151 The Desert Has Hidden Secrets

Walking right on into the guild building while ignoring the usual stares and casual adventurer's ruckus, Mitsuna approached the assignment boards.

'Don't feel like doing any escorts. There are barely any materials to gather in a desert filled with weird rock pillars and cherry blossom trees.

Hunting it is then.'

Mitsuna turned towards the assignments dealing with monsters but not before a scrap of paper caught her eye.

'That one seems rather old.'

She thought and took a second glance.

'Material gathering: Pink Isolation Rhodochrosite, White Dissimulation Calcite.

Location: Inside Rare Obsidian coloured Obelisks located deep underneath the sand.'

Mitsuna grabbed the assignment to study it closer.

'That sounds much more interesting than monster hunting. Who doesn't love a treasure hunt?'

Thinking about it, she placed it back on the board.

'Though there must be a reason that it looks like it's been sitting there a while. I kind of need to focus on earning money right now so hunting monsters would be better for me...'

She looked at the monster assignments and found a few deadly-looking ones.

'... My curiosity though... What even are those gemstones and what do they do? Their names are weird and all too...'

Mitsuna tried to clear her mind of her curiosity and focused on the monster assignments.

'Infant Crusher Sandwyrm, Titanus Devourer Serpent, Desert Dweller Scorpio Golem... Hungry Coyote.

Everything here sounds interesting to see and find and kill. Maybe I should stay for longer than a month...'

Looking at the location and reward for all the monster assignments, Mitsuna noticed how each assignment that dealt with a strong monster had a secondary completion objective at the very bottom corner of each page.

'Extra reward if assignment monster is sent to attack the New West enemies. Seems like it's 2 gold for each monster at level 250+, 1 gold for each monster at level 100+ and 10 silver for each monster below level 100.'

Mitsuna was slightly surprised at the indicated numbers.

'Seems like a rich country, even more interesting is that monsters above level 250 appear on this continent.

Gosh, there's a lot to do. I could technically stay here until I reach level 250 or more.'

Mitsuna closed her eyes and wondered.

'Yep. Since I now plan to stay here for a good while, I might as well take the treasure-hunting assignment too. I doubt that registering at the army will immediately throw me on a mission on the spot either. Who's gonna stop me from enjoying myself a little?'

She decided as she glanced back towards the material-gathering assignment she had been looking at only to see a small group already holding the paper and talking about it.

'...'

A few moments later, the small group of adventurers left for the reception and took the assignment.

'Can't enjoy anything in the West...'

Mitsuna let out a quiet sigh as she looked back at the monster-hunting assignments and grabbed the Desert Dweller Scorpio Golem elimination.

Without even going to the receptionist, she walked out of the guild and took a deep breath as she walked down the street towards the high stone wall protecting the capital from the violent sandstorms.

'Now I won't get a completion reward for doing the assignment. I mean I'm still going to go look for the weird gemstones it mentioned because I'm interested but my motivation is a little lacking now...'

She thought as she dodged the rushing civilians who were running away from the gate of the wall behind her.

Audible gunshots rang across the streets as Mitsuna could see the high walls crack slightly from the loud impacts of small explosions that could be heard from the other side.

'And now something like this is happening. These Sandy Gods really can't give me a good break here.'

She sighed as she saw a few children running and tripping on the road because of the occasional rumbling that slightly shook the unstable ground.

As the few children who fell stood up and kept running without looking back, Mitsuna caught a glance at a few humanoid slimes shielding some foxkin and wolfkin kids from the hot breeze of sand as they escorted them away.

'Guess I'll see if I can help. Though, I wonder if I should already have registered for the whole war thing first.

I hope helping out a little before completely registering doesn't cause any trouble for me.'

She thought as she tried to teleport to the other side of the city and onto the high wall of the capital but stopped as she almost tripped and fell before catching herself.

'What?'

She attempted it again but the same thing happened.

'Well, this doesn't bode well for me. Space magic seems to have taken a back seat for now.'

Grabbing her gun from her back, she jumped and moved across the roofs of the buildings.

Reaching the capital wall, the roofs didn't quite reach the top so she used a small wind spell to boost herself up.

Pushing herself off of the wall with a few jumps and gushes of wind, she reached the top only to be surprised at what she saw.

'Well, shit.'

A small scattered battalion, hidden between the sandy dunes of the desert with seemingly high-tech heavy snipers.

A shot bullet approached from the left of where she was looking and hit the capital wall, resulting in most of it turning to mud and sand.

The guards on the wall who had yet to notice Mitsuna were shooting at where the bullet had come from, barely being able to see the scattered battalion strone across the vast desert.

At most all the guards could see were the occasional reflections of the sun coming from the scopes of the enemies' weapons that gave away their location, though briefly as the enemy would move to a different location after every fired shot.

'How did a battalion reach all the way to the capital? Weren't the front lines supposed to be a good ways away?'

She thought as she ducked behind the thick stone fence that stood as cover for the guards.

'A small battalion that seems to have better soldiers and weapons with good tactics attacking an immobile base.

Honestly, doesn't seem like a good situation.'

Checking the number of enemies hiding in the desert, she at least had to admit that the high ground would be of help.

'Big squadron or small battalion or whatever, there's about 280 of them. Considering that my space magic is out for the count for now because of some reason and I don't have many precise long-range spells to cast either then I might as well test this gun out on some live human personnel.'

Mitsuna thought as she peeked towards the sandy terrain of flying bullets and chose her target.

...

Continuing to rain magic bullets on the main capital city of the Old West that held most of the military might and resources that belonged to the Old West's alliance,

the Elite Gunner Squadron of the New West's R.T.A. division that was working alongside the New West's Intelligence Squadron and the New West's Elite Blade Platoon of the same R.T.A. division were showing good progress on their slow 'defence weakening' strategy.

As the attacks that solely focused on destroying the walls of the capital using terrain destroyer and mana disruptor bullets continued, the Squadron Leader Colonel who stood a good few hundred meters away from the battle was praising the strategy that the higher-ups had come up with.

"Truly a good plan to sneak a small army behind enemy lines and directly weaken their main stronghold. The stress and unease that will pile up within the enemy forces will do massive damage to their morale. Who wouldn't worry if the walls of their most guarded stronghold shattered like butter under the enemies' rain of bullets?"

The Colonel smirked to himself as he rested his head on his arm while sitting on his chair with guards surrounding him.

"The thoughts of reinforcements are slim to none thanks to the Spacial Domination Skill Item we have created and considering the fact that we are quite far away from the front lines, no squad will have time to rush and attack us neither does the capital have any deployable soldiers to send out since they'll just be gunned down by our nearly invisible Elite Gunner Squadron."

The man dressed in orange and gold smiled wickedly as the sun bounced off his tanned skin and reflected in his pure orange eyes with black pupils.

"What a vile plan they had come up with. Truly. This battle will basically decide the war."

The only things blocking his view and stopping him from sadistically enjoying the devastation the capital will soon be going through were his own locks of black hair, the bright protection and concealment camouflage barrier and the falling dead body of the guard that was just standing on his right.

"What?"

He thought as he widened his eyes and stood up from his chair, three guards immediately moved in front of him with swords drawn, ready to try and defend against any bullet that was to come his way due to the barrier now being shattered.

"Someone had noticed and destroyed the barrier along with killing a soldier of the Elite Blade Platoon?

They had a hidden trump guard. We didn't account for the possibility of them leaving high-level snipers at their main stronghold since they're already being pushed back at the front. This is bad."

He said as he held his mouth while slightly ducking behind the guards that awaited his command.

"It's fine. The damage is dealt already and the unease and fear are going to set in. Inform all soldiers on the battlefield, temporary retreat the way we arrived from. We can't lose any good soldiers because we stuck to a retrospectively faulty and vile plan. The communication device is a one-time use, it would be wasteful to use it now."

The man said as he placed his hand on one of the soldier's shoulders and nudged him and only him to go inform the next rank of commanders while ignoring the clear hypocrisy in his previous statements, immediately going from 'good plan' to 'bad plan'.

As the soldier nodded and was starting to move to complete the order, just as the Colonel raised his hand off of the soldier's shoulder, a bullet flew and cut through the soldier's shoulder and the Colonel's hand as it exploded into fire, scorching everyone around and destroying the communication device located in the Colonel's ear.

*Clank*

The soldier fell to the ground screaming in pain as he fell on a soldier next to him, their armours clanking against each other.

"Sir!"

A soldier yelled as he moved to assist the Colonel whose face had been scorched and whose two fingers had been blown off.

He struggled against the ringing in his ears and pain on his face and hand as he looked up and grabbed the soldier who was trying to help him.

"We must move. Order to retreat immediately. They've started using magic bullets and the maestro who has crafted them is most likely extremely high level."

The Colonel said, surprisingly calm as he ripped the melted piece of magical technology out of his ear that was ringing in pain.

"Yes, sir!"

The soldier assisted the Colonel in standing as they started to walk further from the capital walls while the remaining soldiers, injured and uninjured, scattered to inform the commanders who could still use their communication devices.

Word quickly spread as command ordered to blast them with one final volley of attacks using the latest one-time use malformation bullets.

Every gunner, as they heard the command was flustered as the Colonel, behind his nearly Tier 5 barrier was wounded and two Elite Blade Soldiers with near sound speed reaction time were almost killed.

Each gunner took out a silver revolver with one large hole in the cylinder instead of the usual six from their back belt.

As all the 120 Elite Gunners charged the weapon with as much mana as needed before unleashing the volley, they were even more surprised to hear command order them to fire immediately as 10 of their comrades had already been killed in the time that they'd taken to ready their gun.

An orchestra of gunshots immediately rang out as the moment the gunners fired their weapon, the revolvers turned to dust and the enemy started their retreat while not looking back.

A volley of bullets that seemed to suck all types of matter towards the centre of the bullet while turning said matter into dust.

That volley flew towards the already weakened walls of the capital as some bullets were destroying each other on the way, approaching too close to each other's radius of disintegration.

Few of the bullets managed to even reach the walls, the majority of them being destroyed by each other.

Nevertheless, the bullets while distorting the space around them and destroying the matter in said space closed in on the walls.

Those that hit destroyed large sections before imploding on themselves, killing the few guards that stood on the walls near the blast zone.

One bullet even reached Mitsuna's location.

...

"What a shitty barrier."

Mitsuna muttered to herself as she had shattered the clear barrier with one bullet.

'The distortion in space was way too obvious, illusions in the desert don't affect me either so it basically looked like a wet spot on a piece of paper.'

Focusing her sight on the now shattered barrier, she thought she was lucky as the shot bullet managed to hit the mana signature she felt on the other side of the barrier.

'Honestly, thought they'd react to that.'

Quickly glancing across the barren battlefield, she ducked and moved over slightly as her hair would be easy to spot.

'I don't want to use all my bullets here since they cost money and I'd like to practice with my shooting and precision a bit more...

Though I guess I can just do that now.

Use the situation that I've been presented with.'

Looking out from behind the stone and aiming towards the shattered barrier once again, she wasn't sure if her bullets could pierce through the armour of the enemies or not considering the distance but as she saw a man with fancy clothes holding the shoulder of one of the guards, she thought

'What the heck.' as she fired another shot.

'Even if it doesn't pierce the armour, the guy who looks like the leader would lose a finger or two if my aim is good here.'

She thought as she ducked back behind the wall, moved from her location by a few meters and looked back towards the location where the shattered barrier had just fully dispersed.

Focusing her sight, she smiled slightly as she thought

'Nice three for one. Two fingers and a shoulder isn't bad. But an error on my part that regular bullets and magic bullets are both in one clip.'

She studied the area and the locations where the occasional bullets came from after a quick thought about the newest gun models.

'The snipers don't seem to be moving at random but rather in a detailed cycle. Looks like they had this thing quite planned out.'

Further studying the enemy positions so she could get a good combo or hopefully even a two-for-one bullet the next time she fired, she was disrupted by a guard who was taking cover near her location.

"Oi! What're you doing here, kid?"

"Oh. Hello. Shooting practice. You?"

She answered calmly to the person she had just met.