A Black Market LitRPG

Three days later…

[Reports of military build-up on the border of Versia have been reported by observers, though representatives of the Yual Dominion assert that this military exercise had been planned nearly a year ago and should not be cause for panic.]

[Mornero has pledged to increase spending on military spending immediately, bolstering the military. “It is exactly in times like this that we must stand united and remain vigilant. Do not forget the sins of the past.”]

[In other news, the military has been conducting raids across the city, with rumours of armed rebels hiding in the sewers, claiming to be followers of the Ghost of Tenar. This movement is terrifying, as more and more citizens are being -]

The news radio blared out over streets, where the mood of the city was noticeably much more subdued. Fears of an imminent war and a general lack of stability were slowly overturning people’s life.

An entire power station had been knocked as well, with more than ten percent of the buildings in the city only receiving intermittent power supplies. This affected the local economy, causing the standard of living to plummet.

Many businesses were unsurprisingly beginning to pull out of the city, though most of them still remained, part of the industrialists who now controlled the country through Mornero. This caused the unemployment rate to increase slightly, making people even more desperate.

Mornero immediately took the opportunity to start a recruitment campaign at low wages for the military, enticing the homeless with promises of food, shelter and a liveable wage. Many fell for it, boosting the military numbers by the thousands each day. With the military fully under Mornero’s control as Acting President and through corruption, Mornero’s influence only grew stronger with each passing day.

However, not all of them joined the military, having been disenchanted by how badly the government has treated the poor over the last few years. This caused an even bigger number of people to seek out the followers of the Ghost of Tenar, some even making their own movement from the ground up in other parts of the city as well.

Kyle did not mind at all that others were forming their own independent group to fight against the government. It served as a good distraction, pulling the military away from dedicating too much to eradicating the Clouds or trying to hunt Dekar down.

Dekar was now making his rounds around the city, trying to contact old friends and allies who would at least listen to him. He had already garnered a few supporters from both outside and inside the city, providing resources and food for the movement.

Kyle was now in the large warehouse area, where the ten workers were now undergoing a production test. Feldon noted down the errors and issues on a clipboard while the continuous sound of digging could be heard as other workers used the vibration pickaxes to chip away at the wall.

Tian had managed to secure a steady supply of steel blocks, though they came in large sizes that were far too unwieldy to be utilised effectively on the workbench. Kyle had already ordered for a metal grinder saw to come in, but until then, it was up to him to prepare the material.

Kyle began to use the cleaver to slice the large steel bar into workable chunks before using one of the workbenches to engrave references for the workers to follow. Arcia etching was fairly easy when one had a sample to follow from, so Kyle got to work engraving thin metal plates with the different engravings that he wanted to make.

This time, instead of handguns, Kyle wanted to make a proper repeater rifle while still staying within the realms of the current technological progress. He had already made a prototype by copying the military smoothbore repeaters back in Raktor, but it was still filled to the brim with inefficiencies as well as unwieldy handling.

First, I’ll have to streamline the form factor as much as possible while making sure it doesn’t blow itself apart. While it was not working on the principle of combustion but rather an impulse followed by acceleration engravings along the length of the barrel, the friction of the projectiles that would engage with the rifle grooves within could potentially break the gun if it was too thin.

While Feldon was training the workers on the assembly of other parts, Kyle was working intensely on the development of this new repeater rifle. Let’s start with the barrel first.

The barrel was interesting, as it required multiple layers of metal, unlike a standard gunpower-based gun. Kyle had to design three separate barrels of increasing sizes, slotting them into one another with a tight tolerance before sealing them together by filling the gaps with adhesive.

Each of the three separate barrels had acceleration engravings, allowing for a far greater speed compared to a single barrel engraving. If Kyle had a more precise femtoscope, he could potentially engrave even more detailed engravings to imbue the projectile with even more effects – though he himself did not know how arcia energy works when flowing through such a small trace.

He then made a custom drill to thread the interior of the barrel, creating grooves along which the projectile would spin and hence stabilise itself during flight. He had already done something similar for his railgun, though he could hardly make the barrel as long. Close quarter combats require shorter barrels – I can always produce a variant later.

There was also the issue of the calibre, where despite the sheer amount of acceleration he was providing, the projectile may simply not be big enough to penetrate certain armour. I’ll figure that out in a test.

Kyle continued working, focusing now on the loading mechanism. He needed the entire system to be automatic so that the entire magazine could be fired with a single pull of the trigger. Old kinetic rifles used a spring-loaded magazine to push the bullets into the barrel. However, my projectiles are far smaller.

The lack of gunpower and requirement for a casing meant that the overall size of the ‘bullet’ was much smaller. As such, he instead decided to design a canister that was on top of the barrel, using gravity to let the pellets within fall into the barrel automatically. This way, the user just has to pull once to let out the entire stream. This could potentially be re-engineered into a machine gun if you continuously fed it arcia energy and a steady flow of metal pellets to serve as projectiles.

However, he soon realised that the canister would block the user from utilising the iron sights. As such, he instead decided to have two canisters diagonally facing upwards like a V shape, balancing the gun along the middle axis to prevent the user from being jerked to either side.

Using a default wooden stock and trigger that was delivered from Raktor, he quickly made a prototype of his triple-layered barrel design along with a top-loaded canister, assembling them together over two hours before finally being able to test it.

Test #1 – weight. Kyle lifted the rifle, feeling extremely light. I’m not the one going to be using the rifle, however. He grabbed one of Feldon’s men, using him to gauge the weight.

The men could barely support it, aiming forward without using both hands and straining his face. “This is too heavy!”

Kyle went back to the drawing board, shaving off sections to reduce the overall weight. He also found certain parts of the canister that made it completely unwieldy, reducing the dimensions and making the entire rifle more streamlined. He carved out the interior of the wooden stock, dropping the weight even further.

The second prototype, made after another two hours, was much better received in terms of weight and usability, prompting Kyle to move on to the next stage of the test. Fire test – I’ll need a target. He glanced around the workshop area, noticing an empty wall that had been partially carved out, the workers taking a rest and watching Kyle at work.

He got Feldon to perform the fire test, marking the wall with a bullseye-like target. With more than enough pellets having been shipped in from Raktor, Kyle could perform a series of range tests.

As Feldon pulled the trigger, the sudden strong recoil nearly knocked the entire rifle out of his hand, the pellet flying wide and nearly ricocheting off the walls, prompting the workers to scamper to a safe distance.

Right then. Prototype three. Kyle got to work again, reducing the strength of the engraving by intentionally degrading it and adding imperfections. This should reduce the total energy imparted and, subsequently, the recoil. I’ll save the powerful versions for the elite troops.

Prototype three was a success, with Kyle even manually dumping even more pellets in as Feldon held the trigger down. However, it was not an issue of whether or not there were enough pellets, but rather if the person had enough arcia energy inside. After thirty seconds of firing, Feldon was already knocked out cold, suffering from arcia exhaustion.

Kyle considered ordering some arcite fuel packs through Tian but began to think about it clearly. The tubes of the fuel pack would present themselves as a weak point to be targeted – a single bullet hit would damage the entire supply. If I can form a sort of arcite battery that can be embedded into the rifle…

This would be a project that may not be completed in time, but he decided on another method to train them to have better arcia energy.

“Feldon, how much depleted arcite ore do we have right now?”

“Uhm, about half a ton. The waterwheel was just set up.”

“I need you to set up an entire mechanical gym.”

“…A gym?”

“Make mechanical treadmills or cranks, have those who are unable to learn arcia etching do that labour. Once you have the arcite ore replenished and recharged, I need you to dedicate an entire chamber and stack it all around.”

Feldon got to work immediately after Kyle explained the purpose of the arcite ore. The method of training arcia energy in a dense arcia environment was the main reason why the Yual Dominion was so powerful – its mages have been training in even denser environments for decades. Kyle had no doubt that such mages would be present in the attacking force under Count Leon.

Not that it really mattered to him. Mage or not, a barrage of mortar strikes should be enough explosive energy to weaken any defensive barrier.

The rifle’s development was finally completed two days later, with Kyle refining the manufacturing procedure and ironing out a few mechanical errors and tolerance issues. He had added a mechanism where one could swap the barrel out immediately, if necessary, as his rapid-fire test proved that the barrel’s grooves would erode quickly with a high rate of fire.

Not that fast, but certainly faster than most repeaters out there now. He was slightly surprised at the mana cost, assuming that it would have been much higher.

Kyle had got many of the new workers to test out the rifle, noticing that they could only hold it for twenty seconds before suffering from arcia exhaustion. The sight of many of them rolling on the ground caused him to doubt the viability of his plan.

Do they only have 1 MP?! What?!