Munitions Empire

Gis gazed down at the groveling man and continued to command, "Speak carefully, tell me where you encountered this new type of weapon you’ve mentioned…"

He didn’t expect this man to bring him any useful information, considering seeing this person merely as a favor to save face for his capable subordinates.

At this moment, he found himself a tad interested in the beggar kneeling on the ground, as he had noticed something telling—this man didn’t seem like trouble.

There was a yearning in the other’s eyes, as if he truly intended to extort money from him. Gis had seen this look too often; a person with no cards up his sleeve wouldn’t have such a gaze.

The beggar kneeling on the ground, now somewhat less tense, began to describe his past with caution, "My lord, I, I used to make a living in the Vicious Forest."

Gis interrupted the man’s recollections with some displeasure, speaking bluntly, "There are no outsiders here, so speak plainly. I don’t have the time to entertain nonsense from people like you, understand?"

"Yes, my lord, I used to be a bandit in the Vicious Forest, the deputy leader of a bandit gang. Our group..." The surviving bandit on the ground hastily started anew.

"Get to the point!" Gis interrupted him with growing impatience, his voice laden with authority.

"We ambushed a carriage, a carriage to the Northern Ridge... There were three people on the carriage, and we, buoyed by our superior numbers, charged," the bandit blurted out, intimidated by his imposing presence, and began to recount what he had witnessed that day.

His thoughts, along with his memory, raced back to that windy, moonless night. He drew his bowstring and released an arrow towards the distant carriage, initiating the prelude to a brutal battle!

He could even hear the reverberation of the bowstring in his ears, and he vividly remembered the glow from the gas lamps on either side of the carriage, resembling two watching eyes.

The battle was so horrific that he swallowed his saliva subconsciously to steady his mind before continuing, "Then, the people on the carriage fired continuously, first shooting three rounds from rifles, followed by drawing a pistol!"

A single carriage... with three rifles? Gis’s subordinate, standing beside him, furrowed his brows—at his knowledge, such a carriage either contained important cargo or was transporting someone of high status.

It was beyond his understanding why any dignitary would need to have three rifles and a pistol for self-defense in a carriage.

If one truly valued their life that much yet needed to travel at night, why not simply hire guards? If it were several carriages, with strength in numbers, these bandits would likely not risk attacking, would they?

As he pondered these questions, he heard the bandit on the ground continue, "A young man fired five shots with that pistol in rapid succession! I saw it clearly; there was no reloading, nor did he switch his pistol!"

"Hmm?" Gis’s hand, which was holding his wine glass, paused mid-air, and his facial expression turned quite unnatural.

Such a weapon should not exist in this world, as Shireck’s decades of research had pretty much proven that developing a multi-shot weapon was nearly impossible.

Previously, because a weapon designer named Mathews had persistently been researching rapid-fire weapons, Shireck had invested a lot of money without any significant return.

The dwarf had been expelled from Shireck’s armory and, as Gis heard, could only find work repairing weapons in the Northern Ridge.

Hearing Gis’s questioning tone, the bandit quickly started to explain, "I, I truly saw it with my own eyes! That young man fired five shots in one go! The lamp light beside the carriage wasn’t that bright, but I saw it all clearly!"

"Our leader was killed by two shots from that young man, right beside the carriage! It’s true! I swear it!" As he spoke, he instinctively pointed to his side as if the muscular man who had been shot was lying there.

That dreadful scene from that night surfaced again in his mind—the sounds of gunfire, one after another, mingling with his comrades’ screams and grunts, lingering long in the night.

He had seen with his own eyes how the muscular bandit leader, his boss, had fallen to the ground, becoming a corpse.

The next day, he went back to check the battlefield and found some bodies that were so mutilated by the wild beasts of the mountain that they were beyond recognition, yet he still found bullet holes pierces in those corpses.

"You are the most interesting lunatic I’ve ever met," Gis remarked, intrigued as he walked up to the beggar, looking down at the ragged fellow and praising him.

He toyed with the glass in his hand, wearing an almost imperceptible smile, "I must say, your story is quite captivating."

As he spoke, his lip curled, "You come before me in tattered clothes without even a so-called blueprint, claiming you have ’merely seen’ a new type of weapon."

"What’s more interesting is that the weapon you saw can apparently fire consecutively, shooting five bullets in one breath…" His words were dripping with sarcasm, and the bandit kneeling on the ground didn’t dare interrupt Gis’s speech.

All he could do was kneel there respectfully, listening to Gis continue overhead, "You can’t prove you’ve truly seen this thing, nor can you verify its existence... Interesting, very interesting indeed."

Feeling that things were taking a turn for the worse, the bandit survivor finally mustered the courage, preparing to defend himself, "My, my lord…"

Unfortunately, just as he began to speak, he was interrupted once again by Gis’s muttering to himself, "So, in this world, someone has actually managed to create... a pistol that can fire five shots in a row... Hahaha!"

"This is too interesting, I am really getting a bit impatient!" Gis looked at his trusted subordinate next to him, his tone filled with mirth.

It was as if he already believed everything the bandit at his feet had said, and he exclaimed, "It’s been so long since I’ve been out and about, and now there’s someone who can make a pistol that fires repeatedly... Shireck doesn’t have it, other arms dealers don’t have it, yet it exists in the godforsaken Vicious Forest..."

"Hahaha!" After saying this, he burst into laughter, heedless of the somber atmosphere in the room, laughing recklessly.

After he finished laughing, he looked at his subordinate again and asked, "Do you now understand why I hate meeting these riffraff?"

"Yes, yes, my lord." The subordinate felt somewhat embarrassed and could only bow his head and admit his mistake.

"Crash..." In a sudden movement, Gis smashed the glass in his hand onto the back of the bandit’s head, turning the thick glass into shards in an instant as blood mixed with the liquor trickled down the bandit’s oily stuck-together hair onto the expensive carpet.

"Ugh!" The bandit groaned and slumped to the ground, motionless.

Gis scolded his subordinate harshly, "Next time! If you bring in another idiot like this, I’ll let him go and kill you instead!"

"I’m sorry, my lord." The subordinate, silenced like a cicada in winter, immediately responded.

"Drag him out! Make sure he’s dead... then send him over to the sheriff, and say we caught a bandit trying to extort us!" Gis ordered, wiping his hands with a handkerchief.

"Yes, my lord!" The subordinate bowed even lower.

"You, take a couple of people, go check out the Vicious Forest, ask around Baron Stela’s place, see if anything interesting has happened." Gis threw the handkerchief onto the bandit’s corpse, and it was quickly soaked through with the crimson blood.

"My lord, aren’t you..." The subordinate was taken aback, somewhat disbelieving of Gis’s order.

"Am I not disbelieving what he said? No, on the contrary! A madman showing up with blueprints looking to swindle, of course, I wouldn’t believe that. But so far, no one has dared to come here without any evidence and talk nonsense." Gis explained arrogantly, "So, I think there might actually be truth in what he said..."

"Then... My lord, why did you..." The subordinate was even more puzzled.

"Why did I kill him? Because I don’t want him taking my money and then going elsewhere to repeat what he just said!" Gis sneered coldly, "I hardly think that there’s any new weapon appearing at Stela’s... What worries me is Fisheo scheming behind the scenes!"

"Your subordinate understands." The subordinate immediately nodded in agreement.

"Go!" Gis waved his hand dismissively, "And have someone replace the carpet..."

"Yes!" The subordinate bowed and exited.

...

"Achoo!" Tang Mo sneezed, rubbed his nose, and continued to inspect his production workshop with his hands behind his back.

In the last two days, his production had gradually gotten on track, with boxes of bullets being produced; he already had prepared thousands of rounds of ammunition for the Earl!

At the same time, he had also made another 30 K1 Quick Guns, and if Tagg were to return, he might once again be shocked by Tang Mo’s production speed: within a month, Tang Mo could almost turn out more than 200 Quick Guns, and this production speed was truly frightening.

Roger, standing beside him, reminded, "The weather is getting cooler day by day, you’d better wear more clothes."

Continuing to watch his workers produce paper cartridge bullets one after another, Tang Mo muttered without lifting his head, "I’m fine... I figure, it’s either a girl thinking of me or some bastard plotting against me!"

"Rest assured, it’s definitely neither." Roger glanced at Tang Mo and shook his head.

"Maybe it’s both?" Tang Mo offered a handsome smile he considered dazzling.

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About yesterday’s update, Dragon Spirit would like to explain: There are indeed stockpiled chapters, quite a few, in fact. But Dragon Spirit writes them non-sequentially... Just so happens that there was a block in the story right at this part, so couldn’t write, hence took the day off yesterday. Actually, there are chapters written for after this part... This is true.

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