My debrief with Polly was over quick. The mission was a joint operation at another base, so it technically wasn’t our issue. But for the sake of protocol, I had to give a general overview with Pollux.

Then, I got a good piece of news.

“Congratulations, John. Your application has been accepted.”

Polly held out a sheet of paper. I took it and read a bunch of gibberish that generally said I was now allowed to take the test to become a Captain.

Then, she held up the test.

“Would you like to take it now or do you want to brush up?”

“Uh…”

I thought for a second, recalling every page of the Golden Trio books.

It was all still there.

I smiled.

“Sure, I’ll do it now.”

“Very well. It’s 200 questions and you’ll do it right here. Go ahead and get started.”

“The hell…”

I scoffed, flipping through a dozen pages of densely packed questions. I hadn’t had to take 200 question tests since I was in college. Not to mention that this wasn’t some multiple-choice test. Every question had a blank line or two underneath it that I needed to fill in.

I sighed and sat down near Polly, receiving a pen and starting the test.

Thankfully, I still had every page memorized. Unless they asked about something completely unrelated, I had no issues. I flew through each question, even going so far as to cite my answers with the page number and lines.

It took over an hour to reach the final question. By then, my hand was sore and my head was throbbing. Not out of exertion, but annoyance.

“Some of these questions are stupid.”

“It’ll only get worse as you try to climb ranks. They like to ask about the most subtle topics in those books. If you don’t have it all memorized, it's easy to fail.”

“This was definitely made by a bitter summoner. Well, I’m done. And none of those answers are wrong. I’ll fight whoever says otherwise.”

I handed back the test, Polly smiling.

“I’ll keep that in mind while I grade.”

“Oh…”

“That’s right. Now get out of here. You can come pick up your new insignia tomorrow.”

“Yes ma’am.”

I gave a quick salute before evacuating, grinning on my way out.

I was basically a Captain!

I stretched after leaving headquarters, still limping on my bad leg. I had gotten a splint and the cigar was accelerating my healing, but I still needed some time before I could walk or run normally.

Since I had nothing to do, I decided to go to my room and project.

Once there, I laid down and closed my eyes. What appeared in my vision after that was a vast expanse of darkness, the dimension of my fifth star.

I formed two drones of Psyka, my eyes within this place, before launching them in different directions. Simultaneously, they released occasional pulses of power which helped me detect anything in the vicinity.

One drone went toward the signal from whatever spirit was trying to call out to me. The other went out further in the dimension.

Along the way, I saw the usual stuff. Knives, rifles, grenades, tons of bullets, even some equipment like boots, helmets, shovels, bayonets, and socks.

Most of the stuff I had no use for since I either already had as good or better gear, or it simply didn’t fit my style. Knives, for example, would be seldom used since it required that an enemy be within arm’s reach. If that was happening, then I had bigger issues. And I didn’t need things like socks since I had the wonderful Warm Socks from Luna.

So guns and bullets were really the only things I needed to worry about. There were also some special weapons like gas canisters and explosives, like the satchel charge I had once used.

I spent some hours simply searching. After that while, I finally started coming upon the special weapon that was calling me.

When I approached, I recognized the weapon.

At first I thought it was a Mosin Nagant, and perhaps it technically was. When I made contact with it though, I found out exactly what it was.

My vision went dark, and I found my consciousness shifting.

……

A gentle breeze, carrying terribly cold air, nipped at my nose as I lay within a small crevice. Snow was piled in front of me, a small barrier to conceal my figure.

From behind, I started down my rifle. The M28-30 was a precision rifle with a rather heavy barrel, a small price to pay for the improved iron sights and performance in the cold.

I looked down at my target area, estimating the distance from my barrel to the floor of the trail to be about 230 meters. It was a good range for reliable accuracy, and I twitched my gun a bit to get properly sighted in.

And so I waited. Hour after hour passed as the sun went from the horizon to high in the sky. It hardly made the environment warmer, and occasionally I’d sneak some bread from my coat pocket into my mouth.

Finally, after noon passed, I saw a troop. Soviet soldiers, none of them camouflaged for the snow. They were painfully obvious to see and track, and killing these targets wouldn’t be dissimilar to my target practice back home. The poor bastards were practically begging to be shot, no thanks to their lord and master Stalin. They couldn’t even paint their uniforms white.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

After they had advanced far enough, I looked to the right, checking the general area where a few of my other squadmates were supposed to be. I couldn’t see them. Good.

After turning my sight back, I took aim, feeling the wind on my face and adjusting for it ever so slightly while acquiring my target. Thankfully, these rifles worked well in the cold, and I’d had plenty of practice with mine. I knew it well, and through experience, I knew it wouldn’t fail me.

I pulled the trigger and felt a familiar recoil on my shoulder.

A soldier collapsed to the floor, a bullet through his chest. I chambered another round before acquiring another target. At the same time, a few more shots were heard, echoing through the snowy land and scaring away a dozen birds in the trees. The Soviet soldiers dropped to the floor while the two tanks near either side of the formation came to a halt, turning to our general direction.

They couldn’t see us, of course, and their ammunition was limited. But that wouldn’t stop them from trying to kill us anyway. Even the slightest hint of our location would be enough motivation for them to shell us.

I stopped to pack a bit more snow into my mouth, keeping my breath from giving away my position. Then I continued to fire.

It wasn’t long before I’d gone through my magazine. Each bullet had hit its mark. Five Soviets now lay in the snow, either dead or dying.

I thumbed in another five rounds before resuming fire. In the distance I could see a few of my squadmates rise from the snow and shower the two tanks with molotov cocktails. We didn’t have much in the way of anti-tank weaponry, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t disable those tanks all the same. A tank that couldn’t move, or one with nothing inside of it alive, was nothing more than a metal tomb.

The soldiers who were being fired upon scrambled, many trying to hide behind the tanks, only to be met with Finns on the other side of the trail behind them. They were ambushed, barely being able to return fire before being gunned down by submachine guns.

It was a massacre. They had nothing to protect them and were sorely prepared for a fight. They managed to wound some of our men, even kill a couple. But this battle, like many over the past couple months, would go down as a victory.

And I had killed about 22, using about 28 rounds to do so. An efficient use of ammunition, with a wonderfully accurate rifle.

There was little to complain about, except for the fact that I’d have to do it again tomorrow. The Red Army really knew how to make me work.

The battle concluded, and time wound forward.

Another battle came, this one much less subtle and advantageous than the last. 160 Finns against 310 Soviets. I utilized both my M28-30 and KP31, killing a generally equal number with both guns, amounting to a total of 15.

The next battle after that, another ambush, added 28 tallies to my list. It was getting difficult to keep track, but I wasn’t the only one doing so. Sometimes I thought others were more invested in keeping track of my kill counts than myself.

The next battle, just a day later, and I took the lives of another 23 Red Army bastards.

Day by day this continued. I had plenty of time to get used to the battles. Killing those men was even easier than trying to hunt a deer. With a deer you had to avoid hitting their organs so as to not spoil the meat. You had to go for clean shots. With these guys, hitting them at all was a job well done. Plus, they generally didn’t run, unlike easily spooked deer.

I lay behind my sights, taking the lives of my enemies one by one. Each round I fired screamed like all the rest.

Seldom were there fights that I felt afraid of. I was a good shot, but apparently I stood out enough to get names like the Magic Shooter. Along with the name came a certain level of fame, as well as shit from some of the other soldiers who had no qualms poking fun at it.

At some point it was clear that my name was circulating through the army, as well as through the Soviet Union. That didn’t spare me the troubles of a soldier though. I still had to bear the cold, long hours of these battles. I liked to set myself up safely, hiding away safely well in advance of battles. But that came with a certain level of discomfort as the hours ticked away.

It was only toward the end of the war that I finally faced fear… and morbid amazement.

It was during a battle in the forests of Ulissma. We were given orders to halt the Red Army’s 128th Division, a counterattack just like many other missions before, and we were out of artillery shells that would otherwise help halt their advance. It was clear that the war was coming to an end, but it seemed our enemies found desperation in that fact. Or, at least their commanders did.

Red Army soldiers occupied the forests, determined to break through our line at any cost. Tanks stationed themselves behind advancing troops as we unceasingly fired upon every soldier that dared expose himself. We used the terrain to our advantage, hunting down man after man. It didn’t take long to kill a dozen by myself in the early stage, and my squad was right there with me. However, they kept resurfacing. I thought that we had killed most of them, but more appeared, all of them fighting back in a desperate struggle to survive.

I had heard that their tanks would fire upon any who dared turn around. At this point in the war, when soldiers so desperately wanted to live instead of sacrificing their lives for nothing, commanders kept them in line with the threat of death.

Either way, we were cutting them down, with or without help from their own commanders. Sometimes I would get into engagements with enemies only two meters away. It was dangerous, but it was going well. We were making them withdraw, and my kill count had to have risen to around 40 Russkies in this battle alone. We gave chase, hunting them down.

But some of the braver bastards stayed behind. And then, there was a sudden shot from maybe 70 meters away. I felt it just as I was hit, a small explosion in my mouth as the bullet tore through my jaw, giving me this bright tunnel vision. I knew I had been shot, but there was nothing I could do when I lost consciousness.

Some time later I woke up to medics trying to suppress the injuries to my face. I could feel and taste the blood and bone fragments in my mouth. I was on a stretcher on the ground. However, I only managed to remain conscious for perhaps 300 meters of their transportation before passing out once more.

I wouldn’t wake up until a week later, on the day that the armistice was signed.

The war was over, and I was left a broken man. Yet I survived, unlike so many that I had killed before, left with a reminder carved into my face of the war I had given my life and my skills for.

……

…

My eyes opened just as the memories ended. They had come more vividly than any other before.

I looked down, realizing that I wasn’t a soldier in a winter war. I was no longer the White Death.

And yet his rifle sat in my hands. When I felt it, instincts arose within me. Intuition, experience, technique. I felt like I had gained years of practice in such a short amount of time. My body couldn’t adapt to it; there was a disconnect between what was in my mind and the memory ingrained in my flesh and blood.

Still, I had gained something incredible. The experience of one of the most famous snipers in history. Whether his feats were exaggerated, mere propaganda, or not, the summon in my hands was far above any other that I had held before, and the knowledge given to me was enlightening.

I was given more than just experience digging holes and stuffing snow into my mouth to conceal my breath. I was given… a feeling, of what it meant to be concealed, to be hidden among snow, trees, dirt and rock.

And I knew the feeling of accuracy, the feeling that I could guide my shots, the feeling of absolute confidence in the operation of my rifle. It was experience under fire that I simply didn’t have.

There was a subtle change to my vision as well. Not literally, but metaphysically. My perception changed.

I suddenly stood and hobbled out of my room, practically jumping across the floor until I left the residence and made it outside.

When I did, I looked off into the distance.

And I could estimate, with shocking accuracy, how far something was from me. Depth perception, and damn good at that. It wasn’t enough to simply be able to see far. Without a rangefinder, I could only guess at how far something was, which would determine how I zeroed my sights, and by extension how accurate my shots would be.

Of course, my ability to empower and increase the speed of my bullets changed how I handled zeroes. But that didn’t negate the effect of gravity.

It seemed the White Death had a wonderful intuition. With this kind of perception, it was no wonder he was a good sniper.

I smiled brightly, before noticing that it was night. I had spent a long time absorbing those memories. I was also really tired; most of my Psyka was gone.

That meant it would be easy to fall asleep. Only after some dinner, of course.

I made my way to the chow hall with a pep in my step. After scarfing down my food, I retired for the night, falling blissfully asleep with my new rifle in my arms. It was like I was a kid on Christmas day all over again; I couldn’t wait to try out my new rifle, and more than that, indulge in the skills of the world’s most feared sniper.