A weapon that allows ordinary people to defeat extraordinary witches?
Ever since Wendy left, Agatha had been pondering this sentence. Did they truly understand what being extraordinary meant?
If only she had a balance magic stone at hand, she could clearly understand the magic power and types of these people.
Just when she was about to lose patience, Nightingale appeared at her door. "His Highness invites you to see a new weapon test firing. If you don't want to go—"
"I'll go," she said in a deep voice. "Please lead the way."
Seeing the yawning, sleepy-eyed Prince Roland, Agatha suddenly had the urge to fling ice shards at his face to wake him up. However, such behavior, which could easily cause misunderstandings among the other witches, could only be imagined in her heart.
Leaving the castle, it was the first time she had seen the full view of the town in daylight.
Highlighted by the snow, the first impression that came to mind was order—neat rows of two-story houses, identical in shape and size, with white outlines and red-tiled sloping roofs that were particularly harmonious. The black streets were all straight, dividing the town into blocks of similar size. Looking from near to far, the view was a cycle of buildings, trees, streets, trees, streets, as if they were layered on top of each other.
Even in Taqila, the inner city could not be so neat and orderly!
However, she felt a little vindicated that, apart from the castle, there was no other building in this town worth a second glance. Even the castle itself was far inferior to the Exploration Tower of Taqila in terms of grandeur.
After all, it was just a small town. Agatha snorted in disdain and turned to Nightingale. "How many people live here?"
"Hmm... Initially, there were only two thousand people, but now with the refugees from the north and south, it's close to thirty thousand."
Two thousand people dared to say they could defeat the devils, which was just wishful thinking—wait, thirty... thirty thousand? Agatha's eyes widened. Even at its peak, Taqila only accommodated fifty thousand people. Could this tiny place actually have thirty thousand residents? Was she including the population of the surrounding villages?
Although these square brick houses seemed to accommodate more residents than wooden bungalows, the increase in residents was not a simple accumulation of numbers. Once the population exceeded a certain limit, the demands on the city would increase exponentially. First, the demand for food and water would increase significantly, followed by the deterioration of public security due to the expansion of shantytowns and slums. Finally, even the disposal of feces would become a tricky problem.
In the later stages of the Second Battle of Divine Will, Taqila had encountered such a problem—as major cities fell one after another, the number of people pouring into the holy city surged. The overwhelming population not only failed to strengthen the defense force, but almost paralyzed the entire city, until the Union forcibly cleared a batch of refugees to stabilize the situation.
Because she had experienced it firsthand, Agatha knew the difficulty of expanding the city's population. Seeing the other party's nonchalant look, she was skeptical. Perhaps Nightingale simply didn't know the answer and was just deceiving her.
It would be better to consult Wendy about these kinds of questions in the future, she thought. At least the latter seemed more sincere.
Passing through the bustling streets, Agatha followed the prince and others up a section of earthen wall. This low wall was in no way related to being majestic or solid. The wall was not embedded with barbs, and there was no moat around it. Devils didn't even need engineering equipment; they could climb up with their hands and feet.
The disappointment in her heart deepened.
At intervals of about a hundred steps, the wall had a protruding, wider platform, seemingly left for setting up ballistae. After walking along the top of the wall for a while, Agatha soon saw the object of this test.
The weapon's shape was so special that it was hard to ignore its existence.
It was a metal long tube-like object, a bit like an iron spear magnified several times, but it didn't have a spearhead. It was smooth and looked grayish-silver, not like iron. The parts at the rear of the long tube were more complex. In addition to the fixed bracket, there were two shorter tubes attached to the top and bottom of the main tube. There were no ropes or arrow slots. From the outside, it didn't look
like a large ballista or catapult.
But she couldn't figure out how this thing could attack the enemy.
"This is Border Town's latest research and development weapon, the 152mm Fortress Standard Cannon, symbolizing justice and glory!" the prince said, raising his hand. "Compared to the twelve-pound field gun, it has many improvements, and its various indicators are outstanding. It can definitely be called a groundbreaking weapon!"
Agatha couldn't help but frown. What justice and glory, fortress standard? It sounded frivolous. The series of introductions that followed were awkward and completely fabricated. Was he really the knowledgeable prince in Wendy's words, trusted by the witches?
"Clap, clap, clap," Nightingale was the only one clapping on the scene, and the atmosphere became somewhat awkward.
"Ahem," Roland cleared his throat. "Then without further ado, let's start the test firing. Iron Axe, begin."
"Yes, Your Highness." Three people in uniform immediately took action.
Agatha stood aside, staring at every movement of these people, hoping to figure out the operating principle of this weapon.
She saw one person slide down the iron block at the rear of the long tube, and another immediately inserted an orange-yellow pointed object into the tube, then closed the iron block.
"Report, preparation is complete, ready to fire!"
"Everyone cover your ears," the prince demonstrated and nodded. "Fire."
Wait... it's ready so quickly? Just as Agatha was about to ask, a loud bang suddenly exploded in her ears! Her head buzzed, and everything around her suddenly became quiet. A ball of orange-red flame erupted from the front of the metal long tube, dazzling and brief. At that moment, she felt the powerful force contained in the flame. The wall under her feet seemed to tremble, and a wave of heat hit her face, causing her to stagger back two steps. The cannon itself also sank back violently—but it quickly returned to its original position.
"————" Nightingale supported her from behind, seemingly saying something, but she could only vaguely hear intermittent, faint words, as if they were coming from a great distance... until the buzzing gradually subsided and her hearing returned to normal. "Are you okay?"
She shook her head and turned her gaze to the empty snow ahead, but saw no change.
Could this flame just be to scare the enemy?
"Did you observe the landing point?" the prince asked a witch with green hair next to him.
"It hit behind a small hill, closest to the red flag," the latter observed for a while, "but still quite a distance away."
Red flag? Agatha looked at Roland in confusion. What were they talking about?
Fortunately, His Highness the Prince quickly answered her doubts. "This weapon can project shells—think of them as crossbow bolts—to strike enemies that are still far away. To observe the range of the shelling, I had Lightning place a colored flag every thousand meters. The red flag is the last one, standing five thousand meters away," he explained. "Converted to the units you are familiar with, one thousand meters is about three hundred zhang, close to two li."
Agatha was stunned. Did he mean that it had just sent the crossbow bolt it inserted ten li away? How did it do that without ropes or energy storage mechanisms? You know, even siege beasts powered by magic only have a maximum projection distance of three to four li. If he wasn't lying, as long as a tall, solid wall was built, coupled with this weapon, it could effectively block the devils' advance.
But... a weapon with such an astonishing range must be very difficult to fire even once.
"Not being able to see where the shells land feels like something's missing," the prince said, stroking his chin. "Next, let's test the three-round rapid fire flat shot to attack close-range targets."