How to Raise Your Regressor

"Hey, Samur?" Neia spoke from beside me.

"Yes?"

Judging from her tone, she seems worried. Why, though? Is something the matter?

"You said that we were going for some practical training."

"Yes, I did."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but practical training means using the theoretical concepts I have previously learned and using them in real life practical applications."

"Bingo."

That's how practical training usually works.

Though to be honest, I really want to correct her by scolding because why the fuck not but there's not much I can say here.

"Then what are we doing here?"

"Practical training."

"How the hell is this practical training?!" She exclaimed. "You are basically asking me to kill people!"

"Jeez, you make it sound so bad. We're just putting some people out of their misery."

We're doing this purely out of a philanthropic desire, but she's making it sound like we're serial killers who are out on our daily murder spree.

There's a significant difference between the two, even if the end result is the same.

As they say, the means decide the end. Or was it, the end justify the means?

Whatever, who cares.

"You want us to put them out of their misery by shooting them in the head!" She almost screamed.

"Shh," I put a finger over her lips (for which I had to get on my tiptoes cuz I have a small body cuz I'm a 12-year-old child. FML). "They'll hear you."

"They are more than a kilometer away," she whispered. "I doubt they could hear us."

"Perhaps, but it doesn't mean we can be lenient. The first rule of killing I mean putting people out of their misery is to make as few mistakes as possible."

Huh, this rule should be kind of obvious, now that I think about it. I mean, it extends to literally anything in life.

The first rule of success is to make no mistakes.

Yikes, that's like saying, 'Eat food if you are hungry'.

"…"

See, even Neia is looking at me like 'the fuck is this guy talking about?'.

Hmm, maybe I can still salvage this situation.

"To be more precise, you have to always assume that your enemies are capable of doing things they usually shouldn't be capable of."

"…Which means?"

"Let's take our current situation as an example. You said that given how far they are from us, it's almost impossible for them to hear us. But we must operate on the assumption that their security is tight enough to have eyes and ears everywhere in a radius of 10 kilometres."

"Isn't that kind of far-fetched?" She asked.

A valid question.

"It is, but even if this assumption turns out to be wrong, it'll at most only inconvenience us. After all, the most we'll have to do is to keep as low as possible for 10 kilometres."

"Hmm…"

"But if you believe, 'Hey they can't possibly see or hear me from this far, right?' and you turn out to be wrong, you'll not only fail the mission, you'll also be captured, tortured for information and die a pretty horrific death."

"…" She gulped as she probably imagined those scenarios.

"That's why, as long as you can imagine something, prepare for it."

"Anything?"

"Mhmm. For example, right now, I'm operating under the assumption that the guys inside that building," I pointed to the huge ass warehouse typish building in the distance, "are currently spying on us and keeping check on our every move."

"Wha!?" She exclaimed.

"Don't worry, it's just an assumption, the chances of which being true are extremely low."

"Ah…" she heaved a sigh of relief.

"But hey, they are not zero."

"...Then how are you planning to deal with it?"

Another good question.

Neia may be a dumbass and a former child beater, but at least she's willing to learn from her mistakes and become a better person.

To think a wanker from the New Dawn Guild would show character growth. This is enough to bring tears to a man's eyes.

"Sniff," I sniffed back a tear.

"A-are you crying?"

"Nah, something went in my eyes," I wiped my tears of happiness. "Anyway, about how I'm planning to deal with it," I beckoned her to come closer.

"Hmm?" She brought her ear closer to me.

"I'm going to let them underestimate me," I whispered in her ears.

"How?" She whispered back.

"You'll see," I smiled; as they say, to fool the enemy you must first fool your friend.

Hmm, now that I think about it, is Neia my friend? I mean, she pummelled my face when I was crippled from blowing up my arms to save her.

She did reflect on that, of course, but still seems to believe that I had a deeper, ulterior motive for pulling that joke on her.

I, on the other hand, want her to become my minimum wage personal chef.

Considering that, are we friends?

I'll have to put a big fat 'maybe' on that one, chief.

"Okay," Neia nodded.

Is it just me or does she seem excited?

Hot damn, I know that I called our work 'putting people out of their misery' but in the end we're just killing people.

Yet Neia is excited?

It would seem she's having the wrong kind of character development. Let's just hope that after turning into a manic psychopath, she'll one day wake up, see blood, go into a psychotic episode and kill everyone, including ya boi.

That would be hella sweet.

"Now, back to your station. I'm going in."

"Will you be alright?" She asked.

"That depends on you, no?"

"…" She gulped again.

"Here. Take this," I threw her a small headset. "Put this in your ear."

Neia caught it, inspected it a bit then put it in her left ear. Then I took some distance from her.

"Can you hear me?" I whispered on the comms channel.

｢Ah! Yes, yes I can hear you!｣ She replied excitedly.

"Perfect. We'll communicate through this."

｢Okay.｣

"Now, time to put some motherfuckers to permanent sleep."

｢Hey.｣

"Or as we like to call it, putting people out of their misery."

｢…｣ All I heard from the other side was a sigh.

Anyway, by now, Neia should have taken her position.

Needless to say, her position is in the bushes on a hill, where she'll lie hidden and operate the Gauss Sabot Rifle MK-V.

Her position was 1km away from the kidnappers' hideout where they had caught Lecia captive. This distance was enough to let her shoot with reasonable accuracy while also keeping her out of range of most magical spells.

Her main job was to protect me, though I'm kinda hoping that she'd shoot me instead.

Imagine fighting a badass strong as fuck 12-year-old child who's mowing you down like he's a lawnmower and you're the overgrown grass. You hatch a plan with your comrades to take him down.

You enact the plan and it is surprisingly successful, but you've lost a lot of your comrades. With hatred overflowing from your heart, you make your attack which will end your enemy's life.

But just as you're about to kill him, his head suddenly explodes, thus making all your hard work and sacrificed for naught.

That would be a yikes from me, but it sure would be an alpha chad play.

However, I was going to infiltrate the warehouse. This might leave one wondering how exactly Neia will protect me once I am inside it. After all, it's covered from thick walls on all sides.

There are some windows, of course, but they are not enough to properly cover me.

While this would have been an ideal situation to 'accidentally' die (I won't be in her sight, after all), I decided to keep my suicidal tendencies on check and prepared a solution, namely IR vision, night vision and X-Ray vision.

This should give her the basic idea of where she should shoot.

Anyway, it's evening right now, a really fine time to hunt. The fact that this warehouse is in the middle of the nowhere (to be more precise, the monster ridden forest which is sure to have an epic name but I have yet to learn it) only helps us.

Well then, Mr. Kidnapper, are you ready to die?

"Comms check, 1, 2, 3. Can you hear me?"

｢Yes,｣ Neia replied.

"Have you performed the basic check procedure?"

｢Yes. The magazine is loaded, the safety is off and all system are working perfectly.｣

"And have you prepared the safety net?"

｢Mmhmm. I have positioned the mirror and prepared both the handgun and the knife.｣

"Perfect. Finally, what's the protocol?"

｢If I even suspect that someone is approaching my position, or that I'm in danger, I'll immediately abandon my position and fall back to one of the backup sites.｣

"Exactly. You're doing good for your first mission."

｢Thank you.｣

"Now, as I said before, your job is to protect me by killing anyone who approaches me. However, it's possible that right before taking a life, you might hesitate."

｢…｣

"There's no need to be ashamed about it; every newbie goes through this feeling. But-"

｢Don't worry… this isn't the first time I have killed someone.｣

Wow. Way to ruin my moment, Neia.

Goddamnit.

"I see. Well, I just wanted to let you know that there's no need to hesitate no matter who your opponent is. Kill a child if that's what it takes to get me inside safely."

｢Wait, that is…｣

"Do you know why? Because the motherfuckers inside that warehouse are holding Lecia captive."

｢…What?｣