The air lorry's door opened as I watched, and a minute later, a couple of aliens who I felt might be men came inside. They were all blue-tinted men with three arms, which looked a bit weird. It was at the back, and their bodies wrapped around it. It looked off to me as their body wrapped around the backhand. But my eyes were drawn to the holster attached to the back with a handgun. Both were holding onto it, and it was resting with the finger on the trigger.
My eyes narrowed, and I wanted to sigh.
Just one delivery.
Seriously, how many times are these dumbasses trying to rob us?
"So you have my stuff?" One of them asked, walking up.
"Are you here for Container 3559 dash 998765?" Ura asked in reply, her voice professional, but I could see her eyes narrow as I readied my shotgun and aimed at them.
The man pulled up a tablet, and I could see his gun hand get itchy and sneer. I thought about what to do if that gun left the holster, and I turned my head slowly to look out to see if there was more outside the lorry.
I noted one more of whatever species this was, and I frowned as the guy looked nervous. So I decided what I was going to do and slowly moved to the side. I moved into position, and Ura noticed my movement. The guy finally answered her, "Yes, I am looking for that container. It says here that I owe the second half of the shipping fees, " the man said.
"Normal practice," Ura replied, "You pay half up front, half at the destination, and if I could, you would have to pay into a separate account that gets dropped off to me on successful delivery."
The complaint seemed to make the man chuckle, but the hand slowly pulled out the handgun from his back, and I moved. I turned, and I aimed at the guy in the back who pulled out an assault rifle from his back, and I aimed and pulled the trigger. The sudden cough of my shotgun startled the men, but the man in the back had a hole the size of a fist through his chest as the slug smashed through him. I turned, and my hand grabbed the man before me by the neck; they gasped at the sudden violence, and I smashed the man down to the ground, making him scream. My foot then smashed down on his stomach while I aimed my shotgun at the second.
Emma looked alarmed and surprised at the sudden eruption of violence and gasped. The last alien man was holding all three hands up with the handgun in his hand aimed in the air. "Don't shoot!" The one who had been talking was the only one standing, and he shivered. "I mean no harm."
"You are fucking stupid If you think I believe that, dumb fuck," I snapped, with no one being able to see the sneer on my face. My foot moved to the guy's neck, who was on the ground, and I cut off his oxygen before he could even start to struggle.
"Fuck, I did not know you had Armor!" The man cried, and I barked a laugh.
"So, you would have tried to kill us if I wasn't wearing armor?" I asked, and the man's eyes widened. I sighed.
"Slowly lower your gun while aiming it at your foot, and then put it to the ground and kick it to the startled white girl," I ordered. The man turned to look at Emma and nodded. Slowly, ever so slowly, he brought down the gun while aiming it at himself a little before he put it on the ground behind him. Then he stepped back over the gun and kicked it over to Emma, and she grabbed it quickly.
"Good. Now, it is your turn," I said, motioning to Ura, and she smiled.
"Well, do you want the container or not?" Ura asked.
"Y- Yes," The man said, and Ura smiled.
"There is a dumbass fee and ammo fee. So, you will pay my guard here for showing you the stupidity of your ways. I think fifteen percent is good, right?" Ura asked, and the man gulped.
"I- I don't have that kind of money," The man said.
"Then give me everything you do have," Ura replied bluntly. Then, Ura walked over to him without getting in my way. Slowly reach into your pocket and get any transfer chips you have on you."
Over the next twenty minutes, it was a slow process. Ura got them to pay up, and I allowed the guy on the ground to breathe, but he coughed, gasping for air. It was another stupid delivery that ended with us giving them a shit ton of guns in a cargo container, and one of their people died.
Honestly, I will not allow Ura to deliver to these dumb fucks again. They will hate us for this in the future, and now they will have the means to do something about it. "Now, We are blacklisting your organization for future deliveries with our company," Ura finished as she smiled.
The man did not look distressed, but I don't think he understood what that meant. "Now, Get the fuck out of my lorry with your cargo, you have five minutes to take your shit and go, or it leaves with us." Ura snapped at him and stepped out of the way, and I stepped off the man on the ground, pulled him up to his feet, and grabbed the gun that was trapped under him before he could do anything. The man's arm was broken, and I could see a grey bone sticking out and with blue blood leaking around it, and the man was stone-faced.
I watched the main guy run, grab the cargo lift they brought, and grab their shipment of weapons to cause chaos and leave the air lorry. It was nice to see them go. Ura got into the pilot seat and took off before I sighed in relief, lifted my face mask, and sighed once more.
"Is that every delivery?" Emma asked.
"Not all, but fuck is it common lately," I said with a sneer, "We have had an abnormal amount of attempted thefts," I said and Emma shivered.
"It was so fast, I did not even see them pulling their weapons," Emma said, and I sighed.
"That is the reason your positioning and demeanor matter, Emma," I told her bluntly, "You looked fucking pathetic beside Ura. You looked nervous; you looked like you did not know what you were doing and were not even ready to rumble for seconds after the very short battle began." The shame on her face was readily apparent, and I sighed again. "Emma, you did not do bad, you did not run away, you did not scream, and when you had something to do, you did not freeze. So those are good things," I told her, thinking about people when they first played Call of Duty in Virtual reality. I had to admit the realism was unreal to me at first. I had frozen even though I knew it was a game and the world was just subtly wrong all over.
That wasn't apparent here, and Emma was an NPC; this was her world. Still, it hit me again how real all of this felt. It was like she was real, and her interactions were real. The fact that I could control the speed inside this world in comparison to the one outside reminded me that this was a game. The unreal amount of AI power made me feel weird about URa, too.
I did want to taste that milk again, too.
My mouth watered with the last thought, and I turned to Emma, who looked to be in thought. "Emma," I said, gathering her attention once more, "You did not do poorly," I told her, and she looked at me surprised.
"What? I did not react at all!" She complained in return, and I chuckled.
"Okay, this is your Second Lesson," I said with a grin, "What do you think is the worst thing to do in a firefight?" I asked.
"Not react?"
"Nope, that is stupid in its own right, but there are three things that most species," I began, although I was thinking about humans in reality, "All react to sudden Violence." I told her, and she looked at me very interested, "There is Flight," I continued, "Where you run and try to escape," I told her and smiled, "A perfectly understandable and might save your life method. Hell, as a bounty Hunter, you will sometimes be running for your life. Flight is a perfect thing to do in certain circumstances, and it is good to do if you are put in a position where you cannot win. Just running might mean you can reposition yourself in a place where you can win the fight or gather reinforcements. A very good reaction in a lot of cases." I said, and Emma nodded.
"Okay," Emma replied, and I chuckled.
"The Second is a fight," I told her and nodded with a smile, "One of the best things to do but not always the right decision, but oftentimes, as a bounty hunter, it will be something that you must do. We are killers, but when in a sudden situation like that, pulling out a gun and shooting the person before they can shoot you neutralizes the threat. A great response but not always the best option when outnumbered or, for many reasons, not a great choice when doing things like what we were just doing. But those are exceptions. So fight would be a good option."
Emma nodded, so I continued, "The last thing is nothing. Sometimes you are just good and fucked in a sudden eruption of violence, and you are fucked," I told her, and surprise was more than evident. "What do you do when you are unarmed, in a cell with a guy holding a gun at you?" I asked, "Fight?" I chuckled, "You gonna have an entire clip of bullets in you before you can hit them if they are any sort of competent. Flight?" I asked again, and Emma looked thoughtful. I continued, "Where can you run? You're trapped! So doing nothing is the best. There are a number of scenarios in which something can surprise you, and doing nothing is the best decision. So remember that doing nothing like you did can actually be a great choice. Think about what might have happened if you whipped our gun out as I neutralized the one that I smashed to the ground?" I asked before answering myself, "You would have shot me! That is a horrible choice!" I exclaimed
"So, then, what was the worst choice?" Emma asked.
"PANICKING!" I snapped, "If you lose your cool and start doing stupid things without rhyme or reason, you can kill everyone. You become your own enemy! So, the first thing that you need to learn is not to panic. You froze this time, which is a very mild form of panicking. Now, we are going to slowly teach you not to panic and the right ways to react to situations."
Emma smiled, "Thank you, Master."
"It is good that you understand where I was going." I said with a grin, "I think you might be learning quickly, but that means implementing what you learn, too. We are about to reach the next delivery destination, and with our fucking luck, we are going to potentially be robbed once more. So I want to see you do three things this time." I told her, and she looked at me seriously, eating up each word.
"You are going to stand with Confidence," I told her, much to her surprise. "Confidence does a lot; you are in charge; you will fuck them up and kill them all if they try to do anything to Ura. That is what you need to project all while just standing there. It doesn't matter if you can or not or shitting your panties. You stand there and look at them like trash that you wipe your ass with. That is what you need to project all while standing there, ARMED. Get it?" I finished with the question.
"Yes, Master," Emma replied, and I smiled.
"Second, position yourself in a place that allows you the freedom to act and protect Ura from the men coming to pick up the cargo. Ura is your lifeblood; without her, you may as well be dead. It doesn't matter that you could live later; you would have a life so miserable without her that you will hate life more than the sweet kiss of death. Understood?"
"Yes, Master!" Emma said with more confidence. This time, I could see the determination in her eyes, and I nodded.
"Good. Now, the last one is to watch everything about them while doing the other two," I told her. Confusion instantly covered her expression. "In fact, if nothing happens with the next guests, I am going to ask you questions about each of them. They might be large details or small details. Do not distract yourself from the other two things, but I want you to watch everything about them while not paying attention to anything explicitly. You need to watch ALL of them, not just one person. Understood?"
"Y—Yeah," Emma said a little more unsurely. But why am I doing that?"
"You can ask that after," I said, and I grinned, walking back to my corner and chuckled as I opened up my shotgun and replaced the slug. That dipshit I held at gunpoint never even noticed that I had not pumped my shotgun and put a new shell into the gun. So I could not shoot him without pumping my gun. That told me the level of lethal they were. Those underground gorillas did not send their best, or they were not going to last long if that was the level of training they had.
Asura should have sent some training manuals or people with the package so that they could actually use those guns.
I chuckled as I remembered times in Call of Duty when people used the pump shotgun and did not realize that they forgot to put another shell in the chamber. One of the viral videos of me in the pro league was of me walking into a room in a one-on-one and walking up to the guy with a massive grin that everyone thought was suicidal. I slowly lifted my gun and shot him as he pulled the trigger of his shotgun; full of pride and disdain for me when it did not fire, I chuckled and said, "You forgot to pump your shotgun, dumbass," The words were recorded for the world as I used the public chat and his eyes widened and with a sadistic smile I shot him in the head with a gun as he tried to jump away while pumping his shotgun.
Counting bullets and sounds was very important in small engagements. The sound of their steps, the number of bullets they fired, and magazine size were all little details that, if you know, you can make decisions that put others at a disadvantage. It can even give you complete immunity while they thought they were stronger.
I was a star player in Call of Duty. I knew many little details, and it helped me a lot in this world. Adapting was hard, but it was interesting. I loved this experience, and I could not wait to have the ability to respawn so I did not have to stress as much about things.
Suddenly, I got a notification, and I pulled it up.
—--
New Trait Unlocked: Novice Combat Trainer
Those who walk the walk, do. Those who don't, Teach.
—---
I looked at the notification, and I sneered at the stupid quote. Then I thought about what it meant and I wondered what triggered it. Did Emma learn everything today? Then why not before the combat and now after?
Did she learn now?
Would something change?
I frowned, and my thoughts rolled through me as I waited for the next delivery.
------
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