Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 3===

Karuta’s vision blinked in and out.

He could just barely grasp that a large chunk had been taken out of his back.

But this blast had not had anything to do with the movements of Athabaskan’s shotgun. His barrier didn’t matter in the slightest here. The explosion had been on the level of carelessly rolling onto a landmine while grappling with the man.

(Oh…I get it.)

Athabaskan’s magic was determined by the symbol or pattern carved into the side of his shotgun shells.

“You never needed to fire them. The unused rounds lying on the floor were still live. You weren’t pulling the forend to get rid of shells because you had misread the situation. You were scattering them around to create a minefield.”

“So what if I was?”

“But getting that shotgun from you is still my top priority!!” shouted Karuta.

Still curled up, he threw his heavy flashlight.

The powered suit would still be malfunctioning thanks to the translucent fingers jammed in one of the thigh joints. He normally would have avoided an amateur’s throw, but it managed to hit this time.

The shotgun thudded to the floor.

The blood rushed to Karuta’s head.

It was now a race for that weapon.

He could not use the totem magic even if he did grab it, but it would still mean a lot to steal that powerful weapon away from his opponent.

He crouched low and kicked off the floor, but something felt wrong. Yes, Athabaskan Rio Grande was not joining in. He ignored the pump-action shotgun on the floor and instead stepped back away from Karuta as the boy dove onto the mat.

The totem magic did not require firing the shotgun shells, but the shells on the floor were all visible. Without the fear of the shotgun to keep Karuta moving, he would never step on one of those mines. So why?

“I was waiting for this positioning,” said the man.

Machinegun fire poured from the sky.

A weaving trail of destruction passed over Karuta’s leg while he lay face down with the shotgun in his grasp.

He was twisted around and thrown through the air. His right leg was severed at the thigh like it had been lying on the track when the train came through and it bounced several times.

The loud cheers shaking the tournament site must have been those who had bet on Athabaskan like this was a horse race.

Those were not ordinary bullets. They clearly had some kind of magical effect because they continued to glow orange and emit black smoke even after embedding themselves deep in the mat.

(Oww!? I’m all right. Think of it as saving you the trouble of stopping the bleeding!!)

He rolled onto his back, leaving the crystallized leg behind, and looked into the sky, but there was nothing there. But he knew something had to be flying by too high up to be visible with the naked eye.

“Wha-?”

Even Cinderella Queen was at a loss for words.

What had happened? The answer was right there; he had just failed to notice it.

But he should have expected this. He was up against a professional mercenary decked out with the latest tech. And the man had located Aine and Marika with the naked eye.

“''A ground attack drone''!?” shouted Delane. “Is this how a professional soldier fights, Athabaskan Rio Grande!?”

“If it’s supposed to be a Native eagle symbol, is it meant to be a sort of flint shirt? But any device used for a contestant’s magic, like a witch’s broom or cauldron, is allowed by the rules. He mentioned a positioning earlier. Was he talking about Second Grimnoah moving outside the western alliance’s air-defense region – in other words, into international waters? Still, that thing is dangerous indeed when combined with stealth magic like this. Our defense ships didn’t even notice it.”

Perspective was a problem here. When anti-terrorism bomber drones gained enough altitude, they became invisible to the naked eye on the surface.

But they could still target you down on the ground.

Would this drone fire its machinegun again or would it blow Karuta away with an even more dangerous air-to-surface missile?

Karuta had gained the pump-action shotgun at the cost of his leg, but he could not shoot down the drone with it. He could emit a powerful IR laser with his flashlight, but he would need the exact specs to know if the air-to-surface missile was guided exclusively by IR. If it also used UV, microwave, ultrasound, or image processing, his flashlight would fail to interfere with its guidance and he was a goner.

He saw a light flashing in the corner of his eye.

The crystal girl was contacting him because she still trusted he could win.

He clenched his teeth and pulled back the forend below the shotgun’s barrel, ejecting the loaded shell. What could he do with it now?

“Real wars are determined before the boots are even on the ground. That is an Air RQ43-A Man Eagle. This model is loaded with a GPS ASM 55 Resin Arrowhead precision-guided air-to-surface missile designed for assassination missions. I will use everything at my disposal and I will accept no complaints. If you were unaware I had this, blame your own intel gathering failure.”

The Native American man reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone in a military bulletproof case.

He could rain down death with a tap of his finger.

“You came unprepared and so you lose, Utagai Karuta.”