Morning came.
Lee was already there when Rowan stepped off the bus, standing near the entrance of the first gate they had scheduled. He looked like he had not slept much.
"You eat?" Rowan asked.
"Yes." Lee answered, nervous, his breath fogging in the morning cold.
"Good." Rowan unzipped the side pouch of his backpack and pulled out a hard case.
He held it out. The Mountain Eagle.
Lee looked at the gun, then at Rowan, then back at the case.
He took it, then asked, "You’re joking." The weight was considerable. He could barely lift it properly.
"No, I’m not." Rowan smirked. "Since you’re a caster, you don’t get the physical boost that martial classes get, so your raw output is low. But with this gun, you bypass that aspect entirely."
Lee nodded slowly, still unsure.
"But I’ve never used a gun before."
"You’ll get used to it." Rowan encouraged him.
The first gate was an E+ that Rowan had already scouted on the forum.
A handful of kobolds. Humanoid lizards wielding primitive weapons.
Stronger than goblins but much slower and far less nimble.
And with his soul sensing, he confirmed the boss was not that strong.
’Perfect.’
Rowan cleared mobs with his AA-20. These E-rank dungeons were akin to pest control at this point.
His boots were moving on before the bodies had finished falling.
Lee jogged behind him, trying not to trip over the dead.
’What the hell is that thing?!’ Lee’s eardrums were ringing from the loud bangs. Each shot sent a small shockwave through the air like a miniature explosion, and just following behind doing nothing was already making him dizzy.
Still, watching Rowan work amazed him. He had never seen a hunter raid like this before. Even the footage online had not prepared him for how violent it actually was, and yet how efficient at the same time.
They had been in the dungeon six minutes and the boss chamber was already visible at the end of the cave.
Rowan stopped at the threshold.
"Are you ready?" Rowan turned and stepped aside, clearing the way for Lee. "You’re up."
Lee’s stomach dropped. "I’m up? Up for what?" The boy was genuinely confused.
"Solo the boss. With the Mountain Eagle you could one shot it."
The Kobold pack leader was not a caster type. One bullet to a vital organ would be enough to blow it apart.
Consider it Lee’s beginner’s luck for not drawing a troublesome boss.
"Mister Rowan, I don’t think this is a good idea..." Lee stumbled over his words.
"I’ve never fought a monster one on one before, let alone a boss. Can we start smaller?"
Rowan had already packed away his AA-20 and pulled out his phone to record.
"Start small, grow small." Rowan stepped back out of the chamber entrance. "If you want to get good in three months, this is how you do it. And besides, you have me."
The chamber held a kobold chieftain, bigger than the rest, a crude iron club resting across its shoulders, tusks yellowed in the dim light.
It had noticed them. But kobolds were smart creatures, smart enough to know that charging toward Rowan meant certain death.
So, it waited.
--
Lee stood at the doorway holding a pistol that weighed about as much as a full bag of rice.
His shoulder already felt sore just anticipating the recoil.
Lee stepped into the chamber.
The kobold chieftain turned its head at the scrape of his boot.
It was bigger than the ones in the corridors, maybe Lee’s height at the shoulder, crude bone armor lashed across its chest and a jagged cleaver in one clawed hand.
Its eyes locked on him as it grinned.
Then it charged.
Lee’s brain froze. He raised the pistol, fumbled the grip, squeezed the trigger too early.
The shot went wide and punched a crater in the wall to the chieftain’s left.
The recoil slammed up his arm anyway and sent him staggering back three steps.
The chieftain kept coming.
"Oh no, no, no!"
Lee turned and ran.
He ran along the chamber wall, the pistol clutched against his chest because he could not hold it steady in one hand while sprinting.
The chieftain’s footsteps were getting closer. The cleaver dragged against stone, scraping sparks.
Lee cut around a pillar of rock. The chieftain smashed straight through it.
"Rowan!!" Lee cried out in a panic while Rowan stayed exactly where he was, still recording.
’If he gets injured then it also a chance to learn how to heal himself properly.’
Rowan smiled behind the camera, reliving old memories.
Except this time, he was not the one running.
Rowan did not come in. Lee knew he wouldn’t.
Lee tried to raise the pistol while running, twisting his torso to aim backward.
His foot caught on a stone.
Lee’s back hit the ground hard, but he had no time to get up.
The chieftain leaped and brought the cleaver down with it full weight behind it.
Lee had no time to think.
He saw his death coming and pushed back against the ground, teeth gritted as he raised the gun.
"AHHH!!"
He brought the pistol up with both hands and pulled the trigger.
The crack was deafening, dropping his hearing to a flat blank silence.
His shoulder went numb and hot at the same time.
The recoil drove his arms up and back so hard that the pistol cracked against his own forehead on the rebound, and somewhere in that motion he heard a wet crumpling noise above him.
Something warm and heavy collapsed across his legs.
Lee lay there for a second, ears ringing.
He pushed himself up on his elbows.
The chieftain did not have a head anymore. Or a chest.
There was a ragged crater where the top half of its torso used to be, and the rest of it was slumped across Lee’s shins, twitching.
Lee dragged his legs out from under it with a wet scraping noise.
He lowered the gun with shaking hands.
"Holy," he said quietly.
Then, "Holy SHIT!!"