39 THE FIRST GUN

When Andrei came to, six faces were looking at him forming a circle, the old knight Erneis, the pretty blonde Michaela, Claire with her neutral expression, Rara with a mystified look on her eyes, and the two new faces, Gideon and his wife Layla. When he realized what had happened, he became weirded out of the attention given to him, that on reflex he immediately lifted his upper body to sit, but it hit one of the faces that looked at him, their foreheads hit each other and they both crawled to the ground in pain.

"Ahhhhh Your Highness! Why did you just sat up like that!" Gideon was holding his red forehead, while having a pained expression.

"S-S-Sorry it was on reflex" Andrei crawled on the floor in pain.

"Are you alright my dear?" Layla put her hand on her husbands forehead while a green light glowed in her palm, and she murmured a spell, "Ilya onta apsa... heal wounds" the green light glowed more and disappeared instantly as if it went inside the man's forehead.

No one was able to hear the incantations, until she shouted its name "Heal Wounds" as it was a spell for healing. Layla used the spell when Andrei fell unconscious, as to why he regained consciousness not in his room but on the planning chamber.

The woman scooted over to Andrei, "Your Highness…" she put her hand on his forehead and repeated the same process, Andrei was amazed by the light that was on her palm, "Magic… is amazing" when the light disappeared, he felt that his forehead and the dizziness it caused disappeared immediately.

"Thank you… Ms. Layla" Andrei said as he touched his forehead and stood up.

"It's a small thing Your Highness, compared to what you did to save our people" the woman bowed to Andrei.

"Still… to be able to use healing magic, your wife is quite a talented one Gideon" Erneis commented.

Michaela went to Andrei with a worried face and asked, "Are you alright? You're tired right? Let's postpone the testing for tomorrow okay? And have a good rest?" she said in such a tone that made Andrei happy in his heart, as the girl asking him to rest, had bags under her eyes, and was the one who clearly didn't slept for a long time at all.

"This girl, she gets easily worried about others, but not for herself… makes you wanna care for her" he thought and smiled while he patted her head, "It's alright… that spell made me feel better, besides it's you who should sleep…" he pointed at her eye bags mockingly.

The girl knew what he meant and immediately turned around embarrassingly, "You really don't have delicacy do you!!??" she angrily said. "I've heard that twice now…" Andrei thought and looked at Claire, their eyes met but she averted hers in a second, "If I did that to Claire, she would've pierced my eyes with those magic needles already… I'm glad Michaela is not that brutal"

....

They arrived at the back of the castle where a lot of knights trained with the operational stakes made of wood. The golden knights practiced their magic, while the silver armored ones, practiced their sword fighting, when they saw the group that had appeared, they immediately lined up and knelt.

Andrei could see familiar faces from his escape ruckus and from his platoon, also Geraldine his vice-commander was there.

As they were currently slashing their wooden swords on the stakes, Erneis stepped forward and gave an order.

"We will be conducting a test for a new weapon right now, everyone who's willing to watch can remain, the rest could go and rest" he announced.

All the golden knights remained, while a small number of the silver armored knights went outside the gate, mostly those who couldn't accept the outcome of the battle during the pursuit. They didn't acknowledge the new weapons and rejected it fully.

The ones who remained had an excited look on their eyes, as they were given a chance to take a look at it, upclose.

"Your Highness, should I set another barrier again?" Erneis asked him referring to the past invention where the shrapnel violently flew from random directions.

"No, it should be alright" he proudly said as she took the weapon from the blanket.

"Your Highness, you could use a spear huh? But, where's the spearhead?" Gideon asked him, looking at the weird looking spear on Andrei's hand.

"It's not a spear silly… it's a ranged weapon" he responded as he took the flint from Michaela, he took an amount of gunpowder from the cup on the table, put it inside the barrel, next he took a metal ball and with a metal rod he pushed it inside with a rod, he took another amount of gunpowder and put it on the pan and finally locked it. Next he tried to attach the flint, but seemed that it wouldn't fit on the cock.

Gideon was astounded by his answer and didn't ask anymore but just watched him do the work.

"Erneis can you sharpen this so it would fit on this space?" he pointed at the space on the cock.

Erneis looked at it, he took his knife and in a second he sharpened it, Andrei accepted the flint back from him and it fit perfectly on the cocks mouth.

"Ohhh, it fits perfectly…" he examined the weapon and with a satisfied look on his face he said, "It's finished!" Andrei made a proud statement as he carried the weapon, "Life is too short to debug in staging" he murmured.

Everyone had an still had an excited look on their face, Andrei requested for an armor to be put on the stake, and positioned himself a long distance to fire the weapon.

"Erneis, can you position yourself on what distance are you able to shoot a sure hit with an arrow and pierce through that armor?"

Erneis nodded and positioned himself a few yards from the stake.

Andrei took steps backwards until it reached almost four times the distance where Erneis stood.

"That's enough Erneis, please go back to the side, I'm not a good marksman after all" and he gave a wry smile, Erneis, thinking it was dangerous, nervously nodded and ran back to where the Michaela and the others stood.

He aimed the stake with the armor, and got ready to pull the trigger, and looked behind of him where the gunpowder, the bullets and the metal rod was.

"Cover your ears if you're weak of heart" but no one heard what he said, he remembered the testing of the landmine where he forgot to remind everyone to cover their ears.

He let out a breath, which made his aiming calm down, at first he was shaking, but he knew how to fire the weapon, his family had weapons dating from the 1970's to the current M4A1 rifle, he took deep breaths to make his shaking calm down, and when he was sure of his aim, he pulled the trigger. With a loud bang everyone was startled, Gideon who was trying to walk near him, who wanted to examine how the weapon works fell on his behind, Layla was startled but prioritized on going to her husband.

Rara and Michaela opened their mouths in amazement, while Claire covered her ears with a neutral expression.

A large amount of smoke, rose from the weapon, but Andrei wasn't finished, "Click, clack, click" he loaded a second bullet snappingly, and in ten seconds he was able to load another bullet and pulled the trigger.

Everyone's attention was on him, that they forgot to look at the target, with his swift and organized actions he calmly loaded the weapon in a very short amount of time, and shot another round, he immediately prepared for the third round with the same process, and they finally covered their ears, which made Andrei smile before he shot the third around, he stopped and put the weapon back to the table.

No one was able to say a word until Andrei shouted, "Anyone who can see if i hit the target or not?" the area around him was filled with gunsmoke.

Geraldine who was also covering her ears realized her responsibility as the vice-command of Andrei walked towards the stake with the armor, and couldn't believe what she saw.

"What is it Vice-commander!" Erneis asked her from far away.

"T-T-T-There are three hits at the armor, it passed through the armor and the stake!"

Everyone was surprised of the announcement, Gideon who couldn't believe the announcement ran to the stake to confirm it, with his hands shaking he said, "I-I-It's true, from that freaking far distance, the three balls hit the target, and what's more is that it pierced through the armor and stake!"

The place was filled with silence, as they imagined of what would happen if the enemy was to be equipped of such a terrifying weapon, where in a far away distance the knights armor is useless.

"So it's just like the mechanism of a Bouncing Claire huh? Except that it could be used simultaneously with one ball shrapnel, and could be easily controlled" Michaela said as she evaluated the weapon.

"But Your Highness, in those preparations, the enemy would be able to close in, won't they?" Rara commented.

Andrei who was coming to them overheard the conversation, everyone was brought to silence by the loud bangs of the weapon, so their conversation could be heard, "That's true Rara, no… Princess Rara" Andrei almost forgot that other knights were there.

"But what if…" Andrei waved at Erneis to get his attention, "Erneis can you position yourself on my back and imitate my position" Andrei took a firing position, after a fake firing, he positioned himself, in Erneis back and continued, "... and then when I finished firing Erneis have already finished loading the weapon, if we repeat the same action over and over… do you know what I mean?"

"Then… with the combination, the firing could be done in a terrifying speed" Gideon was surprised of the discovery.

"That's right!" Andrei stood up and returned the weapon to the table again.

Everyone could hear the explanation and saw how the positioning was made, to them it was very unusual, but just by imagining, how it would turn out, they felt goosebumps on their skin. Everyone except the group started whispering with each other.

"With this weapon, we might be able to retake Kydus!" Rara who still amazed of what she saw, said to herself"

"In the face of a whole platoon wielding this weapon, casters wouldn't be able to finish chanting, even a caster's magic could only hit two times of the range of an arrow, and knights wouldn't be able to go near it, if this weapon would be mass produced, it would be… a massacre" Gideon thought to himself, looking at the man who made it, who was smiling together with the queen. "Just… where did this man come from? Just how bloody is his country's history for them to be able to think of making a terrifying weapon just like this?"

"That trap weapon aside… this weapon could kill a knight from four times the yard of archery… a weapon that could be operated so easily… he even said that the training would only take a week or two… that means civilians could easily be hired to wield it.. They won't even need knights to escort them to plant BC bombs… The years of training that knights took, would be only useless in the face of the projectile that comes inside that long iron… the era of knights… is it over?" Erneis gave a deep sigh while looking at the knights who was evaluating the armor that was punched by circular holes.