Road to the Crown
Chapter 78: Finishing the test

14th march 1574

"Since the bullet works in the musket, let's try the gun itself!"

Completly rising up from behind the earthy mound, I climbed all the way to its top, discarding the used weapon away. With the help of Elia, we brough up the prefabricated set for my new invention, consisting of the base on which everything would be mounted, a long, barrel and the ignition chamber. Taking the small magazine put together haphazardly with the use of some sticks and threads connecting the bullet tubes, I made sure that everything was in perfect order, before pulling the short magazine out and reaching for the few rounds we actually brough all the way up, as opposed to the rest of our stockpile, safely stored about a hundred meters away.

With the base of the magazine already as long as it would finally be, there was no problem in mounting it inside the hole. Making sure that the burning match was properly pushed all the way up to the end of the firing chamber, I hooked the upper end of the magazine to the cold end of the artillery fuse, locking it against the ground in a way I could still reach it from the lower position, I made sure that everything was in its place, before jumping down before helping Elia to join me as well.

"So, let's see how much my idea is worth. Would you like to do the honours?"

Considering how eager she was to join me in this endeavour, I decided that it wouldn't hurt for her to actually cause the first shots. In the end, we had way more than enough bullets to have our fun, and it didn't really matter who would be pulling down the magazine through its loading chamber.

"C-can I?"

Staring at me with her eyes wide open, Elia even went as far shaking her head a bit and moving her hair from her front head as if she thought that she was either in some sort of dream, or her eyes failed to see the ironic look on my face.

But to her surprise, I actually grabbed her hand and attempted to put in on the artillery fuse handle, only to replace out that while I could still barely grab it, the height difference between the two of us made it impossible for her to even scrape the back end of the metal stick! Holding myself back from giggling, I locked the fuse once again on the ground, making sure it wouldn't just fall off and start running the gun by itself, before leaning down a bit, grabbing Elia around her bottom and lifting her up.

"Hey! It's not the time now!"

As if thinking that me going for her ass indicated some other kind of fun I would like to have in this great moment, Elia started to protest slightly, not strong enough though to stop me if I really had any plans of doing anything to her right now.

"Calm down. No point trying to reach higher than you can, if I can just lift you up."

While enjoying the way in which her breasts, regretfully covered in cloth, smashed against my face, I turned myself a bit, so that I could rest my back on the earth, stabilising our position a bit.

"Just remember to keep your head low!"

Still enjoying my little moment, I fixed the position of her soft ass on my arms, making sure she wouldn't fall out of my hands. While the moment was really pleasant for me, in the end, the excitement from the final test of my weapon going to happen at literally any given second still managed to win over the simple carnal pleasure that Elia's body was trying to provoke in me.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Just like that, three shots fired.

Obviously, it was not even close to being anywhere similar to what slow-motion version of a real machine gun would look like if you watched in on a streaming service with additional slowing of the video.

Instead of typical tratatata that a modern machine gun could produce, spewing out few tens of bullets per second, with how my invention was crafted and aimed to be, reaching three bullets in two seconds was already a score good enough!

With the peculiar position of ours, I could feel how Elia's heart thumped faster the moment she realised that the test finished successfully. Instead of freeing herself from my arms, she simply used me as a stepping stone while climbing on the earthy mound, eager to check out the results at a close distance.

Even if it wasn't something that a proper lady would do, I was all happy to help her up, making sure she wouldn't fall off my hands, before climbing the roundel myself.

Just like I expected from my weapon, the holes on the target were only about one hands apart. Considering how the barrel wasn't even rifled, nor the bullet had the perfectly uniform amount of gunpowder, this result was already insane, with how the distance to the target we set beforehand reached a hundred meters! (about 109 yards?) With how your everyday pistols could carry the bullet even five times as far, but the real wounding distance was only half as much, while any targeting was possible only at around fifty to seventy meters, being able to hit something such precisely at twice the normal targetted distance was an improvement in itself, without even mentioning the rate of firing!

"We did it!"

In the moment of euphory, I placed my hands on top of my head, trying my best to calm down, as if any greater emotion could wake me up from the dream that I was just experiencing.

"We did!"

Instead of standing frozen in place like me, Elia jumped right into my arms, instantly proving that being hugged was far superior to just experiencing a close and accidental skinship.

"You can bet how I will thank you for this tonight!"