First Time Shooting

After about half an hour Veronica was starting to feel bad for her instructor, Harry.

He tried his hardest to teach everything to her and take this course seriously, but every attempt was in vain.

He had shown her how to take apart and put the revolver back together. He told her about gun safety and to never point it at someone without the intension of shooting them.

He was even nice enough to go through everything multiple times when she pretended to be too dense to understand.

At first she wanted to pretend for only a few minutes, but it was just simply way too much fun.

Eventually Harry had given up on the academic instruction and he finally let her try to shoot some targets, but of course first he had to tell her everything about how to stand and how to hold the firearm.

"First, you stand in a wide stance, it will give you a lot more support and increases your accuracy by a lot. The second most important part is how you hold the handgun. Which is your dominant hand?"

Veronica pretended to contemplate the answer for a few seconds, then in the next moment she just held up both of her hands and said, "I'm ambidextrous, which one should I use?"

Her eyes looked so innocent and Harry got even more annoyed by that. Dejectedly he shook his head and said, "Right, because I'm right handed too..."

Slowly Veronica let her left hand drop, but kept her right in the air which deeply confused Harry.

"Anyway... So. You grab the handle with your right hand like this, then wrap your left around the bottom, stabilizing the whole gun!..." He showed it with an ungodly amount of patience and after a few moments, handed the unloaded revolver to Veronica.

"Okay, so right hand holding, left hand stabilizing... Like this?" Harry looked at Veronica's hand in surprise. She had managed to do it for the first time without the need to explain it more!

Yeah, at this point she was starting to get really bored, so she decided to end the course as fast as possible.

Next Harry showed her how to load the revolver, which she knew about beforehand, but she took a bit longer to at least keep up some of the previous charade. Still the instructor was really impressed with her, which was kind of insulting.

The first round wasn't shot by her. Harry wanted to show her how shooting a gun looks and sounds like first.

For a moment Veronica got concerned. In her own world people would wear large headsets or earplugs to not go deaf in these enclosed shooting ranges. The sound would echo and reverberate so much that it could cause serious hearing issues.

These thoughts circled around her head, but when he pulled the trigger the noise wasn't as loud as she thought it would be. The sound still echoed and she instantly jumped from surprise, but her ears didn't start to bleed and her eardrums were continued to work properly too.

She didn't understand if this was because of her ascended nature, or maybe there was some enchantment on the building.

'I will definitely have to ask a few questions from the others. Most importantly about this ascended guy, if they find out that I'm an illegal ascended and even worse, someone from the Dancer path... I don't really want to run from the law...'

She looked at the shot Harry took. The target was about 12 meters away and he hit it straight between the eyes. Seemingly satisfied with it he looked towards Veronica and motioned her to take his place at the counter.

Gingerly she stepped up and slowly raised the loaded gun from the counter. She spent the next few seconds getting used to its increased weight.

For a moment she wanted to scare Harry shitless and look into the barrel of the loaded gun, but that was just a really stupid idea. Also she had tortured poor Harry too much already, it was better for both of them if she ended this quickly.

Veronica raised the revolver, her hand was straight not even a small tremble in it. Her thumb moved to the back and pulled down the hammer.

The index finger moved down to the trigger, after she had decided where to aim.

Without giving herself time to think or second guess anything, she pulled the trigger.

It felt strange. The small explosion within the gun should've had some amount of recoil, but the only thing she felt was a little push. Even then, she pretended to feel every moment of it, so Harry wouldn't get suspicious.

The bullet travelled true and hit the target straight in the gut. Behind her Harry was astonished and he clapped a few times, showing his amazement.

'Did I really create that horrible of a picture about myself?! You think hitting the target is that impressive... Wait! Why am I getting mad? This was exactly what I hoped to achieve!... Now he will definitely won't think me to be an ascended!'

"Good job Miss Navarro. Now try shooting at one of the vital organs I had previously talked about!" Without looking back she raised the firearm again and took aim.

She shot the next four bullets into similarly not vital parts of the target. It would've put her in risk if she hit something too good on her first time.

Still, Harry looked very proud of her ability to shoot, but even then he made a very quick goodbye and went on his way. For some reason she had a feeling that throughout this two weeks she won't going to see Harry again.

After being done with the training she spent another ten minutes salivating over the different guns, and eventually with a sorrowful heart she left the gun shop in search of food.

While walking she opened her pocket watch and looked at the time. It was currently 10:30 am, which meant she still had a lot of time until the afternoon.

After looking around a bit she found a nice cozy cafe, where she ate a late breakfast and drank a nice tea.

By the time she made her way back to the inn, it was nearing 12 pm. Since she still had a lot of time, she again decided to do some actual work, helping out with the midday rush.

She spent the next few hours working, but even then Alex hadn't showed up. When she asked Suze about it, she only said that they wouldn't be going until the Sun went down.

She didn't quite understand why, but thinking of the area and place they wanted to investigate, it made sense.

Brothels usually only opened at night, since their main customer base would still be working in the day.

With this knowledge she worked for the rest of the day and only after they had eaten dinner, did Alex finally show up.

At around 8 pm they got on a private carriage and headed straight towards the Dirt District. In the carriage Veronica curiously asked a few things.

"So... Is there any news about the dead sailors. Any new clues to go on?" Alex didn't say anything, just continued watching the lit up houses passing by. Eventually he sighed and turned towards her.

"No... I tried to divine something at least, but it seems like the culprit has some form of anti-divination." He stayed silent for a few seconds, then with deathly seriousness he continued.

"I appreciate your help, but let me get one thing straight. If we encounter any trouble, or if I think that something is wrong, you run. I don't care that you can fight to some degree and that you have great reflexes. This is not a game, if you make the wrong move you are dead... Just, be careful..."

Veronica looked towards the street while muttering under her breath, "You sound exactly like Suze."

Next to her Alex laughed a bit, but his expression soon settled back into its brooding state.

The brothel they were about to visit wasn't that far away. It was also one of the better ones of these types of establishments, so they didn't actually need to venture into the Dirt District, which Veronica was thankful for. She didn't quite feel like going anywhere near that place.

The carriage rumbled on and the houses outside soon turned into different kinds of taverns and such places. The nightlife of Hammon hasn't awoken yet, but a few regulars were already occupying some of them.

At some point their carriage slowed down and stopped right in front of a large building.

On its front there was a well lit picture of a large red swan and below with equal amount of splendor its name was written out 'The Red Swan'.

One of the most famous brothels in the whole of Hammon. From the outside it looked like a luxurious place and it was famous for the most expensive girls.

Both she and Alex looked up at the sign, then with an equally dejected sigh they both ventured forth towards the guarded double doors.