Shawn shook his head, “The Sandpeople are very wary of the people from our kingdom, even using some gold royals I still wasn’t able to buy any more information, but… there was one more strange thing that happened on the day prior to when I’d intended to leave the Port of Clearwater. On that day Garcia had returned after her victory at Eagle City and everywhere within the city they celebrate their Queen’s victory against the pseudo-king, King Timothy. But the next day, they detected four to five people murdered and one victim was even torn to pieces in the middle of the street.”
“In the following days the Port of Clearwater was closed down and so I had to stay continue to stay there for the next three days. During the time, all the pubs were closed, and everyone would gather in the inn’s lobby to talk about what information they had heard. Some people thought that it was the revenge of the pseudo King, but one of the fishermen said that he had witnessed one of the murders. The murderer wasn’t tall and also was clearly not a man of the Sandpeople, but his strength and speed wasn’t anything like what a normal man could reach. He was later killed by the guards, but even after being hit by a lot of knife slashes he still didn’t go down. In addition, his blood looked completely differently than that of a mortal and only after even more guards rushed to the crime scene, were they finally able to wear him down with their spears. When the closing order was lifted, I didn’t dare to stay for any longer, and immediately came back to bring you your seeds.”
“You have done a good job,” after thinking for a short moment Roland continued. “You don’t need to return the gold royals you still have left over from buying the seeds to the Town Hall.”
“Thank you so much for your reward, Your Highness!”
“A strength and speed far beyond what is possible for an ordinary person, ignoring the pain caused by knife injuries, all this just sounds like… the Church’s pills.” When Sean had left Nightingale’s voice immediately sounded next to Roland’s ear.
“I thought the same,” Roland frowned, “according to Sean’s explanations, Garcia got the pills even earlier than me. The Church supported both sides that are competing against each other for the throne at the same time… In the end, what was it that they have in mind?” Within his mind the traces of a bad possibilities popped up,
Later that evening, Roland sat in his office and began to think about new equipment.
The fact that the Church’s pills had also appeared in the Port of Clearwater brought him a strong sense of crisis. He could even feel his scalp tingling all the time, regardless if it was the fact that the Church was supporting both him and Garcia in their fight for the throne, or the thought of Garcia’s thousands of additional men she got from her alliance.
Thinking of the thousands of soldiers who are wrapped in iron armor and able to run at speeds equal to a full-on cavalry charge, it was hard not to become overwhelmed by such an image. Stopping such a massive charge with his thin rows of gunners would be a tough task for him. As soon as one person was able to reach his ranks, his First Army would come to receive heavy losses.
Fortunately, this pill didn’t make someone immune to injuries, even with the medication the consumer’s body was still made of flesh and blood.
He had to create weapons that had a higher firing rate and precision, which would also be able to fire over a longer distance.
But without mercury fulminate as the primer, Roland had to find another way to bypass this hurdle, and until then he had to produce some alternative equipment to deal with any possible crises.
And with Anna’s new ability he had the confidence in achieving this. Now as long as he could draw the design, Anna would be able to process the object he wanted to create accurately. But also, her efficiency has reached an extraordinary level compared with all the prior tasks where the blacksmith had to create each part of the flintlock carefully; she could now stack several pieces together and form and cut them all at the same time.
