Chapter 86: By the Villainess, for the Villainess, of the Villainess the Ultimate Weapon… Its Name is…!”

One year left on the countdown to academy enrollment.

What was there to hide?

This one year was incredibly, critically important to me.

“Ughhmmm….”

Lined up in parallel before my eyes were the small children, born one by one from the mother warhammer.

That’s right.

Using this precious upcoming year, I had to create my very own weapon that would startle the other students from the very first day of enrollment.

In other words!

This meant I had to create a weapon of the villainess, by the villainess, for the villainess…!

“Heine, what are your thoughts? What form of weapon do you think would suit me best?”

“…I’m not sure.”

Pondering alone didn’t yield any good answers, so I sought Heine’s opinion.

However, even for Heine, who knew me better than I knew myself, an answer did not come readily.

Well, I suppose I could understand why.

There were just so many suitable weapons that even for the excellent Heine, it would be a shame to definitively pick just one and discard all the other possibilities.

Make everything since I have plenty of ingots?

That option did not exist.

A villainess has her own firm principles.

Unlike the katana I received from Michael, a weapon born directly from my own hands would surely become my symbol.

Besides, for someone as elegant and noble as me, a villainess, to be seen fighting while switching between this weapon and that?

Such a distracted mess?

Absolutely not.

“How about strengthening the grenade launcher or revolver you already possess, or perhaps remaking them into a better form?”

Just then, Heine’s answer, reached after much deliberation, came back.

Her expression seemed to say she found this all very bothersome.

It was a face that seemed to say, ‘Well, it’s obvious Lady Lin will do whatever she wants in the end, so…’ but…!

I made an effort to ignore it.

“But… wouldn’t that be a waste of these mana ingots’ performance?”

Heine’s advice was to either enhance my existing weapons or create new, better ones.

For Heine, it was rather ordinary advice.

In truth, it wasn’t something I hadn’t considered.

However, a gun’s performance ultimately comes not from the gun itself, but from the explosive power that fires the bullet and from the bullet itself.

No matter how good the mana ingots used to make the gun are, it would be a pointless endeavor.

Of course, if I could use magic to utilize it, the story would be different….

But as you know, my body is incapable of using any magic on its own, save for the water and levitation magic from my necklace.

In short, it meant that creating one would be highly inefficient.

Then what about making a bow?

That’s the same story.

In the first place, a weapon as un-villainess-like as a bow was out of the question from the start.

Rejected!

“…Can’t you just go with a normal sword?”

“But… if I did that, my Tenka might get upset. No, she would definitely get upset. Our Tenka is a more jealous child than you’d think…. You know that, Heine.”

“Then how about strengthening that katana…”

“Are you telling me to melt Tenka in a furnace right now!? How could you say something so cruel…!”

“Even though you melted a much more important family heirloom just fine….”

Brutish cold weapons like swords, spears, and axes were also naturally rejected.

Not only could I not wield them, but I already had the delicate and sleek Tenka for a sword.

In other words, I needed a distinctive weapon that wouldn’t compromise the efficiency of the mana ingots and wouldn’t make Tenka pout.

“…Ha!”

“It seems something has come to mind.”

In that moment, a lightning bolt flashed within the lightbulb of my mind.

There it was.

A weapon that wouldn’t make our Tenka pout her lips, while also utilizing the mana ingots and flaunting the noble air of a villainess.

“That’s it! A whip!”

“…I have a strong feeling you won’t be able to handle it at all.”

Heine’s anxious gaze.

To reassure her, I immediately ordered Heine to bring a training whip from the castle armory.

A whip….

What a perfect weapon.

All I have to do is swing it, and since it’s made of mana ingots, its power will surely be immense.

Of course, it would take a lot of effort to make steel as flexible as a whip.

Still, thanks to diligently accumulating knowledge in alchemy, I had a rough idea of how to do it.

I still have a year.

Yes.

It’s plenty of time!

“Here you are.”

“Fufufu… good. Then, right away, for the training dummy…!”

Swish!

I took the whip from Heine and swung it wide.

The whip danced like a ribbon, spinning through the air.

Just before its tip lost its rotational force, I thrust my arm out with a yap!, and the whip wrapped itself around my body with a whoosh.

“Eh? Wait…”

Thump
…

The whip, ignorant of its master’s wishes, had decided to tie up my feet, causing me to stumble and collapse onto the soft garden grass.

As if on cue, the dogs that were nearby immediately pounced, pinning me down with their large bodies and starting to slobber all over my cheeks.

“Heh, heh, heh!”

“It’s not playtime yet! So stop lick—! Ugh-ghut…”

“The whip is officially out of the running, I see.”

I gripped the revolver at my waist upside down and vigorously struck the dogs on their heads.

Only then, as if it merely tickled, did they shake their heads and stop their slobbering festival.

Afterward, I untangled the whip coiled around my ankles and was finally able to stand firmly on the ground with my own two feet again.

“No. That was just a mistake. This time, I’ll do it properly…!”

Swish!

To prove myself to Heine, I swung the whip once more.

Fortunately, this time the whip didn’t wrap around my ankles.

It merely slipped from my hand and flew into the air.

And in that moment, before it could fly very far, one of our dogs leaped high into the air and snatched the whip in its mouth.

“Woof!”

“I said it’s not playtime yet!”

Didn’t I do well?

Hurry up and praise me.

Pet me.

The dog placed the whip in my hand with that look in its eyes.

For the record, the one that brought the whip was not from the first generation, but the second.

In other words, it was one of the many puppies our dogs had birthed amongst themselves.

Even though it was a puppy, it had grown up in an instant, and not only that, its body was even larger than its parents’.

…Why?

Don’t they usually get smaller?

As a close example, if you compare wolves and dogs, wolves are usually much larger.

I don’t know much about the zoology of this world.

Not that I knew much in my past life, either.

“No matter how much I think about it, I just don’t get it~…”

“Well… maybe it’s because they’re not ordinary animals, but magical beasts?”

“……Ah?”

That’s right.

These guys were magical beasts, weren’t they?

At some point, I started to forget that sometimes.

…Oh well, whatever!

As long as they don’t harm people and listen to me, their master, it’s fine, right?

Above all, the second-generation kids have become fluffier as they’ve grown, which is nice.

Though they also shed an insane amount.

Anyway.

Back to the weapon.

The weapon of a noble villainess.

I thought about it for days on end, but no particular answer came to mind.

In the end, I visited the Lake of Melusine to seek the wisdom of my ancient ancestor.

“…A weapon befitting a villainess?”

“Yes. Do you have any good ideas?”

“First, I’d like to ask what exactly this ‘villainess’ is.”

For some reason, the translucent ancestor gave off an unreliable feeling from the very start.

Still, I proceeded to explain in detail what a villainess is.

And just like that, night had fallen.

“S-stop…! That’s enough! I’ve understood plenty, so you can stop!”

“What? I haven’t even explained half of it yet…”

“That’s more than enough…!”

Perhaps I had talked for too long.

Since her stomach was growling, I gave my ancestor homework to think about it until tomorrow, and decided to visit again the next day.

“Have you thought about it?”

“…That shameless side of you is the spitting image of Leona.”

There were few children who could see her.

And most of those children treated her with the utmost respect, Melusine said.

However, my mother, far from showing respect, apparently treated Melusine almost like a servant.

“She treated me like some ordinary spirit…!”

“What? Isn’t she a spirit?”

“Uggghhh…!!!”

Although she did say she was half-dragon, at her core, she was a fairy.

So, a spirit.

It seemed like the correct way to treat her, I thought.

But she furiously kicked her legs in the air, as if throwing a tantrum with a very irritated expression.

“Not a spirit, a fairy! A fairy!”

“Yes. Well…. So, you did your homework properly, right?”

“I don’t know! Just use whatever!”

Melusine, who was kind and benevolent at first, had now become quite familiar and started to grumble freely.

“You already have weapons. You have the three spirits. And above all, you have me, so you don’t need to worry about such things.”

“Melusine….”

And yet, she still cherished and loved me.

I could feel a deep, deep maternal love.

“But since you didn’t do your homework, I’ll have to confiscate one praise mark.”

I had given her a whole night, yet the result was somewhat disappointing.

I had no choice but to take out my notebook and firmly draw a cross over one of Melusine’s praise marks.

“Can’t you just make that thing called a ‘gun’?”

“Grandma, you weren’t listening to me, were you?”

“Who are you calling grandma!!”

Since Melusine solved everything with magic, she seemed to have zero knowledge about weapons.

Hmm… maybe it’s better if I just think about it alone.

“You can use water magic. Can’t you just make something utilizing that?”

“First, let me explain about something called ‘gunpowder’.”

“You know, I’ve always wondered. Why use such a small energy source? You could create much greater energy now.”

Melusine couldn’t understand my insistence on gunpowder.

“I know about that weapon called a ‘gun’. It’s a weapon that projects a projectile by concentrating and exploding compressed energy, right?

If so, wouldn’t it become stronger if you fired it with more powerful magic instead of that speck of a flame?”

…It was possible.

Perhaps I had been trapped by the fixed idea of my past life’s knowledge.

The fixed idea that guns must use gunpowder.

That’s right.

This fixed idea was a concept created in a world without magic and alchemy.

“Even if you can’t use magic yourself, you have my water magic.”

My strength was not fire, but water.

Melusine had made that fact clear to me.

“Water magic is the densest of all elemental magic. I don’t know about other things, but in terms of concentrating energy, it’s unequivocally the best.”

It felt as if my eyes were opening.

I see.

That’s how it could be done.

The fixed idea of gunpowder shattered, and a flood of thoughts came to me.

The fact that I had an immense alchemical talent for creating outstanding gunpowder might have contributed to that narrow view.

“…I see. Thank you, Melusine. I think I’m starting to understand a little now!”

“Yes, yes. I’ll continue to watch over you from your side. You won’t even need those ‘bullets’ or whatever, you can just shoot a Water Ray…”

“Hmm, what should I do first? Right! First, I need to melt the ingots again and develop alloy bullets!”

“……What an unruly mother-daughter pair.”

And so.

I immediately began the production of the villainess’s personal weapon.

I embarked on the development of a pistol that didn’t use gunpowder but had an explosive power utilizing water magic.

After that, how much time had passed?

More than half a year, nearly a full year, had flown by, and my academy enrollment was just around the corner.

Finally, my very own identity was complete.

“It seems you’ve… completed it.”

“That’s right, Heine.”

Click—

“Finally, it is complete.”

A weapon, quite large for a pistol, revealed its form.

A pair of large pistols made from the mana ingots.

“A synthetic silver body crafted from the mana ingots. Raphael Co. liquid propellant. Overall length 39cm. Weight 1.06kg. 13mm alchemical explosive rounds.”

A weapon to replace the revolver I had been using, without inciting Tenka’s jealousy.

A weapon befitting a villainess, a weapon of a villainess.

“Anti-monster combat pistols, fired by the steam explosion of compressed water magic.”

Ex. Calibur.

“Perfect… I see.”

And so,

The Twin Pistols of the Lake were born into the world.