Calculated Retribution

Under ordinary circumstances, a slingshot was meant to fire steel ball bearings.

That was how Bennett had started, at least until he realized the pressing need to modify his ammunition. The awl-tipped, armor-piercing bolts he designed had delivered formidable punch, proving their worth across dozens of lethal skirmishes before he ever laid hands on his rapid-fire repeating crossbow.

Thwack!

"Ghk!"

Bennett paused just as he reached to load a fresh projectile. Perhaps because his assailant was a mana practitioner, the man had closed the distance far faster than anticipated. Slipping his hand down to his thigh, Bennett drew his combat dagger in a fluid, practiced motion. His opponent, disguised as an ordinary passerby, was likewise armed with nothing more than a wicked, slender dagger.

A relentless flurry of short, vicious thrusts rained down upon him, but Bennett evaded every strike by a hair's breadth. Inevitably, the attacker overextended, his posture fracturing. Shifting his grip, Bennett flipped his dagger into a reverse hold.

Stab. Pierce. Tear.

Driven with brutal efficiency, the reverse-gripped blade buried itself into the man's back, drove upward through the nape of his neck, and punched straight into the base of his skull. Each strike was calculated to kill. By the time the dagger tore free from the neck, the man was already crumbling like a puppet with cut strings.

Bennett shoved the collapsing body directly into the path of the last ambusher. Caught off guard, the remaining operative dove sideways to dodge the dead weight of his comrade.

Bennett pounced the very second the man hit the ground, trapping his momentum. Desperately flailing to regain his footing, the man lashed out with his blade, but the blow carried no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠leverage. The strike grazed Bennett's shoulder.

Clang!

The blade deflected harmlessly off the light armor concealed beneath Bennett's clothing, jarring the ambusher's arm back and tearing his guard wide open. Before the man could recover his balance, Bennett drove his dagger deep into his chest, straight through the heart.

"Guh..."

Gasping out a ragged, bloody breath, the final assassin slumped into the dirt. Bennett yanked his blade free and broke into an immediate jog without sparing the corpse a backward glance. This was merely the opening act; the Drake Family would never settle for something so meager.

Just as he anticipated, a fresh squad materialized down the street.

Unlike the covert hitmen he had just eliminated, these were full-fledged knights clad in head-to-toe plate armor. Designed to maximize mobility while providing uncompromising protection, their steel gleamed cold and pristine, sword in one hand, shield in the other.

Clank, clank, clank.

Advancing in lockstep with mechanical precision, their breastplates prominently bore the crest of the Drake Family. The silver armor radiated a distinct presence even in the gloom of night, draped in the faint, shimmering glow of azure mana. Despite the street being wide enough to maneuver, they marched shoulder-to-shoulder, their interlocking shields and grinding metal creating a dull, resonant hum. The heavy pressure of their deliberately projected mana settled like lead over the surrounding air.

They did not rush. Methodical and steady, they simply choked off every path of retreat, tightening the noose.

Bennett did not hesitate. Nocking an armor-piercing pellet into his slingshot, he snapped the pouch back and fired.

Claaang!

Sparks showered against the mana-coated armor, but the awl-shaped pellet failed to breach the hardened barrier. It crumpled into a deformed scrap of metal and rattled uselessly onto the cobbles. Bennett shifted his aim and loosed two more in rapid succession, but the result was identical. Even standard steel bearings ricocheted harmlessly off the mana knights' impervious bulwark.

Knitting his brows, Bennett spun around and ducked into an adjacent alleyway.

"The target is entering the alley!"

"Seal the perimeter! Cut off the other side!"

The knights flanking both approaches surged forward, converging naturally as they pressed into the narrow passage. Watching them crowd into the alley, Bennett ripped the magic scroll gripped in his left hand.

—Tremor.

The ground beneath the knights' iron greaves convulsed violently. Even with their rigorous combat training, fighting a localized earthquake in narrow confines proved impossible for several men. Formations broke; knights stumbled, and a few tumbled backward into the filth. The spell had disrupted their momentum entirely.

Seizing the chaos, Bennett reached into a stash of debris he had scouted earlier, hauling out a recurve bow and a full quiver. Pulling an arrow from the fletching, he nocked it against the string.

Even while struggling to regain their footing, several Drake knights scoffed at the sight. They were mana knights whose plate was fortified by pure arcane reinforcement. By their standards, a primitive weapon like a bow had no more hope of piercing their armor than a pebble thrown by a child—

"Aaargh!"

A choked shriek shattered their confidence. Spinning around, the knights froze in horror. One of their comrades was reeling backward, an arrow planted dead center through his visor, buried deep into his skull.

"What?!"

Before their stunned minds could register the impossible, a second arrow split the night.

Thump.

The projectile punched clean through the center of a knight's chest plate. Shivering violently, the man collapsed face-first into the mud.

"Maintain your guard! His arrows are—"

The squad leader yelled at the top of his lungs, desperately slashing his longsword upward to intercept an incoming shaft.

BOOM!

The leader's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets as his blade batted the missile aside. The sheer velocity and sharpness were alarming enough, but the true terror lay in the alien, repulsive energy coiled around the arrowhead. The moment steel met shaft, that bizarre power had completely eradicated the mana infused into his sword, snuffing it out like a candle in a gale.

"What kind of madness is this...?"

Imbuing a physical projectile with energy was considered impossible under standard arcane theory; mana simply could not maintain cohesion when detached from the caster. And what in the world was this horrifying aura that consumed mana upon contact?

Seeing Bennett calmly nock a third arrow, the squad leader bellowed in panic.

"All units, charge! Close the gap now!"

Realizing the lethal threat of the archer, the knights kicked off the trembling pavement, dumping all their mana reserves into pure burst speed to erase the distance. Despite their murderous bloodlust bearing down upon him, Bennett's expression remained colder than ice.

Twang! Twang!

The time it took him to draw, aim, and loose was a matter of split seconds. While not as blindingly fast as his repeating crossbow, it was an astonishing display of rapid-fire marksmanship.

I couldn't draw this smoothly before, Bennett noted internally. My elevated stats must be doing the heavy lifting.

Every arrow Bennett loosed found its mark without fail. None deflected. The instant they struck, the shafts punched effortlessly through mana-clad steel plate, driving deep into the soft, fragile flesh beneath.

Thud. Splat.

To think this power would actually translate to projectiles.

Until recently, he had assumed his unique otherworldly power could only be channeled into close-quarters weapons. He had never imagined it could be projected through ranged ammunition.

If he hadn't discovered this milestone by pure chance yesterday, this engagement would have turned into a bloodbath with his life on the line.

Bennett, who had deliberately danced just out of reach, suddenly dissolved into a burst of speed and broke backward across the cobblestones.

A rain of black-fletched arrows struck the very ground he had occupied a fraction of a second earlier. Crouched along the rooftops were snipers clad in pitch-black ghillie shrouds. Moving with the fluid grace of veteran rangers, they traversed the roof tiles with silent lethality.

They rained blackened arrows from the concealing shadows, but their efforts were futile.

Guided by the combined clairvoyance of Night Eyes and heightened Reflexes, Bennett tracked every incoming trajectory through the pitch-black air. He leaned his torso back by half an inch, letting a missile graze past his cheek, then snapped an arrow toward the roof.

Shhk!

The archer who had just loosed a shot took an arrow clean through his chest and slumped over the gutter. Though their comrade had fallen, the remaining snipers didn't flinch, coordinating their volleys to blanket Bennett's escape angles. Dodging what he could and letting the unavoidable grazing shots glance harmlessly off his hardened armor, Bennett reached his hand into an alcove behind a barrel.

When his hand emerged, it held another prepared scroll.

—Wind Cutter.

Invisible scythes of compressed air tore across the rooftops like a reaping sickle.

"Aaaah!"

"Ghk!"

No matter how nimble a ranger was, defending against invisible blades of wind in open space was an exercise in futility. Horrific shearing sounds echoed above, followed by a shower of severed flesh and dark crimson mist. Yet Bennett had no time to verify their deaths.

A sudden, violent mana surge erupted straight ahead.

Here they come.

Another barricade of heavily armed infantry had sealed off the alley's exit. But Bennett's gaze bypassed the shield-bearers entirely, locking onto the figures hovering behind them—robed mages.

Chanting incantations under their breath, the mages swung their carved staves. Massive crimson fireballs and azure orbs of freezing ice tore through the air, converging directly upon Bennett.

Nocking an arrow, Bennett twisted his body. He did not aim at the mages threatening his life, but at the perimeter wall of an adjacent residential compound.

Kaboom!

The arrow shattered the weakened masonry, collapsing the wall inward with a thunderous roar and carving out a gaping breach. Without an instant of hesitation, Bennett hurled himself straight into the opening.

"Damn it! He's breaking out! Don't let him slip away!"

Furious that their quarry had slipped through their fingers once again, the squad leader bellowed orders. The knights scrambled through the dust, vaulting over the rubble of the shattered wall.

Beyond the breach lay a derelict, long-abandoned estate—a decaying mansion swallowed by overgrowth, showing no signs of human habitation for years.

"He's hiding inside! Sweep every corner! Find him!"

"Yes, sir!"

The Drake knights surged into the decaying estate, boots slamming against rotten floorboards as they spread out to hunt.

From the shadows outside, Bennett raised his bow once more.

Twang!

Tracing an elegant arc through the night sky, the arrow struck with surgical precision. It hit the corner of a magic scroll pinned to the mansion's exterior, which had been left dangling by a mere shred of parchment. The arrow severed that final connection, ripping the parchment clean in two.

Fzzzt!

The chained magic sealed within the scrolls triggered in rapid succession. The first spell to manifest was Stone Wall.

Thick, towering slabs of stone erupted violently from the earth, encircling the abandoned mansion in an airtight cage of rock. Realizing they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had stepped into an ambush, the knights turned to break out, but the second spell had already uncoiled.

—Fire Field.

ROOOAAAR!

A ravenous tempest of crimson fire erupted from within the foundation, swallowing the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mansion whole. The blinding explosion incinerated everything in an instant—the rotted wood, the armored knights trapped within, and every last breath of oxygen in the atmosphere.

The knights frantically flared their mana shields, but superheated air had already bypassed their defenses, rushing into their windpipes and searing their internal organs. The excruciating agony scorching their throats and lungs completely shattered their concentration, collapsing their mana control. As the raging inferno consumed the remaining air, horrific asphyxiation took hold.

"GYAAAAGH!"

"H-Help! S-Save me—!"

Ghastly, bloodcurdling screams resonated from the burning tomb. The trailing mages and escort infantry arrived at the scene only to freeze in utter horror. The elite knights of the Drake Family were being roasted alive inside an iron-clad furnace.

"H-He's insane..."

The mages turned deathly pale as the truth dawned on them. This entire engagement had been an exquisitely calculated trap. Their enemy had mapped out their pursuit, anticipated every single command, and orchestrated their demise long before the first blow was struck.

He had pre-positioned equipment, scrolls, and weaponry at every critical junction, herding them into a kill box to annihilate them in a single stroke.

"W-What are your orders?!"

"What do you think?! Knock down that stone wall and extinguish the—"

An arrow pierced the lead mage's throat mid-sentence, emerging through the back of his neck in a spray of blood.

"It's him!"

"Erect defensive barriers!"

Panicking, the mages scrambled to throw up shields and survey their surroundings, but with their commander dead, their formation collapsed into utter disarray. Some frantically cast counter-spells while others reinforced shields, their responses disjointed and conflicting.

Bennett did not give them a chance to recover.

"Over there! He's firing from—hurk!"

The moment they identified an attack angle and turned their barriers to face it, another arrow would tear into their flank from the exact opposite direction. The escort guards rushed in to shield the spellcasters, but the outcome was identical. Regardless of their armor or positioning, every single defender caught an arrow through a vital organ and dropped like butchered cattle.

"P-Please, spare me! Please—aaagh!"

The sole surviving female mage broke down in tears, raising her trembling hands in surrender. An arrow took her clean through the breastbone. She collapsed into the dirt, her eyes dimming into lifeless glass.

That's the last of them.

Confirming that not a single breath remained, Bennett melted into the shadows and swiftly vacated the scene.

"What's with all the noise over there?"

"Who knows? Some nobles throwing their weight around again."

Slipping beyond the containment zone previously cordoned off by the Drake Family, Bennett merged seamlessly into the bustling foot traffic of the main thoroughfare. Reaching into his sub-space pouch, he stowed his bow, the disguised wig, the prosthetic nose, and the fake beard he had worn during the ambush. Finally, he slipped off his dark-red coat, reversed it to display a dull gray lining, and slung it back over his shoulders.

A second wave of Drake Family reinforcements sprinted past him, their boots pounding against the stone. Not a single soldier spared him a second glance.

As he walked, a sudden, invigorating tremor rippled through Bennett's body, warm and electric.

The achievements were completely unexpected—and the windfall of stat points was an exceptional bonus.