192: Satu with the Blaster

"Just to reiterate, please don't enter the room under any circumstances unless I explicitly say it's safe."

"Understood. I'll make sure to keep an eye on it from my end as well."

The room we were led to was a test chamber for the Blaster mod, equipped with a shield mod capable of handling multiple shots up to the military-grade level five.

In contrast, the Blaster mod I have is a small handgun-type, with civilian-grade quality and a personal-use level one—essentially the weakest Blaster mod available. Even if it hits someone directly in kill mode, it only causes an explosion equivalent to being hit with a full-force punch, resulting in nothing more than slightly reddened skin and a momentary flinch from the impact.

I could probably take a hit from it without even getting a scratch, no shield mod needed.

"Then..."

I aimed the blaster mod exactly as taught in the manual—holding it with both hands, pressing it firmly against my ribs, extending my arms at a moderate tension, and directing the barrel toward a humanoid target about ten meters away.

At this point, the barrel was firmly aimed at the center of the target—the very middle of its chest. Since the blaster mod had no recoil, as long as the weapon didn’t wobble when I pulled the trigger, the shot would undoubtedly hit the target.

With that state of mind, I pulled the trigger...

"Missed to the right."

The blaster's trajectory passed to the right of the target and struck the wall.

"Left this time."

The second shot mirrored the first, passing to the left of the target.

"Head... no, just a glancing hit, perhaps?"

The third shot traced a path near the target's head—just enough to singe a strand of hair, if it were human.

Hmm, trouble is, I'm doing surprisingly well today.

"What?"

Lost in thought, I fired the fourth shot.

The fired blaster shot flew straight for about three meters before rotating approximately 175 degrees and piercing my abdomen.

Of course, I wasn't hurt—the shield mod worked perfectly.

"Eh? What the... what's going on..."

The fifth shot bent slightly by about eight degrees midair before flying straight and hitting the ceiling.

"I see. Now I understand why Seiryō Corporation told us not to use this."

The sixth shot unexpectedly increased in output, cleanly exploding the target's chest.

"Yeah. When it's random rather than directed, there's nothing we can do about it."

The seventh shot turned into a sphere and slowly floated about a meter before quietly evaporating and disappearing.

"Guess things like this happen. Mods are strange, aren't they?"

The eighth shot arced sharply, passed between my legs, and struck the wall.

"Wha... what is this...?"

The ninth shot strangely launched from a point shifted about a meter to the side, followed by roughly ten random blasts from the blaster.

"Whoa."

"Ah!"

"!?"

The tenth shot exploded, taking the blaster with it.

I'm not hurt... but the smoke is intense.

"Cough. Well, that's about it. Since the blaster blew up, it's safe now."

"Satya. That makes it sound like it would've been more dangerous if the blaster hadn't exploded, doesn't it?"

"No, back in my days at Seiryō Corp, I once placed a blaster that had run out of energy in its designated spot, and even though no one touched it, it started firing wildly, dancing around on its own..."

"...In that case, it really is safer when the blaster explodes."

With that, the blaster destroyed, the experiment was concluded.

Incidentally, during this experiment, my main body in the Ether Space extended its arms around the room like a protective barrier, always keeping the gate ready to deploy at a moment's notice.

Though it doesn't happen often, there are times when output spikes significantly, the shield-piercing mod activates, or the firing point shifts by dozens of meters—so being thoroughly prepared was essential.

"So, that's why I can't use the blaster mod, you see."

"Still, it's a peculiar phenomenon, isn't it? In theory, what exactly is going on here?"

"I can't explain the details myself. But according to a SEIRYO employee who analyzed it, the core of the blaster mod develops a flaw under my OS environment. However, this flaw isn't just random—it doesn't prevent startup, and instead forms a peculiar circuit, which is what they used to say back in the day."

"I see, I don't get it at all."

For safety reasons, experiments conducted by Seiryō Corporation were discontinued after about ten trials.

The worst case... well, it caused a massive explosion, as if the entire area from launch point to impact point were the diameter.

That time was really terrible.

"By the way, did Seiryō Corporation attempt any corrections?"

"Well, we did try. But we ultimately concluded it was impossible due to the high degree of randomness."

The correction mods... we tried a few, but none of them worked.

We couldn't tell whether the deterioration was due to the correction mods or my OS.

"Still, if this keeps happening, what should I do about my equipment?"

"Well, about that..."

In addition, regarding my equipment on the powered suit, once I showed how much strength I could generate and the stiffness and length of the tentacles growing from my back, they said there was no problem at all.

Well, if I'm using a powered suit, the combat range would be around 100 meters, and the opponent's attacks would be nearly useless.

Given that, my own weapons should be more than enough.

With that in mind, we decided to seriously reconsider and thoroughly discuss how to handle the cockpit issue, making adjustments as needed.

02/15 Spelling correction