Chapter 122: A Ballista Suddenly Appears!

The next morning, after all useful supplies from Easter Island were loaded onto the ships, Gervas and his party began their return journey.

Besides nearly three hundred refugees, they also took over a hundred pirates.

The reason they took the pirates instead of killing them was that Gervas thought of the impending conscription order.

At that time, sending just over a hundred people to the battlefield would definitely not be enough, so these pirates were the best way to make up the numbers.

Moreover, they were full of evil deeds; using them as cannon fodder would not harm any moral principles at all.

Fortunately, they now had a total of three sea vessels, which allowed them to take so many people at once.

Besides being filled with Easter Island's supplies, each sea vessel carried an average of over one hundred and fifty people.

The warships were the same.

In fact, do not be fooled by the warship's streamlined hull and shallow draft.

But this is a sea vessel used for combat; such a small number of people absolutely has not reached its limit.

The other two merchant ships were the same; normally, the Bird Dropping Storm carried several tons of bird droppings at a time, so its carrying capacity was still very high.

"My lord, this warship is truly fast!"

Knight Mi Gen and others stood by the ship's rail, feeling the warship's extreme sense of cutting through wind and waves, excited beyond measure.

Just now, Gervas wanted to test the warship's true speed; after ordering full speed ahead, in just a few minutes he had left the two merchant ships, which had been sailing abreast, far behind.

And with such a sharp weapon, the pirates' merchant ships indeed could not escape.

If the skeleton's lair had not already been raided by other pirates, it would probably have hidden quite a lot of wealth.

However, once my own strength grows stronger in the future, I might not be unable to covet it.

"My lord! We found something strange in the cabin!"

Just as Alan was daydreaming about seizing maritime hegemony in the future, Lei Meng came rushing over.

"What strange thing?" Gervas was somewhat puzzled.

"My lord, it is something very similar to the crossbow you made, but it is much, much larger!"

"Very similar to a crossbow, and much larger? A ballista?!" Gervas was surprised and doubtful.

Ten minutes later, Gervas returned to the deck with a fluctuating expression, bringing with him a ballista with a three-meter-long bow arm.

This was a fixed ballista; the original fixed position was also found, located at the center of the bow, where there was a perfectly matching reserved base.

"My lord, can this large crossbow really fire?" Knight Mi Gen and others widened their eyes.

They had seen the small crossbows my lord had the blacksmith make; their power was no worse than a longbow.

But this large crossbow had exceeded their imagination.

"It can, and the power is very great!"

This was indeed a ballista from another world; Gervas could confirm it.

Although it only had a single bow arm, its power might be much inferior to the double-armed or triple-armed ballistas of his previous life.

Moreover, the stringing method lacked a winch, having only a large iron hook.

But given that this is a technologically backward world, for large-scale ranged weapons, Gervas had only heard of the trebuchet so far.

As for the difficulty of stringing, if one does not want to expend too much manpower, then have a Title Knight help.

In this way, the stringing speed would definitely not be slower than stringing with a winch.

Gervas also wanted to see the true power of this ballista at this moment, so he ordered Lei Meng to start drawing the string.

With a slight shout from Lei Meng, a faint glow of combat qi appeared, and with a "pat-ta" sound, the bowstring indeed easily fell into the slot.

He then had Knight Mi Gen and others load the huge crossbow bolt, and immediately, under the curious gaze of everyone, directly pulled the linen rope on the ballista's trigger.

With a "bang," the bowstring released, the ballista shook violently, and the arrow, as thick as a baby's arm, shot out fiercely.

And because the crossbow bolt was truly too huge, with a length of two and a half meters, the posture of the arrow shaft swaying left and right due to the immense stress was clearly visible.

Finally, the huge crossbow bolt fell into the seawater more than two hundred and fifty meters away.

Although by the time it reached such a distance the arrow had lost most of its kinetic energy, it still left Knight Mi Gen and others staring in astonishment.

"This... this..."

"Very impressive, right?" Gervas smiled.

"Yes, my lord; the farthest distance of a longbow is only over one hundred meters!" Knight Mi Gen and others nodded like chicks pecking at rice.

After a pause, they curiously and admiringly said, "By the way, my lord, are you not the least bit surprised?"

And where would Knight Mi Gen and others know that for my lord, this transmigrator, this ballista was simply a small fry.

Moreover, Gervas making the small crossbow actually had the purpose of accumulating experience and preparing for making a ballista in the future.

He just truly did not expect that this world would also have a ballista, although the technology did not seem very mature.

But this was already a huge progress.

Just then, two guard subordinates brought a pirate squad leader, who knew something about the origin of the ballista.

It turned out that the ballista and the warship were a matching set, and both came from a duke's family in the kingdom called the Hernand family.

Previously, the skeleton boss was a first mate of the Hernand duke's family's naval fleet.

Later, because embezzlement was exposed, he chose to steal the warship and escape.

And this ballista was designed by a chief bow-making master of the Hernand duke's family.

The reason Gervas did not know was because the Helis duke's family's security measures were done very well.

Of course, there was another possibility: that Gervas's status was too low, so the news had not yet reached his ears.

After all, the skeleton boss had stolen the warship five years ago.

Five years; unless the ballista had never been used, it was impossible for there not to be a single whisper.

"Mas... Master!"

In the evening, Gervas had already returned to the castle.

Six Easter Island villagers were brought into the living room.

Of course, these villagers had now become slaves.

"I heard you are jewelers?"

"Yes, Master!"

It turned out that these few were indeed the jewelers mentioned in the intelligence.

After bringing the group of villagers back, Gervas had already asked Old John to conduct a census.

To his delight, the proportion of craftsmen on the ship was truly not low.

Among them were eighteen shipwrights, five carpenters, six jewelers, and twelve navigators.

The scarcity of shipwrights, carpenters, and navigators need not be over-explained, especially the shipwrights.

As a transmigrator, fully aware of the importance of maritime hegemony, even though he was merely a humble baron now, Gervas had to plan for the future.

Among these shipwrights, the least practical at present were these jewelers.

However, thinking of the batch of high-quality crystals Catherine had given him, Gervas suddenly had an idea.

"I need you to help me polish a batch of crystal slices. They must be polished to be incredibly smooth, without a single scratch like this luminous pearl. Can you do it?"

"Master, we little ones can!" To Gervas's delight, the several diligent craftsmen gave a very affirmative answer.

"Excellent! As long as you are willing to work hard, then obtaining a special pardon and becoming serfs is not a dream!"

Having finished speaking, Gervas handed over the blueprints he had drawn based on his memories of glass lenses from his past life to the few of them.

【Ding! Daily intelligence has been refreshed...】

【Intelligence One: A messenger from Iron Wolf City will arrive today, and his arrival is precisely to deliver the King's conscription order.】

【Intelligence Two: After more than ten days of excavation, Viscount Beckett failed to discover any other new ore veins within his family's iron mine.】

Regarding this, Viscount Beckett was very disappointed.

However, Beckett did not want the iron mine production to remain idle; instead, he prepared to make use of its final remaining heat.

That was to conceal the situation of the iron mine's exhaustion, package the iron mine for sale, and thereby swindle a considerable sum of gold coins.

It is just that what Viscount Beckett did not know was that within his current main ore vein, if one only dug forward another ten meters, a larger iron ore vein would appear.