The sniper shooting training location was arranged in the castle forecourt.

All the witches chosen for the reconnaissance team, including Sylvie, received a revolving handgun.

Roland spent two days familiarizing everyone with the correct posture for holding the gun, after which the training entered the live ammunition shooting phase. The main content was divided into ten-meter aiming shooting and five-meter rapid shooting, to cope with both prepared engagements and surprise attacks.

When practicing holding the guns, the witches looked quite professional, but once they started shooting, they revealed their true colors.

Especially when the deafening gunshots rang out, the first thing most people did was cover their ears, which made Nightingale raise her eyebrows.

Except for Anna.

She held the gun with both hands and didn't move, pulling the trigger continuously, completely ignoring the gunshots and gunpowder smoke. Regardless of her accuracy, her movements alone were clean and efficient.

Could it be that besides learning knowledge, Anna also has great talent in other areas? Roland was secretly surprised, but as a large-caliber revolving handgun, even with black gunpowder bullets, it has a strong recoil. Why were her arms able to remain motionless during continuous shooting?

Curious, he walked behind her and saw two balls of black fire tightly attached to the grip, firmly holding it in the air. Anna was only making a gesture of holding it, and didn't actually touch the sniper rifle at all. He patted her on the shoulder, and she pulled the black fire from her ears, which she had been using as earplugs, with an expression that said, "Come on, praise me!" "How was it? I hit all the targets!"

Roland didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and had to announce loudly, "No one is allowed to use their abilities to assist in practice!"

"Eh, why?"

"If we encounter enemies with God's Punishment Stones, won't we be flustered?" Roland sighed and reached out to help Anna plug her ears. "This way, you won't be afraid, right?"

"Mmm!" Her bright eyes were full of smiles. After reloading, she raised her gun and aimed again.

"Maisie, come here, I need earplugs too," Lightning shouted enviously.

"Goo?" The latter pointed to the gun in her hand.

"You can't fire the gun when you turn into a bird anyway," the little girl winked. "You plug my ears first, and I'll plug yours later."

"Goo!"

The other witches in the castle were also attracted by the continuous gunshots and gradually gathered in the castle forecourt, many of them showing eager expressions. In the end, almost everyone came up to experience how to operate the hot weapons.

Seeing a group of colorful women enthusiastically playing with the weapons in their hands, Roland couldn't help but feel emotional.

He still remembered what each witch looked like when he first met her.

Anna used to be as thin as a bamboo pole, with no life in her eyes and always the same expression on her face;

Nightingale always had a trace of gloom between her eyebrows, and her smile had nothing to do with her emotions, or rather, it was to hide her emotions that she always wore a teasing smile on her lips;

As well as Wendy's soft-spoken but undisguised exhaustion, Leaf's resignation and confusion when gambling everything on the future, and Lily, who was as wary as a cat;

And Lightning, Mystery Moon, Hummingbird, Scroll, and so on...

After experiencing oppression, framing, and hunting, it was lucky to survive. As for where they were going, there was no time to think about it. But now, they are completely different from the past.

The witches exuded unique charm, their eyes twinkling with lively light. The future was no longer confusing for them – besides being able to survive, they had the strength to pursue other things, things that were as beautiful as life.

And whenever he saw the gratitude and trust that the witches showed when they looked at him, Roland felt full of strength.

...

After lunch, in the afternoon it was his turn to conduct a special high-altitude throwing exercise for the autumn offensive. The number of witches participating in the exercise was reduced by more than half, leaving only Anna, Wendy, and Lightning.

This was also the minimum number of people needed to complete an airstrike.

Setting the time of the attack in the early second month of autumn was the result of Roland's careful consideration. If the time was too short, he would not be able to make full preparations; if it was too late, it might not play a role in deterring Timothy from sending troops – as long as he insisted on launching a large-scale offensive against the Western Region, feeding the medicine to the conscripted civilians, this air strike would not achieve the desired effect.

So the autumn offensive must be launched before he has completely completed the conscription.

In order to fulfill his promise, Roland planned to drop a 250-kilogram bomb directly above the Graycastle Palace. This bomb, equivalent to the weight of five Nightingales, would be dropped from a height of 2,000 meters, directly piercing through the palace's dome and detonating inside the palace.

As the hot air balloon slowly ascended, the huge hanging basket carried a solid simulation bomb into the sky – since Roland was also riding in the hanging basket, this solid iron bomb was one size smaller, weighing only about four Nightingales. However, its shape was exactly the same as the aerial bomb that would be used in actual combat in the future. It adopted a streamlined shell that was thick at the front and thin at the back, with stabilizing fins and a deceleration parachute at the end, which could ensure that it was always perpendicular to the ground when it fell and control its maximum falling speed.

The throwing basket had also been specially modified, with iron supports erected to make the bomb stand vertically in the center of the basket, with half of it protruding from the bottom of the basket. As long as the valve was pulled up, driving the hook mechanism to release, the bomb would leave the basket and fall straight down.

As the altitude continued to rise, Border Town soon became only a fingernail-sized piece, and the Redwater River turned into a shimmering silver ribbon.

"This is the first time I've stood so high," Wendy looked out through the viewing window. "I feel like the entire Western Region has become small."

"Because this place itself is very small," Roland said with a light smile. "Look at the wildlands to the north. That's where we should go in the future."

"Do we have to go higher? I can't see the target point anymore," Lightning shouted loudly outside the hanging basket.

"That's about right," he nodded to Anna, then gave the little girl a ready signal.

Although he couldn't judge how far he was from the ground at this time, it should be more than a thousand meters – launching an attack at this altitude was absolutely safe, and the enemy couldn't observe the movements of the hot air balloon either.

However, a drop distance of over a thousand meters meant that hitting the target completely depended on fate. To accurately hit the target, this bomb must have a guidance system.

And the little girl Lightning would undertake this task.

"Drop the bomb," Roland ordered.

Wendy pulled the valve and dropped the bomb, and the airflow immediately poured into the hanging basket. Anna sealed the throwing hole with a pre-prepared cover and tightened the fixing bracket – these procedures had been repeatedly practiced on land, and the two worked together with great tacit understanding.

"Can she hit the target?" Wendy asked, leaning by the window.

"We'll have to wait until we get down to find out," Roland shrugged.

During the bomb's fall, Lightning would fall at the same speed as it and apply a horizontal thrust to it, allowing the bomb to freely change its trajectory, thus turning it into a guided aerial bomb. When it was about to approach the target, Lightning would pull the tail mechanism to separate the deceleration parachute from the bomb, and the bomb would gain enough kinetic energy in the last few hundred meters to penetrate the palace roof.

In this way, a sufficiently high drop distance became a guarantee for precise control of the landing point.

All that remained was to continue practicing this process.