Chapter 168: I Told Everyone My Rifle Wasn’t Magic

"What kind of magic was that?"

Raven checked the pressure system.

"It wasn’t magic."

Valeria turned toward him immediately.

"Don’t say that."

Raven looked up.

Too late.

The guard had heard him.

So had Taren, the workers, the drivers, the merchants, and practically everyone else inside South Relay.

Raven glanced around at the growing number of curious faces.

"Too late."

Valeria pressed one hand to her forehead.

"You could have said artificery."

"It isn’t."

"Magical weapon."

"Also wrong."

"Anything that doesn’t immediately turn this into an even stranger story."

One of the workers stared at the Mk.I.

"If it wasn’t magic, what made the thunder?"

"Pressure."

Silence followed.

Raven realized that answer hadn’t helped either.

Roland smiled.

"I think you should stop explaining."

Raven considered the suggestion.

"Probably."

The guard was still staring at the weapon.

"What’s it called?"

"Prototype Rifle Mk.I."

The man blinked.

"What does ’rifle’ mean?"

Raven closed the empty breech.

"That."

That answer didn’t help either.

The rumors started before they had even finished moving the Wyvern’s corpse.

Raven had the rare opportunity to watch them form almost in real time.

It began with one of the drivers.

"That thunder bow—"

"It wasn’t a bow," the guard corrected.

"Then a cannon."

"Cannons are much bigger."

"Have you ever seen one do that?"

"No."

"Then maybe it’s a small cannon."

A worker who had been standing near the wall shook his head.

"It looked like it was made from a monster."

The driver turned toward him.

"What?"

"It had living parts."

"They weren’t alive," Valeria said as she walked past.

Nobody seemed to hear the correction.

Someone else offered another possibility.

"Monster Gun."

Raven stopped walking.

Roland was behind him.

"What?"

Raven looked toward the man who had said it.

"Nothing."

"I think Monster Gun has potential."

"No."

"Thunder Bow?"

"Worse."

"Black Cannon."

"No."

Roland thought for a moment.

"The foreigner’s weapon."

Raven started walking again.

"That at least describes two things correctly."

From beside the ruined watchtower, someone shouted across the courtyard.

"Move that damn stick that killed the Wyvern before somebody drops a rock on it!"

Roland looked at Raven.

"We have a winner."

"No."

Valeria was laughing.

Raven decided that revealing the rifle had produced almost exactly the amount of social trouble he had expected.

Possibly more.

The Wyvern’s death allowed South Relay to reopen much faster than Raven had expected.

Taren needed another hour to inspect the repaired roof, the corral, and the wagon they had patched together. The watchtower would have to be rebuilt later, but it wasn’t essential to the station’s basic operation.

By midafternoon, the supervisor signed the final confirmation.

[KHARAD SOUTH RELAY RESTORATION ESCORT — COMPLETED.]

He added another line beneath it.

[Registered Route Obstruction Neutralized: Skygrave Wyvern — Elite-Class Threat.]

Roland read the note over Raven’s shoulder.

"Does that mean more money?"

Taren nodded.

"The Mercenary House maintains bounties for threats that block registered routes. There wasn’t an extermination contract because we didn’t know what creature was responsible."

Roland looked toward the corpse.

"Well, now we know."

Taren followed his gaze.

"Definitely."

Raven put the completed documents away.

"How much?"

Taren gave him an approximate figure.

Valeria looked at Raven.

"You’re already calculating steel."

"Yes."

Roland exhaled.

"We don’t even have the money yet."

"I know what the first bar cost."

"That doesn’t make it better."

Taren looked confused.

"Steel for what?"

Roland pointed toward the wrapped rifle.

"Feeding that thing."

"Does it eat metal?"

"In a way," Raven said.

Roland closed his eyes.

"Please don’t explain it like that."

The Kharad Mercenary House paid them that evening.

The same clerk who had originally issued the contract appeared to have heard the story before they returned. Raven knew because the moment he stepped through the door, her eyes went to the long case.

Then to him.

Then back to the case.

"Thunder Bow."

Raven stopped.

"No."

Roland started laughing behind him.

The woman smiled.

"So it’s true."

"Which part?"

"That you killed a Skygrave Wyvern at South Relay."

"Yes."

"And you used a weapon nobody there recognized."

"Also yes."

"And apparently it isn’t magic."

Valeria sighed.

Raven looked at her.

"See?"

She slowly shook her head.

"I warned you approximately two seconds after it was already too late."

The clerk examined Taren’s seal and the attached completion report.

"Contract completed. Restoration validated. All three wagons delivered. We also received confirmation of the Wyvern by messenger."

She pulled out another sheet.

"Estimated Level Thirty-Nine. Elite. Since the creature was obstructing a registered route and had already caused previous material losses, you qualify for the regional threat bounty."

Roland smiled.

"I like that sentence."

"The House retains a portion for registration and processing."

His smile diminished.

"I like it less now."

Raven waited while the clerk counted out the payment.

Contract fee.

Completion bonus.

Threat bounty.

It wasn’t a fortune, but after several days of paying for workshop time, materials, repairs, food, equipment, and ammunition development, the weight of the coin pouch finally felt reasonable again.

Roland held it for a moment.

"We just got paid."

"Yes."

Raven took his share.

Roland watched him.

"Where are you going?"

"Hadrik."

"Raven."

"What?"

"We just got paid."

"You already said that."

"And now it’s disappearing."

"Ammunition."

Roland looked at Valeria.

"I hate that rifle again."

Valeria smiled.

"That lasted less than a day."

Hadrik received the money with considerably more enthusiasm.

"So it worked."

Raven placed a small pouch of coins on the workbench.

"Yes."

Valeria entered behind him.

"This time it didn’t try to remove any of his limbs."

Hadrik stopped counting long enough to raise his drink.

"Then I consider my contribution a success."

Raven looked toward the ammunition workbench.

"How many more did you finish while we were gone?"

"The additional batch we discussed. I also made three with slightly higher weight, like we talked about."

Raven opened the container.

The projectiles were nowhere near the industrial precision he would have expected on Earth, but Hadrik’s work was becoming noticeably more consistent. The differences between individual pieces were small enough now that FORGE no longer treated each round as a separate problem.

Raven picked up one of the standard projectiles.

FORGE analyzed it.

[Standardized Projectile Mk.I.]

[Material Consistency: GOOD.]

[Barrel Compatibility: 95%.]

[Estimated Ballistic Variance: ACCEPTABLE.]

Much better.

"I’ll take all of them."

Roland groaned.

Hadrik smiled.

"I’m starting to appreciate your new profession."

"My profession didn’t change."

"You come here, pay me, and leave carrying small pieces of metal that you intend to permanently lose by firing them at something. From my perspective, quite a lot has changed."

Raven also bought another steel bar, more compatible oil, two lengths of treated tendon, and additional insulating material.

Not much.

Enough to keep working.

By the time he finished, Roland was staring at what remained of the original payment.

"That hurt."

"We still have money."

"We had more before."

"That is generally how buying things works."

"Don’t talk to me like the problem is my understanding of economics."

Valeria glanced at Roland.

"I think his problem is emotional."

"Exactly."

Raven closed the ammunition case.

"You’ll survive."

Roland pointed at the Mk.I.

"That’s the part about you that worries me."