Ethan continued training the group. After a month Ethan overheard a merchant complaining to the baron about some bandits around the villages he had gone to get goods for trade.
Ethan knew that the baron had around 2000 people under him now and the bandits were not as strong or organised as the previous ones Ethan handled. But Ethan needed to increase his troops. Currently he only had 25 bandits and 17 children as an army. If he could take over these bandits he could gain a good stronghold in the area.
But he knew that it would be impossible for him to defeat the bandits in a direct fight as he had very few people and he couldn't use the oil trick again as he needed as many people as he could for his army.
So Ethan decided it was time to create a new weapon for his army Ethan knew a lot of weapons much advanced for this time but he didn't have the means to make they. Not yet.
After considering the weapons he could make with the technology that was available to him in this world he came to a conclusion.
He decided on making the crossbow. Crossbow were created long back but the ones useful for war would not be created atleast 2 centuries from now. The power and speed of bolts thrown by crossbow were much stronger than other types of bows. Furthermore it didn't need the user to be well trained in using them as opposed to normal archers.
The crossbow was a very easy design for Ethan as he knew the requirements of long ranged weapons very well. He required wood and some metal. He told his men to cut some trees and bring him the wood required for the task. He also required a metal. He bought some blocks of steel from a merchant in the town. Finally he needed a place to build the weapons. So he rented the blacksmiths workshop for a month.
Ethan started creating the weapons after coming back from training. He would create the weapons till before dinner time. He continued this for a month before he created 150 crossbows and thousands of bolts. He stopped after all the steel he bought was finished.
Then he stored then in an abandoned house and brought with him 45 of the crossbows along with 200 bolts. He trained all his men in effectively using the weapon. As the crossbow was a relatively easy weapon to master it didn't take his people much time to learn using it.
He gave priority to the adults learning to use it as he didn't want the children to enter any fights unless it was absolutely required.
He didn't want the children to go through the same trauma they faced when the bandits were burnt to their death. He would train and make them stronger. When they would be ready in the future he would then allow them to join the fights along with him.
In the mean time he was teaching them maths and other things they required to maintain the army in the future.
He could not do everything so he needed someone to maintain the money. Someone to take care of equipment and hopefully in the future someone who could make weapons.
If the children were able to take care of the miscellaneous things that were required to run the army he could concentrate more on the things outside the town rather than always babysitting his people.
He also needed to teach some trusted people in the future his special training he got from the intelligence services. He knew that he needed to have a bigger army of he planned to do all of this in the future.
He needed to have a minimum of 3000 people in his army if he planned to freely do things as he desired. Ethan didn't plan on living in the town forever. The town was just a stepping stone for his future endeavours.