Chapter 3 : Quick! Deduce!

Ah shit!... captain? where are we ? I kinda fell asleep for a second there...

"dont worry son, ye is riding the horse now, keep resting, ye just killed a traitor after all"

Ah yes... come to think of it, I was in a really weird and intelectual mood yesterday night... wait, ive always been intelectual... anyways, Thomas! since you are a captain, do you know of any British Settlement here?

"ye, theres one down by the road at the east, they say theres an entire batalion there, wondering why they are there for"

as we galloped into the distance, we see hay and mud houses, with explosions, we come to see corpses everywhere, short spears stabs on the bodies, the rumor is true... We have gone to war with the Zulus. the best choice we have for now, is to not report to the british government, and try to survive in the Boer area for a while untill the war is ended, it may take days, months, years, but it is better than being sent back into a hell hole with a unstoppable force, as we head back, we get ambushed by a squad of Boers, raining down fire as we rode our horses away, they chased us with their horses while shooting at our direction, as a bullet hit's the horse in the leg, which incapacitated the horse, as the captain got flinged out of the horse I entered my mind palace... ok Harry, you know the captain is being flinged right now, you have 3 seconds to think of a solution to this problem, lets check our statistics. Right now, I have a loaded henry martini with 12 bullets in my pouch, a revolver with 5 shots since I pumped one into that traitor's skull, and a saber, which weapon is the easiest to pick up and use right now... that would be the revolver, since it has many shots, perfect for a combat ideal, the captain is certainly defenceless right now, but he has 2 revolvers in his pocket, which can hold down an entire squad, but right now, by looking at his position mid air he is cetrainly going to take some time, so we are going to die, but shall we die fast or die slow, thats my issue... i guess we wont die without a fight, so ill use my revolver... ok time to get out of the mind palace.

Screeeeeaaachhh! as I pulled out my revolver, I see the Boers get hit down by an invisible force, and when I looked behind I see the captain's revolvers smoking, but before that he ran out of ammunition as there were 3 boers left and the captain didn't hit their vital spots, so I pulled out my saber and pistol, and start going into combat, as I swing my saber, the captain said something that I couldn't hear properly, as I turned my head back, the captain shouted

"HARRY! BEHIND YE!"

ah shit!... I guess ill just die now... the blade is mid way but then...

"Storm Style Riffle Arts Medium Level! Full Concentrated Ricochet!"

Bang! as the bullet flew from the captain's riffle, it ricochetted the blade and bounced up and hit the Boer in the chin. I took my saber and then stabbed his lungs, making him have a lung fracture making him choke on his own air, as I aimed my revolver at another bloke behind him, and fired, it hit him in the kneecaps, fracturing it, and as I aimed my pistol at the last bloke, the captain shot his head before I did and then he wispered something I couldn't hear. as I head back and talk to the captain.

"Thomas! you alright mate? I was worried about you... and you managed to save my life when you got flinged out of a bloody horse! are you seriously fine?"

"Im fine Harry" he replied " I landed on my feet after all."

"yea come to think of it, did you do a flip in the air?"

"ye I did lad" he replied

as we set up the camp, I was wondering, what was that Storm Style thing he shouted, as we were setting up the pot to boil up the water from a nearby lake, I asked the captain

"Oi Thomas"

"ye?" he replied

"what was that storm style thing you shouted out when you ricochetted that bullet from the bloke's blade?"

"ah ye, Storm Style, Medium Level, Full Concentration Ricochet. it's a riffle arts, that is part of the arts of the storm, which I myself created, which led me to my promotion as a captain, since I could adaptively use those skills non stop, but since I see that ye were acting strange when we went on the camp, Im wondering... Harry, do ye have the science of deduction in ye?"

"of course I learnt it with my older brother when we were young by ourselves, when we wanted to know where our mummy went and who she met today, later on, we went on and did it to other children at our age and we of course got bullied, but later on we learnt the power of blackmail so we blackmailed bullies, so we were left alone. pretty dark one eh?"

"anyways Harry, for now I need ye to train how to use ye skills faster, ye were too slow in ye decision making, and ye almost got ye self killed, tomorrow I heard there is a friendly Dutch settlement near by, so we will get our supplies there, ye need to deduce quicker and use ye skills faster so we limit the losses we take in. Remember, everything has a back door to it"

"alright Thomas ill go to sleep now. good night"

"good night Harry"

as the night passed on, I kept thinking to myself, how I could use my skills better, and how I could think faster. I found an answer to that, which I trained my mind all night. when I woke up, Thomas looked at me and said

"Harry! didn't ye get any sleep last night? ye looked tired!"

"nah Thomas, I was sleeping, just don't mind me"

"lets go to the Dutch settlement"

as we went to the dutch settlement, we saw an abandoned place... but there was a cart wagon circle on the middle of the settlement, then 10 boers poped and encircled us, as the situation gets worse, I quickly went to my mind palace, and went out, whispered something to the captain's ears, the captain nods, as I pull out my revolver, and shot the captain in the head. as the captain's lifeless body lay down there, the dutch seem confused, as I spoke.

" I surrender, please dont kill me, I killed my commanding officer as proof"

one of the dutch spoke out in broken english "you, go there, give me gun"

"yes sir"

as the Boers came to inspect the corpse, as I pull out my saber and slashed one of the dutchmen's neck. as he bleeds to death, the captain killed 6 of the dutchmen with his duel revolvers. as the confused and terrified Boers went out and escaped, the captain shouted

"Storm Style, Duel Pistol Arts, East Wind Curve Strike!"

as the captain starts swinging the 2 pistols like he swings the sword while shooting the guns, the bullets start to curve and hit the remaining Boers until they died

"Another bloody art? Thomas?"

"yes, pistol arts"

"bloody hell mate"

"anyways Harry you did well, a fine plan indeed! but how did you thought of that plan?"

"Remember the the pistol I used to blast that bloke from camp's head off? well there were blood stains on my gun, so I used that to an advantage since there was a chamber that didn't have a round, in addition with cutting my thumb for the blood to drip on your head, next the blank rounds, I had a revolver shell, so I cut open my riffle round and poured small quantities of gunpowder to the shell and with addition with a piece of paper stained with blood, made the perfect blank round, which I pushed your head down on the ground, which made your head bleed so, it made it look more convincing, the rest is just plain old acting of a young man who doesn't want to be killed, and we killed them, so thats that.

"nice job lad, you deduced faster than I can think of"

"well then, never going to a Boer trap ever again?"

"well maybe"

"why would you want to do that!?!"

"cause we got free supplies from the caravans, besides a actual bloody caravan to put our horses in to give us more comfort now."

"fair enough mate, well then lets try to ind a good place to settle"

as we drove off in a caravan, we saw a sunset, as we try to wait out until the war is over.