Chapter 193: Explosion in the Night Forest
I sat at the workbench, completely immersed in assembling the new weapon. A clear breakdown of the new schematic was spinning in my head, completely overhauling my previous approach to resources.
Previously, I used Chaos ore as gunpowder for the explosion. Now, the concept had changed. Chaos was becoming a full-fledged battery, a constant source of energy inside the weapon. To prevent this power from blowing the metal to pieces, an Omega containment chamber was required. Omega created an ultra-strong energy contour that held back the unstable radiation and protected the structure. The third critical node was Celestial. Thanks to its supreme magical conductivity, Celestial acted as a focusing lens, gathering the chaotic energy into a single, directed beam.
To put it simply, instead of bullets, it was now pure energy physics. When the trigger was pulled, the mechanism opened a brief channel, and a fraction of the Chaos energy burst out. Celestial instantly compressed it into a dense energy bolt, Omega contained the pressure inside the barrel, and a blast of pure energy shot forward. Immediately after the shot, the chamber hermetically sealed again, trapping the Chaos inside until the next squeeze.
Right in the middle of fitting the parts, Elyria flew into the workshop. She hovered directly over the workbench, peering over my hands.
"Did you finish the garden yet?" she asked right off the bat.
"No," I replied, not looking up from my tools. "Work in progress."
"And when will it be ready?" Elyria twirled in the air discontentedly.
"When Lumon finishes the calculations, then it'll be ready."
"Lumon this, Lumon that!" she snorted capriciously, crossing her little arms over her chest. "Can't you do it yourself or something?"
"For now—yeah, I can't," I admitted calmly.
"Fine..." the spirit drawled, realizing arguing was useless. "But when you actually make it, call me!"
"Yeah, I will," Iron nodded.
Elyria obediently flew outside, and I once again switched all my attention to the weapon frame clamped in the vise.
Working without Lumon was pure madness. Usually, he'd highlight the danger zones for me, monitor micro-cracks in the metal, and issue clear warnings if I approached the critical threshold of stability. There was a very high probability that the unstable energy would just blow up right inside the weapon during the assembly phase. But honestly... screw it.
Having finished the blueprints, I fired up the smelting furnace and tossed the ore in. A few minutes later, when the metal melted down, I carefully took out the crucible and poured the glowing mass into special molds I had pre-made for the body and chamber. Now all that was left was to wait.
Not wanting to sit in the stuffy room, I grabbed my "stilts" and headed outside. Darwin met me right at the door.
"Oh, was just about to call you for lunch," he grunted.
"Yeah," I nodded. "Let's go."
A few hours later, I returned to the workshop. All the molds were fully cast and cooled down. I just had to assemble them into the overall structure. I extracted the blanks, clamped them in the vise, filed down the grooves here, drilled mounting holes there. Fitting the elements together, I installed the Chaos battery and the Celestial focusing lens inside the frame.
The gun lay before me on the workbench, but honestly, I was just too damn scared to pull the trigger myself.
Deep evening had already fallen outside. Hobbling on my supports, I stepped out of the workshop and immediately spotted Noah. He was practicing nearby as usual, working on his fencing moves.
"Noah!" I called out to him.
He stopped, lowered his sword, and turned to me:
"What do you want?"
"I need to test this thing I just built. But I can't do it myself. Give me a hand?"
Noah stared at me in silence for a long time, clearly weighing just how much of a shitshow this situation was going to be.
"Is it safe?" he asked finally.
"Yeah... well, probably," I answered.
Noah sighed heavily and shook his head:
"Fine, let's have it."
"Go into the workshop, the gun is on the workbench."
He went inside, brought out the pistol, and raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Let's move closer to the forest," I commanded, shifting my crutches.
"Let's go."
We moved further away from the residential houses and headed deeper into the night thicket. Noah gripped the handle more comfortably, getting used to the weapon's balance.
"How does this thing work?"
"Just pull the trigger, that's it," I replied, adding almost immediately: "Aim at that tree over there and shoot."
Noah didn't overthink it. He raised his arm, caught the thick trunk of a tree ahead in the sights, and pulled the trigger.
The shot was instantaneous. A bright red clot of energy burst from the muzzle with a muffled pop. It punched clean through the first tree at full speed and, without losing momentum, clipped the second one behind it. Only small holes with charred edges remained in both trunks.
Noah lowered the gun and turned to me in bewilderment:
"And?"
And almost immediately after his words, the residual Chaos energy inside the wood abruptly detonated. A massive energy explosion rang out. Both trees shattered into splinters with a deafening crash, kicking up a cloud of woodchips and dust.
"See?" I said calmly, looking at the result.
Noah shifted his gaze from the smoking stumps to the barrel in his hand and nodded:
"Nice piece of work."
The joy of the successful test was short-lived. The dry grass around the obliterated trees ignited instantly. The fire scurried through the bushes, leaping to nearby branches, and the forest around us rapidly began to blaze.
"Uhm... so what do we do?"
Noah looked at the flames, then at the pistol in his hand, and said curtly:
"I don't know. But..."
Before I could even squeak, he hoisted me over his shoulder, grabbed my crutches, and bolted back. I was shaken up quite a bit and flipped around a couple of times while we tore through the night bushes at lightning speed.
A wild commotion was already kicking up in the village. People were running out of their houses in fear—absolutely everyone had heard the flash and the roar of the explosion.
"What happened?! We saw an explosion!" people yelled in the crowd.
Then one of the men spotted the thick black smoke rising above the canopy and yelled at the top of his lungs:
"Fire!"
Panicking, people started grabbing their things, tossing their belongings around, and darting frantically back and forth, ready to abandon their new home and run for their lives.
Sliding off Noah's shoulder and hurriedly leaning on my crutches, I roared at the top of my lungs:
"Calm down! It's just my new invention, look!"
I waved my arm vigorously, pointing at Noah, who demonstratively hoisted the heavy barrel of the gun into the air.
"Everything is fine!"
Marek squeezed through the crowd of agitated villagers. He looked at the weapon, and then shifted his gaze to the smoke billowing from the thicket:
"But the fire..."
"That's my mistake!" I shouted back, and tilting my head up, I called for her with all my might:
"Elyria!"
She materialized in the air instantly, right above my head.
"I know, I don't need you to tell me!" she squeaked indignantly and flew like a bullet toward the blazing forest.
Hovering directly over the raging epicenter, Elyria sharply thrust her arms out to the sides. A powerful wave of green radiance erupted from her body in all directions, covering the entire area of the fire. The flames hissed and went out in that very second.
"Phew... that was close..."
And in the place of the scorched earth and charred stumps, new, green shoots rapidly began to sprout. In a matter of moments, fresh, thick grass rose up there, and whole trees stretched toward the sky.
Elyria flew back half a minute later. She hovered right in front of my nose, breathing heavily with her little fists planted on her hips.
"I understand a lot of things, Iron," she squeaked menacingly, "but I won't let anyone ruin the forest! Not even you!"
"What do you mean me? Noah was the one with the gun, actually. Look, he's still holding it right now."
Noah slowly turned his head to me. His glare literally screamed: What are you doing, you idiot?
Elyria immediately spun around in the air and glared at him:
"So this is your doing, then?!"
"No," Noah replied without even blinking. "Iron just gave me this thing and told me to test it out. So all the blame lies entirely on him."
With those words, he shoved the pistol grip into my palm, washing his hands of the matter.
"But you were the one who used the thing!" Elyria persisted, flying even closer to him.
"But Iron created it," Noah countered.
"So what?!"
"You're really pissing me off right now," Noah's cheek twitched in annoyance. "I'm telling you clearly: Iron created it."
"What does it matter who created it! Because you pulled the trigger, the whole forest almost burned down!"
"I guess this is that exact moment when a negative and a negative don't make a positive," I thought to myself, starting to sidestep, trying not to clack my crutches, quietly backing away toward my workshop. Halfway there, I bumped into a bewildered Darwin, who was still shifting his gaze from the smoke to the crowd.
"Everything's fine," I whispered to him quietly, hobbling past. "Tell everyone to go back to their houses."