He looked at Scroll and replied with a smile: “Why would I not?”
On the way back to her room, Wendy rubbed her sore shoulders.
My chest is just too big, it’s causing nothing but trouble. Especially when I have to stay on the roof of my small sheet on Little Town. I have to raise my hands when I summon the wind, but when I do, I also have to bend backward, if not I will lose my balance.
Compared to the first test trial, Little Town had gotten a number of improvements. For example, she had gotten a simple shed at her workplace, both to block the wind and rain, but also to avoid the sun’s exposure. Another improvement was the tree bark which was now fastened around the hull, it was used to reduce the incoming collision force when landing at port. Also, both sides of the ship were now equipped with two cement blocks, to make things easy for fastening the ship with hemp rope.
And after nearly a month of training, her ability to control the wind had gotten substantial better. Now, regardless if the ship was stable or not, she could always control the degree of the wind, letting it blow fast or slow. She had also learned to use the already existing wind to adjust her own magic consumption, so that in the end she would be able to summon her wind for a longer period of time.
Nightingale who came home before Wendy had already finished her bathing and was now sitting in pajamas on the bedside waiting for Wendy’s return.
But when Wendy saw her, there seemed to be something strange, Nightingale had an irrepressible smile on her face
“What kind of good thing happened to you?” Wendy asked. But the later shook her head without saying anything, with only her smile growing even deeper.
Wendy curled her lips, after their talk some nights ago, Nightingale’s mood wasn’t very good, but after the creation of the new card game it had somewhat improved again. But today, how was it that she was full of smiles? Where had the expressionless Shadow Killer from Silver City gone?
Without getting an answer, Wendy took off her clothes and stepped into the bucket filled with hot water. Most probably, she had won a good card today.
Chapter 108 Echo (Part 1)
The Months of the Demons had already ended two weeks ago, and the snow has finally turned into streams which ran into the Redwater River.
The spotlessly white landscape slowly faded away, and the trees on both sides began to sprout again, becoming green once more.
The land to the east of Border Town was the land Anna that had already cleared of trees and snow, and because of this it had now been turned by His Highness into the temporary practice ground for the First Army.
At the practice ground, Carter was holding a gun and checking if the bayonet was securely installed.
This was the newest invention of His Highness, but compared to the automatic operating machine and the modified snow powder, this new invention seemed to be a little too simple. The moment he had for the first time taken the new weapon into his hands, Carter knew almost immediately that it wasn’t a qualified weapon.
In short, it was just a sharp iron triangle, with the middle line as the base, which had two small iron pieces pointing downwards. Although it had a sharp edge, it was absolutely impossible to slash with the weapon — the blade was just too short, if it had to bend, it would immediately break. It had hardly any tip to speak of while the other end was only around a thumb thick. Even if he was able to attack an enemy, if he tried to slash out horizontally, Carter couldn’t say whether he would even be able to cut apart the enemy’s clothes.
This weapon had only one use, and that was, stabbing. And before it could even be used it still had to be connected to the gun. Used by itself, even a dagger would be a better weapon.
In the eyes of the knight, it was totally unqualified to be used as a weapon and a big waste of pig iron to create such weapon with only one type of attack. If a blacksmith within his territory had dared to create such a weapon, he would have tied the man and given him one fierce beating.
But even if it was such a bad weapon, Carter could still see His Highness originality and his passion for the all of the details. For example, the design for the connection between the gun and the bayonet. The mouth of the barrel had two grooves with a right angle at its end, as long as the two small iron pieces at the bayonet were fitted into the grooves and the bayonet was turned half around the barrel then the bayonet would become fixed. Thanks to this concept the grooves and the iron pieces didn’t need to fit perfectly, if they were a little too loose, the gunner could just insert some pieces of paper between the two iron pieces and the grooves, and when it fitted better, only then should he rotate the bayonet. In the case that they didn’t have any papers, tree leaves would also be okay.
“Put the bayonet on the gun!”
When they heard the keyword, the gunning team took out the bayonet from their bag, and put it on the gun’s barrel — until now they had only been able to produce forty of the new weapons and their supporting bags. So the soldier who didn’t receive the new weapons had to put a short stick on their guns.
This kind of action was almost trained through the whole morning, and now most soldier only needed to adjust the bayonet two to three times until it was fixed. According to His Highness’ words, the bayonet should only be used as a last resort. He didn’t want his men to start a close combat attack on their own with the bayonet. Carter disagreed with this statement, as long as a man didn’t personally stab a weapon into an enemy, they would still be considered as children. Only if they saw their first blood, would they transform from ordinary miners and hunters into soldiers.
Iron Axe also stood among the ranks of trainees. Although he had previous claimed to only be a hunter, but from his skills Carter could see, that the man had absolutely received special combat training before. His skills weren’t any worse than the skills of any other knight.
His Royal Highness had asked Carter to teach the soldiers how to use the new weapon correctly. Having received this order, Carter felt a little guilty. The bayonet was a kind of weapon he had never seen before, so it was impossible that he couldn’t know how to use it.
However, after seeing the prototype, Carter was once more immediately filled with confidence. After all, the bayonet was nothing other than the equivalent of a short spear. In addition, due to its special blade, it was much easier to use than the pike.
Due to its unique blade design, the bayonet training method has also become very special. They didn’t need to learn how to split, lift, block or sweep with the bayonet, they only had to train one move, stabbing. So the knight let all the soldiers line up and then began to teach them the most suitable method for stabbing — placing one foot before the other, bending the knees and then pushing their arms forward with their maximum amount of power.
This kind of repetitive training method was extremely boring. So Carter was amazed that everyone was so meticulously completing this kind of training exercise. Before the winter they were all still a bunch of weak and lazy civilians, but now they behaved like a decent group of trainees. When Carter shouted a command they would immediately take action, and he had to acknowledge that they even put more effort into the training than the squires he had previously trained. Of course, if he were to give them a sword, or to say it using the words of His Royal Highness, if he gave them “cold weapons”, he would still be able to defeat them with a stick in a mere three strokes. But in terms of their willpower, their progress is already worthy of acknowledgment.