Not Bad, Huh?

Not bad, huh?

The moment we stepped into the Proiden Kingdom, home of the Magic Engineering Guild, a city brimming with magitech unveiled itself before us.

Enormous black gears stood turning in every corner of the city, and the buildings all shared a distinctive construction, as if each one had been raised by magic engineering alone. Steam vented skyward here, threads of mana spiraled up there — and overhead, more than a dozen small floating ships ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠drifted lazily through the air, enough to make the Guild's might plainly felt at a glance.

I glanced to the side and found Leo, who had come along with me, staring up at the small ships with both eyes sparkling.

She clearly wanted a ride.

"Want to go take a look? I checked with the Magic Engineering Guild — they said everything's fair game except the upper levels of the spire and the restricted zones."

"Oh! Yes, please!"

Whooosh—

Green wind swirled up around her, and in the blink of an eye Leo was standing aboard one of the small ships drifting through the sky. She'd landed on the deck faster than a person could blink.

The ordinary guild member who'd been aboard had only just begun to register his shock when Leo's spirits spread out and began scanning the ship from stem to stern.

"Ooh! The structure's super weird. Can I take this apart?!"

"Huh? Uh, hold on, I need to get permission—"

"Ooh, what even is this magic structure—"

"Ah! Don't touch that!"

Chaos had already broken out up above, but there was nothing I could do to rein her in.

This was, after all, the Rank 2 player — someone who could crush an entire kingdom single-handedly.

Leo wasn't someone even the elders and the guild master could handle, let alone an ordinary guild member.

I looked up at the sky alongside the chat's reactions.

Leo had gone beyond mere disassembly — she was pumping the mana stone full of spirit energy outright. Before long the whole floating ship turned green, and like a speedboat she shot past countless other vessels at a frankly insane velocity, vanishing into the distance.

"...WAAAAAAAH!!!"

"That was SO fun!"

A short while later, the tiny dot on the horizon grew larger and larger until, riding a tremendous gust of wind, the ship roared back to its original spot.

The ordinary guild member slumped over the rail, gasping like his soul had left his body, while Leo wore the deeply satisfied grin of a job well done. She seemed to be putting the teleportation spell she'd learned to good use.

"Well... I did tell them to make free use of the place. I'm sure they'll understand."

Understand or not, they didn't really have a choice.

With that, I set off into the city proper for a serious look around.

While Leo was busy enchanting five separate floating ships with different elemental attributes and racing them against each other, I had stepped into a shop where a massive black gear, embedded in the building itself, was slowly turning — and was browsing the wares.

This was a place that sold combat goods built with the Magic Engineering Guild's technology: all manner of weapons, consumables, equipment, and...

Clack.

"A gun?"

In the shopkeeper's hand was a pistol with a glossy black finish, a blue gear seal engraved at its center. A decidedly out-of-place object for DeoEn, a world of pure fantasy.

The shopkeeper — a big man with an imposing build and a memorable beard — wiped the gun down with a special cloth before handing it over to me.

"Yes. A Magic Gun. It's the product of one of our elders, Lady Gunner's, unique abilities combined with our magic engineering know-how."

"Oh..."

"It's the newest weapon we've developed, so it's cutting-edge, and as a firearm its advantages are second to none. But it does have a flaw."

"Which is?"

"Unless you're of a gun-related class, your efficiency drops to under five percent."

DeoEn's penalty against all things modern. The hidden class Gunner came with her own bespoke firearm and full compensation effects on top of it, but every other user was out of luck.

A gun's firepower was slashed to one-twentieth, and worse still, you couldn't fire one at all unless it was charged with your own mana. In other words, you couldn't manufacture your own iron bullets and load them the old-fashioned way.

As if to demonstrate, the shopkeeper pulled a shotgun off the wall and riddled the practice dummy embedded in the corner of the shop with shots.

BANG!

The report was loud, but beyond a bit of scorching and a handful of pinholes in the dummy's body, the damage was negligible. With a soft hiss, the dummy — itself a product of magic engineering, apparently — repaired itself and returned to pristine condition.

"As you can see, that's about the extent of a gun's power. But..."

Chunk.

This time the shopkeeper took down a crossbow, loaded a magic bolt, and let it fly.

THWACK!

The bolt punched clean through the dummy's head in a single shot. The shopkeeper retrieved the arrow and continued in a perfectly deadpan voice.

"With nothing more than the name 'crossbow,' its performance improves by an incomparable margin. Which is why these guns are, aside from Lady Gunner herself, little more than a novelty trick."

"......"

"It might work for low-level players, but once your level climbs even a little, the bullets simply won't regis—"

BANG!!

My shot detonated the practice dummy on the spot. Its remains tumbled across the floor, too broken to even regenerate. The shopkeeper stared at me with eyes about to tear in half.

"What in the..."

"Not bad, huh?"

"...S-sorry, what?"

"Why not? It's good, isn't it?"

"Like you said, it had a lot of restrictions on it, so I layered some 'buffs' on top. Firing compensation, speed boost, power boost, durability boost..."

On top of that, I'd stacked countless other magic formulas and even forged the bullets themselves out of divine energy before firing — hence the firepower. Though if I had to name a downside...

Crrrrk...

"...It's single-use, apparently."

The pistol had shattered, unable to withstand the sheer stacking of power. Not because its durability was flimsy — everything made with magic engineering came with an auto-repair function, and its construction was honestly quite sturdy.

But it fell far short of enduring the shockwave of piercing through the gun's built-in "restraints."

No real reason to use this, I suppose.

I could feel it firsthand — the moment a gun was drawn, a formidable restraint field clamped down around it. I'd forced its specs upward just to break through that field, but the payoff simply wasn't worth it. Even if someone built a gun capable of surviving the recoil, swinging a spear once with that same amount of power would be the better deal.

"Still, it'd make a decent wildcard? And like you said, low-level players might actually get some good use out of it."

"...Might I ask how you managed that?"

"Even if I told you, you couldn't use it."

Reproducing that many layered spells and crafting bullets rivaling divinity would take at least Leo-level ability and magical knowledge on par with a decently ranked lesser ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠demon.

And would someone with that kind of power ever bother with a gun?

Fire one bullet — or a hundred — or simply crush your enemy with magic? The latter was faster and more efficient by far. No matter how fast a bullet flies, the person pulling the trigger doesn't get any faster.

And even if you handed such a buffed gun to someone else, no one but its original owner could possibly survive the backlash.

I taught the shopkeeper a handful of spells that would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠improve efficiency, more or less as payment, and stepped out of the store. Whether all of that would even raise it by five percent was doubtful, but it was better than nothing.

Clack. Clack.

I toyed with the single pistol in my hand. I'd taught him because it interested me, and the shopkeeper, as thanks, had gifted me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an extra one.

I'll tinker with this one later when I have time.

"Might come in handy someday."

And next up was...

"This place is enormous."

A colossal gray golem statue stood here, easily two hundred meters tall. In front of it rose a building smaller than the statue itself, and even from outside, I could feel the flow of a vast river of mana within.

Stepping inside, I found countless golems lined up in neat rows like a luxury car showroom. Far sleeker in design than you'd expect from steampunk fare.

"Welcome!"

"It's an honor, Lady Lily. The largest golem of the Magic Engineering Guild—"

"Oh! OHHHHHH!!"

Behind the neatly uniformed staff who'd come out to greet me, a pigtailed girl in a black-and-blue uniform came thundering toward us, raising an absolute racket.

Black and blue — the colors of an elder.

The girl skidded to a light landing right in front of me. Floating behind her shoulders were two golden gears, each bigger than her upper body, spinning rapidly as they drank in her mana.

"Big Sis Lily! Hi there! I'm Ino-o! I'm one of the executives of the Magic Engineering Guild!"

"Ah, a pleasure to meet you, Ino-o. I'm truly grateful you invited me over so quickly."

"Hehe! Of course I had to say yes when you said you were coming~ Kekeke."

Even with the chat turning decidedly hostile, Ino-o paid it no mind and cheerfully led me inside. She practically bounced with every step, walking like a kid on a field trip.

"Hehe. I know I should've been showing you around from the start, but I've been waiting right here since I heard you were heading to see the other sights first!"

"I see. So you're the one handling the golem tour, Ino-o?"

"Nope! That's normally someone else's job, but they got all shy about it? So I kicked up a hu— ahem, I made quite the fuss and insisted I'd escort you myself. If you follow me, that person will take over!"

"Hmm..."

"Ah! Is something bothering you, by any chance...?"

"Not at all. I'm just looking forward to it."

I wonder what kind of reaction they'll have.

I truly couldn't wait to find out.