15 Chapter 15: Crossbow

The next morning Caesar woke up extra early to prepare for the meeting he had with all of the other high ranking council members.

Caesar walked towards his closet and opened it, after rummaging through the clothes inside Caesar decided to pick out an outfit that had a large raven black overcoat engraved with golden lines on the shoulders and the tail of the coat. A long sleeved black shirt that had many military badges located on the right chest and golden chains that ran across it from the left side of his abdomen to the right, along with tall black military boots and slender white gloves. To tie it all together Caesar put on a black military cap that had golden lining around the edges.

Caesar went in front of the mirror and nodded with approval, he walked outside of his room and headed towards the main hall of the manor. The sound of heavy and rhythmic footsteps echoed throughout the hall as Caesar walked.

After walking down the stairs Sebastian greeted him with a smile at the door. "Young master, your carriage is already prepared. Lord Crowley had some important things to take care of so he will not be able to make it to the meeting, however, he did tell me to give you his apologies."

"Thank you, Sebastian, will you be staying here to take care of the children?" Caesar said as he started walking through the door. After Caesar exited the manor and started getting on the carriage Sebastian replied: "yes, we can't have them go hungry can we?"

Caesar smiled slyly, "I will be back in the evening, please prepare me some delicious food for when I get back"

"As you wish young master" Sebastian replied as he did a graceful half bow. Caesar closed the carriage door and sat in his seat, he stroked his chin in contemplation "Hopefully the king can arrange for at least a handful of good engineers… I'm hoping that with their help the Ballista can be completed within a few hours.

While Caesar was in deep thought the Carriage nearly almost arrived at the desired location.Expensive looking carriages already littered the entire street, Citizens were bustling about and whispering to each other.

"What are all these nobles doing here?"

"I hope everything is okay… not every day do you see over 8 noble carriages"

"Oh my, look at that carriage with the gold feathers. Is that the king?"

Caesar's carriage parked and he stepped off, Caesar walked towards Roy's blacksmith shop first. In front of the door were a few nobles that attended the meeting last night, after seeing Caesar the noble's eyes lit up and walked over.

"Mephesto, it took you long enough. Where are your weapons?"

Caesar smiled and said "We need to wait for the king to arrive, only half of my weapon is complete the other half is going to require the king's aids"

"I see… We will wait out here for the weapons we don't want to get ourselves dirty" They said as they looked at the dusty blacksmith shop in disgust.

Caesar smiled slightly and said: "The king should be arriving shortly, just stay in your carriages and I will call you out when it is time"

"Okay, we will do that then" The nobles nodded and headed back to their carriages.

Seeing that they left Caesar stepped through the doors of the blacksmith and immediately the sounds of loud hammering invaded his ears.

"Clang"

"Clang"

Caesar walked through the familiar shop and approached the counter, in the back of the shop Caesar could see Roy hammering down on an extraordinarily long bolt.

"Ahem" Caesar cleared his throat loudly to get Roy's attention

Roy's Hammering suddenly stopped and he turned around towards the counter, He lifted the goggles off of his eyes and walked towards Caesar "The week isn't up, why are you back already?"

Caesar patiently replied "I need one or two of the bolts early for testing, I hope you don't mind. Of course, even If I am dissatisfied with the quality I will still pay you for the fifty you create"

Roy looked at Caesar suspiciously for a second before he pointed to the side "there's three right there already created, you can go ahead and use those"

"Pleasure meeting you again Roy" Caesar said as he picked up the three large bolts effortlessly and headed towards Danny's workshop.

After Caesar left the shop Roy was dumbfounded at the fact that he could lift those huge bolts alone, Even he himself could not carry more than one but Caesar carried all three and effortlessly to boot?

Roy shook his head helplessly and thought "I'm going to get a headache if I keep thinking about that weird noble" Roy started to go back to forging.

Caesar brought the three bolts to Danny's workshop and let them lean on a tall tree. Caesar entered into the workshop and walked to the counter, he could see Danny putting pieces together and creating something big. Caesar sat on Danny's desk and folded his legs, he decided to patiently wait until he was done.

About 5 minutes later Danny finally looked up to see Caesar sitting on his desk staring at him… Danny yelped in shock and yelled "w-what are you doing here?"

Caesar hopped down from the desk and replied "Nothing much just here to ask you a few questions"

Danny regained his composure and breathed a sigh of relief before looking at Caesar inquiringly

"What questions?"

"If I could give you a few other talented and seasoned engineers do you think you could speed up the process of the Balista?"

Danny started contemplating and replied: "yes, the more the better, however, you would need to show them the blueprints so we don't have any mishaps"

"That is easy, do you think you could complete one Balista in three hours?"

Danny widened his eyes in surprise… "Three hours? It depends how much manpower you give me, if it's not at least eight to ten people then I'm afraid not."

Caesar nodded, "I'm not actually sure how many engineers will arrive. Although I am certain that there should be quite a few"

Danny's interest was piqued as he asked casually "Where are the Engineers from?"

"They are the engineers that are directly under the king, all of their creations must go to the king, however, the king supplies them with materials and money"

"T-the King?" Danny said shocked

"Indeed, the king"

Soon the sound of large horses galloping rang in both Danny's and Caesar's ears… Caesar smiled slightly and said: "Speaking of the king, here he is" Caesar walked out of Danny's Workshop and saw ten or so carriages in a diamond formation.

The carriage in the middle was very delicate and had engravings of stars on it. Soon the carriages stopped and from the middle carriage came the king and the princes… Following the princes came the queen.

"How did all of them fit in that single carriage…?" Caesar could not help but think to himself

The king walked towards Caesar and opened his arms wide "Mephesto, I have brought you the requested engineers"

"Snap"

The king snapped his fingers and thirteen or so people came out of the other carriages and lined up in front of me, they all looked relatively middle-aged and looked experienced. Caesar bowed gracefully and replied: "Thank you, your majesty"

Caesar then looked towards the Engineers…

"In that shop, you will find an engineer, ask him for directions and he will lead you… Good luck!" Caesar said with a smile as he pointed towards Danny's workshop.

The engineers nodded their heads and all walked towards the workshop… After that Caesar turned his head towards the king and said

"Unfortunately it will take a few hours for my weapon to be done, shall we kill some time?"

The king looked at Caesar with a confused look, "how should we kill the time?"

Caesar walked back to his carriage and pulled out a chess board and a foldable table along with two seats. Caesar walked back towards the king and smiled mischievously "Shall we play some chess"

Caesar set up the chess board and placed a seat on both sides, Caesar picked black while the king picked white.

About thirty minutes later, "checkmate your majesty" Caesar moved one of his pieces and killed the king on the chess board, The king stared wide-eyed at his loss. He never thought he was going to lose to a youngster. "You have bested me"

Caesar cleared the board and set up the pieces again, "Shall we play again"

The king chuckled and waved his hand "Here, play with my two sons" the crown prince soon sat down in the king's place with an eager expression.

Caesar smiled, "let us begin"

About three hours later both of the princes were gnashing their teeth in helplessness and anger. Caesar smiled from ear to ear as he asked in a sarcastic tone "Shall we go at it again, you were quite close last time"

"N-no thank you, Marshall, you are too good at chess" The crown prince Alfred did not want to accept that Caesar was better than him at chess but the facts were blown in his face. As Caesar was teasing the poor little prince... rushed footsteps interrupted them.

"Mephesto, T-the Balista is done!" Danny had unconcealed excitement on his face as he said this sentence.

"Great work, let's see it," Caesar said as he stood up and followed Danny towards the ballista… After reaching the back of the workshop they could see a tall structure that looked like an enlarged bow on a pedal stool. It rolled on wheels and was about three meters tall and 6 meters wide, to the side was a lever and the ropes were currently pulled back.

"Clap"

Caesar clapped and commented "It's wonderful, thank you for all of your hard work Danny and the rest"

Danny nodded with a happy expression and the rest of the engineers also had unconcealed smiles on their face, all of them wondered "Just how powerful is this weapon"

Caesar walked over to the large bolts he had carried to the tree earlier and brought it to the ballista, Caesar set the bolt in position and shifted the position of the ballista to aim towards a few thick trees.

Caesar called over the rest of the dukes and walked towards the lever of the ballista… Caesar smiled at the crowd and said "behold"

"Sprang"

Caesar pulled the lever and the ropes launched the bolt at unimaginable speeds, The sound of the bolt piercing through wind rang into everyone's ears… The bolt quickly reached it's target and directly pierced the tree. The bolt didn't stop there and pierced the next three tree's and impaled the city walls.

The entire crowd let out breaths of awe, even Caesar was staring at the ballista with shock "That was a bit excessive?" He could not help but think to himself but he didn't show that to the others.

"As expected of my creation, didn't I tell you it was extraordinary, with this consider those wyvern riders dead"

"Clap"

Everyone clapped in awe "This weapon will truly help us in the battle but I don't think it is enough Mephesto" The king stated with a helpless expression

Caesar grinned and brought out another illustration… "Imagine an army of mini ballista's, firing highly powerful bolts but also not needing the training required for firing a long bow"

The king looked at Caesar shocked "You mean…?"

Caesar raised his hand and showed off the illustration "I call this the crossbow" He said.