Chương 402: 397. Testing - III

"Will planks really work as a good target, though?" the majordomo asked.

"Wood seems much harder than any animal's body, isn't it?"

"It depends on the thickness. Any planks cut from fedarus wood will have basically the same density. So we're going to stack a few planks behind each other, and then fire the bolts on them. It'll take a few tries to find the exact thickness which will simulate a human body the best, or even an adzee body—although that will need to be far thicker. Either way, I think I can make a good estimate, and we can start from there.

Once we've used it against real animals in the future, we can modify the target's thickness accordingly to match it better."

"It would waste a lot of planks, though," Hudan commented.

"We'll need to do this testing many times for this one, and for every new scorpion which is made. Wouldn't it be better to just use a log, instead of a stack of planks? It just seems like a waste…"

"Nah." Kivamus shook his head.

"Trust me, a plank is much better than a log to simulate human bodies. And anyway, that problem of a shortage of planks is in the past now. With the sawmills now ready and working—" he pointed at a nearby stockpile of crisscrossed logs, "— and with thousands of fedarus logs kept stacked up all around the village, a shortage of planks will never be a problem for us in the future. We can use as many planks as we need for this."

"Then should we use them for target practice for the crossbow women too?" Hudan asked.

"A straw target is far too fragile for it. We do have a circular board which they use for that purpose, but if we can use full-sized planks, we can cut them in the shape of a human to let the crossbow users practice to shoot far more accurately."

"Sure. It can't hurt." Kivamus looked at Darora.

"Can you send one of the newer apprentices to the manor with a few planks for this? He'll be done in a few hours with a saw." Darora shrugged.

"Fine by me. Two of the apprentices are very new and they can barely do anything properly right now. This will help them learn something new, and cutting the shape of a human from a plank is simple enough that even those idiots can do it." Kivamus laughed.

"Cedoron was also complaining that the new apprentices he had put to make caltrops—those four-pointed old nails, which are as simple as it can be—haven't even been able to make those properly. That's a common problem with craftsmen who are still new. Still, I'm sure your apprentices will do better after learning from experts like you and Layita."

"Eh…" Darora snorted.

"I wouldn't be too sure of it. Carpentry is a very intricate task, and not everyone is suited for it. I often have to let go of a new apprentice when I find that they can't do things like I want." Duvas nodded.

"I've had to send such apprentices to other tasks in the past, although Taniok usually takes them on for himself. Darora needs a far more steady hand for his intricate work, while Taniok's building construction doesn't need such accuracy, so he absorbs those apprentices into his teams."

"He sure does!" Darora chuckled.

"The old man is getting lazy, I tell ya. He's even stopped training apprentices by himself, saying he doesn't have the time for it. I say he just wants to steal my leftovers." Kivamus laughed.

"Don't worry, it's all for the good of the village anyway. You can even consider this as Taniok accepting your superb carpentry skills, since even those apprentices who are not talented enough for you are still good enough for his tasks."

"Nah." Darora shook his head with a smirk.

"He's just getting old and lazy…"

Soon, they saw the guards pulling a cart towards them, with the apprentices walking behind them. It had enough planks stacked on it that both the guards holding a handhold of the cart were straining with sweat. Once they reached closer, Darora frowned.

"One of you should have gone to the manor to bring a horse for this." Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"It would've taken too long," the guard replied.

"I didn't want to let Lord Kivamus wait here for too long." The captain snorted.

"Don't worry about it, Milord. It's a good workout for them." Kivamus chuckled. Hudan had started finding newer and newer ways to train the guards even in their off time, whether it was by making them beat sawdust pulp, or letting them pull a cart by hand instead of letting a horse do it. Then he started explaining how to make the target, starting with three planks.

The guards held the planks in place, while the apprentices bound them with a rope, before they looked for some branches to fix in the ground, to tie them to the target to support the stack of planks. Before long, they had a target ready. It was rectangular—not in the shape of a human—and was just a little less than a handspan in width. From his estimate of the density of fedarus wood, the resistance provided by three planks should be the proper depth to simulate a human body.

Although they would need to at least double it if they needed to see how well a scorpion bolt would do against an adzee, if not even more. Soon, the carpenter hammered a few small but sharp branches in the ground nearby, and tied ropes connecting them to the plank target. Once the target was standing by itself, Kivamus looked at it and nodded.

"This will do just fine." Hudan glanced at the target and frowned, while the carpenter double-checked to make sure the ropes were tied properly.

"Come on then," Kivamus called out.

"Let's try again." They walked back to the scorpion, and soon Hudan had loaded it again.

"Should I use one of the iron-tipped ones this time?" Kivamus nodded.

"Yeah, let's do that. The planks are quite hard, so an iron tip will be needed for the bolts to be effective. We'll be using only them in real combat anyway. The tapered wood bolts will only be used for practice." Darora handed over one of the iron-tipped bolts to the captain, who already knew what to do this time. Once he had reloaded and put the bolt in its slot, he gestured to the others to move back. After a nod from Kivamus, he brought the new target into his sights and pulled the trigger.

The bolt went forward with another loud twang, but everyone was prepared this time and nobody stumbled from the sudden sound. Within a moment, there was another louder sound as the bolt hit the target—which was nearly 100 m away.

"Let's check out the results." They started jogging to the target again, and soon reached the stack of planks. Kivamus reached it after the guards, who were looking at the target in wonder.

"Holy…" someone exclaimed.

"It went all the way through," a guard muttered. Kivamus saw that the target had a big hole in it—the same size as the diameter of the scorpion bolt—while the bolt had passed through completely. The target was still standing properly though—the bolt had enough momentum in it to entirely pass through it before the target could fall down—just like a bullet would often pass through a hunted animal completely without stopping.

The guards on duty at the nearby watchtower were also watching in curiosity, while Duvas looked like he couldn't believe what had happened, and kept glancing at the scorpion and back.

"Goddess save our enemies," an apprentice mumbled.

"She better not!" Hudan snorted.

"Or all this would be pointless." Kivamus nodded, but he was still looking around for the scorpion bolt, and it was nowhere to be found. That was when one of the guards pointed at the log wall ahead of them.

"Hey! What's that stuck to the wall?"

"Wait, is that the bolt?"

"It is!" Darora exclaimed, as everyone followed him to the wall. The bolt was indeed stuck into the wall. Its iron tip had entered a palisade log completely, and it was securely held in place like a horizontal flagpost. Darora gave it a few tugs to pull it out but he gave up and looked at the captain.

"It'll need way more muscles than I have. Come on, big man!" Hudan snorted as he held the bolt and strained to pull it out with his full strength. He still had to wiggle it to remove the bolt, when suddenly he took a step back to balance himself with the bolt finally coming out of the wall. However, its iron tip had remained stuck inside, and only the wooden part was being held by the captain. Kivamus took the bolt in his hands.

Unlike the first test, where the bolt had broken in many places because of the frontal impact to the wooden branches, this time the iron tip had allowed it to pierce through three layers of planks, and it still had enough force left in it to get stuck in the log wall beyond it.

"So much power!" Duvas' eyes were wide.

"This is…" Darora looked at the hole in the log wall, "far beyond what I expected. The torsion springs were so difficult to install, and I knew that they would hold a hell of a lot of power in them, but this…"

"No." Kivamus shook his head.

"The scorpion has not outperformed my expectations, but it has certainly met them."