A/N: Took the poor man 12 chapters to get his first gun. Things are slow when there's no convenient System to get you stuff, huh? On an unrelated note, my google search history now looked like that of a gun nut's after all that gun manufacturing research~***Whoosh! Another 3 years passed me in a blink of an eye. Unfortunately, I’d be lying if I said it had been 3 good years. As it turned out, Stanfur’s forge-smithy specialized in Knight armor, especially for noble brats, so my plan to keep my head down and avoid them crashed and burned big time. Luckily, I hadn’t offended any of them enough to want to kill me. Shockingly, working at Stanfur’s actually made me miss my old job. The hours were demanding, and my middle class colleagues were openly contemptuous of the peasant orphan who came from nothing. Hell, at least my old managers had the decency to hide their contempt. And don’t get me started on the clientele. At this point, I was almost looking forward to a pitched battle agains

A/N:Yay more time-skip!No more, I promise... for the next couple of chapters?***Another 2 years whipped past me after building Aurelia. Despite how deadly she was with mana-beasts, her inability to penetrate the thick (or mana-enhanced) hide of Champion mana-beasts remained a key issue. For one thing, it pressured me to complete her sister firearm, the M1 Garand knockoff. I’ve been making remarkable progress on that front, but the lack of Artorian Silver persisted. Unfortunately, my colleagues had been watching me like a hawk these days (trying to come up with any excuse to fire me, I guess). As a result, my chances for embezzling had drastically decreased. Sure, I’d completed the firing pin. But the trigger, hammer spring, and hammer remained out of reach due to the supply shortage.My prior experiences with Aurelia definitely helped expedite the construction of a M1 Garand imitation. For example, I didn’t need to experiment for an optimal temperature for tempering the spring fo

After sunrise, I had breakfast (jerky, dried biscuit, and some pickled vegetables from Mike and Jenai) and got back to work. I test fired Severance Pay for the better part of the morning to get used to the rifle and the sighting. The armor-piercing aspect of the rifle definitely shined through. This thing sliced through Sequoia trees like a hot knife through butter. In addition, the noise suppression worked as well. The discharge was still way too loud to use in the city (remember, unlike the M1911A1, Garands fire supersonic rounds), but in the forest, it should attract way less attention. I did run into a problem- the 7th round jam. For some reason, the 7th round of the clip would jam. After remembering that a similar problem plagued the early iterations of the Garand, I inspected the guide rail and realized that I made a similar mistake- the nub on the guide rail was missing.Well, I never said I was a perfect craftsman. Guess it’s time to go back to the forge-smith.That mistake t

A/N:Gonna try out a Monday/Friday regular schedule and see if I can keep up with the planned pace.Spoiler-free map of the Wilds [https://imgur.com/ptX1v4t]***Natalia and her companions seemed to be in some sort of hurry, because I was immediately contacted the day after. Cornelius slipped a piece of paper with instructions on how to sneak into a Galahad Trading Company warehouse in the break of dawn tomorrow and stow away on one of its trade caravan wagons. And that was it. I guess I’d know the rest of the plan when she deemed it necessary. That was perfectly fine with me. If she were thinking of doing something shady, at least she was careful enough to keep it discreet. Besides, she had no reason to trust me with more information than I needed to operate with. After spending most of the day gearing up and getting my R&R, I was ready to roll out. At the break of dawn, I snuck into the warehouse, hid in the designated crate for 30 bloody minutes and waited for the crate to be mov

The ladies looked tense at my declaration. Emma in particular looked distressed. Between this and her assistance at the last fight, it was clear that she felt something for me. I wasn’t some dense MC dumbed down by plot considerations. For my part, I certainly was attracted to Emma and her striking personality. I really saw her as waifu material. So for my harem’s sake, I really hoped this negotiation didn’t end in bloodshed. “Lady Natalia, what is your goal? Why are you here in the Wilds? And please don’t insult my intelligence by saying you’re prospecting for crystals.” Natalia showed a pensive expression. She was considering how forthcoming she had to be for this negotiation to work. “I want to create a sanctuary where women wouldn’t have to silently cry at night. Fortunately, I’ve had some success thanks to the Galahad Trading Company. But that will not last. I will get matched eventually, and my matched husband would almost certainly take everything from me and toss out my depen