My Players Are So Fierce

Fortunately, Tris’s alchemy cottage has enough materials, and Molotov cocktails are indeed not difficult to make.

Brother Loyalty quickly got busy.

He’s a clever guy, planning to “outsource” this job to the NPC apprentices in the alchemy cottage, and just give them some compensation.

Obviously, Brother Loyalty has bigger ambitions.

He’s not satisfied with just making Molotov cocktails in the game, as can be seen from his application to Lady Tris to use those tools.

This guy is clearly planning to do something big.

The tools he needs refer to the processing items that Lord Payne entrusted Lady Lainnia to send to Crimson Citadel. It’s a small production line that can self-produce bullets and repair firearms, but no one in the camp knows how to use it, so it’s been gathering dust in the camp warehouse since it was sent over.

Somehow Brother Loyalty discovered it, and he was as excited as if he had discovered a new continent.

He spent some time teaching Tris’s NPC apprentices how to make Molotov cocktails. This thing only needs attention to a few key points to be made well, it’s indeed not too difficult.

After negotiating the “subcontracting price” with these NPC apprentices, he generously gave 30 of the 60 gold coins he would receive from this order to the apprentices, which motivated them greatly. After Tris left, they started working on making Molotov cocktails in the yard.

The basement of Tris’s cottage was full of various wine bottles, so they could use local materials without needing to collect them specially.

Thanks to the Blood Vulture Grand Duchess’s almost endless demand for strong liquor, there would be no material problems in the production of Molotov cocktails. This is also equivalent to Tris making her own “contribution” to Transia’s military affairs?

“What are you sneaking around here for?”

In the dark alley outside Tris’s alchemy cottage, the Blood Vulture Grand Duchess, holding a wine bottle, blocked Murphy who was about to follow Brother Loyalty and the others as they left. She said in an annoyed tone:

“Are you planning to do something bad to my students?”

“I just wanted to see their ingenious ideas,” Murphy explained.

“And rather than doing something bad to your students, I think this beautiful mentor should be more concerned about her own ‘personal safety’.”

“Go away, this is in public, behave yourself,” Tris rolled her eyes and pushed away Murphy’s hand, saying:

“But you certainly wouldn’t stay up late at night instead of sleeping to follow me. Don’t you like to take a short nap at dawn? Has something happened?”

“Big news,” Murphy told Tris about the Count of Seicob’s warning and the possibility of the Wolfsbane Clan being involved in the gnoll warlord’s affairs. Tris immediately shook her head and said:

“It definitely wasn’t instructed by old Edward! That cunning ancient one always has a clear grasp on these ‘bottom line issues’. He wouldn’t risk offending Lord Payne just to gather a bunch of gnolls to come and kill us.

The wisdom of the ancients can’t be just this far, the risk and benefit are completely disproportionate!

I suspect it was the decision of Korando, the leader of the Greyclaw faction, and it fits with the trend of declining quality of clan members after Wolfsbane Clan’s rapid expansion after retreating to Greenleaf Island.

In order to expand the clan’s influence years ago, old Edward indiscriminately incorporated various thugs and petty criminals from Greenleaf Island into his clan, which stripped his clan members of any semblance of midnight nobility.

Especially these ‘young people’ under 100 years old, they like to disregard traditions and warnings, and those from thug backgrounds are particularly wild and disregard laws, they really dare to do anything.”

Tris said contemptuously:

“They’re playing with fire. I guess you’re planning to tell Lainnia about this?”

“Yes, I plan to report it,” Murphy stepped forward and said to Tris:

“If we can pass this information to Lord Payne through Lainnia, that would be even better. With a great enemy at hand, everyone is actively preparing to deal with the Black Disaster, yet the Wolfsbane Clan is colluding with the enemy. No matter how merciful Lord Payne is, he will surely fly into a rage when encountering such a thing.

By then we can watch old Edward’s misfortune with a smile.”

“It’s not that easy. The faction problem among the blood clans has already become an unsolvable deadlock,” Tris wasn’t so optimistic. She said:

“Just as the Count of White Mountain can recruit Blood Vulture traitors without Shani’s permission, Korando can also conspire with gnolls without reporting to Edward. Even if this comes to light, it won’t implicate that old guy.

At most it will make him lose face.

I even think this itself might be old Edward’s trick of ‘killing with a borrowed knife’.

To strengthen his control over the clan, he sends some ‘unstable elements’ to the front to cause trouble for us. This way, whether we win or Korando wins, old Edward will have a good harvest.

Murphy, don’t underestimate the ancients!

Compared to their overwhelming power, the wisdom formed after experiencing the world is their most difficult aspect to deal with. Look at how cunning I am, wasn’t I still played like a fool by Salrokdar over 100 years ago?

This is a lesson.”

“Hmm, I humbly accept your teachings, my elder,” Murphy said softly, making Tris purse her lips. She said:

“I’m not your elder.”

“You could be.”

The vampire lord stepped forward and embraced Tris’s slender waist in the darkness before dawn, lowering his head to kiss his former elder in this deserted alley.

The good news is, Tris no longer resists this level of intimacy.

The bad news is, it’s limited to just this level.

Murphy could feel that there was still some unknown hesitation in Tris’s heart, which prevented her from making up her mind, even though she didn’t dislike being treated so tenderly and sweetly.

To go further, Murphy would have to unravel the source of Tris’s hesitation like a great detective and destroy it with his own hands.

Just as Lord Palanno said in his parting words.

If Murphy wants to pick a thorny rose, he must be patient enough.

“I thought you would use Spirit Blast to hit my face,” Murphy whispered after several minutes of passionate kissing.

“After all, my naughty and greedy hands have already been placed where they shouldn’t be. How do you maintain your figure? You don’t seem to drink too much blood, and I don’t see you being particularly restrained with food either.”

“I have to give you some sweetness, my count, beauty is also an important weapon in a vampire’s hands,” Tris snorted, pushing away Murphy’s hand that was caressing her round buttocks and stepping back. In the darkness, she blew Murphy a seductive flying kiss, her long hair hiding her eyes for a moment as she said:

“Continue to serve the Blood Vulture Clan, little Murphy. If you do well, I don’t mind giving you more sweetness.”

Murphy shrugged.

Watching Tris transform into fluttering little bats and disappear in the first ray of sunlight approaching, he hummed a tune and walked towards the camp with his hands behind his back.

Tris had just given him a suggestion.

Perhaps he should present this report to Lady Lainnia after obtaining concrete evidence. This way, he wouldn’t seem like a whining gossip spreading rumors.

Although he hadn’t met Lord Payne yet, Murphy felt it was time to pay attention to his image in the eyes of that respected lord.

If he could latch onto this midnight big leg, his career would get enough effective advancement.

——

“Completely 18th century level processing equipment, with terrible processing precision and production efficiency. If you count the fully manual design, I would give it an even lower rating. No wonder they haven’t developed cartridges yet and are still using spherical bullets.

I thought this was a bug in the game background, but I didn’t expect the reason to be so simple.

It’s purely because the processing precision is not enough!

Of course, it’s also possible that we can only find machinery of this precision in the newbie village. I heard that those halflings could make steam trains a hundred years ago, so high-end manufacturing technology shouldn’t still be at such a backward level.”

In the camp’s warehouse, Brother Loyalty, who had been granted permission to use these “strategic materials”, circled around the small production line in front of him in a seemingly professional manner.

He first expressed his disdain for these tools in front of him with an “insider” posture, but then rubbed his hands together, saying with an eager look on his face:

“We need to modify this thing first! Let me go back and search for some blueprints in this area, then we can try to produce pointed bullets.”

“Ah, this!”

The few little players who followed Brother Loyalty here looked at each other, and one of them said softly:

“Brother Loyalty, I’m not saying anything, but what exactly are you planning to do? From what you’re saying, it sounds like you’re going to do something very illegal?”

“Huh? You guys only realized this now?”

Brother Loyalty grinned, took out a small bag from his spirit bag, and mysteriously poured out a pile of powder from it onto the table.

He pinched some of the fine grayish-black powder and said:

“I’ve had this idea since before I entered the game. At that time, I asked Meow King and Brother Stick to help me collect some gunpowder of various types in this game. These past few days, besides doing alchemy, I’ve been working on these things.

Let me tell you a little secret.

The basic composition of gunpowder in this world is no different from ours!

Whether it’s the gunpowder used in dwarf firearms or the explosives added to the Witch Hunter’s bombs, they’re all standard black powder extensions. It’s just that the production level is very low, and those dwarves and halflings haven’t even figured out picric acid.

Not to mention more powerful things like TNT and RDX.”

“Hey, it’s just game background, isn’t it all made up by the development team?”

A little player next to him said with a smirk:

“And they have spirit energy here! Steam technology, Brother Loyalty, you’ve seen those unscientific steam furnaces too, so small yet able to produce kinetic energy stronger than internal combustion engines, this completely violates the principles of physics.

They’ve made it clear that they’re not following physics!

You’re still here worrying about the history of gunpowder development in this game, isn’t this like asking fish to climb trees?”

“Psh, what do you guys know! All day just playing games, play play play! Don’t you understand looking at the essence through phenomena?”

Brother Loyalty immediately became unhappy and scolded with his hands on his hips:

“They’ve said that this game is meant to be 100% realistic, do you understand what that means? If they really start from this angle, there’s no possibility of making things up in the game background!

The halflings and dwarves in this game have already figured out black powder, and I’ve read the history books in the library and specifically asked Professor Malcolm, that professional historian.

Dwarves started using explosives and firearms in the year 400 of the calendar, which was 700 years ago!

Can you understand?

Gunpowder and firearms have existed in this world for 700 years! And dwarves and halflings have been using them as weapons of war all along, so why after 700 years of development is gunpowder technology still at such a primitive stage?

But on the other hand, the firearms revolution driven by steam technology has been ongoing!

They haven’t paid attention to ammunition but have gone further and further in the field of projectile launchers, which doesn’t conform to the law of development of things! We’ve all seen that automatic hunting crossbow, the mechanical level of that thing is at least 19th century or even early 20th century.

Don’t you find this strange?

Processing standards and firearms are improving, they’ve even created the Computation Bead, a fantasy computer based on the mechanical computing principles of difference engines.

However, only the level of gunpowder is standing still.”

Brother Loyalty shook his head and said:

“There must be a reason for this! And I think this is definitely a pit that the game has deliberately dug in this aspect, just waiting for us to step in and discover those truths hidden in the game’s history on our own. It might even be a hidden main quest.”

The other players looked at each other.

They all thought Brother Loyalty was obsessed. Why are you arguing with a game? Isn’t it enough to just have fun playing?

Seeing the expressions on the others’ faces, Brother Loyalty felt a bit tired.

He sighed and said:

“Forget it, forget it, I’ll do this myself. You guys go find some tools to bring back, pliers, wrenches, and such things. Let’s disassemble these tools first. After I go back and get the blueprints from the internet, we’ll modify it.

Let’s make some pointed bullets, and then change those weird gun structures back to the way they are on our side.”

“Ah, do we really need to do this?”

A short little player couldn’t help but ask:

“Is it necessary, Brother Loyalty? The dwarves and halflings already have mature manufacturing experience and systems, can’t we just use theirs? Developing our own different standard framework is too time-consuming and energy-consuming.

Most importantly, our bullets and guns might not necessarily be more powerful than the dwarf’s spherical bullets here.

You might end up doing all this work for nothing.”

“This is where you don’t understand.”

Brother Loyalty grinned like a fox that had stolen a chicken, and said:

“I admit that dwarf and halfling steam technology is mind-blowing, but let me ask you, no matter how small those steam engines are made, it’s still quite troublesome to install them on firearms. However, I can hand-craft an AK for you that can achieve the same rapid-fire effect. So, with limited weight capacity, would you prefer to carry a precision steam rapid-fire gun that could break down at any time? Or would you prefer to carry a rugged and durable AK?

I’m not trying to rebuild another set of framework standards, my brothers, I’m trying to use the advanced technological accumulation from our side to get more advantages for us!

AK is just an example!

Don’t you want to use rocket launchers to shoot gnolls? Don’t you want to sweep through thousands of troops with a Gatling gun?

If you do, then go find me some tools!

Let’s start hand-crafting these little darlings right now. Let me say one more thing, would you dare to do these things in reality? But no one’s stopping you from doing it here, right? Don’t you really want to try hand-crafting an AK? If you really don’t want to, then why are you here hanging out with me?

Why don’t you go outside and kill gnolls?”

“Holy shit! Awesome!”

The group of little players immediately became noisy.

They rushed out of the warehouse like unleashed wild dogs to find the tools Brother Loyalty needed.

Hand-crafting big toys?

What man wouldn’t be tempted by that?

Brother Loyalty stayed alone in the warehouse, shook his head and turned back to check the structure of the tools. After about ten seconds, he heard footsteps and turned back to shout:

“That was fast… Ah, Lord Murphy!”

Brother Loyalty was about to stand at attention and salute Murphy but was interrupted by the vampire lord. Murphy’s expression was very peculiar at this moment.

His blood-colored eyes stared at this ordinary-looking old man in front of him who possessed three very illegal specialties: 【Explosive Manufacturing Specialist】, 【Gunsmith】, and 【Intelligence Gatherer】.

He said in a low voice:

“I overheard your speech just now as I was passing by, and I suddenly realized that perhaps you otherworld spirits have inadvertently discovered some… truths about our world! I mean, those details that most people wouldn’t notice.

Regarding the arguments between gunpowder, technology, and firearms, I admit, your statement seems to have opened up a new train of thought for me.

It seems we must have a talk, my warrior!”