>

Dasa narrowed her eyes behind her glasses. On the other hand...

“Oh! I see you are mostly healed.”

Because the other girl was the familiar of a plant-based erdgod, effectively a part of that deity, her thinking was not always quite in line with that of an ordinary human. Right now, despite the nearly naked Veronika and the red-faced Yukinari, she seemed to be focused on the state of Veronika’s injuries.

“U-Um, this— This isn’t— It—” Berta hurried to defend Yukinari, but she couldn’t quite think of what to say.

“Her chest?” Dasa asked, with an angry expression.

Indeed, Veronika was noticeably more well-endowed than Dasa or Ulrike. The muscles that ran from just under her nipples to her belly button were so toned as to appear to emphasize her chest and rear.

Yukinari, too, came back to himself and exclaimed, “Wait! This isn’t what it looks like! It’s just an accident!”

“...Something to aspire to.”

Dasa didn’t appear to be listening to Yukinari, but had a hand to her own chest. As far as Berta knew, Yukinari had never been any more forward with Dasa than he was with her. Maybe he just preferred more mature women.

But my chest...

There, at least, she felt she held her own. Maybe there was something more to it than bust size.

As Berta was mulling this over, Veronika heaved a sigh. She almost had a dry grin on her face, as if something within her had relaxed. Maybe, faced with the easy banter of Yukinari and his friends, the heroic but ultimately tragic resolve in her heart had fallen away.

She no longer looked as if she were about to run. Berta let out a quiet, relieved breath.

●

Veronika folded her borrowed sleepwear and placed it on top of her bed, then changed into the clothes she traveled and fought in. She wasn’t startled to find that the blood-stained outfit had been washed, but the way the small tears had been fixed and the places where she had been stabbed repaired was frankly surprising. Berta must have done it. It couldn’t be called skillful work, even in flattery, but she had clearly taken care with it. Now that Veronika thought about it, she remembered Berta, unable to bear sitting with her in silence, working on some kind of sewing...

“Um...”

“My dagger.”

“...Right.”

Veronika held out her hand, and Berta obediently gave her the short blade. She still appeared to be against the idea of Veronika going to Aldreil, but didn’t seem to have any intent of trying to stop her with little tricks like hiding her clothing or refusing to let her have her equipment. She practically seemed uncomfortable with the idea of holding onto somebody else’s possessions.

She was a good young woman, Veronika suspected.

“Sorry, can I get a glass of water?”

“Oh, s-sure,” Berta nodded and left the room carrying a basket with the used bandages. Veronika had a feeling that once she was ready to go, Berta would try to stop her again—so she created a pretext to get the girl out of the way.

Somewhat to her surprise, when she opened the dresser drawer, she found all of her equipment and possessions except her halberd. Perhaps they hadn’t expected her to try to run away, or had assumed she wouldn’t have the strength. Or maybe... Maybe they’d simply trusted her. To judge by Berta, this seemed the most likely.

Veronika left the guestroom without a word—but, for some reason, some emotion tugged at her, calling her back.

She was heading for the reception room. She’d never left her room while she was recuperating, but these kinds of buildings—the manors of local lords and authorities—were all fairly similar, so it wasn’t too hard to guess where her destination was.

She was not, of course, fully recovered yet. But she was well enough that she had no trouble walking around. As Berta had said, running or jumping would open the wounds again, but she couldn’t worry about that for now.

“...Excuse me. Could I have a minute?” she asked as she arrived at the reception room.

Inside, Yukinari, Dasa, and Fiona, who seemed to be the master of this household, were discussing something. The three of them looked at Veronika. Fiona seemed surprised to see her wearing her traveling clothes, but Yukinari and Dasa showed no change in their expressions. Were they not startled? Or had they simply suspected this might happen?

“There’s something I’d like to talk about,” Veronika said.

“Have a seat,” Fiona said, gesturing to an empty chair beside her. “I assume it’s nothing simple. Mind if we come to a stopping point in our conversation first?”

“Go right ahead,” Veronika said, nodding, and sat down next to Fiona.

“Oh...” Yukinari said, and there was a long pause before he went on, “Sorry about, uh, earlier.” He scratched his cheek in embarrassment.

“It doesn’t bother me. But I accept your apology,” Veronika said.

Mercenary work was a man’s world, and it took her to all kinds of places. It wouldn’t have been very practical for her to constantly request a separate room or a curtain every time she had to change clothes. Even so, her subordinates had insisted on trying to afford her special treatment. She was grateful for their consideration, but in a way, it also pained her. In any event, Veronika was not such an amateur as to worry about an accidental glance.

“All right, Yukinari, go on,” Fiona said.

“Sure. Like I was saying, I’d like to try to make Ulrike’s suggestion work. And what’s more... Considering how things are likely to go, we may need a weapon that can deal with enemies at long range.”

He pointed to a map laid out on the desk. In addition to the map, there was a simple sketch of some kind. To Veronika, it looked like a slingshot. But there was a person drawn next to it—and if it was to scale, the slingshot was large enough to be a siege weapon. What exactly were these three planning?

“Long range? Don’t the guns you and Dasa use have that covered?”

“I think you may be getting the wrong idea,” Yukinari frowned. “Guns aren’t all-powerful weapons with an unlimited range. They can shoot farther than a bow and arrow, sure, but their power drops off dramatically after a certain distance, and above all the accuracy decreases until it’s impossible to hit anything.” Yukinari nodded at the sword—no, the sword-like weapon—propped up next to his chair.

Veronika squinted at it. Gun seemed to be what the weapon was called.

It was extremely powerful. The one Dasa had was presumably the same type of thing. The weapon had roared and knocked the sword out of Veronika’s hand—and when she had looked at the sword earlier, when changing, she found that it had been neatly broken in the middle.

Admittedly, it was a relatively cheap sword, but it shouldn’t have been so easy to destroy. She had used it in combat many times. That meant one blow from a “gun” was far more powerful than a swordsman’s strike.

It seemed to be some kind of ranged arm, but it was more portable than a bow or crossbow and could be used even while cutting with the sword part of the weapon. If she had one of those, it would be very useful in rescuing her companions—her subordinates.

“That’s true,” Fiona was saying. “The people who have borrowed your Durandalls report that it’s very hard to hit a small target...”

“Right. So you deliberately sacrifice some mobility for greater accuracy at a greater distance. You give it a long, thick barrel for improved precision, load it up with plenty of powder so the bullet can travel a long distance, and then you fit it with a scope—er, think of it as a sort of telescope. That’s a sniper rifle.”

Veronika silently raised an eyebrow. They were talking about weapons, obviously, but the number of words she had never heard before made it difficult to follow. Perhaps this young man, Yukinari, was a weaponsmith. On the frontier, it was common to see strange weapons that had developed in isolation. Judging by the way this one had broken her sword, it had an exceptional amount of power for something an individual could carry. Enough that, in the right circumstances, it might be able to turn the tide of a battle.

Yet it seemed Yukinari was saying that even this “gun” would not be enough. He was planning to build something even more powerful.

“So what was it you wanted my advice on?” Fiona asked.

“Sniper rifles are more about accuracy than anything else. So, naturally, you need some test shots both to confirm the accuracy and so the sniper—the person using the gun—can get better at it. I wondered if you could think of anywhere that might be good for that kind of practice. I would hate to be out in the mountains and accidentally hit a passerby or something.”

“What kind of place are you thinking of?”

“Someplace where you can get out to a distance even a bow and arrow couldn’t cover, with no obstacles between the shooter and the target. Somewhere people don’t usually go. We can’t use anywhere in town, so it would have to be outside.”

“What about the observation platform that used to be used for the sacrifices to the erdgod?” Fiona suggested. “It’s a pretty good distance from the sanctuary. And because it was used to observe the progress of the ritual, there’s nothing in between it and the target.”

“Yeah, I see. I hadn’t thought about that.” Yukinari nodded, a note of admiration in his voice. “And people mostly steer clear of the sanctuary. As long as we’re careful, it’d be fine.”

“Yeah. If you’re still uncomfortable with it, we could set specific dates and times and tell the townspeople to keep away during those times.”

“Good call. Let’s do that.” Yukinari sounded pleased.

This caused Veronika to take another look at Yukinari’s “gun.” This weapon had enough power to unilaterally attack an enemy from a distance, even demolish a sword. It could probably pierce plate armor without trouble. There was no question: if she took one of those to Aldreil, her chances of rescuing her friends would improve immensely.

Was there some way for her to obtain one of these weapons? Taking it by force was an option, but she did owe these people something, and theft would have its own difficulties. She didn’t know how to use the gun, for example. That meant the safest and quickest thing to do would be to negotiate. Then they could teach her how to use it.

“U-Um!” As Veronika was thinking about this, Berta rushed into the parlor, seeming flustered about something.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I can’t find Miss Veroni—”

She stopped when she saw Veronika sitting in the room. She let out a long sigh and slumped to the ground where she was. She must have panicked when she came back with the water only to find Veronika wasn’t in her room.

“What are you so frantic about?” Yukinari asked.

Berta didn’t stand up as she replied, “I— You— Lord Yukinari! Miss Fiona! You have to stop Miss Veronika! Her wounds aren’t even healed, but she wants to leave Friedland and go back to Aldreil... She says she wants to help her friends!”

“I see,” Yukinari said, looking at Veronika. “I hate to tell you this, but that’s impossible. Berta’s right. I sympathize with wanting to rescue your friends, but there were two or three full units of the Missionary Order in Aldreil. You wouldn’t stand a chance against them alone. You’d just be throwing your life away.”

Throwing your life away. Yukinari hadn’t thought very hard about what he was saying, but his words hit close to Veronika’s heart.

“You’ve been here, what, four or five days? If the Missionary Order planned to execute your friends, they’d have done it by now. If not, they’ll keep your comrades alive. There’s no reason you have to go immediately. Right?”

“Well...” Veronika didn’t know what to say. Yukinari’s logic was sound. If the missionaries were going to put her friends to death, they would have carried out the sentence already, and if not, there was no reason everyone wouldn’t be able to survive a little longer. The Missionary Order of the True Church of Harris as Veronika understood it was ruthless, but not brutal. Or rather, they had a pronounced respect for principle. They would even slaughter women and children if they thought it was necessary, but they wouldn’t murder captives for no reason.

If she was going to fight, she should make sure she had every advantage she could gain. And that meant...

“I understand. Looks like I’ll be imposing on you a little longer.”

Yukinari looked a touch befuddled. He had given Veronika his opinion, as Berta had asked, but he hadn’t expected her to acquiesce so easily. In reality, if the gun didn’t exist, Veronika would probably have made for Aldreil regardless of how correct Yukinari’s logic was.

“But while I’m here,” Veronika said, “as long as I’m already bothering you, I have a request.”

“A request?”

“Please, lend me that ‘gun’ of yours. Along with the ‘sni-per ri-fle’ you were discussing earlier, if possible.”

If there was a stronger gun with a longer range available, then by all means, she wanted one.

Veronika wasn’t offering to buy the guns. She was really asking that they simply give them to her. She understood it was a tremendous leap and was fully prepared to be turned down. But...

“Okay,” Yukinari nodded, catching her by surprise.

●

Angela and the other missionaries were using the mansion of Aldreil’s mayor for their administrative office. The previous occupants of the house, including the mayor, had been chased off to a separate residence so that the Order could base itself out of the biggest building in town.

In order to protect the squadron’s classified information, none of the townspeople were allowed inside, not even the mayor. That was the reason they gave publicly, anyway, but in fact Angela had recommended this measure to the captain to prevent the ugly sight of would-be toadies getting close.

The building was made chiefly of stone, a sturdy structure worthy of the leader of a major trade town. The image suited the missionary knights well; the sight of them going in and out gave it the forbidding air of a castle.

The mayor’s study became the captain’s office. The reception room became the assembly room where the captains and vice captains of each unit met. The whole character of the house changed based solely on its occupants.

Angela was satisfied that she’d made a good recommendation.

“Reporting, ma’am!”

One of the missionaries approached the office where Angela was waiting. At the moment, Captain Bateson was recuperating in the mayor’s former bedroom, so as vice captain, Angela had responsibility for the Ninth Missionary Brigade. She was honored to take on this position, but the need to constantly be giving instructions meant she was forever waiting in this office.

She wanted to go out on patrol again, but the other knights stopped her, and she ended up sitting here. Partly this was just because she had so many visitors, but also, many were on edge after Bateson’s stabbing.

“About the mercenaries,” the knight was saying. “One of them appears to have escaped us, but only one.”

“Mercenaries? Ah... yes..” She frowned for a moment before it came back to her.

Shortly after Angela and the Ninth Missionary Brigade had arrived in Aldreil, they’d apprehended a merchant and his hired bodyguards doing business without either permission from the kingdom or the approval of the Harris Church. They were currently locked up in the basement of this very manor, previously a storage area. The knights had been performing an interrogation.

“One escaped? In those circumstances?” Angela muttered, frowning again. “I wonder if it was good fortune, or cowardice.”

She thought for a moment that perhaps this mercenary had simply abandoned the others and fled. But the information had surfaced a little too slow to concern a faithless companion. If this was only now coming to light, it meant the others had been enduring the interrogation in an attempt to cover for the one who ran.

“He can’t be uninjured,” the knight said.

“All the more impressive he escaped, then,” Angela said. “Practically praiseworthy. But I assume he became dinner for some animal long before he reached any human settlement.”

“A distinct possibility, ma’am,” the knight replied, standing perfectly still.

“I wonder, though. Have you ever known a mercenary—disgusting creatures—to endure an interrogation simply to cover for one of their own? Their employer I could understand, but mercenaries regard each other as expendable. Yet here, a whole group of them has conspired to let one of their number escape.”

In other words, perhaps they only looked like mercenaries.

If this person was merely the remnant of a defeated group of hired thugs, there was no need to chase him down. But if not...

“Interesting. Let’s pursue him. I think five or six knights should be more than enough to find one person. The demigods and xenobeasts around here have been taken care of. It would be too much to mobilize the entire unit. You choose the men. Prepare weapons and horses. I’ll lead the effort personally.”

“Personally, Vice Captain?”

“Yes. Of course, he may already be dead, but I should be there to make sure. The Ninth Brigade can hardly set off to its next destination with the captain still recovering. I won’t go so far as to call this a way of killing time, but let’s say it will help me take my mind off my anxiety about the future.”

The Ninth Missionary Brigade had been intending to resupply in Aldreil, then continue farther into the frontier as a Civilizing Expedition. But with the captain unexpectedly incapacitated, their hands were tied. Ideally, again, Angela would remain in this office in place of their leader. But, also again, she was getting sick of it.

“Now, as to the question of where he might have gone...”

She had a rough mental map of the area. Places that were relatively close—within three or four days’ journey—included Maysford, Friedland, and maybe Enlendila.

“Come to think of it, wasn’t the Sixth Brigade dispatched to Friedland?” she muttered. She pictured someone else who had entered the Order the same time she had: Arlen Lansdowne.

●

Truth be told, Yukinari didn’t know much about very many kinds of guns. In his previous world, he had owned models of the Winchester M92 and the Sturm Ruger Super Blackhawk, the weapons that had formed the basis for Durandall and Red Chili, respectively. He had disassembled and reassembled them so many times that he knew their every piece by heart.

These two guns—a lever-action carbine and a single-action revolver—were also of fairly simple construction, with relatively few parts. The basic form of both had been established in the nineteenth century, so they didn’t require the micron-precise accuracy of manufacturing demanded by modern weapons. That was why Yukinari had been able to produce working replicas after just a few tries and drawing on his own memory.

But he had never owned a model sniper rifle.

He had the broad knowledge, but he didn’t know exactly what went into the construction of such a gun. He had looked at a blueprint in a magazine once, but that was nowhere near enough to allow him to create an entire weapon from scratch.

That meant the only real option was to adapt the guns he did know for sniper work.

Lever-action guns and revolvers are not actually well suited to sniping. Lever-action carbines are built to accept cylindrical magazines, with the rounds loaded horizontally. That makes it impossible to load the sharp-tipped bullets used by a precision rifle—if you were so careless as to try, they might explode in the chamber. As for revolvers, the magazine passes through the chamber, so there are absolute limits to how accurate it can be and still revolve.

And these were guns Yukinari had once owned models of. When it came to everything else...

“Well, hope it works,” he muttered, standing on top of the observation platform. In his hand was a prototype sniper rifle he’d produced. It was completely different, though, from what most people in Yukinari’s previous world would have imagined when they heard the words “sniper rifle.” It had the long barrel, of course, but the mechanical form and function were different.

First and foremost, it was two barrels lined up side by side.

“I guess a derringer and a sniper rifle are pretty much polar opposites.”

In terms of form the gun was, essentially, divided into two parts: upper and lower. One bullet was loaded into each part, and using a ratchet, the upper and lower bullets could be fired in succession, allowing two shots between reloads. After that, the empty cartridges would have to be ejected and new ones loaded in.

He based this design on the Remington Double Derringer, a small pistol commonly hidden in boots or pockets. That model gun, he had owned. It was an extremely simple design, and therefore he could have confidence in it; because the barrel and the chamber were a single piece, it was comparatively easy to build with a high degree of precision.

The reason he hadn’t made it a single-shot weapon was in the hopes that if the sniper missed their first shot, being able to fire another immediately might allow them to hit what they were aiming for. Some shotguns were also divided into top and bottom this way, but as far as Yukinari knew, no similar sniper rifle existed. The existence of the standard bolt-action configuration probably rendered it unnecessary.

He had dubbed the gun Derrringer.

The man who had invented the derringer pistol was, in fact, named Deringer, with one r. Many who produced similar weapons called them derringers, adding an r to avoid trademark problems. Since Yukinari had borrowed that design for this weapon, he decided to add yet another r.

Now he stood in silence. Dasa was behind him, as was Veronika, who had shown much interest in the rifle. Berta was there, too. Ulrike had offered to come along at first, but he’d had a separate task for her.

The observation platform, as we’ve established, was originally for the purpose of observing the ritual to the erdgod. Nobody would live around here, and it had only even been used once every few years. It was topped by a tiny hut, just barely enough to keep out the elements, giving the platform the appearance of a poor man’s guard tower.

“Okay, here we go.” Yukinari braced Derrringer against the mound of earth he had piled up. This was just a prototype, so he hadn’t made a bipod. He had to lean the gun against something like this to keep it steady enough to shoot with.

Yukinari went to one knee and put his eye to the scope. Everything was ready. The area around the sanctuary looked good. He could see Ulrike, just where they’d discussed. Near the sanctuary was an open area much like a public square. Ulrike was peeking out from a grove of trees just next to it.

A strange thing stood in the square, roughly the shape of a giant person. It was a log, covered in branches until it suggested the correct shape. Ulrike’s part had been to create and now to maintain this target, as well as to confirm when it was hit. This was why she wasn’t up on the observation platform with the others.

“Dasa, give the signal.”

“...Mn.” She fired Red Chili once into the air.

This was the signal to begin. The sound of Red Chili warned Ulrike to keep to the trees. Two shots in a row meant they were taking a short break.

Silently, Yukinari eyeballed the cross scratched onto the inside of the scope and lined it up with the doll. He held his breath—and took the first shot.

Boom.

The noise echoed around the area, an order of magnitude louder than Red Chili. Durandall and Red Chili used .44 Magnum bullets, powerful ammunition for a handgun, but they simply didn’t have as much powder as the rounds used in a rifle.

But...

“Miss,” Yukinari said quietly. It was impossible even for Yukinari to follow a bullet going faster than the speed of sound with his naked eye, but he saw a cloud of dust rise up to the right of the target.

“Hrm,” he grunted. He hadn’t just missed a specific small area, like the head or the heart; he hadn’t managed to land a hit anywhere on the human figure.

The second shot—missed again.

For the sake of interest, he aimed in the same place he had before, but once again the bullet landed to the right. It was in the same spot as the previous shot, which meant the gun itself was delivering the rounds accurately.

There was the effect of wind and humidity to consider. But if he couldn’t hit anything, the weapon was useless. He would have to fire dozens of rounds, improve his aim, gain experience understanding the wind and whatever other factors came into play.

“You want to try, Dasa?” He looked back at his partner, who had been watching patiently. She wasn’t able to join him on the front lines of battle, which made the rifle all the more important to her. “I’m warning you, though, it’s not easy.”

“Just watch... me.” She had the hint of a knowing smile on her face. Although to everyone but Yukinari, she probably looked as expressionless as ever.

The platform Yukinari had constructed was a little high for Dasa, so she sat on a nearby chair to work the gun. She tried several different positions before she found something she liked. Satisfied, she looked through the scope, picked her aim, and pulled the trigger.

Her first shot.

Yukinari pulled out a backup scope and looked through it to see where the bullet went. The human figure was still intact. Apparently, she had missed.

From close range, Dasa could hit Veronika’s sword with a quick draw, but even she found long-distance sniping to be another matter. It only made sense.

She aimed. Her second shot. It, too, missed.

“...Hrm.”

Dasa pulled the lever to release the stopper, angling the gun downward as she opened the stock, removing the spent rounds and inserting new ones. She closed the stock and prepared to fire Derrringer once more.

“Mn......”

She furrowed her brow just behind her glasses. The gun was, perhaps, just a little bit difficult for her to handle. This was precisely the reason such vertically split-stock sniper rifles didn’t exist in Yukinari’s previous world. In order to open the stock, which opened downward, empty the chamber and insert a new round, it was necessary to remove one’s eye from the scope. This also necessarily involved a major movement of the gun itself, meaning one’s aim would be greatly thrown off. Hence, each time one had to get back on the scope and aim afresh in order to shoot again.

A bipod could be attached in order to stabilize it, as with Red Chili, but then it would be more difficult to load and unload the chamber. The reason vertical twin-barrel arrangements like this, as well as lever-action devices like Durandall, were not used for sniper rifles was because operating them required an open space underneath the gun, making them unsuited for mounting on bipods.

When Dasa opened the stock of the gun to load and reload, she tried her best to prevent the barrel from moving too much—but being used to Red Chili, she no doubt found it annoying to have to do this. Her handgun was of a completely different construction, but she had been by Yukinari’s side all the while he was making Derrringer, so she already had a good idea of how it worked. Even so...

She said nothing as her third shot missed.

“Hmm. I guess it is pretty tough.” Yukinari thought it was enough to get a rough feel for the weapon today. He took a step toward Dasa, intending to ask what she thought of it, but she fired again. And missed.

Eject.

Load.

Fire—Miss.

Fire another round immediately—Miss.

Eject.

Load.

Fire—Miss.

Fire another round immediately—Miss.

“E-Erm, Dasa...?”

She was like a broken machine, repeating the same actions over and over. And she was completely silent. She was always taciturn, but now the heat almost seemed to be rising off of her. It was a little scary.

“It’s more... dif...ficult than I thought.”

Finally, when she had fired nearly thirty rounds, she stepped away from the weapon. Her expression was perhaps thirty percent more disappointed than usual. Something, again, perceptible only to Yukinari.

She seemed to be angry. To fire so many shots and not have a single one hit must have been frustrating. She was always so serious; when she couldn’t do what she set out to do, it unsettled her. And sniper work was something she had learned to do after gaining her sight. It was the proof that she could see, and a special skill of hers. It was, in her own way, important to her to be an accomplished distance shooter.

“Well, it’s a prototype,” Yukinari said, hoping to placate her. He recalled something he’d read in a book in his previous world: a good sniper never missed his first shot.

But, the book continued, with humans there was no such thing as never. So if you missed that first shot, you had to try to land the second one before your target hid. If the target was holed up somewhere with a hostage, a botched first shot might even cause the target to kill the hostage, so it was crucial to be able to get in that second shot immediately.

Regardless, people who were shaken when they missed their shot or let it put them in a bad mood were unsuited for sniper work. Of course, if he pointed this out, it would only make Dasa even angrier, so he kept his mouth shut.

“May I try it?” Veronika, who had been standing quietly by until then, spoke up. Since she had seemed interested in the weapon, she had probably just been waiting until Yukinari and Dasa finished trying it out.

“Sure, I don’t mind,” Yukinari said, and handed her Derrringer.

“How do I...?”

She had never fired a gun before. He gave her a quick rundown. Veronika had, however, been watching the two of them do their trial runs, so she only needed a few details before she grasped how it worked. First she loaded it, cocked the hammer, then fired and ejected the round—or rather, pretended to, doing it all without a bullet, but there were no problems.

She was a quick study. But...

“...Hrm.”

She still missed.

She fired a second time, then reloaded, firing shots three and four. In the end she shot ten times, but none of them hit the target.

“And to think, I’m pretty good with a bow,” she said with a disappointed frown.

Veronika was very confident in her martial abilities, and it bothered her not to have hit the target even once, although less so than it did Dasa. Bows and guns are completely different, though, so Yukinari didn’t find this especially strange.

Ultimately, between the three of them, not a single shot had landed. It wasn’t encouraging.

Still, in a total of fifty shots, there had been no misfires; the gun itself seemed to be functioning smoothly. The actual workings of the device were more than satisfactory. The spread of the bullets wasn’t even very large. That seemed to suggest that the problem was less accuracy than it was the level of proficiency and suitability of the shooter.

“Maybe practice makes perfect, huh...?” Yukinari muttered, getting ready to pack up.

“You want to try it?”

It was Veronika who had spoken, and she was holding Derrringer out to a very startled Berta.

“Wha?! M-Me?!”

She clearly had not been expecting to be involved in this situation in any way.

“U-Um, Lord Yukinari?” She looked to him for rescue.

“Well, as long as we’re up here, why not?” Yukinari said with a grin.

They had just a few bullets left. There was no sense saving them. If they ran out, Yukinari could simply make more with his powers.

“I-If you say so, L-Lord Yukinari...” With that, Berta reluctantly took the gun from Veronika. She staggered slightly; perhaps it was heavier than she’d expected. Yukinari caught her by the shoulder.

“You okay?”

“Oh, yes, I... I’ll manage. Th-Thank you.” Her face was red. He seated her, like Dasa, on the chair, and gave her a simple tutorial on how to shoot. Her movements, of course, were much more hesitant than Dasa’s.

“Okay, try it,” Yukinari said, and then he waited.

Truth be told, Yukinari was very interested to see Berta shoot, although not for the same reasons as the others. He himself was usually out in front in battle, so it was natural that he would leave the sniping to somebody else. He had considered recruiting one of Arlen’s comrades for the role, but he wasn’t confident he could count on their help if it came to a fight against other missionaries. At some point, he might even have to confiscate their Durandalls again.

He could turn one of the townspeople into a sniper, then. In that case, he wouldn’t be dealing with someone like Dasa, who already knew how to handle a gun, nor even with someone like Veronika, who was accomplished in battle. If he had Berta, with no experience whatsoever of weaponry, try shooting, it might give him some ideas for how to make the sniper rifle more user-friendly for “amateurs” like her.

That was what he was expecting, anyway.

Until the boom.

“Good, you were able to shoot it. Now, first—”

He was going to ask her how it felt, using a gun for the first time in her life. But Berta blinked and said, “I... I hit it.”

“You what?” Startled, Yukinari grabbed his scope and looked toward the sanctuary.

There was a hole in the head of the doll.

“I don’t be...lieve it,” Dasa said. She was looking through the scope on Red Chili to see what had happened. She gave a quiet gurgle, presumably inspired by the sight of Berta’s successful shot.

“Um, I— Um—” Berta was looking at Yukinari and Dasa anxiously. She was starting to worry that she had done something wrong.

“Berta,” Yukinari said, doubting his own eyes, “do it again. Just try it.”