Episode 8

“Th-that’s!”
“Shit…”
-Captain, do we retreat?
-The hell you mean retreat?! Those bastards were the ones who killed Yun and Quar! We gotta avenge them!
-Where are we going to get more members if more people die this time?!
-You’re the one talking nonsense right now! Don’t you know we’ll be out of these waters if word gets out that we got pushed away by those snot-noses?!

Fighting amongst odyssia was normally illegal. This could be considered common sense to an extent. No nation would allow fighting among its citizens without proper reason, especially if those citizens were allowed to be conditionally armed.
Those holding weapons obviously posed a certain amount of threat, no matter their nature.

-Everyone shut up.

But since when did everyone start following the rules? The basis of an odyssia was that they risked their lives to earn money, and these were normally the people who considered money to be a higher moral standing than law. This was even more so true if they were born in the slums, where even proper identification was a rarity.
Whether they died while hunting mutants or while killing another human, it didn’t matter to them as long as they were paid.

-Retreat without fighting? Hah! We’re practically giving them a reason to call us wusses now. Why should I have to give them that, huh?
-But Captain, we have a newbie this time…
-Yul! I’ll ask you this now: do you wish to run?

In that sense, this fight was also unavoidable, especially when the opponent was trying to steal their territory because of the overpopulated field.
The moment they retreated, the opponent would slowly take over their rights until everything was passed onto them. In the end, it was all a matter of timing.

-Are you so scared of the ones who killed your older brother that you wish to tuck your tail and return to your nest?!
“C-Captain… You’re taking it too–”
“Captain.”

No, actually, none of those small details mattered. To Odysseus, Odyssia: Freedom was not the only place where he could hone his skills, and neither did he feel any attachment to this group, so why did any of that matter?

“Forget all of that. I can kill all of them, right?”

That was all that mattered. As a man of Ithaca, it would be dishonorable to avoid a fight where he was allowed to kill and was able to kill, nor had a reason to avoid.
He says this, but it would be difficult for him to gather information once his shelter, Odyssia: Freedom, disappeared.

-I’ll pay you extra for every dead body. You can even have the goods of whatever they were wearing.
“Wow, I have another reason to try harder now.”

For such reasons, following the instructions that he’d learned for the past two weeks, Odysseus tapped the side of his goggles. With his other hand, he took out a weapon he’d specially prepared and pressed a button on it.

“You mean it when you said we can keep the goods, right?”

The small stick in his hand transformed into a longbow.
That was the moment when one of the best marksmen in the Trojan War took over.

-Fuck, Yul, you’re insane!
-Hahaha! Look at those white-ass faces get all red!

To be honest, he could have used a gun if it was just for the sake of longer range. Considering that the cost of bullets and arrows was similar, it may have been a better idea to get a gun, which he could make himself.
The reason why he brought a bow, even with these reasons, was the matter of familiarity. He’d only gotten time to practice with a gun for about two weeks at most, whereas he’d wielded a bow for practically a half-century.

Fwip!
“Ah, I missed.”

Of course, it wasn’t easy even for the hero of the Trojan War to use a bow in a completely different body.

Fwip, phwk!
-Get ’em!!
-Look at our rookie go!!

But so what if his accuracy was a little low? If he couldn’t shoot the enemy down with one arrow, he just had to shoot another.
This was even more so true when considering the fact that a bulletproof vest could block a bullet, but certainly not a bow. Making just one of three shots would be enough to finish off any enemy he faced.

-Hawk! Eagle! Stop those little flies! Don’t let them get close to the Air Boat!
-Yes, ma’am!
-You’re not getting anywhere close to our Magicks User!

On the other hand, he was also helped by his improved mana responsiveness and control. It was much easier to use his mana to exert force that he would have previously used his muscles for.
There was no better temporary measure than this when it came to an urgent situation where his body had to be on the move.

Bang!
“Damn, kid! Are all magicks users as good with a bow as you? Or are you using magick to make that arrow fly like that?”
“I don’t know. Which one do you think it is?”

Idiots. Mana isn’t an omnipotent source of power. This was just how good he was. All he did was replace his physical strength with mana; the rest was pure skill.
Holding in the urge to say this, Odysseus left the people around him to shower him with praise. He’d rather have them turn the credit to magick than have them become suspicious of his sudden archery skills. It did irritate him a bit, but that was manageable.

-Ack!
-Damn it, Tangka!

Just then, their first ally casualty occurred. They were a member of the harpooner team.

Splash!
Even though they’d dodged, a direct hit from a gun had him crashing into the ocean. They couldn’t even go to fetch him because the fight had yet to end.

“N-n–”
Crunch!

Eventually, they heard the sound of teeth tearing apart flesh from the ocean below.

Bang, bang!
“Shit. Those monsters are having a course meal today.”

The scent of blood would have spread into the waters when they used the bait to capture the mutant shark. Now that there was blood and chunks of meat falling from the sky from the fight, what was stopping those mutants from coming over for a free meal?
It wasn’t without reason that they didn’t save Yun. A person was as good as dead once they fell into the ocean.
A corner of Odysseus’s mouth curled up crookedly.

Bang!
“Ack!”

Just then, one of the enemies pointed their gun in his direction. This wasn’t the first time this happened. The Air Boat that they rode was large and slow, so it was an easy target.

Ba-ba-bang!
The only reason they usually did not target the Air Boat was because of the goods that lay in it. It was similar to the reason why Captain Songha promised them the right to the spoils if they succeeded in leaving the gear intact.

“Those bastards, I think we’ve triggered them.”

But the enemy’s situation seemed a little dire for them to go after the spoils of a twenty-person capacity Air Boat. They’d already lost two men before the collision—Odysseus’s work—and had lost three more since then.
It was already hard enough to kill with a gun with the combination of the sea winds, the signature swiftness of an Air Bike, and the existence of bulletproof vests, but the other side had already lost five of their men.

-I lost ‘em! One’s going to the porters!
“…!”

The defense line that had been desperately blocking the enemy’s approach was breached. So it wasn’t very surprising when the Air Bikes passed over the Air Boat with their guns.

“!”

Through the engine sounds that could be heard through the radio, Odysseus quickly predicted and threw his body to the side. Thankfully, he managed to dodge the bullets that rained down on the deck, but that fortune didn’t smile upon everyone.

Thud.
The man who’d been chatting with him just moments before collapsed while holding his throat. What luck he had. Considering the size of a helmet, mask, and bulletproof vest, it was hard to hit the throat even on flat land.

“U-uaaaah!”

Fortunately, unlike the man who’d apparently been cursed by inevitable death, the driver of the boat had crawled under the steering wheel and survived. Odysseus himself also had a few bullets drum his body, but was left unscathed.

“A life for a life.”

However, just because he and the driver had survived, it didn’t mean the loss of their comrade was insignificant.
Odysseus quickly scrambled up and used the mutant’s corpse as a stepping stool to leap up while his arms each held a bow and arrow taut on the string.

Phwk!
Blood spurted out from the chest of the enemy who had passed over the Air Boat. The arrow had enough power even to pierce bulletproof vests.

Instinctively certain that he’d hit the enemy, Odysseus put weight on his right shoulder. The squishy surface of the dead shark and his purposefully unbalanced sense of gravity led him tumbling toward the deck.

Ba-ba-bang!
The bullets that belatedly chased him drummed the sides of the Air Boat instead.

-Porter, are you alive?!
“That Air Bike’s mine. Make sure we take it with us.”

The aircraft of the modern era had a feature where, when their driver suddenly disappeared, they continued to float in place until they ran out of fuel. This meant that even if the person driving the vehicle fell into the ocean, they wouldn’t lose the Air Bike with them.
Odysseus used that point to claim the vehicle as his, which the others agreed to.

-There are already three Air Bikes to your name. Make sure you stay alive to claim them.
“Mm, that’s nice.”

Ignoring the throbbing shoulder he earned from hitting the deck, the boy crawled closer to the Air Boat’s railing. Although he was still unfamiliar with this new technology called a gun, his instincts as a warrior had helped him quickly learn that his chances of survival increased when staying next to an object.

-They’re retreating!
-Don’t let them! Obliterate those stupid asses!

D-d-d-d-d-du.

It seemed as though losing yet another member had broken the enemy’s spirit, as the bullet sounds from both sides had started to get further and further away.

“Mister.”
“H-huh?”
“Let’s follow them.”

Normally, an Air Boat could never keep up with the speed of an Air Bike, no matter the situation. That may be different from an expensive one with a jet engine, but at the very least, the one they were riding on did not have that feature.

“Wh-why?”
“Then what? Are we just going to stay here?”

However, they had to consider the exceptions to the situation. The bullets flying at one another prevented the two sides from moving in a straight line, and speed tended to drop sharply when moving in curves.
Since the Air Boat they were riding on had no reason to dodge, they could actually catch up.

“Don’t you think that’ll be fine?”
“I don’t think the Captain will like to hear that.”

Odysseus glanced at the ownerless Air Bike parked beyond the railing. Actually, he gestured at it with his chin in case the man hadn’t been able to see the movement of his gaze through the slits that were his eyes.

“Or do you want me to go on that thing alone?”
“…Please don’t do that. I’ll actually get killed by the Captain.”
“We have a deal, then.”

To think that he was so weak-hearted as a member of an odyssia. Internally lowering his evaluation of the man next to him, he counted the number of arrows that he had brought with him.
Due to space and budget constraints, he only had a few arrows left. If he had to, he would rather use them at a critical moment.

“…Maybe I’ll use this as a chance to practice.”

As a result, Odysseus lifted the sniper rifle that was stored in the Air Boat. He didn’t use his pistol because there was no guarantee that a pistol’s bullet would fly the way he wanted with all of this wind and distance.

‘And Flag told me that the pistol was only for when enemies were trying to get on the Air Boat, not in a distant combat situation.’

On the other hand, a sniper rifle was designed for medium to long-range combat, so its trajectory was less affected by wind and distance than that of a pistol. In his current situation, it was a much better option than a pistol.

Clunk.
The only downside was that since the firearm had been designed for an adult, particularly a buff man, the size was a little hard for him to handle… but this could also be solved with just a little extra muscle enhancement.
A large sniper rifle larger than the young boy’s body hung over the railing.

“Y-you can shoot that thing?”
“Flag Hyung taught me how to use it.”

He was taught to be careful to put it in a position so that the recoil didn’t impact his joints and that the impact point calculation program included in the goggles was effective, but not to be relied on as a human’s hand could not follow all of its criterion.
With these points in mind, he’d practiced shooting the gun a few times, albeit it was only ten times because of how pricey the bullets were.

“I’m sure they won’t complain about the bullet costs used in a real battle, right?”

Even if they did, that was fine. He was confident in his aim.
The program built into the goggles would help him with calculating the wind and descent angles, and adjusting the focus and timing of the shot was something that he already knew how to do.

“Huuup, haaah.”

He took a deep breath, setting his body in alignment. And when the perfect opportunity came, Odysseus used all of the mana in his body to stimulate his sensory nervous system. This was not an easy feat. Had that been the case, he would have been using it a long time ago.

-Kill them!
-…don’t!
-…go!

Yes. The fight was almost over, and his little experiment would hardly impact the result of this fight. It was the perfect opportunity to try and bring out the potential that he’d reached in his past life.

Therefore, he continued to stimulate his nerves with his mana until he could feel every fiber of muscle, every vein, and every bone in his body.
He continued until his sharpened senses could both sense everything and yet sense nothing.

-…
-…

Then, at the very end, the flow of time and consciousness parted ways.
Though aware of his surroundings, the world that existed outside of his senses was moving at the pace of a snail. The wind bushing along his skin felt like a brush gently stroking his body.

The shouts and gunshots ringing in his ears had also receded into the distance. In its stead, the head of the enemy that Odysseus was aiming for and the impact point seen on the goggles had lined up.
He pulled the trigger.

Bang!
The sound that came when the trigger was fired was slower than the bullet itself, or perhaps it was faster. As soon as he’d taken the shot, time had returned to its normal pace, and the world around him had suddenly filled up with noise.

“That’s one.”

However, such noise was not even the slightest in the boy’s interest.
Looking at the fleeing enemy’s skull collapsing in on itself, the boy grinned with his back covered in cold sweat. The taste of his first kill was disgustingly ecstatic.