One Last System

"So?" Mia asked after taking a moment to inspect the weapon in her hands. "How do I use it?"

It was truly a peculiar sight. A girl dressed in robes straight out of some kind of wuxia novel, with her aura so strong that it was nearly visible, was holding an ordinary Kalashnikov in her hands with a passionate expression on her face.

'It feels as if I'm in a novel whose author lost the idea of what he is writing about,' I thought, shaking my head over how insane this situation felt.

Yet, as insane as it felt, it was the reality before my eyes.

"How about you try to figure it out yourself?" I suggested, hoping for Mia to take the concepts that she learned when using the handgun and apply them to this new gun.

After all, all the guns that we have used so far relied on exactly the same principle. The only difference between a handgun and a machine gun relied on the fact that the latter was actually designed to shoot continuously!

"Without actually using it, right?" Mia asked, pointing out something that I actually forgot to mention.

"Yeah, just a dry run for now," I confirmed Mia's guess. "We don't want you to break the gun, or even worse, do yourself harm while using it. So for now, let's use it on an empty magazine," I explained.

Yet, rather than just letting Mia enjoy her new toy, I approached her again and took the gun out of her hands.

"Huh?" Mia shrugged, not sure how to react.

Yet, all I did, was pull the small metal leaver by the side of the gun, one that allowed the operator to manually clear the chamber.

'I wonder how this part is called,' I thought once I ensured that there was no bullet in the chamber before returning the gun to Mia's hands.

"Sorry for that, just wanted to make sure it's safe," I explained before taking a step back, showcasing I wouldn't interfere any further.

"That's a hint I didn't ask for," Mia complained, only to roll her eyes and move them right back on the gun.

To my content, she didn't try to aim the gun immediately. Instead, she moved it around, trying to take a look into every nook and cranny of the mechanism.

She took only a few moments to figure out how to release the magazine, only to then cast a long look inside the opening made by removing it.

Thankfully for Mia, what the ak47 was known for, was its extreme simplicity that resulted in its praised durability. It was a gun so simple that there was hardly anything that could go wrong with its parts.

Yet, for Mia, it simply meant that figuring out how the entire thing worked would be far simpler, even if she wouldn't go as far as dismantling the entire thing into pieces.

"Okay," Mia finally announced after a good while. "I'm ready."

Hearing those words, my mouth instantly curled up into a big smile.

Never before in my life have I had a chance to test someone, not in terms of their loyalty or usefulness, but in terms of actually checking their knowledge.

"How does this weapon works, then?" I asked, crossing my eyes on my chest as I leaned my head to the side and looked at my beloved with anticipation.

'I wonder how much of its nature did she get right,' I thought, awaiting Mia's reply.

"First off, the magazine operates on a spring mechanism. Whenever a new  shot is loaded, a free space appears that allows the spring to push the rest of the bullets up, resetting the mechanism."

Mia revealed the first part of her answer, only to then gently put the magazine down and move her attention to the gun proper.

Yet, rather than continuing with her small exam, Mia once again took a moment to analyze the structure of the gun.

"I think this weapon uses a part of the power contained within the bullets themselves to reload its own mechanism," Mia finally gave her answer before raising the barrel of the gun and pointing it at the sign nearby. "Contrary to the handgun, its sights can be manipulated, most likely meaning it can be adjusted for varying ranges of the shooting," Mia stated, only to then swallow her saliva and look up at my face with anxiety behind her eyes.

"I think it implies the range of this weapon is greater than that of the handgun. What's more, both the size of the barrel and the free space in the magazine make me think that this gun uses a different sort of ammunition."

After revealing everything that she could figure out, Mia lowered the gun in her hands and looked at my face.

"How about the mechanism you saw me use?" I asked, pointing at the small, metal lever by the side of the gun.

"I..." Mia hesitated for a moment before clearing her throat, coughing, swallowing her saliva... Yet, her small actions could only buy her so much time. "I think it has something to do with the reloading mechanism. I can tell there is another spring in there because there is resistance when you pull it back," Mia answered, even though her tone was full of hesitation. "Judging by the fact it's located right by the opening in the gun, does it serve to eject the empty casing of the bullet?"

"You are correct in both instances," I said before slapping my things in an expression of joy. "While I don't know the exact details, I believe the spring that you mentioned does three things at once," I explained before raising three fingers of my right hand.

"First, when the gun fires, the recoil kicks the spring to the back, allowing the casing to drop out of the hole you mentioned," I explained, only to then bring one of my fingers down.

"Once the spring is pulled back, it hooks against the next bullet in the magazine," I added, pulling my second finger down.

"And then, as it returns, it slips the bullet from the magazine into the firing chamber of the gun," Mia muttered, finishing my explanation before I could say it out myself.

"That's right," I nodded my head, thanking my old self for the time I studied how the guns worked.

Back then, it was just a necessary part of research for a side-writing job I took.

'Who would've thought it would come to be useful at the moment like that?' I thought to myself, contemplating the weird ways in which fate operated.

I then giggled, more to myself than to anyone else. Yet, rather than being happy, I was actually terrified.

'It's easy to laugh at how fate operates... if not for how suspicious it is,' I thought, thinking grimly about everything that we saw within the underground city.

Every second that I spent here, every last thing that I discovered here, it all led me to a single conclusion.

Nothing happened accidentally. And rather than just some unnamed fate, there was actually a force that was somewhat capable of shaping the events. And it continued to do so not only on earth but also in this world I was in right now.

'Or maybe it can shape the events not across the space... but across time?' I thought, analyzing the drastic possibility.

Sure, I had no attachments to my old world outside of the grief of never seeing my little sister grow up to become a proper adult. Yet, the more time I spent in this underground, the more likely I was to believe that...

I never moved to another world. Rather than that, it was the world around me that changed to the degree that made it unrecognizable for someone from the past.

'Thinking about it, how could geological formation that the skyladder sect was located at form?' I thought, recalling the weird structure.

In the past, I simply took it for a quirk of this world, something that formed due to the rules of physic differing from what I was used to on earth.

But as I was now, I could tell that the entirety of physics worked all the same as it did on earth. The only difference lay in the appearance of magic.

'A technology advanced enough would be no different from a magic from someone that doesn't understand its principles,' I recalled one of the few quotes that I heard sometime in my past.

Or maybe I read it in some sort of a smartbook?

And now that I looked at all the strange wonders I saw in this world, it felt as if some sort of blinds were taken off my eyes.

"Arty?" Mia's shout suddenly reached my mind, shaking off the terror of the realization from my mind. "What happened?!" the girl asked in a panic, shaking my shoulders in an attempt to wake me up.

"Ah, sorry," I muttered, shaking my head and taking a look at the pile.

Now that I realized this damned possibility, I couldn't help but realize what was wrong with those few futuristic guns that I had taken notice of before.

There was no ammo whatsoever for them!

'Was I lowkey aware of it already?' I thought when I realized that all of the lessons and testing I conducted with Mia actually led to the result I could only be aware of now.

But now was not yet time for me to reveal it. It would come soon, very soon, but not yet.

"I'm not ready yet to speak of it," I stated, refusing to look at Mia's face. I then turned around and kneeled before the pile of the stuff that we brought outside. Soon, the magazine to Mia's Kalashnikov was full of ammo as I passed it to her hand.

"Arty, didn't you claim you will tell me everything?" Mia asked, recalling the words that I indeed let out of my mouth in the past.

But still, I wasn't ready yet to reveal what I had just figured out. Not because I didn't trust Mia with this sort of knowledge.

It was only because I wasn't able to even understand the scope of the things that this single realization changed.

"I think you will understand it all on your own when we get to test another gun," I stated before pointing my hand at the gun in Mia's hands. "But for now, how about you test it out?"

For a moment, Mia hesitated. But upon seeing the determination mixing with confusion in my eyes, she ended up accepting my request and the magazine from my hands.

Before long, Mia started to send a short series after a short series towards the target of her choosing, rarely missing a single shot.

"Good," I commented, turning my attention towards the pile of the weapons before pulling out the most futuristic one I could spot. "How about you try this one now?" I asked.

"Huh?" Mia shrugged after taking a quick glance at the weapon from all its sides. "Where is its magazine?" she asked, raising her eyes at me.

"Mia, listen and listen well," I then muttered, only to fall down on my butt and hide my face in my hands. "How about you try infusing your energy into it?" I suggested, shaking my head and hands at the same time.

"Oh..." Mia muttered, my words striking her like a hammer.

Because there could be only one way for this place to have both the guns I was familiar with and guns that could be infused with power local to this world, one that Mia was already perfectly aware that was absent in the world I grew up in.

"Does that means..." she attempted to ask, only for me to raise one of my hands to stop her.

"I don't know," I stated without any shame. Then, I raised my eyes to the girl. "If this works, this will be the proof that my hunch was correct," I explained before shaking my head again. "Just in case, cover yourself with shields before using it," I advised.

This was a gun that we didn't know the modus operandi off. Infusing magical energy into it could very well make it shoot, but it could also make it explode on the spot.

Or maybe nothing would happen at all?

We couldn't know that. But it was still better to be safe than sorry.

"Okay," Mia muttered, not commenting on how I hid my face in my hands again, clearly not ready to look at the results of this small yet insanely important test.

For a moment, I simply sat down with darkness before my eyes and not a sound reaching my ears.

And then, three consecutive sounds penetrated my brain like some sort of brutal drill designed for inhumane torture.

Bam, bam, bam!

Three shots.

On their own, those shots simply proved that the gun in Mia's hands operated by infusing it with mana rather than by consuming bullets.

Yet, the concept that they proved on the side made my mind spin into a vacuum.

"Arty, I'm so sorry."

Mia's words and then her gentle touch were the last two things I heard and felt before losing my consciousness.

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