CH 391

Haa… last night felt good… no, rather, I had a terrible experience. I’m supposed to have a lot of physical strength, but I’m kind of exhausted, or rather, all the strength has left my body… It’s a different cause than simply being physically tired and worn-out…

“Miss Flora, it’s morning. Please wake up.”

“…………Why are you all glowing?” I asked.

Even though I’m still exhausted, everyone seems like they’re sparkling. Moreover, the tension is strangely high and energetic.

“Isn’t that good? Come on, Miss Flora, please prepare quickly.”

“Yes, yes…”

There’s no point in talking too much. Deciding to wake up, I crawl out of the futon. When we got out of the tent after changing clothes with Katharina’s help…

“Good morning……”

“Good morning, Janzicka, Musashi… what’s wrong with everyone?” I asked.

When I headed out, everyone’s face is red and they’re hunched forward and averting their gazes. The behavior is clearly suspicious. Moreover, something is wrong with their eyes.

“No…, that’s…” Janzicka stammered.

“You’re not speaking clearly,” I said. “If you’re a man, why don’t you say it like a man?”

What is this picnic… camping trip? Regardless, I feel my view of Janzicka is going down. He doesn’t speak clearly and is unreliable…

“Then, let me tell you in his stead,” Musashi said confidently, like a man. “Last night’s actions by you, Master Flora, and your wives were so intense that we could hear your voices and the noises all the way here, so everyone couldn’t sleep. They can’t look straight at you because they might imagine it.”

Is this the difference between Musashi and Janzicka? Because of the Yamato upbringing for young boys, Musashi is still manly.

“Oh… so that’s what… Huh?”

………… Huh? What was that?

You could hear the (censored) and the (censored) with the wives last night, so you can’t look straight at us because you’ll imagine it?

“Ah…… AAAAAaaaaahh~~~~…! IYAAAAAaaaaaahhh…!”

I flee into the forest, running with my face covered, leaving behind a scream that didn’t seem to be coming from my mouth.

AAAAaaaahhh~~~! So embarrassing! They say they can’t look at me properly, but I can’t really talk to the people around me either. It’s absurdly embarrassing. Still, I can’t run around the forest forever, so I reluctantly come back and have breakfast with everyone.

“Grilled meat in the morning is quite heavy and overwhelming,” I said.

“It’s very delicious,” Claudia said.

As expected of a knight with a capital, Claudia was eating without hesitation. For breakfast, the main course is grilled water dragon meat leftover from yesterday. If you think about it normally, you can’t help but think grilled meat is too much first thing in the morning.

In fact, Mikoto and Alexandra who are weak in the morning and seem to have low blood pressure, are not eating well. Louisa and Katharina are eating in silence. Well, I said it was heavy too, but maybe because I was young, I didn’t have to worry about grilled meat in the morning. The escorts also seem fine.

“Then let’s go hunting today,” I said.

“Are we taking yesterday’s long guns?” Claudia asked as she continued to happily eat.

She seemed to like the Dreyse gun quite a bit. It must be a place where she can’t help but want to shoot it again as soon as possible.

“Yes,” I said. “I want to verify how many monsters I can actually fight with a gun and whether we can hunt with it, so I would like you to hunt with a gun without using other weapons as much as possible.”

Of course, safety is my top priority, so if there is danger, I will use swords and magic. It’s just a matter of attacking with a gun instead of throwing spells into the hunt first.

Well… the fact that swords and magic are safer and more reliable than using guns is in itself surreal, or rather, it almost makes me laugh… On Earth, it’s definitely stronger to be armed with a rifle. Even so, it feels strange when you say swords are preferred over rifles.

“Fufufufu! Apparently it’s time for my Muramasa to breathe his fire!” Mikoto said.

I don’t know what it is, but Mikoto is saying that with a dangerous expression. And what is with “My Muramasa”? I know you’re talking about yesterday’s pistol, but I didn’t give it to Mikoto specifically, and it’s not even called Muramasa…

“No, my Sebastian will take the lead today!” Alexandra cried.

Hey… Alexandra… A lot of things are the same as Mikoto, but what is with “My Sebastian”? The name is too funny… And that short gun is the same as what Mikoto is talking about, isn’t it? It’s the same model, right?

“Um…, um…, then my…”

“Louisa, you don’t have to force yourself to compete with those two…”

Since it doesn’t look like it’s going to end at this rate, I decided to forcibly squeeze it shut, and after finishing breakfast, I immediately started preparing to go hunting.

We were walking through the woods, leaving a few people at the base camp. Now, we look for prey to hunt.

“Ah! They’re over there.”

“Eh…? That’s…”

Seeing the prey, Louisa began to tremble. It seems that she is quite traumatized. Certainly, that offensive power could still be fatal if you get hit poorly. Even if I was confident that I could win 10 times in 10 fights, I wouldn’t want to fight take this beast head-on in a hand-to-hand combat if possible. It would be nice if it could be blown away with magic or a long-range attack…

“It’s a mad horned bear.”

Yes. What I found was the mad horned bear who caused me a serious injury when I was a child and still remains as a trauma to Louisa. If you don’t make a big fuss and startle them, they’re basically docile, but once they’ve decided on a target, they’ll chase you until you die. And bears are very tough already.

Even on Earth, grizzly bears and grizzly bears do not die easily even if they are shot with a small gun. You might be able to kill them with a small gun if you hit their vital points well, but if you don’t have a rifle or a magnum, you can’t deal with them. Even more so, in this world of swords and magic, there is a high possibility that he is even stronger than both those calibers.

“Aim for a headshot,” I said.

“’Headshot?’” Claudia asks, tilting her head. Well, it’s a word they’ve never heard before.

“In order to kill it with a single blow, the head is the most important part,” I said.

In addition to requiring advanced sniper skills, it is not always possible to shoot through the head of a mad horned bear with this hand-held Dreyse gun. It’s possible that even if it hits, it’ll be repelled by the skull and won’t cause a fatal injury.

Wounded beasts are a nuisance all around the world, regardless of whether the world has changed. It would be the worst if I had to let him escape with injuries. If you put your hand out to strike it, you must absolutely make sure to kill it.

“Claudia, could you hand it over to me and Louisa this time?”

“… Oh, that’s fine. I’ll leave it to you.”

Saying that, Claudia handed me the Dreyse gun she was carrying. I take it and hand it to Louisa.

“Huh? Um…?”

“Louisa, if you don’t mind, let’s kill it together with me. Overcome the trauma of that time.”

Louisa alone cannot suppress the recoil of the Dreyse gun. The two of us… let’s overcome the bitter memories of that time. I put a message in my eyes and stare at Louisa. Of course, if Louisa says she can’t do that, I’ll think of another way…

“…Yeah. Let’s do it!”

Recently, Louisa, who had grown up and became a graceful woman, nodded with the face she had back then, when she used to be a big sister who was managing the younger ones.

“Then let’s prepare, shall we? You and I will aim this rifle at the mad horned bear. Even if it hits, we don’t know how badly it will hurt. Everyone else, please prepare with swords and magic.”

Alexandra, who can’t use swords or magic, is given a short gun, and everyone else prepared with their methods such as swords and magic. It’s unclear how much damage this Dreyse gun can do to a mad horned bear. It would be troublesome if I only inflicted injuries and it reacted violently. I want it to kill instantly if possible. I want to decide it in one strike.

“Are you sure, Louisa…? Aim well…”

“Yeah……”

Louisa holds a gun and I support the gun and Louisa from behind. It’s my job to support the gun so that it doesn’t fly off due to recoil or deviate from its aim. Louisa down the sight and aims at the mad horned bear’s head.

I’m just watching from behind, so I can’t see the sight clearly, but I feel like it’s aligned. All that’s left is to call out at Louisa’s timing and shoot.

“Suu~~~~, haa~~~~~, let’s go, Floto.”

“Right. Ready on your mark.”

When I said that, Louisa’s breathing stopped and she tensed up.

Shoot…….

The moment I thought so…

BAANG!

A roar echoes through the forest. And on the other side, a huge mad horned bear fell down with blood spurting out of its head before it had time to rampage. It seems that the brain stem was completely destroyed. I don’t know where the mad horned bear’s brain stem is. It must have been a coincidence. But now, without a doubt, Louisa killed the mad horned bear with a single blow.

“You did it, Louisa!”

“Did I…? Really… me…?”

As this all feels unreal to her, I take Louisa’s hand and approach the mad horned bear that we defeated. If this was pretending to be dead, all I have to do is protect Louisa and finish it off.

“Completely dead. That was a nice headshot.”

“I did it… I did it! I did it, Floto! I defeated that mad horned bear!” Louisa cried, hugging me while jumping up and down.

It seems that the realization has finally wrapped around her head.

Well, to be blunt outright, with Louisa’s magic, you can defeat a mad horned bear without leaving a trace without using a gun. But maybe because of her trauma, Louisa fears the mad horned bear more than necessary. I hope this dispels that trauma a little.

“Next! It’s my turn next!”

“Yes. Shall we prepare for the next step?”

I can’t leave the mad horned bear that I defeated here like this. Think about the next strategy while leaving the processing to the attendants. But the next prey was not found till it was midday. After all, the gunshot is too loud, and it seems that other prey will run away if you shoot it once. I wandered around the forest until evening that day looking for prey, but I couldn’t hunt as much as I thought.

The hunted prey is processed and transported by the escorts, and when they reunite with base camp, they clean up the tents and withdraw. I’m not free enough to stay in the forest for days like that. We left the forest before it got dark and returned to a place where there were barely any people.

“By the way, what will you do with the prey you brought home?”

I don’t know what I’m going to do with the prey we brought back after processing it. We just hunted and tested the guns, and didn’t ask what they were going to do with the game they hunted.

“Some of the meat is edible. Also, the fur is a product, so we plan to sell it at Caanza Trading Firm.”

“Is that so?”

I nodded at Helmut’s words. That my former world’s Russia moved into Siberia is because of fur. I would go all the way to such a cold place looking for fur, so I guess fur is precious in various ways. I also learned that monster meat is delicious. Because the water dragon was pretty tasty.

The performance of the gun was more than I expected, and thanks to the recovery of the carcasses, I should have made some money. This picnic, camping trip, was for fun but it’s costing as it is. Bullets aren’t free either… It would be nice if I could collect even a little back for that kind of thing.

“Lady Flora! The documents are piling up!”

“Ah…, yes… I see…”

I know without Kanbee telling me. Far from my office desk, there are piles of documents all over the room, even on the guest table. I didn’t expect so much work to pile up in just two days.

The work of the Caan Knight’s Nation become much easier. However, reports and requests from the Caan Barony, work in the Caan Knighthood, and now even work in the Kingdom of the Blish Isles have been brought in one after another. If I don’t do something about my work in earnest soon, it looks like it’s going to be really difficult…