeo-ul could hear their muttering.

“That woman, I bet she’s wild in bed.”

Captain Fowler sighed. He was someone who, until now, had stood with his arms folded, never moving an inch.

This dismay was also evidence of the conservatism he displayed.

Regardless of men or women, even the existence of a few people of a different temperament could throw off the mood of the majority. Especially if the group had been trained for a specific purpose.

Though it wasn’t a physically taxing test, sweat beaded up on Joanna’s forehead. Expenditure due to physical tension. Even being able to focus that much was a remarkable ability.

“Agent Gibson. You look rather tired—how about a short rest before we move to the alphanumerical target? In the meantime, first Lieutenant Han Gyeo-ul can take his fixed target test.”

Skylar extended this suggestion in a much gentler tone than before.

But Joanna flatly refused.

“Training must be actual combat without blood, right? I’ll continue.”

The enemies encountered out there wouldn’t care even if she were tired. They wouldn’t show mercy just because she was a woman. She refrained from such outdated comments.

All the following tests became a process of demonstrating perseverance rather than just skill.

Half an hour on the alphanumerical targets, even longer for moving targets. The know-how of repeating short bursts of concentration for long durations was remarkable.

She deliberately left the last stage unfinished. In Gyeo-ul’s eyes, it was a kind of protest action.

Sweat continued to drip.

“That’s enough.”

Captain Fowler groaned, after glancing around the members. Joanna answered with a relieved face.

“If you’d like, Captain, I can show you further effort.”

“I said that’s enough. Maybe lacking as a combatant, but definitely enough as a supervisor.”

“Is that so? Thank you.”

The detective bowed her head slightly and raised her chin a bit. She tidyed her mussed hair. Gyeo-ul handed her his handkerchief.

The captain still stood with his arms folded. This time, it seemed he was displeased with his subordinates.

To Gyeo-ul, it looked like he was making excuses.

—————————= Author’s Notes —————————=

#Recommendation

To my indescribably evil, grand, and blasphemous ancient readers. The only true purity, hope, conscience, and childhood innocence of this world, tunguska, brings this message.

Please don’t recommend Necropolis in the comments of other novels.

Imagine how much that author would be hurt?

I don’t want my novel to be something that brings someone sadness.

I was also rather disgusted with myself, feeling an improper joy at such comments.

Of course, it’s fine to recommend Wind and the Milky Way in the comments of Necropolis.

Because it is Wind and the Milky Way, after all.

#Q&A

Q. ZERO4: @ Seriously, where are you going in this cold; moving house?! I guess you need a warm floor to compose childhood innocence, author. Come in here, quick!

A. Because the moving company was fully booked, I had to pack myself, so it was exhausting. Please comfort me. ㅠㅠ

Q. RGZ95: @ A move in this cold… 8.8

A. I wrote until dawn and then moved with barely an hour’s sleep—I realized you really don’t die that easily, haha.

Q. Dd1010: @But what’s the win-condition in this world setting?

A. When the probability of apocalypse reaches 0% on the Control AI’s contextual computation. I get this question all the time. 🙂

Q. 수없는씨박: @ “Innocent olden times”… you know, only the dead things from the frontier days were innocent old things.

A. You didn’t know… I died once. Though I was resurrected after three days.

Q. [反]Kid: @Thank you for the chapter. What do you have to do to become an “old thing”?

A. ??? … You guys are already old things…? Why are you pretending to be ancient humanity with your age exceeding 40,000 for so long… Surely you don’t have just two legs.

Q. qoewh: @Author, is your health and environment okay these days? Your pace seems down since the refugee camp arc and I’m worried. I hope everything’s fine.

A. Physically, everything’s fine. Except for some tingling in my finger joints while typing, shoulder pain that makes it hard to sleep on my side, insomnia, and irritable bowel syndrome. Haha.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep