Hm? Did she not know about mushrooming? She should have possessed my knowledge, though, so I didn’t understand why. Perhaps the knowledge I was able to transfer was limited somehow. Maybe all she got from me was stuff about manga, anime, and memes. Did she not receive what I’d learned in high school, and all the other random stuff I knew about? Let’s test this out a bit.
“Hey, Ariya, you hungry? I could go for some Sugandese.”
“Sug on deez nutz!”
“Oh, shut it.” Why do you know this stupid joke, anyway? “Okay, what can you tell me about the molecular composition of benzene?”
“Of...what?”
Interesting. I continued to ask her all sorts of questions, and I determined that she possessed the level of knowledge I had in middle school. She’d received a lot less from me than I’d expected. It was only in high school that I’d learned how guns worked, so it made sense that she didn’t know anything about it.
“Okay, that’s enough of that. Let me explain what mushrooming is.”
“Thank you.”
“So these kinds of bullets usually deform upon impact, and the shape they take resembles a mushroom. That’s mushrooming.”
Due to the bullet’s change in shape, its kinetic energy is converted into damage inflicted on the target. If, instead, it merely pierced the target without being destroyed in the process, it’d only leave a small hole. Though, of course, depending on the part of the body that was shot, that might have been enough.
There were also hollow-point bullets that were designed to expand on impact, making the hit more lethal without necessarily penetrating deeply. And sure, this worked pretty well on humans, but on monsters? Not likely. Most monsters had hard carapaces that could only be pierced with certain objects. Just hitting them with hard objects wasn’t enough, not to mention that your shots could just bounce right off. That’s why armor-piercing rounds—bullets covered with soft armor to protect them until they had pierced their target—had been developed. Modern armor-piercing bullets operated by a different concept, however. For example, bullets used in the military were designed to maintain their shape and instead cause damage by penetrating armor.
I explained all this to Ariya as simply as I could.
“Either way, the point is that the bullet changes shape,” I concluded.
“I see...”
“Also, there’s another problem when using guns. One is having to buy gunpowder all the time. I can make bullets whenever I want with Armament Craft, but not gunpowder.”
I’d heard that gunpowder could be made with charcoal, nitrate, and sulfur, but I didn’t know the correct ratios I needed to combine them into gunpowder, so I couldn’t craft it. Overall, it wasn’t too practical.
“The other problem is that there’s a limit to its power. I could increase my firepower by coating the gun with adamantite and using more gunpowder, but no matter how much strength I have, it won’t change my weight. One way or another, I’d get blown away.”
“But what if you shoot upwards? Then your weight wouldn’t matter, right?”
“It’s not ideal. I can’t change the vector of its kinetic energy with Puppet Master.” Which meant that anyone I was fighting would only need to defend themselves from attacks coming from below.
“Hmm... This is a tough nut to crack.”
“I’m not seeing how it’ll be more useful than my knives anytime soon. I guess I can still use it as a sub-weapon during the daytime.” Even Sister Sensei had said the same after hearing that I had a gun.
“Well, I guess we’re done with this for now.”
“I suppose. By the way...where is that spirit, Sylph?” Ariya asked.
“Sleeping in my shirt pocket.” Sylph had told me to wake her up when I needed her. She was way too free-spirited for someone who was under the effects of Conqueror. Maybe it had to do with her being a wind spirit.
“Hey, rise and shine, Sylph.” I gave my pocket a light tap, but there was no response. I could hear her breathing as she slept, though. Weren’t you the one who told me to wake you up? What happened to that? I pinched inside my pocket and pulled her out. Even though I shook her around, she didn’t wake up. How deeply are you sleeping? At this point, there was only one thing left to do. I took my finger and...
“Hyah?!” Oh, she woke up. Sexual Prowess was such a useful Skill. “Wh-What was that for?!”
“You weren’t waking up,” I replied.
“You’re gonna take responsibility if their shape gets messed up.”
“I missed the part where that’s my problem.”
“It’s time to figure out what your powers are.”
At the very least, Sylph had said that she could prevent other people from eavesdropping with spirits. I was having her do that already, but I wanted to know what else she could do.
“Uh... I have some disappointing news. I can’t use my spirit magic anymore.”
Can’t say I’m too surprised. “Because you can’t get the spirits to obey you?” I asked.
“I can forcibly stop them from doing anything, but I can’t command them to do anything for me. I can’t seem to use magic or mana properly in this form.”
Stopping the spirits from listening was the same thing that the demon king had done the other day.
“Can you help me sense spirits with Detect?”
“Hm... I think so.” Suddenly, I felt as if Detect had become sharper. Oh, so these are the spirits. “Anybody contracted with a spirit can do this. Your Conqueror or whatever it’s called counts as a contract. You can also do other things, like this...” Sylph raised her hand into the air and jet-black smoke appeared. “It’s apparently called Black Wind.”
“It looks like it’s spinning,” Ariya commented.