Chapter 144

The cool air of the morning assailed everything in its path, turning morningdew into icy crystals. They hung from the leaves in defiance of gravity.
There is a training ground situated in Fairy Tail's compound. Rentaro stood side by side with Noah, their guns were drawn.
Fwoosh
Something flew into the air.
Two dishes flew into the center of this training ground. Without hesitation, Rentaro and Noah pulled their triggers.
Bang bang
The two clay pigeons were destroyed when the bullets struck.
Shatters
The plates were reduced to fragments in almost an instant.
Fwoosh fwoosh fwoosh fwoosh fwoosh
Without giving them any time to rest. Clay pigeons were shot into the air, drawing arcs as they flew towards the center of this training ground.
The sky filled up with clay plates, the sunlight lit up the otherwise dull plates, making them salient and overwhelming at the same time.
To shoot accurately under such adverse lighting condition would be equivalent to threading a needle through a pinhole while blindfolded.
Even so, Rentaro and Noah continued shooting without trepidation.
Bang bang bang bang bang
Clang clang clang clang
The plates continued to shatter, fouling the training ground with noise.
Listening closely, one would find Noah and Rentaro firing their guns almost in sync.
In other words, Rentaro and Noah are firing at the same rate.
Moreover, they are also as accurate as one another. They shot down the same number of clay pigeons.
However, the reload time between Rentaro and Noah differed.
Noah's using a modified revolver with only 6 bullets.
After shooting his load, Noal would proceed to slap his waist, throwing bullets into the air and, in less than a second, flip open his revolver and reload the gun by letting gravity do the work.
Rentaro's Springfield XD had over a dozen bullets. This wasn't enough to earn Rentaro an advantage, Noah's godly reloading skill more than made up for his lower bullet count.
Also, Rentaro still needs to reload.
Rentaro should have fallen behind Noah due to his inferior reloading speed.
But, it turns out his Springfield XD allowed users to easily switch out empty clips.
A sufficiently trained user can reload in about a second as a result.
Thus, they continued to shoot down clay pigeons with nigh similar speed.
At last, there was only one clay pigeon left.
Noah stopped all of a sudden, he is now a split-second slower than Rentaro.
Chance
Rentaro's eyes flashed with glee when he pulled the trigger.
Bang
The bullet went flying at the plate.
However, Noah also revealed a victorious grin.
Bang
His bullet went after Rentaro's bullet. The bullet collided and the bullets were deflected off their original trajectories.
Rentaro missed and he was stunned.
Bam
The final bullet pierced the last clay pigeon.
Clang
The clay pigeon fell to the ground, ending this competition.
Rentaro looked at the fragments of the last clay pigeon. He looked at Noah with a speechless look. Noah's gun is still smoking hot, this made Rentaro feel a bit frustrated.
"That was a low blow..."
Noah brandished his gun and he replied.
"It's technically still a part of shooting, what's unfair about using a shooting skill in a shooting competition?"
"Technically, you're right..."
Rentaro complained with arms akimbo. Then, he face-palmed with a helpless expression on his face.
"Would it kill you to let a mortal win for once? Guildmaster noah."
"Yeah?"
Noah gave him an innocent look.
"I am a human too."
Rentaro's lips started twitching.
You're human?
The one who killed Scorpio, the one who easily took down an initiator ranking no.98 on the IP ranking. Then, he made the initiator his retainer, how is someone like that a human by any measure?
Who would believe him?
Noah pursed his lips and he nudged Rentaro to look at a certain direction.
"Moreover, when we are talking about marksmanship, we are woefully outclassed by that skilled shooter over there."
Rentaro looked and...
Bang bang bang bang
Tina continuously shot down clay pigeons the size of one's palm at a scary distance.
Furthermore, she hit the pigeons on the nail-shaped red spots dead center.
Rentaro couldn't help but look at Tina with renewed assessment.
Three eye-shaped orbs danced around in the sky, scanning and capturing environmental data like satellites.
Rentaro continued.
"That's Shenfield?"
Shenfield, a thought driven scouting device that can capture important data like location, temperature, moisture, angle, wind speeds and other information relevant to sharpshooting and relay them back to the user's brain in real-time.
With Shenfield, Tina obtained the ability to shoot down anything with deadly accuracy kilometers away.
Ayn Rand is the guy who implanted the circuit required to operate Shenfield into Tina's brain, he also modified her heart with stabilizers that gave Tina steady motor skills that further enhanced her accuracy.
Tina's Owl-strain Gastrea virus also gave her significant boost to her visual and auditory senses. She was an existence that specialized in sniping, it is no wonder that she made it into the top 100 ranking where monsters dwelled.
"It never ceases to amaze me, this scene."
Rentaro praised.
Although Tina is specialized for sniping. Rentaro reckons he would need to put in serious effort in a duel with Tina to win, even if Enju helps him.
Of course, that's speaking on the assumption that he isn't using his trump cards...