Witches won't release me! Chapter 4

Iron Axe, the dark skinned man being a skilled hunter told me about the 'demons', which were demonic mana corrupted animals. And just like in canon, I knew that a simple flintlock rifle could deal with them. Without 'too' many issues.

"Besides the demonic animals my lord. The biggest issue is the mutated monsters... I saw a great tiger once with the wings of an eagle that was flying through the air!" He said firmly to show his truthful nature.

Though I knew my knight, Carter, and my advisor Barov weren't too assured of the man's words. I knew the truth he was speaking. So I just nodded before I took a breath and ordered Iron Axe to take men into the wood's and mountains to get as much meat as possible for the winter.

Which I was going to have said meat smoked to make sure it could survive for the winter when it was then put into a sealed container.

But I knew that wasn't going to be enough for the a population of twenty thousand to survive for the winter. Thankfully though, despite the otherwise poor lands. It still could be used for farming.

And thus I ordered Barov to have spinach, baby carrots, lettuce and other faster growing foods be planted in the planter boxes in the castle's greenhouse. Any bit of food helped, and I coudn't just let the town's population flee to Longsong Stronghold.

That would ruin the future for myself... No now I needed to keep everyone here and get them working to make this a permanant home that was defendable from the monsters to come.

"Come on Anna, we need to head on back to work on a project back at the castle." I said.

And thus Anna nodded as I turned to Barov and Carter and ordered them to have the food stores opened to pay for laborer's to begin digging the trench that would be the foundations for the large wall that would surround the Border Town.

We then headed back into the castle, and as we came in. I saw my older sister Gracia's spy Tyre working to clean a part of the garden of some debris as all the last leaves from the tree's were falling down with the fall coming to a close.

'Hmm, I rather wait till Nightingale is here to take care of her cleanly... Randomly demanding her death will just attract too much hate when I have zero subtle way of taking care of her.' I mused before I refocused on Anna my own witch.

"So what are we going to be doing now Roland?" Anna asked quietly but respectfully as I brought her into the workshop.

I took a breath and then I held up a large shotgun shell I had prepared. "Now, this here is a shell casing. What happens is here at the end, there is a small powder charge that is contained here, and then more inside the shell behind the shot load." I explained my very simplified shotgun shell I had planned.

See, while a musket or muzzle loader would be... A fucking hell of a lot more simple to make, alongside simpler to use for people who didn't have an education.

The simple reality was that, in this mediveal era, I didn't need three hundred men with muskets to protect the town. I needed like thirty at most with like each man having like three hundred shots.

But it's not like I was going to make a magazine fed shotgun or anything... No, right now dealing with springs and such small compononents even with Anna's help to literally hand forge things was just a waste of time.

"What we will be doing, is forging a bar with two equal sized holes and depths in the billets of steel we have prepared for this." I explained simply as we had cast forged the steel into simple square shapes as it wasn't like I wanted the double barrel shotguns to be so nice and comfortable.

I didn't care right now about using a bit too much excess metal, if anything... The extra metal would just help keep the shotguns together with all the heavy use they would be seeing.

"What about this blackpowder? The saltpeter is going to be a bottleneck for the production of this." Anna noticed from my notes and I smiled wryly before I shrugged and said.

"Yeah that is going to be a bit of an issue. Thankfully I can make more from the lime, we are getting from the mines. But its a nasty business, and tedious to say the least. Anyway, we need to-"

I was cut off as the door to my workshop was thrown open violently with Barov running in panting and he hissed out. "My lord! A witch has surrendered herself to you! Nana Pine, a daughter of one of the better farmers has become a witch!"