#39: C-Rank Ranked Match — Marshmallow Smile — Sniper Is a Loner ~On How I Was Quietly Enjoying Some Solo Player-Sniping and Wound Up a Raid Boss~ (WN)

ChaCha leads me to a hangar off the office, one kept for Marshmallow Smile alone. Inside stands a vertical capsule, and once I’m fixed into it, my arms and legs and torso come off one by one. Right now, I’m nothing but a head.

“So this is… maintenance?”

ChaCha shaves bits off my parts, or fits new ones on in their place.

“Yup. It’s a bit of hidden data — raise a stat and the weight of your parts goes up. Only by a teeny bit, though. Boost your Thruster’s ability and the Thruster gets heavier. Raise your Armor value and the armor does; raise Radar and your head gets heavier.”

She’s right. My body has felt heavier than when I first started, though only a little, barely enough to write off as my imagination.

“ChaCha can fix the imbalance that all that added weight creates. This is the Role ‘Mechanic’ showing what it can really do~. Combat ability? Basically zilch — but when it comes to working on a Space Girl, nobody outdoes us!”

After about ten minutes, ChaCha finishes tuning every part and fits them all back onto me. I try moving my renewed body, and the difference startles me.

“—Incredible. My body’s so light… it’s stable!”

“I went off Shikki’s combat data and tuned the whole thing so the weight balance is nice and easy for Shikki to move in~.”

Yeah. Just like she says. It fits me perfectly. If my old body was a loafer a whole centimeter too big, this new one is a running shoe in exactly my size.

“Okay, last thing~. Go into the system, select ‘Model Settings’, and press the spot that says ‘Confirm Model’.”

“Yes. —I pressed it.”

“Now even if Shikki gets killed, you’ll respawn as that model. Otherwise — if you don’t confirm the model — when you get killed you’ll revert to your pre-tuning body~.”

I see. So there’s a feature like that. There’s still so much I don’t know.

“By the way, ChaCha — is the item I ordered ready?”

“Ah, I completely forgot!”

“Ehh?! The Ranked Match is tomorrow already, you know?!”

“No, no. I just forgot to hand it over. I did make it.”

ChaCha pulls something out of a cardboard box that looks like a toy chest.

“Ta-daa!”

What she holds up is a gem as blue as a sapphire. An Expansion Part.

“‘Precision Radar’. I made it just the way you asked.”

“Thank you so much!”

The ‘Precision Radar’ is an Expansion Part that reads out fine detail on any target the Radar picks up. Normally, when the Radar catches an enemy unit, its position shows up on the map. It gives you your distance from them and the gap in altitude, but nothing about the target’s posture or height, or anything like that.

Because of that, plenty of my Radar-only shots would land and still miss the vital point. Naturally, the vital point sits somewhere different on a tall target than a short one, a standing target than a sitting one. So, in the gaps between my Konpeitou hunts, I put in an order with ChaCha for this ‘Precision Radar’, which expands the Radar’s analysis function.

The ‘Precision Radar’ built to my spec tells me the target’s exact height and posture. And where a normal Radar shows distance and altitude in one-meter steps (a target one meter above you reads as ‘+1’), this one works in units of 0.01 meters, laying out every coordinate, distance and height and bearing alike, in fine numerical detail. ChaCha warned me the information pouring into my field of view would multiply ninefold, but for me that’s no real problem. Number-crunching is my strong suit.

With this, the accuracy of my ‘Radar Shooting’ shoots up dramatically.

Incidentally, I paid the full production cost, properly. ChaCha told me I didn’t have to, but leaving something like that vague felt wrong to me, so I paid up all the same. Seventy thousand chips. For this kind of performance, I’d call that cheap.

“Wanna equip it right now?”

“Yes!”

You can’t equip Expansion Parts yourself. You have to get a mechanic, or a specialty shop, to attach and remove them. There’s a slot inside the Thruster where one goes; you have them open it up and fit the part in.

“Okay! All done.”

“Thank you.”

And with that, the Expansion Part is taken care of too. Now for the last thing.

“And how about the other one?”

“That one took me a second. Here, this.”

I take an armament from ChaCha.

“Whoa! It’s perfect! This is exactly what I wanted…”

“Making something like that’s a piece of cake. But what on earth are you gonna use it for?”

“It’s insurance for when my trump card misses.”

I equip the armament she’s handed me. Preparations complete.

…I’ll beat Tsubasa. I’ll take first place in the next Ranked Match, and carry Marshmallow Smile to victory…!

Just then, a question crosses my mind.