Chapter 158: Valeria Fired My Rifle and I Actually Laughed

Blue lines appeared along the rifle.

The Impulse Spark activated, followed by the Pulse Core and Pressure Chamber in sequence.

BOOM.

Valeria took a full step backward.

She didn’t fall.

She didn’t drop the weapon.

But the weight and recoil pushed her far more than she had expected.

The projectile struck the lower section of the plate and tore a chunk from its support.

Valeria went still.

Raven looked at her.

Then at her feet.

Then back at her.

The laugh escaped before he could stop it.

It wasn’t a quiet exhale or the faint smile he occasionally allowed himself.

Raven actually laughed.

Once.

Short.

Real.

Valeria stopped looking at the target and slowly turned her head toward him.

The laugh died.

Raven immediately realized he had made another mistake.

"What?"

Valeria kept staring at him.

Not mockingly.

That would have been easier.

There was something much softer in her expression.

"Nothing."

Raven narrowed his eyes.

"That word never means nothing when you say it."

Valeria carefully lowered the rifle.

"I was just checking that you could do it."

"Shoot?"

"Laugh."

Raven held out his hand.

"Give me the rifle."

"That doesn’t answer me."

"There wasn’t a question."

"You’re learning my techniques."

Raven took hold of the Mk.I.

Valeria didn’t release it immediately.

For a moment, both of them had one hand on the weapon.

Then she let go.

She was still smiling.

"Don’t make this strange," Raven said.

"Too late."

"You only took one step backward."

"It was the rifle."

"Naturally."

"I could use Blood Magic to stabilize myself."

Raven immediately shook his head.

"No."

"Why?"

"I want you to learn the stance before compensating for mistakes with magic."

Valeria raised an eyebrow.

"So there’s going to be a second time?"

Raven went still.

She smiled.

Another trap.

"When I have more ammunition."

"Interesting."

Raven returned to the table.

"Don’t start."

"I didn’t say anything."

"That doesn’t mean anything either."

Valeria laughed.

The round she had just fired was the third of four provisional calibration rounds Hadrik had finished for them that afternoon.

They were not part of the standardized batch Raven had ordered for the following morning.

Those would be machined from the material they had selected and made to a tighter specification.

The four they had brought to the quarry were still experimental: individually measured, hand-finished from available stock, and close enough in weight and dimensions to produce useful calibration data without pretending Raven had already solved ammunition production.

Three were gone.

One remained.

Raven loaded it.

This time he adjusted for two hundred meters.

The rifle’s primary ballistic calibration still sat at twenty-nine percent.

Valeria’s shot had provided useful information, but not the kind Raven needed to refine his own sight corrections. She had fired at only five percent mana, from a different stance, with a different operator behind the weapon.

FORGE had recorded it separately.

Useful for recoil behavior.

Useful for low-output performance.

Useful if Valeria ever fired the weapon again.

Not useful enough to pretend the Mk.I suddenly knew where Raven’s next full-power shot would land.

He settled the stock against his shoulder and aimed at the two-hundred-meter board.

Breath.

Sight alignment.

Trigger.

BOOM.

The projectile struck the wooden target.

Not exactly where Raven wanted.

Close enough to narrow the deviation.

FORGE reacted.

[Primary Ballistic Calibration Data Acquired.]

[Calibration: 29% → 36%.]

Then the secondary results appeared.

[Recoil Model Improved.]

[Alternate Operator Data Recorded.]

[Low-Charge Performance Characterized.]

[Structural Condition: STABLE.]

[Thermal-Cycle Samples: 6.]

[Further Testing Recommended.]

Raven closed the interface.

Six live rounds had been fired since the Mk.I’s creation.

Two during the initial live-fire test the previous day.

Four today.

The first two rounds today had advanced the weapon’s primary calibration from eighteen to twenty-nine percent. Valeria’s reduced-power shot had expanded the recoil and operator model without changing that number. Raven’s final two-hundred-meter shot had provided another usable ballistic reference and raised calibration to thirty-six percent.

That was enough data to establish patterns.

Not enough to trust the weapon completely.

He was beginning to understand it, though.

At normal firing output, the Mk.I pulled slightly to the right. Rearward pressure was manageable with a proper stance, but heat accumulated quickly after repeated discharges. The Reservoir could support more shots than Raven had initially feared, although restoring its mana afterward still required time and resources.

The current sights were crude.

Projectile variation remained a problem.

And the four rounds they had fired today were still closer to carefully measured prototypes than true standardized ammunition.

Tomorrow’s batch would be the first attempt at fixing that.

Accuracy was already acceptable for a weapon this unfinished.

And Valeria had hit a metal plate on her first attempt.

Low.

But she had hit it.

Raven decided not to tell her yet.

She was satisfied enough already.

They returned to Kharad with the sun sinking behind the hills.

Valeria didn’t allow the silence to survive for long.

"I didn’t know you could laugh like that."

Raven walked beside his horse.

"Most people can laugh."

"You usually do that other thing."

"What thing?"

Valeria made a brief exhaling sound through her nose.

Raven looked at her.

"That sounds nothing like me."

"It sounds exactly like you."

"No."

"We can ask Roland."

"No."

"Then you know I’m right."

Raven adjusted the rifle case.

"A five-percent discharge moved you backward."

"Don’t change the subject."

"I’m not changing it. It was funny."

"So you admit you were laughing at me."

"Yes."

Valeria looked surprisingly pleased by the admission.

"That’s better."

"I don’t understand what standard you’re using."

"Mine."

"That explains the problem."

They walked another few meters.

"A few months ago, you would have pretended it never happened," Valeria said.

Raven looked at her.

She didn’t seem to be teasing him now.

Not entirely.

"Maybe."

"But you aren’t now."

Raven considered the difference.

He didn’t have a good answer.

He had spent too much of his life treating every conversation like a negotiation, every person as a variable, and every relationship as something that might eventually become a weakness.

Some of that was still true.

It probably always would be.

But Valeria had already seen things far worse than a laugh.

She had seen him nearly die.

Seen him wounded.

Seen Predation.

FORGE.

What remained of his connection to Earth.

The way he thought when there was no reason to hide it.

Even parts of Raven that he would have preferred not to examine himself.

Pretending the laugh hadn’t happened would have been ridiculous.

"It was funny," he repeated.

Valeria smiled.

"I’m going to remember that."

"That is exactly what I wanted to avoid."

"Too late again."

Raven shook his head.

But he wasn’t annoyed.

That was new too.

The Mercenary House Annex was quieter by the time they returned that evening.

They went back before dinner.

The same clerk remained behind the counter and recognized them immediately.

"Decided on your route?"

Raven placed the folded map on the counter.

"South."

"Then I have something for you."

She pulled a contract from a different folder.

"This came in this afternoon. Three wagons leave tomorrow morning for Southwatch Relay."

Raven located the outpost on the map.

It wasn’t a fortress.

More of a roadside station used by merchants, messengers, and patrols. It had suffered damage when the underground disturbances temporarily disrupted one of the secondary routes and prevented several supply shipments from arriving.

The clerk pointed to the cargo list.

"Food, medicine, tools, lumber, and materials to repair part of the station. They lost a section of the roof during the tremors two days ago."

Roland read over Raven’s shoulder.

"Why do they need mercenaries for that?"

"Patrols are occupied inspecting roads, and several creatures were displaced by the Burrower activity. They aren’t expecting serious trouble, but the merchants don’t want to move three wagons without protection."

Raven checked the distance.

Convenient.

South.

Along the same route they had already considered taking.

Roughly one day of travel, depending on road conditions.

The pay was decent.

Not excellent.

But Raven mentally compared it with Hadrik’s ammunition estimate.

It would cover a considerable portion of the first standardized batch of projectiles and the rifle’s maintenance costs.

"We’ll take it."

Valeria looked at him.

"That quickly?"

"It’s in our direction."

"True."

"We need money."

"Also true."

"And it doesn’t require a several-day detour."

Roland smiled.

"Three reasons. He’s definitely learning to explain his decisions."

Raven looked at him.

"I can still leave you here."

"Four. Incredible progress."

The clerk hid a smile.

Raven signed the contract.

Valeria read the cargo list again.

"You killed an Elite Matriarch, and now we’re escorting lumber and flour."

Raven handed the pen back.

"Matriarchs don’t pay for my bullets."

Roland burst out laughing.

Even the clerk laughed.

Valeria shook her head.

"I hate that this is a perfectly valid explanation."

"I don’t."

The woman stamped the contract.

"You leave at dawn. The drivers will be waiting by the southern gate."

Raven took their copy.

"Any recent incidents along the route?"

"Nothing confirmed."

The wording caught his attention.

"Confirmed."

The clerk hesitated.

"One moment."

She crouched behind the counter and searched through a tray of recently delivered reports.

Then she pulled out a single sheet.

"This arrived after the contract was prepared."

Raven held out a hand.

She gave it to him.

It wasn’t a full report.

Just a note added by a messenger.

Southwatch Route — Merchant Reports Pending Verification

Two brief statements were written underneath.

The first caravan had reported a large moving shadow crossing the road approximately fourteen kilometers south of Kharad. The source had not been visually identified.

The second report was less reassuring.

Multiple large shadows had been seen above the western ridge near dusk.

Possible aerial creatures.

No confirmed attack.

Raven read both statements.

Valeria leaned closer.

"Shadows."

Roland looked toward the ceiling as though expecting something to fly through it.

"Large ones."

The clerk added, "There hasn’t been an attack. They might be migrating birds, mountain creatures, or simply nervous merchants after everything that happened here."

Raven looked back at the contract.

A simple escort.

Three wagons.

Food.

Medicine.

Lumber.

Enough money to pay for ammunition.

Now there were possible aerial creatures.

Naturally.

Valeria studied his expression.

"We can still refuse it."

Raven looked toward the long case behind him.

Prototype Rifle Mk.I.

Thirty-six percent ballistic calibration.

Four experimental calibration rounds expended that afternoon.

A standardized batch waiting to be finished by Hadrik in the morning.

A weapon almost no one outside a very small group knew existed.

He didn’t want to reveal it.

He also had no intention of wasting expensive projectiles on shadows.

He folded the report and placed it with the contract.

"We leave tomorrow."

Roland raised an eyebrow.

"Even with that?"

"The shadows haven’t attacked anyone."

"Yet."

"Then tomorrow we’ll find out if they intend to start."

Valeria smiled faintly.

"That sounded much more like you."

Raven looked at the report again.

Two caravans.

Large shadows.

Southern route.

Possible aerial creatures.

Then he looked at the payment.

And thought about what every standardized projectile was about to cost him.

He sighed.

"That wasn’t included in the price."