Having accepted the challenge from Shiro-san, I’ll find a place to wait until the match begins, making sure not to disturb the surroundings as much as possible.
Even so, this target shooting feels completely different from what I know…… Arehh? However, wait right there? Come to think of it, weren’t Tre-san doing target shooting at the White God Festival? Arehh? What does this mean?
—————Nice shots. Do you play a lot?
—————No, this is the first time I’ve played this, but ain’t I amazing? I’m totally good at “this”.
……Ahh, Tre-san certainly hadn’t said anything about what she’s playing being target practice. Tre-san has an intuitive sense of things, so when I called out to her at that time, she may have thought “Is this called target shooting in the other world?”, so she didn’t retort anything about my words.Maybe there are some games here that were just like the target shooting I know of, but they have a different name, like Ring Targets or something.
“Well then, everyone has 30 seconds before we start. Keep trying to get a higher score until the time is up!”
Just when I was satisfied with that thought, the start time drew near. Now then…… I’ve played FPS games and tried out target shooting in festivals, but I wonder what this is gonna be like?
Just after I thought that, the scenery switched and I found myself in the sky. Whoa, this is amazing. I really feel like I’m floating in the air. If I tapped on the ground, I could properly feel the ground beneath my feet, but I couldn’t see it at all, and with the wind I was feeling at the moment, it really felt like I really was in the air.
In a sense, I was moved by the strange sensation, but soon afterward, targets appeared here and there in the air. The targets are large in size and don’t move that fast, perhaps because they have been adjusted so that even children can play with them. Aiming doesn’t seem to be a problem, but how do the bullets feel?
When I look at my hand with this in mind, the wood has somehow turned into a cool gun with a sci-fi feel. At any rate, I pointed it at a nearby target to try it out and pulled the trigger, and my magic bullet flew at a reasonable speed and hit the 70-point spot.
The bullet flies straight without any wobbling, and with this, it seems like I can do pretty well.[Then, I would also make my shot……]
With that murmur, Shiro-san casually pulled the trigger of her gun, and the released bullet hit the target, seemingly drawing it in, cleanly at the 50-point mark.
Unnn. Well, I never expected Shiro-san to miss. This much is to be expected. However, the conditions are in my favor…… I’m already leading by 20 points, so I want to keep things going like this.
Having such a thought in mind, I started aiming for the targets one after another and shot at them…… but I didn’t do as well as I thought. The thing is, the target may be large and their movements may be slow, making them easy to hit, but because their movements are entirely random and can shift in unexpected directions, trying to aim for the high scores can sometimes result in hitting lower point values. So, accumulating points as I intended can be quite challenging.
Shiro-san perfectly hits everything at 50 points, but my points are quite inconsistent. Moreover, because it’s easy to hit, the points keep increasing rapidly, and I lost track of how many points I’ve accumulated along the way.
However, in terms of percentage of points, my situation is quite complicated. I feel like I’m in a rather risky spot.
Even so, although Shiro-san is shooting without any expression on her face, she actually seems to be having a lot of fun. Shiro-san is quite enthusiastic about playing games like this, and from my perspective, where I can easily read Shiro-san’s expressions, I can tell she’s enjoying herself, which in turn makes the experience more enjoyable for me as well.
At the very least, I consider this opportunity for me to compete with Shiro-san precious, and I’ve decided to just make the most of this chance and enjoy it to the fullest.
After a while of shooting, I heard a voice saying “one minute left”, so it was time for the last spurt. I’m still hovering around the 50-point average, and I really don’t know how the match is gonna turn out.
“Ten seconds left!”
I pulled the trigger, thinking that this shot would be my last one, and at about the same time, Shiro-san also fired. However, at that moment, I felt something out of place.
It’s difficult to explain, but intuitively…… I felt “something’s wrong”.
Then, as if to affirm my thoughts, my magic bullet hit the 50-point mark, while Shiro-san’s magic bullet hit the “30-point mark”.
[……Eh?]
Such a murmur reflexively spilled out of my mouth. Shiro-san didn’t hit the 50-point mark, but the 30-point one? Did she miss? No, that’s just not possible. Yeah, putting aside if we’re speaking about me here, but for Shiro-san, games of this level are seriously no different from child’s play, so there’s no way she could have missed her target by any chance.
In that case, did she hit the 30-point mark on purpose? But why?
As my thoughts were unable to catch up with what just happened, glowing numbers appeared. Resembling the letters of a hummingbird, it seems to be displaying the total points we earned this time…… In the same way, the total points Shiro-san earned are also displayed in front of her, so we can find out the result of our match……. The result is: “I’m 10 points higher than her”. That is to say, I won.
In front of me, surprised due to the outcome I hadn’t expected, Shiro-san had a rather cheerful smile on her face.
<Afterword>
Serious-senpai : [Is this a development Shiro was aiming for?]
? ? ? : [It seems like that last part was done on purpose, but her previous shots were done normally. Well, it seems that for Shallow Vernal-sama, it was a situation where “either result would be a delight”.]
