Chương 92: For the Five Percent

Collecting heads had been harder than I'd expected. Unfortunately, a bullet through the brain was still the quickest way to stop most people (and monsters). Bogumir seemed like a pretty strong guy, and he clearly had an interesting build that could potentially help me out a lot. I decided I wasn't going to shoot him in the head unless I absolutely had to. I'd probably figure something out. I fired off two [Clean Entry] infused shots at his stomach.

Again, he didn't even bother dodging, and the shots tore him in half. I heard the chuckler chuckle. Apparently your boss getting blown to pieces was funny. He must not have liked him very much. Or that's what I thought until Bogumir's bottom half stood back up. His top half started crawling toward me with his one still-attached arm. The bottom half and his other arm followed. At this point I was the one that was getting confused. What could his big plan be? What if I shot his remaining arm off?

Would he crawl to me like a very short worm? Would he try to bite my ankles? Would he— From the corner of my eye I saw something shoot at me—my own bullet. I leaned out of the way, allowing the bullet to pass, but saw it was heading straight for a child. I blinked behind the child and fired while activating [Clean Entry], saying a little prayer to Mēnē just in case. The bullets hit each other head on and were shredded in midair. The kid was fine. Time to stop messing around before these innocent people get hurt.

I couldn't see Kasia at first glance, which meant she was probably safe and hiding somewhere. Good. One less thing to worry about. I also had 6 unassigned stat points, and 2 skill points. I dropped the stat points in Dexterity, taking my total from 57 to 63. As for the skill points, should I just take [Generous Gift]? Three kills would mean a permanent +15% increase in damage. Yeah. [Generous Gift acquired.] I had no time to consider my second skill point because a flaming boulder came hurtling right at me.

I pushed the kid away and rolled to the side, grabbing a handful of sand. There was nothing to hide behind, just an open street. Not ideal.

"You're not going to convince the people here you don't hate babies if you keep trying to kill them," I said.

"So stop hiding behind them," the chuckler said.

"Don't believe her lies," Bogumir said.

"We don't hate babies. She's a witch with a one million gold bounty on her. She will say anything to stay alive. They always do. She's extremely dangerous, which is why the bounty is so high. Think of what you would be able to buy with all that gold. Anyone who kills her will be rich beyond belief. You would be rich enough to become a Mozhnovwatsa." The crowd started murmuring, which I took as a bad sign.

I didn't know what a Mozhnovwatsa was, but it was probably something like a lord, or at least some kind of position people wanted to be in and required a great sum of money. That son of a bitch handed them a dream, right after I convinced them the Church didn't allow them. Several men separated from the crowd, joining the inquisitors. Just great. Every time I don't immediately kill my opponents the situation gets worse somehow. Because I had allowed them time to talk, now the crowd was turning against me.

Even despite my amazing baby speech.

"You know," I said.

"One million gold might sound good, but it's hard to spend when you're dead. And I can assure you, anyone who steps against me will die. In fact, anyone who even has thoughts about harming me—maybe you're thinking about stabbing me in the back, in a moment when I appear weak—will die. Just a warning. If you have those thoughts and you don't want to burn, you better get far away from me." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. A couple of them hesitated.

Some people left the crowd.

"Last chance," I said.

"Anyone who is against me will die."

"She's trying to scare you," Bogumir said.

"She can't read your minds, and she can't burn you. She's no fire mage."

"Oh yeah? I can't read minds? Then how come I know you're thinking about wearing women's underwear right now?"

"What the fuck?" Bogumir said. I used that small moment of confusion to [Blink] behind Jerzy, but as soon as I got there I was unable to move. Had he anticipated me doing that and set a trap? I didn't even see him cast. Jerzy slowly turned around, laughing.

"Predictable little witch."

"Oh yeah? Did you predict this?" I said and used [Flame Breath] setting Jerzy on fire. One of the men who had stepped forward also ignited, followed by someone in the crowd. People started crying and screaming.

"She can read minds!" someone said. [Generous Gift +5% Damage] [Generous Gift +10% Damage]"Don't say I didn't warn ya!" I said as I pounced on Jerzy, who was screaming as well, clutching his burning face. He fell backwards, me on top of him. I squeezed a shot off in his side and one in his chest. [Generous Gift +15% Damage] [You have gained 1 level.] [You have gained 1 skill point.] [You have gained 3 stat points.] My hair caught on fire, and for a moment I was scared that without Karn's Face I wouldn't have enough resistance to handle it, but it quickly became clear that it was plenty. Upgrading [All in One] had been the right choice. I got up, and the fire spread until my whole body was enveloped in flames. I used another [Flame Breath], sweeping from side to side. I didn't try to hit anyone, I did it just to be cool and intimidating. Going by the looks on people's faces it worked.

Even Bogumir and the chuckler looked surprised. I toggled on [Pyroclasm] for good measure hoping to trigger it a couple of times to give the people here a nice show. An arrow flew at me from the crowd. I didn't bother dodging and it bounced off my [Mana Shield]. I hadn't seen who fired it. Didn't really matter. Most of these people probably couldn't harm me, and with a bit of luck the passive from Ring of Kindling would ignite some more people feeling less than charitable toward me.

Especially the guy (or gal) who shot the arrow. Another arrow arced in my direction. I shot it out of the air and the crowd gasped.

"Don't bother," I said, looking in the direction the arrow had come from. I still had no idea who was shooting at me though.

"If you want to burn so badly, I will grant you your wish." Bogumir slowly started crawling toward me again. Something felt off about it. Was he pretending to be weak, hoping to surprise me with some kind of crazy attack once he got close? He didn't really think he could fool me with that, did he? It was obvious someone who wasn't bothered by being in pieces had more than one trick up his sleeve.

"Do you want to die first?" I asked one of the two regular guys still standing ready to fight me. The man looked scared, but still unwilling to give up his big payday.

"You can hit me if you want," I said.

"You get one for free, so better make it count." The man hesitantly started walking, then stopped in front of me. I wondered what he was going to do. If he tried to hit me, he'd probably only hurt himself. In the worst case scenario he could ignite and set some of his less than friendly friends in the crowd on fire with a bit of bad luck on their part. Worst case for them, that is. Before he could do anything however an enormous flaming boulder came at me. Since I'm me, I blinked away just in time.

The other guy was not me, and while I couldn't exactly see what happened to him, I doubted he was able to survive getting blasted through a house by a big rock.

"Hey!" I yelled at the chuckler.

"You just cost me five percent extra damage!"

"Go fuck yourself!" he replied. I gasped, offended, then fired a couple of shots in his direction. He laughed and pulled up a wall of rock, blocking my bullets. Exactly what I was hoping for. I blinked next to him, catching him off guard. Startled, he took a step back, but I cast [Flame Breath], setting him ablaze.

"That was for the five percent!" I shouted over the roar of fire. The flames vanished as quickly as they appeared, and I found myself staring straight into the chuckler's grinning face.

"What was that?" he asked.

"I couldn't hear you over my fire immunity." Oh come on.