- 02. Opened My Eyes -
Near point-blank range against the enemy, adequate firepower, simple structure that made it easy to create, capable of rapid fire.
Selected as the most suitable firearm for Gunshin's current situation—
a double-action revolver.
The S&S M10.
The one he'd liked most among the various revolver-introduction Shorts the YouTube algorithm had served him.
The revolver that had made him read through its wiki page.
Every time the trigger was pulled, the cylinder rotated and the firing pin struck the round.
Click— Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Five .357 Magnum rounds punched through the Heuksu.
Thud! Two monsters slid and collapsed mid-charge, still in their running postures.
They were the ones who'd rushed in after hearing the burst when the first one went down.
Honestly, two of the five shots had missed. At longer range they'd all missed, and he'd only been able to hit them once they got uncomfortably close.
"Tch—"
Gunshin clicked his tongue.
About sixty percent accuracy... personally unsatisfying. Back in the military, during K-2 marksmanship training, he'd never once dropped below eighteen hits.
So this is what it comes down to with a handgun... is that it?
[Focus, Athena! Three o'clock. Three Heuksu. Two wolf-type, one deer-type. Be careful—the deer-type's charge speed is extremely fast.]
"Not Athena—"
He'd only just started complaining at the voice echoing in his head—the guy... no, the woman in the chair—when Athena flicked her wrist and snapped the cylinder open.
She raised the revolver vertically and dumped the spent casings from the cylinder.
Clatter— The empty yellow brass casings slid from the cylinder and fell. Just before hitting the ground, they scattered into white-glowing particles.
At the same moment, the cylinder—which should still have been empty—filled completely with six fresh rounds.
Reload complete.
Snap!
A flick of the wrist swung the cylinder back into the revolver's frame.
Since the most tedious and time-consuming part of revolver reloading—loading the rounds—was skipped, Athena returned to firing very quickly.
She gripped the revolver with both hands and aimed. She pulled the trigger.
Bang—!
The sound echoed across the battlefield once more.
Unfortunately, it missed.
"Hah—"
Gunshin let out a sigh, then steadied himself and aimed again.
He could see the Beast-Type Heuksu charging at him ferociously.
Gunshin calmly collected himself.
Though this was his first time handling a handgun, the fundamentals of marksmanship shouldn't be too different from firing the K-2.
Sight alignment, stable stance, proper trigger pressure, controlled breathing.
Would it have been better if he'd made an assault rifle from the start? He wondered, but in that moment the first thing that had come to mind was a handgun—a revolver—so it couldn't be helped.
Instinctively rejecting the K-2. Guess that's what having served does to you, huh?
That was a joke.
Honestly, his magic proficiency still seemed too low to produce an assault rifle.
How did he know?
It was just a gut feeling—he couldn't really explain it. Instinctively, it felt dangerous, maybe?
Anyway.
Setting aside the slight regret. Right now he had to overcome the situation with what he had.
The Beast-Type Heuksu closing in by the second.
In the original game, <Abyss Flood>, they'd been mainstays only in the past, and by the original timeline they were treated as the lowest of the low among trash mobs...
But seeing them charging like mad right in front of him sent a chill down his spine.
Click—
Just as Gunshin was about to pull the trigger again—
[UI update. Ballistic analysis and prediction visualization. Applying 'Crosshair' mode.]
"?!"
Along with the voice echoing in his head, something blue-glowing rose into Gunshin's vision.
A blue fluorescent crosshair.
Something anyone who'd played shooter games on modern Earth would find extremely familiar...!
[The sample size is still too small for it to be perfect, but it should make aiming much easier than doing it unaided. Accuracy will improve as you fire more shots. How is it, Athena?]
"Oh, fuck!"
Gunshin shouted at the voice echoing in his head—the voice that, just from sound alone, conjured the image of a competent, coolly beautiful career woman. His past-life bonus... no, his partner.
"I don't know what you are... but you're my goddess of victory!"
[Goddess of victory... Nike... That's a decent name. I'll specially forgive you for swearing at me with 'fuck.']
"Hah!"
Click—
With a hearty laugh, Gunshin pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The firing pin drew back, struck the round, and a lightning-like flash blazed from the revolver's muzzle.
The .357 Magnum bullet leaving the muzzle broke the sound barrier in an instant and flew toward the enemy.
And the bullet fired like that—
Crunch!
"SCREEECH!"
Unlike before, it pierced clean through the Heuksu's skull.
***
A battlefield where an acrid but pleasant gunsmoke lingered.
Only one person remained standing.
Gunshin alone.
The battle was over.
Gunshin opened the cylinder and clatter— dumped the casings.
The ejected casings clinked against each other, then soon scattered into white particles, and at the same moment fresh rounds filled the empty cylinder.
At the sight, Gunshin's brain Jarvis... no, Nike, asked.
[Athena. If you're using magic, isn't there no reason to bother opening and closing the cylinder to reload?]
"Blasphemy!"
[?]
"Infinite ammo is cheating! A gun without reloading is no gun at all!"
[You're already half-cheating, so what nonsense are you—]
Nike's dumbfounded, exasperated voice came through.
Gunshin laughed—pfft—and answered.
"Well, honestly, it's not that I'm choosing not to—I can't."
[Is that so?]
"Yeah. I tried a few times, but it didn't work."
According to <Abyss Flood>'s setting, <Materia Magic> became easier to use the clearer and more concrete the caster's mental image was, and the more detailed their knowledge of what they were creating.
For every Materia Mage, striving to make the image in their head even slightly clearer and more concrete was the most basic of basics.
But this "clear" image was sometimes a benefit, and sometimes a drawback.
Because in the world of images, possibilities that transcended simple specs sometimes resided in ambiguity.
In Gunshin's mind, a gun was something that went bang-bang! and then required a brief reload. That was simply too obvious.
So while he could easily cheat a little on the reload to speed it up, firing endlessly with no reload at all—an infinite magazine—was impossible.
It was like... when he tried to do it, something in his chest clanked! and caught, like a chain.
"Maybe once my magic proficiency improves, who knows. But not right now."
[That's a shame.]
"Nothing I can do about it."
He let the regret slide away. If he held onto it for no reason, it would just stagnate and rot.
The immediate threat to his life had passed for now, so wasn't that enough?
So what he needed to do now was figure out what situation he was currently in, and what kind of state the world was in.
First, what era this was.
'Beast-Type Heuksu were already obsolete long ago by the original game's timeline.'
In the original game, Beast-Type Heuksu were basically protected rarities—only a small number existed, arising naturally when surface animals were contaminated by Black Materia.
Even those few Heuksu that appeared were hunted by the combat-type Heuksu directly created by the <Black Queen> and harvested for their Materia—that was the fate of Beast-Type Heuksu in the original game's timeline.
So during the original game's era, Beast-Type Heuksu were fundamentally hostile not just to humans but to other Heuksu as well, and they were timid like real wild animals.
'If they were Beast-Types from the original timeline, they'd never approach a battle site.'
Because once a battle ended, the "cleaners" would come to recover the fallen humans, Automata, and Heuksu remains.
If they dawdled, they'd be recovered along with everything else and turned into resources.
Yet the fact that Beast-Type Heuksu were comfortably~ picking through the battlefield remains and filling their bellies meant that, at minimum, the current point in time was not the original game's era.
'The past... how far in the past?'
The Sandglass folks weren't the type to release information officially, but like a Soulslike, they'd scattered plenty of lore breadcrumbs throughout the game.
The typical— I won't tell you, but if you want to dig in, then dig in yourself!—type, maybe?
Gunshin wasn't one of those hardcore Lore Miners who actively picked the worldbuilding apart.
But when the Lore Miners neatly~ compiled the results of their hard-won research and posted them, he was the type of user who gladly clicked the upvote in thanks—click!
Slurping down someone else's efforts in one gulp! He was that kind of user, so he knew the world of <Abyss Flood> quite well.
Therefore, if he could roughly figure out when a major event—especially a battle worthy of going down in history—had occurred, he could also set a general course of action.
"Nike."
[Yes. Athena.]
"What's the most recent battle worth going down in history? Do you know?"
[A battle worth going down in history? Hmm...]
The best-case scenario was before the <Black Mountain Offensive>.
The <Black Mountain Offensive> was, after the war between humanity and the Heuksu in <Abyss Flood> began, humanity's highest point and the starting point of humanity's downfall.
Some of the Lore Miners who practically lived on the board went so far as to say that losing this battle sealed humanity's extinction in <Abyss Flood>—that was how important it was.
Therefore...
If the current time was before this battle, then if he prepared like absolute hell and somehow managed to win, every subsequent event in <Abyss Flood> would vanish, and humanity would be liberated from the threat of the <Heuksu>.
Gunshin waited for Nike's answer with a sliver of hope.
But.
[Fifteen days ago. The allied forces suffered a crushing defeat at Black Mountain. They are currently retreating across the entire northern continent.]
"I see."
So it was the <Great Retreat> period... and its early stage at that.
Of course.
Of course it wouldn't go that easily!
He'd known.
He'd known!
At least that it was a vain hope!
He didn't know who'd dropped him into this godforsaken world, but if it could go easily, there was no way they'd drag in someone from another world out of nowhere.
Gunshin let out a deep sigh—hah—.