Translators/Editors :
Yuushin
Cyn
Aerosol31
rei_hunter
Chapter 96 - New member
After Luna ran away, the airship was ready to take off.
I exchanged some words with the High Elf King, then king of Enol.
"Please, I"m leaving my daughter in your hands. Count Gunsmith."
"Yes, you can count on me!"
In the end, I chose "Gunsmith" as my family name.
Lute Gunsmith.
The euphony wasn"t bad, and it also held the meaning of the magic tool (weapon) we handled. Pretty witty of me, I had to say.
The crest too, to emphasize the meaning of Gunsmith. I chose the design of a revolver with six bullets.
I had considered using the AK47 for the crest, but it looked like something a revolutionary guerilla would use, so in the end, I picked the revolver. I chose the revolver in the end, the very image of land of freedom, so that we could sell weapons like hotcakes and invade lands with oil in the name of freedom.
By the way, "smith" in English meant "craftsman".
Watchsmith meant watch craftsman.
Locksmith meant lock craftsman.
However, the name was misleading. Gunsmith means gun craftsman.
Their main job, though, was gun treatment and tuning, they didn"t create guns from scratch.
Gunsmiths customized guns (attaching gun parts, for example) according to the requests of the gun owner.
Fundamentally, you would join a gunsmith technical school or become apprentice to a senior gunsmith and study the techniques. You could also learn by yourself, but it seemed that there weren"t many people that did so.
When the king said "Please take care of my daughter", the ministers and guards probably thought that it was about the studying abroad thing.
Snow and everyone else also spoke with the people who had taken care of them.
We boarded the airship and departed.
The airship took off, and the people on the ground became smaller and smaller. We waved our hands until they couldn"t be seen anymore, loathing to part.
There was no sight of Luna among them.
Chris" attempt to smile normally so that she wouldn"t worry the people around her was heartbreaking.
That night.
After we finished dinner in the dining-c.u.m-living room, I called out to Chris.
Only Chris and I were in my private room.
We sat on the edge of the bed.
[What did you want to talk about?]
"It"s about Luna……"
Since it was currently only the two of us in here, the sad expression that she couldn"t show other people appeared. I couldn"t bear it anymore and embraced her around her shoulders.
"Even though you parted like that, I"m sure she will understand it by the next time you meet."
I stroked her soft hair to comfort her.
Chris hugged my chest.
In response, I hugged her tighter.
Right at that moment, there was a hurried knocking sound and Snow entered the room, wearing a panicked face.
"Lute-kun! Chris-chan, it"s terrible!"
"Something happened!?"
We froze at her panic.
"Anyway, you two, come!"
At Snow"s urging, we hurriedly followed her back.
When we arrived at the dining-c.u.m-living room, we found―
"Chris-chan! We meet again!"
"!?"
For some reason, Luna, who should have left after having a quarrel with Chris was in the dining-c.u.m-living room.
The moment Luna saw Chris, she embraced her with her usual att.i.tude.
"Wh-why is Luna here!?"
"It seems that she boarded the ship without anyone realizing it…..."
Shia explained while looking like she had lost all her bearings.
While Chris and I were talking in my room, Snow and Shia noticed something strange.
They heard sounds from and felt the presence of something in the storage room of the airship.
So, they went and checked it out.
It turned out to be Luna, who hadn"t eaten her evening meal. Her stomach was growling, so she was searching for food.
They caught her by the neck and brought her to the dining-c.u.m-living room.
Her older sister, Lyss, was hugging her head in a corner because of the totally unexpected situation.
Even though I was also confused and face palmed, I still had to ask her.
"A, anyways, I understand the situation. But how and when, did you infiltrate the airship? There was no chance for you to get on the ship after we left, right?"
Right, absolutely none.
One had to climb the bridge to get on the ship, but after she fought with Chris and ran away, there had always been someone by the bridge. So, there was no way she could climb the bridge without anyone knowing.
You could use body enhancing magic to infiltrate without using the bridge, but then we would be able to sense the use of magic and discover it immediately.
Luna smiled wickedly at my question as she explained.
She sneezed while hiding under the false bottom of the railment case and let herself be discovered on purpose in order to drop my guard, so that I wouldn"t think that she would hid again in the storage room.
The rejection of the picture book that Chris had tried to give her was also an act.
"Actually I didn"t want to do something that would make Chris-chan sad, but in order for me to leave that scene naturally, it couldn"t be helped. Sorry, Chris-chan!"
To deceive the enemy, one first had to deceive one"s ally, huh.
Then she pretended that she had returned to the castle, made a big detour, and went around the back of the airship.
During that time, we were talking with the king and other people, so it was impossible for us to notice.
However, she couldn"t have infiltrated with just that.
Without using the bridge, it was impossible to climb onto the airship with the physical strength of a little girl.
"That"s why I timed it and used body enhancing magic to infiltrate when the airship was taking off. Luton and everyone were waving to the people on the ground, and I hid in the bottom of the ship."
There was that method!?
The airship flew using the ma.s.sive quant.i.ty of magic stored in the magic stones. That was why, when the airship was in operation, you couldn"t sense magic being used in the surroundings.
Luna had aimed for that gap and successfully smuggled herself onto the airship.
She even purposefully let herself get caught once to drop our guards.
Luna separated from Chris, who she had been hugging, and circled around me with a smug grin on her face.
"Hey hey, how is it? lololol. The country saving hero-sama who has been outwitted, how does it feel? lololol."
It was the first time that I had ever wanted to punch a little girl (appearance only) this much.
I clenched my fists and trembled.
(Oh right, calm down, me. It"s childish of me to get mad here…...)
I regulated my breathing to calm down.
"For now let"s turn around and drop Luna back at Enol. It should be noisy over there now."
"Awawawa! I"m, I"m sorry! I got c.o.c.ky! But, don"t worry, since I"ve properly left a letter saying that I"m studying abroad together with oneechan. And Luna will be super helpful. So please let me stay, okay, Luton!"
"Cut it out! You are really only causing trouble for everyone around you! When we get back, I will have father scold you plenty!"
As expected, Lyss was super angry.
Luna shrank from that outburst and begged me harder.
"Wait! Luna will really be useful! Here, look!"
"What"s that? The empty cartridge that Lyss shot?"
What Luna had taken out of her pocket was an empty cartridge from the general purpose machinegun PKM that Lyss had used to drill holes into the dragoons.
The maids and soldiers should have picked them up, but it seemed that some had been left behind.
"And so, with the magic liquid metal I found in the storage room―"
Luna put both of her hands into the magic liquid metal inside of the mini barrel and pumped in magic.
When she did that, a lot of empty cartridges exactly like the one she had pulled out appeared in her palms.
[ !? ]
"What do you think? Amazing, right!"
We made guns and bullets in the house by the lake, and Luna, who came every day for Chris and snacks, knew that.
However, I hadn"t taught her even once.
Bewildered, Meiya and I took the empty cartridges in her palms to check for ourselves.
"......There"s no problem. These can be used immediately."
The empty cartridge shape, thickness, quality, hardness, length…… everything was perfect.
If you stuffed primer, powder, and a bullet core covered by a jacket into it, it would become a usable cartridge.
Even the genius magic tool developer Meiya, with my direct guidance, took many years to reach this level, and yet…..
"How did you learn the method to make it? Or could this be the power of your spirit"s blessing or something?"
"No, this girl isn"t 100 years old yet, so she doesn"t have a spirit"s blessing."
I recalled that the condition to obtain a spirit"s blessing was to be 100 years old.
Then, how had she made it?
My new wife, Lyss, told me.
"Since long ago, Luna was a child who wouldn"t forget anything she saw once."
Photographic memory!?
"No, even if that was the case, what about the strength? If you don"t pour in the determined amount of magic power, you can"t get this strength, you know."
Pour magic into magic liquid metal and it would become hard.
However, if you poured in too much magic, the metal would become brittle. It wasn"t as simple as just pouring in magic.
Luna answered my question cheerfully.
"It"s simple. Just pour in magic until it makes this sound."
While explaining, Luna flicked the empty cartridge with her finger, and a metallic sound rang out.
You even have perfect pitch!?
I was totally stunned by Luna"s high specs...
Meiya, who had gone through many hardships to learn the technique―
"E, even though I went through such hardships", said that as she fell into depression.
Her sister, Lyss, on the other hand―
"That"s right. Since long ago, both elder sister and Luna were excellent…..except me in the middle, who was called the "disaster princess", had no talent, was clumsy….... I wonder why there is there such a big difference, even though we were born from the same parents. There was even a time when I thought that maybe I was the only one who wasn"t their real child."
It became a trauma for her.
Still, this brat was surely talented personnel that anyone would want.
She also had a large amount of magic power, if I had her learned how to make smokeless gunpowder, we would be able to make a large amount of cartridges.
Since we had the general-purpose machinegun PKM, there was no need to worry about surplus of ammunition.
After seeing my admiring face, Luna tried to clinch the deal. She jokingly act flirtatious and sent a wink my way.
"Luton, if you let me stay, I don"t mind becoming your wife, you know? I"d be so cute together with Chris-chan~♪"
[That won"t do. It"s one thing if you really like oniichan, but selling your body just to stay is a no-no.]
As expected, even Chris had to rebuke Luna for that kind of remark. Luna meekly apologized, possibly because she had been reprimanded by her best friend.
"Sorry, Chris-chan. Luton too, I"m sorry for saying weird things."
"No, I don"t mind. Anyway, what do we do now?"
"Of course, we return her to the kingdom. Smuggling yourself in, deceiving Lute-san and everyone, that is unacceptable as a royal of the High Elf clan."
"Wait, oneechan!"
Luna raised her voice in objection, but Lyss" judgement was right.
However, that was when Luna played her trump card.
"If it"s deceit, then oneechan has also deceived Luna!"
"Eeeeh! Th-there shouldn"t be any instances when I deceived you!"
"There was! The day you went on the trip to defeat the Giant Scorpion――"
――Haah… After this incident is safely resolved and things have calmed down, I will ask father to let us go on a little trip. That"s why, please obediently stay at the castle this time, okay?
She promisedーーー!!!
There was a lot of trouble after the extermination, so we completely forgot about it.
Lyss, who looked like she had remembered her words, was dumbstruck. As expected of the clumsy princess. To be beautifully overturned by her little sister, with her own words.
"Luna, since then, has been looking forward to it…..."
"Er, erm… i, it"s not like I forgot, you know. It"s just, I was busy with many things, so it just kept being postponed, or should I say…..."
"It"s unacceptable for royalty to deceive people, was it?"
"Ugh….!"
It looked like the winner had been decided.
As for how to deal with Luna―for now, it was decided that she would also be hypothetically studying abroad.
However, it was only under the condition that, if she caused trouble, didn"t listen to us or something similar, she would be sent back without any arguments.
For the time being, we stopped by a nearby town and used a fast messenger to inform the kingdom of Luna"s safety.
After we were done finished taking care of business, the airship took off again.
Our destination was h.o.a.rd, in the Algio territory, and the orphanage where Eru-sensei was waiting.
The plan was to inform sensei of our marriage.
There were many problems along the way, but the airship just kept flying forward, to the place where I had been born and raised.
Next time
Chapter 6 - Juvenile period - Ordinary Days chapter―Beginning―
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With that, new members were added, and the family name and crest were decided.
Since chapter 5 has been battle×battle all the way, for chapter 6 I will focus on the characters, take it easy, and write something funny. Chapter 7 will be battles again, or that is the plan.
TL Note : Chapter 5, Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 are Volumes respectively. - rei
(￣^￣)ゞ