The Inept Mage's Infinite Regression - Chapter 74

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

◈ The Inept Mage’s Infinite Regression

Chapter 74

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Ethan lifted the Odium.

Rifles were treated as B-rank, one step above Handguns. Acquiring the archive for automatic rifles had triggered a synergy that bumped Marksmanship from D+ to C. He already knew how to use one.

He shouldered it, raised the muzzle at nothing, and settled into a firing stance.

"Heavy. If I pushed my internal energy up, I think I could manage it one-handed."

"You could. But the Odium can be converted into two different configurations by swapping the barrel, and there may be situations where one suits better than the other. Would you like to try?"

Packed in the same case as the Odium were a spare barrel and a hex wrench. Guided by the archive, Ethan swapped the barrel without much trouble. He started with the shorter one.

The barrel ran about twenty-six centimeters, just enough to fill a palm wrapped around the handguard. A thick suppressor was threaded on, nested so far inside the handguard it nearly disappeared.

"This configuration is called the Furor. The dot sight will serve you well here. A shorter barrel is easier to move with indoors and simpler to conceal. When the enemy is inside a building and immediate fire is needed, convert to the Furor."

The longer barrel was a different matter, reaching about forty centimeters, well past the Odium's standard length. The handguard still fit comfortably in one hand, but a suppressor jutted out conspicuously from the muzzle.

"This configuration is called the Meror. A scope suits it better than a dot sight. The longer barrel stabilizes trajectory and gives you an edge at range. In open terrain, or when you need to pick off a distant target, convert to the Meror."

Demi continued.

"The specifications differ between the two, but both accept a suppressor. Standard 5.56mm rounds are the baseline, and subsonic and armor-piercing rounds can be purchased from the Merchant as needed. Additional tactical support is included as well: a sling and vertical grip among other attachments, level-3 bulletproof plates with a plate carrier designed to hold them front and back, magazine pouches that attach to the carrier, and various accessories."

"Subsonic and armor-piercing?"

"Subsonic rounds travel below the speed of sound, preventing the sonic boom that faster rounds produce and reducing the noise when fired. Armor-piercing rounds are designed for enhanced penetration."

Ethan walked over to the Merchant.

"So you're selling bullets now."

<That's right.>

"Why not before?"

The Merchant pointed to several paper-wrapped boxes beside the stall. Standard rounds came forty to a box for one D-rank Lottery Coupon. The other two types came twenty to a box at the same price. He was already carrying eighty standard rounds, so there was no reason to buy in bulk.

"One of each. So the stock actually changes."

<It's tied to your level.>

"Good to know."

He turned back to Demi.

"Do you have a plan, User?"

Ethan looked down at the rifle, quiet for a moment, then raised his head.

"I'm starting to think..."

"Starting to think?"

"...we can win the war."

∞

He configured the rifle as the Meror, mounted the scope and vertical grip, and loaded the magazine with standard rounds. Once he had a setup locked in, Demi seemed capable of memorizing it and recalling it the next time the rifle was summoned. After that, he returned to the Collector and chose which cards to slot into the Cube.

He didn't Load right away. He wanted to see how the war developed. The fighting shifted to the Yekatan Kingdom, and with the Undying King and the Eurogia family both at work, there was no stopping Yekatan from being laid to waste. Surrendering lords and knights raised the Undying King as ruler of a new Ysoren. At that point, Ethan accepted that turning the tide was beyond him. He Loaded.

Back in the dormitory, he walked into Boen's room carrying a Rocaf board.

"Do you even know how to play?"

"What do you take me for?"

Ethan smiled.

"Ever heard this one?"

"Heard what?"

"'He who masters Rocaf masters the battlefield.'"

"Grand General Riod. A figure worth calling great, certainly. Though I remain skeptical about any direct causal link between Rocaf skill and command ability..."

Ethan answered that skepticism with quiet confidence, and Boen pulled out his pieces, a clearly expensive set whose craftsmanship was obvious the moment they hit the board. Ethan had seen them before, but the quality still drew a compliment. Both chose standard setups, and Boen let Ethan go first.

"All right, then."

Ethan took the first game. Boen took the second. Ethan the third. Their skill was nearly even.

"Surprising. Did you play often within your family?"

"You could say that."

"It's a bit awkward to bring up now, but I do tend to play better with my own combination. Shall we keep going?"

"Sure. I've only ever practiced with the standard setup, so I want to try something different."

He didn't stop there.

"I know your secret, Boen."

"...Hmm? What do you mean?"

"In a month, you'll be lord of Palmize."

"Have you... seen the future?"

Ethan nodded.

"Foen, the eldest son, is going to abandon his claim and run once the war reaches him. You'll stop at the estate, leave the land management to the butler Mora, and go looking for Foen. No need to search far. He's taken everything of value from the Palmize estate and gone to the gambling den in Tobira City. Beat some sense into him, and the family's assets come back to you naturally. The lordship follows."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I'm going to stop you from becoming lord."

A thin, rueful smile.

"That's not what matters here. What's the plan?"

∞

Ethan and Boen went to see Aincher. A brief explanation later, they had practically extorted two horses and travel money from him and were riding east. Destination: Cora. The Undying King's attack would come not long after Ethan's Load point, and riding hard, they could just barely get there in time.

Boen's name was enough to get them an audience with Osmal Saikal. Rumors that the Undying King had returned, combined with reports of large-scale troop movements out of Ysoren, had thrown Cora's people into chaos.

Ethan had thought Osmal might peg them as spies and cancel the meeting. Osmal summoned them both into his audience hall anyway.

"Magic Academy students? What brings you here?"

"My name is Boen Palmize," Boen said.

"The Palmize Baron's son had a different name, I thought."

"That would be Foen. I was adopted."

"An adopted son of a struggling family..." A glance at Ethan. "And you?"

"Ethan Dora Charasen."

"Charasen? ...Hmm. What is it? As you can see, Cora is a bit unsettled right now."

"Yes. I know. In two days, the Undying King will attack Cora with skeletal soldiers."

One of the retainers leaned in and whispered to Osmal. The content wasn't hard to guess even without hearing it. Ethan had a way out of that.

"And I will be the one to capture the Undying King."

The retainers stirred. Ethan checked the quest window floating before him.

[Quest triggered!]
[Quest: Kill the Undying King (B)]
[This is the optimal moment to kill the Undying King.]

Only a B reward, which stung a little. Still, Ethan knew the quest grade was calibrated to his current abilities.

Osmal raised a hand.

"We already expected the Undying King to invade Cora. Two days from now was our most likely estimate as well. We have our own eyes and ears inside the empire. But you're saying you can go beyond predicting it, that you can actually kill him."

"Yes."

Osmal thought it over.

"The Undying King only has skeletal soldiers right now. He's making the rounds of old battlefields, reviving the soldiers he lost long ago. Given how much time has passed, neither the numbers nor the quality amount to much. Creating new skeletal soldiers requires corpses, large quantities of material for the sorcery, and time. Our estimate is around a thousand. Cora's walls are high. We can hold without your help."

"No."

Ethan shook his head.

"If we fail to capture the Undying King this time, he'll use his own weakness as a pretext to borrow soldiers from the Emperor and from Ysoren, then attack Cora again. By that point, Cora won't be able to hold."

The retainers grew loud again. Before Cora had fallen in past lives, Osmal had been a careful man, and Ethan understood why. He had much to lose and no desire to lose any of it. Too many people depended on his decisions.

In past lives, the Osmal who'd already lost Cora had listened because hope, however threadbare, was all he had left to clutch at. This Osmal listened for the opposite reason: a man with everything still to protect couldn't afford to dismiss even the wildest claim.

Osmal waited until the room was quiet.

"How do you know all this?"

Ethan reached for his all-purpose answer.

"I'm a dark mage."

Proving it was simple enough: show them what a dark mage could do. He demonstrated in front of Osmal and a small number of trusted retainers, and that was that. Every version of Osmal, it seemed, shared that same trait: if help was available, it didn't matter whether that help came from a dark mage.

He knew because, in past lives, Osmal himself had told him how the first attack on Cora had played out. That gave him precise knowledge of where the Undying King would strike and by what means. The original Undying King had deliberately let himself be repelled twice, to breed overconfidence in Cora's defenders.

That wasn't going to happen this time.

Two days later, the Undying King marched a thousand skeletal soldiers toward Cora's east gate. Seven skeletal knights, the rest ordinary infantry. At some point the Undying King stopped and ordered them forward.

Bang!

The Undying King's left wrist flew off. He swept his gaze frantically around him and ordered the knights to close ranks. The defense didn't last long. The legs of the skeletal horses buckled, and the knights' heads flew free, helmets and all. The Undying King ordered a retreat. Ethan held his aim and kept his focus.

He had climbed a hill overlooking Cora's east gate and the open ground before it. Over three hundred meters between him and the Undying King, but with a scope that was nothing. The Meror's effective range was six hundred and fifty meters. A suppressor was fitted even with standard rounds, and regardless, the Undying King had no means to strike back from that distance.

The Undying King barely managed to identify the direction the shots were coming from, angling the remaining knights to form a screen. Ethan worked through his rounds steadily. Two or three shots per skeletal knight were enough. A well-placed arrow only sank into armor; the force of an automatic rifle punched through and ricocheted inside, pulverizing bone.

Once no knights were left standing, the Undying King tried to duck behind cover. Ethan took down the skeletal horse first. The Undying King went sprawling. He lined up a shot at the skull, then the second magazine ran dry. He swapped in a fresh one and opened fire again, but a surge of skeletal soldiers had rushed in and blocked his line of sight.

Move positions? No. Still doable.

The Undying King was crawling, which was nearly the same as standing still. The skeletal soldiers milled about with no clear idea where to position themselves, and gaps kept opening. Ethan held his breathing rhythm and pulled the trigger.

Each pull dropped a skeleton. Then another. Then, in an instant, every last one of them collapsed at once.

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