CH 362

Anneliese brewed some tea for us, but this is…

“Mrs. Anneliese… could it be…?” I asked.

“Indeed~.”

I hope you understand the meaning of my question. Anneliese smiled and nodded. I see. Did she make it?

“This is a failure~,” Anneliese said.

“………… Huh?”

I had Anneliese research flavored teas. I thought that Anneliese, who makes essential oils, might be able to make a good flavored tea. The tea she just brewed has a soft and refreshing scent. I thought it was a flavored tea, not a normal black tea, but… is it a failure?

“I was able to add a scent to it, but… it doesn’t taste good,” Anneliese said.

“I-I see?” I said.

Then why are you giving me something that doesn’t taste good with a failed prototype? I don’t understand what Anneliese is saying.

“So because of that~, I thought I’d ask Lord Flora what’s wrong with it~,” Anneliese finished.

“Ah, is that so?” I replied.

Is she saying that she wants to hear my opinion because she’s stuck? Earl Gray is the most famous flavored tea on earth. It’s a flavored black tea with the scent of bergamot. Even if you have never drunk it, most modern Japanese people will know it if you hear the name.

However, Earl Gray has a strong scent and is unique, so preferences are divided. The higher the temperature, the stronger the aroma. The aroma of the tea being served now can be clearly felt just by placing it on the table. It must have a very strong scent, to begin with.

“Then let’s have some,” I said.

The smell is amazing even before you lift the cup. Moreover, since it is hot, the aroma rises along with the steam, which is stimulating. Try putting it in your mouth…

“I understand now… The scent is too strong.”

“Ah~, I knew it~…” Anneliese bemoaned, looking disappointed.

I asked her if she could keep the scent down more, but she seemed to have suppressed it quite a bit already. It seems that it will be difficult to try to weaken the fragrance further. Even with a small amount, the scent will be enough, and even if you try to reduce it too much, the scent will not come off at all, or the scent will stick only to the tea leaves where it is directly applied.

“Then, if the flavoring is a dead end, we have no choice but to devise ways to drink it regardless,” I said.

Of course, if we continue to research flavored teas, we may be able to find a good method and make other flavors. However, if scenting is at a dead end at this point, you will have no choice but to think of other methods.

“Are you devising a way to drink it~?” Anneliese asked.

“For example, chill it and drink it as cold tea, or try adding milk to it,” I replied.

Well, this is an imitation of Earl Gray. It’s probably the way to drink Earl Gray that it’s iced tea or milk tea so that the scent doesn’t overpower you.

“Wah~! This is easy to drink~!” Anneliese cried.

“Isn’t it?” I said. “Even if it’s the same tea, just a little ingenuity in how it’s brewed should make a big difference.”

We try brewing a few and comparing them. The feeling changed completely even though it was brewed with the same tea leaves. If you make it into iced tea, you can drink it. Even so, there will be a matter of taste, but if you say that, there are likes and dislikes for anything, so the problem is how popular it becomes and how much it sells.

“Uohhon! Are you quite done now?” Eins said, coughing.

“Ah, Eins, I’m sorry. Shall we start now?” I said.

With that hurrying, we switch to the main subject. Anneliese’s case is also important, but it doesn’t mean that it has to be done right now. Besides, Anneliese seems to have already understood something from the hint just now and seems to be satisfied. Talking with Eins is important, so I want to get down to today’s main topic.

“First……”

“Let’s talk about the contents of the previous letter first!”

When I tried to talk about it, Eins interrupted. It seems that he is quite concerned. The content of the letter is probably the story of an experiment that tried to ignite gunpowder with magic. The barrel is weak because the basic industrial strength of materials and processing is insufficient. If I ignite it with my method, the barrel can’t stand it and it explodes.

“The results of the experiment are as I wrote in the letter,” I said. “And the resulting rupture I described was from the gun I sent with the letter.”

Eins must have seen the broken barrel, too.

“I’ve seen the evidence, but I didn’t expect it to explode like that… what should we do…?” Eins said.

“We have no choice but to make a stronger barrel,” I said.

There is no other way but to make a barrel that can withstand the explosion and expansion of gunpowder. But then it’s unreasonable to make the barrel thicker and stronger. It is a weapon that people carry and use in their hands. Too much weight makes it difficult to use.

Some jokes of armies are developing garbage guns that are too heavy to be used by a foot soldier by adding so many functions to it. Well, the countries of the joke armies are not limited to guns, but all technologies are full of various functions that make them impossible to be used properly…

We can’t mock them, either, if we don’t balance everything from weight and handling to strength and power, we’ll end up making useless garbage, too.

“However, even at this point, we should be using the best materials and processing for weapons…”

He’s right. There is no point in making trash out of hand. It’s a weapon that lives are relying on, so it’s made by gathering as much technology as possible.

“There is one method. It also solves the problem of rifling,” I said.

“What was that!?” Eins yelled. “You said you could solve the problem of strength on top of the rifling issue? Then, what is the method!?”

Eins came up to me with an unreasonable voraciousness for the answer. It’s a fairly simple method. I don’t know if it will work. It’s just a desk theory that I came up with for the time being. Whether or not it can be made into a feasible technology depends on Eins.

“Then I’ll explain it,” I said.

Eins bites into the promise. I will use the blackboard and paper appropriately and explain with illustrations.

First of all, there are two types of processing. Either carve a groove or press a mold to transfer it. A tool such as a lathe is required to rifle evenly through the narrow barrel. In this world where mechanical engineering is lagging behind, it’s impossible to make a lathe and cut the rifling precisely.

Then I had no choice but to transfer using a mold, but that method was difficult. So what I came up with was to make a mold slightly larger than the inner diameter of the barrel, and screw that mold into the heated barrel. Then, with the mold inside, the barrel is put into a vise from the outside and compressed.

If you tighten the vise with the barrel and the mold between it, and then apply more pressure to compress the barrel, the mold inside will be reflected inside, and the barrel will not be shaved off, so the strength will not decrease. If you cut it with a lathe, it will become thinner and the strength will decrease, but if you compress it, you can increase the strength by that amount.

“I see! So that’s how you’d do it!”

“The temperature of the barrel to be heated so that the mold can be easily transferred, the pressure to be applied to the vise for compression, and the measures to prevent the barrel from being distorted or protruding from the frame, etc, all of these things require research and development of new tools and machines, but I thought this can be one of those methods.”

I’m just talking about it, and it’s the researchers and craftsmen who actually make the tools and machines. It’s easy for me because I’m just irresponsibly throwing out ideas, but I don’t know how hard it is for the people who actually make this.

But if you can do this, you can solve a lot of problems at once. It is possible to increase the strength of the barrel, which is the problem we are currently facing, and if we can improve the accuracy of the bullet, its flight distance and power will increase.

“However, the expansive force of the gunpowder will escape from the grooves…” Eins said.

“That can be solved by devising new ammunition. Well then, let’s talk about the new gun first.”

Eins was still talking about this, but for now, I’ll go to the next one. Bullets for rifled guns have their specifics. I have the same problem with the new cannons.

“Then let’s take a look at this prototype first! This is the New Caan Cannon!” Eins said.

I don’t think it’s necessary to forcefully call it a Caan Cannon, but… If it becomes a new standard, you can change it to a new name, right? I should have said that, but…

“You’ve done it well,” I said.

The barrel of the new cannon feels sleeker than the current cannons, and it’s well-ridged. And the cannonball prototype that is placed next to it is the so-called “shell,” an elongated cannonball that is used even on modern Earth, and has the shape of the gun ammo that everyone imagines.

However, this shell has rivets attached to the side of the base. It has the same number and width of rivets as the rifling on the barrel, and they are arranged in two stages. The top and bottom rivets are out of alignment by the same amount of curvature in the rifling. In other words, these upper and lower rivets are designed to fit perfectly into the rifling of the barrel.

“Are you going to do a firing test?” I asked.

“Yes. We’re using a different one for the experiments, not this unit,” Eins replied. “The shooting performance is perfect. I wonder what’s going on in your head, Lord Flora, to keep coming up with these things one after another.”

If you’ll forgive me… it’s not my idea… I’m just passing on the knowledge I’ve heard, and leaving the rest to Eins and the others. Eins may think that I’m amazing at coming up with ideas, but if you ask me, I think it’s amazing to have everyone who creates this and that with only vague hints from my knowledge.

Anyway, this is a copycat of an actual cannon made on Earth called the Light System. Modern-level guns and cannons are breech-loading. And compared to the rifling, the shells, and bullets are slightly larger. It fits snugly so that the combustion gas of the gunpowder does not leak, and it rotates while biting into the grooves of the rifling.

However, the breech-loading type has a high technical hurdle. If the bottom fails and opens again, even the artillerymen will be in danger, and if gas leaks, the power of the gun will decrease. Therefore, it is necessary to have the industrial strength and technical ability to create something that is completely sealed, can be opened and closed easily, and the bottom does not come off unless you intended it to.

Compared to that, the front-loading type can be integrally molded, so the possibility of the bottom opening up is low. Because the technical hurdles were low, all of them were muzzle-loading at first.

The problem then becomes how to load the barrel of a muzzle-loading gun and a bullet that is larger than the barrel. If it is a breech-loading type, it is sufficient if there is a size difference between the part where the bullet is loaded and the barrel. It’s fine as long as the bullet enters only the place where it’s packed from behind, and when it’s fired, it’s big enough to fit snugly into the barrel.

But if you’re going to load from the front, it’s difficult to push in a bullet that’s bigger than the barrel. Even if I forced it in, it would take time and effort. It may not work well if it gets scratched and digs into the inner wall when you pack it.

That’s where this light system comes in. The rivets on the shell are made to fit the rifling exactly. If you push it in while rotating it in the opposite direction along the groove, it will fit perfectly. Unlike now, just pushing it in straight from the front, it will take time and effort to load it while rotating it.

However, considering the effect obtained by the rifling, the merit is greater even if it takes time. Just like with a gun, by rotating along the rifling, a gyroscopic effect is generated, the trajectory is stabilized, and accuracy, range, and power are improved. It would be better to fire 1 well-aimed shot every 2 minutes than to fire 1 poor shot every 1 minute.

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Besides, there are various merits to becoming a cannonball of the “shell” variety. As the weight of the shell increases, the penetrating power and other strengths increase, but in spite of the increase in the weight, the same range can be secured without increasing the amount of gunpowder.

Furthermore, the artillery shell has this shape, and it also has the advantage of being able to use the fuse that I’m thinking of because it rotates. Since the structure itself is simple, it has already been confirmed that such shells can be manufactured.

Incoming/outgoing fuses, delayed fuses, timed fuses… You’ll be able to control areas that you couldn’t do before. As expected, I still can’t make a proximity fuse. Or rather, it’s impossible while I’m alive. Still, this alone opens up a lot of possibilities.

“And then, what bullets do you use for rifled guns?” Eins asked.

“You’re impatient, aren’t you…? It’s not that big of a deal,” I said.

Eins rushes over, so I start talking. In the case of cannons, the light system is said to make it difficult for combustion gases to escape. But it’s too much work to put a bullet with similar rivets in a long and narrow gun barrel.

“You should put a bullet smaller than the barrel,” I said.

“………… Huh?”

Eins was dumbfounded by my words. Up until now, I’ve been telling you to keep the gases tightly sealed, but if you put a bullet smaller than the barrel, the gas will escape as much as it pleases. But this can also be solved with an elongated, ridged bullet.

“The back of the elongated bullet is hollowed out, and you can stuff it with cork. It spreads out and fits into the rifling. It’s smaller than the barrel when it’s loaded, and it spreads out and slots into the grooves when it’s firing. That’s it.”

This is also a ripoff like the light system. It’s called the Minié gun and the Minié bullet.

“I will combine this with a paper cartridge,” I said. “Should the detonators be made practical… hence…”

Wrap gunpowder and bullets in paper and keep them together. Right now, every time you shoot, you load gunpowder and then load bullets. But if you use paper cartridges to complete everything at once, you can reduce unnecessary accidents and reduce the trouble of loading bullets.

Break the gunpowder part of the paper cartridge and put only the gunpowder into the barrel. Then put the rest of the bullets and paper in front of the gunpowder. The paper and bullets are coated with cow or pig oil or grease to make them slippery, and by wrapping the bullets in paper, they prevent the bullets from getting stuck in the ridges.

A single bullet can complete a single shot, reducing the friction on the rifling and also preventing the bullet from being scraped off by the rifling.

A detonator and a paper cartridge would be a big step forward. The current flintlock musket is quickly turning into a modern weapon.

“How Wonderful! You are a god! No, rather, you are my Goddess!”

“Such an exaggeration…” I said.

Anneliese and I had a lot of trouble trying to calm Eins who was kneeling in front of me and crying.

T/N: For all the gun nuts out there, there’s probably a mistranslation or a misunderstood concept here somewhere that I haven’t been able to research properly.