kscans

Chapter 147 - Yuri, Take Up Your Gun 4. Test Firing

In the Japan of his previous life, the hunting season was winter. He did not know if the same was true in this world or this country, but it was certain that hunting opportunities, whether he wanted them or not, would arrive in winter. ...In the form of monsters attacking Yuri's village in search of food to last the winter.

*

'Yuri, a monster's coming.'

'A big bear. It's hungry.'

'It's aiming for the village.'

"Again... Thanks."

Thinking that food would be scarce during the winter, he had started setting out a bird feeder with assorted grains, fruits, and fats from time to time. Since then, his relationship with the small birds had been exceedingly good. He also scattered some of the grains on the ground so that small animals like mice could eat them, so his relationship with them had improved as well, and they no longer needlessly ravaged his fields. If they thought he was cultivating food for them to get through the winter, there was no need to panic. And so, the small birds and mice-like creatures would report to Yuri if anything happened. He could get information earlier than with his Perception skill, so Yuri valued it as an early warning network. This was especially true recently, as the number of monsters attacking the village in search of winter food had been increasing.

Yuri, who had been checking on his wheat outside, stood up with a somewhat melancholic air and took the prototype automatic rifle-esque weapon from his Storage. Fortunately or unfortunately, the increase in monsters targeting the village during winter meant he had no shortage of targets for test firing. Thanks to this, the rifle's improvements were proceeding smoothly.

"If I didn't get at least this much of a bonus out of it, I wouldn't be able to stand it..."

Yuri stepped outside the stone wall surrounding the village, and while grumbling, he checked the rifle and confirmed that it was ready to fire.

'It's here!'

At the birds' voices, he looked up and saw a bear-type monster about five hundred meters away. The trees in the forest had shed their leaves, so visibility was good, and he could see it clearly despite it being in the woods. There was no atmosphere of peaceful negotiation. It had already spotted Yuri and was in high spirits to attack, letting out a roar that did not reach Yuri's ears. The bear-type monster, a species called a Rigbear, it seemed, began to charge at Yuri. Its head burst, and the monster's life came to an end.

"About four hundred and fifty meters, I guess. The range is honestly a bit lacking, but it's probably difficult to ask for better visibility in a forest, and with explosive rounds, the power seems decent enough. I'll make the one that uses 6mm rounds into an assault rifle type."

Yuri had started developing the rifle with a light heart, but he quickly ran into the problem of caliber and range.

If he wanted long range, a bullet with high straight-line stability was essential. This meant using a large, heavy bullet, but that would inevitably make it difficult to handle. Conversely, if he tried to improve handling, he would need to lighten the gun's body, which would result in a trend toward equipping many small-caliber bullets. Roughly speaking, the former was the lineage of sniper rifles, battle rifles, and anti-materiel rifles, while the latter was the lineage of assault rifles. Adding to this the unusual requirement that it could be operated by a single child (Yuri) and the consideration for a high rate of fire and rapid-fire capability, he ultimately settled on developing an automatic rifle, a so-called battle rifle or assault rifle. With a potential fight against dragons in mind, something like an anti-materiel rifle for anti-tank use would be necessary, but for now, he judged that he should put a more user-friendly weapon into practical use and gain operational experience. ...He decided to set aside the fact that "operational experience" meant actual combat with a rifle.

After much trial and error with prototypes and test firing, two candidates remained, an assault rifle type that used 6mm bullets, and a battle rifle type that used 10mm bullets. The calibers of rifles from his past life on Earth were complicated, like 5.56mm or 12.7mm, but Yuri had developed his with the round numbers of 6mm and 10mm. Both were automatic rifle types with detachable box magazines, with the latter having a slightly longer barrel. This made it a little more cumbersome to handle, but its range was longer and its bullets were larger, so its power was incomparably greater than the former. After much painstaking effort, he succeeded in developing explosive rounds, which also increased its impact force. Instead of packing the warhead with explosives like on Earth, he had designed a magic formula that would cause the bullet to rupture with a slight delay after impact. ...As a result, each and every bullet had to be handmade, which became extremely time-consuming. Incidentally, the armor-piercing rounds were not much trouble since they only required hardening the bullet, but the hollow-point rounds were unsuitable because the bullet material was stone and did not deform easily.

"Well... for the time being, I'll use it as a trump card and try to conserve ammunition."

That seems like a good idea.