Chapter 81 (2/2)

It was good that the balance was achieved, but this ended up making the crossbow a semiautomatic instead of fully automatic, which was what Isaac wanted. After pondering about how to make it constantly load new bolts while maintaining the balance, Isaac came up with a simple solution.

On the top part of the wooden piece Isaac weaved onto the bowstring, Isaac placed a magic circle which nullified the other magic circle for a moment.

There was no point if a bolt was pushed up while the bowstring was still being pulled back, so Isaac made it to nullify the opposing magic circle only when it pa.s.sed the circle twice.

That way, in the split second the bowstring pa.s.sed the area twice as it fired and loaded back, it broke the balance and allowed another bolt to be pushed up, thus making the crossbow complete.

After the creation, Isaac secretly left his hiding spot to test it. The accuracy of the crossbow, however, was beyond disappointing. With no feather or tip to correct the flight path, the bolts flew in all directions in various distances.

But Isaac didn’t have the time to add a tip or fletching to every bolt at this point, and creating extra s.p.a.ce in the mechanism to allow for the bolt and a tip would make it more likely for the crossbow to jam or load incorrectly. Isaac solved the issue with a very simple solution.

He created multiple magic circles ordinarily used to push an object in a certain direction and placed them along the crossbow chamber spiraling towards the end. The magic circles would stack small pushes on the bolt, making it spin like a screwdriver when launched. Because of the spin’s extreme velocity, the bolt’s flight path would be stabilized.

Isaac decided to make it as strong as possible now that it had come to this, and there was not a single s.p.a.ce these magic circles didn’t occupy. It was the birth of what looked crude and haphazard, but it was a monstrous object imbued with all kinds of basic magic circles.

Isaac then stuck a mana crystal into it to provide all the mana this crossbow would need, and once Isaac activated the magic circles after having a smoke, it was operational until the mana crystal ran out of mana.

PR Note: The mana crystal’s location is ambiguous. If the location of the mana crystal in the crossbow is later clarified, we will update the above paragraph.

“Magic really is convenient. I hardly feel any weight on this thing. Makes it so much easier to handle this thing.”

Isaac’s gaze glinted off the mana crystal in the crossbow ever so sinisterly in the dark pit.

“s.h.i.+t. Where is he hiding? That filthy rat.”

Having lost most of his men to the traps, Smith trekked through the area furiously. Although the forest was large, Isaac had to be near this location. Most of the traps were distributed around this area, after all.

All of the remaining traps in the forest were disarmed with extreme care within a single day, and another day had pa.s.sed since then. Yet, Isaac was still nowhere to be seen.

They had searched high and low within the forest, looking at every corner where he could be hiding. Some within the group began to speculate that he had already left the forest whilst keeping them busy here, but everyone tried their best to ignore that theory.

Whether he ran away or not, he wouldn’t be able to escape the forest. It would only be a matter of time before he was caught once Central began their relentless chase. But the knights’ honour would be irredeemable if Central were to deal with the warlock who rampaged through their own lands. The knights would never find another opportunity at employment if that was to happen, so their only option was to kill the warlock.

This was why Smith searched the forest alone. Maybe the warlock would show himself if he presented himself as tempting prey. Even if he were to die, his friends would at the very least find some reprieve that the warlock hasn’t escaped yet.

“Hm?”

At first, Smith thought he was seeing an illusion. Even the opposition looked at him with great surprise. When Smith identified the target, the smouldering anger that had been dimming each day began to burn brightly once more. He considered calling his companions, but he changed his mind after seeing how badly injured the warlock was. Calling on his friends to kill this critically injured opponent was surely going to sully his reputation as a combat knight.

The only thing which bugged him was that the warlock was much younger than he thought. The injuries he had sustained must be preventing him from using his magic. Otherwise he wouldn’t have resorted to using those traps instead of magic. And the only weapon he carried was a strange looking crossbow, making Smith confident that he could fight the warlock.

Completing his thought process in a split second, Smith immediately pulled out his sword. When he saw Isaac aim the crossbow at him, Smith snorted and mana surged throughout his body, enhancing his abilities.

In a split second Smith heard three distinct sounds, each followed by a sting. Looking down, Smith saw three pieces of wood skewering his chest and stomach.

“… What?”

Smith shared Isaac’s look of disbelief. Isaac looked at the holes he created with wide eyes. Smith pressed on, thinking that he couldn’t let it end like this. But all he could achieve was one more step before he collapsed.

“Wow! That’s insane! How is this possible?”

Isaac was astonished by the weapon he had created. No matter how furiously the bolt spun, they were just pieces of wood. Yet it split the air and pierced through the armor and hit the knight directly.

“That was an unexpected result. I was worried if the bolt would even fly straight without fletching. But was it possible to get this much power simply by making it spin at such a speed?”

Although Isaac panicked when he faced a knight as soon as he had left his hiding spot, he quickly determined that it was a good opportunity to test his weapon. But he never expected his bolts to be able to pierce through armour made of steel alloy and imbued with magic.

The bolts themselves were crudely made by hand, so they all had different lengths and sizes. Isaac was even doubtful if the bolts would even fly toward where he aimed, let alone precisely. The crossbow’s aim was to hit the legs and head, which were not as heavily protected. He could only spray and pray that one of the bolts. .h.i.t these vulnerable spots.

That was how Isaac designed the crossbow, yet the bolts Isaac shot drove themselves into the chest like toothpicks stabbing into a fruit.

“This is more interesting than I’d thought.”

Mischievously smiling like a naughty child who’d thought of an awful prank, Isaac approached the dead knight and began looting his corpse.

“Let’s see. That’s his wallet… what the, that’s all you had? I see you’re quite the spender. Ah! Here it is.”

After spending a while looting, Isaac finally found the stick used to fire a signal round into the air.

“I may as well have them come to me instead of wasting my energy looking for them.”

Pointing the stick to the sky, Isaac pulled at the string at the bottom of the stick. With a sharp noise, a firework shot up into the sky and exploded into a grey white cloud.

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