Bluesteel Blasphemer Volume 3

by Ichirou Sakaki

  If she was going to fight, she should make sure she had every advantage she could gain. And that meant...

  “I understand. Looks like I’ll be imposing on you a little longer.”

  Yukinari looked a touch befuddled. He had given Veronika his opinion, as Berta had asked, but he hadn’t expected her to acquiesce so easily. In reality, if the gun didn’t exist, Veronika would probably have made for Aldreil regardless of how correct Yukinari’s logic was.

  “But while I’m here,” Veronika said, “as long as I’m already bothering you, I have a request.”

  “A request?”

  “Please, lend me that ‘gun’ of yours. Along with the ‘sni-per ri-fle’ you were discussing earlier, if possible.”

  If there was a stronger gun with a longer range available, then by all means, she wanted one.

  Veronika wasn’t offering to buy the guns. She was really asking that they simply give them to her. She understood it was a tremendous leap and was fully prepared to be turned down. But...

  “Okay,” Yukinari nodded, catching her by surprise.

  ●

  Angela and the other missionaries were using the mansion of Aldreil’s mayor for their administrative office. The previous occupants of the house, including the mayor, had been chased off to a separate residence so that the Order could base itself out of the biggest building in town.

  In order to protect the squadron’s classified information, none of the townspeople were allowed inside, not even the mayor. That was the reason they gave publicly, anyway, but in fact Angela had recommended this measure to the captain to prevent the ugly sight of would-be toadies getting close.

  The building was made chiefly of stone, a sturdy structure worthy of the leader of a major trade town. The image suited the missionary knights well; the sight of them going in and out gave it the forbidding air of a castle.

  The mayor’s study became the captain’s office. The reception room became the assembly room where the captains and vice captains of each unit met. The whole character of the house changed based solely on its occupants.

  Angela was satisfied that she’d made a good recommendation.

  “Reporting, ma’am!”

  One of the missionaries approached the office where Angela was waiting. At the moment, Captain Bateson was recuperating in the mayor’s former bedroom, so as vice captain, Angela had responsibility for the Ninth Missionary Brigade. She was honored to take on this position, but the need to constantly be giving instructions meant she was forever waiting in this office.

  She wanted to go out on patrol again, but the other knights stopped her, and she ended up sitting here. Partly this was just because she had so many visitors, but also, many were on edge after Bateson’s stabbing.

  “About the mercenaries,” the knight was saying. “One of them appears to have escaped us, but only one.”

  “Mercenaries? Ah... yes..” She frowned for a moment before it came back to her.

  Shortly after Angela and the Ninth Missionary Brigade had arrived in Aldreil, they’d apprehended a merchant and his hired bodyguards doing business without either permission from the kingdom or the approval of the Harris Church. They were currently locked up in the basement of this very manor, previously a storage area. The knights had been performing an interrogation.

  “One escaped? In those circumstances?” Angela muttered, frowning again. “I wonder if it was good fortune, or cowardice.”

  She thought for a moment that perhaps this mercenary had simply abandoned the others and fled. But the information had surfaced a little too slow to concern a faithless companion. If this was only now coming to light, it meant the others had been enduring the interrogation in an attempt to cover for the one who ran.

  “He can’t be uninjured,” the knight said.

  “All the more impressive he escaped, then,” Angela said. “Practically praiseworthy. But I assume he became dinner for some animal long before he reached any human settlement.”

  “A distinct possibility, ma’am,” the knight replied, standing perfectly still.

  “I wonder, though. Have you ever known a mercenary—disgusting creatures—to endure an interrogation simply to cover for one of their own? Their employer I could understand, but mercenaries regard each other as expendable. Yet here, a whole group of them has conspired to let one of their number escape.”

  In other words, perhaps they only looked like mercenaries.

  If this person was merely the remnant of a defeated group of hired thugs, there was no need to chase him down. But if not...

  “Interesting. Let’s pursue him. I think five or six knights should be more than enough to find one person. The demigods and xenobeasts around here have been taken care of. It would be too much to mobilize the entire unit. You choose the men. Prepare weapons and horses. I’ll lead the effort personally.”

  “Personally, Vice Captain?”

  “Yes. Of course, he may already be dead, but I should be there to make sure. The Ninth Brigade can hardly set off to its next destination with the captain still recovering. I won’t go so far as to call this a way of killing time, but let’s say it will help me take my mind off my anxiety about the future.”

  The Ninth Missionary Brigade had been intending to resupply in Aldreil, then continue farther into the frontier as a Civilizing Expedition. But with the captain unexpectedly incapacitated, their hands were tied. Ideally, again, Angela would remain in this office in place of their leader. But, also again, she was getting sick of it.

  “Now, as to the question of where he might have gone...”

  She had a rough mental map of the area. Places that were relatively close—within three or four days’ journey—included Maysford, Friedland, and maybe Enlendila.

  “Come to think of it, wasn’t the Sixth Brigade dispatched to Friedland?” she muttered. She pictured someone else who had entered the Order the same time she had: Arlen Lansdowne.

  ●

  Truth be told, Yukinari didn’t know much about very many kinds of guns. In his previous world, he had owned models of the Winchester M92 and the Sturm Ruger Super Blackhawk, the weapons that had formed the basis for Durandall and Red Chili, respectively. He had disassembled and reassembled them so many times that he knew their every piece by heart.

  These two guns—a lever-action carbine and a single-action revolver—were also of fairly simple construction, with relatively few parts. The basic form of both had been established in the nineteenth century, so they didn’t require the micron-precise accuracy of manufacturing demanded by modern weapons. That was why Yukinari had been able to produce working replicas after just a few tries and drawing on his own memory.

  But he had never owned a model sniper rifle.

  He had the broad knowledge, but he didn’t know exactly what went into the construction of such a gun. He had looked at a blueprint in a magazine once, but that was nowhere near enough to allow him to create an entire weapon from scratch.

  That meant the only real option was to adapt the guns he did know for sniper work.

  Lever-action guns and revolvers are not actually well suited to sniping. Lever-action carbines are built to accept cylindrical magazines, with the rounds loaded horizontally. That makes it impossible to load the sharp-tipped bullets used by a precision rifle—if you were so careless as to try, they might explode in the chamber. As for revolvers, the magazine passes through the chamber, so there are absolute limits to how accurate it can be and still revolve.

  And these were guns Yukinari had once owned models of. When it came to everything else...

  “Well, hope it works,” he muttered, standing on top of the observation platform. In his hand was a prototype sniper rifle he’d produced. It was completely different, though, from what most people in Yukinari’s previous world would have imagined when they heard the words “sniper rifle.” It had the long barrel, of course, but the mechanical form and function were different.

  First and foremost, it was two barrels lined
up side by side.

  “I guess a derringer and a sniper rifle are pretty much polar opposites.”

  In terms of form the gun was, essentially, divided into two parts: upper and lower. One bullet was loaded into each part, and using a ratchet, the upper and lower bullets could be fired in succession, allowing two shots between reloads. After that, the empty cartridges would have to be ejected and new ones loaded in.

  He based this design on the Remington Double Derringer, a small pistol commonly hidden in boots or pockets. That model gun, he had owned. It was an extremely simple design, and therefore he could have confidence in it; because the barrel and the chamber were a single piece, it was comparatively easy to build with a high degree of precision.

  The reason he hadn’t made it a single-shot weapon was in the hopes that if the sniper missed their first shot, being able to fire another immediately might allow them to hit what they were aiming for. Some shotguns were also divided into top and bottom this way, but as far as Yukinari knew, no similar sniper rifle existed. The existence of the standard bolt-action configuration probably rendered it unnecessary.

  He had dubbed the gun Derrringer.

  The man who had invented the derringer pistol was, in fact, named Deringer, with one r. Many who produced similar weapons called them derringers, adding an r to avoid trademark problems. Since Yukinari had borrowed that design for this weapon, he decided to add yet another r.

  Now he stood in silence. Dasa was behind him, as was Veronika, who had shown much interest in the rifle. Berta was there, too. Ulrike had offered to come along at first, but he’d had a separate task for her.

  The observation platform, as we’ve established, was originally for the purpose of observing the ritual to the erdgod. Nobody would live around here, and it had only even been used once every few years. It was topped by a tiny hut, just barely enough to keep out the elements, giving the platform the appearance of a poor man’s guard tower.

  “Okay, here we go.” Yukinari braced Derrringer against the mound of earth he had piled up. This was just a prototype, so he hadn’t made a bipod. He had to lean the gun against something like this to keep it steady enough to shoot with.

  Yukinari went to one knee and put his eye to the scope. Everything was ready. The area around the sanctuary looked good. He could see Ulrike, just where they’d discussed. Near the sanctuary was an open area much like a public square. Ulrike was peeking out from a grove of trees just next to it.

  A strange thing stood in the square, roughly the shape of a giant person. It was a log, covered in branches until it suggested the correct shape. Ulrike’s part had been to create and now to maintain this target, as well as to confirm when it was hit. This was why she wasn’t up on the observation platform with the others.

  “Dasa, give the signal.”

  “...Mn.” She fired Red Chili once into the air.

  This was the signal to begin. The sound of Red Chili warned Ulrike to keep to the trees. Two shots in a row meant they were taking a short break.

  Silently, Yukinari eyeballed the cross scratched onto the inside of the scope and lined it up with the doll. He held his breath—and took the first shot.

  Boom.

  The noise echoed around the area, an order of magnitude louder than Red Chili. Durandall and Red Chili used .44 Magnum bullets, powerful ammunition for a handgun, but they simply didn’t have as much powder as the rounds used in a rifle.

  But...

  “Miss,” Yukinari said quietly. It was impossible even for Yukinari to follow a bullet going faster than the speed of sound with his naked eye, but he saw a cloud of dust rise up to the right of the target.

  “Hrm,” he grunted. He hadn’t just missed a specific small area, like the head or the heart; he hadn’t managed to land a hit anywhere on the human figure.

  The second shot—missed again.

  For the sake of interest, he aimed in the same place he had before, but once again the bullet landed to the right. It was in the same spot as the previous shot, which meant the gun itself was delivering the rounds accurately.

  There was the effect of wind and humidity to consider. But if he couldn’t hit anything, the weapon was useless. He would have to fire dozens of rounds, improve his aim, gain experience understanding the wind and whatever other factors came into play.

  “You want to try, Dasa?” He looked back at his partner, who had been watching patiently. She wasn’t able to join him on the front lines of battle, which made the rifle all the more important to her. “I’m warning you, though, it’s not easy.”

  “Just watch... me.” She had the hint of a knowing smile on her face. Although to everyone but Yukinari, she probably looked as expressionless as ever.

  The platform Yukinari had constructed was a little high for Dasa, so she sat on a nearby chair to work the gun. She tried several different positions before she found something she liked. Satisfied, she looked through the scope, picked her aim, and pulled the trigger.

  Her first shot.

  Yukinari pulled out a backup scope and looked through it to see where the bullet went. The human figure was still intact. Apparently, she had missed.

  From close range, Dasa could hit Veronika’s sword with a quick draw, but even she found long-distance sniping to be another matter. It only made sense.

  She aimed. Her second shot. It, too, missed.

  “...Hrm.”

  Dasa pulled the lever to release the stopper, angling the gun downward as she opened the stock, removing the spent rounds and inserting new ones. She closed the stock and prepared to fire Derrringer once more.

  “Mn......”

  She furrowed her brow just behind her glasses. The gun was, perhaps, just a little bit difficult for her to handle. This was precisely the reason such vertically split-stock sniper rifles didn’t exist in Yukinari’s previous world. In order to open the stock, which opened downward, empty the chamber and insert a new round, it was necessary to remove one’s eye from the scope. This also necessarily involved a major movement of the gun itself, meaning one’s aim would be greatly thrown off. Hence, each time one had to get back on the scope and aim afresh in order to shoot again.

  A bipod could be attached in order to stabilize it, as with Red Chili, but then it would be more difficult to load and unload the chamber. The reason vertical twin-barrel arrangements like this, as well as lever-action devices like Durandall, were not used for sniper rifles was because operating them required an open space underneath the gun, making them unsuited for mounting on bipods.

  When Dasa opened the stock of the gun to load and reload, she tried her best to prevent the barrel from moving too much—but being used to Red Chili, she no doubt found it annoying to have to do this. Her handgun was of a completely different construction, but she had been by Yukinari’s side all the while he was making Derrringer, so she already had a good idea of how it worked. Even so...

  She said nothing as her third shot missed.

  “Hmm. I guess it is pretty tough.” Yukinari thought it was enough to get a rough feel for the weapon today. He took a step toward Dasa, intending to ask what she thought of it, but she fired again. And missed.

  Eject.

  Load.

  Fire—Miss.

  Fire another round immediately—Miss.

  Eject.

  Load.

  Fire—Miss.

  Fire another round immediately—Miss.

  “E-Erm, Dasa...?”

  She was like a broken machine, repeating the same actions over and over. And she was completely silent. She was always taciturn, but now the heat almost seemed to be rising off of her. It was a little scary.

  “It’s more... dif...ficult than I thought.”

  Finally, when she had fired nearly thirty rounds, she stepped away from the weapon. Her expression was perhaps thirty percent more disappointed than usual. Something, again, perceptible only to Yukinari.

  She seemed to be angry. To fire so many shots and not have a single one hit mus
t have been frustrating. She was always so serious; when she couldn’t do what she set out to do, it unsettled her. And sniper work was something she had learned to do after gaining her sight. It was the proof that she could see, and a special skill of hers. It was, in her own way, important to her to be an accomplished distance shooter.

  “Well, it’s a prototype,” Yukinari said, hoping to placate her. He recalled something he’d read in a book in his previous world: a good sniper never missed his first shot.

  But, the book continued, with humans there was no such thing as never. So if you missed that first shot, you had to try to land the second one before your target hid. If the target was holed up somewhere with a hostage, a botched first shot might even cause the target to kill the hostage, so it was crucial to be able to get in that second shot immediately.

  Regardless, people who were shaken when they missed their shot or let it put them in a bad mood were unsuited for sniper work. Of course, if he pointed this out, it would only make Dasa even angrier, so he kept his mouth shut.

  “May I try it?” Veronika, who had been standing quietly by until then, spoke up. Since she had seemed interested in the weapon, she had probably just been waiting until Yukinari and Dasa finished trying it out.

  “Sure, I don’t mind,” Yukinari said, and handed her Derrringer.

  “How do I...?”

  She had never fired a gun before. He gave her a quick rundown. Veronika had, however, been watching the two of them do their trial runs, so she only needed a few details before she grasped how it worked. First she loaded it, cocked the hammer, then fired and ejected the round—or rather, pretended to, doing it all without a bullet, but there were no problems.

  She was a quick study. But...

  “...Hrm.”