The bronze ranker’s eyes widened as he realized Seras wasn’t being suppressed.
Seras for her part lifted her rifle and let her power flow into it. [Structural reinforcement] bolstered the strength of her rifle and the bullet as she pulled the trigger.
Her makeshift armor piercing bullet flew through the air, and despite the speed of the bullet her bronze ranked foe had sharp enough senses to start moving to the side of it.
He would have sidestepped the bullet completely, but [Bullet Control] adjusted the bullet’s trajectory. It shifted midair and buried itself in his side. However even with [Bullet control] the attack had missed its mark.
A small patch of blood began to spread on his side.
The masked man looked down. “Even with Bronze rank durability and my armor you were able to break the skin. And yet my own attack failed to draw blood?” there was a question in his tone. His voice was a bit higher than she was expecting, and the twinge of accent almost reminded her of Rohan.
Seras let her own weapon dip as she reloaded. “You need to go a lot deeper to draw blood from me.” Seras quipped, if the enemy was going to give her time to banter she was going to take the chance.
She mentally gave the command to boost her auto repair.
Auto repair in progress time to full functionality 35 minutes. Consume 3 bronze rank monster cores and five iron quintessence to speed up process.
She then ordered it to be sped up a second time
Auto repair in progress. time to full functionality 11 minutes. Consume 5 bronze rank monster cores and 10 iron quintessence to speed up process.
And again. She would need every advantage against a bronze ranked essence user.
Auto repair in progress. Time to full recovery 54 seconds. Further acceleration is no longer available.
Good enough.
Now to buy more time “Release the people and leave now. I promise I will not chase you,” Seras lied.
The man somehow managed to look amused under his cloak. “You are strong outsider, but you cannot hope to overcome the tyranny of rank.
Seras glanced to the timer. Just a little longer. “Its pronounced Outworlder, not outsider. And maybe I can’t overcome the tyranny of rank, but I’m danm well willing to try.”
“A world walker.” The man said sounding surprised. “Even still, while you are not guilty of trespassing on our lands you still side with these outsiders. Leave now and I will forget you were here.” The man commanded imperiously.
Seras watched the timer hit zero and felt the arrow pushed out of her skin, and the beads in her back pinged against the red roof tiles. Seras’ smirk widened “it seems we are at an impasse.”
Even as she said it the man lifted his bow and pulled back on the string, an arrow magically materializing just a scant moment before he let loose. At the same moment Seras began to lean back and called upon her [Structural reinforcement] power. Blue lines like circuitry crossed her body and as she fell back Seras shot another amor piercing bullet.
Aura power, Aura of Ruin has inflicted [Enfeeblement]
Though she could not see it the message confirmed that Seras had hit her target. She was currently dropping off the side of the roof, the moment her feet touched the ground she began to move. Rushing down the small side street away from her foe.
As she ran she was reloading her rifle.
She heard a twang, and saw three glowing arrows racing towards her. She tried to step around a corner to avoid them, but while one hit the wall the other two curved and continued to follow her. Her opponent obviously had a power similar to her own [Bullet control].
But while they were similar abilities, that meant that the ideas Seras had come up with for her own ability might be countered might be applicable. Seras turned and stopped dead in her tracks. While the arrows could track her movements, they still had too much momentum behind them. Her turn and stop were both sharp enough that the arrows did not have time to turn her way and were instead punched straight through a tan colored wall.
The immediate threat avoided Seras had only a split second to step back as a wicked looking bone dagger came down on her.
Her foe had another patch of blood blooming on his shoulder, and had likely realized that a ranged contest with Seras was more dangerous for him than her. Instead he had switched to close range.
But fighting with a knife meant getting in close, and while Seras was no knife fighter she was a brawler.
The masked man saw the punch coming but obviously did not think very highly of the strength or speed of an iron ranker, especially a fresh one like Seras. Seras could read in his movements that he planned on using his superior bronze rank speed and power to overwhelm her.
But for all the downsides of being a cyborg in a world of magic, there was one immutable advantage that she had over other people. It was that her rank was not reflective of her actual strength.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
At normal rank she had the power and speed equal to a bronze ranker. While bronze was still low on the scale of superhuman ability when compared to silver or higher ranks it still took the Pallimustan’s four magical essences, twenty awakening stones, and either years of monster hunting or monster cores. Whereas Seras got to begin that journey with Biomechanical augmentations.
Her clenched fist buried itself into his jaw, and he let it happen assuming that the power behind it would be negligible against his superior rank. But without rank suppression getting in her way Seras could finally use her full strength against a foe.
It let her bridge the gap in between Iron and Bronze, and turned this fight from hopeless struggle to an unlikely but possible bout.
He stumbled back into the wall, and Seras used his momentary distraction to bring her rifle up to shoot him point blank. But for all the surprise of the punch to the jaw the man was obviously an experienced combatant. Even while blinking away the tears in his eyes he still reached out to the rifle and got control of the gun.
He forced the barrel down, effectively making the killing power of her weapon mute. But Seras wasn’t some rookie adventure. Before she even knew about magic she had spent over a decade as a solo Merc for hire. She had been in more than her fair share of back-alley brawls, bar fights, cage matches, and full on battle where the roar of gun fire filled the air as muzzle flashes lit the night.
As he forced the barrel down Seras switched her grip and used her new hand placement to force the butt of the stock into the center of his face. Even with the power of her structural reinforcement at work the wood the stock still cracked from the force. But in return she had broken the man’s nose and blackened an eye.
Even still the man kept control of the gun, pointing the barrel straight down. Seras and the archer entered an brief struggle over the rifle, but a few seconds in Seras realized she wasn’t get the barrel up any time soon. So she switched tracks.
Instead of lifting the barrel up she got it aimed at his foot and pulled the trigger.
BANG!
The bullet went straight through his foot and into the packed dirt beneath them.
“AHHH!” the archer cried.
Seras shut him up by once again burring her fist in his face. She repeated this again. And again. And-
-a burst of wind coming from nowhere forced Seras away with so much force that her back hit the opposite wall. With the momentary distraction her enemy pushed off the wall and barreled towards. Seras got her guard up ready for the coming punch, but instead got a chest full of air so powerful it felt just like a real blow.
Even with the punch of air the archer didn’t halt his charge and followed through with his own punch. It hit her so hard that her optics glitched. She staggered away from the wall, her vision glitching and fizzing, only to feel a knife slash against her skin.
It cut through her vest and shirt and left a long gouge in her torso, but the blade only got as far as that. The titanium alloy of her ribs kept the blade from actually doing harm.
Auto repair in progress time to full functionality 4 minutes.
Cannot consume cores to accelerate repair.
Omeda poison has been resisted due to Biomechanical physiology.
He kept coming at her, and in desperation Seras mentally reached into her pocket space and summoned a small handheld object. Her attacker assumed it was a knife and backed up to avoid the slash, only to realize too late what she was actually holding.
Seras aimed the small revolving pistol at the archer’s face and pulled the trigger.
Her aim was spot on, the bullet landing directly on his forehead. However, as Seras had previously suspected, the small caliber of the pistol wasn’t enough against the fortitude of bronze rank.
The smashed remains of the bullet stuck to his forehead for a few seconds before finally falling to the ground. In the place it had been an ugly purple bruise began to spread, but nothing more than that.
Seras used the chance to gain some distance, she huffed out a breath and lifted the pistol level again, waiting for her foe to charge at her again.
The man for his part was breathing hard, and his eyes were dilated in pain. “You, are a most painful enemy to fight world walker.” The man grudgingly admitted.
“Your no slouch yourself.” Seras admitted, a small smile pulling the corners of her lip.
“You are too strong to be an iron ranker, even if you are a might user. And my poison hasn’t had an effect. How?” he asked.
“It’s an Outworlder thing.” Seras said coyly.
The man nodded. “And to be able to match a Master confluence wielder shows how well you’ve honed your killer instincts.”
Seras thought about what he said. “Wind, Bow, and Adept?” She asked.
He nodded “Yes. While I’m not the best in a melee with my abilities you’ve still shown your power. You have my respect.”
“Thank you, your the best fight I’ve had since coming to this world.” Seras admitted.
“We could use skill like yours, why not join us world walker?”
“I’ll pass” Seras said without hesitation. “I don’t do kidnapping.”
Anymore.
Seras heard a distant whistle, and a rumbling sound that reminded her of a rockslide.
“A shame, I had hoped to finish our battle.” The man said. “But it seems I must leave.” The wind kicked up again and the man leapt up, the wind bolstering the power of his jump.
Seras considered getting a couple of pot shots off on him, but let it go. It would only waste ammo.
She wasn’t a women of honor, but while the man was a kidnapper and her enemy he had shown her a certain amount of respect. And Seras kinda liked that.
It was a nice change from her world where even your allies would turn on you given a chance.
That said she hadn’t rushed to the little village to spar with a random bronze ranker, she had come to help the people.
She ran out of the alley, still clutching the weak pistol in her hands. She heard a twang and saw Rohan running along the roof tops rapidly firing arrows. And she saw Petra trying to trap the Heidel mounted men with her stone walls.
But the riders were too nimble and darted out of her barriers before she could close them off.
Seras saw the bloodied form of the man she had been fighting land next to another man holding the reins to an empty Heidel. He took the reins and swung up with a practiced ease Seras often saw from lifelong Heidel riders. He gave the village one last look, his eyes landing on Seras before he dug his feet in the Heidel’s flank and galloped away.
Seras cracked her neck and walked into the village square. “None of those men had any prisoners, that means the villagers should still be in the cages.” She said in lieu of a greeting.
Petra turned her way, and her eyes widened. “What the hell happened to you?” She asked.
“What?” Seras asked.
Rohan dropped down to the street. “Theres a dent in your forehead.” He said with a pointed stare.
Seras felt her forehead and frowned. Yep, that was definitely going to need some work. She opened her pocket space and pulled out a bandana she was supposed to wear during dust storms and tied it around her head like a Durag. She then pulled out her hat and put in on. “How about now,” She asked?
“Its less noticeable. Still looks odd.” Petra said.
Seras shrugged, “It’ll have to do.” These people weren’t going to be looking too hard at her forehead.
They walked to the tipped wagon. The dead Heidel was still strapped to the wagon, but the others had been cut free. The people inside were obviously panicked and were afraid when they approached. They were a mix of dark skinned humans, slightly lighter skinned elves, and sandy coated leonids.
“Its alright,” Petra said soothingly as she pulled out her adventuring badge. “I’m with the adventurer society. Everything is going to be alright. We’ll get this cage open and start looking you over for injuries. We have a healer on the way.”
Rohan stepped up to the cage of people, even on its side the thing was bursting with people. “I don’t have the key for this and it looks pretty sturdy.” He said after assessing the lock.
“Is the lock magical or nonmagical?” Seras asked.
“Non magical, but we don’t have a key.” He said pointedly.
Seras rolled her eyes, “that’s where your wrong, I’ve got the greatest skeleton key in the world for normal locks,” she said smugly.
Seras put her hand to the lock and reached inside with her mana. She had slowly gotten a sense that with her shape metal ability that she could feel the metal. It was a numb, muted sense, but she expected it to get better with time. She wasn’t good enough to turn the lock mechanism into a smooth cylinder of metal, but what she could do was make the springs on the tumblers retract leaving the lock open and easy to turn with a simple knife jammed into the key hole.
“Tada!” Seras said as she opened the cage.
Rohan gave her a concerned look. “How long have you been able to do that?”
“I’ve been thinking of all the ways I can use my abilities for weeks now. Opening simple locks was one of the first things I figured out. Now help me pull these poor folk out.” She said as she reached down and pulled an older woman up and through the bars above her head. “There you, oomph!” Seras said as the women embraced her in a fierce hug.
A damp patch began to spread on her shirt as the woman wailed into her shoulder.
“There, there.” Seras said awkwardly. Her face likely turning bright red from embarrassment.
She had never gotten this sort of reaction before. Usually when she came across kidnapping victims they glared at her with suspicion and fear. But with Petra saying they were adventurers there was no suspicion from the villagers, only desperate unmasked gratitude.
She got many reactions from the rest of the village people. Some hugs, lots of tears, an even the occasional numb shivering from those with thousand-meter stares. But all of them thanked them.
And later when the rest of their crew arrived and could help handle the scared villagers Seras wandered off to ponder on the strange warmth in her chest.