Chapter 85: Quint Rauss [11]
"The elimination round of Marksman category is going to be started in five minutes. All participant are welcome to be in there place now.."
As the head of judges renounced the regulation of this round, Quint along with other participants walked onto their positions with a Baretta in his hand. The Baretta was a Christmas gift his father gave to him after he managed to master all the basic shooting techniques within only six months.
"Why do you want to learn to shoot ?" His master asked him after the first weekend he spent with his father to learn shooting.
Quint shrugged while cleaning his riffle, well.. it was actually Mr. Rauss's gun that being lent to him to practice. "I just think it is a quite amazing skill. I mean.. we can kill our enemy from a far," he said in matter a factly.
The teenage boy then turned his gaze to his master. "Beside, you told me before to pick my weapon," he said, patting the gun on his hand. "I pick this. I thought it will be a best use for my profound also. Don't you think so, Master ?" he asked back.
His master nodded. "It is," he agreed.
Quint was right, His profound power helped him a lot to become a great snipper. His father merely taught him how to hold the weapon, how to handle the reverse effect from the shot, how to calculate the speed of wind and the object movement, how to breathe, and so on. Those techniques were actually counted on one's mathematic skill. Fortunately, Quint was quite good in Math. He was happy to know that all maths he was learning finally came to a use.
His strong body, Math skill, and his profound power were helping him to learn to shoot his targets not only in precise but also fast. Even his father was stunned to see how fast his son learnt and how precise his shots were. were. Of course, Quint didn't tell him the reason.
Quint also didn't tell his master that he wanted to be closer with his father. It's been years he was actually longing to be close to his busy father, but he had no good excuse for it. Until now. What Quint didn't know that actually his father also wanted to be close to him. Since he was young, Quint spent his time training with his master, thus his father didn't have a chance to approach him. That was why, he willingly spared his time despite his tight schedule to teach the boy.
Every weekend they went to the hill outside the town to shoot. While on weekdays, Quint asked his master to drive him to shooting ranch downtown where he practice his shots diligently.
Quint also didn't know somehow that.. was making his master and his mother uncomfortable. They were worried that Quint's objective might shifted. If that happened, well.. it would ruin their plan for Quint's future.
"May I register for Marksman as well ?" Quint suddenly requested to his master when the man was about to registered him to that year's prodigy competition.
"Sure. But participating in two categories will drain your energy.. why would you want to do it ?" his master asked.
"If I could be good in more than one category, wouldn't that say that I am a better candidate for a soldier ?" Quint asked back.
"True," his master agreed, but turned to him. "Tell me, what kind of a soldier you wanna be ?"
Quint frowned to hear the question. "How many kind of soldier are there ?" he then asked. He only knew military soldiers like his father
His master smiled to him. "Let me tell you ..."
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Unlike the Close Combat category, Marksman category didn't have grade. All participants were competing at one grade. There were only three rounds, elimination, semifinal, and final.
The elimination round was a skeet shooting. Participants was split in ten groups. Each group would be competing to each other by shooting as many as possible things that will be launched in the sky. There would be things that had X mark on it. Those things should not be shot, or else, it would subtract points. Only one with most points in each group through to semi final round.
It was Quint's turn now. There were three machines that would throw things on sky. One on his right, one on his left, and one on the middle of the field.. The machine would throw randomly in time and height.
Quint had his Baretta on his shoulder. What he loved about this riffle, despite its easiness to adjust, was it could shoot two times in one cock. Thus, he could have higher chances to hit two things at one.
The competition was started. Soon a machine on his left was making a sound. Quint aimed his riffle to his left. When the machine threw a bunny on the air, Quint 's profound was immediately showed a target mark. Quint shot the bunny only a meter away from the mouth of the machine.He got 90 point for that shot, since the closer the target hit fr the machine, the greater the point.
Quint was so calm and content. His movement was steady and smooth. While his eyes were concentrated on the target mark his profound gave, his ears were seeing which machines would throw next and at what height.
With the increment of his spiritual power, he also could easily 'trained' his profound power to detect which object he could and couldn't shot. When he knew the rules of this category around two weeks before the competition, he trained his profound power to recognize an 'X' mark as a thing that wasn't his target.
Quint heard sounds of two machines moving simultaneously. It was getting harder now. Most of his competitors were overwhelmed already, but Quint stayed calm. He aimed one on the center first. Once the first target was hit, he swiftly change his position and shot the second target.
Some audiences couldn't help but to clap. The others immediately hissed to warn them. Any noise might disturb concentration of the participants.
The two last minutes. It was now at the stage that three machines might throw at once. Quint patiently waited for the sounds the machines made. Once he heard them, he pointed his riffle to the right.
Three things flied on the air. Quint shot the first object on his right. He got 90 point for it. He moved to the center.He shot the second target from in front, which gave him 50 point. He then cocked his riffle and shot the third target that was almost hit the ground. He got 10 point for that. However, he also got extra 100 points to have a clean sweep.
At the end of the competition, with a total point 1820, Quint was the winner of his group. He went to the semifinal.
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It's semifinal round. The ten participants made it to the semifinal round would be competing in snipping. They needed to shoot five objects. After knowing the object, they determined how far the would shoot the object from. If they could shoot the object, their point would be the distance. times 100. But if they missed the object, their point would be deduced by the distance times 200.
The first object was a sack filled with something. Since the sack was quite big, all participants were confident and chose a quite long distance to shoot it. Quint himself determined to shot in the same distance with others, around 0.3 miles. As expected, all participants could hit their target.
Their second and third objects were getting smaller, a baby doll and a book. Some participants decided to reduce their distance. Quint and some other decided to keep the same distance. Few of participants who maintained the distance failed. They sighed in disappointment.
The Fourth. target was a beer can. Almost all participants reduced their distance, except Quint. He maintained his distance at 0,3 miles. Audiences were gasping. they thought that Quint was either bold or dumb. a beer can at a 0.3 miles was as big as a dot.
"There was a little surprise to add on this round," the head of referee suddenly spoke, making all participants who were getting on their positions turned their attentions to him.
Almost as sudden as the head of referee's voice, strong wind and hard rain appeared only on the field. It needed only few seconds for the participants to get drenched in the artificial rain.
Quint just shook his head a little before turning his head back to the target. Since his position didn't change, he didn't need to set his riffle. However, his head was concentrating to predict the speed of wind and the water drops. These would definitely distract the bullet rate and direction, especially at his distance.
Quint adjust his riffle's position and setting. He added extra barrel to his riffle before got into his chest and closed his one eye to aim the can. His profound showed a target mark, not exactly on the beer can, but couple of inch to its top left. Quint, as always, aimed his riffle to it.
Smoothly, Quint placed his finger to the trigger. He then regulated his breathing. He noticed that despite seemingly wild, the wind had a pattern. It stopped for a second every 147 seconds. It was the best moment for him to pull the trigger.
Once the wind started, Quint counted inwardly. Exactly at the 147, he pulled the trigger. The bullet launched and immediately flied through the rain. Some nano seconds later, the bullet pierced through the can's body.
With the extra condition, many participants missed the fourth target, They were all devastated. Based on their experience where the objects are getting smaller and smaller, their predicted that the last objects would be as small as an ant or something. Thus, they were overjoyed when they saw ten men forcefully strangled on the pole and announced to them as their last objects.
Many participants decided to take gamble and further their distance. Quint decided to maintain his. As long as he could hit this last target, he would definitely be in the final round.
"Ladies and gentlemen," The head of referee once again was asking for their attentions. "I would like to inform you that, these men were traitors. They already hat their sentences as death. Thus, this time, the participants' target were not only to hit them, but also to give them a clean death. However, when they were not die by the participant's bullet, they would be executed immediately by our executioners. So please, participants.. do not hesitate to execute them."
Still some participants gasped and shocked to hear their mission. A part of them did it because regretting their distance, others because they couldn't believe they had to kill a man.
Quint narrowed his eyes, but his lips curled into a smile. The mission didn't weaver his heart. His heart didn't even weaver when he took someone's life for the first time. However, he was also surprised that the competition brave enough to directly told the participants to kill someone.
Quint laid on his chest. The certain way to kill someone was by blowing their brain. The skull was more fragile than chest bones. However, the man in front of him certainly didn't want to be killed. He tilted his head furiously, moving it right to left continuously. Thus, it would be harder for him to hit the right spot. With that thought, Quint decided to target the man's heart.
As expected, Quint succeeded to stop the man's heart beat with a single bullet. And with that result, Quint went through the final round.
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The final round would be held the next day. But all five participants must gather in the hall to draw lottery that defined their base locations in the final. The final would be held in the forest. There were ten base locations. Five of them would be one of the participant's base while the others would be idle. Quint had location F for his base.
The mission would be getting maximum points by shooting targets in the center of the forest. They could only shot in their bases. Whatever shot did outside their bases would not be counted. However, they were allowed to change base, as long as it would be one of the ten locations.
Another interesting rules was that a participant was allowed to defeat others by hitting the target on their helmet. When a participant was defeated, half of their points would be transferred to one who defeated them. A participant could not cover the target on their helmet nor put off their helmet. Breaking these rules would deduce their points by 1000.
While hearing all rules spoken by the head of referee, Quint's gaze was placed on the map displayed on the screen. He tried to remember as many locations on the map as he could. He had a hint he would need this memory.
Unfortunately, the map was gone from the screen before he could remember all ten of them. Quint sighed. But had several location to memorize was better than none, right ?
With that in mind, he solemnly stood and walked to the tools shop. The participants had a chance to enhance their battle equipments with the points they gained on elimination and semifinal round. The equipments are riffle, helmet, extra ammunitions, chameleon gear., and other non-essential equipments like drinking water, map, matches, and so on.
Quint had more than 3000 points to spend. But to his surprise, beside the standard equipments which they could have for free, other equipments were very expensive. Quint had bought an extra ammunition's. Now his mind was split between the helmet and riffle. He threw the chameleon gear from his head, because it was too expensive. His point could only bought either a helmet, that was super light and strong, or riffle that had better steadiness and night view feature.
"You are Rauss, righ ?" someone suddenly talked to him. Quint turned his head to the person.
"And you are ?" he asked after nodding. The teenage in front of him was maybe two years elder than him. He had a friendly vibe that made people felt comfortable around him. He said his name.
"I saw you were staring on the map for a long time back then," the teenager said. "I knew you tried to remember the locations. But I assumed, you failed ?"
Quint didn't respond to his guess. "What do you want ?" he asked instead.
"A barter. I only managed to remember four of the locations. How many you could remember ?" The teenager asked straightforwardly.
Quint shrugged. He grabbed the helmet and pointed his ID card to the scanner to deduce his point. "About the same," he answered. Well, he managed to remember seven actually.
"So, do you want to barter or not ? I know A, D, H, and J," the teenager urged. Quint postponed for a moment. He only missing B, D, and J.
"I know A and H already. So I can only gain two places from you," Quint said.
"Give me two places then. It would only fair," the teenager said. Once again, Quint looked at the teenager. This guy seemed genuine. But again, he could not trust anyone that easily.
Quint took two maps and once again hovered his card to the scanner. He then leaded the teenager to a bench and sat there. He gave a map to the boy and opened his.
"We place two locations we agreed on then swapped the map," he said. The teenager agreed. They busied themselves marking the locations on the map for couple of minutes then swapped their maps.
"It was nice doing business with you," the teenager said with a wide smile while refolding the map on his hand. Quint didn't respond to him. After folding his map, Quint stood, about to leave.
"Actually, I have another offer to make with you," the teenager halted Quint.
"What is it ?" Quint asked.
"You know that the other three finalists were siblings," The teenager said, He continued when he didn't receive any response from Quint. "This is the fourth time they become finalists and one of them always the winner. That's because they work together as a team. They attack other finalists first. After there were only three of them, they would compete with each other to shoot all targets."
"What are you suggesting ?" Quint asked.
"I have most advantage location this time. From that location, I could see almost all locations," the teenager said.
"So, why do you need me ?" Quint asked.
"My long range was still limited. My location is too far to aim the targets," the teenager explained.
"So, you wanted me to focus on the targets, and then you will attack me," Quint cut his explanation.
"This is my last year on the competition. I need to win this. With your skill, you still be able to have the second place," the teenager didn't deny Quint.
Quint put his gaze to the teenager for quite sometimes before uttered his decision, "Thank you for your offer, but I have to refuse it."
"Are you sure ?" the teenager asked again.
Quint nodded then started to walk. "May the best man win," he said while waving to the teenage who still starred at him.
The teenager's offer was actually good. Being the first time participating in this category, having a second place was already an achievement. The Marksman category had a quite outstanding participants. The competition was actually harder than the Close Combat category, not to mention trickier, and crueler especially in the final round where they would use real bullets.
But.. a vivid memory splashed inside Quint's brain. The sky was blue and the wind breezed slowly. Quint just released himself inside Mila's mouth. She crawled on top of him after gulping his sperm down. She kissed his lips softly before rolling her body beside him.
Quint stared at Mila's beautiful face as the girl closed her eyes, enjoying the warm summer sun dashed her face. The girl finally opened her eyes when she sensed Quint's eyes still lingered on her.
"What's up, Bro ? You want another round ?" she asked teasingly then poked his nose.
Quint caught her finger then kissed it gently. The girl closed her eyes again.
"Mila.." Quint called her.
"Hmm.."
"When will you let me go inside you ?" Quint asked.
Mila opened her eyes. she stared at the sky for a minute before turning her gaze to Quint and kissed him.
"When you win the Marksman category, I will let you enter me," she whispered.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone