Resting within the palm of the still warm body's hand was the weapon that had just been used to injure the young boy that had just killed its former owner. A tool that the boy had come to know as a gun.
While looking at the weapon, Vigil thought about all of the benefits that he could get out of carrying one around with him.
'For starters, there would be no need for me to get close to anyone and risk having to fight in a deadly melee. Not only that, but if a situation like the previous one were to occur again, then I could just question the person from a distance...'
After taking a few moments to think about it, Vigil casually reached over to the now ownerless gun and picked it up with his left hand.
When he did so, he initially found the way that he was holding it to be quite odd.
Looking up from the gun that was now resting within his hand, Vigil slowly looked around at some other bodies that were close by. Within the first ten seconds of looking, he was able to notice a corpse that was holding onto a gun that looked similar to the one that he had just taken as his own.
Inspecting it a bit closer, Vigil took notice of how the corpse held its gun compared to how he was holding his.
So, looking away from the corpse for a second, Vigil took the gun within his free right hand and began to readjust the way that he held it in his left. Taking small repeated glances at the reference corpse as he did so.
After a few seconds had passed - around half a minute - he was eventually able to get the grip right. And in doing so, could say with a hundred percent certainty that his hands were too small for it to feel comfortable. However, he was still able to make due.
Now that Vigil understood how to hold his newly confiscated hand-gun correctly, he was off to the races!
... Is what would have been said if he knew how to properly use it.
As he was thinking about how to do so, he recalled the first fight, besides his own, that he had bore witness to out in War Field.
"That woman first held out her gun and then pointed it towards her opponent."
He said as he began to perform similar movements to the ones that he was currently recollecting. He began by extending his arm outwards while pointing what he believed to be the front of the gun at a nearby corpse.
"And then... Bang? No, she definitely did something, I just could not see clearly at the time."
As Vigil was slowly beginning to confuse himself on what to do next, he once more caught a glimpse of how the bodies laying around them were holding their firearms.
Noticing how most, if not all of them, had their index fingers resting atop the protruding piece of metal that sat in the corner of where the top of the weapon and the grip connected, a small idea popped into his mind.
So while he still had the gun extended outwards, he decided to squeeze down on the metal protrusion in hopes of something happening.
And in the next second, a wave of shock hit him as a loud pop had just rang out from the front of the gun.
However, what truly gave Vigil a shock was not the fact that he was able to figure out how to use his newly acquired weapon. No, it was instead how the weapon had come flying towards his head the second he pulled the trigger.
"Oww!"
As the gun hit his helmet, he let out an audible exclamation that pretty much just admitted to the world that he messed up.
After rubbing his head, which he did not really rub due to the helmet, Vigil looked down towards where the gun had landed, picking it up soon after.
'What was that all about? That clearly did not happen to anyone else that I have seen use one... Maybe I held it incorrectly?'
He thought to himself as he inspected the gun laying within his hands.
After thinking it over for another moment, Vigil began to mumble his thoughts out loud to himself.
"What if I hold it with a stronger grip instead of a relaxed one? Two hands as well this time just to be sure."
Following along with his thoughts, he took the gun into his hands and gripped it the same way he did before. This time however, he made sure to incorporate his right hand by latching his fingers onto his left hand - the one that held the gun.
Vigil then, whilst making sure to grip the gun as firmly as he possibly could, squeezed the trigger once more.
When he did, an almost exact sound as the first time he had gone through this process was heard. But contrary to the aforementioned first time, a different scene had played out this time.
As the bullet was fired from the gun, rather than the gun being launched in the opposite direction and towards Vigil, it instead stayed planted firmly in between his enclosed hands. Those same hands, meanwhile, were now raised slightly above his head, still clenching onto his weapon.
Blinking a few times, Vigil casually lifted his head upwards to look at where his hands had now been placed.
"Alright, so along with a firm grip I also need to make sure to keep my arms in place. Noted."
He remarked as he brought the gun back down to examine it.
After taking a moment to look at the newest addition to his arsenal, he then pointed it outwards once more.
'Might as well practice a bit while resting my injured leg...'
He thought as he fired out another bullet.
Then another.
And another.
Vigil kept shooting off more and more bullets. That was, until he pulled the trigger for the sixteenth time.
When he had done so, rather than feeling the slightly familiar kick back and hearing a gunshot go off, all that happened was the sound of a small click being heard.
Hearing this, Vigil pressed down with his index finger a few more times before realizing that nothing was going to happen even if he did keep trying.
So instead, he brought the gun close to the slit of his helmet in order to better examine it.
When he did so, he was able to notice how the top of the gun, which had always launched backwards before quickly forcing itself back into place every time he shot a bullet, was now halted in its launched back position.
As he saw this, he could not help but think out loud to himself.
"Did I break it? That could be the only case as I highly doubt this thing would only work a handful of times before needing to dispose of it..."
While saying this, he decided to try and inspect the gun a bit closer.
That was when he spotted a few different off protrusion on the side of the gun.
The first thing he noticed was the small switch on the side that he could flip up and down. However, as it did nothing at this time, he decided to ignore it and investigate later.
The second thing that he took note of was the small button located on the left side of the gun's handle. When he pressed it down to see what would happen, a small rectangular shaped object was ejected out from its handle, dropping to the floor.
Looking at the object that had just fallen out of the gun, Vigil gently picked it up with his free hand, careful not to be too rough with it in case it was more delicate than it looked.
When he finally got a better look at it, he was able to recognize just what the object was.
On the first battlefield Vigil had ever looted, he noticed how a few people had been carrying objects similar to the rectangular shaped one in his hand.
Coincidentally, most of those people were also carrying similar weapons, i.e. guns.
'Could this be...'
After taking a second to mull over something in his head, Vigil looked at the corpse sitting off to his side and decided to look through its belongings in hopes of finding a similar object to the one he was now holding in his hand.
It only took Vigil a few seconds of searching to find what he was looking for sitting inside a small pocket attached to the dead body's belt.
When he took the object out of its pocket, he noticed how the two objects, both the new and the old one, were of the exact same shape and size with one key difference between them. While the one that fell out of the gun was empty, the one that he had just picked up happened to have what Vigil could only assume to be bullets in it.
Examining the new object, or more specifically the bullets that were held within it, Vigil was able to notice small printed words that had been engraved onto the bullet itself.
"Nine mm... As in nine millimeters? Is it the size of the bullet or something like that? If that is the case then is this gun only capable of firing bullets of this size?"
He said to himself as he recalled seeing much bigger bullets as well as guns in the past.
After examining the bullets as well as the object that contained them for a short while, Vigil decided to try inserting the new cartridge into where the only one had come out from.
However, when he did so, nothing seemed to happen.
He then tried to fire off the gun once again, but no luck there either.
It was then that he remembered the actions that the gun would go through whenever a bullet had been fired.
Recalling that scene from his memory, Vigil thought of pulling back on the top of the gun himself and seeing what would happen, in hopes of it doing something.
On the first attempt of sliding the top part back, he realized just how much strength he really needed to use in order to manually do so. So before trying a second time, he slightly adjusted the grip of both of his hands in order to make it easier on himself.
With a little bit of effort, he was soon able to pull the top of the gun all the way back. When he did so, he immediately let go, in hopes of allowing the top to slide back into place.
And to his immense pleasure, that is exactly what happened.
Finally, he took a few moments to fire off a few more shots just to make sure that the gun was working properly once again.
Noticing that it was working just as new, Vigil could not help but smile a small amount in self-satisfaction.