I'm now outside the castle, at my personal shooting range. I just chose a random empty place near the forest surrounding the castle as 'my place', no one cares anyway.
I bring a table and some chairs out of the inventory space and set them down, then I pull out a sizable wooden box, inside are exactly 35 rounds of .50 AE bullets and the D.E. itself. I decided to test my D.E. using 5 mags first.
But first, I need targets to shoot at. I begin to make a few earth pillars around 1.2m tall, and just for today, I bought a whole cart of rotten melons here... And then set them up using telekinesis...Done. Then I take out 3 pairs of earplugs and give two to Emy and Liana. One for myself.
Now I have targets at 20, 35, 50, and 70 meters. For the last one, I conjured a circular metal target instead of the normal one. Everything looks good.
''I'll try to shoot now, and then I'll give it to you guys to try later.'' I announce to my two friends.
''Go ahead.'' Liana replies while Emy gives me a nod.
Loading exactly 7 bullets into the magazine, I then insert it into the D.E. The handle is not quite comfortable for me yet, probably because I'm still 13, my hands are small, looks like I can't dual-holding D.E.s anytime soon.
I need to brace myself for the recoil as well, I don't want to dislocate my shoulder or anything.
So I ramp up the already existing mana coat on my shoulders and two entire arms just in case, when you mana coat your body, it will get tougher, just like any material. People above Advance level like me that use mana usually coat their body 24/7, just to train their control and protect their body as well.
Holding the pistol, I carefully aim at the nearest target. Pull the trigger.
BANG
The slide pulls back to eject the empty case out then quickly returns to the initial position, loading in a new shot at the same time.
Wow~ that was loud, but the recoil I can handle with mana somehow. And the target? Obliterated, yep, the melon just straight-up explodes.
Liana seems to be surprised by that, even Emy has her eyebrows raised a bit.
''I was not expecting that much power.''
''Mhmm.''
''Told ya, but that's not all, just wait until I get to the enchanted bullets. But first, let me finish this mag and then I'll pass it to you guys.''
BANG
BANG
Two more melons exploded, this feels so damn good, now onto the metal target.
BANG BANG BANG BANG
clack
The slide fixes at the back of the gun, signaling me that I've emptied my mag. I think hit all 4 bullseyes on the last target.
''That was good.'' I smile.
So I walk back to the table and load in another mag, it's time for them to try.
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The result was predictable, they both said it was fine, but they would prefer something more flexible and easier to use. It's not like I particularly made this for practical use or anything, I just love this gun a lot. Maybe I should make them each a Glock 18 instead, and maybe an assault rifle as well, or submachine guns should also work.
''Now, onto the special show. This is the first time I will be trying enchanted bullets, so brace yourself just in case. Also, block your ears with the earplugs I gave you earlier.''
''Alright''
''Mhm.''
They both begin to increase the mana coating on their bodies, and I too, are increasing mine some more, I don't want to get hurt.
Now, I've made two types of enchanted bullets, one of them is the A.P. (Armor Piercing) type, these ones have diamond tips for maximum durability, I've also had Dad pour in mana and made lasting mana coats on them as well, these coats last for about a year.
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According to Dad, very few people in this world can do that, and I think that's true, even I can only do 5 months for now, all hail Archmages. And yes, his gem is Diamond, my mom's Amethyst.
But having a super duper hard tip is not enough for me, I want more power. So I decided to mix my mana with the gunpowder, now it's super durable.
And that would be quite taxing on the bullet cases and the gun itself, so now I have to coat all of them as well, how complicated.
Anyway, I pull out another sizable wooden box, inside is a big piece of foam and a glass bottle of mana-mixed gunpowder. I've dug small holes in the foam to hold my bullets, empty casing, and bullet tips as well, this is my working table for making special bullets, basically.
I pull out a diamond tip bullet for my gun and mana coat the case, put it in the mag, load the mag into the gun, mana coat the entire gun, and aim at the 75mm target that I set up before.
BOOM
That was much louder than before, and the recoil was quite big. I can feel fallen leaves around me move due to the shockwave generated by the shot as well. Fortunately, the gun survived.
Now the target... Cleanly penetrated, very nice.
There's also the second type, but I won't be shooting those things right now, it's going to ruin the forest. It's basically just a grenade made into a bullet that travels 0.8km per sec.
And I got one more secret weapon that is still in production right now, that'll have to wait a few more years.
Emy and Liana are now examining the target together with me, very closely together. Nice smell, reminds me of dessert.
''Well, that was a good session, let's go back and have dinner, then.''
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Right now, I'm having dinner with my parents, my two friends and their parents as well, what is this, a birthday party? Why is everybody here?
''Is this some kind of occasion? Why is everybody here?'' I tug my mom's sleeve and ask.
''Ah~ We were discussing about our treatment towards the Empire and its enemies before, so your dad gathered all of them here.''
''That's right, Your Highness, we needed to revise our policy a bit, now that the war situation between the empire and the allies has gone way over a minor territorial dispute. The Empire has just launched a full-scale invasion towards the Kaspia kingdom.'' This is Marquess Beryl Seymour, the other mom of Liana. She's a futanari and A fierce woman by appearance.
''Hmm~ So what was the new treatment then?'' Asks Liana.
''We were just about to tell you guys now anyway. At first, we wanted to have you all in the meeting but all of you were out, so now I'll brief it here.'' Says my dad.
''Basically, we will remain neutral to all countries, as we have trades going on with all of them, we don't want to hurt our economy by cutting trade ties, or worse, have our kingdom attacked. As you know, some malicious powerful individuals in or out of the empire have expressed their desire to 'own' our people before, we don't want to give them the reason to target us directly.''
''And we will refuse any request related to providing weapon or weapon materials from any of them.'' This time Duchess Campbell speaks up, she's Emy's mom, also a futanari.
She said it right though, our kingdom's production team including blacksmiths, engineers, technicians, etc. Was never inferior to any country, to begin with. We're talking about several hundred-year-old dudes full of experience here. We were the ones who sold swords, spears, arrows and whatnot before. Alongside the dwarves.
Now we're even more insane. Eight years ago, I and my parents decided that we should develop our country's various technologies and weaponry first and keep them secret from the world for the time being.
So I just gave them a lot of the blueprints for them to research and collect materials. The hard part is the tooling though, those took up a lot of time to develop even with magic and experienced elves.
Now, the main concern is obviously blueprint leakage, so we made all of the researchers take an oath to the goddess through the church. If they leak, they die. So far I've given them several blueprints of rifles and revolvers as the main focuses first, and they actually produced quite a number of them recently, the royal guards and the elites of our army are being trained with those guns in secret. I think I'll give them the next models in a year or so when they're comfortable with guns.
Aside from weapons, I also handed them the blueprints of other things in life as well. I had nightmares trying to explain to them the concept of telephones though, it's hard finding them on the internet and then trying to describe how they're made. Some of the things can be replaced by magic so I didn't need to copy-paste everything.
Overall? It's going quite well, we're just going to stock up weapons and shit, then somehow leash the empire or whatever country trying to wage war in the future. And the neat part is that we can do that by overwhelming them with modern weapons in a decade or so, so that's one solution.
But it's best we try to solve this the peaceful way, or we're just the same as them.
''Well, we also need to hide the Saint as well, if the Saint's identity is revealed in this critical time, she'll be targeted by everyone.'' Abe says.
''That's true, the Saint really needs to hide herself or it'll be really dangerous. I feel pity for her.'' I really do.
''Said the Saint herself...''
''Well, let's move on to lighter topics, I just had the recorder delivered here, do you want to sing for us, Sylvia?''
Oh, I gave them the blueprint for magnetic tapes a while ago, it seems like Dad got it here. It's his idea to record me singing as well, as I often sung a lot in the past.
''Sure thing, let's finish the meal then I'll sing.''
I've learned how to sing and play various instruments over the years, so I'm quite confident in my singing ability. I can't compose though. I've also learned how to control mana to project sounds from my head, apparently, it was one music enthusiast from Earth who discovered this one, so now I can play the full instruments of modern pieces. Very nice.
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Now sitting in the living room near the recorder, I'm thinking of which piece to sing, it's the first one to be recorded, so let's sing a beautiful one.
''Please listen, Yonezu Kenshi - Chikyuugi.''