New Weapons
Completion: 9
"Is this as far as I can go?"
He had drawn countless blueprints. With each one, the design improved.
But—
"I just can't get past a miniature cannon."
The greatest flaw in the current design was simple: he still couldn't build a trigger. Without one, the only option was to run a fuse to the powder and light it by hand.
Like a cannon or a stick of dynamite, the gun would fire only once the burning fuse reached the charge.
He pictured the blueprint in his mind.
First, the barrel was long. He had tried shortening it, but every attempt dropped the completion rating. The shorter the gun, the worse the accuracy—that much was clear.
Aside from that, the exterior was solid enough.
The stock came first. He had designed it to brace against the shoulder and absorb the recoil.
He had also added front and rear sights, arranged so a shooter could aim the way one would with a modern firearm from Korea.
Aiming shouldn't be the problem. Whether the gun itself can keep up is another matter.
"This will have to do for now."
Designing anything better in the short term looked impossible. That meant it was time to start building from this blueprint.
As the ballista project had already taught him, finishing a design was only half the battle. The blacksmiths who actually forged the thing needed the skill to match.
"And this isn't a ballista—it's a gun. They'll need even more expertise."
He picked up the blueprint rated Completion 9, then took one more sheet with it.
Completion: 17
A cannon blueprint. No matter how much he refined the gun, its completion never broke past ten. The cannon, on the other hand, was already closing in on twenty.
Blueprint in each hand, he left the central grand workshop.
"Waaaaah!!"
"Line up! Get in line!"
"Hey!! No wandering off on your own!!"
"Watch the person in front of you and stay with them!!"
While he had been developing firearms, the atmosphere in Iron had changed.
"What the hell? Why are there so many people?"
Iron had always been lively. Burly, muscle-bound men strode about with hammers in hand. The workshops rang every day with the clang of metal on metal. The streets were no quieter—iron hauled from the mines was delivered to the forges in a constant stream.
Of every village he had built—no, of every settlement in the entire Frontier—Iron was the loudest and most energetic.
"But today it feels like an amusement park."
Human voices had replaced the hammering. Looking closer, he saw how young the crowd was. Middle school or high school age, by Earth's standards.
"My lord, you're out?"
"Ah… yeah. Why is it so crowded today?"
"The upper-school students are here for practical training."
"Practical training?"
They trained blacksmiths two ways. The first was the traditional apprenticeship—learning under a master from childhood. The second was through the schools. At the advanced schools, for ages eleven to fifteen, specialized instruction was offered. Among those tracks was the craftsman class, and the students who had finished that course had come to Iron.
"How does the training work?"
"They live in the dormitories and help out in the forges during the day. That's about it."
He said it casually, but the students would benefit all the same. After learning only in a classroom, working on a real forge floor was a different kind of education.
"That aside—the veteran smiths look pretty fired up too."
"Of course they do. Iron is always short-handed, my lord. Because of you."
The arrow swung straight back at him.
"Because of me?"
"Isn't it obvious? Weapons, armor, farm tools—all of it is made here. And that's not all. Ballistas, then soap, and now you've told us to handpick more people again."
It was true—Iron had a lot on its plate. He clapped Dve on the shoulder.
"That's why I keep sending people, isn't it?"
Slaves and wanderers with skilled hands were funneled to Iron. Every school ran a craftsman class, and the students who finished it came here as well.
"Well, true enough. Either way, we've selected the new smiths. All of them are highly skilled, and their loyalty is solid."
"Call them to the central workshop tomorrow. I have something to tell them."
"Understood."
The conversation finished, they walked through Iron together. With the new arrivals, the workshops were busier than usual. In some forges, masters explained the work to the students; in others, the kids started with the basics—hauling materials and the like.
Once every workshop had been assigned its students—
Mining Village Construction(Complete)
At last, the mission was finished.
Mission complete.
You have received 1 Skill Point.
Analyzing the situation and presenting an appropriate mission.
Skill Advancement(In Progress)
📍 HINT: Advancement requires 1 Skill Point. Deleting two skills yields 1 Skill Point.
📍 HINT: A skill can be advanced once it reaches MAX level.
"Skill Advancement?"
A skill had changed once before—when Land Restoration had become Magi Purge.
"Is this something different from that?"
Judging by the description, it was. Advancement only became available after a skill hit MAX level.
"Either way, it means I need to raise a skill level."
His highest right now was Magi Purge at LV 9.
"Hopefully ten is the max."
The next morning, he arrived at the central grand workshop early. Blueprints lay stacked high on the desk.
His skill:
Designer's Guidance(Lv 3)
Assists when drafting blueprints.
The skill's strengths were clear. It saved time. Without ever building a prototype, it told him a product's completion rating.
It had been invaluable for finding the right material mix for ballista strings, the proper soap formula, even the most efficient powder ratios for gunpowder.
"The problem is…"
When he needed an idea, it was almost useless. It shortened the grind of trial and error, but it never handed him inspiration.
Case in point: he still couldn't figure out how to make a gun trigger.
The new mission only sharpened that frustration. To finish Skill Advancement efficiently, he needed to level Magi Purge. But spending mana on Designer's Guidance meant he couldn't use Magi Purge—both were active skills that required mana.
"Hand development off to someone else?"
"Or… create a development division?"
Hunting for ideas was better done by ten people—or a hundred—than by one. Once they found a concept, he could use the skill to turn it into an efficient blueprint.
"Yeah. I'll make a development division. I can't do this alone. There's no telling how long it would take."
The moment he rose from his seat, the doors of the central grand workshop opened. Dve and the selected smiths filed in.
"My lord, I've brought the smiths we selected."
The craftsmen with him bowed their heads.
"I've heard you're all exceptional. Do you know the men who build the ballistas?"
"We do, my lord."
"We do, my lord."
"You will be placed under the same controls as they are—no, stricter. In return, I will take responsibility for you, your families, and even your grandchildren."
"We accept."
"Leave it to us."
Perhaps they had seen the full support given to the ballista smiths. The moment he finished speaking, they volunteered without hesitation.
He handed them three sheets of paper.
The gunpowder formula.
The firearm blueprint (Completion 9).
The cannon blueprint (Completion 17).
"Your job is to build these. You'll have priority on any materials that arrive in Iron. So make sure you succeed."
"We will build them without fail."
"Don't worry, my lord!"
He turned his gaze to Dve.
"Dve, give them all the help you can."
"Well… fine."
Dve and the smiths left, and he was alone in the workshop once more. He discarded the mountain of blueprints piled on the desk.
"No matter how I look at it, I need a development division."
Leaving production to Dve and the smiths, he departed Iron for the first time in months.
The city of Plain. The administrative hall.
As he entered, Isaac and the officials rose from their seats.
"My lord."
"Young Lord, you've returned."
"Young Lord."
"How do things stand?"
Seated at the head of the table, he received the report on the autonomous territory.
"Plain's first, second, third, and fourth satellite cities are complete, and the settlement of the wanderers has finished as well."
Around Plain as the hub, six satellite cities had been planned in a hexagon. Four of them were now finished.
"So two left."
"The fifth and sixth are scheduled for completion within a month."
Listening to Isaac, he read through the compiled records.
"That's a huge number of wanderers."
The combined population of Plain and its satellites already exceeded twenty thousand. With numbers like that, they could cultivate a massive farm complex.
"Which is why we've drawn up a new city plan. We intend to develop one forward base in the orc region and two in the troll region into proper villages. If Your Lordship has the time…"
"I have the time. I'll purge the Magi."
He needed to use Magi Purge anyway—to raise its level. If ten was the maximum, he could finish the mission and try this Skill Advancement for himself.
It's not as if using Designer's Guidance right now would spit out a better firearm blueprint anyway.
Once every report was done, the officials filed out of the conference room. Only he and Isaac remained.
"My lord, is the work you went to Iron for finished?"
"Hm? No."
Finished? Hardly. He hadn't even completed ten percent of what he had planned. He had developed gunpowder, a rudimentary cannon, and a personal firearm so crude it was almost embarrassing to call it a gun.
"I tried it myself, you know. There's no way I can do this alone."
"You mean…?"
"I'm going to create a development division."