One Last System

"Guns," Mia replied without even a shred of hesitation.

It seemed that she was really hooked on the idea of trying out the weapons originating from my world.

"You have no idea how unspecific this request is," I replied, shaking my head with a small smile.

Firearms, in general, could be divided into several categories, then subcategories, and then grades. But not being military, I could only differentiate between automatic, semi-automatic, and non-automatic ones.

'Thinking about this, there are many more types of guns. Electromagnetic, bolt-actions and likely many, many more that I don't even know about,' I thought, an image of a Gauss gun and then a Railgun.

"But if you want to use a gun, a handgun should be enough for starters," I added after giving it a moment of thought.

Ultimately, all the guns worked on the same principle of pushing a projectile forward. Once Mia would figure this idea out, it wouldn't matter if she used a handgun or carried a machine gun on her back.

'Thinking about this, isn't shooting like riding a bike?' I thought to myself as I reached out and picked one of the simplest pistols from the rack.

"Let's get outside," I commanded, grabbing Mia's hand and leading her to the exit.

"Wouldn't it be better to pick several kinds of them at once?" Mia suggested, burying her feet into the ground and resisting my pull for long enough for me to register it.

"Huh?" I turned my head around to look at the girl, only to then look towards the guns.

And sure enough, I could pick weapons of all kinds. From the ones I could recognize from periodical games about the second world war like Thompson, through the modern firearms like ak77, the upgraded version of the legendary firearm, all the way to the guns even I didn't recognize.

Yet, as my eyes rested on the futuristic-looking gun, a certain idea struck my head.

'If whoever is responsible for building this place had access to weapons like that... Does it mean that they had access to the technology from the future?' I thought, only to shake my head. 'No, no future. For them, it might be the modern times instead,' I thought, leaning over the gun I couldn't recognize.

"Is everything all right?" Mia asked, noticing the change in my attitude.

"Yeah," I nodded my head as I stood back up and looked at the girl, only to grace her with a small, kind smile. "Everything is all right. I just got curious about something," I added before picking several different guns and then grabbing several bags with ammunition of all sorts.

"Shall we go, then?" I asked once I secured all of my new baggage in my hands.

"Sure," Mia nodded her head, a bit more happy with how the situation developed than I would expect.

Was she so eager to try out the weapons from my world? Or maybe she was happy that I followed her suggestion without a single word of complaint?

'Women are scary,' I thought when I kicked the bottom of the massive ax' handle, throwing it off the rack and resetting the secret switch.

A few moments of a dull noise later, the way back to the shop proper was open.

"Shall we go?" I asked, fixing my hold over the items I brought from the secret storage.

"Let's go!" Mia shouted, full of excitement. Yet, before she moved out, she approached me and took over all the boxes with ammo, only to send me a wink as she turned towards the doors.

This time, it was her who pulled me ahead by my hand. Yet, while I didn't resist, following in her hurried footsteps while carrying several weapons in my hands...

Rather than resisting her pull, I simply tried to keep myself stable while in a constant state of being right on the edge of falling over.

"Where can we test them?" Mia asked the second we exited the shop.

Her face was flushed red, the proof of just how much she was looking forward to the exercise.

"Here is just as good as in any other place," I said, lowering myself to my knees before dropping the weapons on the ground. "How about we start small and go up from there?" I suggested.

Even though the principle behind all the guns was generally the same, I didn't want to let Mia start with automatic weapons.

We were underground, after all. There was no telling what would happen if the weapon would kick back, making Mia send a series toward the ceiling.

'This place might hold insanely well against the passage of time, but it's better not to test it against bullets,' I thought, sending a glance over to the ceiling above while I picked the simplest pistol of the pile.

"Can you pass me the nine mil ammo?" I asked, looking toward the girl. Then, I instantly bit down on my lips.

Because there was no way Mia could know which box of ammunition I meant.

"Excuse me?" Mia muttered, looking at the several boxes in her hand. "Which one is it?" she asked, raising her eyes on me with a confused expression all over her face.

Rather than explaining how number nine looked, I stood up and approached the girl, only to pick the correct box out of the pile.

"What are you doing?" Mia asked when I pulled out the magazine from the gun, tested its internal spring, and then started pushing the bullets down the mechanism.

"Loading the ammunition," I explained shortly, quickly finishing the task.

Contrary to automatic weapons, the magazine for a pistol could house only up to twenty bullets in some special editions, normally oscillating around ten or fifteen bullets.

"Those are bullets?" Mia asked, looking down at the neatly arranged insides of the ammo container. "Can you tell me what a bullet is, though?"

My hands stopped. My eyes moved toward the girl.

Because the question she asked was pretty valid.

"I don't really know where the name came from, but bullets basically refer to projectiles?" I muttered, not sure if my explanation was correct. "Basically, a gun is just a tool used to activate and direct a bullet. On its own, this bullet has all that you need to actually fire it," I explained, grabbing one of the pieces before throwing it with all my might on the ground nearby.

'If I recall correctly, it should be enough to fire it,' I thought, recalling the times when I was actually still interested in modern weapons.

According to this likely outdated knowledge of mine, any bullet consisted of basically three parts.

The initiator meant a volatile chemical that only served to start the reaction. Then came the load, meaning the gunpowder serving as the propellant for the bullet. And lastly came the tip, the actual projectile that would be shoot, while the casing containing all three of those elements would be discarded after each shot.

To initiate the reaction, all the guns would kick the butt of the bullet, squashing its soft bottom side.

BOOM!

With no barrel to guide it, the gunpowder simply exploded, creating a small boom and sending the tip of the bullet flying up. Yet, as there was nothing to guide the force of the explosion, it quickly fell back down to the ground.

"Is that it?" Mia asked, disappointment and excitement somehow mixing up on her face.

"That's what happens when you fire the bullet outside of a gun," I explained. Then, I took the filled magazine and pushed it up the handle of the gun.

"What do you want me to shoot?" I asked, turning my eyes towards the girl. "I'm not a great shot, though, so something relatively close would be preferable," I added, a small blush appearing on my cheeks.

For a man like me, to admit that I couldn't into guns... Well, given the insane amount of hours I spent in various first-person shooters, it was nothing but a shameful confession.

"Can you really shoot anything with something so tiny?" Mia asked, her face becoming the guidebook picture of a doubtful expression. Yet, before I could say anything, Mia shook her head before raising her arm and pointing at a nearby shop sign.

A shop sign that was measly five meters away!

"Come on!" I protested. "Proper guns can even shoot for several kilometers!" I added.

"Then, how about that one?" Mia chuckled before pointing her hand at a slightly further sign.

"You really have no faith in me," I commented while shaking my head. Still, I brought the gun up, combined all three elements of its crude aiming system...

And then I slowly pulled the triger. This was the only one rule about shooting guns that I knew about. Don't pull it sharply, do it steadly.

BOOM!

The gun rocked up in my hands for a moment before I managed to regain control over it.

Thankfully, either the gun was simply good, I was lucky enough or maybe my aim wasn't as bad as I was worried about.

The sign that Mia told me to aim at earned a new hole and was now swinging wildly.

"Impressive!" Mia commented, clasping her hands together while her face brightened up.

For a moment, I wanted to say something. But ultimately, I decided to just show it with my actions instead of my words.

I took aim again, adjusting the strength with which I held the gun for the kickback.

And then, one by one, I emptied out the magazine, shooting them with a second of pause between each of the shoots.

"Woah..." Mia muttered, her eyes opening up wide. "You can do it in such a quick succession?" she asked, staring at me as if I was some kind of god.

"That's the very idea behind the guns," I explained, pulling out the magazine and sitting down to refill it. And as soon as the gun was once again ready to shoot, I stood up and passed the pistol to Mia.

"How about you try it now?"