Chapter 48 (2/2)

To make sure it was him, she used the gaze of her purple magic eye to read his temperature. Even if it was some miscreant requesting for someone to be killed, their temperature would still change from other peoples.

――I will pick it up now.

”Suuu…….”

Then, she inhaled deeply, and quietly. She holds her breath's rhythm at the same time when air filled her lungs. She put her slender finger on the cold trigger.

She followed the man who pa.s.sed through the crowds with the scope and aimed closely. Before long, the man stopped in front of a certain store. At that moment, a clear gap was formed in the crowds that had blocked the man as if they had arranged it beforehand.

Ludmilla didn't miss that(opportunity) and pulled the trigger. Flashes came out along with the sound of a gunshot. The stock transmitted the recoil to her shoulder.

The time for the bullet to be fired from the muzzle, and hit the target was all in about one second. Even if the gunshot was loud to a certain degree, the sound wouldn't reach the crowd from several hundred meters away.

Ludmilla, with an excellent ability as a sniper, at that moment, could tell whether or not a bullet was going to hit something. And in the time that flowed slowly, with a cold mindset when she was in attack mode, she confirmed it.

――Ah, this one was a hit.

Before long, the time return to their normal flow. At the end of the scope a tragic, and vivid, crimson flower bloomed.

The man collapsed as if he was blown over. In an instant, people's gazes gathered.

Although it couldn't reach Ludmilla's ears, there were a few screams here and there.

” …… Target's death confirmed.”

The bullet was modified so that it shattered into pieces simultaneously upon impact, having a frighteningly high amount of killing power. However, the bullet's ability to penetrate was nonexistent. With this thing s.h.i.+zuru gave me, saying it was to make sure there were no collateral casualties, his head practically blew off. It was absolutely not necessary to go and completely confirm.

”…….urg”

Ludmilla stood up quickly, enduring the sudden wave of nausea. Even though it didn't reach the main street, the gunshot resounded to the surrounding area. Although it seemed that it was out of the time period when the guards were on their patrol routes, there are irregulars. If she didn't leave from there soon, it would become troublesome.

”I feel sick……:”

Ludmilla began to run along several building rooftops, before jumping to the ground below. She couldn't shake off the scene that was stuck in her mind, and pressed her hand to her mouth and bitterly muttered.

She had a hallucination of the body of the guy she had just killed, his body was all dirty, and the blood on his body was all sticky.

” …… I want to take a bath…… I want to drink ice cocoa……”

Let's get back to the hideout soon. Let's return and get rid of this small, yet bad feeling.

Hastening, she hurried all the way to the slums.

This is the first time I've had tears come out of my eyes, Ludmilla thought to herself.

――There was no such thing as getting used to the knowledge of how many people you've killed.

Footnotes:

1. TL: So for all you non-gun experts(like me), a hinged floorplate is basically an area on older(as well as some modern) models in front of the trigger which opens up to load the bullets. In the case that my s.h.i.+tty explanation didn't help, here's a video which explains it better, it's best to skip to 0:35.

2. TL: So, for some more gun stuff, the ”Dreyse Needle Gun” was a rifle developed in the 19th century in the Kingdom of Prussia. It was a supposedly efficient gun which was extremely helpful during its 22 years of use. It was apart of several Prussian unification wars, and played a key role in several, but it got replaced right after the Franco-Prussian Unification war as the French had developed a new rifle, causing the Dreyse to become obsolete.

3. TL: Christ, this was a simple term, yet so hard to look up and confirm, which is why I got help from my friendly neighborhood spanish gun enthusiast. Basically, it's a pretty old mechanism for rifles, with exceptions of course. Mostly, when you think of break barrel, you think of the stereotypical double-barrel hunting shotgun that folds.

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