Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 46 Accident
After returning from Qianmin Street, Lieutenant Colonel Field convened the first all-officer meeting of the Army Headquarters Military Police at Moritz’s apartment.

Number of attendees: three;
Host: Lieutenant Colonel Field;
Clerk: Warrant Officer Montagne.

[Because Major Moritz's hearing has not yet recovered, the words spoken to him in the previous and current chapters were transcribed by Winters and shown to Major Moritz; therefore, they will not be repeated here.]
"Senior, there are only three of us, and the major can't hear anything anyway. Don't we need to be so serious?" Winters said, half-laughing and half-crying, while engrossed in writing meeting minutes. He had already started calling him "senior." After his trip to Qianmin Street, he had become somewhat closer to the two regular officers from the military police.

“This is the first all-official meeting of the Military Police, so it has to be formal.” Field said with a smile, “To hold an all-official meeting, you need at least three officers. Before, there were only Moritz and me in the Military Police, so we couldn’t hold this meeting. Now that you’re included, there are three… Hey, don’t write these things in the meeting minutes.”

Winters quickly crossed out the text he had just written: "Does a warrant officer even count? I'm not even a full-fledged officer yet."

"The regulations don't stipulate that warrant officers don't qualify, so don't be so rigid. It's just an internship, it's just a formality."

"Excuse me, have you never had a trainee officer here before me?"

"Haha, no."

Moritz, curled up in the recliner under a thin blanket, began to snore at a very inopportune moment. Although the major had temporarily lost his hearing and could only perceive some vague sounds through bone conduction, this very fact meant that his sleep quality was even better.

Frustrated, Field threw his hat at Moritz's face.

The major woke up with a start, wiped the drool from his mouth, sat up, and asked blankly, "Is the meeting over?"

"[Swear words that would make a saint in a portrait cover his ears]...Don't write swear words in the meeting minutes either!"

“Okay.” Winters quickly crossed out the words he had just written.

After some organization, the first plenary officers' meeting of the Army Headquarters Military Police finally began in a united, tense, serious, and lively atmosphere.

Aside from giving the lieutenant colonel a taste of his newfound fame, this meeting had one real purpose: to salvage the careers of the two officers. To prevent them from being relegated to an even less desirable position in the future—for example, to the war history department.

In the Cenas Union, the military deliberately made it virtually impossible to discharge an officer through its system. Therefore, officers who made mistakes were usually demoted several ranks and sidelined. This indirectly resulted in the war histories of the armies of the various republics being rather sour to read.

Winters doesn't need to worry; he's just a trainee officer now, and even if the case is overturned in the future, it won't implicate him. But his two fellow alumni, Field and Moritz, have treated him well, so he wants to do his part for their careers.

The lieutenant colonel ordered Moritz and Winters to stop forming cliques and to report to him completely and without concealment everything they had seen and heard at the dock that day.

The whole blunder was actually Moritz's fault. The major told Winters they would discuss it in secret, and Winters kept quiet until the major came to him. But after leaving the customs prison, Moritz drank two bottles of liquor and completely forgot about it.

So it wasn't until now that Field learned the specific details of what happened at the dock that day from two key eyewitnesses.

"You mean there might have been a spellcaster among the deceased?"

"I'm not sure either, but I think that person probably used a deflection technique."

“If the dead one was a spellcaster, that would be interesting.” Lieutenant Colonel Field’s expression also turned serious. “There are only about a hundred spellcasters in the Blue Ocean Army. If any of them go missing, we can find out quickly. I’ll investigate this matter… Could there be assassins among the dockworkers?”

"Correct."

"Not wearing a mask?"

"No."

Do you remember what he/she looked like?

However, the faces of the assassins disguised as dockworkers were so ordinary that they had no distinguishing features whatsoever. Winters tried to describe them for a long time but couldn't make them clear. Finally, Winters said helplessly, "If you put those assassins in front of me, I can recognize them, but I really can't explain them in words."

"The dockworkers are all familiar faces, they should remember something. Hmph, the docks are controlled by a few gangs, it's not like you can become a dockworker just because you're strong. Who introduced them, who vouched for them, it'll be easy to find out."

Winters suddenly remembered the Swift Sword he had stolen: "I stole an assassin's sword. It fell into the water when the assassin blew up the dock. Should we get someone to retrieve it?"

“Hire a few good swimmers tomorrow to try and salvage it.” Field’s right fingers tapped unconsciously on his glass. He frowned and thought for a moment before saying, “We can try, but I reckon it’s probably been swept away by the tide.”

"And the gun, I kicked one of the assassin's guns into the water too. The assassin's gun was strange; it could fire without a matchlock. And it was short, so it could be used with one hand."

“Didn’t the cripple mention that someone bought several wheel guns for a high price?” Field said matter-of-factly.

Winters was astonished: "What's a wheel gun? I've never heard of one before."

“It’s normal not to have heard of it. The wheel gun is a new type of gun invented in the North, using a mechanism instead of a matchlock for ignition. It’s only been in Hailan for a few days, and it’s still a rare thing. I don’t have one either.” Lieutenant Colonel Field tried to draw a diagram on the table with his finger dipped in wine, but failed. “If you had a real one, you would understand it at a glance.”

After studying the matter for a long time, two directions for investigation were finally determined. One was to investigate the recent disappearances and deaths of spellcasters from the Blue Army; the other was to start with the dockworkers and investigate the assassins disguised as porters.

There were two other clues that Field didn't have much hope for: the sword and gun the assassin had dropped into the sea; and the coachmen's brotherhood that might have helped the assassin deal with the carriage.

Although there has been no real progress, at least we are no longer completely clueless like before, which is something to celebrate.

Major Moritz's sick leave was canceled by Field. The lieutenant colonel's exact words were: "If you continue on leave, you'll choke on your own vomit sooner or later. You should go back to headquarters for your shift."

With the ten steel cones and a target plate given to him by the major, Winters returned home excitedly, ready to begin practicing his arrow-throwing technique.

According to Major Moritz, the target should first be hung ten paces away. Once the power is guaranteed, and the target can hit the silver coin more than eight times out of ten with the flying arrow technique, then the target should be pushed five paces away, gradually increasing the distance.

But then he remembered he still had to visit the Benvinuto family, so he packed up all the training equipment. Carrying the flour and meat that Aunt Marita had bought as gifts, he rode straight to the Benvinuto house.

When Winters was still in school, he often went to Benway's house for "dockside food." As the name suggests, dockside food was the food eaten by dockworkers, which was heavy on oil and salt—later, when sugar became cheaper, it became heavy on sugar as well. Ordinary people couldn't get used to it, but the workers needed this kind of food to have the energy to work.

Winters particularly loved this kind of food, which was rich in oil, salt, and sugar, but Cossa usually didn't cook it and wouldn't allow Winters to eat much of it. So Winters would sneak over to Benway's house to satisfy his cravings, and Benway's mother never minded putting an extra plate on Winters' plate.

Benvinuto's home wasn't far from the docks, but compared to the bustling docks, the dockworkers' neighborhood wasn't as pretty. Rows and rows of low wooden houses stood side by side, and the cinder paths became muddy and impassable after rain.

The Benway family of twenty-two—if Winters hadn't added any more members during the years he'd been in the United Province—lived in two small houses next to each other. The walls between the two originally separate houses had been knocked down, the children had grown up, the small yard behind the houses had been converted into a shed, and an attic had been added to the roof of the bungalow.

Benwei's ancestors were all Wahns who fled to Hailan more than thirty years ago to escape war. Wahns generally have a strong sense of family; they like to gather together when things are going well, and they cling even tighter when things are going badly.

It's hard to say it's because of some strong sibling bond, but rather because of the valuable lessons learned from those difficult days: a family must unite to survive.

So Benway's family wasn't just his parents and siblings, but also his cousins ​​and other relatives. The large family lived in two cramped rooms, but there was a unique kind of warmth to it all.

Winters, who had happily ridden his scooter to Benway's house, was shocked to find that the house was now deserted; the once bustling house was completely empty.

"Moved?" Winters was dumbfounded. He thought, "No way, Benway clearly said he didn't move."

Both rooms were locked, and looking through the gaps in the doors, it was pitch black inside; you couldn't see anything.

Winters knocked on Benway's neighbor's door. An old man opened the door a crack and stared at Winters warily. "Sir, where are the neighbors next door?"

The old man glanced at Winters's sword, then at his boots, and said in a hoarse voice, "I know nothing, and don't ask me."

At this point, Winters had only changed back into his military boots, not his uniform; he was still wearing the clothes he'd worn to Qianmin Street. He thought to himself: Could it be that this old man thinks I'm a bad guy?
The old man was about to close the door after he finished speaking when Winters quickly stuck his foot out to block it, explaining, "I am a friend of Ben Vinutto."

“Friends? Do you take me for some old fool?” the old man said sarcastically. “How could Benwei possibly have friends like you guys in military boots?”

A stick poked out from under the door. Winters took a step back, and the old man used the mechanism to close the door. No matter how much Winters knocked, he wouldn't open it again.

The atmosphere on the street began to change, and Winters keenly noticed it. There wasn't a single pedestrian on the dirt road between the two rows of houses, and the women of the house were closing their doors and windows tightly, shooing the children playing in the street back home.

Winters could feel pairs of wary eyes watching him from behind the wooden window.

He knocked on another neighbor's door, the sound echoing down the hallway. No one answered, but Winters was certain someone was at the door.

He whispered through the crack in the door, "I was a classmate of Ben Vinutto's at the Army Cadet School. Could you please tell me what happened to his family? I will do everything I can to help him."

Still, no one answered.

"Then please give these things to Benway for me." Winters placed the meat and flour he had brought at his neighbor's door, hopped on his power bike, and headed home.

“Something must have happened to Benwei’s family, or they might be hiding from someone,” Winters thought to himself. “Judging from the attitude of these neighbors, Benwei should be fine. That old man said ‘you’ and ‘those in military boots’? Could it be that soldiers are causing trouble for Benwei? Maybe I can ask that lame guy in Qianmin Street to check?”

————Cut————

Enduring the pain of his phantom limb, Winters picked up the practice steel cone from the ground. After self-testing, he concluded that he could only use the Arrow Technique twelve times with this weight of steel cone at full strength, and the power of the steel cones fired after that would be greatly reduced.

If he exerted all his strength and disregarded power, he could use the Arrow Spell twenty-nine times. Any further, however, would be too intense for Winters to enter a spellcasting state.

This is probably what Major Moritz meant by the extreme state.

However, Winters noticed that after the fire at the Victory Arsenal, his speed-enhancing spells seemed to have improved slightly. He didn't have concrete evidence, just a vague feeling.

Could it be that using spells beyond their limits can more effectively enhance one's magical abilities?
The answer to this question might be to ask the other spellcasters who lost consciousness that day, just like Winters.

Moreover, Winters considered that if he were practicing on his own, this level was already his limit. His phantom limb pain wasn't intense enough to make him lose consciousness, but it also prevented him from entering a spellcasting state.

Winters recalled the day of the arsenal fire. Normally, it would be difficult to maintain the spellcasting state if his concentration was not high enough. But on that day, he had clearly reached his limit. The phantom limb pain was so intense that it could be described as torture, but he still remained in the spellcasting state.

He wondered, "Could it be that a large number of spellcasters using spells simultaneously would produce some kind of uncontrollable effect, like a chorus?"

He thought for a moment that to confirm this conjecture, he would need to gather a large number of spellcasters to recreate the scene of the arsenal fire. Opportunities to use so many spellcasters at once were rare and hard to come by. He could discuss this idea with his uncle, but even António would need to apply to the Council of Thirteen to mobilize so many spellcasters.

Moreover, if this conjecture is true, it would be extremely significant for the spellcaster. The more valuable the information, the more cautiously it should be treated. If a potential gold mine is discovered, it's best to quietly confirm it first before deciding on the next step.

Winters instinctively wanted to keep it a secret, so he decided not to share the idea with anyone until he had gathered more information.

It was already evening, and Winters set up his practice room in the basement. He found that practicing archery in the bedroom disturbed the whole family, and practicing magic in the yard seemed strange. So, he finally decided to "hide" in the basement to practice his arrow-throwing magic.

Back in his bedroom, Winters drank a cup of herbal concoction that Major Moritz had given him.

The major was right; this herb did indeed have a sedative effect. Less than a short while after drinking it, Winters felt warm all over. Although he still had a faint phantom limb pain, his eyelids were already starting to droop.

He lay down on the bed, ready to rest.

But as soon as he closed his eyes, a series of chilling sounds came from outside the door. Winters reluctantly got out of bed and opened the door, where the general and the young general were squatting.

Cats are obsessive-compulsive creatures; many of their actions in life have no purpose, they just do something for the sake of doing something.

If a cat wants to enter a room, it will scratch at the door until someone opens it for it.

But once the owner opens the door for the cat, it may lose interest.

The general, who had been making a huge fuss just moments before, swaggered away as Winters opened the door. The little general, however, bleated happily and jumped onto Winters' bed.

Winters was speechless, closed the door again, and lay back down.

The little general lay curled up in a small ball beside his pillow, seemingly intending to sleep there.

No one knows when he fell asleep; under the influence of the drug, Winters quickly lost consciousness.

In his dream, Winters seemed to be floating in a pitch-black sea, with a pitch-black sky above him. He couldn't swim, but in this sea, he wouldn't drown or sink.

He just kept drifting, drifting, as if he could drift forever until the end of time.

Until someone took a sledgehammer and smashed it hard into his chest.

Winters groaned involuntarily from the pain.

The man who hit him with the sledgehammer said something:

"Meow!"

Winters was conscious, but he couldn't open his eyelids.

He was quite experienced with this kind of situation, and he was certain that the little general had jumped down from the top of the wardrobe onto him again.

The little general, crouching on Winters' chest, let out a second, low growl.

This is the sound the little general makes before he fights the wildcat.

Winters opened his eyes, preparing to get up and get the little general out of the bedroom.

He saw a humanoid creature climbing into his bedroom through the window.

Thanks to Social Justice Old Wang for the recommendation vote, and thanks to Book Friend 20181013204343295 for the recommendation vote. Uh, I received the notification to be published today, but I only have a little over a hundred favorites and I haven't applied for publication. Does this mean that I have to be published after 200,000 words?
Also, when a cat jumps on you while you're sleeping... oh, those who own cats should understand that feeling.

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(End of this chapter)