บท 39: Raining bullets

After the brief discussion, Mark thought it over for a while. If the they became a bit more known and new hunters started coming to them he could expand into a new building and turn Raiders into a full-fledged guild. This meant that he would be able to leave most of the management to Lucy, stop bothering with the recruitment of new hunters, and focus on making new spells while clearing dungeons.

On the same day, he called her back and they agreed on participating in the training raid if possible.

"If my prediction comes true and there will be reporters inside the gate then you also need to come off as likable or you won´t get the kind of publicity we want." said Lucy over the phone.

"Yeah, that sounds harder than clearing the whole gate by myself, to be honest." retorted Mark.

"It´s fine. If I manage to negotiate a good contract I´ll try to help you with that. For now, focus on putting their team to shame with overwhelming power." she said jokingly.

"Jesus, don´t remind me of Eleanor and Ashton. It hurts my soul."

"Alright, alright, just upgrade your grimoire and make new spells. You have two weeks to prepare so good luck."

"Thanks, I guess." said Mark ending the call.

The next day he called Daniel. That man was happy as a clam when he heard they were considering his offer. Lucy had no problem negotiating with him due to how eager he was. She felt sorry for him in the process.

'Well If I´m gonna do this then I need to pull out the big guns.' Mark thought to himself and began working on a new spell.

[Next day]

Mark has stepped inside a spacious B-rank dungeon once again. It had a very high ceiling with countless crevices all over the walls. This gate was housing a type of monster he never met before, but it was infamously known all over the world.

From one of the crevices, a large red lizard watched him patiently. The moment it thought that Mark wasn´t watching it descended rapidly towards him ready to trample on the poor hunter.

In its path, a blue translucent barrier appeared. Panicking, the wyvern flapped its wings in order to lessen the impact. It bounced off the barrier and backed away several meters.

Noticing the automatic barrier being deployed Mark turned around to face the monster.

'Dragon. Well, it´s a nice monster to test this on.' He threw three small metal plates on the ground and poured his mana into them.

Three silver-blue constructs appeared, clinging to the ground.

'Page 17, Turret, aggression: monsters'

With mechanical precision, the turrets turned their barrels at the wyvern and started blasting it with a barrage of bullets. Draconic scales or not it died without even registering the threat.

Mark combined his experience in making the automaton and the principle Allen´s crossbow worked on, substituted the arrows with bullets, and created several automatic turrets. It wasn´t the most practical spell in most circumstances, since you needed to move in order to clear gates, but in case someone was able to taunt all of the monsters this shouldn´t be a problem.

'Page 6, Shockwave, strength: C-rank'

The booming noise echoed through the cave resulting in several curious eyes peeking from their nests. Thus began the genocide of wyverns. Mark didn´t even have to move a finger. He just stood behind his barrier with full mana capacity from the magic siphon.

Countless corpses swiftly filled the spacious dungeon and he had to dismember them all by himself only using the waterjet spell.

'I´m adding this to the automaton´s job description as soon as I get home.'

After a solid half an hour he finished gathering the essence stones, picked up the turrets, and ventured to the boss.

It was a large wyvern with golden eyes and scales shining green. It was quite a distance away from the other monsters so it didn´t seem to be affected by the previous shockwave at all. The creature looked at Mark and exhaled a puff of smoke as if he was a mere inconvenience.

The Wyvern stood up from its resting position opened its jaws and blasted him with a conventionally fatal dose of fire. Mark in turn countered the move with his waterjet spell.

Seeing its attack had no effect the boss monster stopped the barbeque and slowly walked around the lone hunter in a circle.

Then the Wyvern stood up on its hind legs and started flapping its wings causing high winds in the dungeon. However, the winds suddenly turned around as soon as grains of sand began appearing in the air. The sandstorm was throwing the creature all over the place until finally stopping half a minute later.

Mark was enjoying himself quite a lot fighting off the monster. Since he had the siphon spell he didn't have to worry about the lack of mana and this was a perfect opportunity to practice fighting and find inspiration for new spells.

When the winged lizard collected itself it squinted its eyes at the magician that was seemingly just playing with it. The monster then made a disgusting noise that came from its throat.

'Don´t throw up on me. I don´t want to smell your lizard juices.' thought Mark.

The boss monster started spewing a strange aerosol at its opponent. The moment the cloud enveloped the hunter who was confidently standing behind his barrier, the wyvern flew several meters away.

Mark watched the whole debacle with his magician eyes curious about what was the monster planning.

When it flew a sufficient distance away it exhaled another dose of flames igniting the aerosol. This inferno depleted the oxygen in Mark´s vicinity. Then air from the cave rushed to fill the empty space creating an insane shockwave shaking the whole dungeon.

'Alright, I´m stealing that.'