First Blood
If I wanted to live, there was no other way.
My first murder.
I'd expected my hands to shake, or nausea to come surging up my throat, but to my surprise, I felt nothing. Staying this composed felt strange even to me. Right now, the fact that I'd killed a man worried me far less than how the others would react when they heard that gunshot.
Because it was self-defense? Killing someone who tried to rob you was forgiven here—no, it was the sort of thing the locals would actually praise you for. But that wasn't what was keeping me so calm.
Because here, I was an otherworlder? That was probably it. The truth is, I've always carried one conviction close to my heart: that someday I'll return to the world I came from. Maybe that's why every living thing in this place—people included—felt half like game characters made of polygons rather than real human beings. Thanks to that, even now, it didn't quite feel like I had truly killed a person.
Looks like I've accidentally become a psychopath...
"What the hell?! What was that sound?!!"
At the deafening crack that shook the forest, the rest of the bandits came running out at once. They saw the archer sprawled in front of me and, for a moment, had no idea what was going on, glancing around wildly.
"D-did lightning strike him?!"
"It's not even raining!"
It seemed the possibility that I had done this never even crossed their minds.
"Ugh, ughhh!"
The archer, a hole punched clean through his body, barely managed to lift himself and, pointing at me, tried to deliver his dying message—but in the end, blood spilled from his mouth and his face sank into the dirt.
"What? What the hell just happened!"
"What was that explosion?!"
"Wasn't that lightning?!"
"Don't tell me... that... that bastard did it?"
The leader seemed to be the only one with any grasp of the situation. With no idea what was what, he'd at least figured out that something had happened, the archer had gone down, and that merchant bastard was behind it—he backed away slowly, then tripped over a rock and fell on his ass. Then his eyes locked onto the strange object in my hand.
"M-m-magic! That bastard's a mage!"
"The general store guy was a mage! No way!"
"That sound was way louder than I thought it'd be."
I thought my eardrums would burst. What I held in my hand was a revolver with a six-round cylinder. I'd known this day might come, which was exactly why I'd hoped never to use the thing.
Haah. At that volume, they probably heard it all the way in town.
The truth was, I'd bought it ages ago, and this was the first time I'd ever fired it. Being homemade, the report was enormous and the recoil was brutal. Practice...? Obviously, that had never been an option. Even if I'd wanted to, where exactly was I supposed to practice with a gun this loud? Even deep in the woods, plenty of travelers passed through on the way into town.
To explain: this thing had no serial number—it was a 3D-printed product. When you ordered one, the parts arrived separately, broken up into pieces across multiple deliveries, and you assembled it yourself following the manual. Reviews said it misfired constantly and rounds failed to go off, and there were even notorious stories of cartridges exploding inside the chamber, so I would have much preferred to buy a proper firearm—but I'm not American, so... how, exactly?
Still, this was the cleanest model I could get online—easiest to acquire, and with no chance of trouble down the road. And what, I'd get arrested later for buying something like this through such a shady channel? Please, come arrest me! I'm begging you! Officer, kindly cross the dimensions into this other world, arrest me for purchasing an illegal firearm, and take me back to my original world while you're at it!
"Fuck! Of all the times—!"
The two besides the leader had completely lost their nerve and were running for their lives. The leader, meanwhile, was straining to work it out, glancing back and forth between the small, unidentifiable metal object in my hand and the dead archer.
"Wh-where are you going?! If we rush him now, we can take him down!"
Please, boss, you run too. I'm terrifying, after all. The tip of the blade he gripped in both hands was fluttering like a leaf—a little more fear and he'd bolt. Or... no? Now that it had come to this, maybe I should just kill them all? If I let any of them live, wouldn't they come back for revenge on our town?!
With a six-shot revolver, I could simply pull the trigger again and put the next round into him—but as I'd noted, this wasn't a genuine firearm. The barrel and the chamber overheated far faster than a real gun's, and if I fired several shots in a row, some of the plastic parts might actually melt. I'd fired exactly one round, and the grip was already warm to the touch.
Either way, I had to be ready before he attacked!
While he hesitated, I quickly swung open the revolver's cylinder and manually ejected the casing from the round I'd just fired. The manual had warned that residual heat from the spent casing could melt the internal components, and to eject it immediately after every shot whenever possible. Sure enough, when the cylinder swung open, smoke came curling out. If I hadn't followed the manual, this thing would've nearly been a one-shot disposable. No—at worst, the hand holding it might have been blown clean off.
Fwoosh.
"Hyaaah!"
"Whoa!"
The leader suddenly swung his sword in a wide horizontal arc. For a man facing a "mage" who might unleash a spell at any moment, that took real guts in his position. Unfortunately for him, we were still a good distance apart, and I simply stepped back out of the blade's reach.
Click.
There. I was ready to fire again. I didn't want any more bloodshed, but I couldn't beat this man without using it. If I wanted to be certain of surviving, I had to kill you.
"You, you bastard. A mere general store owner in some hick village... why have you been hiding the fact that you're a mage all this time....."
A mage, huh. The funny thing about these otherworld locals is that whenever something happens outside their common sense, every last one of them writes it off as a god, divine intervention, or magic. And it isn't just a habit—it's blind to a degree that borders on alarming. Word getting around that some general store owner in a backwater village could sling spells wouldn't do me any favors, but for now, I'd play along.
"Fine, sure... I'm a mage. A mage—and you're still planning to keep coming at me?"
"You bastard... urk."
The reason this one was less afraid: he had a kettle hat on his head and iron armor wrapped around his upper body—apart from that, he wore the same leather gear as the rest. However thick it looked, it was made for stopping blades. He simply didn't know that bullets punch through iron plate. Sorry, but now that it's come to this, I intend to kill you here too.
My mind was made up. No thought of sparing anyone halfway—and the two who'd fled were no exception. These men knew I'd bought an elf slave. They knew I lived in Greenhill. They even knew I ran a general store here. If they kept their lives, they'd come back for revenge someday. Men like these don't come to their senses until they're wiped out—they'd keep watching for their chance to kill me, over and over.
BANG!!!
I checked the revolver's heat, and before he could charge again, I took quick aim and fired one more shot. Unlike the first round, which had gone cleanly into the archer's chest, this one struck his sword arm. My aim had been true—he'd simply raised the blade at that exact instant to cut me down.
"Aaagh! Fuck!!!"
The pain was so overwhelming he could do little more than scream—clutching his arm, he thrashed wildly across the ground before spitting curses at me.
"Just you wait! You mage bastard!"
"What was that?"
I ejected the casing and was reaching for the next round, but in a flash he'd thrown himself onto his horse and bolted. So I failed to kill him after all. They might spread strange rumors about me now. I had no idea who leaked to the bandits that I'd won a six-gold elf slave at auction, but for the moment, let me just be thankful to be alive. Right now, I hadn't been killed by bandits, hadn't been hurt, and hadn't lost a single thing.
After they were well and truly gone, I ejected the casing from the revolver and tucked it back into my inner pocket. Maybe because I'd fired two shots, my chest felt warm, as if I'd slipped a heat pack under my shirt.
"Erina, are you okay? Erina?"
I went looking for Erina, who had darted into the brush. Apparently she'd scrambled for cover at the first gunshot, because I found her cowering in the mud, trembling all over.
"It's okay now. It's over."
"Y-you can use magic?!"
She'd been speaking casually to me a moment ago, and now suddenly it was all formal honorifics. Huddled with her knees and shoulders squeezing that enormous chest of hers, face buried—she looked, unmistakably, human. It was only her looks that soared far beyond this world's average. Once again, I picked up my cloak and draped it over the naked Erina. Twice in one day now, seeing her bare body. Enjoyable as it was to look at those magnificent breasts, this was the time to hurry home. The bandits were unlikely to come back, but they might return with reinforcements.
"I saw it with my own eyes. It looked like lightning attribute... how is that possible without an incantation? And twice, that fast!"
"Strictly speaking, this isn't magic."
"Then what..."
Attribute? Casting without an incantation? So she was a half-elf with an actual grasp of how magic works? Making Erina understand, in one go, the existence of a gun from my world—something that doesn't exist here—wouldn't be easy. And I had no particular intention of explaining it right now anyway.
"Is there any reason your master needs to tell you that right this second?"
"...No."
Well-behaved answers, too. So she was an agreeable one after all. No idea why the girl who'd barely managed a single proper word until now had suddenly turned so cooperative, but first things first—
I checked the fallen archer's corpse. A round bullet hole dead center in his leather armor. Anyone could see he was thoroughly dead. I'd shot a man who'd closed to nearly point-blank range; it would have been stranger if I'd missed. I searched his body. The first things to come out were dried jerky, a few copper coins, some bandages, and a piece of flint. Broke, huh.
"Um... what are you doing right now?"
"Looting."
"Oh..."
Erina seemed unnerved by how naturally I went through the corpse. Come to think of it, watching a man loot a body right after shooting a person for the first time in his life—anyone would react that way, I suppose. Still, after being put through all this, I deserved to walk away with something. Did she think bullets came out of that gun for free? Every single one of them costs money!
Bandits apparently traveled light, because that was everything on him. This time I stripped off the quiver with its few remaining arrows and the leather armor he'd been wearing. If I spun the bullet hole to the blacksmith the right way, I might squeeze a silver or so out of it. And then the dagger he'd brandished at me, and its sheath. It was in decent shape, so I'd keep it rather than sell. I'd use it for unboxing when my delivery packages arrived.
"...Here."
Erina picked up the bow and held it out to me, but after a moment's thought, I turned it down. I had no idea how to properly shoot one of those primitive medieval weapons, and a clumsy attempt would only invite a counterattack. Besides, drawing a bowstring takes a surprising amount of strength, you know. I'm too busy to find time to work out. And before I could ever sell it to the weapon dealer in town, the guards would catch me first. Ever seen a general store owner toting weapons around? They might start grilling me about where it came from.
I buried the archer in the pit I'd dug a little while ago. This man never dreamed, not even in his wildest moments, that pit would become his grave.
"If we're lucky, this guy's horse might still be around."
Once he was buried, I went looking for the horse he'd ridden. Nobody travels this deep into the forest on foot, after all. And with the other bandits fleeing in a blind panic, they wouldn't have had the presence of mind to take a horse with them.
"Oh."
Walking a little way back along the path we'd come, sure enough, I found a brown horse with several black spots dotted across its head. Still worked up from the gunfire, it was trotting in circles around the same spot, round and round. I calmed the animal down.
"You do know how to ride, right?"
"?"
Without a word of answer, Erina swung her foot into the stirrup and smoothly mounted the riderless horse. As I watched in silence, she looked down at me from the saddle with a puzzled expression.
"What would you do if I just ran off like this?"
"Then I'd use magic. Like before."
"..."
It was a joke. Not funny? Not funny, huh. Sorry. Old-man humor.
"You don't have anywhere else to go anyway."
"..."
I whistled for my own horse, Stormwind. He'd apparently stayed close by the whole time; Storm burst out of a nearby thicket and came trotting up to me.
"Alright then. Keep up."
After loading the loot I'd acquired onto my horse, I climbed into the saddle.