Chapter 2: Heading North

Near dusk, the radio ran out of power and the distress signal stopped. Gunsmith now had two options: stay where he was and wait for rescue, or find his own way out of the rainforest.

If the crash wasn't an Imperial plot, his disappearance would certainly be noticed within twenty hours. Someone ought to come looking for a plane that had suddenly lost contact, and in that case, waiting was undoubtedly the wiser choice. But if the accident had been deliberately arranged, waiting would probably be pointless.

With Gunsmith's abilities, surviving in this swamp wasn't particularly difficult. He could hold out for ten days or a fortnight, but he really didn't want to waste that much time on an uncertain outcome.

In the end, he decided to find his own way out. Gunsmith felt perfectly capable of getting himself to safety. The result would be the same as waiting for rescue, at the cost of a little more time and effort. Besides, if rescue really came, fine. But what if he waited a week and nobody came looking, or waited two or three days only for a few assassins to turn up to collect his corpse? Wouldn't he have trapped himself?

His mind made up, he began preparing everything he would need for a long trek through the jungle. He sewed thick fabric and seat belts into a makeshift backpack, joined the remaining seat belts into a long rope for later use, and turned the plane's oxygen masks into water bags. A fire starter made from the leftover fuel and a spark plug would last him quite a while.

Gunsmith's plan was to head west, or rather, toward the setting sun, because he wasn't too clear on north, south, east and west...

He planned to get up at sunrise each day and cover as much ground as he could in the early morning. Even if the local magnetic field was erratic, as long as the sun rose as usual, he could at least be sure he was heading in the same direction instead of going in circles. At noon, when the sun was overhead, he would stop, find somewhere to build a fire and cook, and take a short rest. In the afternoon, he would hunt to prepare the next day's food. Once that was done, he would return to the fire and set out again from there, walking until the sun had gone down completely.

By the time he had finished his plans and preparations, it was pitch-dark.

An oppressive quiet always hung over the rainforest, yet faint, scattered sounds kept breaking through. Every so often, an odd noise came from among the shadowy trees. It might be a bird calling, a snake hissing, insects chirring, or something like a toad breathing. Of course, it might also be two species close to each other on the food chain trying to eat one another.

Gunsmith hadn't been idle that afternoon while the distress signal was still transmitting. Figuring he would probably have to spend the night here, he had made a sleeping bag out of seat covers to keep heat-seeking animals from catching him unawares in his sleep. To get an early start tomorrow, he put on a life jacket, crawled into the sleeping bag and went straight to sleep.

It was a difficult night. The air was extremely humid, hot and clammy, but maintaining his body temperature still mattered. Slick with sweat, Gunsmith slept fitfully and woke several times during the night.

In his uneasy sleep, he dreamed of his childhood, when Grandfather took him hunting. On a snow-covered mountainside, they lay flat like two rocks, utterly motionless, waiting for the instant their prey let down its guard. Though he was bundled in a thick padded coat, his tender young hands were still exposed to the freezing air.

Grandfather never let Gunsmith wear gloves. Even when the child's hands froze into little lumps of ice and his tiny fingers felt as though they would snap when he pulled the trigger, stubborn Old Rohl never relented. Pulling a trigger felt different with a bare hand than it did with a glove on. That was his reason. He always told Gunsmith, “Charles, there's no such thing as a ‘second shot’ in this world, just as you don't get a second go at life.” The old man was forever repeating that saying.

So the young Gunsmith only ever had one chance. Miss the shot, and there went dinner. Venison or cold bread—it all came down to one bullet.

Nine-year-old Charles Rohl held an old hunting rifle fit for a museum. There was no infrared targeting, no crosshair sight, not even a scope. He had to aim at his prey with the naked eye, lining up the rear sight, front sight and target. He also had to account for temperature, wind speed, air resistance, the prey's reaction the instant it heard the shot, and every other factor that might affect the result, just to have a chance of hitting a target several hundred meters away.

Every bullet a sharpshooter fired could take a life, and so those bullets were sacred. They carried their owner's soul, conveyed respect and resolve, and displayed consummate skill.

As the gunshot rang out in his dream, Gunsmith woke.

The sky was already growing light. Opening his eyes, he saw a brightly colored frog crouched less than a meter in front of him. Seeing him wake, it promptly hopped away into the forest.

He quickly got up and packed, taking the food he had set aside the day before. He rolled up his sleeping bag, tied it to his makeshift pack, slipped the straps over both shoulders and set off with the rising sun at his back.

With his Normal-rank strength, Gunsmith could actually have traveled above the ground, simply by climbing a tree and then jumping from one to another. But that took more energy, so he stayed on the ground as much as possible, only considering the overhead route when he came to swamp water deeper than his waist. Nobody knew what might be in that water. Spiders, snakes, snapping turtles... Any number of venomous or disease-carrying animals might be living in that muddy water. Even if their bites were purer than a virgin, you still wouldn't want an open wound in a damp place like this, because there was a very good chance something else would infect it. If you picked up a parasitic disease, you would end up blind or disabled within fifteen years. At best, you would never be able to do things like donate blood again and would have to take medication for years. Of course, plenty of people would be done for long before that.

The morning passed like that. Gunsmith couldn't say how far he had walked. Several times, he jumped into a tree to have a look around, but all he saw was more trees...

He was considering an early lunch when he suddenly caught a strange smell. It was clearly the stench of decay, and its source wasn't very far away. The carcasses of small and medium-sized animals rarely lay around in the wild. Predators generally swallowed them whole, leaving at most a few bones, and scavengers quickly cleaned up any scraps. So why was the smell so strong here? Had some large animal died nearby? That would be odd. There weren't any lions or hyenas in the rainforest, and even if you shipped some in, could they handle a crocodile?

By the time Gunsmith had thought this through, he was already near the source of the smell. He pushed aside a few enormous leaves, and a shocking sight met his eyes.