Lv.1 Swordsman Gaon [3]

It struck him square in the forehead. For a moment, the drill instructor couldn't keep his feet.

Gaon had known exactly how it would land. And because he already knew ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the result, there was not a trace of hesitation in him at all.

He threw the pommel and kicked off the ground as one motion — two actions, perfectly simultaneous.

Which meant that in the instant the instructor staggered, Gaon was already at the officer's flank.

"—Ghk…"

Gaon extended his blade the slightest fraction, then drew it back.

Elapsed time: 0.5 seconds.

Far too brief a window to react. The officer's expression didn't even have time to change as the sword punched through his throat.

0.7 seconds.

Gaon gave the withdrawn blade a light, almost lazy sweep. Before blood could even rise from the officer's neck, the edge moved with elegant precision to his hip.

The tip slid into the trigger guard of the pistol at his waist.

A slight snap of the wrist, and he pulled.

The pistol came free, spinning as it flew toward Gaon — so perfectly aimed at his right hand that even a deliberate toss couldn't have matched it.

The moment it touched his palm, Gaon closed his fingers around it. And fired. Bang!

Nine-tenths of a second earlier, the drill instructor had taken a pommel to the skull and was still reeling. He didn't even scream as the bullet arrived and buried itself in his heart.

A flower of blood bloomed from the ruptured chest. Proof he'd hit exactly where he meant to — not that Gaon bothered to confirm it. If you pulled the trigger, you hit. That was simply how it worked.

And so, as the first second completed itself, Gaon broke into a run.

Two strides, and behind him the two men collapsed in succession. A system message rang through his mind.

Gaon paid it no mind and ran.

All of this had unfolded so fast that the men atop the fortress hadn't even begun to react. What finally stirred them, belatedly, was the gunshot.

Someone shouted.

"Fire!"

Gunfire erupted in a chain, and bullets poured in from every direction.

Bullets, of course, are fast. Too fast. No matter how quickly you ran, two legs could not outpace a crossfire.

So Gaon teleported.

As befit a Level 1 character, he didn't have much MP.

So the teleport carried him a mere ten meters — and still, screams erupted from every direction. Then again, teleportation was an exceedingly high-difficulty spell. In the real world or in this game, witnessing it was a rare thing.

"What the hell?!"

Whether they were shocked or not was none of Gaon's concern. He had work to do.

Closing the distance with the teleport meant he arrived at the foot of the ladder at once.

It wasn't a ladder meant for walking or running — it was the kind you climbed on all fours, hands and feet. To Gaon, though, it might as well have been a staircase.

He raced up it in an instant, thinking as he went. The moment he crested the wall, he'd be exposed to gunfire. Better to clear the enemies first.

He didn't bother working out a method. It was a touch easier than scooping rice with a spoon.

Voices drifted down from the ramparts above.

"Fuck…"

"The hell?"

An elf's hearing fused with a Swordmaster's razor senses produced a kind of pseudo-echolocation — the ability to pinpoint location through sound, something only bats were supposed to possess.

Thanks to that, he had every nearby enemy mapped without laying eyes on a single one. A breath was enough. He didn't need to see them.

Gaon raised the pistol in his right hand.

A Swordmaster, as a matter of course, was fluent in more than the sword — bow, crossbow, spear, halberd, the lot. And Gaon, being a relatively recent Swordmaster, was no exception when it came to firearms. Which meant he could recreate a scene from a Western, if he felt like it.

Like now.

There was no need to poke his body or his face over the wall just to look at them. Hanging from the ladder, he eased the muzzle over the edge and fired five times.

Rapid fire.

Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang. The shots cracked in a single compressed instant. The screams arrived the same way.

"Ghk—!" "Urgh." "Gah." "Ugh." "Ghk!"

The cries had barely begun when Gaon was already inside.

Five corpses, glimpsed in passing. Every one of them had a bullet planted precisely in the throat. He gave them no further attention.

He took a leisurely look around.

The top of the wall formed a kind of enclosed corridor. The fortress's master had needed to put down enemies within as well as without, and so — unusually for a fortification — walls had been raised on both sides. A boneheaded design, really.

Those walls meant that once you were inside, you didn't have to worry about taking fire from every direction. And if that was the case, there was no reason to hurry.

Gaon stopped running and walked. Slowly. Without a sound.

He kept walking, and came face to face with a man ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who was sweeping his gun this way and that.

"Uh…"

In the instant the man finally registered him, Gaon was already pulling the trigger.

Bang — and only then did the man's eyes fly wide with shock.

Too late, of course. Far too late.

The man with the ruptured heart twitched. Gaon lifted the gun from the corpse.

An outdated carbine, the kind they'd used in World War I.

He tucked the pistol — one round left — into his pocket. Longsword in his left hand, carbine in his right, he started walking again.

On and on, soft and silent, so the enemy wouldn't hear him coming and know he was there.

From there it was the same thing, over and over. Walk. Meet an enemy. Shoot. Kill. Walk.

The situation never changed. Even when he ran into two men carrying the same kind of gun, the bullets never crossed. One side fired, and that was the end of it.

A Swordmaster's superhuman dynamic vision made a first strike all but guaranteed. And with a gun, the one who shot first and hit was the one who won. There was no such thing as a counterattack.

No incoming bullets. None at all.

Two minutes in, he'd killed ten. Three minutes in, twenty-three, and he'd gained two more levels. It wasn't satisfying, as far as Gaon was concerned. The fortress was needlessly vast, and simply walking it had eaten up a fair amount of time.

And three minutes was more ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠than enough time for tension to take hold. Sure enough, the men still on the fortress had begun to sense that something was going very wrong.

"What the hell is this. Guess they still haven't killed him. I keep hearing gunshots…"

"Move, move…"

His ears caught the enemy's movements. Footsteps approaching from both sides. Two groups, closing in. They meant to surround him and pin him down.

Gaon frowned.

If they open up from front and back, I won't be able to dodge.

Strolling along at this pace wasn't going to cut it. So did that mean he had to run, even if it made noise?

He didn't need to think about it.

From farther off, another set of footsteps sounded. Not from the corridor — from below.

Then the scrape of someone climbing a ladder.

Someone was coming up onto the wall. And the only people who'd be climbing onto this wall right now were the new players.

Grasping what that meant, Gaon allowed himself a small smile.

A moment later, gunfire cracked behind him. It wasn't aimed at Gaon.

"Ghk…"

He could hear the death cry from far down the corridor.

Then an enraged voice, echoing through the passage.

"You army punk, dying to a public-service guy?!"

He didn't even need to place the voice. It was that public-service guy.

Of course. He'd been holding it in earlier, but apparently he'd been furious the whole time. The public-service guy yanked the trigger again and again.

Shots cracked in a rolling chain, and someone stepped up beside him.

From the footsteps alone, Gaon could estimate the body weight — and the identity. Jijonmussang had taken a position next to the public-service guy.

Getting called a boomer earlier must've pissed him off. Guess he's here to help?

Well. Now he had allies at his back. A rear foothold that was doing nothing more than holding its ground — but even that was a considerable help.

Gaon kept walking, and by the time he'd made a full circuit of the fortress, there were no enemies left.

He never even needed to swing the sword he'd kept in his left hand, just in case.