The World Dragon's Heir-Chapter 33: Return To Aramos

The guards on duty were waiting at the town gates to welcome back the patrol when they returned, eager for news of how the hunt for the suspected Goblin Lord had gone. The merchant caravan had already reached them and passed on the news, as well as the fact that there was a team hunting the vile creature.

"Did you find it? Was there really a Lord?" The gate guard asked.

"We did. And there is more news. Can you send a runner to tell the Mayor we’re headed his way?" The Captain requested.

That was news to Dominic as well. He hadn’t mentioned anything except the death of the Lord, so what was this extra news that he was so excited to tell the Mayor? Did he maybe get a rare or valuable drop item?

Wiz leaned over to whisper to Dominic as they walked. "The Mayor doesn’t like finding things out secondhand, so if it’s not relevant enough that it affects the mission, the scout teams go together to tell him about news and important events before the rest of the town finds out."

The Captain stopped at the entry to the Mayor’s house and knocked, then patiently waited until the door opened, and a harassed looking clerk with thick spectacles perched on his oversized nose opened the thick wooden door.

"Get in here already. We’ve heard that you were hunting a Goblin Lord, how did it go? Did you find out anything else?" The clerk asked.

"Send them in here, why are you making them tell the story twice?" A booming voice demanded from the other room.

"Sorry Mayor, Sir." The clerk responded before ushering in the group.

Nobody seemed to even notice the fact that one of them was still limping a little, even after another two heals by their cleric, or that there was filthy green goblin blood on all of them. The Mayor and his staff had seen it so many times now that it barely even registered.

"Well, get to it." The Mayor demanded.

The Captain took out a piece of paper and handed it over with a grim look.

"I got that off the Lord’s corpse. It is a set of orders to attack the caravans coming to town, so we don’t get nosy. I think everyone here understands what that means." He said with a sigh.

"That the Goblin Lord wasn’t in charge of anything but harassing our trade caravans. There’s still something nastier than that, waiting for the City forces to show weakness, while they are making plans." The Mayor agreed with a deep frown.

This wasn’t something that would have changed anything about their mission, they were already headed back to town to inform them about what had happened, but it still struck Dominic as odd that the Captain hadn’t filled any of them in before they got to the office.

Maybe that was just how things were done here, but it still seemed odd.

As he considered the message from the Goblin Lord’s body, the Mayor began to move pieces around on a map that took up an entire table in his study, while tapping his fingers on the surface and frowning.

It looked like a collection of reports of attacks and confirmed kills, almost all goblins from the green stones he was using.

"Did any of the guards get a Lottery Drop?" The Mayor asked.

The team all shook their heads, none of them had gotten anything good enough that it would be auctioned to the highest bidder, with the profits split between the lucky guardsman and the guard as a whole. It was their way of making sure that those with great luck didn’t hoard items they couldn’t use. Letting wealthy merchants and nobles buy them made more sense, and kept everyone safer.

"What about you three, did you get anything you’d like to auction? We can get you a good price for your items." The Mayor asked. freewebnøvel.com

Dominic shook his head. "I did get a decent item, but it’s a blacksmithing plan, and I’m a smith. I hope you understand."

The Mayor smiled. "Well, nobody would expect a tradesman to give up an item as valuable as a recipe or blueprint. I wish you luck with your crafting, Wiz should be able to get you anything you need if the merchants in town are being difficult."

Dominic smiled at him. He didn’t seem as annoying as those nobles in the city were, maybe his time in this village wouldn’t be half bad.

"I’ll keep it in mind." He agreed.

Wiz led them back toward the farm, where Dominic could see a whiff of smoke from the stove gently blowing in the breeze, and Wiz’s father out in the fields working.

He couldn’t wait to get the forge fired up and start making the parts for the new [Mana Revolver] plans he had obtained. If he could actually make them on his own, it would be a huge bump of experience for his blacksmith skill core.

Not only that, but being able to present one at the Apprentice intake, made by himself, would likely put him well ahead of the average competitor.

He had a decent number of Goblin cores again, and he would be able to put them into improving his skill, but for now, it would be better to hold off and gain through practical work instead of relying on the theoretical knowledge from the magic of the trade skill core.

"I take it that you want to do some work before dinner?" Bella asked as they reached the farm.

"If there is time, it would be great. I really want to try out this new plan, and if it works, we will be much safer from the Goblins." Dominic agreed.

The gunslinger knew the excited dragonkin wouldn’t be easily dissuaded from his goals, and left him to his own devices while she followed Wiz inside to clean up and help with dinner and the chores.

In the forge, Dominic had a drop sheet out and was digging through the scrap items he had collected for any parts that might come in useful for his project.

Here was a trigger, there was a spring, and a likely bit of steel that would only need a little work to reshape. The two hardest parts would be the precision fitting of the cylinder to hold the rounds perfectly in place, and the actual barrel of the revolver, with rifling, which he didn’t have a specialty tool for.

Spring steel was the hardest part to make, but fortunately, he had plenty in his pile of pilfered scraps and spare parts. So, half an hour later, when Wiz’s father came in, he had managed to reduce the pile to only the essentials, as well as a small stack of iron scraps that the goblins had been using as armour plates.

One of them appeared to be an old cast iron frying pan, now split nearly in half, but he was going to reforge it anyhow, so its current state didn’t matter much as long as you ignored the smell when he put in the forge to heat.

"Did you find everything that you need?" He asked as he watched the dragonkin sorcerer pump the bellows to heat the forge.

"Yep. There was an iron pan on one of the goblins, and it gave me all the material I needed for the frame. Please let me know if you need me, I’ll be here most of the night." Dominic replied, not even looking away from his work.

Dominic didn’t even notice when the food came out, he was busy shaping the frame for the pistol, and he didn’t notice when the lights in the house went out, he was finishing the cylinder.

But after that, he was beyond grateful for the consideration that Wiz’s family had shown an eccentric stranger who got too focused on projects.

Drilling the barrel out took hours, and rifling it took nearly as long, but the actual inscriptions that would give the design its magic went much more smoothly. As Pops had taught him, Dominic drew the designs on paper and stuck it to the weapon before selecting a monster core and crushing it into dust to make the paint with for the magical runes.

It still felt a bit lacking, but when the sun came up in the morning, the [Mana Pistol] had taken shape, and was ready for the infusion of mana that would imbue it with the final surge of magic that it needed.

Dominic had drawn the Dwarven Swiftness Rune on it, along with the runes and magical circuitry from the plan that should allow it to be reloaded with pure mana. It felt like it should work as it was, but his throat was feeling better, and Dominic was certain that a bit of Dragon fire was just what this project needed.

What was the worst that could happen? He would lose a monster core and a night’s work. That was acceptable because if it worked it would be magnificent.

With a huff and a burst of energy, the weapon was engulfed in flames, finalizing its creation.

[Creation Complete]

[Rare Item Created: Mana Pistol of Refreshing Swiftness] Holds 6 rounds. May be reloaded at the cost of one mana. Rounds fired from this weapon do additional fire damage and restore a minor amount of mana on hit. Attack speed increased by 10 percent.

It was an actual Rare quality item, and a superbly balanced one. It had everything that you could ask for in a pistol, as far as Dominic knew, and he was eager to show it to Bella. A magical gun would be a massive increase in damage for the Mystic Gunslinger.