Chapter 38 (2/2)

This was really a bit surprising for Iron Axe. Leaving aside the law of Sand Nation, even the military management of Graycastle shouldn’t be this lax. Could it be that this was because of His Highness’ kindness? Iron Axe became somewhat worried, if His Highness wanted to compete for the throne, he needed to be ruthless – this he knew well from his life in Sand Nation.

However, when the 4th Prince began to talk about new weapons, based on the development of the gunpowder, he put his worries into the back of his mind. Iron Axe stared without blinking at the two iron bars which the prince had placed in front of them.

“These weapons are called ‘guns’,” Roland said, “Next, I’ll tell you how to use them. “

…..

In the next half hour, they had to learn how to use the new weapons.

Take the black powder which was the cause of the explosion and fill it into the barrel of the gun. Then, a lead ball was stuffed with a poker into the barrel, straight to the end. After that, they had to pour the gunpowder into the igniting chamber, aim, and then pull the trigger.

Iron Axe had considered himself to be a master of many weapons, whether it be swords, knives, hammers, axes or spears. He was well trained with all of them, but he had also needed long years of training and combat skills to master them. Learning how to use a new weapon in only thirty minutes, he was afraid that the speed to master this weapon could only be compared to the crossbow.

The other gun was handed to Carter.

The chief knight was also full of interest in the novelty of this weapon, and he didn’t want to put them down.

After several rounds of simulation, Roland set up two targets to let them see the power of the guns. The first target had wooden armor in front of its chest. The wooden armor was held up by two knights standing at a distance of about thirty feet away.

The Prince led Carter and Iron Axe through the shooting technique. Then, they aimed and pulled the trigger.

When they heard the loud sound of fire, every person present jumped up out of shock. Iron Axe was no exception, but soon only surprise was left on everyone’s face.

Looking at the targets’ wooden armor, they could see a small hole. The lead ball had cleanly shot through the chest armor’s thickest part.

Before shooting, Iron Axe had carefully observed this armor. It was clearly not a handicraft workshop’s inferior product built from bad materials. The marks of the hammer and anvil on the neckline proved that this was a product of Graycastle’s blacksmith standard. The thickest part was half a finger thick and was strong enough that it could ward off a direct hit from a crossbow, fired at the closest distance. To deal with this kind of armor, a heavy crossbow or a warhammer would be a wise choice.

So comparing it with a crossbow, the difficulty to use the weapon was the same, but the power of a gun was far better than that of a crossbow. In addition, the gun’s loading speed and the loading speed of a crossbow were nearly equivalent, so… looking at the target which was thirty feet away, Iron Axe couldn’t see a problem.

“Your Highness, how many weapons do we have of this kind?” asked Carter.

“Currently, only these two and until the Months of the Demons, we can only produce two more at most.”

Iron Axe could see that hearing this, Carter was clearly relieved. He was able to guess Carter’s thoughts. If this weapon was easy to manufacture, then with only a few days of training, everyone would be able to train a large number of ‘express warriors’ who were bringing guns to battle. Then people at any age, with any strength and even any sex – even a fragile woman, could be a significant threat to the knights.

Although the shock he got from this weapon was smaller than that of the curse of fire, it still was a powerful weapon. Iron Axe thought, with this great power they could easily kill a large number of rugged-flesh demonic beasts from high up on the wall. Even if they would face a mixed species, with these firearms, maybe the outcome would be not so embarrassing.

But the real significance of such a weapon was clear to Roland.

He personally opened the door to the time of wars with hot weapons.