By then end of the first day at the range, Chase was considering becoming ambidextrous, just so her could spread the bruising across both sides of his body.

The Blaser was more forgiving than the shotgun Darryl had burdened him with, which made it less of a battle, but it still gave him a nice reminder each time he shot at the distant targets. With the aid of a bipod, Darryl’s guidance and a bit of luck, he’d hit the two-hundred-metre target a few times, and heard one far-off ding from the three-hundred-metre target.

It was a far cry from the kilometre-long shot Darryl wanted him to make, but it was progress.

“You know, about seventy percent of the Dungeons I enter wouldn’t even make it fifty-metres from wall to wall,” Chase said. “Wouldn’t it be better to train with something more suited for close-range combat? Something a step up in power from my MP7?”

Darryl crammed in the final bite of his fourth hot dog and licked mustard from his fingers. The thighs of his jeans, which he often used as a napkin, were stained yellow. “Just call it being prepared. You’ll be a force to be reckoned with in the other thirty-percent, won’t ya?”

“I suppose.”

He mulled it over. It would require some experimenting, but with the right conditions, he could potentially clear huge chunks of Dungeons without leaving the safety of the area surrounding the Gate. With a high enough vantage point, enough skill and a nice bundle of bullets…

Even bosses might be in his purview.

But that was a while away yet. Darryl was far from satisfied with his groupings even on the two-hundred-metre targets, not to mention anything further. In the end, he’d petitioned the staff to set up one of the cabins out the back of the range that were usually reserved for competition accommodation.

So Chase stayed at the range. For the better part of a week, he fell into a routine of eating and breathing bullets. Every day was a strict schedule of learning, shooting, more learning, and more shooting. Finally, a staff member took pity on him and provided a reinforced vest that was built for the task of preventing bruising. It had thicker material wrapping around his shoulder and the top of his chest, which made it look like he was wearing a bra, but also made the experience immeasurably more comfortable.

And with each shot, he corrected one small mistake. Sometimes it was menial, like a subconscious last second adjustment. Other times he forgot to take wind speed into account, or he wasn’t behind the sight in the correct way. There were a million little things to keep track of, and it was only with hours of practice that they began to fall into place.

At first, he put it down to luck borne of many attempts and many empty bullet casings. He’d score three hits in a row on the three-hundred-metre target, or he’d get an approving nod from Darryl on his two-hundred-metre groupings. He was learning how to properly clean his weapons, taking them apart and putting them back together like pieces of a puzzle. And it was puzzling, that’s for sure. Even the pistols the range had on hand — some of them much like his Beretta — were full of intricate, fiddly pieces that all had to sit together absolutely perfectly in order to function reliably.

Still, three hundred metres turned into four hundred. Then five hundred. Then the distance was getting so outlandish that Darryl finally had to take pity on him and bring out some assistive devices from his bag of tricks. The first was an odd-looking device consisting of a few buttons below a basic screen, and then a small, circular kind of fan at the top.

“This is a wind gauge,” Darryl said. “As the name suggests, it helps you work out how far your bullet will be blown off course. Very useful at longer distances, though with a rifle as powerful as your Blaser, probably not gonna do much until four-hundred or so.”

He produced a light plastic holder that attached to the Blaser. The wind gauge sat inside, adding a small amount of weight to the left side of the weapon. Immediately, Chase started thinking about how that might affect his shot.

“Something else this little fella does is measure your air density. Now that’s getting real finicky, so never mind that just yet. We’ll get to that in, oh, a few months or so when you’re going for two-kilometre targets. Then we’ll get into fun stuff like the Coriolis Effect. That’s my bread and butter.”

Chase felt like his head was taking as much of a beating as his body with all the knowledge Darryl was trying to shove into it. They’d commandeered a whiteboard from the range which had once been used to display attendees booking times and the days record shots. Now, it was covered in complex equations and dot points about cartridge size, the effects of different bullet shapes and projectiles. It was all enough to make Chase want to stick with his trusty old MP7.

But that wouldn’t be enough. The thought of sitting on a hilltop, slowly but surely picking off enemies had become intoxicating over the course of his training. The sheer power the Blaser gave him put the MP7 to shame, which was to be expected but still seemed surreal. He’d bought the submachine gun because the value of the armour-piercing rounds had been lauded to him, but now the sniper was utterly outclassing it.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He was also envisioning all the dastardly adaptations Herb could make to these larger bullets. That was another aspect that would require attention — any changes to the projectiles, even minor ones, would add up over the course of a long-distance shot. A five-centimetre difference at one hundred metres could balloon out to many times that number at five-hundred metres, or a kilometre.

It was all just practice. Non-stop, dedicated practice.

“You think you’re ready for the one-kilometre target?” Darryl asked. They’d both taken a day off to attend to things back in New Melbourne. Darryl had a shop to run, and Chase had his guild to manage. Luckily, Jenny was doing a great job keeping things going, and the new recruits were busy being trained by Jamie and the others.

But now they were back, refreshed and ready to go.

“I’ve no clue,” Chase answered. “I can barely hit half that distance with any consistency.”

“Bah,” Darryl brushed him off with a sweeping gesture. “It’s still the same principle. And when you think about it, it’s only double the distance. You went from missing the one-hundred to occasionally hitting the three-hundred in just a couple days. That’s triple.”

Chase lay down on the mat, settling behind the Blaser and loading a singular round. He was getting attached to the weapon, to the point of wondering how much one might cost…

“Just do what you always do, alright? Take your time, focus, breathe. Oh, and, put on your earmuffs. They’ll revoke my membership if I turn you deaf by shooting that thing without ‘em.”

Chase groaned and got back up, searching around for his ear protection. He was so concentrated on getting the weapon side of things right that he’d forgotten the more important stuff.

Once he was back down, he looked first for the target without the aid of the scope. It was a sliver of painted metal so far away that he couldn’t believe it was the same size as the other targets. One metre by one metre.

Then, he arranged himself behind the scope, making seemingly microscopic adjustments. The twist of a dial here, a millimetre shift there. It was all part of preparing for this one shot.

When it came time, he pulled the trigger past its first stage until he hit the wall of the second stage, where any further effort would fire the weapon. It was here that he exhaled a half-breath and held it, feeling the subtle bump of his heart beating in his chest.

It was increasing. He could feel it in his trigger finger, like the capillaries just beneath his skin had expanded to deliver more blood to where it was needed. The metal was a cold sensation on his skin, and his mind began to wander. Was his vest on properly? Should he have taken a few warm-up shots? Would he have to pay for all his new Talentless recruits to go through this same training? Should he have brought them along, too?

When he fired, he knew he’d missed. He didn’t even bother peering through the scope for an additional few seconds, seeing if there was a fresh mark on the target. At this distance, and considering the thickness of the target, he wouldn’t hear it ring even if he did hit it.

“Not quite,” Darryl said, looking through binoculars. “Diagnosis?”

“Just fucked it in general,” Chase replied. “Too much inside my own head.”

His coach nodded, then held up a hand. “Put your safety on and hang ‘er back up for a second. I’ve got an idea.”

Curious, Chase did as he was told. It would be annoying to set everything up again for his second try, but he was sure Darryl understood that. Whatever he had in mind, it had to be worth it.

Darryl disappeared, and only a few minutes later, the sound of an engine roared from a nearby shed. A metal roller door flew up, and Darryl came out in the passenger seat of a vehicle that looked like a beefed-up golf cart. He and the staff member in the driver’s seat flew down a dirt track along the side of the range, dust spewing out the back and wafting over the range. It was dry out here, and the dust was flying west, into Chase’s face — two things to consider when taking a shot without the wind gauge’s helping hand.

The vehicle stopped somewhere near the one-kilometre target, though it was hard to tell exactly how far they’d gone. It was only a brief pause, then the vehicle turned around and came back. When Darryl returned, he was all smiles.

“That oughta help. Grab your gun, check out my handiwork.”

Chase was suspicious, but the week’s military-like training kicked in, and he followed orders. When he was back into position, ready to go once more, he looked down the Blaser’s scope.

There was a picture of a raging Noctant stuck over the target.

He chuckled, trying not to move around too much. “Not bad,” he said from the corner of his mouth. “Turned it into another day at the office.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Darryl replied. “Now give it a crack, kiddo. Show me what you’ll do in those Dungeons.”

Chase closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and holding it for a couple seconds, then letting it out slowly. He remembered the first group of Noctants he’d killed with the Luger, how he couldn’t make up his mind on which to shoot and ending up firing between two of them. Looking back, that event seemed to foreshadow his entire experience thus far.

But that ended now.

He sought out the part of the Noctant’s carapace just above its eyes. There was a raised section here that looked to be as sturdy as the rest of the monster, but years of chopping them up had taught him different. It was actually a ruse — two hard parts of the creature’s back armour met here, and there was a miniscule gap where they nearly touched.

A weakness.

The rest of the movements came naturally, as if he’d been born with the instincts. He steadied himself, pulled back until he met the second-stage wall…

Then fired.

“Hit!” Darryl yelled. “You bluddy marvel, boy!”

Chase beamed. He looked down the scope once more, adjusting it to find the target after the shot had unbalanced him. Sure enough, the Noctant’s head had a gaping hole centred right on the weak spot he’d aimed for.

It felt amazing.

He crawled to his knees, revelling in the sensation. When Darryl had set him on the wild goose chase of a kilometre-long shot, he’d assumed it was just an arbitrary number — something to aspire to. His legs felt shaky as he got to his feet and shook Darryl’s hand. Every fibre of his concentration had gone into that shot. It was like the world had blotted out until all that remained was the glass of his scope and the Noctant’s head so far in the distance.

One step closer, Nebula.