"If you don't, we will find you. We will come for you, and we will kill you. And believe me when I say this, we are very good at that," I said.

  ?Good luck,? Mr. Kidnappy McKidapper replied.

  Well, well, would you get a load of this fucking idiot. Just what I would expect from someone who kidnaps in broad daylight.

  Anyway.

  "Wind speed?" I asked after muting the communication channel connected to Lecia's ring.

  "Meow."

  "To think someone would be this bad at being a spotter……"

  Good grief. Maybe I should put Neia aside and train Mr. Cat first.

  For now, let's just take an educated guess.

  Mm, yes, the wind speed is pretty fucking fast today.

  I mean, we are high above in the sky, so it's only natural for the wind to be strong here. Roughly speaking, the wind is blowing in the Northeast direction.

  That should suffice for today's exercise.

  Time to finesse these motherfuckers.

  I looked through my scope. Because the Gauss Sabot Rifle's MK-V's scope was incredibly powerful, I could easily make out the wankers who were at least 10 km away.

  There were seven of them. The guy in the middle had different clothes and held Lecia's arm, so he must be the guy I had been talking to.

  He looked at his other subordinate and started speaking, ?Go ahead-?

  The moment he said that, I pulled the trigger.

  With a boom, the bullet left its chamber, left the barrel and made its way towards its target aka the guy the kidnapper was talking to at a speed of Mach 10.

  As expected, the bullet hit him straight in the face. His head violently exploded into a flurry of flesh and blood, with brain matter splattering on to those around him.

  "Boom, headshot."

  Get fucked, losers.

  ?What the hell?!?

  Of course, the key to winning a 1 vs mutli battle is to strike when the enemy group's guard is down and take as many of them out as possible before they realise what the fuck is going on.

  Though in this particular case, we're in an extremely long-range battle where I have a motherfucking sniper rifle while those guys have, what, shiny swords?

  Oof.

  Hmm, now that I think about it, isn't this a bit similar to camping?

  Damn, to think I'd become the very thing I swore to destroy. This is sed.

  I must admit, though, taking out a bunch of noobs using a sniper rifle is fun as hell.

  Of course, as Lecia is with them, watching the heads of everyone around her spontaneously explode might be extremely mentally taxing and leave her with grave mental scars, but hey, the good comes with the bad.

  She gotta deal with it.

  While thinking about all this, I had pulled my trigger 5 more times. Because I was such a perfect marksman, all my shots were on mark.

  Using an extremely advanced concept called subtraction, I deduced that only the kidnapper and Lecia were left alive.

  ?W-what the fuck is that? Hey, Lecia! What the fuck is that?? The kidnapper shook her to get answers out of her, but I doubt she's any state to answer him.

  "No need to pester her; she doesn't know."

  ?YOU killed all my guys?!?

  "Congrats on deducing that, Captain Obvious," I said in Azell's voice (this was the most important part, obviously).

  His voice sure has come in clutch today. All hail voice manipulation magic.

  ?You'll pay for this! I swear on their graves, you WILL pay for this!?

  Wut?

  "You do realise that you're still at the same place as they WERE, right? Critical thinking is not one of your best suits, it would seem."

  What happened to the guy who was so confidently boasting about how we'd never be able to find him and actually challenged me to a race.

  Life sure is disappointing, eh?

  ?Don't think that taking me out will be-?

  "Alright, Imma stop you right there. That's called raising a flag, okay? I don't want you to die just yet."

  It won't be fun if I did now, would it?

  ?What??

  "You heard that right. I won't be killing you. In fact, I'm letting you go."

  ?Haa?? Lecia exclaimed.

  Sorry for that, Lecia, but since we're already in a hostage situation, we might as well enjoy it a bit, no?

  "So run along, Mr. Kidnapper. The hunt has just begun."

  And like all good hunts, this won't be fun until the prey struggles with all its might.

  ?Hey-?

  Before he could spout any more bullshit or make any baseless threats, I cut the connection.

  I looked through the scope and sure enough, the kidnapper just threw the ring to the ground and stomped on it in frustration.

  He covered his face with his hands for a bit, then swiftly picked Lecia up and dashed on out of there.

  Seems like he wasn't stupid enough to take the ring with him.

  I'll have to go out and retrieve that later, though.

  Or maybe not.

  "Hey, Mr. Cat. Could you do me a favour and retrieve that ring for me?"

  "…" It silently scowled at me.

  Is that a no?

  "Please?"

  "…"

  "I guess not, eh?"

  Even a cat is unwilling to lend me a paw. Why is my life so hard?

  Anyway, let's go back. I have to prepare a few things for the hunt, including recruiting an apprentice.

  As they say, the more the merrier, right?

  And so, I cancelled my flight magic. As one would expect, with the cat in my arms and the sniper strapped on my back, I started falling down.

  Below me was obviously the Guildhouse.

  Hmm, I wonder. Should I just not activate flight magic? That way, I'll splatter on the roof of the building and die a pretty horrific death.

  Tempting, but I have Mr. Cat with me, so another time, maybe.

  I slowed the speed of my descent and entered my room through the window.

  "Eep!" And was immediately met with a shriek.

  "Is that a traditional greeting among the Dragons?" I asked as I set Mr. Cat and the sniper down.

  A weird way to greet someone, sure, but to each their own.

  "Don't enter so suddenly! You almost gave me a heart attack!"

  Wut?

  "What, that scared you? Hot damn."

  I sure am glad that my entrance didn't stop her heart. Imagine giving an epic entrance but instead of applauding, your audience goes into cardiac arrest and straight up dies.

  That would be a yikes from me.

  "A-anyway, why did you call me? And where are you even coming back from?"

  "I called you because it's time to move on to the next step of your training."

  "Next step?" her eyes widened. "You don't mean…"

  "It's time for some practical training."