With the white-faced Finella reduced to a stuttering coffee mule, Amelia briefly returned to her quarters to collect more presents and made short work of tracking down her remaining targets.

Lucky for her, they were—with the exception of Serena—all in one place.

“Morning!” Amelia chirped, stepping into the officer quarters of the Vengeance’s elite squad.

Even with the addition of the twins Arin and Ido, the mages Daichi and Hinako, and Amelia’s determined friend, Mel, there were still numerous hammocks left unused. The Vengeance had approximately three hundred demons in her crew, but the eighty-metre ship still felt roomy in comparison to the five hundred or so it used to hold when she still had her land forces.

This meant there was enough free space for Finella to order many of the hammocks to be taken down and an impromptu training area to be created. It wasn’t suitable for the large-scale magic duels Amelia had enjoyed in the Asamaywa Academy’s Speaker rooms, but it was a relatively quiet place for her friends to practice cycling and convecting their aether.

Well, mostly quiet.

Despite Amelia’s cheerful greeting, the response was muted while the room's inhabitants focused on their duties.

“Keep your lats tight! These muscles, here!” Ido instructed, as he tapped Noburu’s body. “Don’t let your grip fail just because you’re tired. Now… tense!” The one-horned demon pressed down with his scabbard against Noburu’s struggling block. Instead of a sword, the former confidence trickster was using a standard-issue rifle with an attached bayonet.

While Amelia’s time at the academy was spent being surrounded by aura-coated swords and mages, she knew non-aether users did the majority of fighting in war. She’d heard Sarafina at lunchtime discuss how there were more casualties from artillery shrapnel alone than from all other sources combined.

In an ideal world, Noburu would never have to go against an aether user with a blade, or, in his case, a bayonet. It was still useful for him to have some experience in martial arts in the hope that he could survive a few extra seconds, allowing for his allies to come to his aid.

Well, he did have his blessing that allowed him to mistwalk through the Shimmer, but other than Seonmi, the rest of the squad didn’t know about that.

While the Ainese twin had taken it upon himself to help train Noburu, Seonmi was receiving her own form of training under Ido’s feminine counterpart. Arin Song, the enthusiastic markswoman that had impressed the Vengeance’s weapon’s officer, Thorne, was taking Seonmi through rifle malfunctions.

“Your gun is your child,” Arin instructed, “and a specialist marksman’s rifle like this one requires more care than a newly-born softhorn. Mages”—Arin nodded towards Daichi and Hinako sitting in a meditative pose cycling their aether—“think their formations are delicate, but a gun is less forgiving than magic. If an aetherflow shifts a few millimetres within their bodies, there is rarely a negative consequence, but if the wrong component in a gun is off by a tiny amount, it can lead to…” The demon motioned an explosion with her hands. “...Boom.

“Look here,” she continued, pointing to the manual bolt mechanism that loaded the rifle. “If the bolt head is off by even a single millimetre, it affects headspace. You know what happens if you have too much headspace? Case rupturing. Gas blowback.” Arin shook her head disapprovingly. “Too little headspace? Prevents bolt closure.” The demon operated the bolt several times with smooth, snappy motions. “How much did your accelerated training cover?”

She looks so cool! Amelia thought. The Ainese demon had a calm yet fierce look in her eye when she held a rifle, like a deadly predator ready to pounce. Wild and focused yet still refined and controlled.

Seonmi glanced at Amelia briefly before answering Arin’s question. “We had a few lessons on cleaning and common failures. They showed us how to take it apart and clean each component. I know how to adjust spring tension. I know not to over-lubricate the gun, especially in cold weather. I know…” Seonmi continued for a while, enumerating the knowledge she and Noburu had gained while Arin nodded along.

Amelia found herself being drawn into the lesson. She almost didn’t notice the presence appearing by her side. Turning her head, she whispered, “Hello!” with a characteristic grin.

“Are those… presents?” Mel asked quietly, peering into the sack Amelia was carrying.

“Mmm!”

The demon’s lips curled. “You’re going to be popular. I saw Officer Dahlberg earlier. He was strutting about with a new rannar belt and scabbard! Was that you?” Seeing Amelia nod, Mel continued with a smile, “He stopped me in the corridor. I think he must be going around showing off because he was far more of a conversationalist than usual, asking me all manner of inquiries while turning his body back and forth like he wanted me to notice!” 

Mel puffed out her chest, speaking with a surprisingly good imitation of Dagon’s Wami accent, “Young Officer Mori, are you fitting in well?” Mel giggled before collecting herself again, continuing the act, turning her body to the left and right while exaggeratedly tapping her belt. “Have you adjusted to Anathor’s presence yet? He can take some getting used to. Not many ships have their own Formless…

” Mel laughed as she rubbed her scabbard, echoing Dagon’s performance. “It was like that,” she finished.

“You did notice, though, didn’t you?” Amelia asked.

“Of course!” Mel exclaimed. “I was tempted to pretend not to notice, but how could I do that? It was so obvious! Men aren’t very subtle, are they?” Mel raised a knowing eyebrow before giving a second exaggerated performance, this time of her shock and awe at seeing Dagon’s new belt. After Amelia had finished giggling, Mel said, “I actually had a favour I wanted to ask of you.”

“Oh?”

“My orange is progressing nicely. It’ll still be another six months, perhaps a year, before I can think of developing yellow, but I want to get there as soon as possible!” Mel clenched her fist, her face suddenly focused with determination. “Normally, warriors would wait until their orange is more solid before testing it against riflefire, but I figure if you’re around, I can take the risk, right?” Mel tapped her stomach, saying, “Even if a bullet gets through, you’ll be able to heal me, wouldn’t you? Maybe once we exit the passage? I figure if we use me as a target, it could double as practice for Arin as well”

“Mmm! Sure!” Amelia replied with an enthusiastic thumbs up. A small part of her mind tried to protest, arguing that perhaps it wasn’t entirely normal or sane for someone to engage in training methods that would kill a normal person. The dominant part of Amelia’s mind quickly pushed that aside. After all, in the face of Mel’s determination and friendship, she would always go the extra mile!

Also, Amelia herself had happily engaged in Serena’s unusual training. She’d acted as a training dummy for the Vengeance’s explosive broadside and had even tested her wards against the valuable tungsten penetrators that had torn straight through the island they’d been on. She couldn’t exactly protest Mel’s enthusiasm without being a hypocrite, could she? 

Mel resumed her own aura refinement, and while Amelia was tempted to join her, she found herself drawn in once more by Arin’s lecture on rifle operation. With one end of the room occupied by the meditating Mel and mages, and the other side occupied by the sweating Noburu and demanding Ido, Arin and Seonmi offered a soothing balance that caught Amelia’s attention.

“Failure to feed is one of the more common problems,” Arin explained, cycling the rifle’s bolt mechanism. “If you keep your gun well maintained, and you know the bolt is aligned and the spring tension is correct, then the first step is to give the magazine a tap…” The demon demonstrated, giving the side of the rifle's magazine a firm tap. “Then try and cycle the bolt once more. It’s okay to use a bit more force to chamber the round. If that doesn’t work it’s possible you have a damaged or deformed cartridge. That’s rarer, especially as production standards improved over the last decade, but it still happens. When you have spare time, it’s worth examining your cartridges yourself.”

“At the firing range, I once had it try and feed two cartridges at once, jamming the gun,” Seonmi said.

“It happens,” Arin began with a nod, “when the magazine has been improperly loaded. I’ve had it happen myself with a weak magazine spring. It can also happen when…” Arin detached the gun's magazine and pointed out a part of it to Seonmi. “You know this part? The magazine lip? When it or the follower is damaged, it can cause double feeding. Be careful with your magazines. Examine and load them yourself if you can. Many sharpshooters are so focused on the gun and the bullets themselves, they forget about the magazine.”

Arin replaced the magazine and cycled the gun once more, catching the ejected cartridge with a smooth flourish of her hand. “Sometimes the gun will fail to eject. This happens with a poorly-maintained chamber or a weak ejector spring. It also happens if the extractor claw is broken or worn. Here—”Arin produced a spare metal part from a box and showed Seonmi—“this is what a worn one looks like. You see how that nub there is much shorter than it should be? Always keep an eye out when cleaning the gun. Here…” Arin handed the gun to Seonmi. “Let’s see you cycle it. As if you were to fire it.”

After a moment of hesitation, Seonmi brought the gun up, the buttstock against her shoulder and her eye lined up with the iron sights. Then, with a satisfying click, she pulled the bolt up and back before slowly letting it move down and push another round into the chamber. Seonmi glanced at Arin before repeating the motion. “Is it okay?” she asked. “It feels fine?” she questioned as Arin shook her head.

“This gun is well maintained, so your technique is unlikely to lead to a cycling failure, but it should be better. You’re keeping the rifle up when you cycle, which is good, but…” Arin took Seonmi’s right hand and manually placed it against the bolt. “You’re fingertipping the bolt. Use the head of the palm to lift—”Arin pushed Seonmi’s hand up—“then these two fingers to firmly pull”—the bolt snapped back—“and then don’t release the pressure slowly, we call that riding the bolt. Push it forward. If you don’t, it causes the round not to fully seat, or the extractor not to grip properly. I was the same when my father taught me to hunt. I wanted to be quiet, yes?” Arin laughed to herself. “But my father explained to me, we are firing guns. They are supposed to be loud and scary!”

For a few minutes, Arin had Seonmi do nothing but cycle the mechanism again and again, pointing out so many adjustments and errors that even Amelia found herself starting to agree that the operation of a gun was every bit as complicated as a spell formation.

“The action must be fully complete every time, no matter how stressed you are,” Arin explained. “This is a Shimashina 844; it has a higher bolt angle than the Hokanai-built hunting rifle I’m used to, but you must make the full quarter-turn every time. If you don’t, the bolt lugs don’t disengage, and the gun will bind. Under stress, people have a weak lift. They also pull back at an angle, which causes the bolt to bind in the receiver rails and increases the chances of a jam. I’ve had that happen a few times myself when I’m in danger.”

“You’ve fired under stress?” Seonmi asked. “Have you seen combat? I thought you were newly commissioned?”

“I haven’t been in the trenches, but the inhabitants of the wilderness are every bit as frightening as a human,” Arin explained with a grim expression. “There’s been times where I’ve gone too far or lost my way, and stumbled into the territory of creatures that take more than a bullet or two to stop. There’s good money to be made hunting, if you’re not stupid and get yourself killed.” Arin chuckled, continuing, “It’s all fun and games when things are going well, but when you’re cold, hungry, and exhausted and have to crawl through the undergrowth covered in mud because some predator is roaming nearby… not so fun.”

Amelia saw Seonmi swallow before she asked, “Have you ever… shot someone?”

Arin blinked before answering, “Yes. I have. It’s safer now, but there were times our farm would be attacked.”

“Humans?” Seonmi asked.

Arin shook her head.

“Oh.”

The Ainese demon pointed upwards with her index finger. “Lots of criminals from the cities above escape to the lowlands below and the surrounding wilderness. When things were bad, rival farmers would try and steal some of our cattle and sheep. There was a lot of… competition before our governing lord was changed to someone more competent. Things are better now.”

“I see…” Seomi looked awkward, but that didn’t stop her from asking, “What’s it like? To shoot someone?”

Arin shrugged. “It’s mostly quiet.”

“Quiet?” Seonmi frowned. “Don’t they… scream?”

“Not normally,” Arin explained, holding up one of the rifle’s cartridges. “If this hits someone’s torso, whether demon or human, they’re more likely than not dead before they know it. The lungs and diaphragm often get damaged, preventing them from breathing, or they immediately go into shock and can’t scream even if they wanted to. That’s what normally happens. Sometimes…” Arin took a slow breath. “Sometimes it isn’t quiet, but I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine!” Arin waved a hand, her smile returning. “The war is over, so I don’t think the good captain is going to send us into any trenches any time soon. With any luck, we’ll have an easy few years!” Despite her efforts, the atmosphere was still a little cold.

Well, it was Amelia’s time to shine! There wasn’t a depressed or awkward atmosphere in the Known World that wouldn’t rejuvenate itself when faced with her overwhelming amount of adorable, golden cuteness!

Or rather, just plain old cuteness given that her golden hair was disguised.

“It’s time for presents!” she announced, holding up and wiggling the large sack. “No more talk about war! No more sword training, no more cycling and convecting! Gather around!” She bounced on the balls of her feet, oozing excitement and encouragement. “I haven’t left anyone out! Come on!”

When the room’s occupants realised that Amelia hadn’t just popped in to socialise, and had numerous gifts for them, the room quickly warmed up. They each took their colourful present and, at Amelia’s urging, did their best to try and guess what they were.

“It feels soft… a set of blankets?”

“Some kind of hard-shell case?”

“There’s a slight flex… a book?”

“I’m not sure. A cloak?”

“Hehe,” Amelia giggled. “Who wants to go first?”

And so, the unwrapping began.

Noburu and Seonmi each got a set of fine work clothes, similar to the ones Serena had purchased for Amelia long ago.

“They’re Fengra wool,” she explained. “I got my own made in Kenhoro from someone called Clothmaster Dai. I sent them an inquiry but they were all booked up until the new year so I had to find a replacement in Asamaywa! I got your, uh”—Amelia felt her eyes flick over Seonmi before she could stop herself—“measurements from Serena, so they should fit! I hope you’re okay with it! There was a time I didn’t have any spare clothes, but it’s nice to have nice things!”

While Amelia had never suffered the type of poverty Noburu and Seonmi were forced to survive in, she had come into this world almost naked, with only thin grey underclothing that barely did their job in protecting her modesty. Not that she complained too much, her magic meant she could handle the cold and, even if it didn’t, she could have sunbathed under the heat Serena’s cheeks emitted in the first few weeks of their relationship!

“You’ve already done so much for me,” Noburu murmured. “Not just me, but you saved Kiku and the children. You didn’t have to, but you did. You pulled them into the city and gave them an opportunity. And now… now… you’re giving us such fine clothing?” Noburu swallowed before continuing, “How can you be so… so generous? I know the lowlanders started calling you a saint, but it’s as if you really are one!”

“Well…” Amelia scratched her neck awkwardly. After all, she was now actually a saint, wasn’t she? That information would only become known once they docked in Ishaq. Amelia hoped it wouldn’t change how everyone viewed her, it had been hard enough getting everyone to stop calling her Lord-Prospect and to just use her name!

“Well?” Seonmi questioned, tilting her head.

“Well, it feels good to do nice things, doesn’t it?” Amelia said quickly. “Life can be hard and unfair, but that just means the ones with the means to help others should do so more earnestly, right?” Amelia emphasised her words with an encouraging nod. As far as she thought, there was little point letting the enormous amount House Halen were paying her sit around in the bank collecting interest when she could use it to bring smiles and happiness to the lives of others.

“Just what a saint would say…” Noburu muttered under his breath. His eyes went wide realising that Amelia and the rest of the room’s aether users had easily heard him with their enhanced hearing. The demon bowed, offering his sincere gratitude and apologies.

Seonmi followed a moment later.

“Thank you, Lord—” Seonmi coughed, cutting herself off. “Thank you, Amelia.”

“Mmm! You’re welcome!”

Next up was Ido.

“H-how did you know I wanted this!?” he exclaimed, holding up the heavy, white uniform.

“Because you never stop going on about how much you want an AsaminoGi?” his sister teased, rolling her eyes. Arin reached over and examined the outfit. “Look how short the sleeves and legs are! Isn't that too short?”

“No!” Ido said with a happy grin. “This is a competition gi. It’s short on purpose so the judges can see the hands and feet clearly. Look how heavy the ends of the sleeves are! You know what that means?” Ido motioned a shimokan punch, making a snapping sound. “It’ll sound terrific when I move! Wait a moment, let me try it on!”

With speed and efficiency rivalling how quickly Serena could throw Amelia off when a prying Lani appeared, Ido put the gi on and finished it off with his red belt. He made some space and began his kata. Like his sister who changed into a focused professional the moment she had a gun in her hands, Ido’s otherwise cheerful attitude would morph into deadly seriousness as he progressed through the sequenced movements.

“Damn,” Seonmi muttered in appreciation. “You’re pretty good. I once witnessed a highlord demonstrate a kata at a dinner, and that wasn’t nearly as powerful as you are right now. You have some real talent, Ido Song.”

“You hear that, Sister?” Ido called out between movements. “I’m like a highlord!”

Instead of responding, Arin turned to Seonmi and asked, “You have dinners with highlords? How?”

“Ah…” Seonmi rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly, casting a glance at Amelia. “Just some work I used to do. It’s nothing, really.”

“Listen to the snap!” Ido shouted. “This is amazing!” He stopped, did a quick customary bow to finish his impromptu training and then eagerly bowed again to Amelia. “This is the best present I ever received!” He shrugged quickly before adding, “Well, other than when our father paid for our tuition. But, other than that, this is the best present I’ve ever received!”

“I’m glad it fits,” Amelia said, unable to stop smiling in the face of such excitement. “Promise me you’ll check my kata in the future? I haven’t had much time to train beyond the sessions we did at the academy. I’m worried my muscle memory might have slipped!”

With Ido making a solemn oath that he would help train Amelia once his duty allowed, Amelia gestured to his sister, prompting her to open her hard present. Despite her attempts at trying to remain cool, Amelia could see the almost childish excitement in the Ainese demon’s blood-orange eyes.

“Wait, is this…?” Arin murmured, examining the hard shell case. She looked at Amelia before swallowing and opening it. “Oh Blue Moon, it is!” Arin tilted the case so everyone could see what it was. “How did you know?” Arin asked Amelia excitedly.

“Because of me!” Ido declared, proudly gesturing to himself.

“You told her?” Arin said, her eyes widening. “I… I have the best brother!”

While Ido blushed, Daichi inquired, “It’s a scope?”

“Not just any scope,” Arin replied, delicately taking the foot-long optical device from its housing. “This is a Yameni-Ponan scope! It’s quite literally the best scope a marksman could ask for!” Arin’s voice grew more and more excited as she discussed its almost unrivalled six-times magnification, generous eye relief and expansive field-of-view. It turned out that Ido had not exaggerated how much his sister obsessed over everything to do with guns.

“Then they use sand on iron laps to coarse-grind the lens,” Arin explained excitedly, “and then they grind it finer with pumice, before polishing it on something called a pitch lap, which is a surface coated with ironwood resin so it conforms to the lens's shape, see? They use tin oxide with water, and slowly polish it using steam machinery over days! Then, each scope is manually collimated and—oh, collimated means to align the optical elements so they are accurate. Anyway—”Arin tilted the scope back and forth—“you see how it doesn’t catch the light? That’s the latest magnesium fluoride anti-glare coating. Now, I know you’re wondering how they apply it, well, I’ll tell you! What they do is…”

While Arin explained in great detail how magnesium fluoride anti-glare coating was applied to her audience, who were too polite to tell her they didn’t care to know how magnesium fluoride anti-glare coating was applied, Amelia thought to herself how nice it was to have friends with such clear interests and hobbies. It made buying them presents so much easier!

Her efforts were rewarded when Arin gave her a warm hug, thanking her profusely.

Another hugger! Another person who understood that a good hug was healing magic for the mind! Maybe they could work together and get Mel and Hinako used to hugging? The cultures in the Eastern Terra-Firma were so…. impersonal that Amelia had quietly made it her mission to slowly chip away at the mental and social barriers that prevented good and wholesome hugs from spreading.

With the mood of the room at an all-time high, the attention turned to the unopened presents of Daichi, Hinako, and Mel. Once that was finished, it would be about time for Serena to finish her shift on the bridge and take a short break in their quarters, where Amelia planned to trap her dutiful girlfriend and shower her with presents.

And tease her a little about Finella’s sister.

Well… maybe tease her a lot.

After all, it’s what scandalous girlfriends deserved, wasn’t it?

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