Nico stood at the edge of the beach like some underpaid wildlife photographer, binoculars pressed to his face as he stared across the waves at the two Pantheon ships waiting for him like final bosses.
The ocean breeze tugged at what remained of his cloak while Nom-Nom stood beside him, arms crossed, looking about as impressed as a greater dragon could be with two very angry metal boats.
Through the binoculars, Nico zoomed in on the Southern Vigil, at the double-barreled cannons that shimmered with Runes atop the ship.
And that giant rail gun, the size of a small house, sitting primed and ready at the front.
"Damn… they're basically military destroyers. Just… sparkly." He whistled
Clicking his tongue, Nico lowered the binoculars and turned toward Nom-Nom, and said -
"Nom, think you can make that jump from here onto the big ship?"
Nom tilted her head, thinking about it.
"I think so… probably."
'Probably' was doing some heavy lifting there.
And flying was off the table with one wing missing.
"Good enough for me," Nico said, tucking the binoculars into his inventory. "Alright. When I give the signal, jump onto the big ship and just… start beating people up."
"Understood," she nodded.
Nico grabbed the shotgun leaning against a rock.
Or tried to grab it. He fumbled once, then got a proper hold on the first gun he's ever held in his life.
According to the system, he couldn't store the gun or the bracelet in the inventory.
Which meant…
[Guess I gotta lug it around… Hey, System, you got a sling for this thing?]
Ding!
{Shotgun Sling: Simple enchanted leather harness for carrying a firearm. Adjustable fit. Shock absorption enchantment.
Cost: 20 Credits.
Would you like to make the purchase?}
"Sure. Purchase away."
-Ding!
{Purchase complete. The item is stored in the Inventory. 100 Credits remaining.}
Nico nodded like he totally knew what he was doing.
Then spent the next minute attaching the sling with the grace of a baby taking its first steps.
Once he got it right, Nico slipped the cloak off and slung the shotgun across his chest like he'd seen in video games before checking himself in an imaginary mirror, then put the cloak back on.
The cloak itself looked… bad.
What had once been a smooth, magical, blue flying cloak now resembled a battle-worn kitchen rag.
Holes and burn marks were everywhere. The fabric itself looked more soot-stained than blue.
The only parts intact were the shoulder pads.
And his clothes looked even worse.
Ding!
{Host may repair the cloak by pouring mana into it. Instead of activating flight, imagine it restoring itself.}
"Huh..." Nico rubbed the back of his neck. "Alright then."
Then, with that thought, he pushed mana into the cloak and watched as the fabric shimmered and smoothed itself out.
Holes filled in with bright blue stitches of magic while burn marks softened and rewove into fresh cloth. Dust and soot, too, vanished.
In seconds, the cloak looked brand new.
Nom-Nom blinked.
"…Must be nice. Mine can't do that." She said, tugging at the tear in her T-shirt.
"Don't worry, Nom. I'll get you something cool once we're out of here." Nico chuckled.
That got her perked up.
"And ice cream too! Let's go!"
"Not so fast..." Nico said, floating off the ground. He pointed a finger at her like a stern kindergarten teacher. "And remember… don't kill anyone."
Nom-Nom nodded, though her expression said she wasn't convinced that rule made sense.
Nico took a breath, sped upward, and aimed himself toward the ships.
He poured 38 MP into the cloak, hitting 78 km/h, keeping 12 MP for six-second Precognition, and 5 MP for his hail of Ice Pebbles.
And with that, Nico shot across the sky like a very concerned, very armed blue blur.
Nico fumbled the shotgun forward like a man who both absolutely needed it and had no business holding it.
The thing only had a six-shell capacity, two of which were already used.
So now he had exactly four panic buttons left before it became a divine club.
Which would be… bad.
As for the bracelet, Lady Sera's "permission" had come with a fun surprise: a clean, instinctive understanding of what the thing actually did.
It could craft new shells so long as he pumped at least 70 MP per second into it.
And he only had fifty-five in his capacity.
So, the legendary divine bracelet was basically just fancy jewelry for now.
Soon, the ships grew bigger and bigger in front of him as he flew, until they weren't silhouettes anymore but massive, rune-lit beasts on the ocean.
And with each second, Nico's heartbeat kicked harder.
He was already drenched in sweat even as the cold night wind tore past him.
Even with Precognition running at optimal, handing him two seconds of the future like a cheat code, he was terrified.
[If these things are anything like warships back home…]
He didn't even dare finish that thought.
He'd played it cool in front of Nom-Nom, of course.
Had to.
He'd seen what happened when she got 'upset'.
But now that it was just him?
Yeah, he was one emotional wobble away from peeing himself midair.
Not even twenty-four hours ago, he was dying in a hospital bed.
The most intense things he'd done since the age of eight were: playing video games, eating hospital pudding, and getting stabbed repeatedly by chemotherapy
And now -
He learned magic and how to fly.
Got eaten by a wyvern.
Turned the said wyvern into his familiar after evolving it two stages in one go.
Fought priests and mages.
He almost died doing it, and almost killed someone himself.
And now he was flying alone toward two warships that were specially designed to kill dragons.
All in the span of just one day.
[For the longest time, I dreamed of going on an epic fantasy adventure… but holy shit this is insane!]
-Ding!
{Get used to it, Host. Preferably soon, if that life of adventure is what you truly seek. Battles like this should eventually feel like light morning stretches.}
"Yeah… that's not happening anytime soon," Nico muttered.
And the next second-
-BOOM-!
A house-sized ball of flaming death tore toward him at supersonic speed, complete with the little sonic shock ripples cutting the air around it.
Precognition tugged at his attention a moment before impact, and Nico jerked sideways.
"Huh. Maybe I overestimated them," he said, squinting at the ships.
And as though ships heard him, every cannon on both Southern Vigil and Luke's Vessel turned toward him in perfect synchrony.
Right as Precognition fed him his own death in the next two seconds if he kept going straight-
-BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM-!!
The night erupted.
Dozens of cannons spat spells across the sky, fire, lightning, metal, and ice all firing so fast it resembled long, unbroken lines of light sliding toward him.
Nico slammed all twelve MP into Precognition, extending his window to six seconds, but even then, it was like trying to dodge raindrops in a rainstorm.
He twisted left, dove down, spiraled up so hard he nearly blacked out, all the while screaming like a little girl.
His flight path looked like someone was drawing scribbles in the air with a terrified blue crayon.
He dodged through at least twenty volleys, each one close enough to make his skin prick.
[Bad! This is bad! This is VERY bad!]
And to make matters worse?
He was still out of range, with the warships being two little red dots on the compass bar at the top of his vision, and 500 m written below them.
He couldn't even shoot back yet.
Unless he launched them like mortar shots.
But that itself would require the kind of precision he couldn't afford.
All he could do was dodge and pray he managed to cross the distance alive. Preferably with the same number of limbs he started with.
But eventually, after enough screeching, swerving, and seriously questioning whether this whole isekai thing actually counted as a blessing, Nico finally closed the distance.
The two red dots at the top of his vision now showed:
Range: 200 meters.
[Finally!]
Ice instantly began forming at his fingertips, thin streaks of frost gathering into shards as he dodged another neat row of oversized fireballs, each one powerful enough to swallow a car.
And then, with a grin, Nico unleashed hell.
At a firing rate that would make a Gatling gun feel insecure, AP Ice Pebbles blasted toward the ships, each with a sonic crack of their own.
Only to burst apart right before impact, sending ripples across an invisible barrier in golden waves.
"Oh come on!" Nico shouted, twisting out of the way of three simultaneous lightning bolts.
[I really need to invest in a high-damage spell… Fragmentation Pebbles require the kind of mathematical circus that I'm not in the mood for.]
And then, mid-dodge, the spark of a Very Bad Idea lit up behind his eyes.
"Alright… let's try this."
He jerked the shotgun up, shoving mana into it at the rate of five MP a second, using the reserve he kept for Ice Pebbles.
Everything else stayed where it was: six seconds of Precognition running at full power, and the rest pumped into the cloak to not die.
And the runes lining the inside of the barrel immediately flared white.
-Ding!
{Suggestion: Limit total MP infusion to 200.
Resulting projectile: 1kg Doom-Doom shell.
Muzzle velocity: +50%.
Sufficient to shatter the ship's barrier without completely obliterating the vessel.}
"Bullshit!" Nico yelled, flipping upside-down mid-dodge. "... That's forty seconds of charging!"
That was an eternity when dozens of cannons were learning his movement patterns like he was a rhythm game.
He could see it happening too, spells were now shaving closer.
Some volleys even curved slightly, like the cannons were finally syncing with Thane's order to rain hell.
And one hit, just one, was enough to erase him from existence.
So Nico had to do something insanely difficult:
Maintain the perfect 200-meter gap.
Close enough to retaliate.
And just inside the sweet spot where his Precognition could actually save him.
Which meant:
He dove left until seawater mist sprayed his cheek.
He twisted around a spiral of ice shards that tried to pierce him like a kebab.
He even barrel-rolled purely out of panic, not skill, just pure "oh shiiiit!".
But he didn't stop.
He couldn't stop.
Because the shotgun kept glowing brighter.
And the more he dodged, the louder his Precognition screamed warnings, filling his head with red flashes like a game UI yelling YOU DIED.
And still he flew, keeping that razor-thin 200-meter line like the world's most terrified hummingbird.
And just then-
Ding!
{That much is sufficient.
Current Virtual Mass: 1 KG.
Predicted Muzzle Velocity: 525 m/s}
"Really?" Nico wheezed, twisting out of the path of something blinding. "I don't feel the weight increasing even a little!"
Ding!
{Because the mass is virtual in nature. The weight does not affect the Host or anything that is in immediate entanglement with the Host.}
"I don't get it, but it sounds cool," Nico said, grinning anyway as he dodged another cluster of death-beams, before snapping the shotgun up, barrel glowing white through the runes.
His eyes locked onto the biggest threat in the fleet, that massive rail gun at the front of the Southern Vigil.
"Alright… here goes everything," he muttered, heart pounding, sweat everywhere, and adrenaline doing cartwheels…
And pulled the trigger.
-BOOOOOOM—!!