I sighed deeply as I wandered among the great library of the castle. It reminds me so much of my own home. Large, imposing bookshelves that reaches to the sky and packed with tomes of immeasurable knowledge and a beautiful guardian that contain the information itself. Sophie was slung at my back, content on sleeping for the moment. While her loyalty was great she wasn't much of a reader or a writer. To be fair, I felt like I was writing a novel instead of a journal entry.

Seriously, who the hell writes 5000 words essay for a daily journal entry anyway?

I brushed my finger upon the books as I walked along the length of the bookshelves, deep in thought. Latina was wandering around the city; her pride was too strong for her own good. Apparently shooting down some fools for experience point violate whatever code of honour the centaur has. The longer I think about it the more confused I am. She has no problem shooting down anybody we saw in our adventure together, and she never objected at the idea of a duel. Hell, she even confirmed herself that the reason why mass-murderer were so feared was because they racked up so much experience point that they became strong as fuck, and wandering around killing things were basically socially acceptable at this point in life! Hell, she even said before that this is how warriors get their points at, by killing monsters.

Now I decided to do what I was good at she decided to throw a hissy fit? Dammit, they didn't even die at all! If I shot one he or she would instantly teleport back to their hometown, unharmed and safe. I get my points; they get to have the chance to visit their parents, what is so wrong about that?

Obviously I would not target the children and human. Both of them are killable and I still have my morals. But Latina doesn't want any of that either. This is a frustrating point for me. How the hell am I gonna get myself some experience points if I don't grind? How can I become strong enough to at least traverse through that wasteland without dying with impunity? Sophie's strength came from her ability to manipulate the enemy's weakness by varied ammo type and hitting their weak spot. She cannot make her own bullets out of nothing, not even magic. The M1 Garand in her possession now was a formidable weapon on its own, but there's a reason why we don't use small arms against tanks.

Plus, there was also the fact of transportation and supply. Latina carries most of our perishable goods, for carrying week's supply of food to feed two human beings and one oversized horse-girl wasn't light. If I ration out the max supply of food I can carry I can at least carry around a month worth of supply, which I believe would last me alone for the whole trip. But that means that I would have less room for equipment. Plus, weight matters, so I have to keep my pack at comfortable weight so that I don't waste too much energy. I was burning through my supply thanks to all of my physical action. Combat is a sure-fire way of keeping a soldier hungry.

Latina wanted to find a caravan for us to hitch with to Sabasa. I like the idea, that's how I usually move in the first days of me in this world. But the problem is that the last caravan was just a week ago. We have to wait until next month.

So that is what I am doing now; waiting for the caravan to return. I cannot walk out there willy-nilly, I'll die the second I step my foot at that piece of sand. Latina is probably walking all over the town, finding odd jobs for extra cash. San Ilia is a prestigious town, and most of our coins were counterfeit we were forced to fall back on legit currency until we hit a smaller village. Small village accept counterfeit coins. After all, they were still made of gold, but they were not officially sanctioned yet.

My hands suddenly stopped upon a spine of book. I pulled it out and smiled a little as I read the title of the book itself. Being an assistant of a librarian somehow bestows me with the ability to find books on stuff I might find interesting.

Weapons and history of Weaponry? Generic name, but sometimes what we want is simply straight-to-the-point answer to our question.

I opened the book and read the first page, absorbing its content and judging its credibility. I scoffed at their application of magic. I have no problem with magics being fused with weapons. Hell, I even actively try to make existing weapon stronger by fusing magic with weapons.

But the way the book was written, they made it looks like that everything revolves around the stats itself. Why would you use prismarine crystal over metal to make a hammer? Because the stats of the prismarine crystal was higher than metal! Why do some wooden sword was more lethal than one made from steel? Because some were made from special woods that has certain stat-boosting traits in there. No material scope, not even the basic property of said material used or technique used. It's not about reality it's all about statistic.

It's Ilia, the fuck do you expect?

At least some fucking rule of logic!

Magic, no matter what kind or where is it must have a set of rules that apply universaly so that the magicians can understand and apply the basic of their power to other thing, hence increasing the potential of magic itself. Magic, like how my mistress said was no different than science, for while it disregards most of contemporary science, it adheres to their own set of rules. A scientist study worldly science, a magician study the science of magic itself.

And here we have the writer whose best idea of weapon magic imbuing was simply pumping crap-ton of magic into a sword.

Oh well, I can't blame him. I myself was still learning about the magic of this world.

The world itself proves to be no different than the one back home, so the main attraction was the magic system itself. I admit, for being a man of magic and science, my place is behind a barrel of a gun. My first time studying magic was not pretty. Many mistakes were made, some were deadly, and some were embarrassing. And worse part is that some part doesn't make sense and I have to fill in the gap. After 4 years of studying I can finally say that I'm pretty good with magic.

With all of my magic knowledge thrown out of the window here, I felt like I was a rookie again, trying to levitate my first spoon. Oh well, I can always learn anew.

I grabbed more books, mainly on the topic of weapons and magics. With an armful of books I decided to head over to one of the tables where a score of scholars mills around, learning about magic and whatnot. I simply took a table the furthest away from the crowd. I prefer silence after all. I wanted to get another level down, but the place was infested by MGs and I have no desire to fuck with the guard. He was simply doing his job.

With a sigh, I sat down upon the rickety chair. This will do. I slowly spread the books over the table, scanning with my critical eyes for titles that can benefits me. I placed two books from my original stack aside and dove straight into the first book.

Most of the weapon design in there was simply medieval weapon imbued with magics and shit. The most complex weapon they have is simply a repeating crossbow and a bastardized Puckle Gun. I simply shook my head at this. It seems that while magically they were overpowered they are still leagues behind my own technological progress.

But of course, who needs to learn physics and nuclear theory when we can make ten suns with our bare hands?

From what I gather from my research, it seems that weapons can be upgraded just by changing parts with other thing. All I need to do is to find out how it worked. Surely changing a pommel of a copper sword with an amethyst pommel is not enough to make the overall sword sharper and harder than steel right?

Right?

I pulled out my sidearm; the black M1911A1 was a beautiful weapon. Timeless, reliable, man-stopper. Guns are sophisticated, beautiful machine where every part has a role in the mechanism. Lose one and the rest cannot function. Maintain it and keep it together and it will last through hell and back. That's why I don't want to lose any of the bolts in my pistol. It was my backup weapon in case Sophie is gone.

I ripped a piece of paper from my ridiculously thick journal. Damn, I wrote a lot in this journal. Usually I would run out of pages in the middle of my adventure so I have to go and buy another one. This one was soaked, shot, burned and brought to both hell and back and the fucking thing were still fine. This is why I like magic. Make things easier until I found the solution for anything.

You see, you can have magic doing all of the work you want to, but at the end of the day magic would fail you one day. When that happen how the hell would you find a way to fix the problem in the magic? If you want to fix anything you need to know how the things work. A true soldier must know how his weapon works so that the soldier can utilize the full potential of his weapon for his adavantage.

I folded the piece of paper into a box. With gentle and fluid movements come the barrel, and soon the rest of the guns. Barrel, receiver, grip, springs and the rest soon found themselves in the box, safe from being lost in the clutter on the desk. Imagine working on an image puzzle, one piece lost and the picture is forever ruined.

"Fascinating"

I turned around to face my interloper. My breath was taken for the moment. At that moment, all of my fatigue suddenly melts away from my body, replaced by the feeling of euphoria. The phantom pain that weighs down my head throughout my adventure suddenly disappears.

The man was tall as I remember him to be. His green hair was now grown messy from the last time we met. He wore a pair of black cloak over a black shirt. At his waist was the same pistol he always carries. He didn't change at all. Warts, skin tone, eye colour, not a damn thing changed aside his new uniform.

He peered into my box filled with my pistol parts, curious of the once deadly tool I once wield. "I know only of using those weapons, not how do they work. But with magic, I don't need to know."

I looked at him again and again, trying my best to dispel the illusion. It could have been an illusion; I must've lost what's left of my sanity as it is. I rubbed my eyes harder to the point it starts to hurt. Then I looked at him again. It was him. It was him. I have been scouring the whole fucking world for this asshole and here he was, right in front of me.

All I need is confirmation.

"Hito?" I asked him. His eyebrows were raised in questions. Then he nodded.

"yes, I am Hito. How do you know my name?"