Chapter 12 : Chapter 12
Chapter 12: Practicing His Marksmanship, Testing Magic
When Ryan woke up the next day, he left the town and headed to the outskirts.
The place was rarely visited, making it perfect for him to practice his shooting.
That was right.
The System only provided weapon and blueprint exchanges.
After getting a gun, he still needed to train his marksmanship. Otherwise, the weapon in his hand would be nothing more than scrap metal.
In the country where Ryan had lived in his previous life, firearms had been regulated extremely strictly. Ordinary people would never even see a gun in their entire lives, much less learn how to shoot.
Fortunately, the System also had a function that let Ryan exchange for bullets.
Although that function also cost money, at the very least, Ryan did not need to craft bullets by hand.
After all, firearms could still be made with production blueprints, but bullets were a different matter. Without a factory assembly line, how could anyone produce them quickly and in large quantities?
Practicing marksmanship was both easy and difficult.
There was no secret to it.
All it took was feeding it countless bullets.
What expert marksman had not been trained through an endless mountain of ammunition?
Exchanging bullets for this kind of handgun through the System was fairly cheap as well: 1 Gold Coin for 500 rounds.
Ryan was not lacking in money right now, so he directly bought 5,000 rounds from the System to test the waters.
He set ten glass bottles on the ground in the distance, then turned and walked to a spot ten meters away from them.
He raised his right hand and extended the pistol in front of him.
Then he braced his right hand from below with his left.
To make sure he would not be hurt by the recoil, Ryan had prepared thoroughly.
All the physical training he had been doing before had been for this very moment.
The next instant, Ryan held his breath, focused his mind, and gently pulled the trigger with his index finger.
Bang!
A thunderous shot rang out.
The birds in the distant forest were startled into flight.
The glass bottle in the distance remained completely unchanged. Only a small pit appeared in the nearby ground.
Clearly, the first shot had missed.
Ryan did not feel discouraged.
Even across two lifetimes, this was his first time ever touching a firearm.
The fact that he had managed to fire the gun properly without injuring himself already counted as a success.
Because he had been holding the pistol with both hands, and because his physical condition was fairly good, he was able to withstand the recoil with ease.
For the rest of the day, Ryan continued practicing his shooting.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The gunshots rang out without end.
Fortunately, this place was some distance away from the town, and the area around it was surrounded by forest, so no one else could see Ryan.
Crack!
After Ryan fired another shot, a glass bottle finally shattered.
That success only came after he had fired more than a hundred rounds.
Perhaps it was because he had transmigrated, but he might have had a bit of talent when it came to shooting.
After only a few hundred shots, Ryan’s marksmanship had already reached a respectable level.
Out of every ten shots, he could already hit seven glass bottles.
That was a very good result.
Of course, it could not compare to a professional, but among amateurs, it would definitely be enough to earn him some reputation.
And this was only the result of one day of practice.
As long as he kept training, then one day in the future, he would surely become a crack shot who never missed and hit whatever he aimed at.
Ryan believed that, and he looked forward to it.
He glanced at the sky and saw that it was already getting late. So after packing everything up, he turned and left.
On the way back to town, Ryan thought about how to improve the gun in his hand.
There were two directions for improving a firearm.
One was reducing recoil, and the other was increasing its power.
Of those two, increasing its power definitely would not be easy, since the bullets were exchanged directly from the System.
Reducing recoil, however, seemed possible.
In the end, it all came down to the fact that he was still too young. Even though his body had been trained, he still could not fire for long periods of time.
After a whole day of shooting practice, his wrists had already turned red, and his arms felt terribly sore.
Barring any surprises, he definitely would not be able to continue that same level of intense training tomorrow.
...
From that day onward, Ryan frequently went to the outskirts to practice his marksmanship.
With an unlimited supply of bullets feeding his training, his shooting continued to improve.
A month later, his accuracy had reached eighty percent.
Two months later, his accuracy had already reached ninety percent.
Because Kaya knew how well the perfume was selling, she was not worried about Ryan’s future at all.
In her eyes, Ryan already had enough money to live without hardship for the rest of his life, so there was no need for her to worry anymore.
On this particular day, Fina came looking for Ryan.
“Ryan.”
Fina waved at him with a smile and ran over.
She had just finished learning about Mages from Kaya that day, and by chance, she saw that Ryan was about to head out to the outskirts.
“Fina, your lessons are over for today?”
Ryan looked at her and asked with a smile.
Since transmigrating to this world, nothing made him happier than having such an adorable childhood sweetheart.
Animal ears!
Real animal ears!
Back on Blue Star in his previous life, people had needed accessories and costume pieces to fake them.
But in this world, they were completely natural beastgirl ears.
“Yes, class is over. Ryan, are you going out to practice your Magic Tool again today?”
“That’s right.”
Ryan had already told Fina about his shooting practice long ago.
“Ryan, can I come with you and watch?”
Fina asked.
“Of course you can.”
Since it was a request from his adorable childhood sweetheart, Ryan readily agreed.
If anything, this was perfect.
After all, he could use Fina to test just how threatening the gun was to a Mage.
Ryan brought Fina to the outskirts, to the place where he practiced his marksmanship.
Then he took out his improved handgun.
If the previous one had been the Glock 17 (Modified Version 1.0), then this one was now the Glock 17 (Modified Version 2.0).
After this upgrade, the Glock 17’s recoil had been reduced to the point that it could practically be ignored.
Even a child Ryan’s age could fire this pistol continuously for an entire day without putting too much strain on his wrists.
That was the result of Ryan’s efforts over the past two months.
During those two months, Ryan had not only been practicing his marksmanship. He had also been improving the gun itself.
“So this is the Magic Tool you were talking about? The one that can let ordinary people threaten Mages?”
Fina looked curiously at the gun in Ryan’s hand.
“That’s right. This Magic Tool is called a gun. The model in my hand is called the Glock 17. There will be other models in the future too, and when that time comes, you’ll see there are many different kinds.”
“Gun...”
Fina murmured the word softly.
“Next, I’ll give you a demonstration.”
“Okay.”
Ryan placed the glass bottles he had prepared in advance at a distance, then brought Fina fifty meters away from them.
That was right. Ryan could now hit targets from as far as fifty meters away, with an accuracy rate as high as ninety percent.
Ryan took a deep breath, then pulled the trigger.
Bang!
A thunderous blast rang out.
Crack!
The glass bottle in the distance shattered on the spot.
“Awoo...”
The explosive roar immediately made Fina cover her ears.
“Uh...”
The moment Ryan saw her reaction, he slapped his forehead.
He had forgotten something.
When a gun was fired, it produced an explosive noise.
For a Beastfolk like Fina, whose hearing was far sharper than a human’s, that kind of deafening sound was practically no different from a violent attack.
“Sorry, sorry, Fina. I forgot about the noise from firing. Are you all right?”
Ryan immediately lowered the gun and hurried over to check on her.
“I-I’m fine. I was just startled by the sudden sound.”
Fina took a moment to steady herself before answering.
“Whew! That’s good.”
Ryan let out a sigh of relief.
If Fina had been hurt because of him, he would not have been able to forgive himself.
“.........”
Fina murmured something softly.
Then Ryan saw two magic circles appear in front of her ears.
Fina was using magic to protect her ears.
As a member of the Snow Wolf Tribe, she had naturally learned protective magic long ago.
It was just that the situation had happened so suddenly that she had not reacted in time.
“Ryan, it’s fine now.”
“Mhm, I understand.”
Seeing that Fina had already taken protective measures, Ryan continued his demonstration.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Under Ryan’s demonstration, the glass bottles fifty meters away shattered one after another.
Fina’s eyes filled with shock as she watched.
This was simply incredible.
At that moment, she and Ryan were standing fifty meters away from the glass bottles. At that distance, even a Mage’s spell might not hit the target.
And yet Ryan’s Magic Tool called a gun could do it.
And the speed was so fast.
She was certain that with a Mage’s reaction speed, no Mage would be able to dodge a gun’s attack.
Even for someone highly skilled in martial arts, avoiding a gunshot would not be easy.
As Fina looked at Ryan’s profile, she suddenly felt as though he were glowing from head to toe.
“As expected... Ryan is amazing...”
Fina murmured softly.
Ever since they were little, Fina had known Ryan was no ordinary person.
Even before, when she had learned that Ryan had no magical talent, she had still believed that he would definitely become someone extraordinary in the future.
But how much time had even passed?
They were only ten years old.
And Ryan had already made such an astonishing Magic Tool.
She could not even imagine how far Ryan would go in the future.
“I need to work harder too. I can’t let Ryan leave me too far behind.”
Fina silently encouraged herself.
“Fina.”
After finishing the demonstration, Ryan turned back to look at her.
But he noticed that she seemed distracted, lost in her thoughts, so he called out to her.
“Huh? Ryan, what is it?”
“What’s wrong? What were you thinking about?”
“N-Nothing.”
Fina blushed slightly.
She had no intention of telling Ryan what she had just been thinking.
“Uh...”
Ryan looked at Fina oddly.
Since she did not want to tell him, he had no intention of pressing the matter.
“Actually, since you happen to be here today, could you do me a favor?”
“Mhm, mhm, mhm, no problem, Ryan. Just say it.”
Fina nodded repeatedly. She was more than happy to help Ryan with anything.
“Could you set up some defensive magic in front of those glass bottles? I want to test the gun’s attack power and see whether it can pierce magic.”
“Sure.”
Fina agreed without even thinking.
Then she ran to the front of the glass bottles and waved her arm.
The next moment, a blue magic shield appeared in front of the bottles.
This was the defensive method all Mages were best at using.
After casting the magic shield, Fina ran back to Ryan’s side.
“Ryan, it’s ready.”
“Okay. Thanks, Fina.”
After thanking her, Ryan raised the pistol once more and aimed at the glass bottles.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
After several shots in a row, the result was exactly what he had expected.
All the glass bottles shattered at once, and even the magic shield in front of them was destroyed by the bullets.
“Perfect!”
The moment Ryan saw that the firearm really could pierce a Mage’s defensive magic, his eyes lit up.