A/N: Finally, Skera gets her day in the sun!***All men are pigs. Prideful, hypocritical pigs at that. That was the truth that was seared into my soul ever since I took the path of Chivalry. Whenever a man would hear of my dream, he’d follow a dreadfully familiar script. First, the mask of politeness dropped and was replaced with snide derision. Second, he’d lose a duel he initiated. Third, he’d launch some underhanded reprisal in a pathetic attempt to sate his wounded pride. Rinse and repeat. That was how I lost my childhood friend, my father, and every man in my family. At some point, I looked up to all of them as Knights who upheld the virtues of Chivalry. There was a time that I was proud to be part of a family that served as protectors of the realm and defenders of justice. I was disappointed to find out the ugliness that lay beneath all that honor and glory. All of them followed that damned script. All of them broke my heart.I learned the hard way that the virtues of Chival
*BOOM!*Another prototype violently exploded. Nairi yelped in fright as the broken pieces of the prototype scattered all over the testing ground. I sighed in defeat. “Well, let’s clean this up and take a quick break…I need to think...” It’d been almost a full day, and zero progress had been made. All of the prototype firing mechanisms I’d tried so far had resulted in the cartridge eventually getting stuck outside the chamber. And when the firing pin struck it outside of the chamber… boom. This was a natural result of having a machine gun with such a high rate of fire- eventually a jam would result in the gun catastrophically blowing up. If it weren’t for the fact that I only put a quarter of the usual amount of the elemental dust in the test ammunition, my eyebrows would’ve been burned clean off by now. Damn, this was frustrating! Based on the results so far, the rate of fire was simply too high for the receiver to handle and the firing pin failed to stop when the gun was jammed.Na
“Well, fuck...” I looked outside the window of the company building and saw that we were surrounded by about 100 Galahad men-at-arms. Judging by the cohesion and gear, they were probably the A-team. Whatever they wanted from us, they were serious about getting it.Either way, this much was certain: we had a major rat problem. They knew too much too quickly for it to be a spontaneous discovery. This show of force was them basically telling us, “Yeah, we have somebody on the inside. What’re you gonna do about it?”“Forge-Master Rummy, please join me outside? It appears my brother and Ser Gaius want to talk.”“Sure thing.” I turned to Loki and Emma. “Look after the supplies and the passengers. I believe the rats will make a move soon enough.”I put on my cloak, hiding Severance Pay. I took a regular bow and a quiver with a few arrows and followed Skera and Natalia outside. After we arrived at the already-barricaded gate (a practice we’ve started every night after business hours ever sinc
Our convoy, which consisted of 6 armored carts and 3 regular carts (that we borrowed from the enemy), quickly made its way to the eastern city gate. Fortunately, the guards were too busy dealing with the fallout from the city-wide sandstorm and we easily slipped through. The travel plan was similar to the path we walked on our last exploration- exit the city through the east via Clarent Road and loop around the city through goblin country. We didn’t need to pick a fight with the Rangers in the west and we didn't want to.After we left the city, we noticed that a pursuit force of about 120 men was patiently stalking us from behind on the flat country road. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were waiting for the men from Clarent to sandwich us for a pincer attack. We could lose them in the woods, but the sun was almost setting. Traveling in the Wild with this many people in the night with only half the amount of armored carts was a recipe for disaster. So while I would rea
It took a total team effort to clean up the battlefield. Skera gathered the bodies into piles. I looted weapons, armor parts, mana-crystals, crowns, and horse corpses (as emergency rations) into my bracelets. Emma torched the piles of human bodies and covered up the blood-soaked road with earth magic. Nairi was tasked to collect casings and bullets. Darkness was approaching, but with the lovely bonfires of dead bodies, we had just enough light to finish the job. It was definitely not a pleasant experience- I could smell the horrid stench of burnt hair all over. But it was definitely worth the effort. From the dead, I was able to loot over hundreds of weapons, piles of armor parts (most of them were very well-ventilated), dozens of mana crystals, and thousands of crowns. A fine haul~As I cheerfully chucked the last looted corpse into a big burning pile while whistling (Gaius and Valerian were fucking loaded!), Skera approached me with a difficult expression on her face. I didn’t blam
*AWOOOOOOO~* I was rudely awakened by a chorus of howling and yelling. Fuck, I was hoping the wolves wouldn’t venture too deeply into goblin territory. But I supposed the allure of picking off a few stragglers from a convoy as big as ours was too great to resist. I got up and saw the children huddled together in fear.“Don’t worry guys, I’ve got this!” I did my best to reassure them as I grabbed Severance Pay and headed out. Except that my services weren’t really needed. The battle was basically over. By the time I got out of the wagon, Loki sniped the wolf with an > as it retreated. And that marked the end of the raid. Looked like they repelled the attack without me. But there were a couple of people down on the ground bleeding. I hurried to the crowd and pushed aside some people to get to the center. “I can cast >. Is there anybody that needs it?” I announced to nobody in particular. Natalia looked at me with a downtrodden look. “No need, Forge-Master Rummy. Ar
I opened my eyes in a dark room with no pain and headaches. Wow, I guessed I was out long enough for Sapphire to build a house. I rubbed my eyes and focused. However, I still couldn’t see anything in the darkness. I saw no window or door in this…house? Is it a house?Uh, I didn’t die again, did I?I got up and began to feel around like a blind man. After 5 steps, I touched something cold and metallic. Wow, it was a big double door entrance. A little too fancy for my taste, Sapphire… Well, not that I had any right to criticize her. I pushed and pushed on it, and yet it wouldn’t budge. Hmm, weird…“Emma?” I shouted “Natalia?”My voice echoed across the chamber. Based on the echo, I was in a big chamber. Uh oh. There was no way Sapphire could’ve built this. Where the fuck was I?The roof of this chamber suddenly moved, rotating and opening at the same time. Blinding light shone on the exact spot I was standing. After I adjusted my eye to the sudden source of light, I realized that I was
I woke up with a guttural groan from a dry throat. Despite sleeping for at least half-day (I wasn’t sure how long I was out after returning from my lovely meeting with the gods), I still felt like hammered shit. My body still ached with pain all over.“Rummy! You’re awake!” Emma shouted excitedly as she kissed me on the cheek. I felt some moisture from her eyes. Sigh, I’d been an uncool husband. I’d made my future wife upset with my recklessness.I groggily said. “Sorry to worry you, love. But I’m alright. Just a bit injured.”“Hah!” Skera dismissively chuckled from outside the cart. “You were unconscious for one and a half days! I was just about to pronounce the Knight’s Last Rites for you!”Dang, 36 hours? I wondered if it was the result of this Dream Pull thing, or it was because of the near-fatal injuries I’d sustained. Either way, was my hearing off, or did Skera offer to bury me like a real Knight? Emma glared at her friend. “No need to ruin the romantic moment, Skera!”“Althou