Chương 38: Chapter Thirty Eight

"Did you really waste a spell-charge on that?" William ignored Griffith's grousing as he gingerly applied his newly created bag of ice to Verity's shoulder.

"How's that," he asked carefully of the sitting and slightly fidgety orc.

"Better?"

"Y-yes," she responded, slightly flushed and eyes averted as she kept her gaze firmly on the dining room table. Something he was hardly going to hold against her given the events of the last few minutes. He doubted he'd have handled it much better if he'd walked in on a classmate seemingly being forced into something elicit by one of her teachers, before then moving to defend her honour – and getting his ass kicked for the attempt.

Admittedly, the pseudo judo-throw into a crouching arm-lock hadn't involved much kicking, but the point stood. Naked, surprised and a little jelly-legged, Griffith had rather aptly demonstrated to both of them why she'd been appointed as an instructor at Lindholm's leading military academy. The woman was dangerous. And how he hated how that made her so much hotter – not least of all because said realization was coming at the expense of his friend's humiliation. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Attempting to redeem the mental faux pax, he continued.

"Anything else I can get you?" he asked.

"Water? Something to eat? If you need it I could get one of Piper's people to whip up a healing potion. Or I could get a healer in here." Shyly, the orc shook her head even as Griffith rolled her eyes.

"For ancestor's sake William, I restrained her, I didn't take her arm off," she muttered as she drummed her fingers across the surface of the table.

"Honestly, you should be more concerned for me given how she came in swinging." At those words, his teammate managed to drag her gaze away from the table to glare at the dark elf. Meanwhile, he just sighed.

"Did she hit you?"

"No…" the dark elf admitted. He moved to place Verity's hand over the ice-pack so she'd hold it in place herself, drawing the girl's glare away from their instructor as her blush found itself renewed.

"Then you're fine. Which is why you'll forgive me if my attention is on the person you flung across the room."

"She didn't-" "I didn't-" Both women tried to speak at once, only to be cut off by the other, prompting them to return to glaring at one another. Which was a little ridiculous given they'd probably both been about to claim that didn't happen – Verity for the sake of her pride and Griffith because regardless of what he'd actually said, she really had only used the minimum amount of force necessary to subdue the other woman.

Again, impressive given the weight disparity present, but William would much rather it hadn't been needed at all.

"Ok, I'll admit that I exaggerated a little," he said as he slid into a seat.

"I'm just feeling a little frazzled. As I'm sure we all are. I doubt any of us were expecting… what happened to happen." Indeed, it was a situation he could have easily avoided if he'd told the household guard outside his workshop to bar entry to everyone until he said otherwise, but given how… fast everything had moved he hadn't thought to do so.

And given they heard the 'fight' and rushed in to see the aftermath, I imagine the story of what happened will have been spread across the entire county by tomorrow morning, he thought. The capital the day after. Nothing would come of it beyond a little scandalous whispering of course, if even that.

Unlike women back on Earth, men weren't expected to 'guard' themselves to the same degree given that magical healing had basically wiped out STDs in their infancy and a woman hardly needed their husband virginal as the only true-blue way of confirming their offspring as hers prior to DNA tests. Being the one bearing the pregnancy provided that kind of peace of mind regarding one's genetic legacy.

The only real scandal to be mentioned was the fact that Griffith was his instructor, but given said 'affair' had taken place off academy grounds, the most that would come of that was a few extra eyes on their interactions within the academy to ensure no favoritism was going on. Or the thin veneer of such, given that the mere notion of impartiality amongst the teaching staff was a joke at best.

Nobles would be nobles no matter the setting – never mind the fact that many of the house instructors were quite literally teaching heirs who would likely become their future liege ladies and were the children of their current liege ladies. Assuming it's made clear that all this was consensual, he thought. Which is going to open up a whole different kettle of eels. Owner of his own lands, young, attractive and with a reputation for looseness?

Yeah, it'd be open season on him back at the academy, and while he was returning there as much to build connections as develop a more in-depth understanding of how shard combat differed from plane combat, the fact of the matter was that this would make it a lot harder for him to differentiate genuine expressions of interest in his ideas from feigned expressions of interest intended to get into his pants. Admittedly, the latter was always going to be a problem, but now it was exacerbated.

All because I'm hopeless to resist a hot older woman who knows what she wants, he thought as he resisted the urge to shove his face into his hands.

"You're frazzled!?" Verity said.

"I walked in on her… with her… juices all over you!" Griffith audibly coughed, as her own face reddened.

"I- my- that's none of your business! Did no one ever teach you to knock before walking into a room!?"

"I guess not," Verity sniffed.

"A failing on their part to be sure. I guess my instructors were just too focus on other things." Ooh, even as he wanted to slam his face into the table, William was actually quietly impressed by that. Verity was usually such a cinnamon roll. He hadn't actually known she had that kind of vitriol in her. Then again, she did powder a girl's jaw for talking bad about her family, so I can't help but wonder if that's just wilful blindness on my part, he thought.

Ignorant of his internal musings, the two woman continued yelling at each other.

"You're out of line, cadet!"

"We're not in the academy right now, which means you're not my instructor right now, ma'am." Verity glared.

"Which is why I imagine you thought you could get away with putting your hands all over- Sighing, William raised his hand to cut Verity off before Griffith could launch a searing comeback.

"No, we're not. With that said, Griffith is still a countess, Verity. While you're a marine-knight. A nominal marine-knight at that, given we're still cadets. She still outranks you socially, so please show her the due respect." He winced a little at the look of betrayal that flashed across his teammates face, even as a smugness normally unbecoming of her flashed across Griffiths. Smugness he was quick to puncture.

"And Griffith? I know it's not an ideal set of circumstances, but you're an instructor and a grown woman besides. I don't blame you for taking Verity down as you did, indeed I'm happy you were able to do so with such swiftness, but can you maybe bring yourself around to understanding why she did what she did? Given… what she walked in on." Griffith sniffed disdainfully.

"Perhaps. I was her age once. And I'll admit these are unusual circumstances. Though I'm still a little offended that the girl thought me the type of woman to use her position to force a man. Who needed to use her position to force a man." Verity glanced to the side.

"Prior to walking through that doorway, I'd never have believed you were. When I saw you though… with him…"

"You jumped to a conclusion," William said gently.

"Not a completely unreasonable one, if one that was a little unfair to Griffith, but not unreasonable all the same." He slid over a bit so as to make sure he caught the orc's gaze.

"And though it wasn't needed on this occasion, it does make me happy to know that I have friends who were willing to come out swinging on my behalf. No matter the opposition." Flushing once more, Verity's lips twitched up into a small bashful smile.

"Of course. Always." William hoped so. He really did. He'd need allies like that in the times to come.

"Touching as all this camaraderie between teammates is, what's going to be done about this?" Griffith interjected.

"Because thanks to said teammate, your guards saw what went down. Which means that half the country probably knows by now. And half the capital will know by supper." She paused.

"Gods, this was only supposed to be quick tryst!" William's lips quirked.

"A quick tryst? Is that all I am to you?" It was fun to note, despite her domineering status in the bedroom – or perhaps workshop was more apt – how quickly the hardened instructor turned into a flushing maid as he glanced over at her.

"Well, I… I wouldn't be opposed to something more official. I just didn't think…" He waved his hand.

"Let's just figure it out as we go. I think we can both agree that this whole thing has moved a little faster than either of us planned. To which I'll make sure that everyone knows that what happened between us was consensual on my part. Vigorously so." He ignored Verity's gagging out of the corner of his eye even as he thought of the best way of doing what he'd just promised. Fortunately, said solution was pretty simple.

The fact that Griffifth wasn't currently being escorted from his territory in cuffs or dwelling in his dungeon would serve as pretty reasonable evidence that she hadn't tried to force him into something behind closed doors. Sure, it was possible some might think he'd been intimidated by his instructor's position into remaining silent, but he could waylay that by being suitably affectionate towards the woman at dinner.

"Good." Griffith sagged in relief.

"I'd personally rather not be known as the sort of woman who uses her position to… prey on her male students."

"No, you just seduce men half your age," Verity muttered quietly.

"No force needed." The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. William shot the orc a warning glance, which the girl visibly ignored. Fortunately for them both, Griffith didn't hear or notice the byplay as she nervously cleaned her glasses.

"Ugh. I can't believe I've put myself in this situation," the woman was whispering quietly to herself.

"With a student. Why? Why did I do this?"

"Because said student's a hot piece of ass who think's you're damn sexy?" Willaim murmured as he moved around behind her, hands moving to massage the older woman's shoulders. She tensed at the unexpected contact, before relaxing.

"Stop it," she muttered.

"And you're not wrong. This is mostly your fault, you damn satyr. I used to be a respectable lady before you showed up." She was smiling despite the censure of her words. The scraping of a chair drew both their attention as Verity stood up quickly, an irritated scowl present.

"Well, now that this is resolved, I guess I have to go." Without waiting for a response, the woman dashed from the room, slamming the door behind her as she did, making both of them wince.

"I guess she's still a little sore about you tossing her about so easily," William said quietly.

"She's quiet, but she takes pride in certain things." Her athletic abilities, first and foremost. Which made sense, given that her elevation from slavery and the continued livelihood of her family depended on that ability.

"I'll talk to her after she cools off a bit," he said. And maybe do something nice for her. Or at least, move up something he'd been planning to do anyway. Specifically, getting Verity's family moved from where they were currently dwelling and onto his own lands. Assuming they agreed to such of course, but he couldn't see why they wouldn't.

Verity's scholarship had effectively freed them from slavery and moved them closer to the capital, but they didn't actually own the small patch of land they currently lived and worked on. It was rented to them by the crown.

Theoretically, once the orc finished her term of service, she'd be offered said land in perpetuity by the Crown – or if she derived enough interest from other nobles, an offer for an equally sized or larger patch of land within their territory in return for retaining the services of herself and her line. The basis of feudalism, in other words. One that William intended to pre-empt by buying out her contract in advance and moving her family onto his own land.

A not entirely unusual move when cadets found a promising candidate in their time at the academy. In doing so, he'd tie the orc to himself and his goals as tightly as Marline. A little Machiavellian perhaps, but that's life, he thought. In time the same would become true of Bonnlyn and Olzenya, but the levers of their loyalty were a little more difficult to pull. If only a little.

Returning from his thoughts, he turned to apologize to Griffith about needing to depart for a meeting, only for any thought of doing so – or much of anything really – to flee his mind like aether on the wind. Because at some point while he'd been massaging her shoulders, the woman had undone a number of buttons on her top.

"Well, if you don't mind forgetting her for a moment," Griffith all-but purred as she gazed up at him, as smug as the cat that caught the canary.

"As I recall, we were interrupted before I could make good on my earlier promise." She stood up, warm breath tickling his neck, the scent of her hair filling his senses as she whispered into his ear.

"Something about 'draining you dry'." He swallowed.

"Y-yes, ma'am." The meeting could wait for a few minutes. Though he did make sure to pop his head out of the dining room just long enough to instruct his guards to make sure no one entered for the next… hour. Or two.

"You ok, William?" Bonnlyn whispered.

"You seem a little… bow legged."

"Fine. Just fine," he said. He wasn't. It had been three days since Griffith had shown up and the woman was… in a word, insatiable. He loved it, but their most recent rendezvous was making it a little difficult to stand upright as he oversaw the latest innovation he'd been working on in-between being dragged away for 'meetings'. Or drainings, as the dark elf had become to refer to them as in private.

It seemed that she'd come to rather enjoy taking the dominant role between them in the bedroom, finding the act rather cathartic given the trouble he apparently put her through outside of it. He wasn't about to complain, even if it did make telling her that he really needed to get to work… difficult. Fortunately, she'd headed back to the capital a few hours ago – the recipe for blackpowder firmly in her possession. He smiled a bit at that.

Sure, the Queen had wrangled the method for creating explosive powder out of him, but not all powders were created equal. Not even close. Back in the real world though, he found his smile dipping a little as Bonnlyn gave him a slightly queer look, wrinkling her nose as she seemed to realize why he looked a little ragged. His team's opinion on the whole 'Griffith' affair was… divisive to say the least. And varied. It seemed that while his predilection for older women was amusing when he wasn't acting on it…

now that he was acting on it, it was suddenly less funny. Fortunately, the dwarf was content to let the matter drop in favor of focusing on the more important task before them. Which made sense, given there was a lot of money to be made in the event it worked. And he'd offered her family a large stake in it. To that end, he too turned his focus back to the large shard sat in the centre of the massive workshop they and a few dozen other people were standing in.

Wings removed, the machine looked a little comical with its 'ass' aimed high up into the air and its nose facing the floor, as well as its internals open and exposed to the world. Including the two rather obtrusive aether-repeater cannons that had been rather hastily strapped to the 'back' of the machine – and were thus now aimed at the propellers.

He really should have specified that he wanted a front mounted propeller frame when he made his request to the Queen, but at the time the thought totally slipped his mind. As such, he'd received the infinitely more common Drake design.

"Verity," he called up to the young woman who was sitting in the cockpit of the machine, acting as the thing's impromptu aether-core.

"Feel free to fire it up when ready." The girl nodded seriously as she pressed her hand to the metal compartment between her legs where the shard's actual shard-core would normally be positioned. He heard rather than saw as she started to summon raw aether on the other side of the metal, A low hiss filling the room as the magical gas slowly started to fill the 'engine' of the shard, rapidly pressurizing the system of pipes within.

Not unlike a steam engine, the build up of pressure didn't take long to start moving the turbine connected to the propellers, quickly making them spin up. Fortunately, the vehicle was tied down so the force they began to exert did little to nothing beyond fill the enclosed space with the low roar of the props cutting through the air as they tried to drag a plane that wouldn't move forward.

Always surprises me how quiet it all is, he thought as he watched the leather hoses that trailed from the machine's wing thrusters to the outside start to inflate. Naturally, not unlike a steam engine, the insides of the shard could only contain so much of the gas that was being produced, and some of it needed to be 'vented' before a valve or pipe burst.

Normally, that excess would be funneled into either the ballasts to make the craft more buoyant and gain more lift before fading from reality after two minutes or so – or it went into the wing thrusters to provide a form of primitive thrust by being blasted out the back, not unlike a rocket engine. Given they didn't want the plane to start attempting to float, the valves to the ballasts were firmly closed.

Likewise, given that they were in an enclosed space, the thought of blasting it full of aether from the thrusters was not appealing either. To that end, the leather hoses he was currently watching inflate were intended to vent the excess aether outside.

"Figure that's a good speed?" he asked as he turned to the nearby foreman – a burly orcish blacksmith.

"Aye," the woman said.

"For this at least." He nodded. That was fine by him.

"Alright, everyone behind the safety glass." Ignoring the quiet grumbling of those nearby, William joined the many alchemists and blacksmiths present for the experiment behind the very expensive magically reinforced glass that had been… borrowed from the Alchemist's guild for this test. Hence why a few of them were lingering around for an experiment that wasn't really relevant to their area of expertise. Yet, at least, he thought as he tugged Bonnlyn a little further behind cover, ignoring the dwarf's pout.

"Alright," he called out.

"Make sure to duck too, Verity, and then you can fire when ready." He'd have struggled to be heard over a regular engine, but given the quiet nature of shard-craft, he easily heard the girl's responding 'aye' as she leaned back down in her seat – for her own protection – as she slowly squeezed the trigger to her right. This time, the sound was a lot louder – and was accompanied by a little aether – as suddenly a lot of the pressure that had been going to the propellor's turbine was redirected to the guns.

In a manner not dissimilar from a paintball or air-rifle, a few dozen projectiles were launched from the guns with accompanying puffs of blue-green aether, the pressurized gas propelling the rounds through the air and into the sandbags that had been piled against the back wall. Where they barely penetrated, which made sense given they were little more than whittled down wooden dowels.

That being one of the advantages of a pneumatic weapon system, one could fire just about anything they cared to so long as it fit down the barrel and into the magazine. Which was advantageous when testing a weapon system that would under normal circumstances shred the propellers they were attempting to fire through. As it stood, if the wooden dowels had hit the props, all they'd have achieved was a few dents and scratches before bursting into wood chippings instead of shredding the props themselves.

Fortunately, neither of those things happened.

"Well, fuck me," a voice breathed behind him – likely belonging to the orcish forewoman he'd been speaking to earlier.

"He actually did it." William resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The synchronization – or interrupter – gear was world war one tech. Little more than a piston tied to the propellor, the device functioned exactly as it was named, by interrupting or synchronizing the flow of rounds from the front mounted guns to match the spinning of the propellor. By doing so, even when the pilot held down the trigger, the guns were literally incapable of firing in the moments when the propellor blade was in front of them.

Now, admittedly he'd had to make a few small adjustments for a pneumatic firing system, but the same basic logic remained. It actually offended him that no one had figured it out sooner, even if front-mount props were devilishly rare in this world.

"It's actually a fairly simple upgrade," he said, turning to the woman.

"I'm sure you or someone like you would have figured it out eventually if you had more experience with front-mounted props." At his words, the woman frowned a little, before saying quietly, "Xela's shard is a front mount. Ex-Royal Navy. Si- uh, ma'am?" Wincing at the foot he'd just shoved into his mouth – though he did have to try not to laugh at the woman's mangling of vernacular - he kept his tone commiserating as he moved to an easier topic.

"Ma'am is only for women and usually for dames. Which is what Xela is as a knight. And were I just a knight, you'd say sir," he smiled to show he wasn't offended.

"I'm a count though, so count William or just milord or also fine." Flushing a little, the woman nodded quickly.

"Of course, milord." He nodded, even as Verity fired off another burst – with every round 'miraculously' missing the propellers. He'd admit there was a certain temptation to do away with his title – especially after years of being called master William by maids – but he decided against it. He was already railing against enough institutions after all, no point in adding another by changing how people were supposed to address as well.

One or two issues with how things were done could be seen as reasonable by the world at large. Rebelling against everything that comprised society would be seen less as a person having an issue with society and more as that person having issues. No, it was better to seem reasonable in other ways so as to make his actual issues seem more legitimate. He winced a little at the thought, even as a third and final burst rang out. Because he'd had admittedly limited success in people understanding his issues thus far.

Part of that was on him, he knew. He'd never really explained his issues with slavery. But even as he had the thought, he was reminded of why he didn't. Because why would he bother to write a treatise on the failures of slavery when they already existed? Yelena certainly didn't censure the practice overnight and neither did the South abandon it purely because the Queen did. Writings on the topic had existed since the days of the old Elven Imperium.

Yet it remained because certain people had a vested interest in ensuring it remained. Like the North – because it lined their pockets or because it helped pay to continue a race-war thousands of years old. Likewise, there were people like his mother who didn't like the practice, but would tolerate it if it benefited her. Not unlike a person benefiting from a cheaper phone because it was made in some third world sweatshop. He scoffed.

Admittedly that last comparison wasn't quite the same in scale, but it still worked in principle. No, he wasn't interested in convincing anyone of his point of view via words. That wasn't his strength and never would be. He'd let others attempt that. No, he'd focus on the power of a good argument backed by a big gun. To that end, he smiled widely as Verity clambered out of one example of that plan.

Sure, it was back to front and ugly as all sin, but it would bebut a single step on the road to him developing the biggest gun. Big enough to sway a nation.

"Well, I guess we can call this a success," he called out to the nearby blacksmiths.

"Let's see what other improvements we can get started on before I've got to go back to school." A stunned silence greeted him, before a look of determination seemed to flash across the entire crowd. Perhaps in different circumstances someone might have cheered at the success of the 'impossible' that had just occurred. But given it had been him alone who'd developed it, that failed to materialize. Instead, all it had done was brought to life a flare of competitiveness amongst the many craftsmen.

And he could work with that. Oh, he could definitely work with that. After all, he had a great many things planned for the new month. And these would be the people who would need to implement those things into a finished design once he flew back to the academy to start making the connections needed to actually leverage said inventions.