ROTLE- Chapter 234- It's A Hand Gun (Patreon)

Aiden’s sword came up slightly as thoughts filled his head. For all his combat experience on Nastild, he had never been faced with a gun before. Could he deal with it? It was the only question on his mind as his grip on Dull Grey twitched with indecision.

Then the creature’s finger twitched just as well.

Aiden’s mind flared a split second before the boom. He made his decision, ducking to the side, his legs carrying him at least a step extra to increase his evasion.

The bullet cracked against something behind him, most likely burying itself in the mountain’s walls.

Aiden felt his heartbeat pick up. It raced within his chest, sending blood rushing through him in waves. On the other side of the chimera, Rometo stood with the sharpest eyes that Aiden had ever seen. There was also trepidation clear on his face. It did not take Aiden long to realize what was happening.

Rometo was terrified.

Move! Aiden barked at himself. It was a training as old as combat. One did not simply dodge an attack; they also had to look for a way to counterattack. So, as he came to a stop in his evasion, he launched himself forward, straight at the chimera, covering the distance between them.

The creature moved its hand casually, adjusted its aim. Primal fear grew within Aiden, a fear born from another world.

You fool! he scolded himself at the last second, then halted his approach to dodge to the side.

The chimera squeezed the trigger at the last second. The gunshot boomed through the air. It did not miss. If Aiden had been a second slower in changing his plans, the bullet would’ve taken him in the head.

He came to a stop on the other side again, heart beating. Fear birthed itself on the beads of sweat that now pooled above his brows, heavy in their existence.

It’s a fucking gun, he scolded himself in the tone of an instructor he tended to use on  students who overestimated themselves in the Order and did the dumbest thing. You don’t charge a fired gun head on.

He wanted to argue that it hadn’t been fired when he’d approached but knew that it was a stupid argument. He was overestimating himself and he knew it.

Rometo rose to his full height, trying and failing to affect calmness.

“What is that?” he asked, finally trying to draw the chimera into a conversation.

The chimera turned the gun one way then the other with the infant hand. “Something that will kill you if you are not careful.”

Aiden was fighting to calm his racing heart. Even with Rometo’s skill, [Patient World] active, he hadn’t seen the bullet. All he’d seen was the barrel ignite. Was the time dilation of [Patient World] not working on the fired bullet?

Don’t be stupid, he snorted to himself. It’s a fucking bullet.

He tried to remember what he knew about guns and bullets. He did not know what gun the creature was holding except that it was a handgun. He did not know how many bullets were in the magazine. He did not know its firing rate. He did not know in specifics what damage it could cause. He did not know how often it was known to jam or if it had any such defect.

When it came to a lot of things on Nastild, he knew a lot of things. He knew how the weapons worked. He knew how the skills arranged themselves. He knew how to use what against what. When it came to a weapon from his own world, he knew nothing.

“Are you sure it can kill me?” Rometo asked, twirling his sword.

The chimera cocked its head to the side. “Would you like to put it to the test [Time Walker]?” It grinned and it was a ferocious thing to look at. “Do you want to see how much time you would need to walk to survive it?”

Rometo’s eyes moved to Aiden and Aiden was quick to shake his head. He did not know a lot of things about guns, but if there was one thing that he knew from Ted’s rantings back on Earth, it was that most gunshots moved at the speed of sound or at least around that speed. Apart from the [Sage]s and maybe three other people he had met in his past life, he didn’t think there was anybody on this side of Nastild that moved at a speed close to that of sound.

Narrowed eyes met his reaction to Rometo’s gaze. Rometo hesitated, displeased with Aiden’s reaction.

The chimera turned, looked at Aiden. “This is only a fraction of what dimensional mana can do for you.”

“Can it help me kill you?” Aiden asked.

The chimera shook its head. “At level one hundred and forty-nine, it cannot. Perhaps you would—”

Aiden’s hands moved and he blitzed forward.

[You have used class skill Dual Weave]

[You have used Weave of Speed and Endurance]

He put everything he had into his movement, knowing that he would still come nowhere close to the sound barrier. The chimera turned the gun and Rometo moved at the same time. Aiden pulled himself to a stop and darted to the side a fraction of a second before the gunshot boomed through the air.

Rometo was already on the Chimera, swords coming at it, one from above and the other from the side. The creature stopped the one above with a raised claw and the other with a raised hoof.

“Aiden now!” Rometo barked.

[You have activated item Elemental Ring]

[You have gained the element of Fire]

Dull Grey ignited in a blaze of fire as Aiden lunged forward, straight at the chimera. In  the same moment, it turned its infant hand and aimed for Rometo’s abdomen. Aiden fought against his instinct to hesitate, to strike a bargain, because there was no way Rometo was avoiding the attack. But Rometo had the time remnant skill.

And if it’s still on cooldown? he asked himself. Then I’m sure he has a plan.

Aiden came to a halt right next to the chimera. Its second claw shot out, and Aiden ducked the swinging claw, flaming sword in hand.

“Wrong,” the chimera said, then pulled the trigger.

The gunshot boomed, loud and thunderous… and Rometo remained in front of it. He had failed to dodge.

It all happened in the blink of an eye. The world froze and Aiden swallowed his horror. Rometo was in the two hundreds when it came to his level. Aiden had speculated once upon a time that a gun would only be dangerous to those below level thirty. Then he had seen the speed of a moving bullet first hand and realized that perhaps he had been too arrogant, perhaps objectivity had led him to wrong assumptions.

“That fucking hurts,” Rometo growled in uncontained pain.

The chimera blinked. It was a moment of hesitation that Aiden refused to allow to go to waste. He turned, moved his hand and swung his sword in an upward slash. Then he channeled all the intent he had in him to server the creature’s mana flow and prayed it worked.

Fire and dull grey steel arced through the air and severed the claw, cleaving it from the creature.

Aiden moved, going through the motion, choosing the most optimum strike with the least movement and the best flow from the strike that severed the claw, to take the creature’s standing hoof. His sword moved with every intent he had in him and singed the air as the blade met nothing.

The chimera was standing at a new distance, moving faster than his eyes had been able to follow. It stood there, looking at the stump where its crab-like claw had once been. It looked shocked but not overly worried. After a moment, it looked at the gun in surprise.

Aiden had already moved to stand by Rometo, paying half his attention to the man.

“I’m guessing you know what that weapon is,” Roment said without a groan or sign of pain.

Aiden nodded. “It’s a handgun.”

“A handgun.” Rometo frowned. “It moves too fast to see. Even with my skill active, I couldn’t see it.”

“It does that,” Aiden said, still paying half attention to the intrigued chimera. “Some of them move at the speed of sound.”

Rometo blinked, hand on the spot he had been shot. “Pierced through the damn physical defense enchantments.”

“Did it draw blood?” Aiden asked, resisting the urge to look at Rometo’s stomach and lose sight of the chimera.

Rometo shook his head. “You said ‘some of them.’”

“I did.”

“There’s more than one of these things?” Rometo asked in horror.

Aiden couldn’t help but feel a little proud of Earth’s propensity for crafting weapons of mass destruction. “Many that are faster and stronger.”

“All from your world?” Rometo gave him a scathing look. “And I am supposed to believe that your world is peaceful.”

Aiden shrugged. “Not entirely peaceful.”

“We are surprised,” the chimera said, almost as if it was talking to itself. “It looked more destructive from what we saw. If can pierce monsters, we thought it would pierce people.”

Aiden’s brows furrowed a bit.

“Our mistake,” the chimera finished. Then it tossed the gun aside, done with it.

“Wait,” Aiden called out, stopping it from doing whatever it wanted to do next. He only continued when it looked at him. “You can see that world?”

“Fragments.” It tilted its head one way. “Images.” It tilted its head the other way. “History.”

Monsters. History. Things weren’t adding up. Handguns did not exist in history so far back that there would be animals worthy of being called monsters. Or was it calling wild animals monsters?

It looked at Rometo. “How are you unarmed?”

“Human beings are stronger than we look,” he spat, smug. “There’s a reason we are at the top of the pecking order.”

It wasn’t true, but Aiden understood why Rometo was saying it.

“Bravado,” the chimera concluded. “Which means you are hiding something.”

Rometo was definitely hiding something. For one, the bullet of a handgun broke through the physical defense of the Order’s clothes before striking him. Since there had been no spell activations of any kind, Aiden could conclude that it was the material itself with a few enchantments. And he had seen those take quite the hits.

From what he knew, he could only deduce that the focus of all the force on a tiny spot had served to break through the defense.

“I will be taking the [Demon King] candidate now,” the chimera said simply, then its infant hand grew a little larger, another adding to it, the hands igniting in the black flames of dimensional mana.

Aiden didn’t need to wait any longer to know what was happening. He pushed Rometo away from him.

“Scatter!” he barked, darting off in the other direction. Then he reached into his soldier’s belt while in midair from leaping away and realized that he did not know what enchanted item was in what pouch.

Fuck your lack of attention, he swore as he hit the ground and tried to increase the distance between him and the chimera.

He had spent so much time depending on his weaving that he had completely disregarded his enchanted items. He now fought like a [Weaver] than like an [Enchanter]. He was weakening himself without even realizing it.

Just go for it, he thought, praying as he unclipped one of the pockets and allowed the contents to fall into his palm. He channeled mana into them, not bothering to check what they were, and threw them.

[You have used Orb of Smoke]

[You have used Orb of Smoke]

[You have used Orb of Smoke]

YES! he celebrated, then took out another item from the pocket as the orbs burst into smoke, obscuring the chimera’s view.

Another orb fell into his hand and he threw that.

[You have used Orb of Gas]

It hit the ground, intermingling with all the smoke. Aiden knew exactly which gas it was. even with his mind not fully aware, his muscle memory was still working.

The chimera walked out of the gas, suddenly appearing there, with a machinegun in its hands.

“Lord Lacheart!” Rometo called out.

“Just run!” Aiden shouted. “You don’t want to be here. Not right now.”

Aiden twirled his sword and swung it, sending flames dancing forth. The chimera pulled the trigger, and a burst of gunfire filled the air. It rang loud and clear in quick succession. Aiden hit the ground, summoning a weapon from his storage space at the same time. He rolled as the sound of bullets pinged against the mountain walls.

He came to his feet to the roar of an explosion as the gases ignited from the dancing flame. The chimera was caught in it. The gases igniting, the explosion of fire swallowed the chimera whole. Aiden rolled to his feet.

“Spot!” Aiden called out.

Rometo answered without hesitation. “Ahead!”

Good.

Still, he knew he would have to explain how he knew one Order team’s methods of finding the location of a teammate through sound at some point in time.

Aiden sent the first knife flying forward, then slammed his hands together and weaved the necessary sign.

His interface popped up.

[You have used Weave of Lesser Blink]

The world disappeared, blinking around him and reappeared amidst the explosive sounds of roaring gunfire. When it did, he caught sight of Rometo ahead of him, making a run for it as he had instructed. With what a simple handgun had done to Rometo, they were certainly not ready to deal with a machine gun.

Aiden prepared the next knife, ready to throw it, when a naked man passed him by in a blur of motion. He would’ve believed it to be a man if he did not see the flicker of matter blitzing behind him. There was also the fact that there was nothing normal about a naked man running through a mountain.

His mind went to the forest where he had gone after Nosrath, and he knew what it was.

The [Life Eater] had followed him here.