Chương 188: 185. Profiting Or Profiteering

The majordomo added with a shrug, "I don't think you need to worry too much about it. Even though we all have heard the process, I think that maybe excluding you, no one else other than Syryne has any chance of replicating it anyway. The process is so complicated that I barely remember it anymore."

Having lived on modern Earth, Kivamus had a much better idea than the majordomo of how profitable industrial espionage could be for their nearby nobles if they found out about this process, not to mention it took only a little information for someone to start thinking in this way, and eventually they might stumble upon the process just like they had. It was very likely that it would happen anyway eventually, but he had to try to prolong that time as much as he could.

He explained, "Still, don't mention it to anyone else even if you think the person is trustworthy. This procedure can easily be leaked or sold by that person to someone like Zoricus in exchange for some coin, and that greedy bastard certainly won't hesitate to sell it at a price ten times as high as what I would charge, if not even higher.

In our case, I only want a small profit to keep these experiments going and use any leftover money to feed and house the villagers, but as for Zoricus, there is nothing stopping him from charging a sky high price to profiteer from this procedure - since he knows that people will still buy it to save the life of a family member even if they have to sell another child into slavery to be able to afford it." Duvas grimaced.

"Yeah, I get your point now." Kivamus looked at Syryne.

"Tell me the results of the guards consuming the powder directly when you have it." Once she nodded, he looked at others.

"Let's return back to the outer hall now. Darora must be coming soon."

It was evening now, and there was still no sign of Darora so far. Kivamus had returned to work on another of his blueprints, while Gorsazo had gone to teach the villagers in the longhouse block. Duvas was out to give some orders to the servants in the manor, while Feroy had returned back recently after spending most of the day in the market square. Since the light was getting too low to keep drawing, Kivamus took a step back and looked at the improved design of the seed drill.

It looked like it should work better than the first design he had made. But he couldn't help but sigh. Despite getting another trained carpenter, the list of things they needed Darora and Taniok to build still kept growing and he hadn't been able to get the first seed drill built. There was still around a month before the snow started to melt, but he had to get it done before then, so he could make any further improvements if needed.

Although he could still tell the blacksmith to start working on the iron parts first. Yeah, it was a good idea. He would have to do it tomorrow. Soon, the outer door of the manor hall opened, and Hudan walked inside while smiling broadly. Following behind him was the young carpenter with crew cut black hair, who must be around thirty at most. Although Darora didn't look nearly as frail as he did when he had arrived from the quarry, his short frame could still use more food.

The last one to enter was the blacksmith Cedoron, who was easily the only one rivaling the giant build of Hudan. But that wasn't all. Looking closely, he saw that Darora had a big burlap satchel on his shoulders, and was beaming as well. Kivamus grinned. This must be what he had been waiting for! He raised his eyebrows while looking at the newcomers.

"Would it be better if we left the manor hall for the training grounds?" Hudan smirked.

"I think that would be... wise."

"It's ready for testing then?" Kivamus asked, trying not to show how excited he was. Darora gave a confident nod.

"It is, milord!"

"Perfect! Let's go then! We can also find Duvas somewhere outside," Kivamus said while taking his fur coat and started walking towards the outer door.

"I can't wait to see his expression when he realizes what this is!" Feroy got up as well, frowning at the carpenter. Exiting the door, Kivamus saw that it was around sunset, with there still being enough light to see without the help of braziers. He tightened his fur coat around him, glad that it wasn't snowing at the moment. He followed the guard captain towards the training grounds in the southeast of the manor with the snow crunching under his boots, and kept an eye out for the majordomo.

Before long, Kivamus saw him talking to Madam Nerida and a few servants near a barn in the east.

"Duvas, join us!" he hollered towards the majordomo, who gave a quick nod and after another few words with the servants, he slowly walked towards Kivamus.

"What is it?" Duvas asked curiously before they all started walking towards the training grounds again.

"I was in the process of allotting the weekly grain rations for the workers, although it's mostly done by now." This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Then leave it for now," Kivamus commented.

"Madam Nerida can take care of the rest this time. There is something else that I want you to see." Duvas looked curiously at the huge blacksmith and the young carpenter walking in front of them along with Hudan and Feroy, then he suddenly looked back at Kivamus with wide eyes.

"It couldn't be... that, right?" The majordomo added without waiting for a reply, "Is it really what you have been talking about for so long?" Kivamus smirked.

"It is, although I have yet to see the final version for myself." Soon, they reached the training grounds where a guard was engaged in a mock fight with Kerel, with another few guards - including Hyola and a few other female guards - cheering them on. Immediately, he saw as their wooden swords struck each other repeatedly with a few loud thwacks, before both the fighters took a step back to reassess. Hudan clapped his hands loudly.

"Alright, that's enough training for today. Those who are hungry can go for a meal now, but it would be a good idea if you stay back. You might see something interesting." Kerel and the other guard immediately stopped fighting and began looking towards them curiously along with the other guards. Hudan was going to say something else but Feroy interrupted him and looked at Kivamus, "So far nobody else knows about it apart from the few of us. Are you sure about testing it in the open?

Should we not try to keep it confidential like... the medicine?" Kivamus nodded.

"They are the ones who are going to use it in the future, so they'll need to know sooner or later anyway. There is no point in hiding it anymore." At his nod, Hudan turned back towards the guards.

"Move back and make some space here! Yufim, come here and bring the archers with you." Then he arranged the guards so they were standing in a wide semicircle, with the south-eastern corner of the manor wall ahead of them and nobody else in the way. Seeing Kivamus' gesture, Darora put his hand inside the satchel and brought out what would only look like a weird wooden contraption to everyone else.

Then the young carpenter gave it to the guard captain who gazed at it from all sides carefully, with Feroy watching the device with a frown. The rest of the guards looked a little confused, probably wondering why the baron had come to interrupt their training. Duvas still looked doubtfully at the device, but stayed quiet. Before long, Hudan nodded and held it towards Kivamus.

"I think you should be the one to try it first. You are the one who designed it, so the honor of being the first user of the first crossbow should go to you." Kivamus nodded, and took the device over from him, looking at it in the light of the setting sun. This... this was a crossbow, alright. Although it was a little heavier than he had expected. He looked at the blacksmith for the other thing he was expecting, and saw that Cedoron was holding a small object shaped like a huge two-pronged fork made of iron.

That was the other required part for using a crossbow - being aptly called a goat's foot lever. It was a very simple mechanism which you just put on the top of the crossbow and pulled its lever back to load it. Noticing his gaze, Cedoron handed it over to him. As Kivamus put the lever on the top of the crossbow, he thought about how they had finalised this design.

In the past few weeks, the blacksmith and the carpenter had come to him many times to consult with him about the design which would be most practical for them while being cheap and easy to make as well. Before giving the order to the carpenter and the blacksmith to start building it, he had been confused about which design would be the best for them.

So he had started with drawing the design of a windlass on a parchment, and he had even sketched the primitive gearbox of a cranequin, but while the first design - which would be better called an arbalest - would be huge and would require someone with considerable physical strength to wield it, the second design with the cranequin would simply be too complex to make at scale. A cranequin would also require a lot of high-quality iron, and it would require an intricate process to forge it.

As talented as Cedoron seemed to be in acquiring new concepts - it would still need him to work for a long time to produce even a single one. So after some input from Feroy and Hudan, he had thought of a simpler solution, and they had finally settled on the current design.

It was a middle ground between the earlier two designs, and used a straightforward system called a goat's foot lever, which needed a much smaller amount of iron to forge, and it was a very simple design as well, making it easier to produce more of it.

However, while this design was capable of very high draw weights, that would require the prod - which was the bow-like part of the crossbow at the front - to be made of iron, so he had decided to make the crossbow in a smaller size than what it must have been like on medieval Earth. That had allowed them to use a prod made of fedarus wood, thus saving a lot of costly iron.

And with hunters bringing in a lot of hunted animals these days, there was also a good amount of sinew and rawhide available to make the strings of the crossbow, and their new fletcher had been vital in crafting it. Coming back to the present, he hooked the lever on top of the crossbow, and pulled its handle back to nock the string. He still had to use a decent amount of force to pull back the string, making him glad that he had been participating in some running and light training with the guards.

His flabby body of a few months ago when he arrived in this world might simply not have been able to do it. While the lever certainly didn't need someone of Hudan's strength to load it, it was still harder to load than he had expected it to be, and yet it was still doable easily enough. Once he had pulled the string back till the nut, thus spanning - or loading - the crossbow and making it ready to shoot, he asked Darora for the bolt.