Chương 7: Nobody Shrugs Off a Bullet to the Face

I willed the System open again, this time pulling up the skill menu, and was immediately bombarded with a seemingly never-ending list.

"Whoa." There weren't ten or twenty skills, like I'd expected. There weren't even fifty. There were hundreds. Rows and rows, each one with its own little glowing description box. It was like staring at an endless scroll of homework assignments, and my eyes glazed over instantly. For a moment, my survival instincts kicked in. No way I was reading all of that. Then my common sense resurfaced. Well… maybe I should. I didn't want to end up dead because I picked a garbage skill—or, gods forbid, be considered a loser.

That would be worse than death. Way worse. But then again, look at all that text. Just lines and lines of glowing words. It would take hours. Days. Maybe my entire life. Entire civilizations could rise and fall before I finished reading every single entry. I squinted harder. Were the letters getting smaller the further I scrolled? Finally, I sighed and dropped the whole charade.

"Perry, there must be hundreds of skills here. We need a better plan of attack." Perry gave a solemn nod.

"Right. Born from collaboration between Mēnē and Ambelios. Gunwitches practice the full breadth of witchcraft while wielding firearms, merging two traditions into one deadly path. Requires careful aim and resource management. Type: Ranged damage dealer. Primary Attributes: Dexterity, Attunement."

"Right," I said. He tilted his head.

"So, did you at least get a passive? Most people get one when they pick their class."

"Oh. Yeah." I pulled the text back up and read it out loud.

"[Quickdraw]. Speed doesn't kill. You do. Drawing and firing weapons is faster. Also applies to spells. Effectiveness scales with level." I winced. Damn it. This one also sounded corny. Why was everything corny? Was I cursed? Maybe the System had it out for me. Maybe the gods had some divine comedy routine where the punchline was always me—"Now that," Perry cut in, "is interesting."

"What?"

"The effect. Faster draws, faster casts? That's huge. If it scales with level, you might end up outpacing half the ranged classes out there simply by existing. No active skills necessary." I considered that for a moment.

"Like my father always says: you shoot first, or you're dead. If I shoot first anyway, I probably won't need much in the way of defense. And look at the attributes: Dexterity and Attunement. That's speed and accuracy, plus stronger spells and a larger mana pool. It all points to one thing: hit fast and hit hard. It would make sense to simply invest all my stat points into Dexterity and Attunement then, and choose my skills based on that as well." Perry nodded slowly.

"So you're thinking full glass cannon." I returned the nod.

"I'm thinking full glass cannon." Perry shrugged.

"High risk, high reward."

"There's no risk," I said.

"If they don't have a chance to hit me first, then it's not risky." He folded his arms.

"Yeah, but if they do hit you first, you're dead."

"Then I'll make sure they don't."

"You should never forget those words," Perry said, tone suddenly careful.

"Anything can pierce a one point barrier."

"Yeah, yeah," I waved a hand.

"I won't forget." Perry leaned back on his hands.

"Alright, so you should have one free skill point and ten stat points at level one. Or did the gods also give you double?"

"Unfortunately, they didn't. Maybe I'm not that special after all." He snorted.

"So for the first skill, you want something that hits hard. Get the most damage for your drachma."

"Yeah," I agreed. But even as I said it, another thought crept in—my mother's icy voice: For your first skill, you'll take [Omniglot]. I frowned and decided to check if it was even available to me. [Skill Available: Omniglot] This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Type: Passive Words are weapons. Now you've got the whole armory. That was a surprise, though maybe it shouldn't be.

Gunwitch was still a witch class and probably shared plenty of general skills with the others. Still, whole armory? I don't think I'd be talking anyone to death with this class. I shoved the thought aside and instead pictured Menandros standing in the field earlier that day, golden barrier flaring while his buddies hammered him with swords, arrows, even a musket, and not a single thing broke through. Right. Damage for my drachma. I'd need something that could actually crack defenses like that.

Otherwise, all the speed in the world wouldn't matter, and all the clever rhetoric in the world wouldn't save me from a fireball to the face.

"I don't think a single bullet's going to do much to a high-level barrier," I said.

"I need something that either does enough raw damage to shatter it… or a round that pierces straight through, maybe even ignores it completely. If that even exists." Perry leaned forward, thoughtful.

"So you're looking for barrier-breaking, piercing, or bypass. That should narrow it down."

"Exactly. Put everything in that first shot." Perry rubbed his chin, looking like the planner he was.

"Brute force is simple, you do enough damage up front and the barrier's gone. Piercing could be more reliable since it's less likely to be affected by the barrier's strength. Bypass or disruption is probably even cleaner: you ignore the shield completely or remove it long enough to follow up. All four solve the barrier problem in different ways." I tapped the pistol against my knee.

"Okay, so out of those, bypass seems safest. Brute force? No guarantee it'll actually crack a barrier. Piercing? Probably still depends on how thick the barrier is. Disruption? That sounds like two moves: 1. disrupt barrier 2. shoot—and by then they've already had time to turn me into dust. Bypass is the only option that makes sense. Straight through, no delay. I don't care how strong you are, nobody shrugs off a bullet to the face."

"Hard to argue with that logic," Perry agreed.

"Check the System to see if you have access to anything that fits." I willed the menu open again, scrolling through the endless list. There had to be a better way to do this. My eyes were already glazing over, line after line of text just blurring together while my brain felt like it was about to leak out of my ears. It was a total slog, and I tried convincing myself I was being thorough while my attention drifted toward anything that wasn't glowing text.

Why can't it just show me skills that completely bypass barriers? I mentally snapped the question at the System, half as a joke, half as a plea. Only one entry blinked into existence. [Clean Entry] Type: Bullet Hex Ignores barriers, excuses, and last words. Infuses a bullet or projectile with the power to bypass any barrier or armor. High mana cost. That makes sense. Probably should've tried that thought-first approach sooner, Hecate, I scolded myself. The tagline seemed less corny than the other ones.

I actually kind of liked it which was concerning. Did that mean I was becoming lamer or the system was adapting to me? Either way, someone here was changing, and I wasn't sure I liked the implications. I read it out loud for Perry, and his eyebrows went up higher with every word.

"Bypasses any barrier or armor? That's…"

"Yeah, I know," I cut in.

"Pretty much the dream skill. One problem though: with my current mana pool, I can't even cast it once." Perry shook his head.

"You do remember you've got ten free stat points sitting there, right?"

"Ha ha, of course I didn't forget," I laughed, a little too fast, a little too loud.

"Who would forget something like that? Not me. Definitely not me." I hadn't forgotten. Obviously. I was just making an observation, pointing out a fact, demonstrating awareness of the situation. If anything, it proved I was remarkably perceptive. But of course Perry had to act like I'd overlooked it entirely, like I was some kind of idiot who couldn't count to ten. Ridiculous. I remembered the stat points. I had strategically saved them, in fact. That's what a genius does—plans ahead.

Other people might recklessly assign their points right away, but not me. No, a wise person carefully considers their options, then makes an informed decision, assigning the points where their effectiveness would be maximized. Perry squinted at me.

"And now you're thinking I should be impressed that you saved the points. Like you're some kind of tactical mastermind because most people just dump them right away. You're a total genius, Hecate. You definitely didn't just sit on them because you were paralyzed by choice and wanted me to tell you how to maximize their effectiveness." My jaw dropped. Again? How did he always know? I clutched my head. Mind reader. Definitely a mind reader. There was no other explanation.

Three three three three three, I started chanting in my head, just to test him. Three. If he says it, I'm done for.

"Three," Perry said casually. I shot upright.

"By the Fates! You said three! You're in my head!" Perry just looked at me for a long time, then sighed.

"Hecate, three is always the number. Just pick the damn skill and see how many points you need to put into Attunement so you can cast it at least once."

"Fine," I muttered, accepting the skill. [Clean Entry] acquired. I pulled up my stats and shoved points into Attunement one by one until the little number finally ticked over enough to cast it a single time. Six points invested for a total of seven. Great. Which meant I'd probably need fourteen for two shots, not accounting for my mana pool passively increasing on level ups as well.

Putting points in Attunement increased your mana pool, so did levelling up, which made the exact number needed a bit difficult to calculate. So I was left with four points, which I tossed into Dexterity without hesitation. The moment I did I immediately felt a bit lighter.

Strength: 1 (1 + 0) Dexterity: 5 (5 + 0) Barrier: 1 (1 + 0) Attunement: 7 (7 + 0) Stamina: 1 (1 + 0) Luck: 1 (1 + 0) Chaos: 1 (1 + 0) Everything still said +0 since I wasn't wearing any stat increasing equipment, but with ten points freshly invested at least my numbers were starting to look a little more respectable. I grinned.

"Done." Perry gave me a small, approving nod.

"Good job."

"Yeah," another voice said behind me, dripping with mockery.

"Good job, Hecate."