6.7 Bootstrapping

"Hmm..."

I watched as the elder hummed to himself in contemplation, leaving me to join him out of boredom and anxiety. What was he planning? Did something like the trigger Seigel not exist here? Maybe he had an idea on how to streamline it to make it use less power... Maybe... Or perhaps- Hmm... The amount of dots in the Seigel could correlate to the amount of Wesen needed to power it in the first place like some kind of voltage regulator-

"Young Rouge," I heard him speak, the old man taking me out of my musings as his face now sported a bright smile. "Care to humor this old man on his whims?"

"Y-yes?" I stuttered more in surprise before regaining my composure. "Of course!"

He handed me back the rifle in favor of approaching the nearest anvil he could find. Pulling out a bunch of scraps from our stockpile of scavenged metal, he proceeded to begin molding it into the same elongated shape as my barrel.

"The length of the metal rod should be as straight as possible, yes?" the elder asked as he started hammering on the molten piece of metal, bending it to his will. "And the inside of it hollow?"

"Yes," I answered as I quickly moved to assist him on the anvil. Taking an unused metal tong, I held the metal in place for him to hammer into it with more force and accuracy. "And the rifling inside of the barrel should be done before the metal completely cools."

*CLANG!*

"So this part of the rifle is called the barrel then," Baccus pieced the information together as he continued to straighten the metal rod. "And this 'rifling', what is it?"

"Rifling is the spiral grooves inside the barrel, allowing the- uhmm.. ammunition, to fly further and with more accuracy." I explained, replacing the word 'bullet' with something more general and easier to understand.

*CLANG!*

"Ah, I see," the elder nodded as the rod slowly cooled on the anvil. "Another new type of Seigel from you, young Rouge. I wonder how many more you can create?"

He chuckled as he continued to smith what looked to be another rifle. After a few moments, and some painstaking work on his part to copy the rifling from my prototype, Baccus grinned as he hefted his version of the rifle.

"Finished."

I smiled along with him as the rifle glinted in its shiny, unmarred state. Its stock was noticeably sleeker, and the barrel was shorter by a few inches when compared to my design. Thinking about it, while it might not be able to hold the same amount of Seigels as my prototype, its smaller size might lessen the energy demand by a considerable amount.

"Now for the Seigels, yes?"

I nodded as I reluctantly supervised and taught him my general thoughts on what Seigel to place on which part of the rifle to make it work like one. It was a strange feeling, teaching someone that assuredly had decades of experience over me in terms of smithing and Seigelcraft in general, but if his design worked, then we'd be able to arm ourselves to the teeth in a significantly lesser time than training them to use weapons.

"And that's the rest of it, Baccus."

I nodded in approval as I watched the elder clean up his work. Modern technology had rid the old world of melee weapons. It might have not in this world yet, but it sure as hell would at least tip the scales in our favor.

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*CLANG!*

And with a resounding clang, the third iteration of the rifle was complete. I watched in fascination as Baccus's Wesen slowly seeped into the rifle's Seigels, giving them the rudimentary power to activate and do their jobs.

"Time to test it, no?" the elder jovially asked, one hand hefting what now amounted to something like a sawed-off shotgun in size. "From what I've seen, it should lessen the energy required of us by a considerable margin."

I simply nodded in response, too engrossed in what the old man was doing as he proceeded to aim his rifle down the range. Like an old light bulb, the rifle began glowing as soon as Baccus placed his thumb on the trigger.

"So far, so good..."

The glow was different this time, as were the Seigels on it. Instead of Lise's one straight arrow, I noticed that the elder took cues from my old design and put three small arrows near the base of the barrel. The Seigels connecting to the trigger were also somewhat thinner in comparison to both of our previous designs. They glowed faintly as they all connected on top of itself, glowing brightly as if I was powering it myself.

"Hoho~ It's quite stable, no? Young Rouge?" Baccus hollered at me as wind slowly started circulating around the three arrow Seigels.

"Amazing..." I breathed out as I came closer to the elder, my one hand almost stretching out as if to touch it. "What did you do?"

Did the shortened barrel actually make that much of a difference? The clearly reduced reinforcement Seigels then? Or-

*BANG!*

A blank shot rang out as a gust of wind shot out of the rifle's muzzle. Its maker flashed a satisfied grin as he did another once-over on his creation. Baccus then handed me the rifle in his arms before promptly pointing at one specific part of it in my hands.

"Quite simple, actually," the elder explained, a finger pointed at the noticeably different trigger Seigel. "While your initial Seigelwork in this part worked, I'd guess that its capacity was meant for people that have a significantly larger, or a different Wesen type than us Nenners."

Huh?

"Wait, so my first design was the problem then?" I clarified, a finger feeling out the new triangular-shaped Seigel. "I noticed that the trigger's now triangular in shape too."

I didn't really get why changing the shape of it from a circle to a triangle helped in making it more energy-efficient to fire. I remembered Father saying something about 'Seigel Formulae' before, but he never really had the chance to teach me more about it. What with him dying and all...

I clenched the rifle in my hand, my thoughts slowly spiraling out of control again. Aria may be dead, but her brother was still out there somewhere. He'll pay for what he did...

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