Claude climbed up the hill with his gun sneakily. The wild boars were quite daring and didn’t mind his approach. A few of the larger ones seemed to smell something and looked up to snort in Lorist’s direction, before turning their heads back down to continue looking for food without a single care in the world.
Claude stopped when he was around a hundred meters from the group of boars. He heard Welikro describe their behavior before; it would be best if he didn’t approach them when they were looking for food, otherwise they would begin to perceive threat and begin their attack.
The distance of a hundred or so meters was perfect for that. Even if the boars discovered Claude’s presence, they would merely ignore him. He began to take aim with his gun and he didn’t target the largest boar. Instead, he went for a smaller one; a headshot would ensure its death swiftly. If he tried to go for the large boars, one shot might not be able to kill them due to their tough hide and thick flesh.
At the backyard of the villa down the slope, Maria and Rodan stood at the entrance of the herbalism lab as they watched Claude aim his gun at the group of boars from behind some shrubs.
“Madam, can he really carry it out? He’s only a youth,” Rodan said worryingly, “I think it’s best for us to hire some hunters from town to take care of them. I heard a guard that used to work as a hunter say that an escape route had to be prepared in advance before hunting wild boars. Ideally, one should be near a large tree in the event one needed to climb up the tree to avoid the counterattack of the boars. Frenzied wild boars are really ferocious and they won’t give up on anything they set their sights on.
“Just look at him. He has no experience at all. He’s only aiming from behind some shrubs. If he doesn’t manage to kill the boars and enrage them instead, he wouldn’t be able to save himself. The boars won’t care about the shrubs in front of him. It’ll be over once they charge at him.”
“Let’s trust him this once.” Maria waved to stop what Rodan was about to say next. “Even though he’s still young, since he managed to kill a niros crocodile before, I think wild boars should be no problem for him. You also know that this youth is a rogue magus. He has his own methods of ensuring his safety, so we don’t have to worry for him.”
The gun fired and the two of them could see the white smoke rising from the weapon in Claude’s hand. One small boar in the distance fell straight to the ground.
A one-hit kill! claude was quite proud of his marksmanship and whistled slightly. He proceeded to take out one paper cartridge containing type 3 pellet gunpowder, bit it open, poured its contents into his gun, used his ram rod to stuff it in, before loading the bullet and stuffing it in with the rod again. He turned the gun around, bit open another cartridge and poured some powder into the flash pan, checked his slow match, tightened it, and was ready to fire again.
As Claude was busy reloading his gun in a mechanical fashion, the two largest wild boars were enraged and charged towards him. The distance of 100 meters wasn’t too long nor short. By the time Claude had his gun raised, those two frenzied wild boars almost reached Claude, separated by a distance of no more than ten meters.
Claude could only fire one more shot, but there were two boars. Even if he could kill one of them with a single shot, the other boar would ram into him. He didn’t have any expertise in some kind of defensive martial art such as the Invincible Iron Mail technique and wouldn’t be able to weather the blow at all.
“It’s over… We are helpless to save him,” said Rodan with grief. He wanted to cover his eyes and avoid seeing the tragedy. Even if Claude could shoot one dead with the single shot he had, he wouldn’t be able to stop the second boar from exacting revenge.
Maria didn’t say anything. She watched Claude anxiously with her hands clasped tightly together. She couldn’t help but feel nervous given the dangerous situation that transpired right before her eyes.
Claude didn’t look like he minded the charge of those two wild boars at all. With two mentions of ‘pata’, the boars would be stupefied and stunned. They would forget why they ran there in the first place and might even smell Claude’s pants in a friendly manner. Claude could place the barrel of the gun straight on one boar’s head and fire, before uttering another ‘pata’ to the remaining boar or using Magic Missile on it.
The problem was that Maria and Rodan were watching him hunt closely. He had told Maria that he only knew five alchemical spells, so how would he be able to explain his other two combat spells?
His impression of Maria was stellar. Not only was she carefree and straightforward, she also didn’t show the slightest intent to cheat a rookie in the world of magic such as himself. She also didn’t yearn after his five basic spells and instead told him about their true value. It was through her that he got more information about the status of magic in the kingdom. In other words, Claude was the one who benefited the most from their encounter and conversations.
As the old adage went, ‘hold not the intent to harm others; forget not the need to stay vigilant’. Claude had hidden his two combat spells from Maria because of a subconscious desire to protect himself. No matter what, he had to keep his trump cards hidden instead of revealing them all to her, no matter how sincere or welcoming she seemed.
The two boars continued their charge and were less than five meters away, yet Claude kept his gun raised without moving.
All of a sudden, the two boars seemed to have suffered two hammer strikes and slumped weakly to the ground, sliding across the ground from the momentum before stopping in front of him.
Claude calmly placed the barrel of the gun against the head of the largest boar and pulled the trigger. Bang! White smoke floated upwards and the boar’s four limbs twitched before it fell to the ground, struggling.
The other boar was startled by the gunshot and hurriedly scrambled to escape. Claude discarded his gun and stood his ground unmovingly with both his arms down. The other boar managed to run two meters away and seemed to have its bony pinned down by something, causing it to flail wildly on the ground. No matter how it struggled, it couldn’t move an inch and could only cry out loudly.
Maria and Rodan watched with their mouths agape as the gun Claude tossed on the ground floated upwards to the side of Claude’s body as it was loaded in mid air by an invisible hand. After that, the gun floated in front of Claude and aimed towards the head of the boar that was pinned down on the ground.
Another loud bang could be heard and the boar slumped weakly to the ground, ceasing all movement after a while. The tens of wild boars further away were terrified by the three gunshots. The death of the two large wild boars caused them to scramble away quickly, no longer anywhere to be seen.
Claude wiped some sweat off his forehead and waved to Rodan and Maria to ask them to bring someone to take the three boars away.
Maria lifted her skirt and ran up the slope excitedly, while Rodan called out to her from behind. However, she completely ignored him, so he had no choice but to head to the villa to call for someone to take care of the three boars.
She rushed to Claude’s side with ragged breath as she exclaimed with excitement, “How did you do it? Claude, did you know how worried I was for you down there just now? These two boars almost rammed into you…”
Claude wiped more sweat off his forehead. “Madam, it’s Magus’s Hands. I dealt with the boars like how I stopped your frenzied horse. However, there were two boars just now and I could barely hold them down…”
Claude had experimented around with Magus’s Hands when he used it to do his chores in his attic. Though it was hard for him to move the thick desk in his attic alone, he could easily lift it with one of the magical hands and use the other to clean the dust had gathered under it.
It was too bad that there wasn’t any equipment he could use to measure force in his attic. But Claude believed it could exert at least ten times the force Claude’s body could. In other words, if he could lift something weighing 200 catties with his body, the magic hands could lift something weighing about 2000 catties. Even though he wasn’t sure whether that was an accurate estimate, that didn’t stop him from using the hands to deal with the two boars that were charging at him.
Actually, Claude was also really thankful for his luck. He didn’t think that the boars’ charging momentum would be so huge. Had it not been for Mental Shock’s effect of simulating a strike to the head that gave him the inspiration to smash down with Magus’s Hands on the boars at the back of their heads, he might not have been able to stop them simply by pushing against them from the front.
Fortunately, the harsh strike of Magus’s Hands caused the boars to go limp and slide across the ground, allowing him to take care of them easily. Thinking back at just now, though, Claude still felt slightly terrified. He didn’t have the opportunity to think too much just now, nor did he know whether using Magus’s Hands to deal with the two boars would work.
Actually, there was no need for him to load his gun and fire. He could use Fine Control to transform Magus’s Hands into two long spears and let the boars charge straight into them. That would’ve been far easier. Lady Maria did mention that Magus’s Hands and Fine Control ought to be used together… How did I forget that?
“These two wild boars are really huge. It’s the first time I’ve been able to see them up close.” Maria stepped on the boar carcass right in front of Claude.
“Don’t tell me, Madam, that you’ve never had wild boar meat before?”
“I have, but I’ve never seen such a smelly one this close up. I only managed to catch a few glimpses of them from afar just like how I saw them from down the slope just now. Claude, is this boar sick or something? Look at its skin, it looks like there are scars forming over it. How distasteful.”
Claude smiled as he shook his head. “Madam, it isn’t ridden with disease. Mature wild boars more or less look the same. They like to rub their bodies against trees and allow resin to coat their bodies before rolling in mud. This is how it looks when all that dries up. As you can see, it makes the skin far tougher and other wild beasts aren’t able to bite into it. Even bullets find it hard to penetrate it. The smaller wild boar I shot just now is different. You’ll find that its skin doesn’t look the same as this one.”
“Oh, so that was the case… The books don’t say anything like this…” Maria stepped on the carcass a few more times. “It should weigh around 300 catties, right? The other one is slightly smaller, so it should be around 200 catties. There’s another young boar up there too. How do you want to deal with these boars, Claude?”
“Normanley Wood belongs to you, Madam. I only did you a small favor. These boars still belong to you.”
That was sound according to common practice. If the butler had called for hunters’ help, the hunted boars would still belong to the owner of the wood and they were only owed payment. Claude on the other hand had helped out of his own volition without seeking anything in return.
Maria waved her hands frantically. “I don’t need these boars. Didn’t you say hunting them is why you came? Just bring these back.”
“How could I? I’ll take one back at most.” Claude felt rather troubled and didn’t think he’d be able to get three boars in one go. If he really returned with them, it would cause another commotion in town. He didn’t want to be in the spotlight any longer.
Rodan returned with a coachman and a couple in their fifties.They were the ones put in charge to guard the wood, the Sioris, whom Maria and Rodan mentioned previously, and she tended to the fields along the slopes. While it wouldn’t be a problem to hunt some turkeys and hares with her crossbow at her age, she wouldn’t be able to take on wild boars.
Maria decided to give the largest of the three boars to Claude and the second largest one to the old couple. Maria would keep the smallest one to sate her own appetite during dinner and that arrangement brought smiles to everyone’s faces.
