Chương 63: Penetration

"Th-those things... they really d-do look incredibly t-tough, don't they?" Aiko whispered, her voice dropping down to its usual hyper-delicate, low-volume squeak that barely cleared the rustling leaves. Our resident, hyper-anxious berserker was practically vibrating with a fresh wave of existential dread, staring out at the armored fungal monstrosities through her messy bangs while her tiny hands twitched nervously.

Before I could form a witty reply about the structural integrity of angry rotting lumber, I felt the heavy, reassuring weight of Dimitri's massive hand land gently on my shoulder. I tilted my head back to look at him and found our burly savior smiling down at me, his rugged features radiating a spectacular, completely unshakable confidence that made me feel like we were just out for a casual weekend stroll instead of hunting mutated vegetation.

"Ah, my brilliant young friend, perhaps this is the perfect, most magnificent moment for you to finally showcase the hidden ability of a weapon you have not yet revealed to us," Dimitri rumbled, his thick Russian accent warming the chilly forest air with an absolute, overwhelming tide of pure, unadulterated kindness. He squeezed my shoulder gently, sounding exactly like a legendary warrior quoting from an ancient book of motivational wisdom.

"The grandest, most triumphant weapon against heavily armored enemies is always the one that strikes directly at the very heart of their stubborn defenses!" I offered a very confident, knowing nod back at Dimitri, realizing our resident defender was entirely right. It was officially time to pull out the heavy machinery and do some serious structural damage to these oversized mushrooms.

With a quick, practiced mental command to my digital storage space, I summoned my Standard Issue Matchlock right into my empty hands. The mass-produced infantry rifle materialized instantly, its slightly grooved wooden stock settling comfortably into my grip thanks to its steady grip feature, though the unpolished wood felt just as prone to giving me splinters as it always did.

"Alright, System, lay some cold, hard math on me," I muttered under my breath, squinting through my squint-guard bandana as I called upon the inner workings of our digital reality.

"What kind of lovely armor penetration percentages are we actually looking at here if I decide to start poking holes in these overgrown logs using my trusty Musket?" [System Calculation: Both Musket and Blunderbuss class weapons possess an inherent piercing trait that successfully ignores seventy percent of any enemy armor type.] The monotone, clinical voice of the female System echoed smoothly through the quiet corners of my mind, giving me the exact mathematical assurance I needed to turn these walking compost heaps into a collection of very expensive Swiss cheese.

"Seventy percent armor penetration? Well, color me genuinely impressed because that is actually not a bad deal at all," I murmured to myself, a massive, highly satisfied grin plastering itself across my face beneath my squint-guard bandana. That gorgeous little piece of mechanical math meant those lumbering compost heaps over there were about to have a very bad afternoon.

"Hold on just one single moment, did your uneducated lips just utter the words seventy percent armor penetration?" June suddenly interjected, her thick, hyper-aristocratic British accent cutting through the quiet forest air like a silver butter knife. She locked her narrow eyes directly onto me, her royal posture tightening beneath her faded linen tunic as if the sheer concept of my gun was personally offending her bloodline. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road.

If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Yeah, I absolutely did," I replied, blinking blankly at her dramatic reaction while shifting the weight of my mass-produced infantry rifle.

"Why exactly are you looking at me like I just grew a second head?"

"What do you mean why, you utterly clueless peasant? That is completely and utterly absurd!" June huffed, tossing her head back with a thoroughly dramatic flair that was practically dripping with her usual heavy layers of narcissistic grandeur.

"The very concept of bypassing seventy percent of an enemy's defenses, let alone possessing any form of armor penetration whatsoever at this stage, is a ridiculous and deeply offensive concept! My glorious magical class is widely recognized as one of the single hardest-hitting professions in the entire realm of Eteria, yet even my unparalleled genius can still be thoroughly punished and completely shut down by heavily armored adversaries!

With a sufficiently dreadful matchup, my magnificent elemental spells could wind up dealing flat zero damage to a foe, and yet you somehow possess that incredibly stupid, entirely unfair ability completely for free?"

"I mean... it wasn't exactly what I would call free," I replied, rubbing the back of my neck with my trigger-finger wraps as I gave her a highly defensive look.

"I had to fork over a grand total of one hard-earned gold coin each to purchase both the Musket and the Blunderbuss from the creepy shop vendor." June stared directly at me with an expression that strongly suggested she was actively considering choking me to absolute death, purely because my brain was apparently entirely too thick to comprehend the monumental, earth-shattering injustice of the situation.

Her pristine royal mask was completely cracking under the sheer weight of her statistical frustration, and she looked at me like I was a remarkably dense rock that had somehow cheated its way into a grand lottery victory. Realizing that actual, literal smoke might start pouring out of her royal ears at any given second, I decided it was probably in my best interest to break eye contact and swiftly looked away from her before she could cast an unauthorized spell on my face.

I focused my gaze through the thick undergrowth, lining up the sights of my Standard Issue Matchlock to target the absolute farthest Fungal Shambler hanging out by the massive tree trunks. I slowly took a deep, steadying breath, feeling the strange, electric thrill of executing my very first long-range sniping attempt in this bizarre digital wilderness.

"Musket style: Tier One," I murmured under my breath, letting out a slow, controlled exhale as the textured palm of my wraps kept my hands perfectly steady against the splintery wooden stock.

"Arcane Discharge: Long-Trace Bolt." The very instant the declaration left my lips, I felt exactly one point of my precious mana pool drain away, channeling directly into the straight iron barrel of my firearm. The rifle responded immediately, beginning to aggressively overcharge as a low, humming magical energy crackled around the weapon, ready to unleash a localized disaster on that unsuspecting moss-covered log.

The overcharged musket violently erupted, spitting out a brilliant, neon blue bullet of pure concentrated magic that hissed aggressively through the damp forest air. Thanks to the unique long trace bolt configuration, the projectile picked up an absurd, whiplash inducing amount of extra flight speed, rocketing straight past the closer vegetation with the single-minded purpose of a heat-seeking missile aiming for a target.

The hyper-fast bullet rushed directly toward the farthest Fungal Shambler in the pack, tearing through the distance in the blink of an eye and slamming brutally right into the center of its hardened wooden head. The sheer physical impact was so ridiculous that the magical round completely punched a hole straight through the front of its skull, exiting cleanly out the back in a spray of splintered bark and glowing blue sparks.

The massive log-beast let out a wet, gargling choke as its heavy quadrupedal body collapsed forward onto the damp dirt, shivering and twitching uncontrollably as its high vitality pool desperately tried to stitch its brain back together.

"Wow, it actually managed to survive a literal hole through the skull," I muttered, blinking in genuine surprise as I peeked over the top of my iron sights.

"Talk about a seriously high survivability rate for a bunch of walking firewood." Down in the clearing, the sudden explosion and the sound of their buddy hitting the floor like a sack of wet bricks finally registered with the rest of the pack, causing the six remaining Fungal Shamblers to slowly, awkwardly begin looking around the immediate vicinity. They turned their blind wooden faces left and right with the urgency of a sleepy sloth trying to remember where it left its car keys.

"They are incredibly slow on the uptake and possess some of the poorest environmental observation skills I have ever witnessed in my entire life," I whispered to our hidden group, a wicked grin spreading across my face beneath my squint-guard bandana.

"Since they can't see us to save their pathetic plant lives, let's play some games with these overgrown mushrooms."