Chapter 101 101 A battle of bullets
[OP: ]
-Ska—-tchak!
The sound of a bullet shell getting out of the sniper was heard, but from which direction, was unknown even to the one who had avoided it by the breadth of her hair.
-Pap! Pap! Pap!
Then, three silenced bullets followed her from some other direction, but El avoided them as well, with a new smile stuck on her pretty face.
"Hello~? Is there really a need to shoot the first person you saw~? Those bullets might hurt this little fragile body of mine~ you know?"
El was looking in a certain direction while saying that but, there was practically nothing in that direction, or at least, nothing was visible here.
-Ska—Tak.
"Oh? Reloading already? At least empty that previous cartage, hehe."
-Pam!
"Woah. Close."
El was laughing when a bullet was shot at her from an entirely different direction, and just like the first one, this one was a sniper bullet, reinforced with Mana no less.
"A trap already? You're good, lol."
Her eyes were moving in a certain direction as if they were following something, but that something was nowhere to be seen from a normal perspective.
-Bang!
Another bullet was fired out of nowhere, and different from the previous ones, this one was a bullet from a rifle, and, it had come from an unexpected direction.
-Shazmn!
"F54, lol? Nice taste you got there, miss mysterious opponent."
She had to use a skill this time, but she still avoided the attack. After which, she looked towards a certain empty area and smiled, before moving again and dodging the strange needles that were fired at her out of nowhere.
It was surprising how El was dodging all those bullets so effortlessly, as well as how she was tracking the movements of that mysterious person, but, one thing was certainly true.
She was having fun with this person, and even though it was their first official encounter, she knew more than enough about who this amazing marksman was.
'She's doing better than I expected. Looks like things did change for all of them too.' She thought as she avoided another bullet.
There were only three marksmen in this whole empire who could use Magic guns like the ones she was using right now and the two others were oldies who traveled the world so, she was the only possible person who could have this level of switching control and artifacts with that strong of a stealth skill.
She had her [White eyes] and her innate senses so she would follow the paths of the projectiles but even with that, this person was almost able to get a hit in with those dummy bullets.
'Cute little Lux.'
El was having fun since this was an open battlefield and since this was a pretty precious moment, she was definitely going to use it to the fullest.
-Bang! Bang! Bang!
And, it seemed like Lux had received some kind of quest with good rewards, she was persistently trying to knock El out right now...
So, both of them were going at each other with pretty powerful force.
-Ska—-tchak!
Sniper bullets were being fired at her, bullets from handguns, rifles, and those weird needles were weirdly persistent too.
It was a dangerous barrage of attacks that one couldn't stand against properly, but for El, this was but a fun practice of dodging.
She was easily avoiding them, calculating their trajectory and moving according to the opponent's movement, predicting when it would start and showing her a mesmerizing dance that only a few would not pause to admire.
But dodging was not the only thing she was doing anymore. By nature, El was not one to just accept any kind of attack from anyone.
She would even massacre the entire dynasty of a damned mosquito who dared to bite her, these persistent bullets that were fun to play with were obviously not something she would allow for long.
So, she was counter-attacking with her own little bullets of condensed mana that contained enough power to only throw a person to some distended if they were hit by it.
Not that the opponent she was fighting was someone to get hit by a frontal attack like that.
She was quick on her feet so she was dodging all those simple-looking attacks, counterattacking with more aggressive attacks in response.
-Bang! Bang! Bang!
Her bullets were unique but since her opponent wasn't showing her any of her actual powers, she also couldn't determine her strengths or limits.
She wanted to know about her opponent but, El kept looking and dancing around as if all of this was nothing more than a fun activity to her, as if she already knew about her opponent more than enough to know what she could do and what not.
Lux was a little confused by all this but, she kept doing what she was doing, thinking El would run out of stamina sooner or later.
But, to her surprise, even after a few minutes of that intense dodging dance, there was not even a bead of sweat on El, as if all of it was nothing at all for her.
"Hehehe, it is fun and all miss attacker but, we don't have all day you know? Why don't you try putting in more effort so that I can show you a little bit of my skills as well?"
She was provoking her with those simple words, saying what she did until now meant nothing at all to her face.
And Lux certainly wanted to know more about this girl with that kind of advanced dodging skills.
She was using a powerful artifact that completely erased her presence as well as an artifact that made her perfectly blend with her surroundings.
She had her passive high stats so she didn't think some random girl she found as her first kill target would be this good.
According to her quest, however strong her first opponent was, she would get that much better reward, and for some reason, the indicator showed she would get a special reward if she somehow defeated her.
There were penalties as usual and she would fail the quest if she backed off or lost the target. And she couldn't do that.
So, she had to continue.
"Very well."
She answered and disabled the invisibility, revealing herself to the enemy for a 'fair' fight.
She just needed to win against her, and however strong she might be, she was still a normal person.. poor Lux actually considered that.
"Hehehe. Hello~."
El was happy to see her like this. It was unexpected but seeing her again this time was certainly something she considered fun.
"Should we declare an official duel or was the random attack more fun?"
"Doesn't matter now does it? They just wanted to stop the people from doing the surprise attacks by that."
"And many dumb bunnies will believe they have to follow their things, lol."
"Hahaha."
Lux laughed at the way El said that.
'Bunnies' was an interesting way to describe the other students.
She didn't think this person would be anything special at first but now that she thought about it, this girl was definitely interesting.
"Alright."
But that didn't mean anything in the end.
She just had to defeat her, and El knew her thoughts too, so she also smiled and nodded with that pretty smile of hers.. and channeled her Mana.
-Swish.
She vanished first, Lux following behind her.
-Bang!
A rifle shot from the right.
-Swash!
A [(Mana missile)] from the left.
-Boooooooom!
Both collided, but the clash didn't stop.
-Bang!
Lux continued moving with her faster speed but El still chased after her.
One used the guns that required high concentration and a large amount of Mana, as well as enough stamina to maintain the process. While on the other hand, her opponent simply used Mana, the basic spells, and her body to dodge, dance, and counterattack.
The opponents were tough, they both knew that.
Her bullets were being destroyed when they came into contact with her spells while her spells were sometimes being pierced by those magic bullets of hers.
The difference in stats was obvious but, there was also a difference in ranks and stat qualities so it balanced out to a certain extent but still, El was superior.
-Bang!
-Pam!
-Tuk!
-Ska—-tchak!
Lux knew her opponent was still just playing around, which was not a good thing.
She was also putting in some effort and since the objective was only to defeat the opponents, her guns that were specifically modified to kill weren't much efficient in this battle.
But still, this girl she had underestimated severely before was no ordinary person. The initial posting of this chapter occurred via n(0))vel(b)(j)(n).
-Bang!
Their fight had gone on for a while now and even with her stamina-Mana recovery skills, she was now starting to feel the effects of the battle a little bit.
On the other hand, though, this girl, her opponent, was still just dancing around, doing mostly nothing but avoiding her attacks and occasionally using some weak magic spells to counter her attacks.
"A little bit of skills, hun? This is too little, miss. I expected more from you-"
"Oh please, dear. You aren't even using twenty percent of what you can do because of those deadly weapons, I understand that much.
My magic is kind of similar. It can kill you."
Lux wanted to hold back since the exam had just started and it was uncertain just how many points one needed to attract the attention of the headmaster. And this long fight was wasting their time anyway, so she tried provoking her a little more, but El just cut her off and announced her shockingly precise analysis.
It fascinated Lux how she measured her strength as well as how much of it she was showing at the moment after only that small spar but, what she said at the end caught her eyes, so she stopped midway through reloading her Falcon211.
"You are strong, I know that much now. But, how strong?"
If it was only about defeating her, they could just use some different method to decide the winner. The winner would get a hundred points anyway, and the loser had nothing to lose since there was no minus-point system.
"More than you can think cutie."
El knew everything from the start, even the moment when she would be asked this specific question from her, so she was already prepared with that sweet smile and vague answer for her.
"More than I think, hun?"
And, seeing this response made Lux smirk pleasantly.
She had seen some pretty strong beings, creatures of great powers, and even beings that could not be found easily.
She had even seen the battles of world-renowned people. Strong people whom one couldn't always categorize in the ranks of mortals.
She at least knew how to measure the strength of her opponent, and she was accurate most of the time.
She didn't think this time was any different either. But since this girl was claiming that her strength was actually that great..
"Fine, let's do one last attack with the most we can show right now. The winner takes the victory, fine right?"
Her proposal was pretty good since both their time was being wasted here, so, instead of doing this, it was better to go find out just where they were and what was the structure of this place.
And, the two were lucky to be in a safe area like this one.
The personal system windows stated there would be monsters so there were going to be monsters in their way as they went forward, or, who knows, they could probably attack them out of nowhere.
It was possible so her request was pretty simple and acceptable.
The winner would just walk away with a hundred points and they were both here for their tests so they had to go and earn those points to pass this damn test.
"I'm fine with that too but, how about we add another condition? The winner can 'request' anything from the loser. It could be a question they would have to answer honestly or a task that they can deny if there is a reason for that."
She was smiling happily at her, and if Lucy, Eva, or even Nes were here, they would have sighed helplessly at that smile.
It looked simple, there was nothing special about this smile of hers from the outer perspective but, if one knew her well enough, one would know this was her smile of 'no good'.
She was up to something..
"A request, hun? Sounds fun. Let's do that."
And without hesitation, she knew this girl would fall for it instantly.