Chapter 271: Visitor

Bullets broke through the swamp's frozen streams, echoing throughout the valley. Short bursts of smoke drifted over ruined structures which had long since sunken into the rich earth. Thomas stood on a dry patch of land, reloading his gun with practiced ease.

Just as he finished loading, he cocked his head to the side. The thick vegetation around him shifted with both the gentle wind and General Alexander's movements. Thomas gritted his teeth. A single misfire could waste precious ammo and several seconds of time. Blue life essence condensed around his ears. As his hearing swept out, to where he could pick up even the subtle shifting of one's weight, he waited.

A few moments passed. He shifted right as a straw dummy flew out of the brush. He whipped around and took aim, making an effort to keep the weapon steady, his eyes open, and his finger firmly at the trigger. Bang! The head exploded into a mess of straw and splintered wood.

Celebration was a cocky mistake, and he wouldn't make that painful mistake a hundredth time. Yet just as he pulled off the rod on the underside of the barrel, a rock flew out of the dense vegetation and clanged against his helmet.

He barely winced, the ringing in his ears a much bigger precedent. "I'm sorry general!" He yelped. Bullet holes were everywhere; in the straw dummies, the white stone walls, and a few right at his feet, when the gun had misfired. "It's been almost an entire week but I don't seem to be getting any better."

"That's too bad." General Alexander said as he stepped out of the foliage with a dummy under each arm. Thomas readied himself but the general shook his head and pushed the two dummies into his spatial ring. "At ease. Your training is over."

Thomas breathed out a sigh of relief and set the gun down. "As much as I hate maneuvering up the side of a mountain and trying to scramble over ice, I really hate training with these new guns. Are we going to do this next week as well?"

Alexander shook his head. "I said training was over. No more guns for you. Return the weapon to me."

Thomas glanced down at the gun in his hands, which were covered in ash, shallow gashes, and blisters. "W-wait, why are you taking this thing away? What was this week for if not to teach me how to use this?" He gestured to the dummies around the shooting range.

"Experimenting," Alexander displayed a slip of paper to Thomas. "The mages did their job for once. The recipe for black powder was discovered earlier this week by a mage called Instructor Lance. You were a test subject who utilized the supplies taken from the Resistance."

"You used me?" Thomas tightened his grip around the gun. "I thought you weren't like a regular human."

Alexander sighed and pat him on the shoulder. "I don't know where that strange expression came from but I didn't use you, to a degree. This training will continue but with different weapons."

Thomas tossed the gun to the ground and crossed his arms. "I want to learn how to fight, not waste my time with this shi…crap." He hurriedly corrected himself and let out a nervous chuckle.

Alexander nodded. "Smooth save. Continue."

Thomas pointed up the mountain. "The others are already much stronger than me. I need to be faster. We both know that's the only way I'll catch up."

"If it puts you at ease," Alexander chuckled. "The others are saying the same thing about you, and with the same complaint."

"Really?" Thomas forgot to sound angry for a moment. "B-but because of this stupid thing, I really am behind. Why couldn't you ask someone else to do this?"

"If the gun turned out better than initially thought," Alexander continued, unabated by his disciple's immaturity. "then I figured that you should use it, but that wasn't the case. I took a risk which ultimately failed, but the skills you partially developed - being careful with your hands and aiming - will be useful. The truth is that you can simply throw rocks with blue life essence and be more effective than these new guns."

"You're telling me," came a loud voice from down the way, prompting Thomas to pick up his gun and condense life essence around his eyes, which went wide. From the deep layers of vegetation came a familiar dwarf with bandages around one of his arms. His beard had a small layer of frost on it, and his beady eyes stared straight ahead. Kilot brought his Amphiboard to a stop and stepped off. "It's good to see you again, old friend."

General Alexander took one look at the Dwarf and bowed: "Thank you for coming so far to see us. It is an honor, sir." He glanced over to Thomas, who was frozen in shock. "Bow." He whispered. Thomas followed orders and bowed.

"I would say that it was no problem," Kilot said as he straightened his back, which cracked. "But those Enforcers are a real pain in the backside." He reached into his spatial ring and several large crates thudded to the ground with a collection of metal clanks inside each one of them. "They even tried to appropriate your ordered goods."

"Tell me about it," Alexander chuckled. "If they had taken those crates, I do not know what I would have done to them. If this kind of thing continues to happen, just let me know and I'll kick those dogmatic idiots to the curb. Everything has been a mess recently. You should see what that self-proclaimed son of Arthur did to the Knights' Academy."

Kilot raised an eyebrow but nothing more. "I do not even want to know." He sighed and ran his hand along one of the sunken ruins. "…although I can take a guess. The Kingdom acted in a similar manner back when the last demon army had invaded."