Moonlight Blue

On the streets of Waham.

“So, what are your orders?” asks Maeve.

“We’ll be ‘cleaning up’ everything that ever involved our Society.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. Order our men to destroy every base of the West Alley Gang and its people. Leave no trace behind. Here.” says Zeke as he hands Maeve a piece of parchment.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the location of Raizer’s number 2, Eren. Take care of him.”

“Understood. What about you?”

“I’ll deal with the Baron. I know a secret passageway that will lead me straight inside his mansion. Make sure everything is done by tonight. After all, we still have a ton of work to do back at the Capital.”

“Understood.”

“I trust you won’t need to use ‘it’.”

“Do you have so little faith in me? Fighting him, I don’t even need to use my mid-level magic bullets.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I know your capabilities as a gunslinger, but I don’t want you to be careless. Make sure you finish him even if you must use ‘it’.”

“I understand.”

After saying that, Maeve disappears by an alleyway.

I bet she’s pissed right now. After all, she can’t use ‘it’ unless I give her permission to. So far, she’s has only used ‘it’ twice and it was with strong opponents. Me telling her she can use ‘it’ against an opponent of Eren’s level is an insult to her. She’s more efficient when she is angry which is why I did what I did. She’ll probably chew my head off after all of this is over.

***

At one of the West Alley gang’s bases.

“DAMN IT! You had to go and get yourself killed Raizer.” Says Eren after flipping the table in a fit of anger. Even though he is angry, sorrow fills his eyes.

Eren didn’t know how Raizer died. He, just like the majority of the people, only witnessed the warehouse being burned down in a sea of flames.

“And the merchandise was also lost in the fire. That means all responsibility will be shifted to me. Considering what happened to the baron after he failed the Bandit Society, I’ll have to assume that I’ll also face a punishment of that degree if not worse.”

As Eren is busy pondering about the punishment he might receive, harrowing screams echo throughout the base.

Damn it. Just as I was planning on fleeing. Is Dread already here?

Gun shots resound all over the building as a pile of bodies drop one after the other.

Wait a minute, gunshots? Dread doesn’t use guns. Is it perhaps someone else?

Eren walks out of the room and stills himself. He strides towards the commotion only to find dead bodies everywhere, all which had bullets imbedded on their foreheads.

How is everyone dead already? It only took me a few minutes to get here and yet 75 people are already dead on the ground, all of them with headshots.

“It took you long to show up. For a second there, I thought you ran.”

A woman’s voice.

Eren looks over at the direction of the voice. There, a woman is sitting on a chair holding two revolvers. The woman has an eye patch on her left eye and the only eye visible shows nothing but frustration.

Eren narrows his eyes and speaks.

“I don’t believe we’ve met-“ before he can finish, a bullet hurtles directly into his head. Using his quick reflex that had been honed for years, he unsheathes his sword and deflects the bullets towards the wall.

“I see you’re not the one to talk, huh?”

Maeve stands up from the chair and walks a few paces forward.

“Who are you? Why have you come here? Did the Bandit Society send you?”

Maeve doesn’t answer and glares at him with her one good eye.

Hmm, she’s not answering. Could she be an assassin? Well, that doesn’t matter, I guess. I sensed her mana earlier before she shot at me and I definitely didn’t sense any magic from her nor strong mana for that matter. I can say with confidence that she’s not a mana user or a magician considering she’s using a gun of all things.

“I suggest you hand yourself over to me lady. Your mana is so weak that it equals a normal civilian’s. You can’t win against me.”

A smile creeps on Maeve.

“Funny enough, you are not the first person who’s said that to me. From my memories, everyone who talked like that to me had the habit of dying from my bullets.”

Maeve is one of the many people in the world to be born with little mana capacity. Because of that, people like her are considered useless. Due to her misfortune, she learned many ways to fight without using mana or magic. Luckily, magic tools and weapons were something that people like her could utilise to breach the gap between them and mana users or mages. Of all the magic weapons in the world, a magic gun was her calling.

I don’t have time for this. Before Dread arrives, I have to finish off this woman.

Maeve shoots more bullets at Eren who dodges and blocks them whilst charging forward at Maeve. However, she keeps her distance as she continues firing her bullets from her revolvers.

Is she crazy? Does she really think she can harm me with normal bullets?

As if to scoff at his ignorance, the bullet he blocks this time explodes as his sword contacted it.

Thank the Goddess I imbued my sword with mana at the last second otherwise my sword would have received a lot of damage.

Explosion magic spell. It is a spell of the fire attribute that can only be activated when the caster is in contact with their enemy or object they want to destroy. Magicians rarely use this type of magic in combat as being close to their enemy is disadvantageous for them.

A way was discovered for long ranged combatants like archers and marksmen to use this type of spell. This way was imbuing their arrows tips and bullets with the spell, activating it when they made contact. Even though the explosion spell was of low level, when it hit its mark, the explosion that followed right after was enough to kill or severely injure a mana user.

“You hid the existence of your magic bullets so that you can catch me off guard. Did you think I was that arrogant?”

Maeve doesn’t answer but just stares at him nonchalantly. Eren is annoyed as he charges at her once more. She shoots three regular bullets from one of her guns followed by a single explosion bullet. At times, two regular bullets would be fired followed by one explosion bullet.

I found her pattern. The cylinders of her revolvers have a maximum of ten bullet slits. She fires three regular bullets first and a single explosion magic bullet after then fires two regular bullets and a single explosion magic bullet again. That makes 7 bullets fired in total. That leaves only three which without a doubt are regular bullets.

Of course, she switches her guns by firing them both to confuse me but there is no way I’ll miss my count. So far, she has fired 18 bullets in total. That’s nearly two rounds. She’ll run out of bullets after two more shots and when she reloads, I’ll end it.

Just like Eren’s prediction, Maeve runs out of bullets after two more shots of regular bullets.

Now!

Eren’s feet dig the ground as he launches himself forward. In a blink of an eye, he appears right in front of Maeve.

“Time to die!”

Eren swings his sword imbued with mana down on Maeve. At that point, Eren thinks to himself “checkmate” but Maeve veers out of the way without batting an eye. It is only a single step that she takes to dodge the strike, but that single step is the one that separates her from the world of the dead to the world of the living.

She dodged?! I still have time. She won’t be able to reload before my next swing. I just need to-

His thought process comes to a standstill. It is only in that moment that he realises that he never actually saw any bullets on her. The only thing he saw were the two-leather gun holsters for her revolvers hanging on her waist.

Then how is she going to reload?

The rings on Maeve’s middle fingers glow brightly as bullets launched out of them into the open cylinders of the revolvers.

A storage ring?!

After the force of his strike dissipates, a gun that is fully loaded is already pointing at his forehead at point-blank. The trigger is pulled, and the bullet connects to the head. Luckily, Eren manages to erect a mana barrier on his forehead just in time.

Thank the Goddess it’s just a regular bullet that’s fired otherwise my head would have been blown off.

Another gunshot is heard but not from the gun that has just fired but from the other that is pointing down on his foot. The bullet penetrates through his shoe to his foot and Eren groans in pain.

“Your ability to control mana is slow. You barely reacted to the shot to the head and the one to your foot, you couldn’t even see it.”

Eren grits his teeth and fights through the pain.

“This level of pain isn’t enough to kill me.” Says Eren as he swings his injured foot to kick Maeve.

Maeve blocks the kick and uses the momentum of it to gain distance. Two gunshots resound from her gun in her left hand as two bullets hurtle towards Eren who blocks one and dodges the other.

One more shot from both her guns and she’ll fire a magic bullet from each just like her pattern.

She points her gun at him again and fires.

I’ll cut this bullet and close in the distance before she fires the magic bullets.

Eren swings his sword towards the bullet and made contact. The bullet explodes and the unimbued sword suffers damage.

What?! A magic bullet? But how?

“Three regular bullets followed by a magic bullet. Then two regular bullets followed by another magic bullet before the last three shots of regular bullets are fired.”

“Heh, so you knew huh? And you decided to change your pattern so that you can catch me off guard. But too bad your trick didn’t wo-“

“Change my pattern? I think you’re mistaken. I never changed my pattern.”

Eren is a bit confused by her statement.

“The two shots I fired before the magic bullet. They came from the same gun.” Says Maeve showing off her gun on her left hand.

I see now. The pattern was imprinted in my mind subconsciously. I automatically thought the two gunshots came from both guns, but it was one. I won’t make the same mistake a second time.

Maeve raises the other gun from her right hand and pulls the trigger.

She’s firing her other gun. If I’m not mistaken, that gun should now have two more regular bullets before the magic bullet is fired. My sword is a bit damaged by the explosion from earlier, but it should be more than enough to stop a regular bullet.

Eren swings his sword down on the hurtling bullet. Even though his foot is bleeding uncontrollably for some reason, he intends to block the bullet and close the gap between him and his foe, killing her in one strike. But to do that, he needs to fight through the pain.

Once again, the bullet and his sword connect and for some reason, he feels the same sensation he felt when his sword connected with the magic bullet before. Instinctively, he erects his mana on his sword but just like Maeve had said, it was too slow.

The bullet explodes once more, and the explosion pushes Eren three steps back. Before he could contemplate what is happening, a bullet pierces his thigh. Luckily, this is a regular bullet, so his thigh didn’t go blowing off his body.

Eren groans in pain as he hides behind a wooden pillar.

“I thought you said you didn’t change your pattern?”

“I did? Huh, it seems being with Zeke has its own influence on me. Anyways, who are you to listen to your enemy?”

As Eren weighed his back on the pillar, he notices that the bleeding hasn’t stopped. The reason for that is because he was hit in the arteries both on his feet and thigh and now, he is bleeding out.

Damn it! To think she would hit the arteries of all things. Was it just a coincident or is she really that skilled?

Eren uses his mana on his injuries to try and block the bleeding. His training isn’t efficient enough to completely stop the bleeding, but it is enough to at least slow it.

Damn, I left my storage bag in my office. I went into this battle without thinking and now I’m suffering for it.

The only thing he could do is regret not taking his storage bag with potions in it.

“You could have blown my leg off if that was a magic bullet.”

“I know but you see, I made a promise to myself that an opponent like you needed only six low-level magic bullets. And if my math is correct, I already used them all now.”

A vein pops on Eren’s forehead.

Is she fucking with me? Is she trying to let me believe that she won’t fire any magic bullets only to fire one right at my face?’

“You don’t need to worry. If I wanted to kill you that easily, I would have long done it by now. The only reason you’ve lived for this long is for me to pass the time.”

Is she trying to piss me off? No, I need to calm down.

Eren takes a deep breath then exhales. He holds his sword tightly and limps out from his hiding spot.

“You finally came out. I was only going to give you 10 more seconds to catch your breath before killing you.”

“If what you said is true, then that means you’ll only fire regular bullets from now on, right?”

“Yes.”

Eren smiles, “Then you’ll regret it.”

The ground cracks underneath his feet as he charges at Maeve. She shoots a couple of shots which Eren blocks and dodge without a problem and swings his unimbued sword at Maeve who dodges the strike with ease too.

How is she able to move like that? Even though at close combat, she should be at a disadvantage, her movements don’t show that. She is dodging and countering me like it’s nothing.

Eren blocks the bullets and keeps pressing on with his attacks, not letting up. But Maeve keeps dodging his attacks and counters with her bullets.

I need to finish her before I run out of mana and bleed out. This one attack. I need to finish it with this one attack.

A fire burns within Eren’s eyes. He is about to use a last-ditch attack. He pulls all his mana into his sword. It glows brightly as Eren jumps up into the air and swings it with full force.

“This is the end.”

Even if you dodge this attack, the impact is strong enough to destroy 5 metres of the area we are in. You won’t be able to avoid this attack.

It truly is the end. His end I mean. A smile creeps from Maeve as she watches the sword swings down on her. In that moment, for a split second, Eren wonders, why she is smiling before her death? Of course, that didn’t stop him from his attack.

A sound of metal shattering reverberates into his ears. He catches his own reflection on one of the shards of his broken sword. He is surprised. He isn’t given a chance to contemplated what has happened since as soon as his feet touches the ground, he is riddled with bullets all over his body.

There is a reason for his sword breaking. For something to be imbued with mana, it’s durability and magic conductivity are considered. When a weapon is forged, be it a sword, an axe or even a bow, their materials are selected from a long list. Creating a hard sword with low durability not only risks it from breaking when it clashes with an enemy sword but risks it collapsing under the user’s own mana.

At this moment, Eren’s sword had suffered a lot of damage and thus its durability decreased. Not only that, but all the regular bullets she had fired until now and Eren has blocked, all of them had hit the same spot on his sword. And that spot was slightly above the centre of his sword.

“T-that’s i-impossible. To have that kind of accuracy…” says Eren, choking from the pool of his own blood as he kneels in front of Maeve.

The only thing she does is smile slightly.

A thought crosses Eren’s mind. About individuals whose marksmanships are said to be monstrous.

“D-don’t tell me, you are a… gunslinger- “, a bullet tears through his brain as his lifeless corpse collapses to the ground.

“Sigh, that took longer than I expected. You were a bit stronger than I anticipated Eren. You just met the wrong opponent. Now, what’s the best way to get back at Zeke? My revenge should involve him using his money that he so loves. Maybe stealing his most prized possession, his 5 bottles of Golden Crystal? Nah, that doesn’t benefit me at all. Hmm, I believe there’s an auction a month from now and a pair of highly performing revolvers are being auctioned. Their price isn’t enough to dig a hole on Zeke’s wallet but if I were to bid against him, then he’ll have no other choice but to keep bidding until he gets them just to appease me.”

And that’s what Maeve did a month from now. Zeke was forced to spend over 20 thousand gold coins for the revolvers that were originally 5 thousand gold coins. (Maeve felt bad for him since he spent the entire month begging for forgiveness, so she just settled at 20 thousand).