Kira sat in the driver’s seat of the same wagon they’d been traveling on for months. Fidgeting their hooves, the horses that had accompanied them on their journey nervously began clopping down the street after the long winter season during which they hadn’t borne any carriages at all. Sighing and patting their manes, she held the reins loosely to signal them to take it slow while the others rested in the back. After all, nervous horses would mean an already jerky ride. Pushing aside the curtains, she glanced behind at her… family.
Diana was asleep beside her grandfather: the two would be responsible for the night watch, leaving Nora and James awake. While the sun could faintly be seen, beneath the shadow of the mountain, it was dark enough for one to sleep without much disturbance. About an hour after the group had left the city, James checked a magic gadget to assure that there were no nearby prying eyes or spells. Once safe, James opened his chest containing his important items.
The first item to be brought out was a notebook with a few blueprints of the earlier versions of James’s lanterns as well as some other devices. Nudging Nora, he began explaining the basics of his works. As someone experienced in magical technology, she could clearly see the reasoning and processes behind his designs even though he used concepts in ways that opposed the conventions she was used to. In fact, some of the technologies he had developed already existed. After all, he had not been the first in creating circuit-based technology, but he was the first to follow through with it long enough to make it cost-effective, or really effective in general. She could clearly see that his key development was actually the magic battery, which was by far the most expensive part of his devices since they required valuable magic crystals. Without it, James would’ve faced the same problems that had plagued other [Mechanic]s who had followed his path. After fully examining his notebook, she felt confident she could reverse engineer James’s peoples’ technology if needed. After all, little was completely beyond her imagination, even if ideas were used in truly unique ways. Feeling a bit of complacency, she eagerly waited for James to show her some of the higher level stuff he had promised that he would. Then, James pulled out a few larger posters that had been folded into the notebook. The note at the top read, “First design of a simple weapon.”
Dropping her mouth open in shock, Nora was dumbfounded by the blueprint of this first weapon. Called a Remmington 870 pump-action shotgun, the weapon was nicknamed the ‘Boomstick’ on the blueprint. The actual mechanics of the device were both extremely complicated yet exceedingly simple. Using this design, she could make one herself after a few attempts if she wanted to as long as she could refer to the blueprints in front of her. However, the kicker was not the weapon itself, which was a simple barrel and trigger design fortified using some local resources, but the ammunition. With an ammo storage for four shots plus one at the ready for instead use, this weapon was several times faster than any crossbow, explaining James’s explosive DPS, which she had previously assumed Diana had exagerated. Nevertheless, the ammo capacity was not the most fearsome aspect of this weapon. Variable ammo was not a new concept for Nora, but she had never seen anyone dare to derive destructive munitions from raw magic crystal before. Previous iterations of such ideas had been regarded as not only prohibitively extravagant but also exceedingly foolish since carrying around volatile ammunition was more likely to kill you than any enemy. She had seen enchanted crystals imbued with spells, but most normal resistances worked against spells. The same could not be said for the raw force of an element, which the boomstick ammo provided in spades. Following the mechanism described in the blueprint, the first thing that happened was a trigger event. In this case, a small amount of fire crystals ground to a fine powder exploded with a controlled but powerful force to expel the actual payload.
Normally this would cause the weapon to fail as the chain reaction would destroy the weapon, but the weapon had been reinforced and designed to mold the various elemental energies into various projectiles corresponding to the elemental crystal used for the ammunition. For example, with the earth element ammunition, the boomstick aimed a hardened mass at a target. With great kinetic force and density, it was perfect for ignoring armor for which earth element users were famed for. With wind element bullets, the situation was similar, but the bits of earth were more numerous and several degrees smaller, designed to hit multiple or fast-moving enemies, which was a complete counter to traditional wind users, who excelled at high-speed attacks while avoiding damage. With this, a non-magic user could match dozens of mages, although ironically, the elemental crystals were almost universally designed to be extremely effective against [Mage]s specializing in their type of mana.
The next blueprint she examined was the grenade, which came in the standard elemental variations, much like the ammo before. She quickly realized that using these blueprints, a skilled [Craftsman] could create weapons that were nearly uncounterable even by expert [Archmage]s.
The next weapon was on a different type of paper. She could immediately determine that the actual blueprint paper was of a much higher grade and had been magically imbued with the highest available enchantments for protection against theft and spying.
[ US M2A1 Flamethrower – Dragonsbreath
Classification- Forbidden Arsenal
DPS 56-112/s per unit (continuous/fire)
Attack speed 4 units per second. (Max attack duration: 10 seconds)
Capacity 500 units.
Special abilities:
- Upon attack causes an AOE (line) for five tiles of regular damage. The range spreads left and right by one tile for the sixth and seventh tiles. For the sixth and seventh tiles in line with the user, critical damage is executed.
- Causes elemental fire (Burn) to be applied. -20 HP per second per stack; max 40 stacks. Each stack lasts 4 turns.
- Causes environment exposed to be imbued with (Napalm). -50 HP per turn to anything in that area and doubles (Burn) damage. Lasts 2 turns.
- Those surrounded by (Napalm) effect have additional debuff (Inferno). -1% hp per burn stack. (Max 100 damage)
- After 10 seconds of attack, the weapon may not be used again for ten seconds without risking malfunction.
After reading the description of the weapon through an |Identify|, she was both horrified and stunned. First was the blueprint’s “forbidden weapon” classification. If not for the scarily simplistic design of the weapon, she would have been sure that the System had made some sort of mistake. She could clearly see what he had meant when he had claimed that this path could easily lead her away from his peaceful inclinations. This weapon was a perfect example. Like the boomstick, this was a weapon she could easily start building right now. There were no insane restrictions like with many other great magical artifacts. Unlike the boomstick, which would be classified as an “elite” weapon for individual self-defense, this weapon had one purpose: overwhelmingly destructive fire damage. An army with a dozen of these could wipe out a modern army of much greater numbers with ease if properly deployed. Pushing the blueprint away, her fingers trembled as she looked at the next blueprint. This next weapon also had the “forbidden weapon” classification according to her |Identify|. Slightly more complex, this weapon was the wind equivalent to the previous Dragonsbreath. The next was an Earth weapon that was magnitudes more powerful than the boomstick variant. It was here that Nora tensed up as a wave of pleasure washed over her. She had not even realized that she had begun touching herself ever since she had started looking at the blueprints of the forbidden weapons. This was when she realized James was still there watching her. A noticeable bulge protruded from his lap as he kept cross-armed, obviously trying to remain indifferent. Adorably, it was obvious that he had failed. Right now they had a student and teacher relationship, so Nora’s cheeks burned as she helplessly soiled the wagon with her pleasure. Weakly smiling at him, she struggled to find some way to avoid the awkwardness before giving up and studiously turning to the designs.
Kira was very annoyed with the new wife as she kept the pace at a slow and stable speed. She had to endure the smells and sounds of Nora doing whatever she was doing for James. With James’s mating scent soon added to the mix, she became more sullen as their lesson ended early, and Nora earned an early ‘turn’ in the rotation between the wives.
