Distressed
Distressed
A row of soldiers in the uniform of the Militia was standing on the wall, each of whom held a strange weapon—probably the flintlock that Ashes mentioned. As the demonic beasts drew near, the flintlocks sprayed flames and smoke, and the sound of gunfire rang constantly in her ears.
The weapon should be similar to a crossbow, but she couldn't see bolts shot out of it, probably because of all the smoke. The demonic beasts rushing to the front seemed to be heavily struck by something, because they all suddenly stopped and fell on the ground one after another.
However, the soldiers didn't stop to observe their shots, nor did they refill bolts into the weapons. They just kept on shooting at the enemies at a speed that was even faster than shooting with crossbows.
"Is this the dreadful weapon you talked about?" Andrea felt her lips dry. "The shooting speed is indeed fast, but the accuracy seems..."
Ashes interrupted her. "These people were only miners, farmers or hunters before they were recruited. They have only trained with these weapons for less than six months."
It takes five years to train a warrior well, and longer to train an archer. Even for the crossbow, which is easy to operate, it takes about six months of training to at least prevent a farmer from placing the bolt in backwards in panic. As for actual combat, who the hell knows what they'll shoot at. The prince will probably just use their size to intimidate the enemies.
Andrea gulped in awe. She was no stranger to these trainings. Her family used to train outstanding knights, so she understood what it meant to produce qualified soldiers in about six months. As long as they had sufficient weapons and food supply, Roland was able to put together a large army in a short time, which didn't have to worry about close-quarter combat, because their ceaseless attacks prevented even elite knights from coming into attack range.
It had nothing to do with the soldiers' courage and willpower, because the weapons had endowed them with great strength.
"Do you know anything else about flintlocks?" Tilly pondered for a moment and asked Sylvie.
Sylvie nodded. "I've carefully observed it many times. It's indeed similar to the crossbow, but the arrow it fires is very short without any shafts or tail feathers. The difference is that the arrow shot by the flintlock is not propelled by an elastic string, but by the impact of exploding black powder - it can bring the shots to an extremely high speed in an instant."
"Black powder?" Ashes asked, "What's that?"
"It's probably an alchemic product." Sylvie shook her head. "I don't know its specific ingredients."
"It must be very expensive," Andrea said. "Nothing made by alchemists is cheap."
Ashes frowned. "Is that so... When the soldiers are shooting, they don't act like they're using something expensive at all."
"Wait a moment, something is coming," Sylvie, who had been observing the battlefield, said in a stunned tone. "Oh God, is that also a demonic beast? It's almost as tall as the city wall! It looks like a huge turtle with a giant shell on its back."
This caught Andrea's attention. "Shell? Those flintlocks may have limited impact on that, but as long as I can get within ten steps of the target, even the city wall can't withstand my magic arrows. Ashes, you cover me."
"OK." Ashes took down the sword on her back reluctantly. "Let me remind you—you'd better not embarrass Lady Tilly."
"Don't go." Sylvie tried to stop them. "They have..."
Andrea missed the second half of Sylvie's sentence. All she could hear was a deafening roar that sounded like a thunder ringing in her ears. Looking back, she saw that those metal tube weapons standing on the city wall were shooting out flames in unison. This time she vaguely followed the arrows' trajectories - they were like shadows going at a lightning-fast speed toward the distant beast that had just appeared.
After a few seconds, columns of snow sprung up near the beast. While the snow scattered down, the ugly large demonic beast still proceeded with the same speed—obviously the round of attack missed the target.
Despite this, Andrea was already in shock... the shooting distance was much farther than what a longbow and a heavy crossbow could reach. "Is this..."
"His Highness calls it field artillery. Simply speaking, it's a magnified flintlock." Sylvie uncovered her ears. "This weapon is much more powerful than flintlocks and can reach a much farther target. His Highness used these to easily defeat Timothy's fleet at the fork of Redwater River."
The demonic beast wasn't as lucky in the second round of firing, as two shots accurately landed on the beast's shell. After two heavy collision sounds, Andrea clearly saw a layer of mist spring from the beast's bumpy shell and two big holes appear on the shell near the beast's head. Black blood and guts spurted out of the holes, splashing everywhere.
The fight didn't last long. After a short while, piles of demonic beasts' bodies were scattered at the foot of the city wall. Warm blood flowed out of their bodies and turned into fog when it touched the snow. The soldiers began to clean up the mess. Andrea, on the other hand, hadn't found any chance to use her abilities in the fight.
"It seems my prediction was wrong," Tilly said resignedly. "He doesn't need the help from combat witches."
"When I arrived in this town last time, this sort of weapon hadn't been popularized, and they were exclusive to Chief Knight. However, this time, he has already produced so many of them..." Ashes sighed. "This was probably why His Highness insisted on announcing the existence of witches in public despite the pressure from the Church."
Andrea didn't talk back. Normally, she would have teased Ashes, but now she felt extraordinarily depressed with no strength to fight back.
After the witches returned to the castle, they found that His Highness Roland had prepared a hearty lunch for them.
Looking at the colorful dishes on the table, Andrea felt even more depressed.
The upper nobility of the Kingdom of Dawn emphasized the natural form of food. They spent lots of money and time on collecting cherished and rare ingredients, and they cooked them using the most authentic methods. The food served in the Kingdom of Graycastle was covered with all sorts of spices and sauces. In her eyes, this was a rather vulgar way of eating - seasonings were only used to cover up the defects of the food itself. The more seasonings were added, the worse the food actually tasted.
Surprisingly... every dish on the table was terribly delicious.
Take the grilled mushroom for example—where did His Highness find all these juicy mushrooms? A small bite of it yielded a mouthful of flowing juices.
Then there was the vegetable soup. It looked just like ordinary clear soup, but it tasted as rich and fresh as it had been cooked with a whole chicken, ribs and kelp for a long time.
The most special dish was the dessert—ice cream bread, which was actually a kind of sandwich with fragrant ice cream in between. Taking a bite of it, she felt intoxicated by its icy and creamy texture. Although it was "winter", it didn't stop her from eating piece after piece.
Damn, even in regards to food, she had completely lost.
Looking at Ashes, who was smiling at her provocatively, Andrea didn't say anything in response for the first time.