I dropped back under the tree, sitting cross-legged like some monk on the verge of an epiphany.
Shade may have cooled my face, but that grin wouldn't leave.
It stretched too wide, and shaky and still twitching at the edges like it's now stapled there for good.
In front of me, laid out neat on the grass was all my gear.
The rifle, the pistol, the drone, and that stubby little beast of a grenade launcher.
And the blade – a broken long sword two-thirds of its original length.
While the mags stacked beside them like offerings along with the two grenades — ugly little cans with "HEAP" stamped onto their shell.
I barely touched them.
Though my fingers hovered, curled back like they were scared of their own reach.
"They weren't toys even in Endlessness," I muttered, my voice a half-laugh and half-rasp. "But at least there… I could log off."
What followed was ammo count.
Two rifle mags left, still topped but the rest were emptied during that clan war.
Three for the pistol.
And the Shorty-40 pistol — Odin's cursed little panic button - A cut-down 40mm launcher that spat grenades. Pointing it at something was like holding a dragon by the throat and making it breathe death onto your enemies.
Loaded with HEAP - High Explosive Anti-Personnel rounds - it took the kind of ordnance meant to shred cover, men and their dignity into mulch.
While the sword — a broken longsword, with its jagged tip and faded gold trim, looked like it had no business lying beside guns.
But then again, it could teleport me to its location so… there.
And then came the drone, fitted with IR, NV, AR to track and mark my targets, and a little shocker to zap those targets to sleep, it could share it's feed straight into my vision – at least back in endlessness it did.
It didn't even need a remote… just my mind to control it and my mana for fuel.
Feasting my eyes on the fantasy turned reality, my gaze landed back on my hands.
My right hand was wrapped in a fingerless glove, its leather gripping tight around palm and knuckle.
While the left was swallowed whole by a full sleeved black tactical glove, a stark contrast to the right one.
I rubbed my thumb against the palm, still half expecting digital clipping, or the blur of bad textures.
But all I felt was pressed skin.
My eyes dropped lower, to the cloak.
The pristine and heavy red bastard, pooling around me like blood made fabric.
Armor straps hugging tighter than any cosplay rig.
Every seam and crease was here, not stitched onto a game by some dev.
It was reality.
"…This isn't me." My voice cracked soft, almost lost in the wind.
My voice… now that I paid attention, wasn't mine.
I swallowed hard before shaking my head.
No. That wasn't right.
This was me.
But not Vincent Pierce - not the idiot who tripped over his tongue at a receptionist.
Nor the bastard locked in family wars.
Or the kid who thought being a sniper in a VR grindfest made him a cut out for the actual military.
I wasn't in Odin's build.
I was in Odin's body.
My fingers twitched again, hovering over the rifle like it might bite.
And for the first time, the grin cracked smaller, curling down at the edges.
"New world, new body… though the last one too was sexy in its own right… definitely a new name. Still same old me though… hopefully. "
Sighing, I began packing up.
The pistol first, its muzzle pointed down and away while I slid it home into the thigh rig. Slow and careful like it could go off on touch alone.
The Shorty-40 next—Odin's or rather… my ugly little problem-solver.
I thumbed the latch, cracking it open as I slid a HEAP round into its hungry little mouth.
The tube clicked shut with a promise it had no intention of breaking as I holstered it snug on the back of my waist before sheathing the broken sword but on the left side of the waist.
While the drone found its home just above the sword.
Mags went next.
From two for the rifle still left topped, one went to the rifle itself and the other went into the chest rig while the empty ones went to the small bag on the back of my waist right beside the shorty and the blade.
And the three pistol mags went back to the front of my waist
While that last HEAP sat in my palm like a bad idea that knew it was brilliant before I shoved it beside the pistol mags.
Each found a home on my belt one by one, the weight settling into the hips as the harness tugged my chest and shoulders into place.
The cloak fell right over it all, like a heavy blanket with temp control built in.
There I stood, rifle slung before walking up a few paces along the little rise.
Downrange, I spotted a tree about two hundred meters out, thick and arrogant with two more lined up behind it by dumb luck.
Wind was shy up here, just tickling the grass.
But then again, it wouldn't have mattered even if there was a storm rolling up.
My stomach wasn't shy, though.
That little heat was there just like back in Endlessness was there and not there—like the burn that follows after swallowing liquor on an empty gut.
"Now let's test you," I breathed, "Same as in-game… I hope."
I let my eyes fall half-closed and reached into that warmth.
It wasn't a "reach" so much as a slow pour, like tipping a kettle you can't see.
It slid up my spine, through the elbows and hands, and then the rifle… like it had always been a limb I only just remembered I had.
Twenty percent was the target. I counted the pull by feel—ten… twelve… sixteen… nineteen—and at twenty I whispered:
"Iṣṭva."
Something in the current changed.
The energy didn't just sit in the gun; it changed its very nature.
Felt it the way you feel a seatbelt ratchet tight.
[Two hundred grams of VM… stick to the system, girl... stick.]
Cheek to the pad and eye to the scope, the smart optic woke, its reticle breathing to life in a clean red dot that slid into on the exact point a sane round would land.
Six-times zoom and the little dot barely kissed off-center.
I didn't need to scribble math in my skull; the scope did it for me and displayed the answer in scope in the form of that dot.
"Alright, everything's set perfect," I said to no one, lining the dot dead center with that first trunk. "If this goes sideways… I'm blaming god."
Breath in…. Let it hang… and exhale-
—Tissh!
The shot didn't scream; it hissed as the enchanted suppressor chewed its crack off.
But the bullet? That bastard wasn't normal anymore.
It left like any 7.62x51, it's recoil remained the same, but as soon as it left the muzzle… Iṣṭva bit reality.
Downrange, the first tree didn't get a hole.
It got rewritten.
The entry was a clean punch the size of a coin, and the exit was destruction of a size wider than the trunk itself.
Bark blew outward in a dirty halo with heartwood exploding into splinters and wet sawdust as the trunk folded in on itself with a groan that turned into a crack that then a loud thud.
It began falling before the sound reached me.
While that round didn't even notice hitting something.
It ripped through the second tree, showering the air with the tree's slivers and leaves.
The third it treated no different as the round blew its insides out the back in a spray of wood chips and sap like the tree had been gutted from the inside.
And the round was still moving.
Seventy-odd thousand joules at the muzzle, bleeding off a drop at a time.
And then the bullet hit dirt on the slope behind the trees and turned ground into a tantrum as it kicked a trench open, spraying soil and stones and hunks of root.
The impact launched a rooster-tail of earth higher than the trees around before it all rained it back down in a filthy shower.
By the time the leaves settled and the dust drifted.
Birds had shut up in a radius that felt like a held note.
The second trunk finally gave up and went over with a resounding thud, followed by the brittle clatter of branches giving way.
While I kept the scope on the wound line.
Three trees obliterated like paper targets.
A furrow dug into the hillside where the round had buried itself to cool off.
And as I let Iṣṭva rest, I felt it.
My mouth dried up and throat tightened while a lightness in my head that never happened before creeped up.
"Okay," I whispered, the word coming out part prayer, part laugh. "That's new..."
But it went away as quick as it came.
[This is real… mana isn't just a glorified bar on the top left side... It's actual energy.]
Good thing almost all of my exp points went to mana regen and control.
Only two seconds had passed and I was back to being full.
["But still… mere two hundred grams on a 7.62x51… and that's four times a .50 BMG's mass, with similar or better muzzle velocity, and smaller cross-section. And with the right round and a battery, I can go up to a ton... Needle with a sledgehammer's heart, let's say."]
That's my one trick.
One that I used to fold gods in a single shot
My cheek slid off the stock, letting the muzzle drift to safe pasture.
The casing at my feet winked up like it was in on the joke.
And I laughed along.
In this unknown word I felt… armed.
I took one last look downrange - three trunks bleeding sap into the dirt, at that trench on the slope - and let the selector hit SAFE.
And the grin came back meaner as I turned from the wreckage, the red cloak brushing against my calves as I slid down the hill with my girl on the sling and too much still left to test.
"Keep the money, auntie, and then some change" I whispered, "I've got something even better now."
What answered me was the calm serenity of my new beginning bereft of the baggage I carried my whole life.