"Slow! Too slow!"

The Executioner’s voice rang out right as the hammer fell.

BANG!

I dragged my rifle up and fired, desperately trying to predict the trajectory. But my aim was off by a fraction of a millimeter. I failed to intercept.

The live round slammed violently into my left shoulder.

"Ugh—!"

A dizzying, white-hot pain struck my brain like a lightning bolt. The sheer kinetic force of the shot threw me off balance, my blood splattering against the ruined wallpaper.

"Here comes another!" the Executioner shouted, not giving me a single second to recover.

BANG!

I grit my teeth, ignoring the burning hole in my shoulder, and racked the bolt. I fired blindly, relying purely on instinct and my Marksmanship skill.

Clink! Sparks flew in the middle of the hallway. I barely managed to succeed in Interception, my bullet deflecting his just enough to bury them both into the floorboards.

Even if Ricochet was completely out of my league, I could somehow manage a basic Interception in a live-fire scenario.

[Sixth Sense (Lv. 3) has detected a Curved Shot!]

The alarm bells in my head screamed. I violently twisted my body just as I saw the bullet sweeping around the shattered doorframe, aiming dead center for my back.

I fired my hunting rifle backward over my shoulder. I actually succeeded in hitting his bullet mid-air, but I didn’t hit it at the right angle. It wasn’t fully intercepted; the trajectory merely shifted downward.

The bullet tore straight through my right thigh.

I hit the floor hard, sliding on the wood.

"Don’t stop!" the Executioner ordered coldly. "Now, two shots! Left and right!"

BANG! BANG!

Forcing my bleeding, agonizing body to move, I rolled onto my back and fired consecutively to both sides, pushing my rifle’s bolt action to its absolute mechanical limit.

I successfully intercepted the bullet coming from the left. But my injured shoulder slowed my right arm down just enough to miss the second.

The heavy slug pierced my right side.

"Argh...!"

I dropped my rifle, clutching my ribs as I collapsed onto the debris. The vivid, nauseating sensation of cracked bones and pierced tissue was crystal clear. My vision blurred, black spots dancing at the edges of my sight.

Ding!

[Your understanding of Firearm Proficiency has fundamentally evolved.]

[Marksmanship Lv. 7 proficiency greatly increased.]

"Tch, tch," the Executioner clicked his tongue, slowly walking over to me and holstering his smoking dual revolvers. "Still a long way to go, kid."

Lying in a pool of my own blood, my lungs burning with every breath, I realized just how vast the gap was. I was nothing but a pebble in front of a true, century-old powerhouse.

I coughed, my back resting against the shattered wall. The Rune of Vitality in my chest was already humming, slowly working to knit my pierced organs back together.

"Executioner, sir," I wheezed, staring up at the ceiling.

"Hm?"

"Aren’t you busy?"

Lacking the eloquence to formulate a proper excuse to end the beating, this was the best I could muster. It was basically a polite way of saying, ’Please leave before you actually kill me.’

The Executioner paused, then chuckled deeply, looking down at me with a surprisingly fond expression.

"Busy?" he mused, leaning against the doorframe. "Live past two hundred years, kid, and you’ll see. Time loses its meaning."

He let out a long sigh, looking out the shattered window toward the rising sun. "I’d love nothing more than to retire to a small, quiet farm. Till a tiny field, eat, play, and sleep... but the world won’t let me rest. There are still too many demons left to hunt."

"I’m worried I’m holding you back too much, then," I rasped, clutching my bleeding side.

"Don’t worry about it," the Executioner smiled. "Thanks to the detailed information you provided, I’m completely adjusting my travel routes. I can afford to use the spare time to test you. Your intel is just that valuable."

He crouched down next to me and, surprisingly, patted my head. His hand was warm and rough from centuries of holding a gun.

"You’ll figure it out and do well," he said softly. "So kids like you should just focus on growing up healthy without overthinking the weight of the world."

Somehow, despite the fact that he had just shot me three times, his touch didn’t feel bad. It carried the heavy, melancholic warmth of a veteran who had outlived everyone he ever cared about.

"It’s a profound pity I can’t stay here longer," the Executioner murmured, standing back up. "Otherwise, I would have loved to take you as a formal disciple and train you properly. You have a terrifying amount of potential, Lucien Ashborne. Don’t let it go to waste."

"I don’t plan to," I grunted, forcing myself into a sitting position.

"Good."

The Executioner turned his back. With a faint shimmer of holy mana, the legendary First Gun Master vanished into thin air, leaving no trace behind except the bullet holes in the walls.

I let out a long, exhausted groan and dug a health potion out of my inventory, downing it in one gulp to assist the Rune of Vitality.

*****

By the time I fully healed the bullet wounds and changed into a fresh set of clothes, it was already mid-afternoon.

I walked down the stairs to the inn’s lobby.

The previously dead-silent building was suddenly filled with chaotic hustle and bustle. The innkeeper, the maids, and the carriage drivers were all rushing around, looking completely frantic and puzzled.

"How could we have all slept in so late?!" the innkeeper was yelling at a waiter. "It’s past two in the afternoon!"

My driver spotted me and rushed over, looking deeply apologetic. "Young Master Ashborne! I am so incredibly sorry! I don’t know what came over me, I just couldn’t wake up—"

"It’s fine," I interrupted, chuckling inwardly.

It was obvious what had happened. The Executioner had cast a wide-area sleeping spell or used a silent aura to knock out the entire inn so our explosive shootout wouldn’t draw the local guards.

"Just get the carriage ready," I ordered. "We’re heading to the Capital immediately."