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I see Olivia off like always, practice alchemy like always, and go to the forest like always. Kill any goblins, orcs, or kobolds in my path as I follow the route I was kinda accustomed to. Nowadays my days all feel the same.

I’m pretty much used to White Viper now too, and I feel like one more hour of hunting or so should be enough for today. I feel like all monsters have vanished all of a sudden though.

I wonder what’s going on? Maybe I should just head back home. There are some tactics I still want to try though…

I keep walking as I think about it when I hear footsteps somewhere. I listen more attentively and recognize there are multiple sets of footsteps, all approaching me at quite some speed.

I face the direction the footsteps are coming from and brace myself.

“Hieee!”
“Graaawrrr!!”

It was a running dog demi-human, and five humanoids with horns. Are they demons? No, these are ogres. Ogres stand above lower level monsters like goblins or orcs, even the superior variants. And there’s five of them here. I don’t think I can take them out as easily as I’m used to around here.

“But they’re a perfect training target!”

I smile under my mask and kick off the ground.

“You get down, okay.”

I run past the dog demi-human, standing between him and the ogres. I have to attract their attention first.

I aim White Viper at the ogres, pull the trigger once and watch as a bullet leaves the muzzle and flies forward. The ogres stand still. But they start moving soon enough, their eyes focused on me now. It seems they didn’t take as much damage as I hoped.

That makes sense. White Viper’s bullets aren’t any stronger than Black Hawk’s, the main difference being in their rate of firing. A sub-machine gun firing a single round packs very little power¹.

“Grahhhh!”

I jump back to evade the incoming club, and survey the monsters before I land again.

There’s no unity in the weapons they’re holding, some with clubs and others with swords, but they’re all armed. On top of that, that club strike wasn’t as powerful as the golem, but pretty close. Taking it head on would be a bad idea.

There’s five of them too, so this will be a pretty rough battle. But that’s what makes it worth fighting. Lucky for me, they are pretty slow to attack. I can win.

“And to deal with a group of enemies alone…”

I had to position myself so they blocked each other. That way those behind would be impeded from attacking. If they don’t know how to properly work together, they might even start hitting each other, causing conflict inside their group as well.

“Grooowrrr!”
“Gha?!”

Their movements became more clumsy the moment they stood in front of each other. At the same time, White Viper delivered them a quick death.

“Ghahh!”

One of them collapses on the ground, blood spouting from its head. That’s how powerful I can be when I focus.

“Grooowlll!!”

The ogres seem to realize the danger of White Viper, so they start trying to encircle me. But they’re too clumsy to ever be able to move fast enough for that.

One of them moves, separating from the group, so I rush in to stand in front of it.

“Ghah, Gahhhh!”

The ogre seems to hesitate for a bit before raising its sword high, but it swings too late.

I jump back and shoot, hitting the blade and its arm. I keep my hand on the trigger, adjusting my aim a little lower and creating a series of red holes on its chest.

It refuses to let go of its blade or die though, ogres are really resilient. I guess I just got lucky hitting the first one in a vital spot. Firing more can fix all that though.

Once I unload an entire magazine, the ogre slowly collapses. Three monsters left now.

“Grhaaaaaaaa!”
“Growrllll!”
“Ah, crap.”

The remaining ogres charge at me, ready to crush me under them even if they die in the attempt. This is the worst time for that, White Viper is out of bullets. If I try firing while manually supplying the necessary mana, I won’t be able to produce enough. I need to reload somehow.

It’s not too hard to outrun ogres, but I need to stand still for a moment if I want to take out a fresh magazine from my magic storage and reload. I need to find a way to buy time to reload.

Maybe I could try opening the magic storage just below the gun and just drop the magazine inside…wait huh? Why am I feeling deja vu all of a sudden?

Clack!

“Dammit!”

I got distracted and accidentally dropped the new magazine. The ogres chasing after me crush the magazine under their heavy feet. Ugh I don’t have as many magazines for White Viper as for Black Hawk.

Then again, it’s my fault for being stupid and trying to do that in the middle of a fight. But I decide I’m not done being an idiot and try to pick it up.

“Grah!”

Oh great, now the ogre is about to slam its club on me.

“Tch.”

I roll to the side and evade the hit. There are no invincibility frames when rolling, unlike in a game, but I still manage to dodge.

I quickly get up and run to a nearby tree.

I reload as quickly as I can and then jump out to face the direction I came from. The ogres aren’t as stupid as I thought. Instead of following me in a straight line, one of them separated from the group to cut me off from the other side.

But they’re still slow. I quickly turn my body to pass under the ogre’s armpit and slice its stomach open with the magic blade on my left hand. It didn’t go deep. Still, that’s enough to distract it for a bit.

I jump behind it and aim White Viper at the back of its head.

“Agagaga-”

Its entire back starts to shake from the bullet impacts, and I kick off its back to put some distance between me and the remaining ogres while I reload.

White Viper really uses up magazines too fast. Being able to fire continuously gives it a lot of power, but that I can’t fire for prolonged periods of time is an issue. I’d ask Ophelia to tweak that if she was still alive, but sadly that’s not possible.

At least she left behind the blueprints, and my alchemy is getting good enough to work on intricate mechanisms. It’d be nice if I can work on it myself one day.

Only two ogres remain, and they continue charging mindlessly at me even though three of their comrades have already died.

1. Robinxen: That’s because SMGs are a tank class. Huh? What do you mean that isn’t how it works?