—
Thirty minutes after averting another crisis—one that had threatened the instruments that freed him from his toddler body—Gustave sat silently in the carriage, staring at his maids' injuries, especially Mira's, who had first borne Caldwell's retaliation.
Thanks to those injuries, the funds usually kept by the entourage's advisors were now in his maids' hands and, by proxy, his own.
Although he knew the money had rightfully been his in the first place, people's hearts were simply like that—never satisfied with controlling one thing; they sought to control everything, until even the kingdom itself fell under their grasp.
Still, even knowing that, watching the price he had to pay left him in quiet solitude; his mind couldn't help but wander through all manner of flammable and explosive inventions. Coupled with the knowledge that Caldwell's retaliation was not an equilibrium in his scale of karma, Gustave turned to Rosemary, who looked slightly better, and began instructing her.
"Rosemary, there's still time for you to buy components before we depart."
"Right away, Your Majesty."
Nodding, Gustave added, "And one more thing: when you buy trinkets, pick up handfuls of coal, flour, sawdust, or any dust you can find. I want to make explosives."
Mira, wrapped in bandages, jolted upright, eyes wide. Suspecting that her liege intended to retaliate for the harm done to her, she burst into tears.
Rosemary sighed with relief—seeing that the prince truly cared for them—but she was puzzled as to why Prince Gustave wanted dust. From what she'd read in the Oxenfurt volume in the young prince's collection, volatile materials were usually oils or chemical ingredients like phosphorus and sulfur.
"Forgive my ignorance, Your Highness. To my knowledge, dust is merely harmless filth. Have I missed some hidden wisdom from the same book Your Majesty studied?"
With Delilah's help, Gustave took a lantern from the top of the carriage and answered, "No, you are not missing anything. It's just that your knowledge—and that of most people—is too shallow to grasp the rapid combustion of fine particles suspended in air."
Seeing Rosemary stare at him blankly, Gustave simplified, "Hmm… basically, when countless tiny grains are jolted into the air and have no choice but to collide with one another because they can't disperse fast enough, it creates an explosion of friction. Although that's not an entirely accurate explanation, it's the gist of it."
"But, Your Highness, wouldn't it be easier to use saltpeter, sulfur, phosphorus, or any common alchemical ingredients to make explosives?"
He opened the lantern's lid to modified it slightly and nodded to Rosemary.
"True, true — it would be much easier. But there's a certain cat-eyed detective who's quick to pick up a scent. If that detective discovered you bought materials in Rivia just before the incident, it would be easy to trace back to us."
Emptying the oil into another container, Gustave shrugged and continued, "If I were the one to buy the ingredients, it wouldn't amount to much because of my mother. But it's not the same for you, Rosemary."
Seeing Rosemary nod in silent understanding, Gustave watched her step out of the carriage to buy the materials and components, with one additional request for dust for the physical retaliation.
Not only Rosemary, but the other three maids were eager to buy dust to get back at Caldwell. At their insistence, only Mira was told to stay put because of her injuries. Because of that, he had extra hands—capable adult helpers—to assist with modifying the lantern, which made the task much easier.
He cleaned the bottom of the lantern to create makeshift pressurized chambers, which he hoped would detonate before outside air could enter and render the dust inert. He then turned to the lid that would separate the dust from the oil, designing it to create the illusion of a normal lantern.
Because he did not want the dust to get wet—even though oil makes a flame burn hotter—he made sure the lid was tightly sealed with various adhesives to keep the dust dry.
With that done, Gustave moved on to the mechanism that would jolt and disperse the dust. He sanded part of the lantern's bottom to make it fragile so that, when the ship's buoyancy caused the cabin to sway, the weakened section would strike the wall and break.
Using all of his [Knowledge], Gustave calculated the most likely points of contact where the ship's sway would cause the lantern to strike the wall.
Finally, when everything was prepared, Gustave made a sizable opening and fitted a tube through which the dust could later be filled. The same tube would also allow his RDBM to pressurize the chamber and extract air. By the time he finished, the other three maids had returned with the components and ingredients.
While waiting for the entourage nobles to return to the carriage before boarding the ships and stowing their belongings, Gustave finally nodded to his maids, signaling them to help fill the lantern with dust and pressurize it until it became completely dry.
Opening the hole and installing a conical tube to make the filling easier, he sealed it tightly once finished, completing the modification just before the entourage began boarding the ships.
Knowing they had little time left, Gustave briefly explained the plan to swap out the ship's lantern with their modified version.
He made sure Rosemary—the one tasked with the exchange—understood to always stay on her toes when walking, minimizing footprints that could later be tracked, along with several other important precautions to keep in mind during the operation.
Although he knew the precautions were somewhat excessive—since hiring a cat-eyed detective was difficult given their rarity—and that by the time they reached the next port, all traces would likely be long gone, Gustave still thought it better to be overly cautious.
After all, it required only a little extra effort.
"On board the ship! On board!"
Knock, knock.
"Your Highness, Prince Gustave—it is time to embark."
Hearing Reynard Odo's shout, followed by a servant's polite reminder outside the carriage that echoed from one to the next, Gustave knew it was time to begin the physical act of this game of retaliation.
Lifted by Delilah into her arms like a toddler, he said to all his maids, "Remember—wait for my signal."
They all nodded solemnly, knowing they had only one chance before being branded suspicious for going near Caldwell's cabin. Gustave's pitiful retinue then disembarked from the carriage and made their way toward the distant ship.
Using his [Knowledge] ability to the fullest—to the point of draining his spirit at an alarming rate—he managed to locate the cabin where Caldwell was staying after conducting a mental carpet search over a hundred meters.
A splitting headache throbbed against his temples, but he still signaled to his maids the cabin number he had gleaned from the purser's or clerk's logbook. Walking briskly—but not suspiciously fast—Gustave and his maids boarded the ship and proceeded toward their target location in smooth, deliberate motion.
Corridor after corridor passed until they finally found the exact cabin. Gustave signaled for Rosemary to begin the operation before anyone else entered the hallway and caught sight of them.
On tiptoe, Rosemary approached the cabin door, using a handkerchief to turn the handle—something that puzzled her, though she trusted the young prince's caution, even if she was clueless about the reasoning behind his instructions.
Swiftly and silently, she swapped the lantern mounted on the wall with Gustave's modified one, then exited in a single graceful motion. Her heart pounded in her chest—a mix of nerves and the intoxicating thrill of danger, like a spy completing her mission.
Composing herself, she nodded to Prince Gustave and her fellow maids, and together they continued on their way as though nothing had happened.
Then, after the final piece of his invention had been put in place, Gustave muttered to no one in particular as he entered their cabin, "Now… now we just have to wait. Wait for the magic of dust explosions to do its work."
—
It had been two hours since they set sail from Rivia, and judging by the lack of movement from the ships, it seemed he would have to wait a little longer before the explosions occurred.
While waiting, Gustave spent those two hours aboard the ship experimenting with all kinds of Glyphstones and Runestones, trying to discover their various effects — guided, as always, by his [Knowledge] ability.
Among the things he had brought from Lyria and purchased in Rivia, there were a few stones he recognized from the Hearts of Stone DLC — such as the Glyph of Binding and the Tvarog Runestone.
The first, true to its name, bound objects together — though the people of this world used it only for crudely stitching small wounds with magic. The latter, meanwhile, increased the nutritional content of food by 200%. When combined with a Pyerog Runestone, it produced the Runeword Dumpling, which boosted the nutritional content by an astounding 400%.
Upon witnessing this effect — something he had only seen in the game now manifesting in real life — he couldn't help but drop his jaw at the sight of such logic-defying magic.
Perhaps, on this Continent, such a Runeword would be dangerous — unusable by ordinary humans except for those with exceptionally high metabolisms, like Witchers.
For normal people, a severe imbalance of nutrition could lead to kidney and liver failure, as the food would simply be too nutritious for a human body to handle.
And even if they somehow managed to make the Runeword usable by the common populace, Gustave could easily imagine it being regarded merely as magic that makes hunger disappear.
Yet, to a modern biochemist, this Runeword would be nothing short of a godsend — a stepping stone toward creating supersoldiers worthy of the Marvel series.
More practically, if the biochemists of his world could fully harness this Runeword, making all of humanity attain a standard athletic physique would no longer be a dream. Unfortunately, Gustave himself was no biochemist; his study of biology had ended back in high school.
Thankfully, he had majored in library science — and because of that, he had once come across a book that offered a general understanding of nutritional biochemistry. That knowledge, at least, gave him a rough direction for experimenting on how to adapt the Runeword's effects for normal humans.
He might not yet be capable of creating food that instantly granted an athlete's body, but perhaps after years of steady experimentation, he could eventually achieve a result that would make food scarcity a thing of the past for the common populace.
As for the distant dream of creating supersoldiers, that goal remained far beyond his reach. And so, for now, Gustave contented himself with crafting machines that could enhance humanity.
As for why he was content with building machines — or why he chose to climb the tech tree of science within the branch of machinery — it was simply because of the Beyonder Characteristics that resided within him.
Thus, even though he had not majored in mechanical engineering, his thoughts and insights were ever guided by the enlightenment granted through his Sequence Pathways, making it easier for him to work with all kinds of machinery — particularly those powered by steam.
"Young prince, earlier I must deeply apologize for only being able to buy a few of these Runestones. Even though people recognize me as your maid, there were still some who decided to steal a substantial amount of coins from the coffer when I wasn't looking."
Coming out of his experiments, Gustave waved a hand, still holding several Glyphstones. "Don't think too much about it. Rivia will always be a city of thieves, no matter how good its people may seem. It's practically a tradition at this point — a game of guarding your pouch and trying to snatch another's."
Ding, ding, ding!
"Dinner's ready! Dinner is ready! Just down the hallway to the gun deck!"
Hearing the bell and the servant's shouts, Gustave realized he was starving from all the thinking and experimenting. Wanting to get something to eat, he turned toward Rosemary and said, "Pick me up and let's go—Woah."
But before he could finish his words, he lost his balance as the ship swayed violently, perhaps because it had stopped using the anchor. Thinking that the ship's pause in the middle of the journey because the captain finding a perfect view for dinner, Gustave barely had time to muse on the idea before he heard a very loud, explosive noise down the hallway.
Kaboom!
Followed by a muffled, heart-wrenching scream in the distance. Amusement written on his face, knowing what the sound of the explosion and scream meant, he turned toward his maids, especially Mira. Chortling to himself, Gustave announced, "The pig has been roasted. I repeat, the pig has been roasted. Let's go, girls — let's admire the fruit of our labor."
—