New Magic Wand (Not) Experiment

After finishing her consultation with Rosaria, Felix's room was extraordinarily noisy for several days.

Light flashed through the cracks of the door. Something slammed violently against something else. At times, there were even the sounds of outright explosions.

By that point, even the servants who merely passed Felix's room had realized ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠something out of the ordinary was going on—but they were far too afraid to open that door. Whenever they had to walk by, they either kept their heads down and scurried past at a quick clip, or else pressed an ear to the door out ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of curiosity.

Magic was rare and formidable enough that to ordinary people it was a symbol of terror—and yet it was also a discipline that stirred curiosity and fascination.

And so, on the exact third day after Felix's door had closed—

"So… this is the finished product?"

Rosaria, who had been killing time puttering around in her own room, was suddenly yanked out by Felix the moment he flung her door open. He dragged her to a secluded corner of the training grounds and carefully handed her the object he was carrying.

"…A gun?"

"It looks like a gun?"

Tene, who had likewise been bored out of her mind, trailed after the two of them and chimed in while peeking over their shoulders.

Just as she said, what Rosaria had been handed was something that looked like a long rifle—just barely manageable with both hands.

"A gun?! It's a magic wand!"

"If this is a magic wand, then Aladdin's staff is a magic wand too."

Its crude silhouette was closer to a musket than any modern rifle, but Felix stubbornly insisted it was a magic wand, and Rosaria delivered her criticism without mercy.

"First of all, this magical tool has been refined and re-refined so that even people who can't use magic can operate it! It's made of wood, so it's remarkably light—that's one of its advantages! On top of that, it uses a mana stone with magic formulas inscribed directly onto it as a medium, so as long as you have those, you can fire magic to your heart's content without the user needing to expend any of their own mana—it's a cutting-edge magical tool—"

"So you just pull the trigger and it goes off?"

"Oh… that's neat."

"Would you two listen when I'm explaining?!"

"I stopped understanding anything after the part about it being light."

While Felix went on and on introducing the wand he had built—which looked for all the world like a gun—the two girls were completely absorbed in the gun-like exterior that stirred something deep in a man's heart.

Carved from wood with carving so rough it might as well have been a toy gun whittled from wooden chopsticks in childhood, the thing looked so much like a plaything that the two of them seemed to have found a delightful new toy.

"Anyway, try using this."

"This is the bullet, right?"

In the end, Felix heaved a long sigh and handed something over to Rosaria.

It was small, elongated at the tip like a cartridge, and covered in so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠many formulas etched so finely they were nearly impossible to make out with the naked eye.

"This tiny medium contains no fewer than three formulas! The front holds the core formula packed with mana; the rear absorbs impact, multiplies it, and converts it into forward propulsion. And then there's a stabilization formula so the other two can mesh properly! Do you have any idea how incredible it is to inscribe formulas like these onto a medium this small? If I just submit this technique as a paper to the Association, something enormous will happen!"

"Anyway, how do you load it?"

"…You put it in the hole at the back of the wand."

"Ooh… right here?"

Just as Felix said, Rosaria confirmed there was a single hole at the rear of the wand—right where a bolt would sit.

"Then I'd like to try shooting it. Is there a target or something?"

"A target? There isn't really a target. Can't we just stick a tree branch up and shoot at that?"

"That wouldn't be satisfying at all. For times like this, isn't there something human-shaped—safe and sturdy enough that it won't even get a scratch from most impacts…?"

"……"

"……"

"…? Why are you both suddenly staring at me?"

Rosaria and Felix, who had been fiddling with the magic wand (gun) in their hands, fell silent and turned their gazes. At the end of those gazes stood Tene, blankly scratching her head as she asked the question.

"Isn't this seriously too much?! Now I'm a shooting-range target?!"

"You're fine even if you take an anti-tank grenade to the face without a scratch!!!"

"It's perfect for testing firepower!!!"

"My feelings!! My feelings are weird!!!"

From the middle of the training grounds, Tene bellowed at Rosaria and Felix standing far off in the distance. The two of them answered her—but their answers were nowhere near a real reply.

By that invincible three-step logic, Tene was the ideal target for verifying the power of Felix's wand.

If anyone else had witnessed this scene—using a dragon, a being so far beyond ordinary life that since ancient times it had barely been regarded as the same kind of creature, a presence nearly equal to the gods, as a mere test bed for a new magical tool—they would have been so horrified they would have fainted on the spot. But the three of them didn't care in the slightest.

To them, the perception that Tene equaled "super sturdy, super strong, easy-to-handle little sister" was already set in stone.

Of course Tene was shouting her complaints at the top of her lungs, but if she had truly hated it, she had more than enough power to literally flip the Evergarden family's training grounds she was standing on—and the entire territory along with it. She was simply too pure and kindhearted to even entertain the thought, which was why she always ended up getting pushed around like this.

"Hoo… At last, the time has come to show the shooting skills of this body—who completed full service as a Republic of Korea Army sergeant and earned a three-night, four-day leave as a special-class marksman."

Rosaria shouldered the magic wand (gun) Felix had handed her, settled into a standing firing stance, and muttered with a grin.

Right up until the moment she arrived in this world, Rosaria had been carrying a K2 rifle. Throughout her entire military career she had never managed to earn special leave—but she had scored perfect hits with shooting alone in both marksmanship training and promotion exams, and that was how she had become a special-class marksman.

Of course, that only applied to shooting. For everything else, her body—weighed down by the crushing mass of seniority (and the pressure of PX freezers)—couldn't keep up, so far from early promotion she had barely scraped through the promotion exam. But when it came to shooting, she had never fallen behind a single senior, junior, or peer.

"Then…."

Rosaria, magic wand shouldered, took a deep breath and steadied herself.

"Okay! Start."

"………"

"…? What are you doing? Why aren't you shooting?"

Felix gave her a signal as if to say go ahead and test it—but Rosaria still held her stance, finger not yet on the trigger of the magic wand, so he asked what she was waiting for.

"…This is why non-military people. Tsk."

"Why? What?"

"Sigh… Gas regulator medium! Check! Hinge forward indicator! Check! Bolt locked rearward! Check! Chamber check! Check! Bolt forward! Check! Selector single shot! Check!"

"Wh-what?"

Rosaria sighed as if she had expected exactly this, then began noisily running through the shooting precautions she had heard to death over the past year and a half, calling each one out loud as she moved.

Of course Felix—who had never so much as touched a gun, let alone served in the military—could only tilt his head, completely lost as to what she was talking about.

"Ready shooters, commence fire!!"

Having finished her final checks, Rosaria at last set her finger on the trigger, exhaled every last bit of air left in her lungs… and then squeezed.

And then—

BANG—!!!!!!!!!!!

"WAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Flames erupted.

The mana-stone bullet, reacting to the signal flowing from the magic wand, burst forth in an instant like an explosion. It rode the long barrel and flew into Tene's forehead at a speed too fast to even register.

The warhead of the mana-stone bullet struck Tene's brow. As the tip crumpled, the inscribed mana formulas warped—and in the next instant the mana ran wild, triggering a tremendous magical detonation. A roar that shook heaven and earth accompanied a colossal explosion.

All of that happened 0.74 seconds after Rosaria pulled the trigger.

"Wow. The destructive power is more impressive than I expected. As I thought—rather than trying to penetrate an object, deliberately weakening the tip so it fails on impact makes it much easier to produce an explosion."

"Ah—aaaaaah… No…! What is this?!!! What the hell is that?!!!"

After the blast, dust hung so thick that Tene wasn't even visible. Felix stared at the crater left by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the mana explosion, let out a sound of pure admiration, and started clapping—while Rosaria, who had been frozen with her mouth hanging open at what had just unfolded in front of her, finally snapped out of it and screamed.

"I thought it was just a decent gun—what are you doing making a portable cannon?! Eek—the gun exploded!!"

"Hmm. As expected, since the wand was carved from wood, even with durability-enhancement formulas inscribed there's a limit. There's room for improvement."

"Improvement my ass!! I almost died!!"

On top of everything else, a single shot had been enough for the front of the barrel to fail completely under the shock and shatter into pieces. Realizing that if she'd been even slightly unlucky, not just the wand but she herself would have been blown to bits, Rosaria freaked out and started laying into him in a panic.

"More importantly—Tene! Is she okay? She got hit by something like that!"

"She's a dragon. She'd be fine even if she took a hundred—a thousand—of those."

"Keh—cough…! Ugh… dust…"

"See? She's fine."

Felix shrugged as if it were nothing in response to Rosaria's worry over Tene taking a direct hit from a round with that much power—and sure enough, Tene's silhouette soon emerged through the thick dust, coughing.

"Tene! You're fi…ne…… uh… I mean… um…"

Relieved by the sight of her, Rosaria started to rush over—then stopped dead in her tracks and slightly turned her head away.

Tene herself was unharmed. The clothes she had been wearing, however, had literally evaporated. She stood with her head hung gloomily, barely covering her important parts with her hands.

"….Clothes first, please."

"…Does this always happen…?"

"Well, yeah…"

"Th… sorry. I must have raised my little sister wrong."

"…That's all fine, so stop peeking and give me clothes first!!!"

And so, thanks to Felix's magical-tool test, the three of them managed to cause a full-scale disaster—turning roughly five meters of the training-ground floor, starting from the point of impact, into a literal crater.