Chapter 218 Interests and the Overly Talented Otherworlder
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
”Phew～～～ yesterday was rough. Sashima went completely berserk. Honestly, she didn’t have to get that angry…”
As he thought back on the chaos, Ayumu gave a weary sigh.
Nanari’s parents, meanwhile, were in uproar. The girl had slipped away from Ayumu’s grasp and attached herself instead to the young knight Yuvus. Their grief was loud and bitter. Ayumu had tried to calm them, saying, “Your beloved daughter is happy with the one she loves. That should be enough… Be happy for Nanari.”
But clearly, the parents had other ambitions. It wasn’t enough to be local leaders of the town. They’d secretly aimed for even higher — to become the mayor and mayoress of Keldan. Troublesome people indeed.
Still, the communities under his rule had already been granted concrete rights. For the People of Birene, these included:
Employment in municipal factories and access to munitions production contracts.
Fixed hiring quotas in the Keldan Mint and city hall.
Priority logistics rights in the city as well as exclusive slaughterhouse privileges over hides and meat.
Legal guarantees of land ownership equal to the natives.
Access to finance, store ownership, and retail rights.
The right to sell their agricultural harvests.
Responsibility for running the new postal service within Keldan’s town center.
But Birene were not the only ones favored.
The Yugan people were guaranteed:
Fishing rights and ancestral sheep-grazing lands.
Paid work at logistics centers, stevedoring, and construction.
Participation in mining and resource extraction.
Weapon-making and blacksmith shops on Craftsman Street.
A monopoly on sugar manufacture and sale — though only for what Keldan itself consumed.
The Elandric community received:
Fishing and grazing rights.
Space within the commercial district and protection of retail activity.
Banking and finance privileges.
Weapon production and sales on Craftsman Street.
Reserved posts in civic order forces and government offices.
Exclusive logging rights in the mountain forests.
And a monopoly over salt production, again limited to Keldan’s own use.
Even the small Nelrearia people were given luxury goods monopolies, furniture branding rights, exclusive sales in commercial districts, the tithe collection within Aria Religion parishes (T/N: Aria Religion = major faith in this setting), and finance participation.
The Half-Elves received bow-making rights, monopolies over medicine and potion craft, hunting rights in assigned lands, and sole sale of meat, hides, bones, and feathers gained therein.
As for the rabbit beastkin living in the suburbs — their settlement was tolerated, and they gained free entry to the city without checks, guaranteed wages, and tax exemption.
By distributing privileges across groups, Ayumu ensured no single ethnicity could dominate. It allowed local leaders some power to manage their own people, while preventing a repeat of the old Birene strikes. Of course, risks remained — alliances of nobles, ethnic conflicts, crime — but compared to before, stability had improved.
And even if nobles tried to conspire, language barriers and mutual hatred among races made unified rebellion impossible. Plus, Oregano and Velma stood ready with rapid-response units.
Watching the once-dominant Ninim grind his teeth, snarling “Gugigiiii!!!”, was an added delight. “Tough luck, Ninim,” Ayumu muttered with a grin.
* * *
But rights were only part of the picture. Military strength was vital.
To that end, Ayumu had ahem “secured funding” for Nelrearia priests, importing Pegasus mounts to form a Pegasus Knight unit.
In Nelrearia’s Saint Kingdom, the Pegasus Knights were an elite arm, central to the Saint Assault Corps defending the capital’s water city, Orléans. Their most famous sub-division was the Saint Choir, a cadre of “Guardian Maidens” (T/N: sacred female knights with ritual markings) chosen from the very best.
Keldan’s Pegasus force was, of course, tiny by comparison. And the imported steeds were geldings — far easier to control, and above all, impossible to breed. The Saint Kingdom wasn’t foolish enough to export breeding stock.
Still, Ayumu had placed the new corps under Alize, a former temple knight. Her eyes lit with burning passion.
”Amazing! My spirit is at maximum Burning!! How did you even get these, my lord?!”
When appointed commander of the Pegasus squad, she nearly jumped for joy. At least she was reliable.
* * *
Other talents had also risen — especially women overlooked in other lands. Ayumu insisted it wasn’t their faces that won them posts (T/N: narrator sarcasm heavily implied).
Among them were Elsie, a short-haired pink-haired prodigy, and Lyla, equally bright and lively. Backed by Whitney and scout-leader Evri, they’d recently destroyed a bandit stronghold through superb leadership and personal combat ability.
Sent straight into officer school, both girls shone immediately. They absorbed tactics, logistics, paperwork — every skill an officer needed — like dry sponges soaking water. Despite being younger than Ayumu, they already showed the grit of battlefield leaders.
When Ayumu summoned them privately and asked, “Do you have the courage to face death and still carry out your mission?” they answered without hesitation.
”Yes, Your Excellency! As officers of the Domain Army, we are prepared to prioritize duty above all, to engage and annihilate the enemy!”
Their fiery resolve reassured him.
Because the imperial capital lay so close, Ayumu couldn’t risk building an army too large, lest he invite suspicion of rebellion. Instead, he planned to give Elsie and Lyla command of a smaller but highly trained elite unit.
Beyond them, other promising recruits had joined. From the eastern maritime kingdom of Rostic — the same homeland as Empress Sarendra — came Margaret, once a hunter skilled with the bow, and Madeleine, a seasoned magic soldier.
There was also Snow, a half–Snow Elf from the northern mountains, her white hair, blue eyes, and teardrop beauty mark striking against her pale skin. Alongside her stood Emilia, a silver-haired girl with violet eyes, graceful yet deadly with both blade and spell.
Marubeni had completed his knight’s course, while Leslie trained combat medics to treat the wounded outside the battlefield. Madeleine doubled as an army doctor, and Sakumika oversaw the nurses who managed field care.
To feed the infantry properly, Ayumu even founded a ration unit. Alicia and Sheila, hair tucked beneath hoods to keep it from food, baked fresh bread and stew for the troops. (Men were included too, though Ayumu hardly paid them any attention.)
* * *
Logistics, as such, didn’t exist in this world — but Ayumu introduced new weapons carefully to avoid supply chaos.
First came the compound bow. By securing ultra-strong polyethylene fibers for strings and cables, he made their introduction possible.
The compound bow relied on paired eccentric pulleys — a large disk and a half-sized one. At the start, the string looped near the smaller disk, requiring great strength to draw. But as the archer pulled farther, the larger disk extended the leverage. In simple terms: the bow turned rope into a lever. The farther the string stretched from the axis, the easier it became to hold.
This let even weaker archers draw fully and keep the bowstring at nearly ninety percent peak force, yet hold aim with little effort. With pistol-grip triggers to release the string, accuracy improved dramatically.
A compound crossbow was also procured. Using a lever-action and pulley system, it allowed quick chambering from a magazine clip. Fire arrows and explosive bolts were incompatible, but its reload speed more than made up for it.
Both designs were paired with tritium sights — glowing at night and even showing distance curves for falling arrows. Accuracy rose again… but problems appeared.
Unlike traditional bows, these weapons demanded specialized maintenance. Strings had to be removed, pulleys synchronized, parts adjusted — none of which could be done without proper equipment. Repairs required either a homeland factory, a special workshop wagon, or a field repair depot.
Worse still, tests in harsh battlefield conditions showed the strings lasted only about five thousand shots. Enough for combat, yes, but disappointing.
* * *
Next was the air-compressed ballista, a repeating design that outperformed the electric-motor version in mobility and simplicity. The heavier motorized type, though stronger, was confined to fortress defense, fixed atop strongholds or supply bases.
Standardization was enforced: arrow length and thickness were unified, easing resupply.
For infantry, Ayumu adopted something simple but deadly — pipe bombs. Using recycled knife blades, nails, and rivets as shrapnel, these crude grenades were cheap to make.
All of this became possible once the formula for black powder was finalized.
* * *
This world already had “magic explosives,” made by grinding flame-infused mana stones, and crude gunpowder weapons like hand cannons and matchlocks. But they were expensive, finicky, and dangerous — prone to overheating and misfiring. Bows and enchanted arrows remained dominant for good reason.
Black powder was weaker than modern smokeless powder and produced clouds of smoke, yet it was cheap and easy to mass-produce.
Ayumu reflected: “A true masterpiece of a weapon isn’t just power. It must be easy to build, repair, and field in numbers. Only then is it worthy of the name.”
Raw materials weren’t a problem. Nitric acid could be produced endlessly using the Ostwald Process with ammonia from the Haber–Bosch Method. Sulfur came mixed with petroleum. Charcoal was plentiful, though the wood type mattered. Softer woods like willow, hazel, and alder made porous charcoal that held saltpeter and sulfur better.
The real challenge lay in ratios. Saltpeter (potassium or sodium nitrate) below fifty percent only burned — it wouldn’t explode. To achieve proper effect, the mixture had to be:
15–25% sulfur
10–20% charcoal
60–70% saltpeter
Simple in words, dangerous in practice. Even with ventilation and anti-static precautions, the risk of fingers lost or accidental death was constant.
It was no wonder the recipes had been guarded as military secrets in his old world. After all, powder composition could reveal its nation of origin.
But that was a problem for spies. Ayumu only cared that he now had a working formula.
* * *
Instead of raw serpentine powder, he adopted corned powder — grains kneaded from black powder paste with a little water and alcohol.
By controlling grain size, he could balance burn rate and power. Larger grains burned slower but hit harder; too large, and both speed and force dropped.
For pipe bombs, though, it was just right.
Ayumu had kept the pipe bombs deliberately weak — enough to kill or disable a target within three or four meters, but not so strong that the user would be caught in the blast.
Yet even so, the iron fragments he’d mixed in sometimes flew six or seven meters. Startled by the reach, he quickly ordered the amount of knife blades, nails, and tacks reduced.
”Making proper weapons really is harder than it looks…” he muttered, shaking his head. But that thought lasted only a moment before another breakthrough drew his attention.
* * *
Brass cartridge cases, black powder packed with foil, and a minute pinch of sensitive lead azide and tricin set in a Boxer-type primer. Ayumu ducked behind rolled steel plating, triggered the firing remotely—
A deafening crack rang out. The barrel flared like a blooming flower.
”…ah, damn it.” His face twisted with annoyance. “I thinned the barrel walls too much to save weight, didn’t I? Still… at least this time it was just the barrel. Last time the whole frame blew up. Progress is progress—let’s stay positive.”
”Finally! It’s finished, at last—♪”
Sheris burst into the lab, eyes shining, and held up a glowing orb. The soul orb.
* * *
He remembered. Once, he had given her only a small suggestion — that the fallen House Cloriana, her ruined noble family, might improve their traditional soul orb by incorporating mana circuits, amplifiers, even something like a “mana condenser” inspired by capacitors in his old world.
And now, unbelievably, she had made it real.
”This engraving here acts as a mana circuit,” Sheris explained eagerly, “and this line amplifies… here, this section temporarily stores mana like your ‘condenser.’ That’s how it works.”
Ayumu listened closely, fascinated.
The genius of it became clear: with this orb, even without costly magic stones, any compatible magical device could be powered.
A revolution.
”You’re telling me that if we standardize devices to fit these, anyone, anywhere, anytime, could use magic tools on demand?”
The realization struck him like lightning. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?! This changes everything!!”
* * *
Together, he and Sheris worked feverishly. Soon they had prototypes: enchanted swords and rods set with orbs.
Where once magic rods had been single-use, now they could be recharged simply by swapping the orb. Different colored orbs enabled different types of spells. The power wasn’t overwhelming, but it let even the mana-less wield useful magic.
Weapons, too, became both practical and striking in design. Blades glowed with subtle enchantments, impressive to look at and reliable in battle.
”This is all Sheris,” Ayumu admitted to himself. “Her ancestors’ legacy, her genius. The credit must belong to her.”
Without hesitation, he reported to the upper court and directly to the emperor: Sheris of the fallen House Cloriana has invented a revolutionary weapon.
* * *
The reward was swift. Sheris was restored to nobility, granted the title of Viscount and an official post as a technical officer.
And her attitude shifted overnight.
”Your coat is wrinkled, my lord. Please, allow me to take it off you♡ I’ll prepare a fresh one. Leave this to me♡”
Ayumu blinked, taken aback at her sudden transformation into the very picture of a devoted wife. At first it unsettled him—but in the end, he decided it wasn’t a bad thing.
Her dedication paid off. Thanks to her efforts, the Keldan armory now had a production line, with half-elves of strong mana aptitude mass-producing orbs and magical devices. Deployment to every combat unit of the Domain Army was already planned.
More innovations followed: dart guns and pump-action slings designed to deliver sleep and paralysis agents. Modified construction vehicles repurposed as combat engineer machines.
The only real problem… was Hiyori storming into his workplace to glare at Sheris.
”Don’t seduce him, Ms. Sheris… I can’t ever win against someone so beautiful…”
Sheris only smiled. “A wife shares everything with her husband… fufufu♡”
* * *
Then came the next shock.
”Honorary Count! At last—we’ve done it!!” cried the engineers, thrusting a weapon into his hands.
Ayumu froze. It was a break-open revolver — the very design he himself had struggled to complete.
”Unbelievable. I only managed a single-shot gate loader because of the strength problem. But you… you lot are too damn talented, even for otherworlders…”
He studied the cylinder. No fluting had been carved into it yet, but the cartridges were not overly powerful.
”…in that case, if we flute the cylinder, we can lighten it even more.”
Notes:
• Sashima – Family name of Hiyori. A quiet, caring girl from the library committee, empathetic toward Sanai. She followed as a Barrier Technique Adept.
• Yuvus – Human from Domain Army, handsome and disciplined; first in Ch.163; skilled knight swordsman; no family mentioned; rose quickly and was made Ayumu’s young knight; clashes with Half-Elves, especially Myucel, but loyal to Ayumu; cold pride hides strict loyalty.
• Velma – Human, tall and rugged with cropped ash-brown hair | Captain of Keldan city guard | First in Ch.162 | Elite swordmaster and squad tactician | Family unknown | Loyal to Ayumu, trusted to maintain order | Meant to stop brawls but arrived drunk, slurring threats at Myucel | Unique note: famed for discipline yet caused chaos by missing her cue completely
• Alize – Nelrearian knight from Keldan, dark bronze skin with wavy chestnut hair | First in Ch.163 | Agile swordfighter and quick thinker | Family unknown | Rival toward Whitney despite working alongside her | Fiercely fought her over cream puffs at the welcome party | Unique note: normally composed but loses all restraint when sweets are involved
• Whitney – Elandric knight from Keldan, sharp-featured with silver hair and pale eyes | First in Ch.163 | Skilled duelist and loyal swordswoman | Family unknown | Close friend of Sera and often seen at her side | Competed fiercely over cream puffs with Alize during the welcome party | Unique note: calm and poised yet instantly turns competitive over desserts
• Evri – Recon squad junior from Keldan, sharp and fiery; first in Ch.163; skilled scout and quick with blade; family unknown; serves under Yoluminette, often competes with her; bold yet respectful; unique note: turned a welcome party into chaos by dueling Yoluminette over a cream puff.
• Empress Sarendra – Aare’s mother who expresses quiet resentment towards Aare’s existence.
Please bookmark this series and rate ☆☆☆☆☆ on here!
Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
Leave a Reply