Chatper 12: On the receiving end of tests
“Alright, it fits properly,” I declared with satisfaction.
A new modified part joined seamlessly with the rest of the design, completing a shell. The part was responsible for mana detection in our shells. In case a barrier was encountered, it would send a signal to the other components to turn off.
Adeus had been producing it for a few days by now, so it was quite reassuring that no new errors occurred during the further reiterations of his brewing.
Us two, together with Estelle and Henrietta, were sitting in a meeting room and assembling all the parts into the final product. All while debating the possible improvements.
It was really annoying that we couldn’t access each other’s hidden room. My brother couldn’t go to our floor, and similarly, the rest of us couldn’t just wander through the floor meant for boys. As such, we had to discuss dangerous secret weapons on the floor accessible to everyone, one accidental opening of the door away from an unwanted witness.
“I’m still not used to building a magic tool from parts instead of just brewing the whole product,” Adeus remarked.
Though, his hands seemed to move just fine. I had experience with assembling stuff from my previous world, but the combination of tiny parts, glue and dust was challenging for me as well. It was just really finicky work, to the point of frustration. I almost contemplated outsourcing it to the commoner workers. However, we didn’t produce every part in enough quantities to warrant such an option. Estelle’s production of mana-rich dust was the main bottleneck.
“You are doing great. Not to mention, you all produced your parts without flaw.” I glanced at Estelle and Henrietta as well. “It would have been a nightmare to put them together if they weren’t an exact fit. I am impressed with your brewing skills.”
Adeus was the only one who had seriously practiced his brewing, so I had to praise the girls on being able to keep up with us two. No one in the room had ever encountered anything made from plastic, and yet, after a bit of trial and error, they had all been able to produce its imitation.
“It isn’t that hard.” Estelle shrugged. “Once you showed us that such material is possible, it was rather easy to visualize the product.”
I guess playing with LEGO didn’t make me special. It was a bit of a bummer.
“That’s why no one ever can find out about this.” I looked towards the door. “They would figure it out, and we might end up in that scenario.” I didn’t want to ruin society; I just wanted a big stick to feel better.
Adeus lifted one of the assembled pieces between his two fingers. “It’s still weird that protective charms don’t target it.”
“Advantage of separating the tools. It’s not an activated bomb thrown at you. It’s a nonthreatening deactivated bomb thrown to you with another nonthreatening trigger tool attached.” I smiled innocuously. “After all, that’s why we tested those previous ordonnanzes with the barriers.”
Adeus smirked, shaking his head.
I wondered how many nobles, over thousands of years of history, had tried to tape a bomb to their “pigeon carrier” and called it a day. Maybe that’s why there are barriers and restrictions everywhere.
“Maybe we should obfuscate the shell’s ability to disregard the barriers,” Henrietta uttered, as if responding to my thoughts.
“What do you have in mind?” I asked.
“Couldn’t we add a second smaller explosion that would occur on contact with the barrier? It would imitate a penetrative attack, rather than the shell simply coming through.”
“I like your thinking.” I grinned at her.
No one would be the wiser. Strong magic attacks could easily penetrate even through mana armor, so there was definitely precedent. The opponents would think that their barriers actually worked and the damage was a mere residue that came through.
“Wait, do we have to redo all the shells we have made until now?” Adeus frowned at the already completed pieces.
“Aren’t you glad it’s not a single tool?” I widened my smile. “We only have to replace one single part in the back.”
An explosion, no matter how small, couldn’t exactly occur inside the shell. As such, its back seemed like the best placement for another explosive part. Though, for that we actually had to modify the current back part so the new addition could be attached there.
“With so many changes, it feels like another round of testing is warranted,” Estelle remarked, her eyes still focused on the parts in front of her.
“Definitely.” I nodded. “We have to be rigorous. I don’t want to find some design flaw after we amass like a thousand of these.”
Though, for some reason, I suddenly had a bad feeling about my response.
A few days later, we set up a small shell storage in the woods, east of the dormitory.
“Shall we commence the testing?” Estelle asked with a teasing expression.
She was the one holding the newest version of the teleporter gun that looked nothing like a faucet. Well, it was still basically a tube, albeit with a handle and pretty unnecessary ornaments, which made it look cool and dangerous.
“I think I should not participate, I’m not even in the knight course like the rest of you,” I tried to weasel out of the testing.
The idea of me getting slammed by a bunch of bullets wasn’t exactly enticing.
“Me neither. My course begins next year.” Adeus looked at me knowingly.
Come on, shouldn’t you be protecting your little sister? I had totally forgotten he was this young. His presence was sometimes way more mature for his age. And seeing him practice with the other knights felt as if he had always been part of that regiment.
“You don’t have to worry.” Estelle softened her expression. “These include the same slamming effect as with the previous test. No dangerous explosions.”
Yeah, but it felt quite violent when it hit you.
I decided to stay silent. They would probably not appreciate me saying that, so I just sighed and stepped in my position.
I really hated getting hurt. All these tools had been made exactly so my opponents would be the ones getting hurt instead of me.
Then why the heck should I be hit by these? OK, focus. I designed this thing! I should be able to defeat it. The shells needed to slow down for a moment, as that was the whole point, so they would not activate the barriers and defensive charms by the threat of physical damage.
It would be cool if I managed to reenact that scene from The Matrix and avoid all bullets. Imagining myself in that scene made me smile silly.
The others might have tried to deploy a mana bubble around them, but I had practiced way more than them. I had even managed to fill our whole dorm room with mana… Eh, I don’t want to think about that one.
That memory was still giving me shivers.
Estelle kept tapping with her finger on the gun, while I was trying to produce a big bubble to buy enough reaction time.
Suddenly, three projectiles were flying our way. I hadn’t even noticed when Estelle had fired.
An explosion occurred roughly eight meters from me. Now or never. I jerked in a random direction, trying to avoid the hit. And it actually worked.
Woohoo! I am speed!
The shell hit the ground near my left leg, burning away into a golden flame. If it had been the explosive shell, it would have still harmed me, but I was proud of this achievement nonetheless.
Another explosion happened on my right. Crap! This one was closer. My bubble must have shrunk.
I tried to dodge once again, but it hit my elbow. The unleashed force from the spell spun my whole body. Thankfully, my armor kept me in one piece, so my shoulder didn’t get dislocated. However, the whirl made me completely disoriented. The sensation was so weird that, for a split second, I didn’t even feel any pain in my elbow.
The third explosion occurred. This one was almost next to me as I couldn’t keep up with my enhancements and the mana field at the same time.
I was already hit! I protested with teary eyes.
Estelle must have confused my “pirouette” with me dodging in style.
A moment later, I felt strong pressure on my thigh. At that time, I was already in the air, my perspective turning. A second later, my head hit the ground, with the rest of my body following.
I give up! I lay on the ground, listening in on the nearby explosions.
There was a lot of pausing. Most likely, when Henrietta and Adeus ended up on the ground and Estelle waited for them to stand up. Still, the attacks continued. They had definitely more fight in them than me. I was just keeping motionless. It was kind of embarrassing.
I should do this… I can do this. My elbow hurts and my right leg is completely numb, but I can do this!
I stood up, blinking a bit to get a sense of my surroundings, before spotting Estelle.
She narrowed her eyes at me.
Wait, are you thinking that I have some hidden trump card?! That thought made me panic.
Thankfully, Estelle put the gun away.
As I sighed in relief, she opened her other palm, holding four shells.
Huh?
Estelle produced her schtappe and activated them all at once.
My eyes widened as the world slowed down. At this point, I just produced my knife in desperation and sent a mana wave in their direction. I managed to get three of them. Or so I thought. Three explosions happened, but that was kind of the point of the deception.
With not enough time for anything else, I just pushed as much mana as I could into enhancing my body.
I have no recollection of how I ended up on the ground. It still hurt a lot. I felt three new sore spots on my body. Apparently, I had only managed to destroy one shell. The rest had produced the fake explosions, reacting to the mana from the attack.
This time, I stayed lying for good. Though, I didn’t hear any more explosions, so maybe the others finished as well. Regardless, I kept down. Eventually, I could hear Estelle chanting a prayer, and my body began to feel less achy. However, a certain numbness in various places remained even after the prayer.
“Really? Four shells?” I uttered with a whiny voice.
“Sorry, you were the only one who managed to dodge multiple projectiles. I miscalculated,” Estelle replied with an apologetic tone. “Your mana bubble was way bigger compared to the others, giving you more reaction time.”
“I only dodged the first one.” I groaned. “Moving fast, enhancing my body, powering the protective circles… there is no way for me to maintain such a mana sphere on top for more than one shot. Maybe two, with practice. The third explosion happened less than two meters from me; no way to dodge that,” I complained.
“The second shell hit you too?” Estelle was taken aback.
“Yes, in my elbow. That spin wasn’t my movement,” I kept complaining.
“Sorry, again.” She grimaced.
“Maybe we should start working on countermeasures against the shells,” I mused out loud.
Though, my train of thought made Estelle frown. “We are the only ones with that capability. It would be foolish to introduce a defense against it.”
“We would just have to improve the shells to get around the new countermeasures.” I shrugged.
That’s how an arms race works, no?
Though, Estelle just kept frowning. “That doesn’t make any sense. You would end up in the very same situation.”
“Yeah, but with more lethal weapons and better defense.” I smirked.
“No, not really.” She shook her head. “That big mana sphere around you is completely useless against any other attack. It takes away from your focus, and the mana itself could be used elsewhere.”
“I guess you are right,” I conceded. “It really shows your fighting expertise from the knight course.”
Estelle widened her smile. “I merely want to avoid redoing all our work just because we made it needlessly obsolete.”
Point.
She provided the most mana from all of us, making the gold dust, so it was only fair. Besides, the only way someone could come up with countermeasures was if we used the weapon enough times for them to get familiar with it. And preferably, I wanted to fire it only in situations where there would be no one left to make a report afterwards.
“Yeah, hopefully we won’t find some big flaw after stockpiling these.” I wasn’t a fan of redoing all our work either.
“Now that you mention it, what about targeting unknown attackers?” Adeus wondered. “I presume you are most concerned about a surprise attack, but until now, we have only tested it against people we know about.”
“Relax. These might be based on the ordonnanzes, which we tested before, but keep in mind they are not the same,” I replied casually.
It wasn’t his fault. I was the one brewing the targeting part, so I knew the magic circles involved.
My fake ordonnanzes were supposed to fool everyone into thinking that they were genuine, so they functioned as close as possible to the real thing. However, there was no need to fool anyone when they could clearly see that someone was shooting exploding projectiles at them.
“The targeting system borrows from the magic letters. You can target everything and everyone you see, since you can visualize their location.”
I mean, someone’s head is still a location.
“So a masked man behind a corner is safe?” Adeus smirked.
I put a finger on my cheek. “Thinking about it, not really. Just like with an actual letter: if you imagine a place, it will go there. So, it could technically shoot behind a corner.” I shrugged. “Naturally, there is no guarantee of hitting anything beacuse you don’t know the exact position of the target, but since we are shooting explosives, it could still be effective.”
“I want to try it.” Adeus’s eyes were suddenly full of eagerness.
It was clear that he found the concept thrilling.
“I kind of don’t want to test anymore. It feels quite painful,” I muttered.
“You were the one who said they must be harmful so we don’t accidentally produce practice shells that don’t trigger barriers,” Adeus reminded me.
Testing with harmless projectiles, only for them to get struck down by defensive charms after the inclusion of explosives, would have been really awkward. And potentially deadly. Any potential attacker would probably not wait for us to redesign our ammunition.
Yeah, but that was when I wasn’t the target. I bit my tongue to not say it out loud.
“I guess.” I sighed.
Estelle, Henrietta and I circled around to find the tree in the vicinity with the widest trunk, so we could hide behind it. It didn’t take long, and we found a conifer that was almost as wide as it was high.
With a proper obstacle between us, Adeus was free to play his one-sided game of battleship.
I twitched as something flew near my face.
“Miss!” Estelle kept announcing.
At least, we don’t have any explosive shells, I thought as various bullets swished around us.
“Miss!”
But even then, it was a really uncomfortable feeling.
“Miss!”
Any projectile could be the one.
“Miss!”
I breathed slowly, bracing myself for the impact, until eventually Henrietta got hit in her head. Her body flopped onto the ground.
“Hit!” Estelle declared.
I hate this.
Though, Greifechan was on my side during the test. I hadn’t been hit once, which was nice.