Chapter 356: 「152！」
Translator: Meh/TransN Editor: - -
Weapons that enable civilians to defeat Extraordinaries?
After Wendy left, Agatha kept mulling over this phrase. Did they truly know what an Extraordinary was?
Unfortunately, she did not have a Stone of Measuring with her to clearly determine the powers and types of these witches.
After waiting for an annoyingly long time, Nightingale appeared in her doorway. "His Highness invites you to view his new weaponry tests. If you don't want to go..."
"I'll go," she mumbled. "Please lead the way."
When she saw Prince Roland still groggy and yawning, Agatha had a sudden impulse to dump ice chips onto him to wake him up. However, this move would probably cause some misunderstandings with the other witches, so she could only think about it to herself.
As they left the castle, she saw the entirety of the town in broad daylight for the first time.
With the snow as a backdrop, the first impression that leaped into her mind was order—all the two-story houses stood in clean rows and had exactly the same appearance, with matching white silhouettes and red tile roofs. The black roads were all straight as an arrow, splitting the town into equal square sections. Looking into the distance, the scenery seemed to be continuous layers of houses, trees and streets and so on.
Even Taquila's Inner City could never be this orderly!
But she felt there was something about the town that couldn't compare to her city. Except the castle, there were no buildings worth a second glance in this town. Even the castle itself could not compare to Taquila's Quest Tower in grandiosity.
"After all, it's only a small town." Agatha scoffed inwardly and turned to Nightingale. "How many people live here?"
"Um... There used to be only a little over 2,000, but now, with the refugees from the North and South, there're almost 30,000."
"There were only 2,000, and he claimed to defeat demons. What a stupid... hold on, 30... 30,000?" Agatha widened her eyes in shock. Even in its prime, Taquila could only accommodate 50,000 people. Could this tiny place hold 30,000? She wasn't counting the populations of the surrounding villages, right?
Although these square brick houses did seem to have a larger capacity than wooden bungalows, the increase of population wasn't merely a simple addition of numbers. After the population reached a certain point, demands on the city would also increase exponentially. Firstly, the demand for food and water would increase dramatically. Secondly, there would be more public safety issues following an increase in slums. Finally, even waste disposal would become a difficult issue.
Towards the end of the Second Battle of Divine Will, Taquila faced all of these issues—following the collapse of many major cities, more and more people flocked to the Holy City. Overpopulation did not strengthen the city's defense, but instead paralyzed the entire city. The Union had to forcefully remove a group of refugees to settle the crisis.
After experiencing this firsthand, Agatha knew how difficult the growth of population was. As she observed her companion's casual demeanor, she somewhat distrusted her. Perhaps Nightingale had no idea what she was talking about and was simply lying to her.
"I should ask Wendy these kinds of questions in the future, " she thought. "At least she seemed more sincere."
After crossing the crowded city streets, Agatha followed the prince and his group onto a city wall made of mud. This kind of short city wall was far from lofty and sturdy. There were no barbs on the surface of the wall, nor was there a moat surrounding it. Demons wouldn't even need machines to climb this wall as they could do so bare-handedly.
She became more disappointed in her heart.
Every hundred steps or so, there were protrusions of flat platforms on the top of the wall, which seemed to be prepared for ballistas. It didn't take a long walk along the wall for Agatha to see the weapon being tested that day.
Its appearance was so unique that it commanded everyone's attention.
It was a metal tube that looked like an enlarged iron spear, except there was no spear head. It was entirely smooth and had a slight silver tinge to it, so it didn't seem like a metal weapon. The parts at the ends of the tube were slightly complicated. Besides a stabilizing stand, there were also two shorter tubes that were attached to the top and bottom of the large tube. It had no pulleys or slots for arrows, appearing nothing like a larger ballista or mangonel.
But she still could not figure out how this thing could attack enemies.
"This is a newly-invented weapon of Border Town—the 152 mm Stronghold Standard Artillery, symbolizing justice and glory!" The prince exclaimed, waving his hands. "We made many improvements on the basis of the 12 pound field artillery, and it's outstanding in all respects. It's undoubtedly a revolutionary weapon!"
Agatha couldn't help but frown. All this talk of justice, glory and Stronghold Standards sounded extremely superficial. Not to mention that the long string of introductions was a mouthful of made-up words. Was he really the prince, whom, as Wendy introduced, was learned and trusted by all witches?
"Clap, clap, clap," Nightingale was the only person clapping, and the atmosphere seemed a little awkward.
"Ahem," Roland cleared his throat. "Let's not waste our breath and start testing. Iron Axe, take it away."
"Yes, Your Highness." Three people dressed in the same uniforms immediately stood up and got to work.
Agatha stood on the side and followed every movement of these men, hoping to understand the workings of this weapon.
She watched one man slide off the metal piece at the end of the tube, and another immediately stuff an orange sharp object into the tube and shut the metal piece.
"Report. Preparation is ready. Prepare to launch!"
"Everyone, cover your ears." The prince demonstrated with his hands, nodded, and said, "Fire."
"Wait... is it ready this quickly?" Just as Agatha was about to ask, a large boom exploded next to her ears. Her head immediately began buzzing, and her surroundings quieted. The long metal tube spat out a ball of orange flames, blinding yet fleeting. In that moment, she sensed the immense power of the fire, and felt the city wall trembling beneath her feet. A wave of heat rushed towards her, pushing her back a few steps. The cannon itself also suddenly sank back suddenly—but then it steadily returned to its original position.
"..." Nightingale supported her in time from behind and seemed to say something to her, but she could only hear fragments of whispers, as if they were coming from far away... Finally, the buzzing subsided, and her hearing was back to normal. "Are you okay?"
She shook her head, looking towards the fields of snow, but couldn't see any change.
Were those flames only good for intimidating the enemy?
"Did you see the landing point?" the prince asked a witch with green hair.
"It fell behind a small hill, nearest to the red flag," the latter said after peering out for some time, "but it was still much farther."
"Red flag?" Agatha looked at Roland with puzzlement. "What are they talking about?"
Luckily, the prince quickly addressed her confusion. "This weapon can fire shells—or bolts that you're familiar with—to a long distance, so it's used to attack enemies far away. In order to observe the range of attack, I had Lightning place colored flags every one kilometer, and the red flag was the last one at five kilometers away." He explained, "By your measurements, one kilometer is a little over 300 yards."
Agatha was stunned. "Is he saying that that weapon fired a bolt over a distance of more than 5,000 meters? There were no pulleys or power-storing mechanisms. How did they make it? Even Siege Beasts driven by magic power could only reach a range of 1,500-2,000 meters. If he was not lying, then a tall and sturdy city wall, combined with these kinds of weapons, could really fend off the demons' attack."
But... it's probably not very easy for a weapon with such an astonishing firing range to fire even once.
"It just doesn't feel right without seeing where the shells landed," The Prince stroked his chin and said, "Next, let's test a fast triple-shot flat aim to attack targets in short range."