I stayed at Albert’s house for the rest of the night. Larse gives me my sleeping attire because sleeping in nobility clothing is a big no-no, especially with that long skirt and that blue bow tie. The lower receiver parts and the railed handguards are currently submerged in Joktril. The bolt carrier group and the barrel are assembled and ready to be used.
The missing part is the gas system, the magazine, the upper receiver, the stock, and the handguard. Other than that, we are fine for the most part and everything progresses really smoothly. It is just only a matter of assembling and assembling as of now. Of course, even though there are many more parts to be assembled inside of this rifle prototype, I feel happy with the number of parts we have created.
“Young miss, good morning,” Albert sips on a mug filled with hot chocolate. “It’s a fine day, isn’t it?”
Albert looks better than yesterday, he doesn’t sneeze that much anymore, “Morning, Albert, what happens to your disease? How did it go away that fast?” I ask Albert. With a better Albert, I can progress much more quickly with the creation of the M4.
“I just feel better last night, young miss, now let’s continue where we left off previously, shall we?” He asks. He sits down on the floor alongside me with the cup of hot chocolate that he made earlier. The next part we are going to create is the handguard.
We’ll use aluminum for the handguard because I want to preserve the light weight of the rifle even though it is created from steel for the most part. The handguard is a 14-inch rail designed for an 18-inch barrel AR-15 style rifle with a quad Picatinny mount on it for maximum potential upgradeability.
“Miss, for a rifle handguard, don’t you think Stoner overdone it?” Albert comments as he scans on the blueprint of the handguard. It does look complicated in comparison to the straight wooden handguard of the MH rifle that my father owns.
“I don’t think so, he might design it for a specific design at the time,” I answer.
“Alright, young miss, give me the container which I used to shred aluminum previously,” Albert says.
I reach for a tubular metal container labeled as Aluminum and give it to Albert. Albert then puts his hand on top of the aluminum container and the handguard slowly starts to assemble on the top of his right hand.
It feels like I’m watching a metal 3D printer in real-time, but instead of using technology, this uses magic. I will never be bored watching a materialmancer manufacture a gun like that. Sadly, I don’t think I can reach Albert’s talent in materialmancing yet.
Eventually, the silver handguard is finished and Albert slowly puts it on the wooden floor. He then switches to another blueprint, which contains the whole upper receiver for the M4. I grab the freshly manufactured silver handguard and stand up from the wooden floor.
I walk to a door that leads to Albert’s backroom. It’s Albert’s gunsmithing room, judging by the furnace and the number of metallic ingots and containers filled with liquid metal on the table overlooking the furnace, which is not burning at this time.
In that table, three containers are filled with different liquid metals. However, Albert is one of the diligent people that labels his container with a piece of paper on it. Joktril is also a signature metal with its greenish metallic color which reacts with aluminum really slowly. I dip the handguard in the Joktril container and leave it there for the next 24 hours.
I leave the room before some dirty coal stains my white sleeping dress and head back to the middle room. Once I head back to the middle room, Albert throws some logs into the fireplace to warm the room up. There’s no snow yet, but the dew on the leaves is oftentimes frozen.
He then makes a gripping gesture on his left hand, and a fire lance appears. He then throws the lance into the fireplace. The logs are immediately set on fire and the whole room warms up from the coldness of the morning.
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On the wooden floor, a disassembled upper receiver is laying down on the ground, ready to be assembled. The upper receiver is made from steel, so I don’t have to submerge it on Joktril. I only need to assemble it. I slowly assemble the upper receiver with my hand.
“You seem to know more about these guns than I do, young miss, is there anything that I don’t know about Mr. Stoner?” Albert asks me.
“I adore Stoner’s gun design simply because it is revolutionary, that’s all. The book explains the assembly process as well,” I lie. I know an AR-15-pattern rifle in the back of my hands, and I know more than enough to assemble it as much as I know how to draw the blueprint on its own.
“Be careful though, this gun seems to be overdesigned for what it’s for, I doubt it will work well with regular ammunition,” Albert says. “Then again, with how assembly requires a skilled gunsmith, me,” he coughs, “I doubt it will be viable to equip an army with this.”
“Really?” I ask, well knowing that America’s military-industrial complex equipped the military with M16A1 in a short period of time, albeit periodically.
“Yeah, for a regular gunsmith, it will take them ten days to make the rifle, at the very least. Even the MH rifle only requires a day to create and not to mention the more common musket rifle,” Albert says.
“Isn’t industrialization supposed to make crafting easier?” I ask.
“Well, only consumer items, I guess? The fact that I can write on paper and read books is the product of industrialization,” Albert comments as he grabs the blueprint for the grip. The grip will be made from aluminum wrapped in rubber. The thing is, does Albert have a rubber for this?
Albert stands up and heads to his workshop. I look over the fireplace and put my hands in front of it. It feels warm. Albert returns quickly with a metal container marked as black rubber on his right hand. He sits down again, and he puts the black rubber and aluminum metal container close to each other.
“I don’t think you can craft the rifle without any external help, such as merging your magical energy with someone’s else magical energy. You can also use a magical energy restoration potion or magical stones, but I don’t recommend it either,” Albert replies as he molds the two parts with his hands.
He uses aluminum as a frame and rubber as the outside layer for the sake of easier grip. It finishes rather quickly since it doesn’t have any screws but one. It has one small spring, but no more than that. He puts the A2-style grip on the wooden floor. I observe and hold it, it feels snug and perfect.
Suddenly, someone knocks on the door. I head to the door, but before I am able to approach the door, Albert approaches the door with a revolver in his right hand. He opens the door slowly while cocking his revolver.
“Albert, hi, I’m here to see Helen.” It was Rachel. She brings me a loaf of bread, with Larse behind him carrying two bowls of soups on a tray. “There’s some cream soup from home, and some for Albert too.”
“Mister Albert, Miss Helen, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Larse smiles. He wears his usual butler uniform, even though the outside is pretty darn cold, not to mention how thick the clothes that Rachel wore are.
“May I come in, Albert?” Rachel asks for his permission.
He opens the door wider, “Sure, sorry if it’s a mess, young miss and I are trying to create a new rifle.”
“That’s exciting,” Rachel lifts up her long skirt, “Excuse me.”
Before long, Larse suddenly whispers to Albert, but he whispers quite loudly that I can hear what they are conversing about. Should I be worried about what they are talking about, though? It’s so obscure to draw a conclusion from it.
“Again? I told him to leave right now!”
“But Albert, he told me to give you the message, he thinks you might be able to handle it.”
“Look, there’s only so much one man can do, and I’m nothing in comparison to the army a Marquess has. The moment he smells something suspicious, it’s all done for. Larse, we are only delaying the inevitable. Would you kindly tell Ferrett that?”
“Why me? Does Lord Ferrett trust you more than I do?”
“Look, Ferret is a good lord, there’s no doubt, even though it’s economically unprofitable. However, he can be too naive, and I want him to see what’s in front of his eyes, he really eyeing him, and he will jump on the wagon the moment he finds out, understand?”
“Still, I want you to reconsider the offer.”
“I disagree, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do it. I just want him to realize that his plan will end in failure, that’s all. No matter how much I dig, no evidence proves the contradiction about what’s being told and what’s being written..”
Yeah, it’s too obscure to draw a conclusion from the conversation alone.