A Gunslinger’s System in a World of Magic

Angus asked a peel of questions after that and they were all about the Black Manor. Its size, the entrances, the areas where security could be expected to be most dense…

Every question Angus asked, the Vyker Captain answered with the same lifeless tone and offered as much detail as he was privy to. He also mentioned that, although Vykers were certainly the most capable security at the Black Manor, they were not the only ones.

All in all, by the time the Vyker Captain's voice started to become droll as his life began to drain, Angus was nodding with a satisfied smile. He felt like he had learned quite as much as he needed to know.

Once the Vyker Captain was useless to him but was still holding on to life as best he could, Angus grabbed his head and with a twist, he broke his neck and let the Vyker's head hang off the back of the chair. His breathing finally ended.

"We'll be very busy," Angus said in an urgent tone of voice.

He spread a blank roll of paper onto the table and pulled out writing utensils to begin drawing out a floor plan based on what he now knew.

After tossing out the Vyker's body, the rest of the day was spent with the Gang all inside that room, discussing plans to rob the Black Manor, and only when the moon was high in the sky outside, did Angus enthusiastically say,

"Yes. This can work. I think we've got it."

"Finally!" Stefan let out with a tired sigh.

"Charles, Triss, and Henry will get us the supplies we need tomorrow and then we'll set off for Saint Claret."

Saint Claret was a City considerably far away from the town of New Freudein and also the closest the locals here could ever hope to get to the more developed part of the country. It was also where the Black Manor was located.

The Henry of this world had never been there and neither had the others in the Gang but Angus spoke of it with a knowledgeable authority that put them all at ease even if they were still nursing thoughts about hating his guts.

As for the supplies, Henry had caught on the word 'explosives' most of all. The gist of the plan for the Manor Job was speed and distraction and for the latter, they decided a loud bang was required. Hopefully destroying parts of the Manor if they could.

The Manor security might be scanty but only a few in the Gang could actually handle Vykers in a fight so those few would have to buy time and space for the weaker ones to enter and explore the Mansion.

According to the now-dead Vyker Captain, once they were able to get into the innermost parts of the Manor, they would very easily find valuables worth a good bit of gold and if they could make their way even deeper, they could find the Vault where even more of the Manor's precious goods were kept.

Since he was more of a member of the Manor's Militant and hardly a housekeeper, what the Vyker Captain knew about the Vault was limited but he spoke more certainly about little caches all over the Mansion where the Manor Lord kept his more dispensable wealth.

The gold in these caches was negligible for Maude Aleric compared to the Vast wealth his family had always been privy to but was more than substantial for the dreams Angus had promised the Gang.

Henry paid as much attention as he could but he had his own matters to think about. His mind worked to come up with some way to break Yelena's bond with the Mansion. The thing was, he already had a way; The Vinculum on Angus' Chest.

On Angus' Stat screen, besides his Job as Gang Leader was a Job as a Bond Breaker/Maker. If Henry was to take that at face value, then Angus could free Yelena from the Mansion but what happens then?

She was cursed to die and had cheated that fate for over three centuries. Who knew if she could survive the Bond break?

If Angus did break her bond with the Mansion, they'd very likely have to bond her with something else and without any understanding of the ritual that had been used to tie her to the Mansion, how sure was he that a replacement could work?

When the meeting came to an end, Angus ordered them all to get some sleep before waving them all out of the room. Henry hung back for a few minutes and considered going to Angus about Yelena but eventually decided not to.

He didn't trust Angus. Even less now than he ever did if he ever did trust him at all.

He doubted the person who used Yelena to guard the Mansion from attackers would have her best interest at heart. Besides, Henry guessed that, should he succeed at separating Yelena from the Mansion, she'd lose her conditional immortality which was why Angus thought of her as useful at all.

No, it was best he kept his plans to himself. If only for now.

Henry walked down the stairs and the lower he got, the better he could hear the newbies still celebrating. Soon he could see them chugging alcohol and cackling,

"To the Dionisio Gang! With them, we're set!" One said with a drunken slur and a sway as he struggled to stay on his feet.

"Hear hear!" Many cheered with him.

"Do you *hic* Do you think I can learn how to do what that boy did?" Another asked someone Henry couldn't see clearly.

Henry knew the 'boy' being talked about was him. From the voice, he could tell the person who spoke was likely in their early twenties. He found it funny that someone that young would call him 'boy'.

'It should be the other way around,' Henry thought with a chuckling reminiscence at the fact that he had actually lived for four decades and if you add in the memories of his life in this world that he had inherited, then it would rightly be bumped up to five— even six decades!

'Kids. the whole lot of them,' he thought to himself and shook his head but as he started to walk away he heard a voice that caused him to pause,

"Ah, who knows?" Good ol' Joe said in a slurred voice.

Henry looked around a corner and saw the Gang's Taskmaster lying back in a chair with a bottle in hand and many empty ones littered around him.

'To think he was here while the rest of us were getting our ass bored out from under us upstairs,' Henry thought with a smile and then shook his head,

'To be fair, what good would he have been anyway?'

Meanwhile, Good ol' Joe patted his stomach and belched before he said,

"I'll say this though if anyone can teach you, it's— It's *Hic!* It's probably him."

"Why?" A newbie asked as he chugged the last drops in his bottle, put it aside, and picked up another with his eyelids drooping.

"Well, it was just— what? Two weeks?— Three weeks?— He was nothing! Nothing, I tell ya!" Joe said.

"What I saw today wasn't nothing though," a newbie said. His attention was piqued.

"That's- That's what I'm saying! I don't know how he did it. He went from *hic* He went from being nothing to something— *Burp* Overnight!"

"No way!" The newbie said in a tone of disbelief that seemed heightened by his inebriated state.

"Way!" Joe said and looked like he gained a brief moment of clarity but then his eyes clouded over and his words slurred again,

"But you know, everyone in the Dionisio Gang is— *hic* is great. Why, when I was Henry's age, I was just as great!"

Henry couldn't help laughing at that. No one noticed though.

"Really? Then— Then, can you teach us maybe?" A newbie asked.

"Bah, those days are behind me. Go find Henry (gulps down the rest of the alcohol in his bottle). He'll teach ya. Just tell him— *Hic* Tell him I sent ya."

Shaking his head, Henry laughed to himself and walked away. Leaving Joe to keep boasting to people who didn't know better.