Barda lay on the rooftop of the workshop he had made his home, staring at the moon. Looking up, he felt he had made quite an a**h*le of himself. He had been ugly, no way of coating it.
Looking back, Barda felt that everything he said and did that day was something he had meant to say all his life. Even now, he found himself in the same situation he had been in his previous life.
Barda felt as though there was some elitist group that he was not allowed into no matter how good of a soldier he had been in his past life. He felt as though it was a conspiracy of the world to keep him away from this life despite his best effort. Even now, he felt the same crappy rejection he had back then. At least these guys were not trying to kill him.
There was one little difference between then and now. Now he had the power to change all that, to transcend all of them. In his fit of rage, he had bitten off more quite a hefty chunk, time to see if he could chew it all. Seven days, touch check to cash.
Getting off the roof, Barda found the craftspeople were gathered. More than even the soldiers, the people in front of him were the key to his success. Time to get to work.
The first item on the agenda was to ensure that every soldier was armed, which meant that there was a need to increase the number of people working on the production of guns and bullets. Barda also wanted to introduce new kinds of ammunition which meant more inventions.
Secondly, Barda needed to find a way to transport the 10,000 men at his disposal across the vast fields and have them battle-ready by the time they got there. They were quite far from Crane city, and any advance they made would be seen from a mile off.
Thirdly, Gumina was known to have a wide array of magical beasts under them such as the wyverns and the sun-worm that attacked them. They had to be handled to fully conquer the city.
Finally, Barda needed to come up with a trump card powerful enough to overwhelm an entire city with just 10,000 men. By his reckoning, guns and ammo were not going to cut it. He needed something bold and powerful enough.
However, there were sever obstacles and things to put into consideration. For starters, he needed to maintain a certain level of secrecy. The kinds of weapons he was making were not the kind he would want to fall in the wrong hands, and hence he had to do his best to keep the secret of forging them as much and as long as possible.
Eventually, Barda knew the weapons would circulate, but by then he hoped to have had enough power to institute a form of control. Already, he had received reports of Gumina smiths were trying to reverse engineer his weapon.
Had he made an ordinary firestick, perhaps they would have, however, this design was just too advanced for them to replicate in such a short time. Barda knew they would do it eventually. Similarly, he had been threatened with a weapon he had made. Gun control was very much needed.
Secondly, there was the issue of materials. If he couldn't make enough weapons, he couldn't deliver as promised. Finally, Barda wondered if he had enough people to work on the projects he had in mind.
Barda assigned an additional 30 smiths, 5 woodcarvers and 20 alchemists to Gunsmithing. He had Kia and Batoo show them how to go about making the AKs. He then assigned another group of 20 smiths and 10 alchemists to work on the handguns.
After much thought, Barda had settled on 1 design. He wanted a gun that had a high stopping power as well as high accuracy. The trade-off came when firing. At close range, a weaker gun was more effective as it bit into the target. However, for soldiers who didn't need to get up close and personal, a gun with high stopping power was ideal.
On this, Barda picked several designs based on the .45 caliber handguns at his disposal. He picked the elegant design of the Glock, the adaptability of the colt and the robustness of the Sig to create a unique version.
After making 5 of those, he believed he had perfected them. He came up with a design and had the handpicked people get to work. By the time Barda was accessing information about them, they had already seized to be proprietary, thus he felt he could play around with the designs a bit.
Next, Barda picked up 20 smiths and 8 alchemists to work on the Ordinance-tipped arrows and bolts. Barda was planning on inventing semi-automatic crossbows and ballistae which could deliver explosive-tipped bolts.
Soon after, Barda locked himself in the forging room and spent the rest of the night working on secret projects. He had collected several kinds of materials, which made the onlookers wonder just what he was doing in there.
The following morning, Barda summoned Catalina and 19 other warriors who were under Commander Greer. He then had others guard his door as he led the group off into the forest. He rode on a reinforced carriage while they followed on horseback.
Once they were some distance away, Barda unveiled his latest creation. Looking at the new designs in her eyes, Catalina understood right away that these were rifles. However, compared to the previous ones they had been using, these were more sinister-looking.
Moreover, they had a component on top of the rifle, like a hump on a camel. Secondly, it was longer and heavier than her previous rifle. Moreover, the bullets were the size of her 2 middle fingers combined. Looking at it, she got a clue what this was about.
Barda had invented the light 50, or in full, the Barrett M82. This had been one of the best .50 caliber sniper rifles available in the market until gunpowder rifles became obsolete. His design was 1.4m long and weighed 14kg. It had a maximum effective range of 2Km. It was a work of art, but that was not the hardest part to design.
The lenses in the scopes were the work of art. He had taken nearly an hour just to get the first right. Subsequently, it had been much easier, but he still had to stay alert to avoid accidents. This was among the first truly taxing operations.
Lying on the ground, Catalina aimed at the watermelon placed in front of her. At first, she had been skeptical since it was more than a kilometer away. From where she was, she couldn't even see it properly, just some dot on the horizon. However, Barda insisted that she get on the ground and aim her rifle.
She didn't argue and did as ordered. The moment she looked through the scope, she had to look away from it to confirm what she was looking at. The power of the scope dazzled her, as did everyone else on the squad.
Barda may have never worked with gunpowder weapons, but he had experience with projectile-based sniper rifles as well as beam-based. He knew a thing or 2 about sniping. He trained his new squad well, but this would take more than an afternoon to learn.
Barda trained them on how to assemble and dismantle the weapon. This time, he added a silencer, one could never be too sure. He then had then practice every day. It didn't take a genius to figure out they were there for the wyverns.
Catalina felt a very heavy responsibility befall her shoulders. It was as though she was thrust into the forefront. If she missed her shot, her people would die. She vowed in her heart not to let that happen.
As the commander of the sniping squad, she had them practice on birds. Cruel, true, but at least they would know how to react to a flying beast. Each of the warriors present had been handpicked by the commander as the best archers, hence such a request was not above their capabilities.
That night, Catalina slept with hope in her heart, as did many. It had seemed a bad bet by the Queen, but after seeing the amount of activity in Steel Street, many Tristanites were energized. Could it be that this was actually doable?
Elsewhere, Barda summoned Lady Arnea with a crazy design on his desk. Looking over the design, Lady Arnea did not get what it was for. Barda had one question for her though, "How good are you with your wind magic?"