PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

Unfortunately, for the people in charge of patrolling the outer area, the few entry points into the city were in forested terrain, making surveillance very difficult.

As one of the squads assigned to surveillance and patrol duties, Desmond and his men had to spend an enormous amount of time in the wild, dealing with all natural obstacles and lost mutated beasts.

For Desmond, it was a rather tedious task; with the current strength of the best members of his squad, there wasn’t much for him to do. Things might be different if the team encountered an intelligent beast as ridiculously strong as the lightning wolf Keneth, but such a thing never happened.

When dealing with low-ranking mutated beasts, Silvia’s ice blades, Claire’s telekinetic strikes, and Morales’s sonic shots were more than enough. The rest of the squad occasionally used their various abilities to fight, but the gap in talent and potential was quite apparent.

Desmond didn’t seem bothered by the uneven performance of his men; he knew that things like innate talent had a significant influence on this sort of thing, and it wasn’t realistic of him that everyone in his squad was super geniuses.

In a way, it was good enough that Silvia and Morales had reached that level of performance without the support of resources or knowledge. For Claire, who had both knowledge and resources at her disposal, seeing the current level of Silvia and Morales put her under a lot of pressure. It was to be expected; Claire didn’t usually take training very seriously. Such a thing was difficult for a person like her, who is generally too energetic and distracted.

Days of patrol passed without much change; even when Rundert sent Desmond’s squad into one of the more sensitive areas, it wasn’t like he was in control of C Country’s activities, so it was a pretty quiet week.

Speaking of that spiteful, twisted man, Desmond knew in advance that the commander was up to something, but it seemed the man had become somewhat wary and wasn’t ready to make a move.

.....

Bored with patrolling, Desmond began to check the weapons he had with him. Following Morales’ notice weeks ago, Desmond had gone to look at the new trading facility that had come to town.

As expected of a mega-corporation, building a gigantic shopping center in the middle of a defensive fortress was not out of their reach; god knows what kind of deal they made for the government of Country F to allow such eccentricity.

For Desmond, the appearance of this mall was both a misfortune and a blessing. On the unfortunate side, Desmond spent hours accompanying Claire, Sasha, and Cecilia shopping at the mall, an activity that lasted for three days.

In addition to the endless amount of clothes, accessories, beauty products, and other things the girls bought, there were some purchases related to the comforts of home, so Desmond couldn’t complain about that.

After three days of torture, Desmond discovered the holy grail inside the mall. It turned out that the mall was owned by the Asakura conglomerate, which was well known in the weapons industry, and much to Desmond’s delight, there was a subsidiary of their weapon branch within the mall.

At that subsidiary, Desmond got the weapons he now carried with him. In the first instance, there were a pair of elegant-looking pistols, silver in color with some blue details.

The appearance of the pistols alone was unbelievable, but the size and design stood out the most. No matter how you looked at them, those pistols must have weighed almost ten kilos each, something a normal human being would never be able to wield appropriately.

On the design side, the blue patterns on the weapon resembled an incredibly rudimentary version of the runes Desmond was familiar with. According to the explanation Desmond obtained, these were essentially energy veins made of Esper Crystal, a central part of the new generation of firearms that was in development.

In layman’s terms, the crystal veins within the weapon allowed energy to pour in, generating a momentary pulse that imbues projectiles, increasing both the speed and penetration of bullets.

This sounded pretty good, but after some experimentation, Desmond realized that the boost was relatively minor and that most of the weapon’s destructive power came from the reinforcements that came with the size increase.

The lack of real progress in the technology behind the weapon disappointed Desmond a bit, but upon further thought, this made a lot of sense. The humans were trying to adapt this new energy source to what they already knew; it was expected that the process would be long-lasting and come in small steps.

On the other hand, for a gun fanatic like Desmond, just buying both pistols for his personal collection was enough profit. Once there, Desmond couldn’t resist the temptation and purchased a slightly improved version of the assault rifle he had already used.

In this case, the rifle performance improvements were less significant, but the new design and the slight improvement were enough for Desmond to spend a fair amount of money.

Whatever the case, Desmond was happy with his purchases. The only negative about it was the rebuke he received from Claire when he returned home; Claire had never been very positive about Desmond’s fondness for weapons. Even now, while on patrol, Claire would occasionally give Desmond reproachful glances whenever he was distracted by appreciating his guns.

Another couple of hours passed, and it seemed that nothing would happen today since it had become routine. At least, that was the thought on everyone’s mind; such an idea changed when a bullet hit the bark of a tree right next to Silvia.

Following the previous bullet, a lead rain rained down on Desmond’s squad, but with the help of natural cover and the defensive shield erected by Claire, no one was injured.

The repetitiveness of the routine had numbed the senses of most of Desmond’s squad members, but after a shout from Claire, they all ducked for cover. Just as everyone was covered, Claire, now covered in sweat, dropped the defensive barrier.

Claire’s strength and understanding of her telekinetic ability had advanced quite a bit, but fending off a torrent of bullets for more than a couple of seconds was still too much for her.

Relying on the law of sound, Morales was the first to find the exact source of the enemy fire, passing the message quickly before using his crystal revolver to fire back.

Following a loud acoustic blast, a highly compressed multicolored sonic wave found its way to the hideout of the hostile force before exploding with the power of a grenade, injuring several people taking cover in the area.

Following Morales’ trail, Silvia, who spent a few seconds gathering energy, fired a long ice spear in the same direction. With distance and lack of visibility, the spear didn’t hit anyone on the other side, but after a second delay, a loud explosion of icy shrapnel swept a couple of meters around the spear.

The screams of pain from the enemy force and the shots fired in response by Desmond’s squad caused a momentary ruckus, during which a grenade went unnoticed until it fell at Silvia’s feet.

Silvia’s complexion turned pale with a single glance, but before something fatal could take place, purple energy surrounded the grenade and launched it back the way it came from, though it exploded midway.

Without thinking about it, Silvia knew that it was Claire who had just saved her life. Feeling grateful in her heart, Silvia began to prepare another ice spear. During the time it took for Silvia to form another attack, she finally noticed something wasn’t quite right. While the entire squad was retaliating, with her, Claire, and Morales at the forefront, Desmond was nowhere to be found.

When Silvia became aware of Desmond’s absence, eight popping sounds stood out from the rest of the gunfire; immediately, all counterattacks from the enemy side ceased. A couple of seconds passed while Desmond’s squad remained on alert, but the sight of their leader casually waving at them relaxed everyone.

After checking for injuries, the squad met their leader, only to find a little more than a dozen corpses around him. Aside from three bodies that had been impaled by chunks of ice and two that had been blown away by Morales’s sonic wave, the rest had a single bullet hole, a pretty huge one.

Everyone quickly focused on the silver pistols in Desmond’s hands, and after adding one plus one, everyone realized what had happened. For many squad members, it was a bitter pill to realize how ridiculously strong Desmond was, who might as well fight without them, but for others, Desmond’s strength gave them a kind of confidence and security.

Oblivious to his men’s thoughts, Desmond was focused entirely on the corpses around him. “The color and the insignia match, the number of elements and the layout too.”

Curious to hear Desmond’s comment, Morales asked. “Match what?”

“With a scouting squad from C country, judging by the way they attacked us on sight, this was much more than just checking the ground; I fear that war is near.”