The material shop is the place where I find steel bars, steel foundations, segments, etc. However, I am more interested in steel, and perhaps, can I get aluminum? The entrance to the store itself is probably as big as the size of two houses at once. It has only one floor, and the building stretches to the back. The building itself uses cemented and painted bricks, not wood.

“Ah, Miss Helen, I presume, the mentee of the legendary gunslinger,” he says.

Is there any particular reason that Albert is more famous as a gunslinger than as a gunsmith? I’ll ask him about it later, but for now, I want to buy four materials, copper, brass, steel, and aluminum. “Do you have ingots? Or something like that?” I ask.

“We do have ingots, what kind of ingots that you need, though, young miss?” he asks me, politely.

“Well, brass, steel, copper, and aluminum. Can I get those metals?” I ask.

“Sure thing, but how much?” He asks me again, without bothering to ask more questions about it. Truth be told, I won’t even serve someone as old as me, especially with a huge quantity of metals like this, then again, I’m the daughter of the landlord.

Let’s see, I’ll need a shitton of steel, brass, and aluminum. I don’t need too much copper since its only main purpose is as a bullet. I need a shitton of steel and aluminum because guns are made from that material. Brass is the main property of a cartridge, which I require a lot. I doubt my first M4 would work.

“I need ten pounds of steel, aluminum, brass, and five pounds of copper. In ingots, please,” I say.

The material shopkeeper looks at me in confusion. “Miss Helen, I apologize for my lack of politeness, but what’s a pound?” He asks. Right… I should have used metric units in this world, shouldn’t I?

“4 kilos of steel, 4 kilos of aluminum, 2 kilos of brass, and 1 kilo of copper,” I say.

“Young miss, isn’t that too much for you to carry? That’s ten kilograms of weight in total,” he says.

“I’ll carry it,” the voice coughs. I look in the direction of the voice. It was none other than Albert, the sick gunsmith. “A pleasure meeting you here, young miss. Are you training material manipulation on your own?”

I nod and look back at the shopkeeper.

“What a pleasant surprise, Sir Albert, anything I can do for you?”

“Albert’s fine,” he says. “I’m just here because Viscount told me to.”

“I see. Are you here to pay the young miss groceries, too?” The shopkeeper asks.

“Yes, I’m here to pay for her groceries. How much is it, anyway?”

“It’s 20,000 Uralis,” he says.

What am I thinking? Of course, no way mom gave Rachel enough money to buy this amount of material. The money that Rachel has is for buying food, not materials like this. My perception of money is still on dollars, so I mistook 1,000 Uralis as 1,000$. I am too comfortable with the fact that we are royalty.

Albert gives the money to him, in the form of coins, ranging from gold and silver. “Here you go, old timer,” Albert says before putting back the coins pouch in his pocket. He then sneezes with intense power that it feels deafening. “Sorry.”

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“Don’t worry, hey, Albert, about my musket, when is the deadline for the payment?” He asks.

“Just forget it, I don’t do much to it. There are only a single hole needs plugging, it’s gratis,” Albert says. “Let’s say, favor for our friendship, eh, Mr. Smith?” Albert replies.

“Thanks, Albert.”

“Mr. Smith, are you a real smith?” I ask Smith.

“Well, yeah, I’m Smith the smith, but nowadays, more like materials shopkeeper. I occasionally still craft armor, musket balls, the things, but precision work is only for Albert. I’m more proficient in making big things, such as ingots or roofs,” he says.

“And Smith is my main supplier for material,” Albert adds.

“That’s true,” Smith nods.

“So, a symbiotic environment?” I comment.

“More or less, I buy from him, a-a-a-achoo!” Albert sneezes loudly. “Sorry, I really need to get back home. Young miss, is this all?” He asks. Feeling bad for him, I just reply with a nod. Smith packs all of the small ingots into a sack and Albert carries it using the last remaining power.

I should go to the house first, I doubt Albert will be pleased if I have to wait for Rachel first, the dude’s sick as hell. He may pass out just from the sun alone at this point. So, Albert and I walk together towards the mansion, leaving Rachel behind.

The mercenaries, or the regional guard, will keep her safe, I guess? It’s not like people hate her to the bone to the point where it requires her to be accompanied by a bodyguard. We walk away and eventually, the village becomes just a view on the horizon. Albert takes me to the front gate of the mansion.

Larse, the green goblin butler, opens the gate of the mansion, “Sir Albert, you look terrible. Would you like to come in first?” He politely offers with one of his hands still on the gate.

“No, thank you, I prefer to get to my home as quickly as possible,” Albert answers.

He throws the sack into the ground and immediately dashes into the road again, it looks like he really can’t hold the pain much longer. The sack is now just laying down near the gate and I try to pick them up. It is heavy and I can’t pick them up, what a feeble body I have right now.

Larse notices it, and he picks up the sack, “It’s quite heavy, young miss, where do you want me to put it?”

“The library is good enough,” I say.

Larse picks up the sack with one hand and I follow him from behind. He closes the gate and I walk into the interior of the mansion. Father is in his usual working office, I think? Mother is probably having a tea party with the others, not to say that they both didn’t give me enough attention, but I spent more time with Albert, Rachel, and books than them both combined.

We enter the mansion and walk in the freshly cleaned hallway, without any spot of dirt or dust anywhere, thanks to Larse and the maid staff. “Young miss, sorry if I sound disrespectful, but are you and Miss Rachel experimenting on something?”

“Perhaps, why do you ask, Larse?”

“Two days ago, Miss Rachel bought a large amount of low-quality cotton balls. Of course, it falls to me to bring it to the library, but do you have any idea about it?” He asks.

The library is more of our workshop, since there are more books in father’s office than in the library itself, and it is one of the largest rooms in the entire mansion, so, yeah, it’s more of our workshop for experimenting with things. I assume Rachel is experimenting with nitrocellulose again.

“No idea, sorry, Larse,” I lie. I doubt my father or my mother will like to know that their daughter experimented with explosives and guns. Well, here we are, mother, and father, you both are raising two maniacs with guns and explosives, thanks to your choice of mentors.

It won’t take too much time until Rachel actually develops real high-grade explosives and I develop a self-loading rifle far advanced for people of this era that still depends on muskets and black powder.

My first weapon will be a long-barrel M4 or M16, mainly because it’s the weapon I am most familiar with. Sure, I can use a musket, but why not make something better out of my skill? It will look like a cannibalized rifle, no doubt, but hey, if it works, it works, am I right?

Larse puts the sack in the corner of the library, right beside where Rachel and Ostwald put their science equipment. Larse then gets out of the library, “Have fun, young miss,” he says.

“Thank you, Larse,” I say.

“Do you want a cup of tea, perhaps, young miss?” Larse asks.

“Can you make a milk one, ala Rachel?” I ask.

Larse gives out a small laugh, “Young miss, my tea won’t be as tasty as Miss Rachel’s, but I’ll try.”

Alright, let’s see what I can do with these metals. The materials are there, and I only need to actually use my spell to reproduce the spare parts of the rifle. However, the first order of business is the 5.56x45 bullets.