Chapter 146: Practice

“…Nadir, what are my students doing? I doubt they got vacation time like you did, considering they’re rookies. Honestly, the day rookies get vacation time is the day Aurora Island sinks into the ocean,” I ask while shooting at several hidden targets positioned at different angles throughout the forest, making them difficult to aim at.

“They’re working. They’re rookies, so obviously they’re not getting any vacation. Commanders like us have to work for months before we can take time off, and even then they demand all kinds of things and add conditions,” Nadir says as he reloads a rifle modified to function like a powerful sniper rifle we built with the 3D printer.

“This weapon looks powerful. Want to test it already?” I say excitedly as he finishes assembling and reloading it.

“Let’s take it easy—”

“Shoot me. I want to catch the bullet in midair and see how strong it is. There’s no better way to measure it than with the Cube!!” Since the Cube is a “Living” thing thanks to all of Ashlyn’s help, the scientists learned how to extract data from it, which is what I’ll use to calculate its power and other things with Aya’s help.

“You’re so reckless, Zenith… Fine, I’ll shoot you, but be careful… I know this won’t do anything to you, but I’m still worried. If it hits your eye, it could blind you.” He lies down on the ground and positions the weapon.

“Honestly, Zenith, I feel like we’re both idiots. You for wanting to take a bullet, and me for actually agreeing to this crazy idea.” He adjusts the sights while I smile.

“Because you trust me.”

“I’m firing. Get ready… 3… 2… 1…” He pulls the trigger. The gunshot is pretty loud, but the bullet is disappointingly slow. I catch it in the air without any trouble, and even the impact doesn’t push me backward.

“Damn it, it failed! Was this piece of junk supposed to be a sniper?! The bullet is so slow I can actually follow it with my eyes. I didn’t even need to try using spatial perception,” I say angrily, obviously not at Nadir. It’s not his fault.

“The recoil is weak… honestly… Nemesis could tank this for fun unless she were completely immobilized, and from the sound alone, it would be easy to tell where the shot was coming from… it’s a weapon with zero uses. I can’t see a single scenario where something this slow would be useful.”

“Why would we ever need Nemesis to be one hundred percent immobilized? And if we’re capable of stopping her like that, then we can already use our own pistols far more effectively,” he explains the obvious.

“Yeah, I already realized that. This is a long-range weapon, so it’d only be useful in some unrealistic scenario… It could even be useful if Charlotte teleported the bullet, but we can’t rely on something uncertain.”

“We have no way of knowing when, where, or how Nemesis is going to attack us, so we can’t be sure whether we’ll be near any allies… The only thing we can count on is our powers and whatever weapons we have… Oh, right, and Nadir, I made a tracker. I want you to carry it.”

“I’m going to use one too. We’ll activate it in an emergency to let the other person know where we are and that Nemesis has appeared. That way, we can go to each other.” I toss him a small circular device with four metal fasteners.

“Good idea… I… thought of that too.” He pulls two trackers out of his pocket, which makes me start laughing because we thought of the exact same thing. We’re really very similar.

“Honestly, you’re something else. Let’s keep two. I’ll hide yours in the sole of my prosthetic, and I’ll keep the other one near my chest so I can activate it quickly.” He seems embarrassed about something.

“I think we’re going to need a little more practice. It seems big weapons and long-range weapons are useless no matter how much we improve them… How about we plan now for a way to catch her off guard? A creative attack is always good, don’t you think?” What he says makes sense.

“Aya, we need your help. What chemical compounds, old weapons, and things like that could catch our enemy off guard?” I’ve already given Aya several pieces of data we have on Nemesis so she knows what we’re talking about.

“[I’ll do some research on that. I’ll need access to the internet, Zenith-sama.]” She replies as the drone enters the house.

“Aya is pretty convenient. More so than Nexus,” Nadir praises her as he places the weapon on the table.

“She really is. I tried to make her as useful as possible. She’s not necessarily perfect because she’s less intelligent than Nexus, as you can see, but for a personal local model, she’s perfect.”

“Something at an advanced level!! Even though… almost all of her upgrades were done by herself… eh… when I created Aya, she was a basic-level AI. Intelligent and capable of answering questions, but very limited. With internet access for research, she reached an intermediate level.”

“And after that, the rest was all done with her help, upgrading herself.” I look at Nadir, who has a smile on his face as he looks back at me.

“Why are you smiling so stupidly?”

“You talk about Aya with so much joy. I never expected to see you treating something you made like that. It’s pretty cool. Can I help you with Aya’s next chip upgrade?”

“…Okay, but if you screw everything up, I’m kicking you off the project, got it!! I’ll give you a sketch of everything and the model’s data so you’ll know how everything works… The password for the dataset is… your… your… your name.”

“…Hmmm, what a perfect password. I never would have expected that. Where did you come up with such an idea?” He teases me as he starts working on the computer beside him, typing the password into the dataset.

“Idiot…”

“I’ll look everything over. There’s a lot to read. For now, how about you try making our dinner? Ask Aya for help. She should be able to help you. Following a step-by-step guide should make everything much easier. There’s no way you can mess it up.” He gives me a wave as I merely sigh and head inside the house.

‘Just you wait!! Underestimating me like this… I’ll cook something wonderful and make you apologize…’

…

…

…

“So… Zenith, it’s late afternoon, we’re tired, and I was really hoping for something… at least minimally edible. Tell me… how did you manage to turn it into charcoal?” I say to Zenith as she stares at the steaming plates.

“…” Zenith doesn’t say anything. The completely charred dishes make it painfully clear just how good of a cook she is.

“I don’t know what’s more impressive, the fact that you managed to burn rice, the fact that you burned meat you were flipping the entire time, or the fact that you somehow managed to burn sauce, a sauce that’s mostly liquid…”

“I-It’s not that bad—” She stops talking when I stick my hand into the plate of sauce and manage to grab and lift part of it, showing that it was burned so badly that there isn’t even any liquid left.

“…Aya, how did she manage this? This has to be some kind of record, doesn’t it? The meat looks like ash. How did she manage to burn it both inside and outside to this extent if she was watching it the entire time?”

“And don’t even get me started on the sauce! Honestly, it’s terrifying to imagine that she managed to burn it this badly! It’s like finding someone who burned water until all that was left was ashes from the water!”

“Nadir!! Don’t be so mean!!”

“Mean!! Ashes!! There are ashes!! The sauce turned into ashes, Zenith!! Sauce!! I’ve never in my life seen anyone burn a sauce that’s eighty percent water!! This is impressive!! Seriously!!” I’m not even trying to make fun of her. It’s genuinely shocking that she has zero talent in the kitchen.

“[I don’t know. She can make military food pretty well. I think she probably got the temperatures wrong. Military food requires very different temperatures from normal food, and frozen food heated in the microwave doesn’t require much care.]”

“You two are my enemies! Nadir and Aya!!!”

“Then eat.”

“H-Huh?”

“Eat, Zenith. Take a bite of the meat, get a spoonful of rice, pour this ‘sauce’ over the spoonful of rice and meat, and chew.” She looks at the plates and seems to be breaking out in a cold sweat.

“I-I’m not hungry. I made it for you, so why don’t you eat it?! Do you think I cook badly?”

“Of course not, Zenith! You don’t cook badly. That would be a compliment.”

“!!!”

“You demon!! Okay, I really don’t know how to cook when the food isn’t almost completely prepared already, alright!? Satisfied now?! Everything I’ve ever cooked was at least fifty percent pre-made!!”

“I’ve never picked up a knife and started cooking something completely from scratch!! If you’re so damn good at it, then plant the damn rice, harvest it, and cook the rice yourself! And since you’re so good, create a goddamn cow and then kill it so we can eat it!! You’ve never made food one hundred percent from scratch either!!” She gets up from the table, sulking because she’s such a terrible cook.

“And if you make even one joke, I’ll punch you in the face!!” She runs to her room angrily while I start laughing.

“[Was that a fight?]”

“No. Think of it as… keeping score. There are things she’s good at and I’m terrible at, and she always teases me about them. I just paid her back. Tomorrow she’ll ignore all this, and when we bring it up, she’ll say she never cooked and that we’re hallucinating.”