Chapter 43
-Smack.
‘Do you think you can restore the family’s fortunes by becoming some kind of soldier?!’
That was what my father said when I told him I wanted to enlist and become a musketeer.
‘You have to become a magic knight! If all you do is carry around some gun that reeks of gunpowder, what will those self-important fools from the main family think of you—a branch-family member?!’
Strictly speaking, I didn’t point out that magic knights were officers and soldiers too. I would have been lucky to escape without getting smacked on the other cheek, let alone receiving his agreement.
‘Being born into a branch of a noble family was lucky, Roxanna! You’re different from commoners! If you can just become a magic knight, reclaiming the family’s lost glory will be a piece of cake! Do you understand me?!’
I swallowed my complaint—Branch family, my ass…—before it reached my throat.
I didn’t ask questions like, Then why don’t you do it, Father? It would have been fortunate enough merely not to get hit for that, too.
Well, I understood. Whether I made a name for myself as a magic knight or became a soldier, rose through the ranks, and made a name for myself as an officer… When you looked at it closely, there wasn’t much difference between the two. He drew such a hard line between them and clung to one because that was all he knew.
It was unreasonable to expect too much from a wastrel nobleman who had been cast out even from his branch family.
A girl named Roxanna was born in such a place.
A family that had been cast out not only from the main family but even from its branch—a household barely above a branch of a branch. A three-room monthly-rental home so shabby it was embarrassing to call it a noble’s home. One of the three rooms was the bathroom, and every morning, three cockroaches lay dead beside my pillow.
The only thing we had was the family name: Gatling.
My grandfather treated not only his son but also his son’s wife and child as though they didn’t exist. Leaving our names on the family register was the bare minimum of recognition he could offer.
But because of that, Father couldn’t give up his futile hopes, so in a way, even that had been a blunder.
Even for such a poor household, I was an only child. Father had become impotent after hitting on a married woman. I didn’t know about it, so when I asked Mother, she said it had happened when I was three.
If there was any silver lining, I suppose it was that he could no longer visit brothels.
If I’d known this would happen.
I shouldn’t have manifested something like magic when I turned seven.
=
‘Little miss, why the long face? Something happen?’
‘…I’m not little.’
I snapped at the hapless soldier.
‘My name is Roxanna.’
‘I’m not an uncle, either.’
That soldier had a natural gift for taking a child’s sulking in stride.
‘I’m only twenty-one. I’m not old enough to be called uncle.’
‘Is that so?’
‘A man is old enough to be called uncle once he turns thirty.’
‘Then what should I call you?’
‘Huh, me?’
‘You said you’re not an uncle. Should I call you big brother?’
‘…Just call me uncle.’
He didn’t seem to have much of a knack for it, either.
‘So, Roxanna. What’s got you in such a bad mood?’
‘…My parents scolded me.’
‘Why?’
‘They said I shouldn’t even think about becoming a musketeer or anything like that. They said I have to become a magic knight.’
‘A magic knight?’
‘Yes.’
I made a small flame flare up above my hand.
‘…Is that magic?’
The soldier asked. I silently nodded.
‘That’s amazing!’
‘It is?’
‘Of course it is! You didn’t learn magic from anyone, did you?’
For some reason, the soldier’s words sounded melancholy.
For a child living in a poor neighborhood like this, using magic could only mean one thing: I had manifested it on my own, without learning from anyone.
The first prerequisite for learning magic was money. More than talent, money came first. Plenty of talented people couldn’t learn magic, but there were almost no cases of someone with money being unable to learn it, even without talent.
‘You might really be able to become a magic knight, you know?’
‘…I don’t want to.’
‘Hm? Why not?’
‘Because I don’t have any money.’
I shook my head and muttered.
To tell me to become a magic knight when, without a proper teacher, all I could do was produce a flame barely better than a match… There were limits to futile expectations.
If I became a soldier, I might distinguish myself and rise through the ranks. But telling me to become a magic knight with nothing but talent was plainly impossible.
That damned bastard had obviously had his brain eaten away by alcohol to say something like that. And the naturally stupid woman who applauded happily in agreement was just the icing on the cake. Weren’t the two of them a perfect pair? It would have been better if I, at least, hadn’t been the one born between them.
Disgust welled up inside me. Why had I been born in a place like this? If my parents had simply expected nothing of me, perhaps that would have been better.
‘…I see.’
The soldier murmured after seeing my expression. Then he took the musket from his shoulder and said,
‘Hey, miss. Did you know?’
‘What?’
‘This musket is actually fired by magic, too.’
‘…So?’
So what? Was he telling me to take the musket apart or something? When I merely stared up at him blankly, he gave an awkward smile and hurriedly added,
‘Actually, sometimes when I fire this musket, it feels like something leaves my body of its own accord. Something like… energy, I guess?’
The soldier waved the musket around as he explained earnestly, as though desperately hoping I would take an interest.
‘But apparently that’s mana. I know absolutely nothing about magic, yet I can feel it. Mana leaves my body, turns into magic, and gets fired.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘Would you like to fire the musket once?’
The soldier said this as he held the musket out to me.
‘You have talent! Maybe you’d be able to feel something different from the rest of us. Something more detailed and amazing.’
‘….’
I silently accepted the musket from the soldier.
‘All right, first load it….’
I had seen the other soldiers training. Awkwardly, I pictured their drills in my head and imitated them exactly.
I pulled back the safety to disengage it, then pushed the bolt forward to connect the broken circuit. When I gripped the trigger and shouldered the musket, I felt mana being sucked out of my body.
‘…Have you fired a gun before?’
‘No.’
I answered simply, aimed the muzzle at the empty air where no one stood, and pulled the trigger.
-Fwoosh.
The mana being sucked away grew hot. What was this? A spell formula?
Before I could even realize what it was, the mana blazed into flame of its own accord and raced toward the muzzle.
-Bang!!
A bullet of tiny flame flew into the sky.
‘Ow.’
The recoil knocked me backward, and I fell on my rear. Fortunately, I hadn’t let go of the gun even then.
Getting hurt myself wasn’t a problem, but the gun was different. It had to be terribly expensive, if nothing else.
‘A-are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’
I dusted off my backside and handed the gun back to the flustered soldier.
‘Thank you. It worked well.’
‘So… how was it?’
The soldier asked, gazing at me expectantly.
‘Did you feel anything?’
‘…I don’t know.’
I tilted my head and gently extended my hand. Then I tried to recreate the sensation from moments ago.
Surely, if I drew a circle… and drew this shape inside it.
‘There.’
With exactly the same sensation as before, mana was sucked from my body, and the circle that appeared before my hand slowly rotated.
The gathered mana soon turned into flame. A flame bullet exactly identical to the one that had left the muzzle flew up into the sky.
‘….’
The soldier stared blankly at the sight, then grabbed my shoulders and shook them excitedly.
‘You’re amazing! What, you figured it out after firing it only once?!’
But regardless of how the soldier praised me, I didn’t feel any joy or sense of accomplishment.
If anything… I felt disappointed.
Incomplete combustion. Would that be the perfect way to describe it?
The exhilaration of pulling the trigger.
The heavy recoil slamming into my shoulder.
The acrid smell of burning that tickled the bridge of my nose.
There was something in that long metal club that I couldn’t feel with simple magic.
After that, I never crossed paths with the soldier again. Drawing on that memory, I taught myself fire-attribute magic, passed the main family’s ‘test,’ and went on to formally learn firearm magic.
Then I entered the academy’s middle division and met Charlotte.
Even after I advanced to the upper division and was promoted to the practical class.
I had never felt again the sensation I experienced when I was ten.
=
The hand gripping the musket trembled violently. Each time my hand shook around the musket’s stock, layers of old dust rustled and brushed away.
Rust had formed in spots along the barrel, too. An antique I doubted could fire even a single shot properly. How long had this thing been left abandoned?
[Kheh. Khehehe….]
The manticore laughed as it looked down at the fallen Charlotte.
[You seem to have put quite a bit of thought into it, but it was all for naught. Human…!]
A deep-seated hatred of humans. Perhaps it was because it had just lost its cub.
But in the manticore’s eyes, I could see something beyond hatred.
Eyes burning with a longing closer to obsession than hatred.
-Drip, drip.
Drool spilling from the manticore’s maw fell to the ground in thick drops.
‘…As I thought, it has already acquired a taste for human flesh.’
Otherwise, it wouldn’t have deliberately settled in the mountains near a village full of humans.
An individual intelligent enough to learn human speech would have known that associating with humans in any way would inevitably lead to it being hunted down.
Whether by disguising it as coincidence or by raising the level of tribute it demanded, it was highly likely to have deliberately settled here in order to eat human flesh.
On the mountainside, with three human villages located nearby.
‘….’
Even the last shred of pity remaining in my heart vanished. The beast before me was vermin.
Losing its cub was nothing more than an excuse. A beast capable of thinking only of itself.
If it had truly been afraid of losing its cub, it should never have settled in a place like this to begin with.
[And among the four humans, only the weakest one remains.]
The manticore turned to me and muttered.
[I know. While the other three fought desperately, all you could do was fire pathetically weak flames from the rear. You seem to have struggled quite a bit, but they didn’t even tickle.]
The manticore grinned, its mouth splitting wide as though victory were already assured.
…It was right.
So what if it was vermin? What difference did it make? Once my pity disappeared, once my hesitation was gone… was someone like me really capable of accomplishing anything?
I tightened my grip on the musket. To think I could do anything with something like this. I was an utter fool.
If I’d had time to pick this thing up, I should have hidden Charlotte somewhere even a little safer. Until Miriam or the instructor arrived….
“…Rox…anna.”
A voice snapped me back to reality. Without even being able to turn my neck, I shifted only my gaze to the side.
Breathing in ragged gasps, Charlotte was silently looking in my direction.
Blood gushed from the wound in her thigh.
‘Wait until someone comes to help?’
I bit my lower lip.
What kind of magic knight was I? What was so great about being in the practical class, or in Class E?!
That… just made me an ordinary person.
‘There was only one reason Kariya lost.’
Instructor Haru’s voice echoed in my head.
‘It was because he underestimated Miss Roxanna’s full strength far too much.’
That hadn’t been advice meant for Kariya.
‘That… was meant for me.’
You’re a member of Class E, too, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you become someone who can contribute a full person’s worth, someone your teammates can recognize as an equal contributor?
‘…I know. I know that.’
Before I could think, my hands moved.
I drew the musket up and shouldered the stock.
‘As a member of Class E, I, too…!’
-Click.
I pulled back the safety with the tip of my thumb and disengaged it.
-Clack.
I pushed the bolt forward, connecting the broken circuit.
‘I want to be worth one person’s share, too!!’
A soft blue light flowed along the barrel. I felt mana being sucked into the dust-covered musket.
It was exactly the same sensation as seven years ago.
Why? It felt like I had come home.
I had thought my hometown was nothing but a nightmare filled with things I never wanted to have anything to do with again.
It seemed at least one corner where I could lay my heart to rest had remained.
[What is that? What are you planning to do with that pathetic popgun?]
The manticore muttered as though incredulous.
But the moment I held this gun again, I realized.
I had thought my past self had never had a teacher.
But I was wrong.
That meeting with the nameless soldier, the trigger I pulled that day, this old, rusted popgun….
This dust-covered musket had been my teacher all along.
I had never learned from anyone. I had received no advice or feedback.
Yet the moment I gripped the trigger, I knew instinctively. I knew what I had to do.
“──Firearm magic.”
The only magic I could use. The very foundation of firearm magic, Stock.
Unlike that girl from the main family… Karen, I could produce nine at most in a single go. Even that left me with enough reserves for only one fireball. Reaching double digits was still a distant hope, a feat that remained nothing more than an impossible dream.
But for now… one was enough.
With the standard fire-attribute spell formula engraved inside the musket, I forcibly overlaid the basic formula for firearm magic. The metal shrieked. It was obvious the musket would be completely ruined and unusable after one use, but I didn’t care.
As expected, one shot was enough.
I drew out a fireball, but did not create it. Every bit of mana that gathered, I forced into the musket’s barrel.
By force.
Like cramming my body into clothes that didn’t fit.
If I crammed myself into something too small, the fabric would stretch and stretch until it finally burst.
But not yet. Even if the cloth stretched and the threads snapped, even if the image drawn on the clothes stretched into a mangled mess and screamed.
All I needed was for it to hold for one instant—the single instant when I pulled the trigger.
The barrel couldn’t withstand it and glowed red-hot. My finger resting on the trigger felt as though it might burn away. I forcibly concentrated the mana in my body into my shoulder, strengthening my physical abilities and suppressing the recoil of the trembling musket.
[…What is that?]
The manticore, realizing something was wrong too late, panicked.
At the same time, I set its brow in my sights.
[S-stop! Wait──]
For an instant, it felt as though time had stopped. In that moment, the manticore’s screaming throat and the barrel glowing with heat both seemed to harden like blocks of wood.
Within that instant, I pulled the red-hot trigger.
────────────!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With a deafening roar, the musket’s barrel exploded.
The fireball compressed to its limit was released all at once and shot forward.
More an arrow than a bullet, more a stake than an arrow, the flaming stake shot forward with enough force to pierce everything in its path, stretching into a straight line and leaving a shooting-star-like afterimage.
A straight line of flames mingling red and yellow pierced the manticore’s forehead.
And then, at that moment.
-KABOOOOOM!!!
The flaming projectile exploded in the very center of the manticore’s skull.
-Ruuuum…!
It wasn’t particularly pleasant to watch the manticore’s corpse fall forward and crumple, leaving behind nothing but tattered hide resembling a human face, but….
“…I did it.”
That didn’t matter at all.
“I did it, too. I really did….”
Clutching the twisted, half-destroyed musket tightly in my hand, I sank to the ground and wept without end.
But could that have been a coincidence?
The trigger beneath my index finger alone remained intact, undistorted to the very end.