Chapter 122: My Next Rifle Upgrade Was Inside a Monster Faster Than Me

Dunvar disappeared behind them beneath a haze of gray smoke and metallic noise.

Raven didn’t look back.

It had taken longer to acquire Black Mithril than to kill several of the creatures that had fed Predation since he arrived in Veyr. They had infiltrated a noble reception, pretended to be in a relationship, entered an illegal mine, survived an attempt to bury them underground, and finally negotiated with enough evidence to make three separate organizations uncomfortable.

In exchange, Raven carried a sealed crate of Black Mithril refined to 84.6% purity.

Worth it.

FORGE appeared to agree.

[PROJECT: PROTOTYPE RIFLE]

[Completion: 52.8%]

[Core Components: 3/6]

[COMPLETED]

[1. Activation System — Arc Needle Queen Impulse Spark]

[2. Stable Mana Storage — Deepwell Toad Crystalline Reservoir]

[3. Structural Barrel — High-Purity Black Mithril]

[REMAINING]

[4. Projectile Acceleration — NOT ACQUIRED]

[Required Function: Convert stored mana into controlled forward kinetic impulse.]

[Recommended Biological Analogue: "Kinetic Pulse"]

[Known Source: Stormhorn Courser]

[Primary Habitat: VELIS.]

[5. Projectile Stabilization — NOT ACQUIRED]

[Required Function: Maintain projectile orientation and trajectory under extreme acceleration.]

[Compatible Biological Analogue: UNKNOWN.]

[6. Recoil Regulation — NOT ACQUIRED]

[Required Function: Redirect or absorb rearward kinetic force generated during discharge.]

[Compatible Biological Analogue: UNKNOWN.]

[Recommended Acquisition Priority: PROJECTILE ACCELERATION.]

Raven closed the interface as his horse descended along the eastern road.

Valeria rode beside him.

Her leg was no longer wrapped, although she still moved it a little more carefully whenever she adjusted in the saddle. The healer in Dunvar had assured them that the bruising wouldn’t leave permanent damage.

Raven had checked twice.

Valeria had noticed both times.

She hadn’t mentioned it.

Yet.

"Fifty-two point eight," she said.

Raven looked at her. "Are you keeping track of my project now?"

"After nearly being crushed to death acquiring one of its materials, I believe I’ve earned the right to be interested."

"You didn’t nearly die."

Valeria gave him a patient look. "A support beam pinned my leg inside a mine that people were deliberately collapsing on top of us."

"And you got out."

"Because you came back."

Raven let several seconds pass.

They had already had that conversation.

Valeria clearly had no intention of letting it die.

"Do you want me to start regretting it?"

"I want to see what you do when someone mentions something you can’t solve by calling it logistics."

Raven looked back toward the road.

"Usually I wait until they get tired."

"Then we have a long journey ahead of us."

"That concerns me."

Valeria smiled.

Their conversations felt more natural now.

Not because Raven had suddenly become sociable. He had simply stopped treating every sentence longer than five words as unnecessary information.

Roland rode several yards behind them and laughed.

"For once, I’m on Lady Valeria’s side."

Raven glanced over his shoulder.

"That explains why you’ve spent the entire trip far enough away to avoid being included in the conversation."

"I’ve learned a lot traveling with the two of you."

Valeria answered, "Mostly strategic cowardice."

"I prefer situational awareness."

Raven nodded. "That is useful."

Valeria exhaled through her nose.

"I’m going to ban that word."

"I don’t think you have the authority."

"Yet."

Raven decided not to ask what that meant.

He had learned things too.

The landscape began changing two days after they entered Velis.

Dunvar had been stone, smoke, tunnels, and buildings that reduced the sky to narrow strips between rooftops.

Velis was the opposite.

The land opened completely.

Yellow-green grasslands stretched between gentle hills until they disappeared into the horizon. The roads had few walls, almost no trees, and practically nowhere to hide for miles. Massive clouds gathered in the west every afternoon, moving slowly across the plains before releasing storms visible long before they arrived.

Raven needed only a few hours to decide he disliked it.

Valeria caught him studying another line of hills.

"What problem did you find now?"

"Too much open ground."

"I thought after Dunvar you’d appreciate being able to see the sky."

"I can see anything approaching from two kilometers away."

"That sounds useful."

"They can also see me."

Valeria looked around at the grasslands, scattered rocks, and complete absence of forest.

"I see."

Raven pointed toward a shallow rise.

"No natural corridors. Not enough cover to control approaches. Even the low ground is visible from neighboring hills."

"Then you’ll have to learn a different way to hunt."

Raven looked at her.

"That was exactly what I was thinking."

"How disappointing. I was hoping for an argument."

"We can have one if it makes you feel better."

"Don’t ruin the goodwill."

Wind rolled through the grass in long waves.

Thunder sounded somewhere far away.

FORGE reacted again.

[Region Confirmed: VELIS.]

[Environmental Match for Stormhorn Courser Habitat: HIGH.]

[Current Component Objective: PROJECTILE ACCELERATION.]

[Recommended Search Factors: Open Migration Corridors / Electrically Active Storm Zones / High-Mineral Basalt Formations.]

That was more specific than Raven had expected.

He opened the map they had bought at the last roadside post.

Three small settlements lay between them and central Velis. He chose the second because it had stables, a hunters’ market, and migration records.

He didn’t need someone to tell him where Stormhorns lived.

He needed someone who knew how to kill one without destroying the organ he wanted.

The man they found was named Bram.

He had an artificial leg made of dark wood, two parallel scars crossing one cheek, and an unusually low opinion of anyone who deliberately wanted to approach a Stormhorn Courser.

That made him promising.

Bram examined the sketch Raven had drawn based on FORGE’s description.

"You want the Pulse Core?"

Raven nodded.

"Intact, if possible."

The hunter set the paper down.

"Then you don’t want to hunt a Courser. You want to perform surgery while a mountain runs at fifty paces per second."

Valeria smiled from the chair beside Raven.

"I prefer that description."

Raven ignored the assistance.

"Where exactly is it?"

Bram touched his own sternum.

"Behind the bone. Not centered like a heart. Lower and slightly to the right. It connects to the chest, spine, and major leg muscles through conducting fibers."

"Mana-conducting?"

"Mana, force, momentum. I’m not an alchemist."

Raven leaned slightly forward.

"What destroys it?"

Bram stared at him.

"Killing the animal badly."

"I assumed that."

"Then stop asking as though there’s a simple trick."

Raven waited.

Bram gave a faint smile.

"Fine. Pierce the chest and you might puncture the Core. Break too much of the sternum and the fibers tear, which destabilizes the organ. Heavy fire can cook parts of the structure. And if you leave it inside too long after death, it begins releasing stored energy unpredictably."

Valeria rested her chin on one hand.

"That sounds unpleasantly specific."

Bram pointed toward his wooden leg.

"I learned some things practically."

Raven looked at the prosthetic.

"Courser?"

"Young Stormhorn. Level Nineteen. I was stupider twenty years ago."

"How long did it take to do that?"

"To break the leg? Less than a second. For a healer to decide it had to come off? Two days."

Raven filed that away.

Impact speed.

Not prolonged combat.

Bram looked at Raven’s mercenary plate.

"What Level are you?"

"Eleven."

The hunter burst out laughing.

Not maliciously.

He was genuinely entertained.

"No."

Raven waited until Bram stopped.

"No what?"

"You are not hunting a mature Courser at Level Eleven."

Valeria stepped in.

"He’s Awakened."

"That doesn’t change the Level Eleven part."

"I’m Elite."

Bram studied her more carefully.

"That helps."

"I’m relieved to have your approval."

"Not enough to make this sensible."

Raven tapped the sketch.

"I don’t need sensible. I need the Core intact."

Bram studied him for several seconds.

"That’s worse."

Raven almost smiled.

"I’m beginning to notice."

The hunter leaned back.

"Stormhorns don’t fight like territorial beasts. If they can escape, they escape. The problem is that escape, for them, means running through whatever happens to be in front of them."

"Then I can direct a charge."

"You can try."

"What activates Kinetic Pulse?"

Bram stopped looking at the drawing.

"So you know about that too."

"I know the name."

"Alchemists call it that. Hunters just know that running makes them faster."

Valeria frowned.

"That sounds contradictory."

Bram shook his head.

"You don’t understand. A normal horse gets tired the longer it runs. A Stormhorn does too, eventually. But while it has mana and enough space, every stride feeds something inside its chest. It stores part of the movement."

He tapped the drawing.

"Then it releases it."

Raven went still.

That was exactly what FORGE needed.

The rifle already had a reservoir capable of storing mana and a Black Mithril structure capable of surviving extreme pressure. What it lacked was the mechanism that would turn that stored energy into projectile velocity.

The Stormhorn’s Pulse Core did exactly that with motion.

Mechanical energy accumulated, compressed, and released as amplified kinetic force.

Projectile Acceleration.

Component Four.

"Can it do that from a standstill?"

"A little. Never like after a proper run."

"Direction?"

"Whichever direction the body is facing when it releases the impulse. Usually."

"Usually?"

Bram raised one finger.

"Old ones can change trajectory after releasing it."

Raven’s attention sharpened.

That sounded dangerously close to another problem FORGE had already identified.

Projectile Stabilization.

"How?"

"I don’t know. Legs, tail, mana. Ask the next one that kills you."

Valeria looked at Raven.

"Don’t."

"I wasn’t planning to."

"Your face says otherwise."

Bram continued.

"If the lines beneath the skin start glowing, it’s charged. If the horn lights up too, move."

"Electricity?"

"Partly. Storms make them especially active."

Raven glanced toward a window.

Clouds were gathering in the distance.

"They seek out storms?"

"Not exactly. They seek black-stone regions after storms pass."

Bram took the map and pointed toward several areas.

"Basalt. Lightning hits the formations. Stormhorns absorb part of the discharge through their horns. After that, they run like someone convinced the world itself to push them."

FORGE updated immediately.

[Stormhorn Courser Behavioral Data Acquired.]

[Pulse Core Charge Amplification Associated with Sustained Locomotion + Atmospheric Electrical Exposure.]

[Potential Application: PROJECTILE ACCELERATION.]

[High-Charge Specimen May Improve Component Output.]

[Secondary Observation: Advanced Stormhorn trajectory correction may provide data relevant to PROJECTILE STABILIZATION.]

[Insufficient Data for Component Acquisition.]

Raven stared at the final lines.

Naturally.

The more dangerous the target, the better the component.

And now FORGE was suggesting the same creature might provide information about a second unfinished system.

Valeria knew him too well.

"No."

Raven looked at her.

"I didn’t say anything."

"Your system just told you that a Stormhorn charged by a thunderstorm would make a better component."

Raven didn’t answer.

"And judging by your expression, it also told you something else."

"Possibly."

Valeria pointed at his face.

"That expression."

Bram looked between them.

"Does she always know what you’re thinking?"

"Too often."

Valeria smiled.

"I’m improving."

"That also concerns me."

Bram laughed again.

"If you really intend to do this, there’s a herd moving south. Thirty animals, maybe forty. They passed near Redgrass three days ago."

Raven took the map.

"Adults?"

"Several. Foals too. I do not recommend walking into the middle of them."

"I don’t need the herd. I need one suitable specimen."

"Adult Stormhorns protect the young."

"Then I won’t approach the young."

Bram pointed toward a long valley.

"The herds tend to split when they search for water. Large males sometimes separate to keep watch. If you’re lucky, you might find one alone."

"And if I’m not?"

"You learn why I have a wooden leg."

Valeria smiled.

"I’m beginning to appreciate your teaching methods."

Raven folded the map.

"How much do you want for the information?"

Bram looked at him.

"You already paid for the beer."

"That cost two coppers."

"Then consider it my investment in an interesting story."

Raven stood.

"If we die, there won’t be a story."

"Someone will find the bodies."

"Optimistic."

Outside, thunder rolled across Velis again.

Raven glanced toward the distant storm front as FORGE displayed the project architecture one more time.

[PROTOTYPE RIFLE — CORE ARCHITECTURE]

[1. Activation System — COMPLETE.]

[2. Stable Mana Storage — COMPLETE.]

[3. Structural Barrel — COMPLETE.]

[4. Projectile Acceleration — MISSING.]

[Current Target: Stormhorn Courser / Pulse Core.]

[5. Projectile Stabilization — MISSING.]

[Target: UNKNOWN.]

[6. Recoil Regulation — MISSING.]

[Target: UNKNOWN.]

[Overall Completion: 52.8%.]

Three missing components.

The first was somewhere out on those plains, moving faster than Raven could.

The other two didn’t even have targets yet.

One problem at a time.

Raven looked toward the storm.

"Let’s find the horse."