A Rolling Stone (4)
A Rolling Stone (4)
We didn't have the ability to repair something that broken, and with the hour growing late, everyone returned to their own rooms for the night.
It was the following day when we informed Jennifer that the training ground had been wrecked.
"It was built on the assumption that it would be shot with firearms. Obviously it's going to break if you hit it that hard."
Jennifer nodded as she heard the story.
"A bullet passes through and penetrates, so there's never a situation where the drive mechanism gets bent backward. But if you strike it with a sword and apply powerful force, it's not impossible for the parts to snap outright."
After examining the wrecked mechanical components, Jennifer rose from her spot.
"We do have spare parts, so if I inform the Academy, we can get it fixed. There's no need to worry too much."
In truth, I wasn't worried. Even if the repairs cost a great deal of money, I could pay any amount if I set my mind to it.
"Anyway."
Jennifer looked at the three of us.
Sophia Bianchi had apologized over and over last night. I'd told her she didn't have to come, but the fact that she turned up anyway probably meant she was genuinely sorry.
Or it meant this was a situation where she had to appear genuinely sorry.
"It's the first time I've seen a swordswoman deliberately train here. To be honest, there isn't much a swordswoman can do in a training ground like this."
"Is that... so?"
At Sophia Bianchi's words, Jennifer shrugged her shoulders.
"In combat using firearms, reaction speed is life. The important thing is to shoot down each target the moment it pops up. But for a swordswoman, isn't the skill of clashing blade against blade the most important? Training reaction speed like this is necessary too, but in the end, the most crucial thing is training against someone who's actually swinging a sword."
"Well, that's true, but..."
"Hm."
Seeing Sophia Bianchi hesitate, Jennifer tilted her head.
"If you truly need training, it would probably be best if these two helped you out."
"......."
Somehow I'd suspected she'd say something like that.
Ever since the incident on the battlefield, Jennifer had held me in extremely high regard. Which was only natural. Anyone would, if there was a person who could single-handedly shift the course of a battlefield.
The reason Lena had come from the Autonomous State was probably because they wanted to keep an eye on my movements too. Though Lena herself didn't seem to know that at all.
If this were the modern era, no matter how strong a person was, no matter how many feats they'd achieved on the battlefield, no one would think of that person as some kind of "hidden card." You'd just gather such people into a unit and deploy them to slightly raise the odds of victory in difficult battlefields, in operations where ordinary soldiers with standard training couldn't win easily.
But this world, where the traits of Japanese subculture were preserved intact, was different. The mere report that some war hero had been deployed to the field was enough to make the enemy tremble. Such a figure could even overturn the course of an entire battlefield. And this was despite a setting where even someone like that would die if they were shot.
"What?"
Sophia Bianchi's eyes went wide as she asked again.
"Because, aside from the instructors, those two are the people who handle firearms best at this Academy."
Jennifer gave her an exceedingly simple reason.
"What's more, Her Imperial Highness here already has a record of distinguishing herself on the battlefield. She cleanly rescued Imperial forces that had fallen into a stalemate and were in danger of a pointless war of attrition. All by her own strength."
"Ah, that..."
Sophia Bianchi glanced toward me as she spoke.
"Was that, truly?"
"Absolutely."
Lena interjected at Sophia Bianchi's words.
"The one who played the greatest role in exterminating that band of warlords was Lady Sylvia herself. That is the testimony of the Autonomous State soldiers who were alongside the Imperial forces as well."
"And I was on the scene too. Sylvia was definitely alone when she headed for the battlefield. Not just me—practically every soldier on the front line was looking at Sylvia as if she were insane, so there are plenty of witnesses."
They couldn't help but look at me as if I were insane, of course.
Because a single hero can change a battlefield, in truth, sending out just one hero almost never actually happens. You can't simply throw away an existence that's practically no different from a tactical weapon.
"If you think that story is Imperial propaganda, how about settling it with a sparring match?"
"Ah, that's not what I meant..."
Sophia Bianchi's voice was flustered.
"Here?"
"There's no need to consider the surroundings for a sparring match."
Jennifer was probably the only person alive who didn't consider the surroundings at all for a sparring match.
"No, I..."
Sophia Bianchi's gaze moved toward the gun I carried.
"For someone using a firearm, cover would be extremely important..."
"It might matter against multiple opponents, but it won't be a big problem against a single person. Besides, the opponents are the two right here, Sylvia and Lena. So you don't need an advantage like cover, do you?"
I hadn't even answered, yet Lena was already making her combat preparations.
"...... Can we sparr with automatic pistols?"
"Ah, about that."
Jennifer drew a pistol from the holster at her waist.
It looked almost identical to the automatic pistol I used, but the muzzle end was blocked. Not simply blocked off, but with a slightly unusual shape: it had holes drilled into the side, rather like a compensator.
"Your gun, it's a Browning, isn't it? I went and requested a training firearm be made. If you load it with blanks, you should be able to use it with a feel similar to live fire."
As Jennifer passed the pistol my way and said that, I accepted it with somewhat mixed feelings.
"This way, I won't lose count of the number of rounds you've fired while I'm watching your shooting."
A normal person wouldn't have been capable of watching while keeping count like that, you know.
Well, I had enough sense not to actually say such a thing.
I received the training gun from Jennifer; Lena didn't need to go that far. Since her gun wasn't the type where the slide covers the barrel, simply fitting a blank-firing adapter, which Jennifer had probably asked Browning to make, was enough. ... It would be a bit inconvenient for aimed fire, but she was someone who fought with a pistol in each hand anyway.
Once we'd loaded the magazines with blanks and faced each other, Jennifer looked at us, then at Sophia Bianchi, once each before speaking.
"Good. Well then..."
And then, wearing an expression of great delight, she paused for a moment.
She really did love this sort of thing, didn't she.
"Begin!"
*
Come to think of it, there were several things I hadn't seen since coming to this world.
For example, swinging a sword while shouting the name of a technique.
Each character had unique skills, and every single one of those skills had a name.
And when characters used a skill, they would always shout its name.
Of course, for some characters the skill name was less a technique name and more of a short line, and in those cases it was normal for them to shout the line instead of the technique name.
When I thought about it, it was only natural that no one shouted technique names during a real fight. It was practically the same as telling your enemy exactly how you were going to attack. And above all, real combat, unlike turn-based battles, didn't have time to pose while shouting technique names. Ah, well, I did think mages were a different case. They have to recite incantations, after all.
So even knowing that fact, until now I'd never found it strange.
But—
"Goddess, grant me your light...!"
I never expected there would be someone who actually said lines like that.
...... Ah, right, of course. That figured.
She was from the Holy State, after all.
Maybe it wasn't strange for her to fight while reciting prayers.
The problem was that hearing such shouts was agonizing for me.
It was a company famous for hiring many renowned voice actors, and naturally the voice actor who played Sophia Bianchi's character was someone who had taken on many leading or major supporting roles in prominent works.
If this were a game, the language would obviously have been Japanese. If the language spoken here were Japanese, I probably wouldn't have felt any dissonance.
But this world's language was a constructed language based on English.
Even though it was a language I understood almost like my native tongue—
"With the power of light...!"
Watching it in person gave me a feeling like I was watching an English-dubbed version of a Japanese anime, and I felt an indescribable cringe.
It would've been better if I'd heard it in Korean, honestly.
On top of that, because of my ability, I had to rewind and listen to that sound over and over throughout the entire fight.
Damn it.
*
It was fortunate that the fight ended before we ran out of ammunition. If the training had gone on any longer, I might not have been able to endure the cringe, and I might have turned back the clock to avoid doing the training at all.
"Truly... you are remarkable."
The fact that I'd ended the training with gunfire before she could invoke "the power of light" seemed to have been something of a shock for Sophia Bianchi.
... Well, she was a Cathedral Knight, so she probably had Vestments that could block being shot, at least.
"Of course."
Lena spoke with a look of pride.
"She is an Imperial Princess of the Empire, after all."
No, normally an imperial princess wasn't supposed to be good at this kind of thing.
...... Though, now that I thought about it, every single person in the Empire who held the title of imperial prince or princess was someone who was exceptional in one way or another.