Revy felt the warmth of the sun shining on her face, through the window. She tried to ignore it and even succeeded, until someone entered her room.
"Revy, are you still sleeping?" Rock asked as he entered the room and placed a mug of coffee on the bedside table. Revy just rolled over in her bed and grunted in response. "Can you really sleep after what we encountered yesterday?" She clenched her fists when she heard him. Rock didn't need to remind her about that fucking thing. Because of this, she had trouble falling asleep, even after a whole day of exercising. She always believed that the other human was the most dangerous creature you could meet on your path through life, but yesterday made her change her mind. Revy sat on the bed and stretched, keeping her back turned to Rock.
"You were the one who looked into the eyes of that beast... I should be the one to ask you how you slept last night." Revy turned around, towards him, only to see Rock's trembling hands wrapped around his mug, and a face that clearly hadn't slept last night.
"It wasn't that bad..." He said, trying to stay positive and then dipped his mouth into the black brew. "Dewar helped me calm down a bit while he was teaching me how to shoot."
"Yeah right... After the meeting the monster, he was in pretty shitty mood... He kept you at the shooting range until dark." Revy leaned forward and took the cup of coffee in her hands. It smelled much better than the brew of coal the dwarf had given them yesterday. "How did it go?" Rock scratched his head.
"Ehhh... Not bad for the first day, according to Dewar... But my ears are still ringing from the gunshots."
"You'll get used to it."
"To be honest... I'd rather not..." He said with a groan, lowering his head. Revy took a sip of coffee. Rock must have made it because it tasted much better than she would like to admit to him. "And how did your horse riding go yesterday?" Rock asked out of the blue, causing Revy to choke on her coffee. "Because you went to practice horse riding, just like Dewar advised you yesterday, right?"
"Yes, yes. He said I shoot great, so I should focuse on horse riding to learn it as soon as possible..." She replied, setting the cup on the table. "So, as much as I didn't want to, I spent the rest of the fucking day in this black shit..."
"AND?"
"I don't even want to fucking think about it..."
"It went that bad?" Revy put her coffee mug on the table and then fell back onto the bed.
"I managed to get off the damn thing's back a few times of my own free will... But still, most often it was that fucking mare that decided whether I stayed in the saddle or not."
"It's still a bit of a success, isn't it?" He asked calmly, but his shaking hands still betrayed his mental state. Revy stayed silent for a moment before she answer.
"You can call it that if you want..."
"I see..." Rock stood up from the chair, but as he straightened up, he groaned in pain and clutched his back. Revy immediately got up from the bed when she heard him.
"Is this after the monster attacked you?" Rock nodded.
"It hurts like hell..." Revy moved closer and grabbed his shirt, lifting it up. "Hey! What are you doing?"
"Calm down your tits. I want to see what it looks like..." She replied, lifting his shirt and looking at his back. A dark stain spread from the upper lumbar region to the shoulder blades. She was also able to see hematomas in some places. "It doesn't look too good..."
"I know... Have you seen enought?" He said, clearly nervous, taking a step back and straightening his shirt.
"Did you tell the dwarf about this?"
"Yes... Dewar is supposed to give me something to help it heal faster." Revy nodded, then grabbed her coffee mug again. Rock moved towards the door. "Come downstairs, breakfast will be ready soon..."
"Yeah sure... Just give me a minute to get dressed." She said, dipping her lips into the cup of coffee again.
"Sure…"
Rock and Revy spent the next few days acclimatizing to the world they now lived in. During the day, from breakfast until dusk, they polished skills that could be useful in their survival.
In Rock's case, he had to master the use of weapons, at least at a basic level. Under Dewar's and Revy's watchful eye, he made progress and managed to advance from, as Revy put it, "a danger to himself and everyone around him" to a point where his partner trusted him to handle the weapon. However, his accuracy left much to be desired. When he was calm, Rock was an accurate shooter. However, under the influence of emotions, pressure and the screams of Revy, who especially wanted to accustom him to shooting under stress, all composure and accuracy disappeared. Progress, however, was keeping the barrel pointed in the right direction and sticking to gun safty, even in stressful situations.
Rock, after all, took no pleasure in learning how to use the gun. However, he derived great pleasure from learning horse riding. In the short time he has spent riding, he has managed to make significant progress and is even starting to become attached to his brown mare. She was always willing to take him on her back and ride with him, and she was always visibly annoyed when Rock was finishing rides with her. Revy, however, had a different problem.
Due to his experience with guns, prior to his death, any time spent at the makeshift shooting range was either spent teaching Rock how to use the gun or getting used to the new gun. The latter quickly turned into a form of entertainment and a way to relax, especially when she got used to revolvers and rifles. And she needed a way to de-stress.
Unlike her partner, who quickly mastered cooperation with her mount, she was clunky at best. The black mare, that Revy tried to learn with, loved to show off her, if not mean, then mischievous, nature. Over time, throwing her from the saddle stopped being so frequent. It was not entirely known why. Mayby it was because the mare had gained respect for her rider or mayby she was simply bored with it. However, the mare was still able to ignore Revy's commands and even walk away from herwhen she wanted to get in the saddle.
For obvious reasons, Revy often couldn't stand it all and went to the shooting range to vent, and once she almost turned the practice pen into a shooting range and the mare into a shooting target, but Rock managed to calm her down in time. Fortunately, over time, small improvements came, where, after a few cases of insubordination, the horse was able to follow all her commands flawlessly, only to disobey her again after a while, which only perpetuated Revy's thought that the mare's mischievous acting was totally on purpose.
When they weren't practicing at the shooting range or riding horses, the dwarf was trying to drill into their heads valuable survival knowledge. Tracking, hunting, skinning prey, recognizing plants, their properties and collecting them. Everything that could be useful to them. Revy didn't like these lectures, which often took place over dinner. She preferred to focus on eating in that moment. However, despite everything, she remembered the most important elements about hunting.
Rock, on the other hand, absorbs the knowledge given to him far more. He listened with great enthusiasm about herbs and what they could do with them if, in a critical situation, they ran out of supplies from the medical bags. He also asked the dwarf many times to explain the contents of the diary they found next to the corpse in the underground ruins. Other times he asked about the basics of alchemy. All this with enthusiasm on his face and a twinkle in his eyes. However, these disappeared with one topic. Monsters. When Dewar talked about them, Rock's body language changed completely. Instead of enthusiasm and excitement, there was fear in his eyes, but also some kind of determination. Revy could easily see him holding a notebook in his shaking hands and writing down every detail the dwarf gave him.
The sun setting behind the trees was an inexorable reminder of the end of the day. It had been almost a week and a half since Rock and Revy had first time set a foot in this world, and another day was drawing to a close. At this time, Revy was in the pen practicing horse riding.
Despite initial and later difficulties, after almost a week and a half, she became so familiar with horse riding that she was ready to call herself a beginner rider. Just staying in the saddle was no longer difficult, and neither was riding. She was even able to control the horse while galloping without any problems.
Yet, there still remained the problem of the horse trying to throw her off the saddle. However, over time, it became so predictable that she was able to prepare for it. It never happened while galloping or at any higher speed. Same when she and Rock tried their horse riding skills outside the pen. Revy was almost sure that as soon as they went outside the fenced area, the mare would throw her off and run away, but nothing like that happened and the mare was calm and didn't try to throw her off, so the first ride outside the pen was surprisingly successful.
Currently, however, Revy was in the pen with her horse. She was going around the fence, holding a rifle in her hands, reloading it. As soon as she had it fully loaded, she took aim and placed the front sight of the gun on the cans on the other side of the fenced area. She shifted in the saddle and squeezed the trigger. She fired three shots and then quickly grabbed the reins to take control of the rushing horse. Turning back she looked towards the cans, none of the five cans even had a scratch on them. Revy gritted her teeth in anger, then brought the butt to her shoulder to fire again. She took aim and fired three shots again, one after the other. Immediately afterwards, she stopped abruptly and looked towards the cans. Only one of them has been knocked over. Revy sighed and then, still standing in place, took aim and started shooting at the remaining four cans, hitting and knocking over each of them in turn. She slung her rifle onto her back and then dismounted.
She started walking over to the cans to set them up again, meanwhile her mare started walking away from where they were standing. Revy knelt down next to the can she hit first. The bullet hole was right at the edge, she barely hit it.
She set it upright and then did the same with the rest of the cans. Then she stood up and turned on her heel, after taking a few steps she saw a figure on a horse approaching the pen. Revy walked to the fence and leaned against it, waiting for the figure to get close enough.
"How are you doing?" Rock asked calmly as he approached her.
"For fuck's sake, I can't shoot shit, while I ride. I only scored a coupel of hits in all of afternoon." She said pointing to the cans on the other side of the pen. Rock dismounted and adjusted the dark blue coat he had been wearing for some time. It reached halfway down his calves, and when Revy first saw him in it, she couldn't stop laughing. According to her, it was too big, but according to Rock, it had its advantages. It was useful, it protected from the wind, and, after putting it on, you couldn't see the gun on Rock's belt. But, this was only an advantage in his eyes, as he did not like the sight of a weapon at his side. However, Revy had to admit that the coat even suited him, especially if he wore an equally oversized black hat with a large brim. It looked strange at the time, but it suited his strangely elegant style.
"Cans are a pretty small target..." Rock said, leaning against the fence. "...you have the right not to hit them while riding a horse."
"But the weak spots on the monsters' bodies are not bigger..."
"So you were paying attention to what Dewar said." He said with genuine surprise.
"Fuck off. I tried to remember the most important thing, which is how to kill them. You better say, how was a trip through the forest. The dwarf was supposed to show you some herbs or other fucking green shit."
"Ehh..." Rock scratched his head. "We didn't find much... Additionally, he didn't want to go too deep so as not to encounter something that might be in the forest."
"I see, so you've learned nothing..." Rock nodded reluctantly.
"Unfortunately yes." He replied, then rested his head on his hands. "By the way, Dewar wanted to talk to us about something important before dinner."
"Really? Did he said about what?"
"No. Just to bring you back at a reasonable hour."
"Haha." She laughed lightly, then turned to the cans and pulled out both of her revolvers. "I'll finish this and we can get going... I'm fed up with this anyway."
Rock and Revy walked their horses to the stables and then headed towards the wooden building they had been living in since they came to this world. They spotted Dewar sitting by the fire. They waved at him before walking closer and sitting on the bench by the fire. Only then did they notice the whole bucket of casings standing next to him.
"What do you need this for?" Revy asked pointing to the bucket filled with brass.
"For this." Dewar replied and then showed them a tool resembling pliers.
"What's that?" Rock asked, taking the tool in his hand.
"It's a reloading tool." Rock and Revy looked at him.
"Can't we just reload like normal?" He asked, not understanding why he needed this tool. Revy, meanwhile, took the rifle off her back and started looking at it, trying to understand what the dwarf was talking about. Dewar just shook his head.
"Listen..." He said, drawing attention to himself. "During a hunt, especially a long one, it may happen that you run out of ammunition... Then you will need this." He picked up another, similar tool. "For reloading fired cartiges." Rock and Revy looked at him like he was an idiot.
"Can't we just buy ammo when we run out?" Dewar sighed and leaned forward.
"You won't always be close to any city or settlement to find a store. And even if you do find one, you can't be sure whether it will have the ammunition you need in stock." Rock nodded, slowly understanding the dwarf. "However, the store should usually have lead, powder and primers in stock to reload the fired shells..."
"Ehh, I see..." Revy said, scratching her head. "Although I'd rather buy ammunition and not fuck with it..."
"It's also much cheaper to reload..." With that, Rock leaned forward and looked more interested. His reaction, for some reason, made Revy feel unpleasant. "It's not difficult, it just takes a little strength..." Dewar then selected one from the bucket of fired brass and got to work. He knocked out the used primer and inserted a new one, slightly enlarged the opening of the case, then poured powder from a metal container inside, and immediately inserted a previously prepared lead bullet and pressed it inside, tightening the neck around the bullet. All this with one tool resembling pliers. "Ready." He said as he took the cartridge out of the tool. "Check." He said throwing the bullet towards Revy. She easily grabbed it and chambered it in her revolver. She twisted the drum, then took aim and fired a shot, and a pine cone lying under one of the trees on the other side of the area jumped in the air.
"Not bad." She said opening the loading gate and knocking out the just spent casing before throwing it towards Dewar who caught it. "But still, so much bullshit for one shot. It's still probably better to buy ready-made ammunition..."
"It's true, it's easier to buy. However, as I said, it's not always possible." He said, throwing the casing back at her. "So you better try it yourself..." Revy grabbed the brass and looked at Dewar, then looked down on brass in her hand.
For the next two hours, Rock and Revy were reloading the cartriges they had fired over last week and a half. They took a casing from a bucket, removed the primer, inserted a new one, enlarged the hole, poured in the powder, pressed the bullet in and pressed it in, and tightened the neck of the shell around it. And repeat with each subsequent bullet. Was it the .38 ReC for Rock's revolver, or the .45 ReC or .42 RE used in Revy's guns. They took a tool of the appropriate caliber and painstakingly repeated a series of actions. Over time, they began to repeat one step many times so as not to change the tool settings too often, which they had to do to knock out the worn primer. Over time, they also ran out of previously prepared bullets, so under the watchful eye of the dwarf, with the help of a crucible and a mold, they began to smelt bullets of the appropriate caliber from lead.
"Fucking hell!" Revy shouted, dropping the reloading tool under her and clutching her sore hand. "I can't fucking do it anymore, I can't feel my hands. Isn't it enough? We probably loaded more than 100 rounds in total..." Dewar laughed from his side of the fire.
"True, you loaded a lot of them, but the bucket isn't even half empty..." Revy groaned and looked at the bucket in front of her, which was mostly filled with fired brass. She gritted her teeth and then picked up the tool from the ground.
"Fuck! It's going to take us all night to load this ammunition, and we still won't fucking finish..." She said and with great effort she finished pressing the bullet into the case. As soon as she did, she put the tool down and shook her hand as if it would help her get rid of the pain. Immediately afterwards, she reached for another casing from the bucket. "38 ReC..." She said, looking at the rim of the cartrige, then looked around her. "Fuck, I don't have bullets for this. Rock, do you have any .38 left?" Rock, sitting by the fire and smelting bullets, adjusted his leather gloves and looked around him.
"No, I only have .42. You want me to make some .38 now?" He asked, carefully looking into the center of the fire to see if the lead in the crucible had already melted.
"Yes, do them." She responded by setting the shell aside and moving back to the bucket in search of a different caliber of casing. Dewar scratched his head and sighed.
"Okey, you two finish what you started. I think that's enough for today." Revy and Rock looked at him with slight surprise, but didn't protest. Revy put aside the shells she had taken earlier, and Rock poured molten lead into the bullet molds. As soon as he finished, he turned to the dwarf.
"By the way, what are we going to do tomorrow?" He asked, shifting and laying down on his coat. "A whole day of horse riding or a shooting range again?"
"Maybe a trip to the forest for hunting?" Revy chimed in, rubbing her sore hands.
"Truth be told..." Dewar spoke up. "Tomorrow I will go to the nearest settlement to arrange transport to the city..." Rock and Revy looked at him with great surprise, but said nothing. "I have taught you here the basics of life in this world... The only thing left for you is to gain experience, which you must gain yourself." Rock and Revy remained silent until Revy finally spoke up.
"So... What the fuck we do now?"
"I suggest you come with me to the settlement tomorrow. I will help you learn how settlements and other towns work, and then we can go together to the city, where you can register as hunters or you can start doing whatever you think is best for you two..." Revy looked at Rock for a moment, he nodded and turned towards the dwarf.
"Okay, I guess it's for the best..."