How To Kill Your Dragon [Ch. XVIII, Nine] - Part II

“The first and foremost problem,” Canta began. “That we have is the fact that we are in Japan.”

All of us except Calendar and Tumble (and Liberty because she couldn’t move a muscle) stared at her, confused.

“Oh, right,” Canta chuckled. “In your world, people don’t have gun violence – or any form of violence in general – due to that Salai.”

“That is indeed one of the many different laws enforced by Lex Simul,” Plume said. “But what might you persevere to refer to by invoking that context?”

“Y’all have guns, but don’t kill people with them,” She replied, “But the civilian populace in Japan doesn’t possess guns except in special circumstances – even the police don’t carry heavy firearms.”

Everyone except Six either nodded or relaxed slightly after hearing that statement. Six looked at Canta, then rapidly turned around to look at Calendar, then at Plume, then at me, and then very expectantly at Sherlock – with puppy eyes for extra effect.

“Oh, Miss Six, I see that you still haven’t come to understand the topic of our meeting,” Sherlock replied to her irresistible cuteness in an instant. “We have been forced to slay a dragon, and the optimal choice for that is a firearm. However, since its fiery breath has debilitating effects, it would be more efficacious to shoot it from afar – thus needing a heavy firearm. Are you with me so far?”

Six nodded rapidly.

“We need to raid a JSDF base,” Canta continued. “The nearest JSDF base is in Shinjuku city, so that’s a no-go. And Tokyo MDP headquarters is also really far away. So, well, even if we were to take a car, it would take a long time. And the dragon is probably not gonna watch a car zip through the city and let it happen while just hovering through the skies. So, we are in a bit of a scramble when it comes to that front.”

“So…” Six tried to process all the information. “What should we do now? I mean, you gave a pretty cool speech and made Erwin Smith blush and all – but, how do we slay the dragon then?”

I said, “I mean… we can make a gun ourselves. Sure, probably not a sniper rifle, but we can probably make a handmade potato cannon of sorts.”

Tumble, who had a lollipop in her mouth this whole time, suddenly popped it and said with a Japanese accent, “That’s a good idea, ne, Nine-kun. Etto… er… Can a gun bring down a dragon though? Dragons usually have very thick armour in stories, games and anime – can we take it down with a home-made gun?”

“That’s… a good question actually…” I muttered. “Speaking of the dragon, since it can’t use the Field and doesn’t even flap its wings that much, how the hell does it even fly? Aerodynamically, it should be impossible unless it’s a balloon or something.”

Hearing this, Sherlock chuckled and said, “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. However, when neither time nor the circumstances are on your side, always act on what is likeliest to be true.”

Six said, “Meaning?”

“Meaning,” He replied. “We should assume that it is indeed a biological balloon which, if pierced deep enough with a projectile, should pop – or in some cases, burst in flames. The square-cube law and the existence of its fiery breaths demand it to be so. Moreover, its outer appearance suggests that it has carp scales all over its body – as depicted in eastern culture across history. And the mentioned armour is likely linked to a concept that could only be enforced by the Field, which isn’t present. Therefore, it is highly likely that this dragon only has superficial defenses to ‘piercing damage’, as one would call it these days.”

“Alright,” I said. “Give me a pen and a paper, I can create a diagram of a functioning potato gun in a minute or so.”

Since I was not sure if a fuel mixture and ignitor could be readily acquired, I made the diagram of a simple pneumatic rifle that could be built with PVC pipes and a fire extinguisher. A highly-pressurised air chamber attached to a long barrel with a ball handle that has an extended handle. I decided to use a regular marble with a long and pointed metal tip attached to it with a wet-paper tail to reduce the drag for the ammo. It is a very basic and rudimentary design of what a gun should be – it doesn’t even have the typical trigger blade as I had to use an extended ball valve for it. I could only figure out the basic schematics, since I didn’t really know what stuff I could get my hands on — but I was pretty sure that with pneumatics alone we could get enough range to safely shoot at the chimera from a distance under cover without getting blasted by its breath.

After getting nods from everyone around the table, we finally decided to notice the elephant in the room. Calendar, who hadn’t taken part in the conversation yet, spoke up really loud despite her thin physique, “So, Canta-chan, tell me. Tell me what really happened – I know you’re not telling us something important for some reason. And don’t lie about it, you don’t lie well.”

“Heh,” Canta chuckled. “I was not planning to lie anyway. It was indeed whom they call Agent Zero or just Zero or Salai. He revived and healed everyone who was caught in that dragon’s attack and just disappeared. And yeah, there was the same strange pressure as yesterday.”

“What’s up with him?” Calendar demanded. “If I remember correctly, he sent all of these guys to our world through an impossible barrier made by Space herself. And then the Dark Firudo (Field)stopped functioning at midnight the same day – what’s up with that?”

“Also, Canta-chan,” Tumble added with a bit of discernible concern. “Where is Showerstream?! I have not seen her since yesterday! Is she okay?!”

“One question at a time please, girls,” Canta replied with a smile. “I have just sent search parties out to find the remaining survivors of the dragon’s wrath. Knowing Showerstream, I am sure that she ran away at the first ‘smell’ of the dragon. She’s probably fine, though I get you. About Salai… I am not sure. No one is, actually.”

“Incredulous inquisitions will inevitably eventuate into inertia,” Plume remarked stoically.

“What does that even mean?” Six asked heroically.

“No fucking clue.” Tumble replied lollipop-ically.

“He…” Canta stifled a chortle. “He probably means that questions like that would lead to nowhere. If I remember my Renaissance history correctly, il Salaino in our world was just a mischievous pupil – possibly a lover – of Leonardo da Vinci. In your world, although neither Sherlock nor I could confirm it due to a strange interference, Salai seems to be a guy who made a device from Leonardo’s blueprints after he died and gulped it down in a drunken stupor that basically made him Timmy Turner for a while before he screwed up by asking for two paradoxical wishes that made him basically omnipotent – or at least that’s what I got to know by…” She paused there to glance at me before continuing, “Looking through someone’s memory.”

“Uh-huh…” Calendar muttered. “So, what’s he really after?”

Plume was about to start again but I paused him with a hand and said, “No one knows that. Quite literally. I myself have no idea what I am even doing anymore.”

“Are we,” Tumble asked, “Are we 100% sure that he has nothing to do with the disappearance of the Field?”

Hearing that, Canta’s face changed drastically. She gulped and looked downwards as her face appeared dreary and gloomy.

“Canta-chan?” Tumble noticed her younger sister’s sudden change of state. She brought out a wrapped lollipop from her pockets and held it in front of her sister, saying “Are you okay? Chill, you can tell us if something’s wrong.”

Canta looked up at her sister’s face and smiled. Taking the lollipop and putting it in her mouth, she said, “Actually… This is what I am most afraid to bring up.”

“Why?” Six asked. “What’s wrong? It’s not like you caused the disappearance of the Dark Field or something-”

“I did.”

Everyone including me stared at her in startling confusion.

“May I inquire about the details behind that statement, Miss Koto?” Sherlock said after putting his hands together and rested his chin on them. “What is it that truly transpired around the dead of the night that caused the very essence of Existence to cease to be?”

“I…” Canta stuttered. “I… I’m so sorry, everyone. I realised it only after I said what I said. I couldn’t even erase the memories from his psyche, even though I was able to read it. I… shouldn’t have joked about that.”

“Joke about what?” Tumble and Six asked that at the same time I had a terrible hypothesis pop up in my head.

“I swear I was just messing around!” Canta panicked. “I didn’t know that a joke would lead to all that! His Destiny didn’t say anything about that! This wasn’t supposed to happen! Sherlock can surely back me on this one: the Dark Field wasn’t supposed to disappear in any possible timeline… right, Sherlock?”

“Veritably,” Sherlock replied, “For it is a pre-ontological function of Existence itself. However, it is highly doubtful that anything that you could do directly led to the collapse of the Dark Field itself. Tell us, Miss Canta Koto, what do you mean by insinuating that ‘a joke’ could lead to the collapse of the Field?”

“Th-this is just a theory!” Canta declared, stuttering. “It’s just a theory! But… Like you like to say, Mr Holmes: ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth…’ I think… I think that… It’s an aftereffect, or rather, a side-effect of the joke I shared with Nine here. I didn’t know… I discovered it only after I said it as Destiny itself appeared to be rewritten in those moments… I didn’t know it beforehand, I swear! I promise! Believe me, everyone! I didn’t… I didn’t mean to cause so much suffering… I am sorry…”

She started sobbing uncontrollably. Her elder sister jumped out of her and hugged her to console her while the others turned around to look at me, apparently demanding an explanation. I shrugged, even though I had a fair clue to what she was talking about – I was just afraid to admit it, I still am.

Suddenly, Sherlock facepalmed.

“I have truly lost my powers of deduction as time has passed, haven’t I?” Sherlock muttered. He started rummaging through his coat pockets and grabbed his Webley. He pointed it at me and shot me right in the centre of my forehead to everyone’s horror.

However, like one month ago during the One Incident, I started vomiting everything that was in my mind – and unfortunately, it was not animal noises this time:

“She told me that my Destiny was to rage against my Destiny, which destroyed my ego and self-perception about freedom of choice and free will. I had a complete mental breakdown after writing my diary yesterday. I have no idea how or why but I think Canta means to say that somehow triggered the collapse of the Dark Field and she blames herself for it.”

The air in the secret basement under Torigoe Shrine stood terribly still for 3 seconds.

“How foolish of me not to come to this conclusion hours ago!” Sherlock exclaimed all of a sudden. “Of course! The power to collapse the essence of Existence could only be wielded by the vessel of Non-Existence himself! How foolish of me, how foolish of me!”

Before anyone could ask any questions, Sherlock dramatically stood up, took the pen and paper and started drawing on the other side of my diagram while explaining my history. It was an average Sherlock Holmes’ dramatic monologue so I’ll just list the gist of it: Sherlock has been hypothesising for a while that even though Salai destroyed the ‘psyche’ of Non-Existence, its Quadrilateral powers have stayed within me in a latent state since the Incident. Sherlock always saw an ‘indescribable void’ (that’s paradoxical but I am used to that by this point) whenever he tried to see my future and that was what led to his hypothesis, but he could never substantiate the idea with evidence. And now, he believes that I unconsciously caused the cessation of the Dark Field. And, due to my nature as Non-Existence’s vessel, I can only make things ‘cease’ and can’t ‘create’ things using the powers of Non-Existence — meaning I can’t bring back the Dark Field even if I wanted to, or at least that’s what Sherlock said.

And I am almost terrified to admit that I have no alternate explanations for that.

Also, Sherlock later told me that his Webley’s bullets are non-lethal and contain neurotoxins that induce a conforming state of mind in the victim, leading to them blabbering whatever is on their mind as if drugged. That is why it worked regardless of the fact that it wasn’t further enhanced by the Field. It still slightly hurts my head though.

After that melodramatic altercation and series of explanations, we all decided that I needed to create the spud gun with haste.

“Now, tell me, Nine-kun,” Canta asked, who was back to usual by then. “What do you need for your gun and where can we get them?”

“If I remember correctly,” I said. “Back in my world, there’s a hardware store just 200 metres east of here and another about 450 metres north-northeast of here. There’s also a few just over a kilometre towards the northwest. There’s a few things I need from the stores, can we spare a couple of people to get me the stuff?”

“Obviously!” She laughed. “Heh, after all, our lives might be in jeopardy if you don’t build this gun. Who knows when the dragon would attack or if Salai would kindly revive us if we are screwed again?”

I thought of saying that it’s all my fault anyways and I was bound to do my best to help – however, I didn’t do that for some reason. I felt like I’d be lying if I said that, but it’s meaningless even if I lied, and still meaningless even though I didn’t – I wonder why I didn’t lie.

“By the way,” Tumble asked with a strange tinge of politeness, “How do you know about the locations of the hardware stores? You are correct about all of them.”

“Honestly, I didn’t expect there to be a one-to-one correspondence because of the stark difference in our timelines.” I replied. “However, I have indeed memorised every single location on Earth back in my world. If you show me the picture of any location on the planet, there’s – statistically speaking – a 99.69% chance that I could point it out on a map within an error margin of 5 metres.”

“You would be a GeoGuessr (I think that’s the right spelling?) genius in our world.” Calendar muttered, even though I have no idea what she meant.

Anyway, after an hour, I (mostly) received everything that I asked for: three type-10 ABC powder fire extinguishers, Hot/Fast-Set PVC cement, screwdrivers, wrenches, racing pumps, teflon tape, some playing marbles, a few ball valves, an extended lever, a few male and female adapters (I didn’t really need the latter, but I asked them to bring it anyway), Schrader valves, bolts, and some threaded nuts and nail bolts. However, they missed a key part:

“This isn’t what I asked for!” I said while holding the light gray VU-40 pipes they brought. “I said ‘dark blue’ or ‘dark grey’ or ‘black’! This isn’t dark!”

“C’mon, Kyu-kun, give us a break!” Six said with a pouted mouth. “This looks grey enough to me! Grey is grey!”

“Yes, sis, that is if you want to die!” I reprimanded her loudly. “This kinda stuff would burst not even halfway through the amount of pressure that we need! I need dark-grey VP or dark-blue HI-VP pipes! Or we will all freaking die, you stupid idiot!”

After hearing that, Six looked at me silently for a moment before slowly turning her head downwards to wordlessly stare at the ground for about 16.9 seconds. Then, she turned around and ran out of my sight with Plume and the rest following her.

Now that I look back, I feel like I was too harsh on her. Unnaturally so, even. Alongside her, Plume was there with a couple of other refugees to salvage stuff from the nearby hardware stores towards the east – so I can’t really blame it on just her.

Sigh… I took out my frustration on sis for no reason, I am really not a good little brother, am I? I will apologise to her after I am done writing this.

Six did come back after 15 minutes and 12 seconds and handed over ten HI-VP pipes to me without a single word.

In the meantime, Sherlock, Thena, and I worked on reconfiguring the three fire extinguishers. Thena and Plume unscrewed the valves and safely depressurised it, the former with her modified robionic hands and the latter with sheer brute force multiplied by a wrench. Then we took out the powder from the extinguishers and with Thena’s ‘extra’ vision, we carefully removed every single grain of powder from the threads to be able to carefully seal it with teflon tape.

After we got the pipes, Thena and I used teflon tape and adaptors to attach ball valves to the cylinder while Sherlock and Plume carefully combined nuts, bolts, marbles and threaded rods to fit with the HI-VP 30 pipes that Six brought for us. I initially thought to use marbles and threaded rods to make a semi-’hook’ of sorts, balanced by a wet paper sabot to reduce the drag. However, in the end, I decided to use three threaded nuts attached to the front of a threaded bolt covered with wet paper and then teflon tape above it to create a heavy piercing sabot of sorts. I needed it to be very precise, but with Thena’s laser-accurate vision, it was not a problem.

Then, Sherlock, Thena, and I used solvent cement to fix the ball valve after firmly attaching it to the barrel with male adaptors and teflon tape. Now, it is just a matter of time to wait for the three ‘mini-cannons’ to dry out in Tokyo’s winter sun. Even though I was sure about my calculations, I think I should go through it once more.

After the cement is fixed, I will make a little hole in the extinguishers, put a Schrader valve on it, seal it, and use Plume and/or Thena to get it up to 200 PSI/1.4 MPa. The standard Type-10 ABC Powder Fire Extinguisher has a volume of 4.8 litres or 0.0048 cubic metres. The diameter of the stand HI-VP 30 pipe is around 31 millimetres, so with a length of 1 metre, it should have a volume of about 0.000755 cubic metres. The adiabatic constant can be approximated to be around 1.4. The formula for the energy of expanding gases is Eexpansion = P1V1/(γ-1)(1-(V1/(V1+V2))^(γ-1)). Using the formula, the transferred energy can be safely approximated to be around 939.92 joules.

If this were Physics class, I would have assumed friction to be negligible as I have used teflon as the upper layer. However, after calculating the normal factor to be ~138, the total energy lost due to friction ends up being around 5.52 joules. The mass of the sabot is around 175 grams or 0.175 kilograms, which makes the muzzle velocity to be the square root of 2 x (939.92 - 5.52)/0.175 which ends up to be around 103.33 m/s – just a bit more than the 100 m/s I was hoping for.

This makes the drag force completely negligible and the final impact force and pressure ends up being well over the required values to penetrate carp scale. Maybe, I should bet on the fact that the dragon is full of biological gases like methane or hydrogen instead of helium and sprinkle in some metal dust for the hopes of a spark leading to a big blast. If we are able to actually get into the ‘gas chamber’ of the dragon with which it does those fiery breaths, we might actually see complete combustion. I shouldn’t have high hopes for it though.

It’s been about 2 hours since I let the potato cannons dry and started journaling about what happened since dawnbreak. I think the fast cement has probably settled down by now, meaning I should start with the Schrader valves. Then, I should go and find Six and apologise to her.

Now that I am re-reading my journal and comparing it to the previous ones, I feel like my narrative tone and style is drastically drier in this journal. This one feels more like me reacting to what happened rather than a first-person account of what happened. Is it because I don’t really care that much about stuff anymore? Or is it because I am just mentally exhausted and traumatised? Whatever it is, I don’t think it matters. I don’t think anything matters for that matter. I am tired, honestly, and I have no clue of what we are gonna do after we slay the dragon. Who knows about our future and who knows what Sa-

I have got to finish it right now. Showerstream has reported in: the dragon’s moving. See you later, I guess, Jesse.

Next Chapter: Hunter x Hunted?