Mark felt the recoil of an assault rifle jolt his shoulder back.

He aimed, breathed out, then shot again, striking the gray humanoid target in its torso. It somewhat resembled a mannequin, albeit made with a softer flesh-like substance.

The weapons he had found heavily resembled what he understood of Earth variants, revolvers and assault rifles were popular choices among those looking for self protection.

Hans gave him a thumbs up, and Zirrilit clapped. Mark had struck the target from nearly a hundred meters away while standing.

The human thumbed the safety on his rifle before backing up and walking towards the two, pulling his earmuffs off and pushing his safety glasses onto his forehead.

“So you hit fifteen shots out of twenty, that’s a seventy five percent hit chance. It would be considered a passing grade.” The nurse informed them, maintaining a cheerful voice to keep the mood pleasant. “But you will need to gain muscle memory and shoot a little faster; similarly, you need to continue until you can pass the later courses, which can include moving targets and shooting the correct ammunition type at the correct targets.”

Mark nodded, “Okay, I was shooting at the natural pause when you finish breathing like you said but I think I jerked the trigger a few times.”

Hans nodded and began speaking, “You will want-”

“-The shot is supposed to surprise you a bit.” Zirrilit interrupted. She checked the notes she had taken while Hans was going over the basics of firearm proficiency.

“Right, but either way, we should call it on weapon training today. That [ironskin] potion is going to wear off soon and more might cause some conflicting issues with you, we can finish today with some testing material you need to learn and size you up for some proper armor for tomorrow.”

“Okie-dokie.” Mark slung the rifle’s sling over his shoulder, but unlike the movies he carried the rifle in front of him and kept it pointed downwards. It tended to fall off your shoulder and slide down your body when it was slung over your back.

The three of them backed away from the firing line. The lack of other people and rows of sheet metal dividers separating out a dozen firing lines gave it a haunting empty feeling. The burnt smell of spent ammunition clung to the air and he felt a few bullet casings underneath his shoes as they walked back.

“Should I clean those up or…” Mark let the question drift, awaiting an answer.

“The auto-cleaners should be on it in a moment, just let me check that rifle back in. Non-staff aren’t permitted to have weapons. Just stand around the table here and familiarize yourself with these.” Hans directed.

Zirrilit and Mark stared at the small pile of brass casings, or more importantly the bullets within said casings.

The human plucked one off of the table and eyed the light blue tip.

“These are bullets. Like I said previously, some people are resistant to some types of attacks, so you will usually want to carry a variety of different types of ammunition.” The orc grabbed one of the yellow-tipped bullets and held it up as an example. “Regulations dictate that you need to paint any enchanted or otherwise augmented rounds to allow for easy identification, such as yellow-tipped for incendiary, or they can even require specific patterns like this other one.”

The orc selected a different round, which had a bright pink tip formed in a striped pattern.

“This is a neural suspension round, which can cause damage to someone’s psyche. Especially effective against psionics or other types of mental manipulators as it is essentially guaranteed to break concentration.”

Mark chuckled, “A bullet that does psychic damage? How does that work?”

“Well, it carries a small electrical interface that will connect to your nervous system and trigger any local pain receptors. Our handbook says that those shot need to be restrained and incapacitated or the bullet needs to be removed immediately; failure to do so will result in attempted suicide to avoid the suffering.”

Mark grimaced and the orc cleared his throat.

“Usually you only use this on people who have mentally dominated others, as it shuts them down and tends to crash unistasis networks. It’s kind of illegal and a war crime in other circumstances.”

“Sounds kind of grizzly.”

The orc blinked as his translation function made a mess out of his sentence.

“Well, most bullets are fairly grizzly-bear like. That one, for example, is an ice round, and wounds from that are gruesome.”

“An ice bullet? Like frostbite and slowing people down or something?” Mark raised an eyebrow at the cartoonish-sounding weapon.

“Actually, when it makes contact with a target, some of the chemicals within the round absorb heat fast enough to near instantly freeze the water in your blood. It will freeze and expand, pushing the surrounding tissues away and crushing nearby organs. After a moment the heat the chemical absorbs will reach its apex and the center of the ball of ice will boil causing a small steam explosion.”

The orc held his hands up making a circle twice the size of a baseball.

Mark blanched and almost dropped the bullet before gingerly setting it down on the table.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

“You don’t have to worry, it is required for ammunition like this to be fired from a weapon in order to go off. Most of them are made by alchemists with blessings which allow them to do things like set specific triggers on their works.” The orc lifted one of the rounds and jammed it into his hand on the table.

Zirrilit watched him twist it into his outstretched hand.

“Now, you two go over the handbook while I go and get a medium humanoid lightweight kit and we can go from there. Don’t steal any of those rounds; we’ll find out and then it will be a whole thing.”

The human nodded, though he still backed up from the table while Zirrilit went over to pick the coolest sounding ammunition out of the pile.

“It says here incendiary is generally used for property destruction. They still hurt people when you shoot them but apparently inner fluids and the lack of oxygen means they can’t set people on fire correctly.” Zirrilit noted, “Mark! Come and look at the explosive sections!”

Mark edged forwards, overcoming his fear of inanimate objects. Or rather, overcoming his innate respect for explosives, as humanity’s were generally anything but guaranteed to not go off.

“Okay but why do they need a whole booklet of different ammunition types?” He asked.

Zirrilit checked the booklet, “It says here originally it was just the explodey types some seven hundred years ago that would hit with about the force of a hand grenade. Then they discovered a variant of the spell [resist air] which redirects shockwaves and explosions, giving people a resistance to those. So they invented ice bullets, which people learned wouldn’t work if you used a type of safety harness alchemists wear to prevent specific alchemical reactions from occurring too close to the body, which resulted in a development of… It kind of just keeps going, I think? It says they made a new kind of bullet last year that removes the moisture from your body.”

“How does it do that?”

Zirrilit shrugged, “It doesn’t say.”

“Huh. Maybe they don’t want people to learn how the latest type works so they can’t counter it easily.”

“That makes sense.” Zirrilit agreed. “Ooh, flicker bullets. Apparently they were designed to counter the spell [wall of force] and when they hit a barrier they just teleport to the other side and continue traveling at the same speeds.”

“Wait, they have teleporting bullets? Let me see-” Mark grabbed at one of the booklets and flipped halfway through the packet.

Hans walked back into the room with a few containers. They were shaped like thin suitcases, with a black color scheme and white lettering that he couldn’t read.

He set three different containers on the table.

“Now since you are a new species, we might have to mix and match a few kits, but in general these should be enough for you.” The nurse opened the first one revealing a pitch black set of armor. “We can get this repainted if you want, but I do have to go over a few different parts of gear you need.”

The orc pulled the equipment out of its case and laid it onto the table opposite of the loose rounds.

“There are a few things to keep in mind: you can only have so much equipment on you at once before their mana auras begin to conflict. And when you get attacked the standard combat loop is debilitation, incapacitation and eradication. They will want to focus on weakening the target, rendering them incapable of continuing fighting, and then if necessary kill the target. Thus, you will want to keep some equipment with immunities to various effects. I would recommend the first kit here.”

The orc pulled out a few objects, a helmet with a full face mask and an unmistakable respirator over the mouth section, a breastplate with a red drop marking in the center, dark colored boots and a cloth jumpsuit.

Mark held the black jumpsuit, designed to be worn beneath the actual armor and fingered the stitching. After a moment he realized it wasn’t a thick wool or some type of cloth but rather a very small chain link mesh that must have been half a dozen layers thick.

“The boots can prevent forcible moving, though sometimes shifting backwards to avoid the full force of a blow may be preferable. In your situation where you are mostly worried about kidnappers I would say it would be worth it to consider. Second of all the helmet should protect against most status effects, it has a thick lead lining preventing psionic domination effects and a mask to protect against airborn threats or damage to the eyes. The chestplate has a shielding function, it should protect against most ranged attacks- up to three per day or until a proper mage recharges it for you.”

Mark lifted up the helmet, reminiscent of some sort of metallic gas mask.

“The next collection is what we usually give to harpies. It's designed to allow for high speed movements, along with a flat reduction of damage from ranged attacks in order to counter burst weapons and shrapnel rather than singular powerful attacks.”

Mark lifted the small blue outfit, noting that it seemed to almost be camouflage with a sky blue background.

“Finally, there would be a melee outfit generally used by wizard slayers. As a whole, it mainly prevents magical interference, as before the helmet prevents charms and most gaseous or eye-based arcane effects. The chest plate weakens the effect of any spell type, and the boots can prevent both movement impairing effects and forced movement, but only if the source is arcane in nature, making it useless against almost anything else.”

This outfit was actually camouflaged. The pattern was reminiscent of earth militaries, and the breastplate had a linen molle covering allowing for objects to be attached to the suit.

Mark thought about it; on one hand, the orc was telling him the first dark colored suit was optimal for him. On the other hand, the one in front of him was very modern in appearance and would not look out of place on a human soldier.

He lifted the helmets, both possessed full face coverings but one resembled what would be expected on a dark knight.

Eventually he decided to go with the orc’s recommendation. After all, he had not ended up in the hospital due to a wizard or some kind of fancy spell.

He had been shot, and this was designed to prevent being shot.

“I will take this one.” Mark nodded and slid the case closer, deciding to try on the equipment.

“Mark, these are all for you. Change the equipment out depending on what you expect to face, wear this one by default because you are expecting kidnappers and not murderers.” The orc gestured to the black outfit resembling what he had seen worn by the man who electrocuted him earlier.

“Oh.” Mark glanced at the three cases in front of him and blinked, “This is a lot, isn’t this expensive?”

“One person likely couldn’t afford a single kit, but I represent an organization with vested interest in you. I can easily convince them to give you and any of your bodyguards multiple kits, but they likely wouldn’t make such exceptions for anyone else.” He slid the cases to Mark. “Why don’t you go to your room and try these on, you do need to go and take your medications soon. Tell me how they fit. Zirrilit can meet you there when we finish.”

“Thank you. This means a lot.”

Mark meant it, an actual walkthrough on how he should be preparing along with legitimate armor and weapons to defend himself with.

“It's no problem Mark. I would give anyone who had to deal with slavers as much as I could. It just isn’t my call most of the time.”

The human made his way back to the elevator, a very simple task given that the large hallway had no branching paths and a great distance between individual rooms. Every so often he would see a guard patrolling back and forth and they would pause to stare at him, ascertaining his identity using items or innate abilities granted by their blessings.

As he entered the elevator he thumbed the button to his floor and watched it light up, he went back to his room and eyed his shovel. That had remained here.

After thinking about it for a moment he went back to the elevator and thumbed a second button.

The elevator rose and he exited into a familiar hallway, though he had only been this way once.

He walked past the painting whose case he had destroyed a few hours ago, past the end table he had shoved over and walked up to the receptionist you were supposed to sign in with before you advanced.

Mark wrote his name in print rather than cursive and walked on into the only room on this floor he had visited.

The burn ward patient looked the same as ever, a desiccated mummy covered in wrappings. Lathered in strong smelling lotions and hooked up to multiple IVs with a small litany of machines keeping them alive.

He set his cases down, lifting only one up and opening it to reveal sky blue armor.

Designed for harpies.

The human gazed at the incapacitated person, their lanky limbs and spindly body. The creature’s arms seemed to stretch far further than any human’s.

Because it wasn’t a human.

They were a person who had been enslaved, the same way Mark had been for a few hours and the government either didn’t care enough or was too corrupt to keep the opportunists away.

The rest of the slaves had been murdered, and Mark remembered being told that they were unlikely to go for him specifically due to his unique circumstances.

“So… What if I sit right here?” Mark asked the unconscious mummy of a person, “There is a chair and a desk just like in my room. If I wait long enough will you wake up and tell me who did this?”

And if the person who enslaved you really doesn't want anyone to find out, would they dare to come near the hospital’s most special patient?

Mark changed into his dark attire, the mesh undersuit rubbing against his inner elbow and knees when he moved.

He wasn’t allowed to have a weapon, but the demon’s blood had never fully dried on this gardening implement and his new armor rounded out his biggest weakness thus far.

Being shot.