Andrei came back to the castle with red cheeks, luckily Michaela didn't continue her punishment and he was left off easily with her pinching on his face, they all had lunch together at the pub, and returned back together at the castle.
"Gideon, I'll pay you back for this later," he felt his cheeks as he stared at the middle-aged guy beside him, who tried to whistle but couldn't let out a good sound, instead, he was spitting saliva everywhere.
"That's what you get for being popular," Gideon beamed at him, "plus it's her majesty, Michaela who dragged me there, for you standing her up, you shouldn't do that to ladies you know? Tsk tsk tsk," he told Andrei as Michaela was walking in front of them talking with Geraldine, who was too flustered to answer back to the queen.
As they walked towards the training ground, he noticed that Geraldine's hair color was similar to Gideon's as he looked closer to it, the two had also similar eye color.
"Gideon, is chestnut hair color common here?" Hearing this Gideon stiffened for a bit but still continued walking, looking away.
"Yeah, pretty… much," with his head turned to look at the knights who trained on stakes, Andrei couldn't see his face.
"Strange… this old man… " he thought, then he looked at Geraldine again, "I have seen lots of hair colors but theirs look so similar could it be... No no no, Gideon is a wimp, and Geraldine is pretty agile, and Gideon lives far away on Kydus," he compared the two's similarities, his instincts were telling him something but he chose to ignore it as he saw Gideon's nature which is opposite to Geraldine.
They arrived at the training ground and at a table there laid flintlocks that were now smaller, under a sheet, Matthias was also there cleaning it with a cloth making the steel on it shine. Seeing this Andrei immediately ran up to him.
"Matthias, you were finally able to reduce it to this size?" He excitedly went towards him, there were five flintlocks on the table, at the same size as Andrei's.
"Aye! But we blacksmiths didn't have the ability to make the inner parts smaller, so we had the craftsmen make it for us, surprisingly there were fast when it came to the production we could barely keep up!"
The macho man this time was wearing decent clothes that looked like they were about to be teared up with his bulging muscles, we wore a shirt and his usual work pants, as he put down the rifle he was cleaning and wiped his hand with it.
"Now we can hire gun carriers who are not as bulky as your first battalion now Andrei," Michaela murmured as she picked up one of the flintlocks and passed it to Gideon and Geraldine on his right and left sides.
Seeing them, Andrei also did the same, as they evaluated their weapons, Matthias took two heavy boxes under the table and held out his hands, "you want to test them aye?" The box contained gunpowder and bullets.
Andrei and Geraldine finished loading their gun ready to fire, however, Michaela and Gideon had trouble in loading theirs, Michaela had gunpowder all over her face while Gideon's hands were shaking, not knowing about the weapon's mechanism, he was afraid of blowing up himself.
"Michaela, give it to me," Andrei held out his hand to Michaela with a handkerchief, "and wipe your face with this," she accepted the handkerchief but as she did it, she nonchalantly to traced out his hands with hers as she took the handkerchief from his hand, Andrei was suddenly creeped out as a chill ran over his spine, "ah, she's being aggressive again," he thought to himself as he took her gun and loaded it by himself. Michaela on the other hand wiped her face with the handkerchief he gave.
On the training grounds there were five target practices erected, it was a plane that has been shaped to be a half-human body, with the usual red dot and blue circles, it was the same target practice the soldiers that are using to train in the northern mountains of Ethareri.
Andrei, Geraldine, and Michaela aimed their guns at the targets while Gideon gave up with his gun and spectated behind them, Andrei didn't help him due to Gideon betraying him earlier.
"Aim! Pull! Fire!" Andrei commanded, [Boom!] Sounds of three gunshots echoed as smoke rose from the muzzles. Everyone stopped momentarily on their activities, the knights who practiced fighting, the maids who took out the laundry, and the ministers who were scribbling with their ink and quill, wondering where the noise came from.
Andrei whispered something to Michaela, and strangely Michaela's face brightened and ordered Gideon.
"Gideon, can you check if we hit the targets?"
Gideon complied and ran to the targets to see where the bullets hit, when he was halfway, suddenly he heard Andrei shout.
"Reload! Aim! Target Gideon!"
"Hey Andrei stop joking around!" The poor middle-aged noble turned around worried, but Andrei had his rifle placed at his side, with the two girls laughing. Gideon looked at Geraldine who was laughing, and for some reason it made him smile and continued running towards the targets.
Results were Geraldine hitting the center almost to the red dot, Andrei farther at the first blue circle line, and Michaela hitting nothing.
In the next exercise Gideon helped Andrei conduct experiments, while Geraldine and Michaela went back to their duties.
"So Gideon, what are the other imbuement spells you know? Is it rare magic?" He asked as he showed the bullet to him. As they remembered the moment that they thought of the idea and killed the monster once and for all.
"Hmmm… imbuement is a pretty rare skill, in five casters there is about one caster who can do imbuement, and that also varies to the elements they are used to dealing with, for example me and my fire magic.
I could imbue the phoenix, my highest ranked magic on the bullet due to its nature to die and then be rebirth as a small fire, so following that magic formula, if the projectile wasn't fast to shoot at the beast that we encountered, the Phoenix would have already been large and would be noticed by the beast, resulting to extinguishing it with the dark curtain when he sees it, luckily he didn't notice it and it went to his body without a problem"
"What are the other elements you know that you could imbue?"
"Hmmm… I have rock magic, that starts as a small piece of dust, but it doesn't help much"
"Why?"
"Because the projectile is not hollow, the dust I would imbue would just fall down at such speed, unlike fire that wraps itself on the projectile."
Matthias, Gideon and Andrei brainstormed on possible applications of magic to the bullets, but they couldn't figure out anything that was on Gideon's magic arsenal.
"Ahhh, this is taking too long, aye! I'm feeling sleepy already!" Matthias yawned as he sat on the wooden chair, while Gideon and Andrei still had a productive argument on how to use the bullets with magic.
At the end of the day, they couldn't figure it out, so Andrei entrusted Gideon to find some ways by researching with some of the books he has on his home.
The development of arms was a partnership between Kydus and Ethareri, in exchange for Andrei's knowledge on weapons, Gideon promised to impart training to the knights and help develop the weapons Andrei made, Matthias, on the other hand, would be in charge of making a physical prototype of the ideas thought up by the two
The sun came down and stars slowly appeared on the skies, Andrei was sighing as he was walking to the room, not being able to find out about magic, on his way he found the garden magical garden, attracted by the purple lights that were floating, he decided to take a break at the bench before going back to his room to make more drafts on some inventions he thinks he could make, after the flintlock, it became harder for him to improve it.
"It's not that easy huh… well, I'm not a scientist after all" He said to himself as he sat on the bench and of the lovely garden with his arms spread on the rails, since Claire was still in recovery and he couldn't see her, he missed her so much that it left a void in his heart.
He couldn't deny the fear of losing her that was consuming him every day that passed by, the same way as he lost his ex, he remembered the instances when she smiled at him that calmed his soul, and the night when she wrapped him in her thin arms.
As he thought about it, he felt his chest tightening, the day was long and each day he would think about her and worry, even when he kept himself busy. He closed his eyes and rested, and suddenly memories of the night when Claire invited him for a drink came rushing to his mind, the memories that he had forgotten before he set off into battle.