Ermu
Chapter 717: Hunting Competition
The time Roland had anticipated for burying the black gunpowder and detonating devices turned out to be longer. The main reason was the difficulty in transporting barrels of gunpowder to the designated locations outside the city walls. Knee-deep snow made the carts cumbersome to move, and the transportation had to be interrupted whenever demonic beasts attacked. Even with Lotus assisting in digging and burying, it took nearly a week to complete the preparations.
To ensure the best detonation effect, all the gunpowder in the buried areas was detonated by electric detonators. The principle behind these was quite simple. Since portability and storage weren't a concern, they basically consisted of a short, sealed copper tube with two lead wires. The copper tube was filled with guncotton, and a thin copper wire bridged the two lead wires, creating a short circuit. When current passed through, the copper wire would heat up and melt, detonating the surrounding guncotton.
All the lead wires were sunk underground by Lotus to a depth of nearly five meters, ensuring that the lines, even without conduit protection, wouldn't be affected by ground artillery or demonic beasts. Ultimately, all the lead wires converged at the control panel on the city wall. To detonate the gunpowder in a specific area, one only needed to crank the corresponding hand-cranked generator.
Thus, only the last preparatory work remained for the exercise – live targets.
"Ahem, in this demonic beast hunting operation, friendship comes first, competition second, and safety is the top priority. Do not leave Leaf's monitoring area, understood?"
Standing on the city wall, Roland looked at the "contestants" lined up before him.
For the sake of fairness and to ease Leaf's burden, there were a total of three teams of six witches participating: Ashes and Andrea from the Sleeping Island team, Lightning and Maggie from the Neverwinter team, and Phyllis and Agatha from the Tarquila team.
Originally, he had also considered forming a Wolfheart team with Iffy and Annie, but the latter was unwilling to participate in the hunt no matter what. Since the other Wolfheart witches had no combat abilities, he had no choice but to abandon the idea.
"Understood!" everyone answered in unison, especially Andrea. Quinn, who seemed full of enthusiasm. Ever since tasting the Chaos Drink, this noble witch from the head of the Dawn Three Families had become completely addicted to the unique taste of Fire Dragon Wine, even hoping to trade a month's worth of Chaos Drink for that half-jar of Fire Dragon Wine that remained.
Roland's response was that if she could win first place, it wasn't entirely out of the question.
"The rules are simple: you have one day, and whoever catches the most demonic beasts wins first place, but they must be locked in cages to count." He pointed to the iron cages below the city wall. "Also, if anyone leaves Leaf's monitoring area, their team will be disqualified immediately. So, the hunting operation begins now!"
"Whoa!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, Lightning and Maggie took to the air, flying towards the Misty Forest. The remaining two teams had to rely on their own legs to trudge through the snow.
"Who do you think will win?" Tilly asked with a smile after all three participating teams had left the city wall.
In her smile, Roland always felt a hint of something special. "Well... I guess it should be Lightning and Maggie. Their abilities may not be the strongest, but since you have to put the demonic beasts in cages to score points, swift mobility undoubtedly gives them an advantage."
"How about we make a bet, brother?" she asked, curling the corners of her mouth. "I'm betting on the Sleeping Island team to win."
Andrea and Ashes, huh? Roland mused. One of them was a dedicated ranged combat witch, and the other was even a Transcendent. Their strength was beyond doubt. However, annihilating enemies was easy for them, but capturing them was much more difficult. To transport them back smoothly, they would have to beat each demonic beast half to death, which would take far more effort than simply killing the targets. It might be difficult to win first place.
This seemed like a sure-win deal.
"Alright, what are we betting?"
"If I win, um... I hope to allocate half of the income from the sale of Chaos Drinks in the future to reward the witches who have made outstanding contributions to the city's development."
Evelyn was originally from Sleeping Island, and this approach would help attract more witches to come, which wasn't a bad thing. In fact, even if she hadn't mentioned it, Roland had similar intentions.
"No problem, what if you lose?"
"I'll stay in Neverwinter City from now on, how's that?"
Roland paused slightly, turning his head to look at Tilly, but found that she didn't seem to be joking. "Really?"
"Of course, it's true," Tilly's eyes revealed a hint of cunning. "But you may not be able to win. Just watch."
"I think so too," Nightingale whispered in his ear, "I forgot to tell you... Andrea's magic power has condensed."
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"One hundred and twenty-five meters to the left front, a boar-type demonic beast, is approaching you."
The tree trunk swayed, shaking off a series of snow, and the friction of branches and holly leaves formed Leaf's unique tone – in this way, Leaf could talk to everyone while monitoring the entire field.
"Uh... how far is one hundred and twenty-five meters?" Andrea was still not used to the new units of measurement promulgated by Roland, frowning as she pondered, "One meter is two steps... so one hundred and twenty-five meters is..."
"No need to calculate," Ashes rolled her eyes, taking down the "Ashes Bringer" from her back, "I can already hear its footsteps."
A moment later, a black figure appeared in the dense forest. It was the demonic beast transformed from a wild boar, about the size of an adult. Its gray-brown tusks were almost as thick as an arm.
"Don't attack, you have to catch it alive to count," Andrea whistled at the demonic beast, "Come here!"
"Hiss—hiss—" The boar-type beast exhaled puffs of white air, glaring with a pair of scarlet eyes, charging straight at the blonde witch who was provoking it. If an ordinary hunter encountered this scene, they would never have the idea of confronting it head-on. They would either quickly climb the nearest tree or try to dodge. As for whether they could survive the demonic beast's tusks and trampling, that was another matter.
But Andrea remained motionless. She didn't even take down her beloved gun from her back, but instead stretched out her hands flat, opening her index fingers and thumbs, and joining them together to form a diamond-shaped square. Through the center of the square, the boar was no more than ten steps away from her. She could almost see its dripping saliva and clusters of shiny bristles.
"Bang." She said softly.
A powerful burst of air suddenly shot out from her palm, accompanied by an explosive roar. The boar-type beast was like hitting an invisible wall, its entire body being blown away. The snow under its feet was swept away by the air wave, stirring up dense white mist. The demonic beast's huge body somersaulted twice before crashing heavily to the ground. It didn't even let out a scream. Blood foam was already coming out of its mouth, and its limbs were twitching in the air.
This was Andrea's new ability - by observing the difference between bows and firearms, and with Tilly's forceful learning, she realized her evolutionary direction: since both imparted energy to arrows or bullets, why couldn't magic directly provide the energy needed for shooting? During the more than two weeks of sailing, she gradually mastered this new combat technique.
Even when her hands didn't have objects to serve as bullets, she could still injure enemies with impact alone. Moreover, this shooting technique was only related to her magic power, and its power far exceeded her previous finger flick shots, like good bows and firearms. When she released all her magic power at once, the objects she projected would even injure herself.