Overwhelming Firepower

After a few more days of waiting, Lucen noticed that the recruits who were doing nothing but worrying started training.

When he saw that, he knew that these people wouldn’t be leaving. So he decided to officially welcome the remaining recruits to Thornefang.

Lucen stood in front of the recruits; beside him was Harlik. The other members of Thornefang stood behind him, wearing the uniform Lucen had designed.

A sleek black trench coat with deep crimson lining and silver-thorn embroidery curling around the cuffs like creeping vines. Underneath the trench coat was light armor, with a few rune enhancements.

They were carrying their arquebuses; seeing them line up in formation made for a rather intimidating sight.

”Congratulations! You have proven yourselves worthy to be a part of Thornefang. I don’t know what kinds of reasons you have to join. It could be for your dreams, for money, for honor, or you simply want to go to battles. No matter what your reason is, you are now a member of Thornefang!”

Lucen’s voice carried weight, and it spread to the recruits who were becoming excited.

”I won’t lie to any of you. Joining Thornefang might be something you regret later. The missions might get dangerous, many might die, but I promise you. Under Thornefang’s banner, you will find glory and honor! You will live and die under Thornefang’s banner, but all the members of Thornefang will live and die for each other! Once again, I welcome all of you as official members of Thornefang!”

The second Lucen was done speaking, the arquebuses roared as one. A jagged flash of fire lit the courtyard, followed by a thunderclap so loud it rattled the stone walls. Smoke curled upward in thick white plumes, stinging the eyes, filling the air with the acrid tang of saltpeter and iron.

Several recruits flinched, some instinctively ducking, while others stood taller, their blood pounding with the echo of it.

Daniel was trying his hardest not to yawn, looking like he wanted to leave. Thrall had an excited look on his face, like he wanted to attack the other members of Thornefang.

Bram was looking curiously at the weapons the members of Thornefang were using. Veronica simply had a determined look on her face.

***

After they had been officially recognized as new members of Thornefang, their uniform and equipment were now being made.

The older members were going to teach them how to use the arquebuses and the Iron spheres. They were also going to start training with Sir Thalos.

***

While the members of Thornefang were training, Lucen noticed something was weird. It had been a few days now since he last saw Robert.

Usually, Robert would bother him with a lot of different things, like making him do experiments with him or play Territory War with him.

Lucen headed to the newly created branch of the yellow tower within Ironhold. When he entered, he quickly smelled the different herbs and materials within. He saw a few yellow tower mages, but none of them was Robert.

”Have you seen Robert?” Lucen asked one of the mages.

”Robert?... I haven’t seen him for a few days now... Actually, what day is it?”

Lucen asked the other yellow tower mages, but none of them had seen Robert. This made Lucen start to worry a bit.

Robert Duskwell, the mad genius, was someone with a lot of knowledge and knew the secrets of gunpowder.

In the original timeline, Robert was a very powerful mage that few could hope to match, but in this current time, Robert was indeed powerful, but he was not so powerful that he could not be captured.

Lucen didn’t want to start a panic by suddenly asking people to search for Robert. He just looked in the yellow tower branch; Robert might be somewhere else.

Lucen went around the other newly built mage towers to see if Robert had gone there. Unfortunately, none of the mages had seen Lucen.

The last person who had seen Robert was a black tower mage. Robert was asking about a few runes, and that happened around four days ago.

***

Lucen continued his search for Robert and was not in the forge. As if waiting for him, the second he got close to the forge, he heard the loud sound of an explosion.

Lucen quickly moved to the sound of the explosion, and the person he was looking for was there alongside him: the head blacksmith, Oswin, and a few other blacksmiths.

There was smoke everywhere, and many blacksmiths were coughing, brushing the soot off their faces.

In the middle of the smoke was madly smiling Robert. The excitement in his eyes could not be hidden.

Lucen then saw a gun that looked like the armor buster they had made before, but much smaller, and it had four barrels instead of one. In fact, Lucen had seen this kind of design before in a few games.

This had a similar idea to the revolver. It could fire multiple shots one after another. Still, the design made it look like something that came out of a steampunk novel. While Lucen was staring at the new weapon, Robert noticed his arrival.

”Lucen! You’re just in time!” he shouted over the ringing of scorched iron. He held up the smoking four-barreled gun.

”I’ve been looking all over for you. I thought you got kidnapped or killed. Turns out you were here creating that new weapon.”

”Yes, this is the new weapon I personally designed. I was taking a break from my own research when I came by the forge. I heard they were creating Arquebuses for your new recruits. When I saw that the Arquebuses hadn’t been improved since the last time, I decided that they needed to keep on improving. Since I had time while taking a break, I started thinking about how to improve it.”

The excitement in Robert’s tone as he explained what happened to him was growing.

”To make improvements, first you need to know the weaknesses of the thing you want to improve. The arquebuses were a fine weapon for regular soldiers, but the time it took to reload was too long. That was when I remembered the weapon you created using your unique magic.”

While he was talking, Robert was loading the new gun he was carrying.

”It had a mechanism that made the cylinder revolve the second you shot. Making the next shot possible without delay. I copied that design, but with the current abilities of our blacksmiths, we couldn’t make it exactly the same.”

”Tch, I want to deny it, but it’s the truth. Creating something like the weapon you create using your unique magic, young lord, was hard. So this was our workaround.” Oswin sighed as he admitted that his skill wasn’t enough.

”Still, the end result is great. The distance this could shoot out the lead balls is less than that of the arquebus, but the difference isn’t that big. The great thing about this is that it can fire four times simultaneously before you need to reload. It really isn’t that bad to sacrifice the distance for faster shots.”

Robert’s grin widened until it threatened to split his soot-streaked face. ”Think about it, four shots, before the need to reload. Imagine two soldiers with these at a chokepoint and a line of iron spheres behind them. One soldier would reload while the other just kept on shooting. Before the enemy finds your location, many of them would fall.”

Lucen couldn’t help but smile as he shook his head. He already knew that Robert was a once-in-a-lifetime genius. Yet every time he sees Robert, he keeps on creating new things one after another.

With just a look at Lucen’s revolver, Robert was able to create something like a pepperbox rifle.

’This guy just skipped a few centuries of ideas... Well, I guess he did have something to base it on, my revolver, but even os this is incredible.’

”So, does that work?”

”Of course! After a few trial and errors, I was able to determine how much gunpowder needed to be placed so that the integrity of the metal work would be maintained.”

”Then what was that explosion about?”

”Oh, that, I just wanted to push it to the very limit of what it could do, but I guess I made a mistake somewhere since the gunpowder blew up the barrel,” Robert answered while shrugging his shoulders.

”So what do you call that invention of yours?”

”Hm... I haven’t thought about it much. I guess since it’s an improvement of the arquebus, it can fire multiple shots. I want to call the Arquebus: Thunderstorm, since it will make the enemy think of a thunderstorm when they hear this.”

”That’s a pretty good name. So can you create more of this Arquebus: Thunderstorm?” Lucen asked Oswin.

”The metalwork is much harder than when we created the arquebus, but yes, we can create more, but it will take a much longer time to make. Even this prototype took a few weeks to make... Still, with the molds in place, we can make it a bit quicker, still longer than making a normal arquebus.” Oswin gave his honest opinion.

”That’s good enough. Let’s make a few of these Arquebuses: Thunderstorms alongside the normal arquebuses.” Lucen told Oswin.

”As you wish, young lord,” Oswin spoke, sounding a bit tired just thinking about the extra work ahead.

”Enough about that, since you’re here now. Let’s create some other new things!” Robert excitedly spoke to Lucen. Robert grabbed Lucen by the arm before he could even answer.

”Come on, come on, I’ve got sketches for at least five more ideas, flame-belching thunderspears, shields that could be thrown as a weapon. Where should we start?!”

Lucen sighed, though a faint smile tugged at his lips. ’Here we go again... Every time I meet him, the world skips another century ahead.’

The forge roared to life again, and Lucen couldn’t help but laugh. With Robert at his side, the world wasn’t just changing; it was accelerating ever forward.