System Breaker: Surviving Apocalypse with Nine-Tailed Kitsune-Chapter 35: Gunslinger

The moment Damon stepped into the rift, his environment shifted, and he dropped to the ground with a wet thud.

Mud clung well above his ankles, holding his feet strongly in place.

All around him, vines hung from well-rotten trees, and no more than a meter in front of him stood Eve.

"Good thing I wore boots," she said, more so to herself than to him.

Her leather knee-high boots did a pretty good job of keeping the mud away.

"Let’s try and get out of this mud," Damon said, though looking around, he didn’t really see a spot without the mud.

They appeared to be in some type of swamp. Nothing but mud, rotten trees and hanging vines surrounded them, with no sight of escape from the muddy earth below.

Luckily, the rotten trees opened up above well enough to see the jagged lines leading toward the Rift core.

"Come, core’s this way," Eve said, already pushing through the mud.

Damon didn’t linger, following shortly after with Kitsune sitting on his shoulder.

After a little while, the mud began to turn less deep, dropping to below the ankles, easing their walk quite a bit.

But before they could fully escape its grasp, Eve came to a sudden stop.

"What is it?" Damon asked, his head spinning around to check their surroundings, only to see nothing.

The girl remained frozen for a few seconds, then she pulled out her revolver and fired two shots.

Moments later, a small green creature dropped from the top of a tree. It was small in size and resembled something like a goblin. Damon’s thoughts, however, weren’t focused on the monster she just killed, but rather on her weapon.

The moment the girl pulled the trigger, he noticed a burst of mana erupt from her weapon, one similar to when a person casts an ability.

Just when that realisation had struck him, a system notification rang in his head.

[Your Comprehension of the *Gunslinger* Class has increased slightly.]

Damon’s eyes widened.

’My comprehension?’

It took him a second to remember his passive ability, Absolute Comprehension, and realise it must’ve been connected to that. But why?

’What happens if my comprehension grows high enough?’ He wondered until Eve suddenly turned toward him, cutting his thoughts short.

"I have a feeling your sword won’t be useful in all this mud, so don’t be shy to stay close," she said with a smirk, but before she could even turn away, Damon raised his arm to where he spotted something along the tree branches behind the girl.

In an instant, three shards of black ice tore through the air, hitting the target in almost an instant.

[You have slain a Level 20 Swamp Goblin]

[New Monster Index bonus: +5 Stamina, +5 Dexterity]

Goblin’s body hit the mud with a wet thud just a moment after.

Eve’s eyes only glanced at the slain monster before she turned her gaze back to him, staring as if she wanted to devour him.

"Swordsman with range abilities?" she murmured to herself, her eyes studying him with a newfound interest.

Damon dismissed her gaze and continued pushing through the mud.

Eve stared after him for a moment before following shortly after.

The pair continued that relentless walk through the muddy earth until the mud began to subside and traces of grass began to protrude from the ground.

But that change wasn’t as welcome as one might’ve expected, since when it did happen, an object came into view that made Damon freeze mid-step.

No more than a dozen meters away from them, there was a wooden hut, one that could almost resemble something humans would build... almost.

There was something eerie about the structure itself, but worst of all...

’Why would there be a hut in a rift?’

To his side, Eve seemed just as surprised, her eyes studying their surroundings with quiet intensity.

It was only when Kitsune spoke that Damon finally managed to make sense of what he was seeing.

"Humans aren’t the only intelligent creatures."

Her words almost made him scoff. That simple explanation felt a bit shallow at first, but as he took a moment to think about it, it made sense.

Whoosh!

An arrow suddenly tore through the air, cutting his thoughts short. Damon pivoted at the last second, but the attack was too fast to fully evade, still grazing him across his left arm.

He didn’t have a chance to spot the shooter before two more arrows came at them.

Eve was already behind the cover of a thick tree trunk, while Damon lagged slightly behind, still recovering from his earlier dodge. It took him a second longer before he dashed toward the very same tree she was hiding behind, arrows missing him by no more than a few inches.

"Oh my..." The words escaped Eve’s red lips in a soft whisper.

Her back pressed gently against the tree while Damon stood right in front of her. He was leaning slightly forward, her warm breath bouncing off his neck as his arm pressed against the tree bark right above her head while he tried to take a peek at the shooter.

Her eyes looked up as she studied him with a look he didn’t quite understand or care to understand in that moment.

"Did you see the attacker?" Damon suddenly asked, cutting Eve off from whatever thoughts she was having.

"No."

Arrows thunked the tree they hid behind as Damon continued to try to spot him. At first, he couldn’t quite take a proper look, but as the speed at which the arrows hit the tree increased, a figure finally stepped out from behind the cover of the trees near the wooden hut.

It walked on two legs, with a sickening green skin and a muscular build. A pair of bone-white tusks protrudes from its mouth.

It looked as savage as a monster could, but seeing it, Damon felt a faint recognition of what that creature might be.

’An orc?’