The World Dragon's Heir-Chapter 55: Pops Is Not Happy

After dinner, Pops led Dominic back to their rooms with an annoyed look on his face.

"First they made me the Royal Weaponsmith, now they’re taking my Apprentice away to go fix swords for the reservists.

They could have hired apprentices from any repair shop in town for that. Hell, they don’t even have to be real apprentices for that. A shop assistant without a Trade Skill Core could sharpen swords and replace hammer handles." He grumbled.

Dominic frowned. "I should likely make myself a new weapon as well. The officers claimed the magical sword, and it was the only thing that would properly cut through Ogre flesh. Just trying to stab them with an Uncommon Grade blade was difficult. Rare Grade weapons are the way to go."

"Well, in that case, maybe I should make you a little something special. What recipes do you have so far? I know you’ve been in the books." Pops asked.

"Well, I learned the standard Uncommon Sword recipe, even though the mana oil bucket is easier. Then I noticed that the others are the same, or I can just add mana to the tempering oil to achieve the same results. But I also know the energy blade, a Common Gunsword, the Uncommon Grade Cogwork Plate armour that I wear in combat, and a rare Mana Revolver recipe."

Pops nodded along with each recipe he listed. "No wands, artificer tools or anything else? I know you had an interesting childhood."

Dominic shook his head. "I can fix a lot of them, but I don’t have any sort of blueprints to make a new one from scratch."

"Well, there’s no time for that tonight, but I will see what I can find for you while you’re gone. Instead, I will prepare a weapon for you that should suit you well enough for the moment."

Pops headed for one of the side rooms, which looked like a personal forge for the Master Weaponsmith to work in, and Dominic followed behind him, only for Pops to stop him with a hand on his head and turn him around.

"Go to sleep. This will take half the night, and you’ve got a very long day tomorrow after you deliver the weapons." He insisted.

That didn’t sound like a lot of fun from his point of view. So instead, Dominic returned to his room and pulled some of the palace provided iron ingots out of the storage chest and heated the forge.

If he was going out of the city gates with a group of enlisted soldiers, he wasn’t going with poorly armed ones. Hammer heads weren’t difficult to make, and he had been doing them all day, so it wouldn’t take him long to finish at least a half dozen of them for the unit’s Sergeants and Corporals.

Dominic wasn’t sure how large the team was going to be, but it seemed like a unit larger than fifty might be too many men to effectively move around to hunt for whatever or whoever was organizing the Goblins and Ogres to attack.

Morning came far too early after his hours spent at the forge, and Dominic barely had time to shower, get into his uniform and rush out to the forge to load up the wagon before it was time to go.

The mechanical donkey seemed to be cooperating a bit better this morning, and the trot seemed to be smoother as it carried him to the same gate to begin his loop.

Hammers and picks were faster to make than spearheads because they didn’t need a good edge on them, which was the most time-consuming part of the blade making process. That gave the shipment a much larger number of total weapons, and Uncommon Grade magical weapons, than they had received the day before.

The same Sergeant was on duty near the gate, and flagged Dominic down as soon as he saw the wagon.

"What you got for me today, Stabby." He joked.

"War picks. A bit of smashing to go with your stabbing. I was planning to head the other way around the city today so that they don’t feel left out." he informed the Sergeant.

"That works for me. Same process as yesterday, I’ll toss out the weapons to the ones who need them. How many Uncommon weapons do we have?" He asked.

"We’ve got about thirty of them. I would have helped you out a bit more, but there was a meeting last night." he explained with a frown.

"Yeah, I heard that they are sending out the Reserve Regiments with the lesser Princes to go hunt for the one behind the attacks." He agreed.

"With the Princes?"

The Sergeant nodded. "That’s what we heard. Ten Princes, ten Reserve Regiments. It might not be true, but if you got picked, best be ready to end up with some Royal ordering you around for the next few weeks."

They passed out weapons in silence for a few minutes while Dominic casually tossed out [Arcane Blasts] at the nearby Goblins on the other side of the defenders. Everything seemed to be going much more smoothly this morning, with no signs of impending breaches.

The sight of the spears that he had made being used on the front lines brought a warm feeling to Dominic’s chest, almost like a paternal pride at seeing his metal children doing well.

It was an odd feeling, and he wasn’t sure that he would be able to explain it to others without sounding like either a nut job or a sociopath, but it was still there.

They were almost done the weapons distribution again today when they saw a group of goblins, led by a team of ten of Hobgoblins, running to get in place along the line in front of them.

"You know, they did this same thing yesterday. They sent those Ogres to pick a fight with us, and today they’re sending reinforcements to the point just after we should run out of weapons." The Sergeant noted.

"You think that they recognize the wagon, and they’re deploying based on where we should be weakest because the whole line can’t get improved weapons every day?" Dominic asked.

"I think they do. There’s only one way to know for sure, though." He decided.

"What’s that?"

"Stop the wagon and pretend we’re out of weapons while I have a smoke. If they stop circling the line and charge, then they are waiting for us to finish. If they keep going, there is a chance they were sent to a specific point, which might be an estimation of where we would run out, or might be a weak spot in their attack." The Sergeant decided.

They paused, and the Sergeant lit his pipe to take a deep draw of his cigarette, as if he were on break after doing the deliveries.

Just as he had thought, as soon as one of the Hobgoblins locked eyes with him and Dominic, they turned to the line and charged, hoping to push through.

"Shit, fuck, son of a three balled goblin whore." The Sergeant cussed, then grabbed the remainder of the new magical weapons from the cart and ran for the line to reinforce them.

Dominic was about to join them, but realized that he had to be ready to leave at noon, and if he got up close and personal with a goblin, that was not going to happen on time. It would take too long to wash the smell off.

So, he stood back and focused on his new spells. [Mage Armour] created a thin barrier over his body that he hoped would keep any stray goblin filth at bay, but he remained close to the wagon and fired [Arcane Blast] at the Hobgoblins every time he had a clear shot.

The guards were quickly turning the tables with the influx of replacement magical weapons, and the Hobgoblins were becoming frustrated. They were after something, and they had been denied it. Dominic had to agree with the Sergeant, they had pegged the wagon as the distribution system for new and improved weapons, and they were organizing their attacks around it.

Dominic stood on top of the wagon to get a better line of sight to the Hobgoblins with his spells, but that proved to be a mistake. They mistook his presence as the Commander of this unit, and began pointing and shouting as he cast spells.

The noise attracted the attention of a team of Goblin Archers, who began to fire arrows at Dominic, mostly landing well short of the wagon, but forcing him to hide inside the wagon’s box for a moment until the volley ended.

Once the arrows stopped, he got up and threw an [Arcane Blast] at one, taking its head off and causing the others to scream in rage while charging toward the soldiers.

"Way to go. Now you’ve pissed them off!" One of the soldiers yelled.

"Isn’t that better than having them fire arrows at you?" Dominic yelled back as he finished off a Hobgoblin with a spell to the shoulder that took its arm off.

"Not when they’re trying to stab me instead!" The soldier yelled back, dodging a Goblin blade.

Dominic took pity on the soldiers he had pulled the archers toward, and eliminated a few of the vile little monsters, while the Sergeant led the others against the Hobgoblins.

The line momentarily cleared as Dominic blasted a Hobgoblin in the face, then hopped down from the wagon bed to return to town.

The Sergeant motioned him over to where he was standing, and made a subtle gesture toward the larger bodies.

"I didn’t see anything, and they didn’t have anything." He whispered.

Dominic shook his hand and subtly tapped the three closest Hobgoblin bodies with his foot.

"Take care of the wagon tomorrow. I won’t be here to make the delivery, and they’re likely going to send some forge assistant that’s scared of his own shadow." freeωebnovēl.c૦m

The Sergeant sighed and looted the rest of the Hobgoblins. "I’ll do what I can. If they’re really bad, I’ll have them stay at the gate and send runners to get the gear. We’ve had to do it before."