The OP Lich is a Returnee, Chapter 168

Chapter 168 – Range Time

“Hello again, your Majesty.”

I smiled at the pair of undead waiting for us at the entrance to one of the JSDF’s bases near Sakata, in the Yamagata prefecture. My disciples nodded politely as I greeted the two Heroes of Death. “Ah, Ittō rikui, Kaisōchō. It is good to see you, as well. I trust you have been adjusting to your new abilities?”

“Yes, your Majesty,” Kaisōchō Fukuyo said, though her voice was subdued. “We have managed to avoid any… incidents. No accidental feedings or anything like that. But keeping our aura in all the time is really draining. Makes me cranky.”

Ittō rikui Watanabe grimaced slightly. “I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but she’s not wrong, your Majesty. It is a constant strain to keep from scaring everyone away. And even with wearing gloves, having to be constantly aware of and avoiding any accidental contact is not good for my nerves.”

“Then it is a good thing that I am true to my word,” I grinned. “I had my students at Athelian Arms create items for you. The work is theirs, but I’ve checked the enchantments and they are correct. First,” I said as I took a pair of boxes from Naya and presented one to each of the heroes, “these are for you.”

Inside each box was a silver ring, and a bracelet made of braided leather. “Do not worry about the sizes. The items will adjust to fit you. Both work as a type of restraint upon your abilities. The ring will cause your aura to fold back in on itself, so you do not need to constantly hold it in. Of course, I still recommend you train the practice, as discipline goes a long way with enhancing your magic, just as it does military training.”

“Of course, your Majesty. I—” Watanabe cut off realizing that his voice had changed as he put on the ring. “Oh, that is different. I hadn’t even realized I was doing that thing with my voice.”

“When you get to certain levels of power, magic seeps into your voice. It is one of the reasons why mages in the other world used a different language for their magic than they commonly used to speak. Or, for Japanese like us, think of the ‘speaking voice’ as katakana, and the ‘spellcasting voice’ as hiragana. Separating the two helps keep you from accidentally invoking magic while talking. Less useful for those on the Warrior’s Way, but it still applies, since you don’t want to accidentally crush something, or someone, by applying body strengthening at the wrong moment.”

“Yeah, I can see how that would be bad,” Fukuyo nodded. “What about this bracelet, then?”

“The bracelet is to make you ‘safe’ to touch. Put it on, and it will suppress your ability to feed. Just run mana through it, and you’ll be able to feed. Simple enough, but you’ll want to remove both items if you’re going into a fight where you need your full powers. However, this should make it possible for you to live day-to-day lives without constantly worrying about ‘eating’ people, or scaring them off. And there’s a basic self-repair enchantment on them, so they won’t be easily destroyed.”

“Thank you, your Majesty,” Watanabe said. “Truly. I was worried about whether I’d be able to see my sister or her kids again, until they were old enough to understand.”

“The Lich Queen honors those who risk everything for others, never forget,” I smiled. “But I have something else for you two, as well.”

I took a pair of bags from Ya, and handed one to each of them. “You’ll find a set of ten amulets in each of these bags. Give them to those you want to keep close. The amulet offers a slight protection against Death magic. Not much, but enough that you would have to actively choose to feed on someone to get through the protection, even if you didn’t have the bracelets on. Like the rest of the items, they also have a self-repair enchantment, so they won’t suffer, even if someone takes them in the shower, or something like that.”

“Thank you, again,” Watanabe said. “I’ll have to give a couple to my sister and her family. The little ones tend to be all over the place, at times, so that will help.”

“That said,” Fukuyo smiled, tucking the bag under her arm, “we ought to get moving. We were able to get space at the base’s firing range for a couple hours. But there were some questions about why a mage as powerful as you would want to learn to shoot guns?”

I chuckled as we got into the car they had prepared. “The answer is simple, Fukuyo-san. Magic is a tool, the same as any other. You can do incredible things with it, yes, but, in the end, it is just another tool in your kit, another weapon in your arsenal. Beyond my magic, I have also trained in different crafting disciplines and weapon styles. However, the other world did not have anything like the firearms of this world, and as I was a normal student before being snatched away, the only time I had ever held a gun was a rental at a firing range, which some of my American classmates brought me to.”

The memory of that outing, about a month before the summoning, rose up, unbidden. The range had an actual Thompson submachine gun, with the iconic drum magazine, which people could fire. I smiled slightly as I remembered how the man behind the counter said that, because of some reason or other, you could ‘only’ fire it on full auto. It was an enjoyable time, to be certain.

“At any rate,” I continued, pushing the memories back down to focus on the present, “the Archmage who taught me was brought up in the belief that every mage should know how to defend themselves without magic, and every warrior should know at least a few basic spells. Especially for those of the Death element. I may not be a master swordsman, but I am at least proficient with a wide range of weapons. Continuing on from that tradition, I intend to ensure that my disciples learn the same way. Neither of them will leave my service before they are at an acceptable level with at least five weapons, as well as having a mastery of their element and style.

“In addition, while I personally believe that crew-served machine guns will fade into becoming a more niche weapon as people learn to cultivate their mana, there are techniques that can be used with weapons to enhance their abilities. Techniques that require a bit more time and focus than a weapon firing hundreds of rounds per minute. Semi-automatic and single-shot weapons are the ones that will benefit the most from the changes the world is undergoing, and I will be most interested to see what they manage to do with artillery.”

“Your Majesty, what do you mean when you say machine guns are going to be a niche weapon?”

“It is a simple calculation, Watanabe-san, and the same reason why no one has made a fully-automatic version of a main battle tank’s big gun. You need a certain amount of power to penetrate a tank’s armor. Getting that power requires certain physical requirements, for the barrel size, the metallurgy involved, the heat, and the physical ammunition. Trying to make the gun so that it can fire more rapidly, without deforming due to heat, is a challenge. Storing enough ammunition for an extended engagement is an impossibility, unless you increase the size of the tank, making it a larger target and requiring more armor, bigger engines, and so on.

“In the same way, you need a certain amount of power to penetrate the defenses of someone who has cultivated their mana properly, as their flesh is naturally tougher, and they have body reinforcement on top of that, and perhaps enchanted or imbued armor, as well. To have a machine gun capable of defeating that kind of protection, you would need to massively enchant each weapon, or increase the size and power to the point where only a superhuman could consider it ‘man-portable’.”

“How big?”

“To reliably take down my line troops? I expect you would need something like the gun on the Americans’ A-10, which can penetrate tank armor. But that gun’s force is so great that the reason the A-10 has two engines is so that it does not stall out from the recoil, and it would run out of ammunition before firing for even twenty seconds, given the typical loadout and the highest firing rate. Expecting anyone to carry something like that around would be patently absurd, no?”

The Ittō rikui from the Ground Self-Defense Force frowned at that, but Fukuyo leaned forward. “What about ships, your Majesty? And anti-air defenses?”

“Ah, vehicles are different from people. Magical defenses you can put on a vehicle typically fall into two categories. You have passive defenses, like an armor enchantment, and active defenses, like a shield spell. This is no different from people, obviously, but the average person is smaller and nimbler than vehicles are. Each hit against an active defense drains a person’s magic. Many relatively small hits can overpower a shield spell, especially when they happen close together. Meanwhile, a passive defense will absorb a certain amount of damage in a given area before failing. The enchantment regenerates over time, but if it is overpowered, then the attack will punch through.”

“So, we may need to make some changes, but the basic ideas used for ship-to-ship and anti-air defense will work?”

“Indeed. Also, there is a limit to how much armor one can give expendable weapons like missiles, and vehicle crews will typically be too busy to properly concentrate on maintaining active defenses. However, I expect that troop transports, whether they are ships, planes, helicopters, or armored personnel carriers, will be more resilient, so long as there is a way for troops in the back to help add their mana to the defenses.”

When we got to the range, there were several soldiers waiting on us, along with a wide selection of weapons. A stern-faced man stepped forward from the group, and, without waiting to be introduced, said, “I am Rikusōchō Suto Ichiro, and while you are on my range I am the right hand of the kami, Budha, or whatever god or gods you choose to believe in! While you are on my range, I expect each and every one of you to conduct yourselves in accordance to the rules of the range. If you fail to do so, I will personally break my foot off in your ass! I do not care what titles you may have outside of this range, you will follow all commands from myself or the other range masters, or I will make you wish that you were dead, even those of you who have been dead before!”

The heroes glanced nervously at me, but relaxed slightly when they saw I was not upset. Truly, I wasn’t angered at what could be considered the grave lack of respect this man was showing me. Trainers were often like this, especially military trainers, and especially when dealing with dangerous materials. I still remembered a similar talking-to I’d gotten from the Master Alchemist who taught me alchemy, even though I had personally raised him as an undead, and could literally control him with my power.

“The rules for this range are simple, and I expect them to be followed at all times! Rule One: You will keep the muzzle of any weapon pointed in a safe direction at all times. If I see anyone waving a gun around, I will assume that you are wishing to be relieved of your head, and act accordingly!

“Rule Two: You will keep your finger off the trigger until you are prepared to shoot. I do not tolerate any negligent discharges on my range! If you want to shoot your load unexpectantly, save it for your girlfriend so that you can disappoint her, and not me!

“Rule Three: Under no circumstances are you to leave a firearm unattended. There are range personnel here for a reason. If you have to step away from your lane, you will hand over your weapon to one of the range personnel, and retrieve it later on! You will not say, ‘Oh, I’ll be right back,’ and leave it unattended!

“Rule Four: Always be certain of your target, and what is behind it! ‘I didn’t see it’ is no excuse! You will take time to verify your target, and that there is no one and nothing behind it, or you will not fire your weapon!

“Rule Five: No matter what you are doing, when someone, anyone, calls ‘Cease Firing’, you will do precisely that!

“Rule Six: You will respect this range by placing trash in the proper bins, and recovering spent brass so that they can be properly recycled. I will not tolerate any disrespect for this range, or its property!

“Rule Seven: Eye and ear protection shall be worn at all times while on the range. I do not care what kind of fancy magical kuso you have at your disposal. You will be wearing the required protection, or you will get off my range.

“Rule Eight: All weapons must be made safe before entering or exiting the range. This means unloaded, magazines empty, and actions opened, so that there is no possible doubt on whether the weapon is live or not. However! Rule One still applies!

“Rule Nine: If you have a misfire or malfunction, you will keep the weapon pointed downrange, and signal to the range officers for assistance.

“And finally, Rule Ten: Anyone not currently involved in shooting shall remain at least two meters behind the firing line when a shooter is at the line, with the exception of range personnel.”

Suto finally took a moment to fix each of us with a glare, as though challenging us to be the first to make some stupid comment or complaint about the rules on ‘his’ range. His eye lingered on me, especially, most likely because I was a celebrity, to some. I simply nodded, and said, “Of course, rikusōchō. I believe we all understand the importance of safety rules.”

“Outstanding,” he nodded, before relaxing a hair. “Now, let’s get you all set up with eyes and ears, and then we can begin the assessment.”