Chương 36: 6.5 Bootstrapping

I couldn't hide the smile forming on my face as I glanced down to see that, on the floor, in front of me, the smoking muzzle of the prototype rifle had all but confirmed our success.

"Lise," I started as I picked up the successful rifle. By my side, my sister's face slowly turned from worried to ecstatic as the implication of the moment sank in. "You did it. You invented the first ever rifle."

Giving it to Lise, I couldn't help but beam proudly at her achievement. She actually did it. She made a fully-functioning rifle! In front of me, my little sister continued to gawk at her own creation, her disbelief and amazement bleeding through as she shakily aimed it toward the metal slab.

"Sis, I just place my thumb on the trigger Seigel, right?" Lise asked, giddiness already overtaking her prior emotions. "Then channel my Seigel Wesen into it?"

"Yeah," I confirmed. "It should store your Wesen and use it as the energy source for the rest of its Seigelwork."

Or at least, that's how I thought it worked. I didn't really know how or why the dot that I was calling the 'trigger Seigel' even worked. It just felt right somehow... That for a singular point of channeling, a dot filled with smaller dots could somehow do the job.

I watched the rifle slowly glow in Lise's hands, clearly siphoning her Seigel Wesen from the point of contact which was her right thumb on the Seigel. Just like last time, it simply kept glowing in her hands, though it was noticeably duller than when I had it in my grip. There was also a distinct lack of air gathering on the arrow rune. Taking a glance back to Lise, she looked rather pale, as if even holding the rifle was taking up all of her strength.

Something was wrong.

"B-Brother..." the girl panted in between breaths as the rifle continued to glow in her hands. "H-How do I.. make it... fire?"

"Lise, you okay?" I asked as I kept my eye on the rifle's Seigels. They seemed woefully underpowered... like they were...

My eyes widened.

"Let go of it, now!"

*whoosh*

Air escaped from the rifle's muzzle as I motioned to catch my fallen sister. She was still pale, though her color seemed to be returning once she let go of the thing that was sapping her energy.

"W-What happened?"

"The Seigels. They were drawing too much Wesen from your body, I think," I hypothesized, eyeing the discarded rifle beside us. "You might be unable to fire it without tiring yourself out."

Judging by the glow of the damn thing earlier, it was hungrily trying to supply itself with the amount of energy necessary to activate the arrow Seigel. It would explain why it was glowing so dimly, it was because Lise couldn't handle the strain of powering an Elemental Seigel.

"A-aww~" Even while tired and panting in my arms, she still found the energy to pout in disappointment. "I c-can't even... use it?"

"You'll be able to eventually," I exposit. "I'm older than you by about... five years? And I've been smithing for even longer than that. You'll build up your reserves eventually." Or, at least I hope that was the case.

"O-okay..."

With a huff, I carried Lise toward our shared little cot near the water tower. Laying her down, I noticed that the girl had already fallen asleep; too tired to even keep her eyes open after just one attempt at making the rifle shoot.

And speaking of the rifle, after I had made sure that Lise was safe and snuggling softly beside our makeshift personal cooler that was the water tower, I wandered back to what would most likely become our shooting range.

"How curious...." I mumbled as I picked up the rifle and aimed it down the metal slab.

Pressing my thumb down on the trigger Siegel, I proceeded to pour in the same amount of Wesen that I put in earlier, putting in just enough that the rifle's Seigels glowed brightly in my hands. Once more, the air gathered around the arrow, waiting for something to release its energy.

Okay, time to theorycraft. Now that I was here again, how and why did it even fire? For all three of our attempts, it only fired when I had let go of it... which was the same case as when Lise let go of it...

Huh...

Gently, I slowly raised my thumb away from the trigger Seigel. If my hypothesi-

*BANG!*

My ears rang as a resounding blast of air quickly escaped the barrel of the rifle, my shoulder shuddering from the impact as it bore the brunt of the recoil. I hadn't loaded the thing, seeing as I was only trying to make it fire on command, but with the kind of power that it just spat out, I was sure that it was more than capable of shooting out a bullet with enough speed to kill a person.

"Cool..." I absently whispered into the air.

It was kind of exhilarating, having this much power in the palm of your hands. With the thing now firing on command, the proof of concept was now established.

Now to repeat it, this time with a bullet.

Inserting the closest thing I had to a slug, which was a rough metal pellet, into the rifle, I took a deep breath as I attempted to shoot right at the center of the metal slab.

"Aim..."

I poured in the required Wesen for the rifle to fire...

"Fire..."

Before then releasing the trigger...

*BANG!*

*DINK!*

A blast echoed out once more, this time, followed by the sound of metal colliding on metal.

Did I hit it?

Putting down the rifle by my side, I strained my eyes at the metal slab just a few meters away from me. Right at the very edge of it, something stood out: a very visible dent where a bullet could've glanced by it.

I hit it! I actually hit it!

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