26 Shots

Chapter 48: 26. Shooting

What is the average long jump distance for a normal person after a running start?

The answer is six meters.

And how wide is this street?

Visually, no less than eighteen meters.

So Karl wasn't trying to jump to the apartment building across the street. He was simply, in an unavoidable posture, inviting the sniper to take a shot.

To take the same shot he used to detonate the grenade in mid-air.

Every sniper possesses a set of shooting memories, which can be classified as muscle memory or a conditioned reflex. This shooting method is ingrained in their very bones during training. The more skilled the sniper, the more instinctive this reaction becomes. And clearly, the person Karl was facing was such a sniper.

Even faster than the feedback from his cybernetic eyes could reach his brain, the sniper had already raised his gun and pulled the trigger on Karl.

And the angle at which he raised the gun was no different from the angle he used to detonate the grenade earlier.

When using a gun to hit a target at the same height, the angle a sniper raises the gun won't change. The grenade was detonated when it was thrown to the height of the third floor, so the position Karl jumped from was also on the third floor.

Karl intentionally kept himself at roughly the same height as the grenade, while also slowing down his firing speed slightly.

Karl was more prepared than the sniper. He could have fired first, but if he did, the moment his bullet hit the sniper, he would be simultaneously hit by the sniper's Kitsune, and Karl didn't know if the sniper would die, but he was sure he would be dead for good. So he did something even riskier.

The angle of the raised gun was right, and the muzzle was in the exact same position.

Okay, confirmed.

The instant the bullet from the sniper's Kitsune left the barrel, Kenshin's bullet was already waiting for it in its path.

During the Gallipoli campaign in 1916, a miracle occurred: two bullets collided with each other in mid-air. What was the probability of that?

One in seventy billion.

Karl knew he didn't have that kind of luck, so he chose to shoot a stationary target.

Isn't a gun muzzle with a confirmed height and angle, just waiting to be verified with one's life, a stationary target?

For Karl, it wasn't one in seventy billion, but one in two.

Guess right, live; guess wrong, die.

It was that simple.

Fortunately, Karl's luck with the one-in-two chance was pretty good; he could always guess right. And facing a stationary target, Karl couldn't think of any reason why he couldn't hit it.

One bullet intercepted the Kitsune's bullet halfway out of the barrel. The two bullets exploded in the sniper rifle's chamber, and the resulting debris and shrapnel tore open the sniper's Kitsune like a flared horn, and then another bullet passed through the shattered rifling and hit the sniper in the head.

Sniper rifles are rarely designed to fire in bursts. In the past, this was because the gunpowder residue left in the rifling would affect the accuracy of the shot. Nowadays, it's because continuous firing can easily damage technical sniper rifles and cause accuracy deviations. This is especially true for Kitsune, which requires frequent maintenance.

Unlike the technical sniper rifle Kitsune, the Kenshin in Karl's hand is a handgun that can fire continuously. The moment the first bullet left the barrel, the next bullet was already on its way.

His head can't be as hard as his body, right?

With this thought, Karl began to dissipate the force of his fall.

When jumping down from a height, you can't roll directly, or your spine won't be able to handle it. The correct way is...

Recalling the Trauma Team's teachings from the Braindance, Karl landed on the balls of his feet, followed by his heels, then immediately leaned forward, relaxed his body, supported himself with his hands, bent his knees, and used the force of the ground to rebound naturally.

After completing this series of movements, Karl successfully dissipated most of the force from the fall, but he also felt like his body was falling apart in pain, but he couldn't stop.

When Karl landed, the attackers were still a little slow to react, or rather, they had left Karl to the sniper to deal with. But after Karl landed safely, even the most obtuse person realized that they should aim their guns at Karl.

People can't outrun bullets, or at least Karl can't right now, so he didn't plan to run at all.

The attackers' guns were obvious: Shingen. Smart Weapons are good, but they have a small flaw: they have to lock onto the enemy before they can guide their shots.

Another roll, hiding behind a car. Karl felt like he was getting more and more skilled at rolling.

The position he was hiding in now, after clearing out the apartment building across the street, didn't have any attackers who could directly aim their guns at him, but the car as cover definitely wouldn't last long, so Karl used his last resort in this critical situation.

"Help!"

Karl chose to call for help from his companions over the comms.

And they didn't let Karl down.

"I'm coming, Karl."

Jack, holding a corpse, rushed out of the apartment where the sniper was.

"Jack Welles is here!"

He shouted, attracting the attackers' attention.

Jack, he's always the one who can stand at the front to help his partners draw fire, a trustworthy person.

The moment they saw Jack, the attackers turned their guns towards Jack.

But the bullets from their guns, after penetrating the corpse Jack was holding, stopped at the surface of the Subdermal Armor.

Smart pistols, because of their high technical content, have more than half of their components as smart devices, leaving little room for the gun itself, which results in poor bullet penetration. Although some smart pistols can bypass obstacles and hit enemies behind them after accurately locking and guiding, they themselves do not have the ability to directly penetrate thick defenses.

In other words, Jack can hold out for a while.

The reason it's only for a while is that it's still a submachine gun, and with enough bullets, it's still no problem to tear Jack apart.

It's not just Jack, Ke Ren.

"Relax, you'll be fine, KK."

Maine actually charged out carrying a large, grooved rock as a shield. With his and Jack's help, the other mercenaries, who had been pinned down by the sniper fire, seized the opportunity to return fire at the attackers, whose suppressive fire had slackened.

"Don't underestimate us! You really think you're a match for us?"

They were, after all, mercenaries who had fought their way up through the blood and fire of the streets. They had the eye to recognize this was the best time to counterattack.

"Without the suppression from your rocket launcher and sniper, you think you can compete with us using just your Smart Weapons? You wish!"

On the streets, there was a popular saying, half-jealousy and half-truth.

'Only cowards who can't aim straight use Smart Weapons in a gunfight.'

If you can use more powerful kinetic and tech weapons, who would bother with Smart Weapons?

P.S. In the game, Jack is the only one who won't complain about your sudden attacks. He will always be at the forefront, helping you draw fire. (Looking back, maybe it would be better if he wasn't so brave, but then, Jack wouldn't be Jack.)