Gun Girl from Another World

Chapter 0

Prologue

I'm dreaming.

I'm floating in the sky, nothing but blues and whites as far as the eye can see. I can barely even tell which direction is which because they're all the same. I think I started laying down on my side, like I do in bed, but that changed so many times so quickly as I tried to orient myself that now my head could be pointing toward the ground for all I know.

... Not that there seems to be any ground to be had.

Yeah, no, we're filing that away in the back of the Not Thinking About It folder.

Instead, I try different things. I try walking, but my feet don't touch anything. I cycle through several different swimming styles. Dog paddle, backstroke, breaststroke, even the good ol' frog kick.

... Honestly, I might be moving from that last one? It's hard to tell. Certainly, nothing changes from the scenery.

I finally give up with a sigh and position myself as if I were laying on my back, folding my hands behind my head and propping a knee up. If there is no up, down or sideways, it doesn't really matter which section of the endless sky I stare into.

The only thing I can do, apparently, is wait for something to change. I feel like I've been left in a waiting room for an appointment I don't remember and nobody's told me the doctor's late.

"Man, this has to be the most boring dream ever ..."

As soon as I say that, something blue appears in my field of view.

"Huh?"

I "sit up" to try to get a closer look, but it moves with me. It's hard to make out, though, since it's blue against a blue sky. And it has something white in it in a sky full of clouds.

... Wait, is that some sort of text box?

I move my gaze around so that the white is against a solid expanse of blue in the sky, then still have to squint to make the letters out.

Wou-- -o- -ik- t- go -- -n ad---t--e?

It's giving me serious RPG vibes, but the kind of RPG that was made by an amateur who hadn't considered the background they were using.

"Uh, hey, if someone's there, you mind checking your font color?" I ask, feeling a little silly addressing empty air. But it's a dream, so who cares? It might even work.

Sure enough, though the image hangs there for a long moment, it soon blinks, and suddenly has a boundary box so I can clearly see the edges, and the words inside change to a nice, solid black. I'm not sure, but I think the blue within the image even shifted a few shades darker for more contrast, too.

"Oh, thanks," I say, since apparently somebody actually IS listening. "That's much better."

And it is. I can now clearly see what the text box - the similarity is even stronger now - says.

Would you like to go on an adventure?

It's even followed by a carriage return and a blinking, rectangular cursor.

I can't help but smile, even as it feels lopsided on my face as I wonder if the little window might hold me hostage here until I agree.

It doesn't matter, though, as there's no reason to find out.

"Sure," I respond, that half grin still on my lips. "Sounds like fun."

The box disappears and is replaced immediately by another identical box with different words.

What is your race?

"... Human?" I ask more than answer, bewildered by the funky little rectangle's question. It's a moment later that I consider it might not be asking what I think it is.

Could it be asking if I want to be something else? Is it giving me a choice, not asking for clarification?

Of course, there aren't any other intelligent, civilized races on Earth, or at least not anymore. But our fiction is overflowing with them. I consider a few, wondering if they're really options. Klingons, Elves, Time Lords, Dragons. I briefly imagine how I might look as a towering Gerudo or a shortstack little Gnome.

Some of the options are so powerful that I can't possibly imagine them being valid choices. Many others are simply redundant. What is really the difference between a Klingon and an Orc? A Romulan and a Drow? A Hobbit and a Gelfling?

Well, okay, at least on that last one, I'd have wings, but the point remains. I probably don't need to be super-specific and would just get the equivalent, whatever that may be. Like Tieflings and Deumans.

But then, most of those had parallels on Earth once. Neanderthals were akin to Orcs, Floresiensis is literally called the Hobbit, and probably a dozen others. Homo sapiens beat them all. I don't want to be speciesist, but that's a pretty good track record. Besides, I don't know how to be anything else, I'd probably just embarrass myself.

Yeah, human's definitely the way to go.

As if it had been waiting for me to come to a decision, the box takes that moment to flit away again, another taking its place.

What is your name?

Kind of odd that one didn't come first. Maybe it was in case I decided to change it if I picked a different race.

"Remmi," I immediately answer. "Remmi Lee."

A lot of people who aren't nearly as funny as they think they are have often joked it's short for Remington, but that's just stupid. As far as I've ever known, it's not short for anything at all. It's just Remmi. I'm just Remmi. And I have no intention of changing that.

Are you fit for long hikes, difficult terrain and other physically strenuous activities?

Well, that one feels a little ruder. If you didn't think I was, why am I here?

I certainly don't think of myself as unfit. I'm just coming into my mid-twenties, and played my fair share of sports in high school. I wasn't necessarily fantastic. I paid for college on an academic scholarship, not an athletic one. But I've never been a couch potato.

On the other hand, the fabled Graduation Boundary feels very real. I don't think I'm really less fit, per se. In fact, if I had to fight myself from five, ten years ago, I'm pretty sure I'd kick Little Remmi's butt. Long, physically demanding activity isn't about strength, reach or skill, though. It's about energy.

I can take the stairs from my apartment, jog to the convenience store, jog back with a couple bags in tow and take the stairs back up the three floors to my apartment again. I've done it plenty of times. But I'm ready for a break and a cold drink by the end of it.

When I was fifteen, though, my sister and I ran all over the countryside. All day long. We ran through the woods, climbed trees, climbed rocks, jumped off both, jumped in streams. Our summers were spent with nothing but a lunch box, drinks we put in the stream water to keep them cold, and a promise to be home by supper.

Exhaustion just wasn't a word in our vocabulary. Or at least we thought it meant nothing more than laying on our backs in the forest shade for a couple minutes before taking off again.

The box surprises me when it vanishes despite me not yet settling on an answer. Again, another one appears, but this one isn't asking for generic details. In fact, I find it a little ominous.

What is power?

I lean back to consider that. It almost seems like a question that's more philosophical than useful. Like it'd be one of those stupid Greek parables. One guy says power is fire, because it cooks food, warms the house and drives away wild animals. Another says the spear is power, because it hunts the food, protects the house and drives away barbarians. Some sap says love, because some sap always says love.

And then the guy making up the story, probably Socrates, rolls up and makes the supposedly profound statement that power is intellect, because it allows the man to control the fire, forge the spear and comprehend love. And everybody claps.

But I already have intellect, and it's recalling a different idiom.

Power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

It's a rather crude, barbaric sentiment, but something about it rings true in me, especially now. As if I'm on to something. A lot of things could be powerful. In fact, every guy in that parable was right, each of those things could be a form of power. What they were debating was what was the greatest power.

The box reminds me of RPGs, and in an RPG, the fire would be a mage, the spear would be a warrior, the love would be ... I dunno, a magical girl? Was there some Magical Girl Camp RPG?

But mages are cringe, warriors are cliche, and love is a lame superpower. Intellect would probably be crafting, and that's just cheesy.

And ultimately, no magic power or cultivation technique could compare to the raw power of a modern firearm. Sure, a crafter type could probably make one eventually, but I already have a lovely piece a foot to my left in the real world, hidden in my nightstand. It's fully loaded with a round chambered and the safety on, ready to ruin the day of anyone that thinks to ruin mine. I don't need to reinvent it. I'd much rather skip to the part where I use it in snazzy gun-fu.

Sure, a pistol isn't the most powerful weapon humanity has created, but we're not talking what an army could use. We're talking individual power. Assuming my hunch about the box's question is on the money, of course. Nothing has increased the power of an individual person more than firearms.

Yeah, technically, a rifle or something would be stronger, but I don't like lugging a big thing like that around. A pistol is nice and agile, frees up the other hand for something else, and has just always felt nicer in my hand.

So that's my answer. Power is a gun, and the skill and willingness to use it. It doesn't matter who you are, how important you are, how old or fit you are. So long as you can lift that gun and point it at your problem, you are the most powerful person in the room.

How did it go? One man with a gun can control a hundred men without one.

I open my mouth and inhale to give my well thought out answer, but the question vanishes. One last box appears in its place.

Calibration complete. Good luck, Hero!

It ends with an honest to goodness thumbs up emoji.

In my great philosophical wisdom, I stare at it like a brainless fool and utter the only suitable response.

"... Whut."

And then gravity suddenly remembers it exists and that nothing is actually holding me up. Like one of those Acme cartoons, I feel my stomach drop a half-breath before the rest of me follows.

Instinctively, I'm trying swimming again, like that's going to do anything but make me look a fool. The only direction I'm moving is very much down.

... Oh shit. There is ground. And it's getting bigger every second. One little corner of my mind wonders just how high up I was that it was too small to see.

The rest of me begins screaming with every fiber of my being.

I'm lower than the clouds, then the mountains and the birds. I'm lower than the trees for just a flashpan's worth of perception.

And then everything goes black again.

異世界の銃少女

Gun Girl from Another World

Isekai no Jū Shōjo

by Ninmast Nunyabiz