Chapter 53

◈ Chapter 53 – Counterattack

"This revolving cylinder holds a total of seven bullets."

I opened the cylinder of the revolver.

"As the cylinder rotates, the next round is fed directly into the barrel."

"So... you can fire seven shots in a row?" the 8th Division Commander asked.

"Yes, that's right. Unlike a musket, there's no need to ram each bullet down the muzzle one by one. Also, instead of pouring gunpowder into a flash pan..."

"I see—it's a combined cartridge system," the Emperor murmured, studying the schematics.

Two pages of Oscar's drawings.

One of them was the revolver.

The other was the ammunition, with bullet and powder combined.

A cartridge case packed with gunpowder.

"Exactly. With that design, there's no chance of a misfire due to moisture."

When I said that, the Knight Commander silently bowed his head.

"The Special Forces Technical Team is currently pouring their effort into manufacturing the new weapon."

"Captain Mago Stein. How is development progressing?" the Emperor asked.

"As you can see, the blueprints are already complete. And since the prototype already exists..."

I held up the EX Revolver so everyone could see it clearly.

"Production is only a matter of time."

"Excellent...!" The Emperor's face lit up.

The Knight Commander simply shook his head.

"Captain Mago Stein. How exactly did your magic tool come to be in a form that doesn't exist anywhere else?" the 8th Division Commander suddenly asked.

Since I couldn't exactly talk about my past life, I mixed in a bit of exaggeration and deception.

"I honestly don't know. As you know, magic tools are born by reading their owner's unique traits. Perhaps my delusions were brought to life, or maybe it was divine will. I can't say for sure."

"None of that matters. We need to focus on the possibility that we can create a new weapon right now," the Emperor declared.

Everyone murmured their agreement in short acknowledgments.

"Captain Simena."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Once the revolver is developed, what do you think about coming down to the rear?"

"You mean, here to Venus?"

"Yes."

"Then the front line would be here."

Captain Simena shot back with a contrary expression, as if testing the waters, even though everything was going according to plan.

"Or you could send down just the Technical Team."

"If they're separated from headquarters, how could we still call them the Special Forces?"

"Then we'll change the positions of the stationed troops. Knight Commander."

"Yes...? Please wait a moment."

"Knight Commander."

"Yes, yes...!"

"Deploy the Knight Order's troops to the front line."

The Emperor had made his words sound like a suggestion when talking to Captain Simena, but with the Knight Commander, it was pure pressure. A direct order, even.

"Your Majesty, the Knight Order isn't ready to fight on the front lines yet."

"Are you saying you're weaker than the Special Forces? Weaker than a unit of barely two hundred men?"

"That's not what I meant..."

"Then you're saying you lack their fighting spirit?"

The Emperor jabbed right at the sore spot, squeezing the Knight Commander without mercy.

Just as Captain Simena had predicted.

As soon as news of the Special Forces' new weapon spread, the Knight Commander's position came under immediate threat. To an Emperor who firmly believed that scientific power was national power, the revolver's significance was blindingly obvious—dazzling, even.

Captain Simena's lips curled upward bit by bit. The look on his face said it all: Almost there.

"Your Majesty, how about this?"

He started speaking with that very expression.

"Hm?"

"We'll share the technology with the Knight Order as well. We're all part of the same Imperial Army, after all. It's only natural."

"Captain Simena—what are you suddenly..." The Knight Commander looked flustered.

Simena's friendly attitude was so unexpected that even I felt a little awkward.

"However, we won't be able to produce enough for every soldier in the Imperial Army."

"Captain Simena, what do you mean by that?" the Emperor asked.

"I'll explain that part," I said, picking up where Captain Simena had left off.

He and the Emperor nodded at the same time.

"The issue is the ammunition I mentioned earlier. The cartridge case—the casing that holds the bullet and the gunpowder. After some research, we've determined that copper has the most suitable properties for making it."

"Copper? You mean the stuff used for statues?" The Knight Commander sounded doubtful.

"Yes, that's right."

"And you want to make... cartridges out of that?"

"However, the Imperial Army doesn't have enough copper to mass-produce the cartridge cases."

I remembered my earlier conversation with Oscar.

- Oscar, what about using copper?

- What do you know... Mago, just stay out of this and go somewhere else, will you?

- Copper conducts heat well, doesn't it? Seems like it would be good for igniting the gunpowder.

I'd said it almost as if I were tossing the idea out casually. But the truth was, I already knew about the raw material.

- Well, let's just make one and see. If it doesn't work... no, never mind... Actually... that might not be a bad idea...?

I recalled how confused Oscar had sounded.

- Oscar, then let's try copper...

- But we don't have any copper. And we've never used it for weapon manufacturing before.

"The Special Forces can secure enough for our own use, but supplying the entire Imperial Army will be impossible unless we reopen the mines near the capital."

"Captain Mago Stein. So you're saying..." The Knight Commander trailed off, already guessing what I was about to say.

"We need to retake the capital."

For about two seconds, there was nothing but silence.

Everyone knew it.

It was the challenge we had to face.

They all knew it well, but no one had dared to say it out loud. Because saying it meant taking responsibility for it.

So I—the lowest-ranking officer among the brass—said it.

I had nothing to lose.

"Hold on, Captain Mago Stein. That doesn't follow. You're not saying we should retake the capital after we've produced the new weapons—you're saying we should march on the capital to produce them."

"Is retaking the capital the final victory? No. Causality can be twisted somehow."

The Imperial Army's ultimate goal was to exterminate the Demon King's forces.

Retaking the capital wouldn't end the war.

Not by a long shot.

"Hmm... Captain Mago Stein." The Emperor called out to me just then.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"I'm not sure I follow. I understand you need a lot of copper for those cartridge cases. But we can't pour everything into firearm production. We still need iron for other weaponry."

"Yes, that's correct."

"Then why haven't you mentioned the iron? It's not like we have an endless supply of that either."

"We can procure plenty of iron," Captain Simena answered in my place, leaning forward.

"You're saying you'll mine both iron and copper once the mines are reopened?"

"No. If we can make the mines operational again, we'll concentrate on extracting copper for the new ammunition."

"Then how do you plan to get the iron?"

"There's a rather large source of iron, isn't there?"

Captain Simena pressed his hands together, shaping them into a form. If you held that shape up to the light, its shadow would reveal a wolf.

"The moving castle. Just by smashing one of those alone, we'd get a massive amount of iron."

"What—!"

"We're going to attempt to retake the capital, and if the Demon King's Castle stands in our way, we'll break it. That's my proposal, Your Majesty. Move the Knight Order to the front lines. The other divisions as well."

He spoke as if the Knight Commander's opinion didn't matter in the slightest.

The silence that followed was even longer than before.

"Break the Demon King's Castle? Captain Simena, what is this nonsense all of a sudden?"

"Yes, it's completely out of left field. We don't even know how that thing was built, or how it moves, let alone how to destroy it."

The Emperor and the Knight Commander spoke in turn, their voices rising.

They seemed agitated.

Voices that carried both expectation and anxiety.

"Why do you think Marjelo Arnis wasn't here? She was out on a reconnaissance mission to the Demon King's Castle—along with the recruit Kinzo Shua. The one with clairvoyance magic."

Captain Simena slowly rose from his seat.

"A reconnaissance of the Demon King's Castle? That's... failed before, hasn't it? And what's this about clairvoyance magic...?" The Emperor struggled to keep up with Simena's words.

No one could match the Special Forces' momentum.

"May I bring them in now?"

"Hm?"

"They've already arrived at Venus."

Just as Captain Simena reached for the door handle, the door flew open.

And slammed straight into his face.

He crumpled to the floor with a groan, rolling around in pain.

All thanks to that impatient woman.

"We're back, Captain Simena!"

Marjelo and Kinzo saluted in unison. Marjelo's salute was noticeably sloppy.

"Captain Simena is—uh—over there."

I pointed to the spot on the floor where he was lying in a heap.

"He's on the floor over there."

Without breaking their salute, Marjelo and Kinzo simply pivoted in place.

"We're back."

"Marjelo..."

She reached down to help him up.

In the meantime, I locked eyes with Kinzo.

"Feels like I haven't seen you in a year, Mago."

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

With Marjelo's help, Captain Simena got to his feet and gestured toward the Emperor with his eyes.

"You two. Pay your respects first."

Marjelo and Kinzo saluted once more—this time to the entire assembly of high-ranking officers, including the Emperor.

"Captain Simena, those two are..." the 8th Division Commander started to ask, but Kinzo cut him off.

"Special Mission Unit 42, Kinzo Shua. Reconnaissance of the Demon King's Castle completed and returned."

The word "completed" seemed to echo in the air.

I wasn't the only one who noticed.

Everyone was chewing on that word.

"We'd like to hear an explanation." The Emperor leaned back in his chair.

"Marjelo, go ahead."

"Special Forces... Ma-Marjelo A-Arnis... reporting..."

Without an official rank, her introduction was full of awkward pauses.

Even so, it was painfully slow.

Her words came out halting and sluggish. Then, all of a sudden:

"I... was with the—the recruit Ki-Kinzo Shua, from the 42nd Unit, and we went to the Demon King's Castle. Out of the two wolves... the red one..."

The Golden Lion Conference attendees forced themselves to wait for her to finish each sentence.

But as time dragged on, their expressions soured with frustration.

"Captain Simena... don't tell me..." I whispered to him.

"Marjelo is terrified of briefings. Presentations, I mean."

"I thought she was afraid of nothing in this world."

"Marjelo has plenty of weak spots. She's just good at hiding them."

"Now I understand why she hated coming to Venus so much..."

"It felt like dragging a stubborn dog along. Just like the Stein I raised."

"Can we drop the Stein talk?"

"Why? You two even share the same name."

"I took the name from him, obviously...!"

Just as our voices rose beyond the range of a proper whisper—

"On the red one... we arriv-arrived... and then..."

"May I take over?" Kinzo asked Marjelo for permission.

He directed the same question to the officers with a glance.

They all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"You should have spoken up sooner..." Marjelo shot him a sharp look with one eye, then pushed him forward.

"Very well. I'll continue from here. Let me reintroduce myself. I am Kinzo Shua, a recruit assigned to the 42nd Unit."

Unlike Marjelo, his words came out crisp and clear, one after another.

The listeners probably wanted to applaud.

"I graduated from Watermelon Magic University in the Arctic, Akuella, one year ago. I trained in clairvoyance magic there, and that's what allowed me to be assigned to the Demon King's Castle reconnaissance mission."

"Watermelon, you say..." murmured one of the officers.

"That's one of the top magic universities," the 7th and 8th Division Commanders exchanged whispers.

"Three weeks into the mission, by the second week, we reached the Red Wolf—one of the Demon King's Castles. I entered the effective range of my clairvoyance magic and activated it immediately."

Kinzo paused to catch his breath.

Captain Simena swallowed hard.

"I succeeded in seeing through the interior of the Demon King's Castle."

"Is—is that true?!" someone exclaimed.

"The secret no one has ever been able to approach..." another breathed.

"So what did you see...?" the officers pressed.

"The professors and students of Watermelon Magic University were inside."

The next words he spoke must have hit them like a thunderbolt.

"They had been resurrected."