Sibling, Politics, and Upgrade
Theoretically speaking, searching for a huge deer in that grassland wouldn't be a hard task. Even with Wolfie's help, Del and Cole couldn't find any animal worth to be hunted. There was a rabbit, a small one, but it would only feed Wolfie, not three of them.
"I swear searching a deer in this grassland is harder than searching for gold coins on bandits' body," Del looked as far as his eyes could see, there was simply nothing but slimes.
"Well, we can eat slimes, but I doubt Wolfie wants that," Cole commented as he saw a slime beside him.
Still, during that time, he wondered about something that was inside of his mind ever since he was "kicked" out of the heroes' party. He wondered what happened to Anna. The last time he saw her, she was very upset about his banishment.
Del could accept the fact that he was weak, but he couldn't accept the fact that he was banished for it. It was simply unacceptable, did they really have no use for him? Del was still upset about that. Perhaps, in the future, when he somehow became influential enough, he could demand an answer.
Del shared his thought with Cole, "Cole, you did mention that you have a little sister, how old is she?"
Cole replied, "She is nineteen years old now. Why do you even ask?"
Del sighed, "I'm worried about my sister, you know? If the king treated me like this, I do not doubt that she will be treated like me sooner or later. If she makes the slightest of mistake, I doubt there will be any tolerance for her."
Cole patted Del's back, "You know, I was once as old as you are, I did worry about my little sister too, but trust me, they are sometimes more capable than they look like. She is sometimes clingy or speaks like our own mother, but that's just the way she is caring for you."
Del chuckled, "It's rare to see you this wise. How old are you anyway?"
Cole laughed, "Hahaha, I am 22 years old."
"Oh, I see. Damn, you look young for what you are," Del commented.
"I see. Anyway, about your sister, why are you fearing for her? You never tell me much about her," Cole commented.
"Have I ever told you that I'm not from here? I mean, I'm not even from this world. I was summoned from another world by their court magicians to fight the demon lord or whoever the demon lord is to return to Earth," Del explained.
"Earth?" Cole looked at Del with a confused face.
"A place so far from here. It's very far that you can't reach it, Cole," Del explained.
"I am not sure about the current predicament about the war between the demon and human back in the demon continent. I mean, it's not like demon continent consists of one country and one country only. There are many countries inside of the demon continent and all of them have different agendas. The one that is in war with Elbanian is the Reian, not us all," Cole explained.
Del was aware that the stereotypes that demons are evil and humans are good are just pure propaganda made by the higher-ups of the Elbanian Kingdom. However, he wasn't aware that there was only one kingdom in direct war with the Elbanian Kingdom. It just further complicated things.
If that was true, then the king was really fooling the kids with nearly superhuman abilities to fight for their war that they didn't even understand. No matter how Del looked at it, the heroes were just a bunch of kids looking for instant gratification, and the king provided it for them. Del agreed that he used to be one of them, but he just felt that the heroes were looking for the wrong kind of gratification.
One thing about warfare though, Del couldn't find enough reasons why would Elbanian go to war with the demons. It was simply a war against a race, wasn't it? What made it different from genocide? The fact that the war was considered to be a holy war? Or the fact that demons also had their own share of atrocity?
"Why would Elbanian go to war with Reian?" Del asked.
"Resources war. You see, Reian is one of the biggest deposits of magical stones available around here. That magical stone that is supposed to sell for twenty gold coins per kilogram only costs around one gold coin per kilogram in Reian," explained.
"I see…" Del nodded, he knew that something was indeed fishy about the war.
So, basically, Reian defended their territory from Elbanian while Elbanian was the true invader. The truth was often surprising, wasn't it? Del previously thought that Reian attacked Elbanian first and Elbanian continued by attacking Reian under the guise of holy war.
"If Elbanian called this the Second Holy War, what would the demon call this?" Del asked.
"I attended a seminar in my university out of curiosity. It was a research paper seminar attended by many students from different majors. I remember that someone from International Relations major called it Reian Genocide," Cole said.
"Genocide?" Del looked at Cole in disbelief.
"Yeah, and people wonder why they would have to take a one-year-long military training before they could start researching the human continent," Cole sighed.
"Wait, are you a part of the military?" Del asked.
"Not quite, but if I joined the military, I am instantly promoted to Corporal," Cole answered.
"I see, is your sister in the university?" Del nodded.
"Yup, she's on her second year in medical major," Cole said.
"Hahaha, I wish I can enroll, but I doubt it. Right now, I only can kill and kill, I doubt I can do that anymore," Del commented.
"Hey, everyone had their own chance of redemption, you know?" Cole smiled.
"Perhaps? But not now," Del said.
Wolfie barked. He was looking at a deer that was standing in the grassland. The deer finally arrived. Well, it would be the deer's last meal anyway. Del loaded his Kar98 with normal ammo and aimed for the head of the deer.
Del pulled the trigger of his rifle, "Headshot."
The deer dropped dead in the ground. Del walked towards the deer and carried it on his back. The deer was very heavy. It meant that they would have quite a banquet tonight. Del didn't know whether Cole was a capable cook or not though.
"What will you cook?" Del asked as he carried the deer.
"What do you want?" Cole shrugged.
"Stew, perhaps?" Del asked.
"Well, I'm thinking more of making grilled meat, would you mind if I cook that?" Cole asked.
"No problem at all, but you will be the one that skinned the deer, I don't want to do that," Del said.
"Alright, alright," Cole nodded.
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The meal was good. There was no comment about it. Cole was more capable than Del previously had thought. The meat was still juicy and wasn't smelly at all. Rina still had her own fair share of failures when cooking after all.
Del wasn't a capable cook, all of the cooking jobs were passed down to his sister after his mother passed away. Basically, Del only could cook instant noodles and that was it. His sister, on the other hand, seemed to be capable of cooking everything.
"Nice one, the meat was delicious," Del commented as he put his fork and knife at the clean plate.
"Thanks," Cole picked up the plate and he headed for the kitchen.
After the meal, Del was thinking about a total upgrade to both his guns and his equipment. Using MG-42 was fun, but it was rather inaccurate and ammo-wasting as well. It also had a very long reload time and wasn't very practical in close-quarter combat due to its bulky size.
The power of 7.92 Mauser was more than adequate for taking down any target so Del wouldn't need to even use the AP round. He noticed that even the regular bullet was able to penetrate the Mithril armor quite easily.
Maybe he could use a battle rifle. It has more power than an assault rifle and had more ergonomics than a general-purpose machine gun. Still, the downsides were its small magazine capacity compared to a general-purpose machine gun and its heavier weight compared to an assault rifle.
Del was also thinking of buying armor for himself. He thought of buying the FLAK jacket to protect him from the danger of an explosion spell that even an armor would have a hard time protecting due to fragmentation from nearby objects. Against blunt or sharp objects, a metal armor would be useful, but against fragmentation, it was another thing.
Del was too sleepy. It might be a good idea to sleep first before thinking about the upgrade that he should buy.