“At least the lucky cat survived. That’s the last of the food and gear from the transport truck. I even packed the guns from the dead soldiers.” Priya informed them, unable to hear the mental conversation between the two.
“Thanks. I think that with a bit of creativity, I can make those guns very useful. Creating the [Lightning Array] gave me an idea of how to enchant the tip of a bullet as it passes down the barrel. If I can do that, we will be able to use some very long-range and hard-to-trace attack magic.
The humans think they’re all fancy with their artillery, but I’m pretty sure I can do the same with a regular rifle.” Wolfe replied with a smirk.
“Do you even know how to use a rifle?” She asked dubiously.
“I know the basic principle, and there’s a scope. How hard could it be? Point and click just like in a video game.”
That did nothing to reassure Priya, and even Stephanie was laughing at him, but Wolfe had faith that he could manage to hit something with a little practice.
When you were looking through a scope, it showed you where you were aiming. It should be really simple, as long as he didn’t have any troubles with the actual operation of the rifle.
If it proved too hard to actually hit things with the rifle, he would use [Explosion] spells instead.
Wolfe activated [Levitate] and lifted the tarp with all the boxes off the ground to knee height, then gestured to the cliffs.
“I’ll let you dig us a hole big enough to store all this. I can only move this at a walk without losing my concentration.”
Priya jogged off to get their shelter ready, and Stephanie moved to Wolfe’s shoulder after delicately wiping the mud and snow off her feet.
[I hope the army can’t see us. They would be so mad if they knew you were stealing their gear.] She laughed.
“I think the whole demonic familiar using magic out in the open thing might be a bigger deal, but you’ve got a point. Use witch magic to hide our tracks. I don’t want anyone tracking us back to the new bunker.”
[No problem, boss.]
Priya had a whole bunker complex made when they finally arrived, four rooms separated by tunnels, and she had even started carving the disguise spells that would make the entrances to the storage rooms look like part of the wall.
“The water table is quite a ways down under us, so I dug down a bit deeper to where the ground is warmer. I wouldn’t say it’s perfect, but the new bedroom is ten meters down, and it will stay well above freezing even when nobody is in there.
Should we use magic to reinforce the walls? It would add safety, and I don’t think they’ll detect it. But, on the other hand, I would not want to leave a fortified den for something nasty after we leave.”
That was a good point, but Wolfe still had concerns.
“Are we deep enough to survive an artillery barrage? It would really suck to get squished under someone else’s fight. Both the Undead Horde and the mundane army are still nearby, waiting for the right time to attack the Sylvan Forest again.”
The witches couldn’t ignore the monsters forever, so they would have to either return to somewhere near the old front lines or give up a large portion of their territory and set up a new defensive line further back.
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Stephanie meowed and pointed at the cases of food, changing the topic to what was more important to her. She wasn’t big enough to carry anything, and she refused to eat raw mice, so she hadn’t eaten in over a day.
Priya laughed and amended her statement. “Alright, food first. We can scout and enhance the bunker after dinner and again first thing in the morning. If the scene of the battles at the defensive line is that toxic, we likely have some time before anything happens.”
Wolfe grabbed two meal packs from the closest box and read the label. “We have Alfredo noodles or beef goulash. Both have their own heaters, so there is no need for anything fancy.”
There was also a drink mix, cookies, mixed nuts and dried fruit inside the pack, which was supposed to be one of three served a day.
“Do mundane humans need more food or something? There’s a lot in that pack for one meal.” He asked.
“No, soldiers burn more energy than average, and without any magical bloodlines, they can’t digest monster meat or magical plants like the ones that the Covens grow on their farms outside the cities, which are much more energy dense.”
That explained it. It wasn’t that they needed more, just that their food was trash-tier nutrition. It certainly smelled good as it heated, though.
“I will go out to scout in a bit. I want to test out my weapon enchantment theory, and I can’t do that indoors. At least not safely.” He announced once the meal was finished, except for the dried fruit that Stephanie was hoarding for later.
“Be safe, and don’t go too far. We’ve only got one radio.” Priya warned him.
Wolfe adjusted his snow pattern armour to include a shaggy cloth wrap for the rifle and crept out the door, then climbed up the hill, keeping low to the ground so he wouldn’t create a silhouette against the ridgeline.
There was a stand of trees not far away that was his destination, as they would provide cover for him while he searched for threats.
The evening air was eerily calm as he moved into position and toward the far side of the trees, and the reason why soon became obvious. A frozen lake made up the next few kilometres, calm and smooth, except for a few holes where something had broken through the ice.
His first thought was that the ice was too thin for the vehicles, but [Detect Hidden] showed him a huge shape under the water, lying still in the silt. More likely than not, it had attacked whatever moved across the ice.
Wolfe retracted the armour spell from the rifle and took out a paint pen to start his experiment. He knew the symbols for the [On impact] and [Enhance Gravity] modifications to the basic inscription, as well as the [Fireball] spell, so he worked on adding them to the barrel.
If he were right, activating two of the three would give him a complementary effect, so it should be possible for him to skip the [Fireball] and choose to only increase the weight of the bullet on impact, which should hit the target like a supersonic brick for a very minimal mana expenditure.
His chance to test the theory came just before nightfall when shouting, and the sound of breaking branches echoed across the lake. Wolfe searched the far shore and saw a figure in a green dress with a fur cloak running from something vaguely humanoid.
He wasn’t good enough to even believe he could hit a running target, but then the figure in green reached the lake, and the pursuer stopped.
That was just what he had been waiting for.