The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 717: Warn The Guild

Dominic finished the spears for the Knights before he left the forge, intending to pass them out to boost morale after a rough day of training with the Royal Guards.

However, when he did make it to the training grounds with the bundle, he did not find exhausted and dejected Knights, but completely thrilled ones, excited to be learning new tactics.

Their training was extensive, but they were not one of the greatest Knight orders, and the Cygnian Royal Order were elites, even among the other nations’ Royal Guards.

“Gentlemen, I have equipment for you.

The rifles will take a few more days, but I have a few of them for you today, and I’ve got a whole batch of pistols and spears at a quality standard that won’t embarrass Stansia Province.

If we’re going to send you out to be our representatives, we can’t have you losing members in engagements with monsters or bandits.

It’s not a good look for the Province.

So, I’ve prepared these for you.”

Dominic placed the stack of spears against the training weapons rack, and placed the pistols on one of the arming tables.

“Grab one of each and add it to your equipment.

These will be the signature weapons of your unit, along with the rifles, but I can make you new swords if you need them as well. They just take significantly more time to make than a spear.”

The Knights came forward to grab the spears first, admiring the power of the new weaponry.

“If we had known that things would get this easy, we would have volunteered for this mission earlier. Here, most of us thought that we’d be fighting bandits and Ogres with whatever a newly formed rural fiefdom could offer to remote patrols.

But it appears that the Royal Forge didn’t leave the Duke, even if the Duke left the forge,” the Commander of the Malton Knights joked.

“True enough. But I’m a firm believer in having the right tools for the job. That’s why the rifles are designed to fire solid shot as well as mana bullets.

Ogres take limited damage from magic, and there are far too many of them in the area.

I wouldn’t worry about it nearly as much if they weren’t as hostile as they are. However, they have been on a rampage lately, and they tend to attack anything that they see.

That’s true of many of the other species as well, but the Ogres are a particularly high threat creature.

Now, I have some other matters to attend to. And honestly, I couldn’t teach you much of anything that the Royal Guards couldn’t teach you better.”

The Knights laughed. Nobody actually expected a Duke to be more skilled in the art of war and bandit patrols than lifelong professional soldiers, especially the Royal Guards, who literally devoted their entire life to the task until they retired.

With that, Dominic left them to their training and went to talk to Rill, before he went to the airship docks.

The Merchant was waiting for him when he arrived, having seen Dominic coming from blocks away. The Guild office was crowded, with multiple caravan drivers in the office waiting for analysis of their shipments, or delivery of the purchases they wished to make.

Not everything was stored in one warehouse here in Wistover, as it was designated as a major trade hub.

But also because not everything went by ground these days.

An increasing number of airships were being sent to Wistover to load, or to consolidate orders for transport to another country. The foreign trade caravan operators were easy enough for Dominic to spot.

Some were clearly not from Cygnia, like the black eyed and black-haired merchant from Hitchia. Others because of their fashion.

The people of Chip had a particular fondness for a local style of slip on sandals, and they would wear them anywhere that there was no snow. Probably a few places that there was snow as well, but Dominic couldn’t confirm that.

“Branch Manager, if you’ve got a moment?” Dominic asked.

“Of course, Your Grace. If you want to wait in my office, I will be there in just a moment. I’ve got a few signatures to get these shipments on the road.”

Dominic nodded, and waited in the main room.

It wasn’t an urgent matter, just a courtesy call to let him know that his customers weren’t getting the next airship out of the docks.

That would certainly be a letdown for the man, but going by the crowd in his building, there was no shortage of work even without adding new airships. Dominic hadn’t been to check how many here docked outside the city, but going by the crowd, it was more than a few, and some of them were a long way from home.

Clearly, they had made a very long trip, as using a portal for an airship simply wasn’t feasible. The difficulty increased in a linear fashion with distance, which was the usual limiter. But the mana needed to open a nonstandard portal was directly related to the surface area of the portal.

So, a small one to drop off letters was relatively easy. A portal the size of an airship was many hundreds of times more mana intensive than one the size of a person.

Even he wasn’t going to be sending an airship far. The entire city would be drained of ambient mana just to attempt it.

True to his word, Rill only took a moment before he shuffled everyone else off to his assistants.

“So, I suspect that a personal visit means bad news.

Are the rumours true, and the King commandeered the Airship Works for production in the national interest?”

Dominic shook his head. “Not quite that bad. We’ve been training a second team to fully staff the second building, and one will be dedicated to deliveries for the Cygnian Nobility and Army, while the other will make airships for private customers.

The one coming off the rack next will be going to Earl Tarleigh, who is hoping to do some international trading.”