Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 30 | Sunday

I frown as the platform I’m standing on finishes climbing upwards and I find myself in a large, run-down building.

Another city simulation?

After a second of looking around the room I’ve found myself in, I approach the window before kneeling down and pulling my rifle around from my back while looking out over the city.

And surprisingly, instead of it being an enormous city, it’s just a single street with what looks like a skyscraper at the other end, along with the equally large building I’m in right now. Of course, there are more buildings on the other sides of the streets, but they’re all a lot smaller and don’t seem to have any visible entrances.

“This map is rather straightforward …” I can’t help but mutter as I pull my rifle’s scope up to my eye in order to get a better view of the skyscraper at the other end of the street. Once I do, I slowly lift my rifle to look at the building starting from the base floor, only stopping after I find the cadet – I think his name was Jarod or something like that – passing by a window and starting down the stairs of the building. He has a sniper rifle on his back, with a sword in his hand and an empty sheath at his waist.

Hmm, I’m not sure if he’s stupid or not.

Logically, using a sword against me would likely sound more plausible to those that know about my ‘regeneration spell,’ but he’s also completely ignoring the fact that I’m a sniper right now.

So, is he trying to be smart, or is he asking to be shot?

All things considered, it should make things much easier on me. After all, if I can get away with eliminating him almost instantly through sniping without him being able to so much as hurt me then I won’t have to worry about any of those VIPs noticing anything they shouldn’t.

I follow him with my scope for a few seconds as he continues climbing downstairs before focusing on the distance between us. From what I can tell just from sight and my scope, it looks to be around one thousand meters or so. Which is still a decent bit above the maximum range of which I can hit a moving target.

I frown slightly at the thought before returning my sight to the cadet as he continues climbing down the stairs.

Looks like I’ll have to wait for him to get a bit closer, unless I want to try taking a shot at him now and possibly missing, thereby warning him that I already know where he is.

Unsurprisingly, it takes him a couple more minutes to finish climbing down the building, and during that time, I’m stuck wondering how the VIP who chose this map is feeling after seeing this. Because it’s pretty obvious that this map was meant to be some sort of sniper showdown.

Anyways, the idiot breaks off into a sprint across the street, zigzagging throughout the process despite the lack of cover.

I can’t help but raise an eyebrow, but right as he is almost within my range, a red barrier appears around his body.

My other eyebrow raises to join the first at the sight of him using a barrier spell. One that is clearly not a non-neutral mana barrier spell.

This might complicate things a bit.

A neutral mana barrier is a lot weaker than the fire mana barrier spell the cadet is using. But it is also a lot safer to use, which isn’t really saying much, considering how many times I had my arm bisected to learn the spell.

That said, the fire mana barrier spell he’s using is both less and more complicated than my neutral mana barrier. He doesn’t have to deal with converting his mana into neutral mana, but he does have to add several protective commands into the spell that make sure it doesn’t just burn him alive. Since it’s using fire mana and therefore includes flames in its defensive effects.

I narrow in on the cadet right as he crosses the point that I feel confident in shooting before aiming a little bit ahead of him and firing off a shot.

My brows furrow in annoyance as the cadet immediately pauses the moment after I fire before changing his direction, causing my gunshot to miss completely.

The hell? How did he...

Does he have a spell up that increases his hearing? Or maybe he saw the flash from my rifle?

I don’t dwell on the thought any further as I proceed to fire off a few more shots, with my gun automatically reloading for me in between each.

It isn’t until the fifth shot that I finally score a hit on his shoulder, only for the condensed fire making up the barrier around him to flare outwards right before the bullet reaches him, eating up the bullet entirely in the process.

Damn barrier…

I continue to shoot, hitting him a few more times in the process before his barrier finally loses its condensed flames and cracks.

“At least this is good target practice…” I mutter to myself before focusing and pulling the trigger again, only for my rifle to click, indicating it as completely empty.

Shit.

I quickly pull out another magazine of ammo and begin the process of swapping it out with the one currently in the rifle, but as I’m doing this, I passively keep track of the cadet as he gets within a couple hundred meters of my position.

Damn his fucking barrier. Even if I was able to cast that spell, I doubt my barrier would be as powerful strictly because he has more mana than me.

I would also be more surprised if he hadn’t been practicing and learning spells before we came here.

So I guess he isn’t as stupid as I thought him to be.

By the time I finish replacing the clip in my rifle, the cadet is already too close to the building for me to comfortably shoot, so I instead begin to maneuver my rifle around to my back and draw my sword out of its sheath.

Now’s as good a time as any to test out my sword skills against someone besides Anabel.