Let me see you fire one shot

Wood: "..."

Gion: "(Д)"

One wore an utterly indifferent expression, already planning to deliberately lose by holding back later, while the other was brimming with fighting spirit, ready to avenge her previous defeat and had even picked out her cannonball. When they both heard the Captain Instructor's words, they were stunned at the same time!

"The others have already started preparing. What are you two still standing there for?"

Seeing that everyone else had begun moving the shells, yet Gion and Wood—assigned to the same group—remained frozen in place, the Instructor immediately barked at them.

"Instructor, I request to be grouped with someone else. You said this test requires tacit understanding, right? And I believe I have absolutely no tacit understanding with this person!"

She could team up with anyone, but Wood was the sole exception—Gion felt a certain resistance. In fact, she thought she could handle loading the cannon and adjusting the firing angle all by herself. Being in a group of one was perfectly fine.

"Shut up! I am the Instructor now. Before you become excellent Marines, you should learn to accept orders! Do you plan to defy your commanding officer's commands in battle once you're official Marines? If you lack tacit understanding, you can slowly build it. If you don't want to attend class, you can leave right now—but your test score will be recorded as zero."

The Captain Instructor stared at Gion with a stern expression. Earlier, Vice Admiral Tsuru had come to see him after learning that Gion had talked back during the test. She made it clear that the Marine Academy didn't play favorites—Gion's current status was that of a recruit. If she broke the rules, there was no need to save face for her.

A zero on the test held no threat for Wood. He had always wanted to be an unremarkable side character. As long as his grades weren't so bad that he got kicked out of the Academy, he genuinely didn't care about standing out after graduation. Wood wasn't Kaji—he had no intention of warming up to Gion's cold shoulder. So when he decided to abandon this test, someone suddenly grabbed his shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going? Didn't you hear what the Instructor said? If we don't cooperate in training, we'll get the lowest evaluation on this test!"

Gion wasn't like Wood—she cared deeply about her grades. Her shooting test results had already been mediocre. If she scored the worst on the artillery test too, she wouldn't dare face Tsuru again.

"I heard him. But Miss Gion must really dislike me, right? Even if we force ourselves to cooperate, we probably won't have the same tacit understanding as others. Instead of trying hard and getting crushed, isn't it better to give up from the start?"

Gion's tone, which had been somewhat awkward, suddenly turned sharp and serious upon hearing Wood's twisted logic.

"What nonsense are you spouting! If you give up so easily, how can you become an excellent Marine? And how do you know we'll get crushed without even trying? Whether we have good tacit understanding isn't about our relationship—it's about our personalities. Sometimes, rivals have stronger tacit understanding than close friends. Besides, I don't dislike you—it's just..."

"In any case, you can't leave alone. If you make me rank last on this test, I won't let you off!"

A few minutes later, Wood and Gion stood behind a cannon. Wood carried over boxes of shells and shoved the black spherical cannonballs into the barrel, waiting for Gion to adjust the firing angle. That's right—in the end, Wood had compromised...

Gion was, after all, the future "Momousagi." He was determined to be an inconspicuous side character—someone at the level of an Admiral Candidate was someone he simply couldn't afford to offend. Momousagi's favorability was already in the negatives. At the very least, he couldn't let it stay that way forever. If he couldn't latch onto her long legs, he shouldn't make a mortal enemy of her either. Besides, before leaving the Marine Academy, Kaji had specifically asked him to take care of Gion and had already paid him accordingly. Taking the money without doing the work seemed a bit unreasonable.

"Boom------!"

A dazzling flash of fire burst from the cannon barrel. The gunpowder ignited, generating powerful thrust that launched the black spherical cannonball. Following a perfect parabolic trajectory, the shell landed dozens of meters away from the marked target...

For this kind of medieval antique cannon, the kill radius was at most a few meters. Missing by that much meant it was essentially useless.

"Looks like the barrel angle was still a bit too high. Let me adjust it once more—next time, I'll definitely hit the mark."

Staring at the massive crater formed by the explosion, Gion showed a confident expression. She felt she had made huge progress compared to the start. With a little more practice, this test would be a sure thing.

"Wood, what are you standing there for? Hurry up and load the shells! At your loading speed, you can't keep up with my firing rate at all."

A full minute had passed since she fired, yet Wood was still standing idly by. The girl was clearly dissatisfied with his obvious slacking.

"It's not that I don't want to load—we're almost out of shells. If we keep firing, there won't be enough left for the actual test."

The Marine Headquarters wasn't some wealthy patron. Ammunition cost money and couldn't be supplied endlessly for recruit practice. Earlier, each group had been given one cannon and two boxes of shells—twenty per box, for a total of about forty. Since the test required three shots, that left them with thirty-seven practice rounds. After Gion's continuous barrage, nearly two-thirds of the shells were gone, yet the little flag marking the target still stood stubbornly in the wind.

"Compared to the start, I've made a lot of progress. Next time..."

"Next time you'll definitely hit, right? But I've heard that line at least ten times since we started. You are improving each time—from missing by fifty meters at first to missing by about forty meters now. Based on the twenty shells consumed, each shot brings you roughly 0.5 meters closer to the target. So, preliminary judgment: even if we use up all the shells here, your chance of actually hitting is extremely low. Of course, I won't rule out the possibility of a lucky fluke, but I doubt that luck would hold during the test."

The girl, who had been brimming with excitement and confidence, couldn't help but look embarrassed after hearing Wood's emotionless data analysis. But when she remembered that Wood's shooting scores were just as bad as hers, she retorted reluctantly, "As if you're so good with a cannon! Let's see you fire one shot!"