The Villainess and Artillery I"ve been busy with things recently so I haven"t gotten the time to pursue my advances in magic.
That said, I have no plans today, so let"s go and experiment some more!
The prototype I"m working on right now is a 120mm rifled gun. Yeah, you heard that right. I"m really thinking of making a 120mm rifled gun. I"ve thought about this back when I was at the social gathering, but my military power still can"t hold a candle against just this kingdom. I need more firepower before my showdown against my fate, firepower way above the levels of just machine guns and grenade launchers. I"ve thought of making anti-tank rocket launchers, but I"m sure that still won"t be enough.
That"s why I"m planning to make the 120mm gun mounted on the Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks. It"s one of my favorite tanks. I"ve even had a model built and went to see and touch the real thing in the Bovington Tank Museum.
That"s why making the gun itself is not as crazy as it sounds for me. The real problem is; how do I load the gun?
“Can you make this?”
“Even if I can, it"s not gonna move.”
My advisor is Uncle Gnome.
At first, I thought making a cannon is basically just making a huge gun, but generally, modern MBTs are equipped with an autoloader, which creates the problem as I can"t develop it yet. Autoloaders don"t operate using the power of the gun"s recoil; they are powered by the tank"s power source, which means electricity, and that"s my main issue.
Magic can"t produce electricity. Elemental magic are cast through seeking the powers of the Water, Fire, Wind and Earth spirits, and none of them are capable of producing electricity. Although even if I can, a humanities student like me couldn"t possibly create a machine as complex as an autoloader. Without it, the firepower would lower drastically, which is bad for me who needs as much firepower as I can muster.
“It would be great if I could move the things I made with Mana, huh…”
“Yer askin for the impossible. Everything in the world works following the law of nature from the moment they were born until it disappears into nothingness. Just like it"s impossible for you to rain arrows in to your enemy"s territory.”
Sigh…I"ve hit a dead end.
I can picture the image of autoloaders based from my memory of seeing it in the internet, but reproducing it through magic is going to be difficult. Heck, it"s impossible.
I"ve also thought of creating hydraulics system, but a humanities student like me can"t incorporate hydraulics system into operating an autoloader…
Can it be simpler than that?
“Oh, right! I can just make a bigger handgun!”
A light bulb popped up in my head.
“Uncle gnome, how about this? This would move like this and this will move like this and it will hit the gunpow…spell card and it"ll go boom.”
“Hm hm. This could move, but the blast from the first shot would hurt you too you know? What are you gonna do about that?”
“I"d have the friendly neighborhood wind fairy Blau-chan to do something about that.”
I drew something on the ground and explained to the nodding Uncle Gnome.
“Still, is this something a person can use? Won"t the recoil be huge?”
“I"ll be using Blood Magic on overdrive so I"ll be fine!”
Well obviously you"ll have to deal with ma.s.sive recoil if you"re handling a tank gun with your own hands…but I"ll be fine! I still have Blood Magic!
Wolf-sensei said that if I overdo it with Blood Magic, my muscles might get shredded, but I can avoid that by daily training. Recently I tried jumping down from the 3rd floor of the school building and I didn"t break any bones.
“Well…I can try makin" it…”
With a reluctant tone, Uncle Gnome produced the cannon I designed. Several seconds later, the gun is produced.
“There it is! Type 07 120mm gun!”
What appeared could only be described as a giant revolver. As it"s a double action revolver, it should be able to automatically switch to the next chambered round when the trigger is pulled. This type had lower risks of accidental firing according to the military magazine I read.
“It"s so big though…”
“It is, innit.”
The stunning thing about the finalized product is its sheer size. The grip is child-sized as a whole, but the trigger should perhaps be called a lever instead because of its size. It"s equipped by a grip to support it and a foregrip in the front to stabilize the barrel and an optical sight to help aiming down sight.
I need to hold the grip with my entire right arm and use the left arm to pull the trigger of this monster of a handgun. Can I really use this?
“Anyways, I"ll shoot it once as a test. Load the sh.e.l.l and set.”
The sh.e.l.l I"m using is one I use for testing. Embedded into the warhead is a wind-elemental spell card that would create a smokescreen. The structure of the sh.e.l.l itself is similar to the grenade sh.e.l.ls I use for the launcher.
“Activate Blood Magic!”
I let mana rush into my body, boosting the strength on my bones and muscles.
“Alrighty!”
Fortunately, most of the weight of a sh.e.l.l comes from its gunpowder, so now that I"ve replaced it with spell cards, it"s not that heavy. I"m sure it"s thanks to Blood Magic, but I easily loaded the sh.e.l.l and hold the 120mm rifled gun.
“Alright, the target is that straw doll 3 meters away.”
The straw doll had come a long way from the farm and it"s now waiting as a target.
“Fire!”
The recoil shook my body, but Blood Magic helped keep it at bay.
“Loading the next sh.e.l.l!”
The revolver"s cylinder rotates, loading the next sh.e.l.l. Great, it works.
Just like that, went ahead and fired all 5 sh.e.l.ls one after another.
By the way, I had Blau suppress the gas blasted by the revolver with her wind so I only felt a bit of heat from where I was.
“How"s that accuracy!”
I looked at the straw doll to my excitement.
“Not that accurate, huh…”
It"s not controlled with computer so I can"t help that only two out of five sh.e.l.ls. .h.i.t the target.
“Well it"s a weapon based on splash damage…but still…”
Once again, I got another bright idea.
I read a book about Blood Magic one time about how to handle simple tools using Blood Magic. Just as if they combined the tool and the body at one point, they did an experiment where a researcher and a subject who were both a complete amateur who never used a kitchen knife was able to instantly peel off the skin of a grape, as if they peeled off the grape using their hand.
“I can use that method, right?”
I thought if I could use the result of that research and use it for my gun.
I can"t just simply connect myself to the gun. It shouldn"t just be the extension of my hand, but I need to extend my hand and my eye to it, otherwise my accuracy wouldn"t improve. I need to properly aim with my eye and move the gun with my hands.
In short, I need to link them all together.
“Alright, let"s try it!”
I just have to try it. I loaded five more sh.e.l.ls into the gun and held it like earlier.
“Uhh to link with Blood Magic I need to pour a thin layer of mana…”
If I mess up and pour a bit too much, the sh.e.l.l will detonate, so I"ll have to really prevent that.
“Alright, now I have to link the mana on the object and the mana within me…”
I connected myself to the handle that supports the gun and the foregrip on the front. The mana I thinly poured to the gun links up to my body, and I can feel the grip being a part of me. Moving the gun won"t be a hindrance like this.
Next is the optics. I made it so that I didn"t have to peer into the optics to look at what it"s pointing at. the sight from the optics including the reticle is streamed right into my optical nerve. The reticle is right on the center of my sight right now, but when the gun turns, the reticle follows suit. It also moves when I changed the angle of the barrel; if it moves up, the reticle would follow and move to show the projection of where the sh.e.l.l would land. It"s like a human-powered optical rangefinder. When I lowered the angle, the reticle would come closer to show where the sh.e.l.l would land.
Not bad. Now I just need to align the reticle to the straw doll, and—
“Fire!”
I tried one shot to begin with.
That"s a hit, and just like that, I shot out the remaining 4 sh.e.l.ls and pummeled the straw doll with it. All of them hit the straw doll accurately.
I didn"t really feel the shake on my hands, and the the aim was perfect as the sh.e.l.ls. .h.i.t the target. I"m writing a note here; huge success!
“YAAY! I DID IT!!”
Even as everything was hot thanks to the heat blast produced by the gun, I still managed to let out a great cheer.
“Is it a success, Master?” Blau asked as she tilts her head, and in response, I pumped my fists as I said, “It"s a huge success, Blau! It"s perfect!”
“That"s great! I"m glad I can be of help!”
“Yeah! I"ll give you a cookie later.”
This revolver-type rifle could only work because Blau is there to dampen the blast. I"d be half roasted if she isn"t here.
“Listen here you…what"re you gonna do with that much overwhelming firepower?”
“Didn"t I tell you before? It"s to prepare for my showdown with fate.”
With this, the firepower of my army skyrockets.
The problem now is that it could only fire off 5 shots. Revolver-type weapons are a huge ha.s.sle to reload, so I want to do something about it.
This world is a lot deeper than you"d normally think for a fantasy game, but there aren"t any of those mysteriously bottomless bags, so you can"t really walk around with sh.e.l.ls ready to fire and instead you have to walk around with spell cards and make the sh.e.l.ls on the spot.
If I could only solve this problem, I could finally declare that my firepower is definitely improving
Well I guess for now I"ll be satisfied at how I"ve managed to make this gun. As for how to solve the problems, it would require some researching.
Chapter 29 > TLC:
Imagining a 120mm revolver and how Astrid is using it is a bit too rough for my three brain cells to think of. That aside, the system feels a bit too convenient.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Remember; flat is justice, so flatten the curve. Stay home, stay safe, and have a great day.