Having encountered Tre-san for the third time, I glanced at Sieg-san, and she seemed to have understood my intentions, lightly nodding her head.
After confirming this, I spoke to Tre-san.
[……What are you doing here?]
[Ahh~` I was going to play with this attraction.]
[This is?]Hearing Tre-san's words, I turned my attention to the attraction in front of me. At a quick glance…… It looks like a batting center.
[To put it simply, you hit a ball flying towards your direction with your racket, and if you make the ball hit the blue zone over there, you get one point, and if you make it hit the red zone near the center, you get two points…… You check out how many points you can get with a total of ten balls, or something like that.]
[I see.]
Looking at the shape of the rackets installed in the attraction, it looks like a tennis racket. I guess I can think of this as something like a tennis version of a batting center.
[I guess it would be better to show you……]
After saying this, Tre-san walked into the attraction area and picked up a racket. Then, when she touched a nearby object that looked like a magic crystal, a magic circle spread out the room…… and a transparent barrier was deployed to prevent the ball from going out.
Thereupon, when she saw the ball floating a few dozen meters away, Tre-san readied herself, looking really accustomed to this attraction.Her stance, combined with her height, looked very imposing, and her composure showed her confidence.
After the numerical count appeared in the air, the ball was released at a much faster speed than I had imagined, to which Tre-san smoothly swung her racket.
After the ten balls finished shooting towards her and the barrier around the area dissipated, Trea-san returned the racket to the side, looked at us and winked.
[Well, something like that!]
[No, no! Didn't you just get "0 points" there!? Why the heck did you look so confident…… The only thing that was impressive was your stance, while the rest was extremely disappointing!]
[……They were faster than I thought.]
Yes, despite her confidence, Tre-san was utterly useless. Five of the ten pitches were strikes, while on the remaining five, the ball flew in a completely wrong direction, not even close to hitting the blue zone once.
I thought for a moment that she was just fooling around, but her eyes seemed to be dead set on the ball, so I guess she was taking the game seriously.
[However, I see now…… This attraction certainly looks interesting.]
[Unnn, it makes use of pretty advanced technology. However, since it's still being tested, this attraction is only available here.]
When I heard that it's a game that can only be played here, I couldn't help but want to try it. Curious, I decided to take the opportunity to play it once.
Thinking of the speed of the balls shot out earlier, I think I can react to them with no problem…… What's left should be controlling where I send back the ball huh? With these thoughts in mind, I tightly gripped the racket in my hand and faced the direction of where the balls would be released.
Finished with the set of 10 balls, I lightly exhaled. I'm feeling a unique sense of exhaustion, different from the jogging I do everyday, as if sweat was pouring out of my body after I stopped after a short period of intense movements.
In fact, I hadn't had the chance to do much exercise other than jogging, so this kind of fatigue isn't so bad.
[……Fuuu.]
[No, you looked like you've accomplished it, but didn't "you also get 0 points"!? How dare you diss me when you got points like that!]
[……No, it was harder than I thought……]
I have never played tennis before…… so I just realized how difficult it is to hit a ball with the racket…….
How should I say this…… First of all, it's difficult to properly hit the ball with the center of my racket, and even if I managed to do that, the ball won't fly in the direction I wanted it to go. Also, even when I tried to time it right, I sometimes missed my swings, so I think this game would take me some time getting used to.
[Do you want to try it out too, Sieg-san?]
[Since we're at it…… I guess so.]
The next one to try it out was Sieg-san, and when she took over…… Sieg-san hit the first ball too far, but after that, she seemed to have control of the ball and returned all the balls to their designated zones, five of them even hitting the narrow red zone, easily gaining the highest score of 14 points.
I- I don't know what to say here…… It's either Sieg-san is just too good, or Tre-san and I were just too lousy……
[T- That was amazing, Sieg-san. Have you tried this out back in the Six Kings Festival?]
[No, this is the first time I played this. It was a little difficult to adjust the force of my strikes, but I think I got a good score.]
[……No, I mean, you did really great, don't you think?]
[You think so?]
Sieg-san had a great score, but seemingly not trying to be modest or anything, it looked like she really thinks that her score wasn't so great.
[I think Lili would have easily scored 20 though.]
[No…… I don't think you should be comparing yourself to Lilia-san here.]
Ahh, I see. It was because the person closest to her seemed to be able to easily get a perfect score on the first try huh…… Well, I honestly think Lilia-san would get a perfect score here even if she played this for the first time.
After all, it may be hard to imagine from her usual atmosphere, but Lilia-san is a really unbelievable genius.
For example, the members of Lilia-san's household, and Aoi-chan and Hina-chan took turns playing the VR game that we played at the Six Kings Festival, which was given to me on my birthday…… Of course, let alone driving one, that should have been the first time they had ever seen a car.
While Sieg-san and Luna-san struggled with driving, having acquired the unbelievable drifting skills of Alice after turning just one corner, Lilia-san got an overwhelming first place.
……It was at this moment that geniuses brimming with talent really did exist.
Wryly smiling as I thought about this, I looked at Tre-san who was gripping her racket, looking like she's going to try again. I'm sure Sieg-san had "contacted" them earlier, so they should be here in a little while.
It's not a problem at all because it doesn't seem like she was thinking of escaping, but according to Cento-san, if you take your eyes off her for a moment, she may disappear, so we should be as careful as possible.
<Afterword>
Serious-senpai : [……I wonder if this is the first time that a local resident has the same physical ability as Kaito.]
? ? ? : [Tre-san has more magic power than him, so if you compare them, you could say that Tre is slightly better in terms of combat power…… but for when things really count, she's on the same level as Kaito-san.]
