Aurelia wasn’t perfect by any means, but she worked just fine. I was pretty pleased with her firing trial. Her accuracy faltered past 25 meters (about half the effective range of her modern counterpart), which was fine considering that she is presumably the first firearm of this world.

Based on the caliber of the pistol, I wouldn’t bet on being able to punch through magically reinforced armor. Sadly, this reality forced me into adopting ambush tactics. If a squad of Knights with magically reinforced armor came at me in a set piece battle, I’d be in trouble. I needed my Garand, dammit!

On top of that, I’d probably have to replace the barrel and the receiver after 500 rounds or so. My gun parts were made of cast steel, which was easier to produce in my janky forge, but weaker than the drop-forged steel the modern variants have. Maybe one day, I’d be able to afford the resources for drop-forged steel gun parts. But until then, I’d just have to do good maintenance and replace parts as needed.

To improve accuracy and precision, I’d have to find an optimal standardized quantity of the elemental dust I pour into each cartridge, and add on the iron sights to the slide. But the hard part was done. I had an insurance policy against the tyranny of nobles and Knights!

I picked up all the casings and recovered as many bullets as I could find. Due to material shortages, I’d have to be frugal with my cartridges. I cleaned up a bit and rushed back to the forge-smithy. I was technically supposed to be on a “Supply Run” for them, after all.

I was in such a good mood that not even my toxic work environment could spoil it. But that sure didn’t stop those bitter fuckers from trying~

“Finally, what took you so long, peasant?” Colleague A rudely snatched the bag of earth elemental mana crystals from my hands and impatiently checked the contents.

“Ran into a pack of wolves.” I casually lied.

“Don’t your dumb peasant mind understand how important this project is? This armor is for the 16th son of Count Galahad! No delays are acceptable! I’ve explained this!” He practically screeched at me.

“Sorry, I tried telling the wolves that, but they didn’t care for some reason.” Neither do I. Sure, Count Quintus of House Galahad practically runs the town, but I seriously doubt he gave a shit about a slight delay for his 16th son’s armor. For fuck’s sake, he had at least 15 other sons.

“Tsk. It’s like trying to reason with a beast. Begone! Go make yourself useful and hammer the Artorian Silver!” He glared at me one more time before turning around and walking away.

Sweet! More opportunity to embezzle this stuff! And good timing too, I burned most of my supply of the Artorian Silver on Aurelia, and I needed a lot more for my next project, the M1 Garand. The reason why this was a bitch job was because Artorian Silver needed to be hammered repeatedly for an hour to get all the grains in the metal to align (to ensure maximum efficiency in mana flow), which most of these forage-smiths obviously hated to do. So they made the new guy do it and pretended they’re doing him a favor (Well, in my case, they WERE doing me a favor~).

Sadly, I was unable to learn how the metal was made in the first place. The Empire did a great job of keeping that secret away from me. So embezzling it was my only option for now.

As I headed toward the hammering station, Colleague B, who was the size of a professional wrestler, bumps my shoulder.

“Watch it, peasant!” He scowled in disgust.

I’d have to really give it to Stanfur. By playing up the fear of a peasant boy potentially taking their jobs away, he kept the workforce anger focused on the powerless peasant, and not on the fact that they were the worst-paid forge-smiths in town. And by refusing their calls to get rid of me and exploiting the fact that I harvested mana crystals for them, he profited from having cheaper labor and material costs. Dude was literally having his cake and eating it too~

On top of that, I couldn’t work in other forge-smithies because I lacked a backer. Arminius got me in here because he was Stanfur’s mentor, and I doubted he could sway the other forge-smiths in town. To summarize, I was stuck as his human shield of resentment in the workplace. I was almost too impressed with Stanfur to hate him. The bastard would make a great manager in my former company (or an American politician).

The fact that I was professionally stuck was just a symptom of this rotting, unmeritocratic society. Of course, I could simply gain enough power so that I’d be the guy calling the shots in a more egalitarian society. But I wasn’t looking to turn my life into a hectic #KingdomBuilding novel. I just wanted a quiet life in the Wilds with a few good women.

***

Speaking of women, I had a woman problem with this world. Most of the women of this world in this era were taught to be “traditional” (ie: sex dolls with housekeeping and reproductive capabilities). Any dreams or ambitions they may have had as children were systematically beaten out (and for some girls, quite literally). They lived in the shadow of a man their entire life- before a woman’s marriage, her father ran her life, and after her marriage, her husband did. Heck, some conservative households even forbade their daughters from being outside without a male relative “escorting” her. Basically, most women in this world had no agency in their lives.

And that was a serious problem for me personally because that was not the type of woman I preferred. My dating resume in my past life was nothing to write home about, but I’ve dated enough of those “I wanted to get married because that’s what my family wanted” girls to know that it was no picnic I ever wanted to be a part of. I like a woman with agency, dreams, and gumption. I want my harem in the Wild to be full of 3-dimensional, vibrant characters, not a 2-dimension cutout with bewbs from some cheesy fantasy isekai harem novel.

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Sadly, there weren't too many of those women in Carnwennan. And they most likely wouldn’t be hanging out in a plebeian place like Mike’s Tavern. No, they’d be hanging out in the higher class establishments, hoping to catch an ambitious noble brat and live the easy life, at least while they were still young and desirable.

It’s not that I haven’t tried. Over the years, I’ve chatted with a couple of women at Mike’s Tavern, and each time, I walked away disappointed. Either they didn’t have any ambition and agency, or their only “marketable skill” was gold-digging for a husband with more money than sense. Well, not like I could blame them for that. Gold-digging is a profession as old as time, and I would never blame a woman for adapting to her realities. These women were simply a product of their messed-up society. Either way, I’ve got to be patient. A dream harem took time to build, especially since I started with literally nothing. I was sure the right opportunity would come if I kept looking.

***

And that was why I got tossed into a pile of crates right outside the Lady Morgana, an upscale bar. At least I wasn’t soaked in rum this time, so that was progress~

In this world, a tavern was a dirty watering hole for the commoners. A bar was an upscale establishment for the higher class people. Tavern-keepers were seen as grimy, hardy men, whereas bartenders were seen as refined, classy men. Funny thing was, at the end of the day, both places offered you booze and companionship. Hah, the lengths people would go to in order to show the world how special they are...

“Know your place, trash!” Noble Brat A spat in my direction.

“Did you get drunk and forgot that you’re a fucking peasant?” Lackey A joined in.

I got up and dusted myself. “Nope, just curious. Good night, gentlemen.” I then walked away. Damn, I thought I dressed up nicely enough to pass as somebody with at least some coins to his name. Guess I couldn't fool nobles at their own game.

“Did I say you can go? I’m gonna have to punish you.” The smug bastard wasn’t even bothering to hide his malicious grin. I doubted I could outrun a man in Knight armor… Sigh, I might have to lure him into an alley and kill him. Or trust that he’d beat me up but not kill me? I didn’t like either option. I disengaged the manual safety on Aurelia, which was in a leather holster covered by my coat. Damn, I could feel my headache coming back…

Suddenly, another noble exited the Lady Morgana with a lady by his side. “Cease your actions, Ser Pompey! Can’t you see I’m escorting a lady here? What if she sees filthy peasant blood on the ground and faints? Do it somewhere else!” He bellowed with an air of authority.

Thanks for indirectly saving me the trouble, Noble Brat B! While the idiot was rambling on about my blood polluting the ground they’d have to walk on, I slipped into an alleyway and sprinted my way back to friendlier territories.

Whew! That was close. While I would love to debut Aurelia and leave nice round holes in those brats, I couldn’t leave this cesspool until my M1 Garand was finished. Sadly, my nascent M1 Garand project ran into a massive supply issue- Artorian Silver. The amount of Artorian Silver I would need to steal to make a trigger, hammer spring, hammer, and firing pin for a rifle made me want to cry. So thank you very much, Noble Brat B~

Brats aside, my trip to the Lady Morgana was not in vain. I was able to pick up a lot of interesting gossip and news before I got tossed out. This was the kind of information that would’ve never reached my ears at Mike’s. Among the gossip, I’ve heard hushed discussions of a kind noble woman named Lady Natalia of House Galahad who tried to protect one of her maids from her rapey brothers. Another interesting one was a talented female Knight of House Bravestorm. Judging by how harshly the 2 Knights were criticizing her, she must have some real fucking talent.

Lastly, I heard that some up-and-coming nobles are banding together to unseat Count Galahad at the head of the City Council. Typical nobility- thousands of bloodthirsty mana-beasts almost breached the castle not so long ago and all they could think about was a pointless power struggle over a shithole frontier fortress in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Well, it was certainly refreshing to see a noble who’s not a total asshat. And it was downright bizarre to see a female Knight in this era. How crazy good was she if she was the exception to the rule? Damn, I wished I had more information to go off of. The bit about the power struggle within the City Council doesn’t concern me one bit. These things usually happen behind closed doors. Nobles hated to air out the dirty laundry to the masses, so things rarely escalated beyond a couple of brawls between rowdy Knights of the opposing factions.

All in all, not a bad haul. The lesson to learn here was to simply be friends with the bartender and bribe him/her for information. No need to actually show up and risk confrontations.

Unfortunately, the woman problem remained. But maybe with an ear to the ground at the finer establishments, I’d be able to act on an opportunity instead of waiting for nothing to happen at Mike’s.

Field Inventory

Primary Weapon

Recurve bow made from Champion mana-beast sinew/Quiver with arrows

Secondary Weapon

2x Short throwing spear

Colt M1911A1 Semi-Automatic Pistol v.1.0 [Christened Aurelia]

Armor

Champion mana-beast leather body armor, bracers, and greaves; Leather boots lined with bear fur

Mana Crystals

1x Adept-level air elemental mana crystal

1x Adept-level fire elemental mana crystal

1x Adept-level earth elemental mana crystal

1x Beginner-level ice elemental mana crystal

Stash of various mana crystals

Misc.

Utility belt, grappling hook, rope, dark green cloak, field satchel, waterskin, rations, boarskin map and steel knife

3x magazines of .45 ACP hollow-point ammo

1x leather holster