Plundering Worlds: I Have a Shotgun in a Fantasy World

[Mess Hall - Morning]

The mess hall smelled of porridge and woodsmoke.

Kael sat across from Kogan at the end of the long bench. Their right arms were up, elbows planted on the table, palms locked together.

No one acted as referee. Kogan simply gripped and pushed.

The table creaked once under the force and went still. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Around them, spoons had stopped scraping. Conversation had died in patches, spreading outward from their end of the hall the way silence does when there is something worth watching. Men leaned in, pulled by instinct.

Silas sat two seats down with his chin in his hand.

Kogan’s forearm was corded with tension, tendons standing out like rope pulled tight. His grip was iron. His base was solid. He had ranked among the strongest of the centurions before he was thrown into the vanguard camp, and he knew exactly how to use that strength.

Kael’s arm held.

He was taller now than he’d been a month ago—matched with Kogan, two meters of dense, compacted weight. His shoulders filled his coat differently. His boots had been replaced twice. The growth had been gradual enough that no one had remarked on it directly, but everyone had noticed.

Twenty seconds. Thirty.

Kogan increased the force—slow and deliberate, the kind that didn’t announce itself until it was already winning. His face darkened, veins rising along his temples as he bore down.

Kael’s hand began to move toward Kogan.

Kogan’s wrist bent back by a fraction, then another. His jaw set. He pushed harder. The table groaned.

Kogan’s hand went down—slowly, without drama—and touched the wood.

He released the grip and rolled his wrist, testing the joint. He let out a long breath and looked at Kael as if staring at something that had no right to exist.

"You’ve changed too much."

"Have I."

Silas straightened. "Kogan. You have arms like siege equipment."

"I know."

"And the captain just put yours through the table."

"I know," he said, the words edged with reluctant resignation.

Bren cut in from down the bench. "Captain, you sure you’re the same species as the rest of us?"

"Most days."

Someone down the bench let out a low sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. A few men exchanged glances. The soldier beside Silas leaned over and muttered in his ear. Silas nodded with great seriousness, as if receiving a medical report.

Silas turned to Kael with the expression of a man who had just had a very good idea and was slightly afraid of it.

"Captain," he said, leaning in slightly. "I have an idea."

The rules were simple.

Kael sat at the head of the bench. Silas stationed himself at the door with the coin pouch, already shouting before the first man crossed the threshold.

"One silver to enter! Right hand only—elbow planted. First man whose knuckles kiss the wood loses. No tricks. No switching grip. Beat the captain, take the whole pot. Fail, and your silver feeds the fire!"

He rattled the pouch for emphasis, coins clinking sharp and bright. "Step up if you’ve got the spine for it. Don’t crowd the table—pay first!"

Word spread through the barracks fast. By the time the first challenger sat down, fifty men lined the walls, more pressing in from the corridor, boots scraping stone.

The challenger planted his elbow. Kael mirrored him wordlessly. Their hands locked.

"Grip set!" Silas barked. "Elbows flat. No leaning over the line. On my mark—"

He chopped his hand down.

The table creaked immediately. The challenger surged hard and fast, jaw clenched, shoulder driving forward. Kael absorbed the force, arm rigid, and held—letting the other man spend himself against something that gave nothing back.

A vein rose along the challenger’s neck. His breath turned ragged. The crowd began to shout—some for blood, some already laughing.

Kael bore down with controlled precision. The descent was measured and relentless, the challenger’s arm tilting inch by inch as his resistance thinned, until his knuckles met the wood.

Silas slammed his palm on the table, a sharp grin breaking across his face. "Down! That’s one! Next!"

A broad man from Third Company lasted twenty seconds. A former farmhand with hands like mallets made it to forty before his elbow lifted off the table—foul, which he disputed, which nobody upheld. A smith’s apprentice on temporary billet sat down with the confidence of someone who had won money this way before and left having lost both his silver and his nerve.

Kael’s expression throughout was the same as it was during morning drill—present, measured, slightly elsewhere.

By the twentieth challenger, the crowd had changed shape. Men who’d been warming up near the door silently found somewhere else to be. The ones who remained watched Kael’s arm for any sign—a tremor, a shift in posture, a change in his breathing.

"Fuck. He’s a monster."

"Fifteen minutes."

"Twenty down."

"... ..."

A gap opened between challengers. No one stepped forward.

Silas noticed it first—the hesitation near the door, men weighing pride against silver and deciding against it.

He drifted to Kael’s side, leaned in close, mouth near his ear—and spoke just loud enough for the two men directly behind him to catch every word.

The two men looked at each other. Within a minute the hall was louder than it had been all morning.

"He’s cracking."

"Silas told him to hang on—he’s near the end."

Silver came back out of pockets.

A corporal from First Platoon who’d already lost came back and sat down. A sergeant who’d been watching from the wall decided he’d been watching long enough. Three men formed an informal queue, shoulders back, jaws set, silver in hand.

Kael beat all of them—arm unmoving, elbow planted, grip unchanged.

The hall got louder with the particular energy of a crowd that suspects it’s being played but can’t find the proof.

The door opened.

He was a thick man—broader through the chest than Kogan and a full head taller, with hands that came from two decades of field work. He took in the bench, the coin pouch, Silas’s expression of perfect innocence, and Kael at the end of it all with his elbow on the table.

Centurion Harwick stepped in.

"I heard," he said, "that someone’s giving away money."

The noise thinned to a low murmur.

He crossed the room and sat down. "Long time, Kogan. You’re still breathing, I see." His gaze shifted to Kael. "Go on, boy. Let’s see what you’re worth."

He was better than anyone else who’d come before him. His base was low, his grip controlled, and he locked in without urgency—constant weight, built to outlast rather than overpower. Three minutes passed. Neither arm moved.

All eyes were on them.

Four minutes.

Kael’s breathing shifted—barely. A trace more tension along his jaw. His shoulder dropped by half an inch.

The murmuring started again.

Five minutes.

Harwick’s arm began to go. Not fast—gradually, the way a heavy door swings on a stiff hinge. He held it. Corrected. Held again.

A roar tore out of him, raw and furious, his whole frame tightening as he tried to wrench the motion back. His boots scraped the floor for purchase. It made no difference. The descent continued, slow and absolute, until his hand touched the table.

He sat there a moment before standing. He looked at Kael’s arm—still up, elbow still planted—and said, "Hm."

He walked to the door. At the threshold he paused, reached into his coat without turning, and tossed a second silver coin onto Silas’s pile.

"For the show," he said, and left.

The hall erupted—shouts, boots on stone, silver clattering.

Kael lowered his arm.

Under the table, out of sight, he worked feeling back into his fingers. His forearm ached from shoulder to wrist. He kept his expression flat.

Near the wall, someone spoke under his breath.

"That was Harwick."

A pause.

"Strongest of the centurions. Only Valen stands above him."

Another voice, lower. "And he just got pressed flat."

Silence lingered half a beat.

"He’s close to transcendent."

Silas gathered the coins and pushed the largest stack toward Kael.

Kael glanced at it. "Split it."

A flicker of satisfaction crossed Silas’s face—exactly as he’d expected. He was already reaching for the stacks.

He sorted the take into five shares and pushed them across—Kogan, Griggs, Bren, and the largest to Kael. The fifth he folded into his own pocket, efficient and unhurried.

Kael watched. He slid his share back across the table.

Silas looked at it. "Captain—"

"For running it."

Silas opened his mouth. Closed it. Pocketed the coins.

The chanting started somewhere near the back—Captain! Captain!—spreading the way these things do, men with leftover energy and a reason to be loud. Someone added a line less repeatable. Someone else improved on it.

Kael stood, picked up his bowl of porridge—cold since the first round—and ate it standing up.

The noise was beginning to thin when he set the bowl down and looked at what remained of the crowd.

"You’re wondering why."

The hall went still.

He reached into his pack and drew out a thin, hand-copied booklet—pages worn at the edges, ink dark and precise.

"This. A conditioning method. This is why I changed." He let that land. "It compounds. Thirty days builds a base. Ninety reshapes it. Run it properly and by month three the gap shows."

He looked around the hall.

"You’ve all seen the change. Five months ago I was a servant. Today I pinned a centurion’s hand to the table." His voice stayed even. "That is what disciplined progression looks like."

He glanced sideways. "Silas."

Silas straightened immediately.

"Three silver gets a copy. Record the names. Payment up front." Kael looked at Kogan, Griggs, and Bren. "You’ve been running it for a month already. Keep running it."

The three of them looked up from their coin shares.

Silas was already on his feet, turning to face the room with the coin pouch raised. "Three silver! If you’re serious, step forward. If you’re not, clear the space!"

From somewhere near the back, a voice called out, "Captain—does it improve... other kinds of endurance?"

A ripple moved through the hall.

Kael turned his head slightly, gaze tracking toward the voice.

Silas answered before he did.

"It builds full-body capacity," he said, a knowing look passing across his face. "Cardiovascular efficiency. Muscular endurance. Recovery rate."

He paused just long enough.

"So yes."

Laughter broke loose. Someone swore. Someone shoved the man who’d asked.

Silas lifted the pouch again. "Three silver! No guarantees on performance reviews!"

Men pressed forward, forming a rough queue at Silas’s end of the bench—arguing about price, arguing about results, stepping forward anyway. Harwick had just lost, and everyone in the room had watched Kael hold the table for thirty straight minutes without fading.

Silas worked through the queue with the focused intensity of a man who had found his calling. The ledger filled. Coins stacked. Someone tried to negotiate. Silas ignored him.

Elira passed the doorway while the queue was still moving.

She stopped at the threshold. The mess hall was loud and crowded—men pressing toward Silas’s table, silver stacking up beside an inkpot, benches shoved aside, a knocked-over cup nobody had bothered to right.

Kael stood at the far end of the hall with a roasted lamb leg in hand.

He was a full head taller than most of the men around him. Broad shoulders. Strong jaw. Even eating, there was nothing awkward in him.

Her eyes found him across the noise. He looked back, gave a slight nod, and allowed himself a brief, polite smile.

Color rose faintly along her cheekbones. She lowered her gaze almost at once, fingers tightening briefly around the strap at her shoulder. For a heartbeat she hesitated—and continued down the corridor, steps a fraction quicker than before.

Kogan stood somewhere behind Kael. He said nothing.

Silas glanced up from the ledger, read the room, and looked back down.

[Training Grounds - Sector 4 - Late Afternoon]

The yard was empty.

Kael stood before the post—new, set that morning. The ache in his forearm had faded, the strain burned out of the joint. What remained was stillness.

He raised his fist.

The first layer of the conditioning method had taken root weeks ago—part of him now, integrated, running on its own.

The second layer was different. He understood the architecture. Every time he reached for it, the connection failed to catch. A key that fit the lock but wouldn’t turn.

He stood with his fist raised for a long moment, then lowered it.

Tomorrow.

[Rathmere – Greyfield Manor]

The room smelled of damp stone and old iron.

Tom had lost count of how long he had been in it.

The door opened.

Lord Garrick Holt entered at his own pace, gloves still on.

"The assassin returned," he said.

Tom’s eyes moved to him.

"He declined the contract." Holt let the words hang. "He claims the target has awakened a bloodline."

Tom’s brow drew together. "That’s not possible."

"My man has no reason to refuse a contract unless the risk has changed considerably."

"When I gave you that report, he was ordinary." Tom’s voice wavered despite himself. "There was nothing there. No sign. No mark of a bloodline. I wouldn’t have missed it."

"You were certain."

"I—yes. Yes." He swallowed. "Of what I saw."

Holt watched him.

"My son is dead," he said. "Because of a man you described as harmless."

Tom flinched at the word.

"He was harmless," he insisted, but the conviction didn’t hold. "He was just a soldier. No bloodline. No aura. Nothing."

"Was."

Holt stepped closer.

Tom’s breath shortened. His wrists strained against the restraints without him realizing it.

"If a bloodline awakened," he said quickly, "it happened after. It had to. I reported exactly what I saw. I swear it."

"I believe you believe that."

"Then—then you know I didn’t lie."

"What I know," Holt said, his voice dropping, "is that I hired two blades."

Tom’s throat tightened.

"Both returned empty-handed."

The color drained from Tom’s face.

"That’s not possible," he whispered.

Holt removed one glove.

"You gave me confidence in bad information."

"I didn’t mean to," Tom said, the words tumbling out. "I didn’t. I would never—"

"Deception. Or incompetence."

"Neither," Tom said too fast. "Please—neither."

Holt crouched down to face him.

"Pain clarifies memory."

Tom shook his head. "There’s nothing to clarify. I told you everything. Everything."

The strike came anyway.

Tom’s vision fractured white.

When it cleared, Holt was already straightening, smoothing his sleeve.

"We’ll continue this tomorrow. Think carefully about what you may have overlooked." He picked up his glove. "If you were simply incompetent, that is salvageable. You may still be useful to me." He moved toward the door. "If it turns out you knew more than you reported—"

He left the sentence unfinished. The door closed.

The room returned to damp stone and old iron.

Tom’s breath came ragged. Blood gathered beneath his lip. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

He stared at the ceiling.

He had reported what he saw: a young soldier. No sign of strength. No mark of bloodline. Just another man in uniform.

That had been true. He had not lied.

But a shift had happened out there—one he couldn’t account for.

And it had trapped him here.