Chương 19: Chapter Nineteen

"You know, it's not going to disappear." It amused him a little how Marline failed to react to his words as she maintained a death grip on the mithril core in her hands. For his part, he'd stashed his own below deck in an innocuous looking burlap sack. He'd also been amused by the face his teammate had made when he physically slung the thing down below. He understood why of course. The importance of a family's mithril core literally couldn't be overstated. It was the family for all intents and purposes.

To the point where he genuinely didn't know what a mage would choose if she had to pick between giving up an actual baby or her family's mithril core. Never mind the fact that a mithril core was almost unbreakable, requiring specialized tools for reshaping or breaking down into shard cores. Still, the fact that he'd treated it like a pair of old boots after climbing back aboard seemed to have stoked something akin to religious indignation in the dark elf.

A religious indignation that hadn't entirely dissipated after he'd handed a second core to the girl herself. Though perhaps she's worried I'll throw hers too if she lets me get my hands on it, he thought as he continued to steer the boat back to shore. It was funny to think just how small the things were for all the importance placed on them. About the size of a bowling ball, it had only taken him one trip to grab two from the wrecks they'd been inside.

Once he'd navigated around the slowly rising corpse of the kraken that had once been guarding them. That had taken a bit longer than expected given just how big the thing had been. There'd been a lot of blood in the water. Al'Hundra had certainly come by her reputation honestly. She'd been absolutely massive. To the point where William had genuinely been a little surprised his impromptu sea-mine had actually managed to kill her.

Sure, explosions were infinitely more deadly underwater given that it served as a more potent medium for the force than air, but… even then… Fortunately for him, Al'Hundra had apparently been feeding on the bag of mermaid chum when the mine went off. Sure, the thing would have been wrapped up in one of her tentacles at the time, but that hadn't stopped the explosive from basically blowing her mouth through her own brains when it went off.

Not for the first time he patted himself on the back for making sure to include a delayed fuse after the external prongs were pressed in. If the mine had gone off the moment the kraken's tentacle inquisitively brushed up against it, there was a decent likelihood Al'Hundra would still be alive, if down one tentacle. And he and Marline would be very dead. … Or maybe not. Even when they were injured, older kraken preferred to stay in the depths.

Even if the god-beast was thrown into a frenzy by being attacked near her nest, William wasn't entirely sure she'd rise all the way to the surface.

"Was this all there was?" Marline finally asked. Smirking, William glanced up.

"Oh, speaking again are we?" The girl regarded him with… an emotion he couldn't quite place.

"You'll forgive me for being a little surprised that my classmate not only killed an ancient kraken, but also recovered two mithril cores in the process." He shrugged.

"I said I would. Even bet my magic on it."

"Yes," Marline said.

"Which is why I thought we were both about to die." Yeah, William could see the logic in that. A man mad enough to bet his own magic on a geass to provide another house a mithril core would likely also be insane enough to challenge to embark on a frankly suicidal course to obtain said core.

"I think it says more about you than me that you agreed to that geass then."

"You said there'd be no risk!" she shouted.

"And I thought we were going to… I don't know… steal one from another house or something…" William laughed.

"And you thought that would be less risky than invading a kraken den."

"Yes!"

"Besides." The human turned the tiller slightly as they continued sailing toward shore.

"Either way, that's on you for assuming." He paused.

"And anyway, I said minimal risk. Which, given I intended to invade a kraken nest, there was. And I said there'd be more for me than you. Which there was." He was the one who'd had to get into the water. There might have been sharks down there. As for the 'minimal thing' - with the kind of risk profile for tangling with a kraken underwater, anything short of being outright suicidal could be described to have minimal risk. As it was, his little mission had merely been 'risky'.

Of course, while they were sailing out here, Marline could hardly have known that. Even now she had no idea how he'd killed the beast. And it was noteworthy that she hadn't asked. Because while the geas kept her from talking about what she'd seen today, that didn't mean she could speak to him about it – provided she was sure no one else was around. Their contract was specific like that.

And while the strange pressure from it in the back of his head had disappeared the moment he'd handed the core to his teammate, the one in her head would remain until her dying day. Because 'don't talk about something' didn't have a completion condition, merely a failure condition. They continued sailing on in silence. Eventually, the dark elf looked to be about to say something else, before sagging.

"I… don't know how you did it and I was surprised… but I shouldn't have shouted. I owe you. My family owes you. More than we can ever repay." William nodded solemnly, even if he was a little put out there'd be no more shouting. Because as much as he was sure he wasn't a sadist… it had been amusing to see the normally taciturn elf so out of sorts.

"Was this really all there was down there though?" she asked eventually. He shook his head.

"Not at all." They'd been difficult to make out in the murk, even with an illumination spell, but there'd have been a good dozen wrecks strewn about down there. The two mithril cores he'd gathered had simply been from two that had been close together. Hell, they'd actually been entangled, suggesting one had rammed the other.

"And you just left them down there?" Marline asked incredulously. He shrugged.

"Hiding two mithril cores will be hard enough – assuming you don't have some way to get yours to your folks immediately?" Marline stiffened in alarm, before she cautiously shook her head. He didn't think so. He was pretty sure the girl hadn't had a single thought beyond getting her hands on the core the entire trip out. Now she had it though, she was no doubt beginning to realise how vulnerable it was. People would, and had, killed for less.

It went without saying that just about any house worthy of its name wouldn't hesitate for a second to steal a core if they could get away with it. If they had to kill two cadets in the process? Well, it would hardly warrant a second thought.

"I assume you have a plan?" she asked.

"Of course I do," he snorted. The girl remained tense for another few seconds before she relaxed some.

"And what about the ones you left behind? Couldn't you fit them in whatever plan you have for these?"

"Eh," he made a so-so gesture.

"Honestly, the ones down there are probably safer from pilfering than the ones we have." He'd only actually grabbed the two they had now so he'd have one on hand and fulfill his end of his bargain with Marline. Sure, he'd not exactly been worried about losing his magic, but it was still nice not to have that particular sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

"Safer?" Marline scoffed.

"Al'Hundra's dead. People are going to notice that. And when they do there's going to be a bloodbath over her former nest." Oh, William didn't doubt someone would notice Al'Hundra's death. Hard not to notice a few hundred tons of dead squid meat, and he figured it'd only take a few days for her body to wash up on shore.

"People might find out the squid's dead, but that'll be after the other kraken around here do," he said casually.

"I don't doubt there'll be a bloodbath, but people will be the least of it. I give it maybe five hours before the next biggest kraken in these waters is squatting over the former 'god's' nest." And trying to fend off the second biggest and third biggest in the process. Marline cocked her head.

"You're letting another kraken guard the site? After we just went through all that trouble to kill Al'Hundra?" William didn't respond, he just smiled. After all, a kraken had rendered the battle site entirely inaccessible for nearly a hundred years. He figured a different one could handle a few months. And when he found himself in need of a few more cores? Well, he'd just have to kill himself another kraken. Got to live up to the title after all, he thought as he started to hum a nonsense little tune.

Among the staff of the Academy it was generally acknowledged that, for all that they were impressive displays of wealth, engineering, and foresight on the part of the Crown, the Floats and Skeleton were imperfect systems. The practice environments they provided were little more than pale imitations of real combat. The most glaring example of which was a lack of offensive spells. Easily the most potent weapons in any mage's arsenal, there simply wasn't any way to safely simulate them on the practice field.

Oh, attempts had certainly been made in the past, often in the same vein as the practice bolts the Academy now used. Thrown flasks of harpy venom or clay pots filled with powdered dye launched by handheld ballistae. Each had fallen short enough of the mark of simulating a real combat spell that the continued use of them was considered more detrimental to the learning experience than useful.

Personally, Griffith believed the administration had given up too early, too terrified of harming any of their noble charges by utilizing riskier methods of simulation. And she knew she wasn't alone in thinking that. Still, that wasn't why she found herself currently sat in the viewing area of the Academy's testing range, though she oft found said moniker overblown for what the reality of her surroundings truly were. Little more than an empty field, the grass stripped bare by decades of experimental spellwork.

As a result, the grounds tended to be quickly reduced to a muddy quagmire at the slightest hint of rain. Fortunately for the state of her uniform and those of the cadets of Team Seven - currently lugging practice dummies onto the range - the past week had been rather dry. Almost as dry as my nethers, she thought glumly as she watched one particular cadet fiddle with some kind of vaguely tube-shaped device. Now, it wasn't like she'd wanted Cadet Ashfield to act…

inappropriately after their short-lived liaison last weekend – quite the opposite – but she'd not deny that some part of her had been a little disappointed by just how not-inappropriate the boy had been since. It was a small wicked part of her that she sought to squash any time it came up, but that particular notion was a tenacious little goblin. It seemed to delight in tormenting her with fantasies of what might have been – or what might yet be – at the most inopportune moments.

Gritting her teeth, the dark elf's grip on the nearby half-palisade strengthened for a moment as she banished another such fantasy, this time involving the cadet in question, a lot of mud and an old crush from her own academy days. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Never mind that Cadet Stevens is now nearly thirty himself, sporting a bit of a gut, and quite happily married to a Countess in New Haven – along with a half-dozen other girls, she thought bitterly.

Something her libido seemed to have quite happily forgotten in its attempt to visualize two young men engaged in mortal mud-based combat.

"Targets are set up, ma'am," a masculine voice called from down below. Sinking once more into the mindset of a proper instructor, Griffith nodded as the cadets assembled before her.

"Good," she said.

"Now I will hopefully be informed as to why I've been called out here. And it better be good. Because you can rest assured that if I feel you've wasted my time with your continued secrecy I will have no problem with wasting yours." Under normal circumstances a cadet wouldn't even be allowed access to the Testing Area without first laying out exactly what they planned to achieve, and how, to their instructor. Only then would the Instructor in question either allow or deny the request.

Because they'd have to attend said test in person, if only to ensure said Cadet didn't accidentally blow themselves up or something equally outlandish. To that end, Griffith had received a report, but it had been rather light on detail beyond the fact that the leader of Team Seven wished to display a new form of 'anti-personnel' weapon. Normally that kind of vagary would see a request denied outright. In this case, though, it hadn't.

Mostly because the report had also requested a follow-up inspection on the viability of the use of said weapon in practice duels. Which suggested that the boy already knew the weapon worked and that this initial inspection was merely a formality. That kind of audacity at least merited some interest. Which, combined with the fact that Griffith knew that the young man in front of her had actually been the one to create the 'flashbang' spell, had her curious enough to allow the request.

So here she was, with no idea as to what she was about to witness.

"As you say, ma'am." The boy said crisply, even as the rest of his team glanced nervously between him and the covered tray nearby. There was also curiosity there, too, though. Were his teammates as ignorant of what they were doing here as her? That was interesting, as it implied that whatever this item was, it was the Ashfield's alone.

"First, though, I'd like you to confirm something for me." As the boy spoke, he theatrically pulled back on the sheet covering the tray, revealing the items beneath.

"Can you confirm for me that none of the items here have been enchanted in any way." Glancing over the items in question, Griffith found her curiosity piqued as she gazed at what looked like a dozen bolts and some kind of slimmed down bolt-bow that appeared to be missing its aether-chamber.

"A new kind of bolt-bow?" she asked as she strode over to the tray.

"Something like that, ma'am." The boy said, non-committal, his team saying nothing behind him as she lifted up the dart-bow as she'd now mentally dubbed it.

"Hmmm," Griffith hummed as she ran her hands along the wooden stock. The work was crude. Blocky. Utilitarian. The best that could be said of it was that it was functional. Clearly, whatever his other talents, the boy was no woodworker. Which was a little unusual, given his gender. Though given that he's found himself in the Academy, perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised by that, she thought. If he'd been a proper gentleman, I doubt his mother would have foisted him onto us.

Moving on from the stock, she inspected the oversized barrel, noting the telltale smoothness of fae-formed metal. The body of the device hadn't been formed with either hammer or flame, but rather shaped through a magical contract. It was good work, devoid of the usual imperfections that tended to mar magically-shaped metal.

"Who did this for you?" she asked as she realized she could crack open the device.

"I did, ma'am." She paused.

"I wasn't aware you had training as a mage-smith, Cadet." The boy shrugged.

"I've had a few lessons, ma'am. Hardly enough to make me a master craftsman, but I'm decent enough for a little prototyping, or repair work."

"How many failures for this piece?" She asked, as she inspected the surface of the weapon.

"Two, ma'am." That was impressive. Mage-smithing required one to effectively visualize the object one wished to craft in their mind so as to convey it properly to the fae who would do the actual shaping. Of course, the mortal mind was an imperfect beast, as her own recent battles attested. It was given to imperfect recollection and a tendency to wander. Thus, a mage-smith required focus above all else. That the boy had managed to form the barrel in a mere three attempts at his age was worthy of note.

"And in total?" she asked. The human paused.

"… That was in total, ma'am." Griffith froze, even as a small snort came from behind the pair of them. Bonnlyn, no doubt, though the dark elf barely spared a moment of thought toward the short cadet. Instead, her gaze latched onto the leader of Team Seven like a beam of light through a magnifying glass, just searching for even a hint of deception as she sank fully into her role as an instructor. Yet even when she failed to find the telltale signs of some lying, she was tempted to name the Cadet one, all the same.

She'd known women forty years his senior who would struggle to craft a device like this in little more than three attempts. The trigger mechanism alone for a decent bolt-bow would require most journeywoman apprentices a good dozen tries. And the only real difference between one of those and what she now held was the lack of an aether-chamber and the simplicity of the overall construction. Yet he stood there, neither looking boastful or ashamed. If he was a liar, he was a damn good one.

"Impressive," she said neutrally – even as she privately determined to send a letter back to his house asking why she'd not been informed of this skillset. Though, the more she thought about it, the more she suspected she knew the answer. Mage-smithing was a laywoman's skill set after all - and not in the fashionable way of a man learning to carve wood. Nor even in the grudgingly useful way of elemental enchanting. He shrugged.

"I've been told I have something of a natural talent. Or unnatural, as it was described at the time." Griffith could imagine that – though apparently not with the clarity of the young man opposite her. She shook her head.

"So, unexpected talents aside, I can't help but note that this bolt… cannon is missing a piece." The boy paused, a momentary hesitation seeming to seize him for just a second before it passed. When he looked at her again, there was a glint of determination in his gaze that had been absent earlier.

"Well, if you'll forgive me for speaking in a roundabout manner ma'am, that's rather where the innovative bit of this little mechanism comes into play." He gestured to the, almost acorn-shaped cannonballs.

"Please, before we continue, could you inspect the ammunition?" Quirking an eyebrow, she slid out the magazine and flicked out a bolt. Catching it in her hand, she found nothing particularly interesting. A little large, she thought. The average bolt tended to be about the size of a woman's little finger. The one in her hands though was roughly the size of her ring finger. Suddenly, calling the thing in her hands a dart-bow seemed rather diminutive if this was the size of the payload it was expected to launch.

Then again, there was a reason bolts tended to be the size that they were. Any smaller and they lacked stopping power. Any larger and they lost both momentum and range. And a bolt relied far more on speed than weight to inflict damage. If an increase in barrel diameter, a detachable aether-tank and a large dart was all her recruit had to show her, she was going to be disappointed. And it went without saying how poorly things would go for the team opposite her if that was the case.

The days of Instructors spending all-weekend fielding useless idea after useless idea from cadets feeling creative were thankfully but a distant memory. Mentally dismissing a short-lived fantasy about 'punishing' a certain cadet, she sighed.

"If there's supposed to be some incredible innovation at work here I'm afraid I'm not seeing it, cadet." She once more slid the bolt into the magazine. Rather than wilt under her gaze, the boy seemed rather nonplussed.

"I'd be disappointed if you did, ma'am. Because it would mean someone else thought up this idea before me. With that said, you definitely didn't sense any enchantments on anything?" Cautious interest growing once more at his words, she shook her head.

"There's nothing."

"Good," he grinned before gesturing for the weapon.

"Now, if you would please hand it to me." Eyebrow raised, she handed back the weapon. And to her surprise, the boy raised the weapon to his shoulder as if he were about to fire it. Was he going to try and use a burst of aether to propel a dart? Certainly, that was how a regular bolt-bow functioned, but that level of propulsion came from aether that the mage had first pressurized into an aether-chamber.

A move that usually took a good thirty seconds and required the mage then constantly keep 'topping' up the chamber to maintain that level of pressure as it was drained by both shots and the tendency of raw aether to fade from existence after a few minutes of being in real-space. Then her eyebrows climbed even further as she heard the boy whispering.

"Fire. One-fifth charge. Cheek tense activation. Right. Propellent: Location Macro. Propellant. Repeating. Five." A spell? The woman thought. Griffith was no stranger to strange spell activation phrases, though young William's certainly ranked amongst the- A loud crack rang out, startling her as something whizzed through the night air to smack against the distant target – blowing a hole through the armoured plate and right out the back of the dummy if the explosion of hay that followed was to be believed.

She'd barely seen it. Hell, she hadn't seen it. Whatever had struck the dummy with enough force to penetrate mage-forged steel had moved with too much haste for her eyes to catch. At a range of one hundred meters that wasn't nothing. Not at all. The main advantage a lightning bolt held over a fireball was that what it lacked in relative power was more than made up for in speed. Which was why it was the spell of choice in mage duels, while fireballs were instead generally used against groups of menials.

That wasn't what caught her interest though. After all, as she'd just thought, the spell was only as fast as a lightning bolt, and significantly less powerful. Had the boy just used a lightning bolt spell then there wouldn't have been a dummy left standing – just the charred stump decorated with half-slagged metal. That kind of power came at a cost though. A full standard charge of refined aether. By contrast…

"Did that spell only require a one-fifth charge?" she asked. Grinning, the boy nodded as he slowly lowered the… actually, how had the contraption he was holding factor into what she'd just seen?

"Yep." He grinned.

"I can do that four more times." Four more times. That wasn't nothing. Not nothing at all. Because for all that the spell was a lesser variant of a lightning-bolt, it would still have been just as lethal if it hit. A mage could no more survive having a hole blown through them than they could being struck by lightning. A glancing blow might not be quite as effective, she thought. But that's hardly the issue it might otherwise be if the attacker can follow up with four more attempts.

Arguments could be made for either option… but the fact that the boy had managed to create an alternative in the first place was worthy of note.

"How?" she asked.

"Was it a condensed fireball?" Even as she said the words she wanted to take them back because they didn't make sense. Condensing a fireball before propelling it with that kind of speed would be less efficient in aether, not more. Criminally so, in that it would require two charges of aether at least to shape a spell that way. Logically then… the fire-bow he was holding the means by which he'd condensed the spell?

Sure, using a mundane tool to deliver a magical attack was hardly new, but this was certainly the most effective application of it she'd seen. The only other halfway effective equivalent she could think of was the pressure hoses used by the city's fire department.

"Yes and no, ma'am." William said as he continued to grin.

"As you heard, a spell was involved, but not as the offensive component of my bolt-spell." Bolt-spell. The word was awkward, but it was clearly deliberately chosen. Because the name explained the mechanism by which the weapon functioned.

"You aren't using the tool to propel a spell like a bolt," she realized.

"You're using a spell to propel a bolt."

"I'm impressed. I had to explain it to some of my team twice before they got it." If anything, the boy's smile only grew – and if these were different circumstances she might have found it distracting. As it was, her mind was racing. Using spells to propel mundane weapons. It was… It was definitely a new idea. Or rather, an innovation on a pre-existing one. Gas-cannons and bolt-bows functioned on a similar principle, but they made use of raw-aether. An effectively limitless resource.

By contrast, this new weapon took up a precious amount of refined aether to use. She glanced at the dummy again.

"An interesting idea," she said finally.

"Though much like the flashbang, with a limited use case." For one thing, it required either a mage carry an extra rifle with them into combat. Ignoring the added complication that presented, weight was already a premium where aerial combat was concerned. She didn't know how many mage-marines would consider this new spell-gun worth using when it was effectively a side-grade compared to a lightning bolt.

After all, the ability to use a spell four times was nice, but a great many people would argue that five weaker spells were a poor replacement for one that you only needed to use once. William wouldn't get nothing for this – assuming his mother didn't get involved again – but his new invention was hardly about to shake the kingdom.

"Perhaps. Though I think you'll find my latest innovation has other benefits beyond being cheap to use." Glancing over, William gestured to his team.

"Olzenya?" The high elf rolled her pitch black eyes.

"Why me?"

"Why not you?" William said good naturedly.

"Plus, you've got the best night vision on the team and decently long legs." The girl seemed to huff as she conceded the point, jogging off onto the range and past the dummy.

"You know, I'd be offended by the long legs comment," Bonnlyn said.

"If it hadn't just gotten me out of more work." Griffith ignored the byplay as she gazed out after the high elf, though it didn't take long before the girl was 'swallowed up by the gloom'. Though she knew that would only really be the case for her and Marline. Their eyes' natural tinting was a valuable enough trait back in their homeland where sun-blindness was a real risk, but here in Lindholm it just meant that she was basically blind as a bat as soon as the sky started to darken.

A weakness not shared by other races, much to her irritation, and a large part of why dark elves were almost never slated for night watch duties. Eventually though, she spotted something off in the distance. Nearly three hundred meters distant, Griffith saw that the team had apparently set up another dummy at some point as Olzenya lit up a lantern that had been positioned nearby.

"It's the back armour," Willaim said as he waved the girl to come back.

"No point in wasting a full suit for a demonstration like this." That hadn't been what Griffith had been thinking. Not even close.

"That's beyond spell range," she said neutrally. Beyond the range of a fireball or lightning bolt, certainly. They tended to dissipate if a mage attempted to strike something with those spells beyond a hundred meters. An ice shard or earth spike might fare better at staying together given they were made from solid matter, but rare was the mage who could magically fling those materials that far with any real force.

There was a reason the early Imperial Legions had made use of both mage batteries and primitive ballistae. Sure, according to historical texts, the things were a pain in the ass to build, maintain and transport, but the legion's ability to pepper an enemy with bolts from beyond the range of enemy mages was a deciding factor in many of the battles that formed the Empire.

"I know," Willaim said, watching as Olzenya jogged back to rejoin her team before raising his rifle. This time she saw him 'fire'. A cheek twitch was the activation condition for this 'propellent' spell. She also knew what he intended, even if part of her didn't believe he could do it. Yet as she peered into the distance, she saw the distant puff of hay as the magically propelled bolt pierced straight through the dummies steel plate.

For just a moment, Griffith watched with a dry throat as a few strands of golden hay fluttered in the lamplight before they started to fall.

"Three hundred meters," she breathed. This was a weapon that could kill a mage at three hundred meters – armoured or not. Well beyond said mage's ability to strike back.

"Yep," Willaim said, not lowering the gun.

"Verity?" At his words, the orc girl revealed a dozen clay plates from behind her back… before hesitating.

"Uh, do you want me to throw the plates now?" The boy didn't sigh, but Griffith could tell it was a near thing.

"Yes, Verity. I want you to throw the plates." The orc started to, before hesitating again.

"It's just… they're nice plates. Seems a bit wasteful."

"Oh, just throw the plates already!" Olzenya grunted before William could say anything. The orc girl threw them – and she had a good arm given how they soared through the air. Griffith had a little trouble tracking them in the gloom, but that wasn't apparently an issue for William as three more of those god awful cracks rang out. The bolt-spell was so loud that she didn't actually hear the plates shattering.

She did catch a myriad glimpses of their shattered remains falling to the floor, sharp angles glinting off the setting sun as they fell. Three shots in as many seconds. Sure, the plates had hardly been thirty meters away when he fired, let alone three hundred, but the picture it painted was a vivid one. Without prompting, her mind filled with visions of attacking mage-knights being sniped out of the sky by weapons similar to the one she'd just seen. A mage was a much bigger target than a plate after all.

Idly, she watched as the boy finally lowered his weapon, ejecting a spent magazine.

"So, what do you think?" The dark elf glanced between the bolt-spell and the still illuminated distant dummy.

"I think we have a lot to talk about," she said finally. And they did. Quite a lot.