CH 105

A few days had passed since I asked for Lily’s help in deciphering the daily reports and today was finally the day I would demonstrate the weapon I’ve had craftsmen make in front of His Highness, Duke Grunding, Grand Duke Seyfart, and my father.

As for information I’ve got from refugees and orphans who went to pick up trash in the town, I’ve submitted it to the kingdom via Father. Ah… so sleepy…

I wasn’t good at using a bow so I borrowed one of the capital knights’ archers. I decided to use the knights’ training ground as the place for the demonstration… but…

“So what are you planning this time?” (Duke Grunding)

“Well, it is just a little modification of an existing weapon so I hope everyone here does not have too high of expectations.”

Why were there so many spectators? I promised the Duke to show him the weapon. As for the Grand Duke, I asked for his help in gathering the craftsmen, so I also expected him to come and watch the demonstration, but what was with the rest of the crowd? Even Royal Grandson and Royal Guard Captain were present here! Today’s event wasn’t a big deal and yet seeing the amount of spectators… Urgh… my stomach hurt again.

I felt tired even before starting the demonstration. Well, let’s just do it. Finally, I took out the bow. I was the one that requested the craftsmen to make it but to think they actually succeeded. I was impressed.

“I see. So that is the short bow that Sir has requested the craftsmen to make.” (Seyfart)

“With that size, you could even use it while riding a horse.” (The Crown Prince)

True, the size of the bow made it look like the typical short bow but this was more powerful than a normal short bow since it was made using the body parts of the demons. In any case, should I say as expected of His Highness? He immediately noticed it.

I handed it to His Highness via his knight. After that, the bow was passed around until it reached the Grand Duke’s hand. As the Grand Duke stroked the bow’s spiral pattern, he asked me, “So it was a horn that was being sandwiched between the two woods… And it was wrapped with leather?”

“I also used tree bark.”

If I didn’t cover them with leather, the weapon would lose its shape in different humidity levels. I heard that wood and bones (well, horn was also bone) had a different rate of expansion in different humidity levels so if I didn’t wrap them with leather and just used an adhesive directly, the bow may break in some situations. Of course, the leather would also increase the bow’s firepower.

The bow was passed along to everyone that has been watching the demonstration before it finally returned to my hands. I gave the bow to the archer and asked him to shoot toward the prepared metal armor in the distance. The arrows flew toward the metal armor and pierced it. Judging from the surrounding knights’ reaction, they seemed to have noticed how that bow sounded different from a normal bow.

Then, a surprised voice could be heard.

“This is a composite bow made using demons’ body parts. As everyone here has already seen, even though the bow was the size of a short bow, its firepower was comparable and even surpassed a longbow, but the archer also needed to be very skilled in order to be able to use this bow.”

“A short bow but as powerful as a longbow… I see. But there’s more, isn’t it?”

“Yes. You can think of this bow as a set weapon with this.”

As an answer to the Captain of the Royal Guard’s question, I took out a small quiver.

“I see. So Sir’s aim was to create a weapon that had the same power as a longbow with excellent maneuverability.”

“That is correct.”

He sure was quick to understand. Archaeological finds and art indicate composite bows had existed since the second millennium BCE, but their history was not well recorded, being developed by cultures without a written tradition. Composite bows may have been invented first by the nomads of the Asiatic steppe. Later, they were soon adopted and adapted by civilizations who came into contact with nomads.

Arrows were consumable and you needed a lot of them to fight in a war. It was said that a skilled archer could shoot 10 arrows in a minute. That means just in a minute, the already limited arrows supply would decrease by 10. Therefore, you needed to have a reserve corps nearby that would resupply arrows. Let’s say there was a unit with 1,000 skilled archers, that means you needed to supply 10,000 arrows just for a minute battle.

Training the archers and preparing the sufficient amount of arrows was difficult. Carrying a large amount of arrows across the battlefield would also be difficult so a short, easy to carry arrows would be better for war. If we could improve the mobility of arrow supply, I believe that the use of arrows in a war would increase.

But in the current state of the kingdom, I never expected the kingdom to create an archer cavalry unit since it would cost a lot of time to rear this kind of unit.

“It’s a simple modification but it’s quite good.”

“But if you only wanted to make these, why did you request additional craftsmen?”

“I had the additional craftsman I had requested make a different thing. This is the model.”

I opened the other box and pointed at the crossbow-like things inside it. Then, I had Neurath and Schunzel raise the box with the weapon inside of it. I couldn’t let this one be passed around like that composite bow since it was pretty heavy. The knights might be able to lift it but His Highness wouldn’t be able to.

It looked like everyone understood that the body of this crossbow was more sturdy than a normal crossbow with just one look. I mean, the body of this crossbow even had a metal plate on its top.

“Please use this one too. It is heavy so please be careful in lifting it.”

After I said so, a well-built knight started to flex his arm muscles in order to set up the bow’s string. That scene made the audience gasp in surprise. This thing was heavy because it had a composite bow made by a demon body part attached to it. I needed to do at least this much for it to have the firing distance I wanted.

As expected, I needed a cranequin to operate this bow. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the mechanism behind the cranequin so I couldn’t reproduce it. If only I could just make a small version of what was used to operate the ballista in the castle wall and implement it on this thing…

Anyway, I set one of the metal balls I had prepared before on its string. A voice questioned why I put a metal ball rather than an arrow, but this thing wasn’t made for the purpose of shooting arrows.

I asked the knight to shoot. The metal ball then was shot toward the metal armor. When it hit the metal armor, the armor was thrown backward. Even though the sense of balance of using this thing would be different compared to the sense of balance used to shoot an arrow, this guy actually hit the target on his first strike. He most likely had some sort of Skill. Let’s not provoke him in the future.

As I was thinking like that, the Duke opened his mouth.

“It’s an interesting weapon but why didn’t it use arrows? Using metal balls would shorten its range.”

“This weapon was designed for close combat. I designed it based on my experience in fighting the demons in the battlefield.”

The humans in this world weren’t any different than the humans in my previous world. They felt pain and shock when being hit with an arrow. Someone with a weak mentality might even lose his will to fight and desert the battlefield after being shot with an arrow. But even though humans here were very real, the demons in this world were exactly the same as the demons in the game.

Demons’ fighting capabilities wouldn’t decrease even when they were seriously injured with their life barely hanging on a thread. That was the case with the Lizard Magician I encountered in Alea VIllage and in Finnoi, I saw a demon still fighting even with 2 spears stuck on its body. I doubt this phenomenon happened because the demons were lost in anger. Most likely, they simply had a different perception of pain.

While fighting the demons who had this kind of capability, the killing ability of the arrow was useless. After all, demons would still attack even when a spear was stuck on their body. But using metal balls was different. I pointed to the metal armors that had fallen after being hit with the metal ball.

“Like everyone here has seen earlier, the advantage of this metal ball crossbow was that it would break the enemy’s balance when hit.”

If the metal ball hit the enemy’s head, it could stun or even kill the enemy in an instant but even if it didn’t, it would cause a knockback effect like the earlier demonstration. Even a thrown stone looks pretty scary, so these metal balls also have a pretty dangerous visual effect.

Above all, the demons could repel arrows but it would be almost impossible for them to repel a high speed small metal ball. If they tried, their arm would be damaged instead. This was a weapon designed specifically to fight the demons that have a little sense of pain and a high vitality.

Either way, a ‘maximum range’ of weapons was different from the practical range in the battlefield. A bow’s actual effective range in a battlefield was probably around 50 meter max. Only a well trained, skilled archer could shoot farther than that. In warfare, it was better to let a group of soldiers rain down arrows or to let them shoot arrows from a close distance or in other words, arrows were the best to use when the target was easier to hit.

“It looks like it was also possible to shoot javelin or flame bottles using it.”

“I have yet to experiment with that, but it would be possible. Other than that, it will also be possible to use it like this.”

I showed them Lily’s drawing that had already added the explanation I put before. Then, voices filled with surprise rang throughout the place.

“So you are going to make it into the size of a small ballista then put it on a chariot.”

“Then this mechanism below it… it could turn. You are going to make it capable of shooting in all directions.”

“Yes. Although I believe that it will still be impossible to use it while running.”

The basis of this weapon was the Carroballista used by ancient Rome. The plan was to mount this weapon on a two wheeled or a four wheeled chariot, then bring it to the battlefield, thus a projectile weapon stronger than bow would destroy the enemy’s line. You still needed to aim plus it’s heavy so I didn’t think it would be possible to operate this weapon while moving on the battlefield. The user also needed to prepare the metal balls spare and load it on the chariot together with the weapon. Because of it, this kind of tank-like design was the best choice for this weapon. 

If I just mounted a Carroballista on a chariot, I could still create a strong projectile weapon but it could only fire in one direction since considering the demon speed, changing it into another direction would be impossible. That was why I chose to use the rotating table here.

Plus, something the size of Carroballista could throw the metal balls over in a long distance. If it was the size of a handheld weapon, it would be difficult to do so. Probably. I hoped so. But… I wondered if I used demon body parts as material I could create a handheld size of this weapon… No, it’s too scary to imagine this thing as a handheld weapon so let’s stop here.

Actually, I didn’t know if something like Carroballista actually existed in this world’s history, at least I’ve never seen it. Even if it did exist no one actually used it and it was then forgotten.

Actually, you could transport a ballista in this world with a magic bag but since this world valued personal fighting power above all else and all soldiers want to take their enemy as a hostage, improvement in a projectile weapon was neglected.

I had always noticed that this world was inconsistent just like the case with projectile weapons. Maybe because magic existed in this world? Many things could be done with the help of magic so people stopped to think?

I think that the reason gunpowder didn’t exist in this world was that alchemy didn’t develop in this world… Wait… I felt like I missed something…

Well, let’s put that off for later. I was in the middle of my explanation so I shouldn’t let my thoughts wander off. What was in front of me was more important compared to the history of the past. To fight against the demons that would attack the capital, I needed at least this much firepower.

If we consider the event in the Finnoi as the ‘early stage’ of the game, then the capital attack event happened in the ‘later stage’ of the game. The knights with their high combat ability might be able to fight demons but I wanted the normal soldiers to be able to be deployed at last, when the enemy line had already collapsed to some extent. Plus, I also had some concerns.

“I also need an axis that is capable of withstanding the firepower of this weapon.”

“You should be able to make something like that using the demon body parts. With this, we could stop the opponent on their track then rain them with arrows.”

“It’s true that I’ve never considered the demons’ immense vitality before. It was a quite interesting weapon. I think this weapon is worth researching.”

While I was lost in my thoughts earlier, for some reason ‘usage’ and ‘improvement’ of this weapon became a hot topic among the audience here. I was glad that this weapon didn’t get outright rejected. Then His Highness, who was reading the explanation paper, seemed to have noticed something and turned his head to me. Honestly, this guy was way too sharp.

♦

T/N: I remember someone was wondering about what Welner will use the rotating table for in the comment, and here is the answer!