Rules of Biomancy: A LitRPG Healer Fantasy

Mortars were cool. Very simple but still very cool. Jack had never had the pleasure of working with them directly back in the day, his duties confining him to mostly M4 carbines, but he'd seen them in action. The shockwave the rounds would make when hitting the bottom of the tube… It might've given everybody nearby a minor concussion each time they fired, but Jack couldn't help but look back at those times fondly.

"Oh, careful with that!" Jack warned, removing the latest iteration from Mila's sneaky hands. "You can play with the others, but this one is a little more sensitive."

Jack was also fond of staying alive, and having to explain any accidents to Sasha would not allow that.

And… Elijah probably wouldn't be happy about him making a mess in one of the royal gardens either. While he and Mila sat in one of the corners, where a set of outdoor sofas could be found, everything still looked quite expensive.

Granted, he hadn't completed the fuse to the current version of the warhead, but he'd still added the high explosives. Was that nevertheless extremely dangerous? Yes, but Jack trusted his own hands. Not Mila's hands, though. She was restricted to playing with the old tail designs, with the canted fins that just didn't look right.

Not that anything else did, at the moment. Remaking mortars from memory alone had some obvious issues. While Jack did know the rudimentary systems that made them work, with the fuse at the top, the warhead as the main body, and the propellant system in the tail, the exact sizings and shape of each part were pure guesswork.

Ignition charge has to give enough of a kick for long distance, but the setup has to survive that kick, which requires… ugh.

Some days, Jack wished he'd taken those classes on metallurgy. His Affinity kept giving him hints about how every material he touched worked, including their strength, hardness, and melting points, but it was never obvious. It enhanced his pre-existing knowledge, but the issue with that was the fact that he knew just about nothing here.

"Can you repeat those last few sentences, please?" Jack requested, pointing out the paragraph in the book. When voicing his complaints, Alin had handed him a stack of books focused on the subject, yet Jack's inability to read the language stopped his progress once again.

Until Mila came into the picture, at least.

"Yes!" Mila exclaimed, her small hands nearly pulling the large book off the table. Jack had to help stabilize it while she read the words out loud. "Aete— Aetheric Ferrite is a dense, silver-grey alloy with remar— remarkable ability to absorb, stabilize, and release thaumaturgic energy. It shares the same density as common iron, but possesses a superior energetic retention, a uniform fracture pattern, a… I don't know this word."

"But you knew it when you said it five minutes ago," Jack said, looking at the symbols on the page. The young girl was pointing at a specific set of them, a long one, expecting help that he couldn't give. "Could you sound it out for me?"

"Duck… Tilt… Tea?"

"Ductility?" Jack guessed.

"Yes!"

"Pretty hard word to read, I admit," Jack half-joked, unsure where Mila had even pointed before. Some day, he would sit down and learn the written language, but he didn't have the free time right now.

Mortars were more important. And fun.

Channeling of [Transmute Solid] has been activated! Current cost: 13MP/sec

With a deep breath helping him get into his flow state, he began transmuting the newest chunk of Aetheric Ferrite, as Mila had called it. Since Jack hadn't decided on a final design, he'd gotten into the habit of a very direct method for forming the mortar rounds. By transmuting parts of the metal into clay, which took little to no effort, he could bend, curve, and form the material in any way his hands allowed. This would normally come with the consequence of very weak structural integrity, but five minutes of small adjustments after making changes helped solve that issue.

Too long.

Comparing the current version to his drawn-up schematics, which were closer to very intense and detailed doodling, Jack adjusted the side of each portion again and again. It took three attempts before the curve on the top looked uniform enough for the final touches, which included Jack increasing the output from his Core and manually modifying each connection inside the material to be perfectly mirrored around the center.

"Would you look at that," he murmured, showing off his work to Mila, who had somehow gotten into his jar of leftover gun oil while he wasn't paying attention. "See this top right here? It's the most precise curve that you'll find on anything in this country."

"Cool," Mila said, before trying to stick her finger back into the jar. Jack swiftly had to remove it from her grasp and do his best to remove the stains on the sofa. Even if it was an outdoors type, Jack was relatively sure that Elijah wouldn't be happy about him dirtying up the place. "When do you put it together? I want to see it blow up."

"I want it to blow up, too, but precautions must be taken," Jack apologized. The usual set of puppy eyes pointed his way as a response, and his heart cried just as much as it usually did upon seeing them, but his mind had already been set. "I've done my best to make this work as an 81mm round, meaning that they are straight-up lethal in a radius of up to fifty meters, and I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to be very far away when it gets blown up. That means that I have to be confident about the primer activating the propellant, making it shoot into the sky, where it will spin around both for stabilization and arming of the warhead, and making it possible for the fuse to then explode when it makes contact with the ground.

"If the propellant doesn't work right, that part might just explode inside the tube or make it fly ten meters and then hit the ground, which would kill anybody close by either way. Or the impact fuse might ignore the fact that it wasn't armed and take the initial acceleration as a reason to activate the warhead, which would also be a big problem. Hell, I wouldn't mind doing an entire range of tests to make sure that the propellant type and amount handles moisture differences between the ground and— Oh, shit!"

A purple-robed woman, seemingly one of the Royal Mages, had snuck up on him during his very normal rambling. Jack didn't recognize the face, though he knew for certain he hadn't seen many green-haired blondes his age around here.

"Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt you. Or scare you, I suppose," the woman said, extending a hand in greeting. Jack shook it without a word, trying not to make it obvious how fast his heart was beating from that scare. "Nice to meet you, by the way. I'm Lily."

"Jack," he replied, before remembering a certain kid and pointing a thumb her way. "That's Mila."

"Hi," Mila greeted, waving with one hand while trying and failing to open the oil jar back up.

Jack took it from her before she had the chance to cause another problem. He did not need another person to be a witness to his subpar parenting skills.

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"Mind if I sit down?" Lily asked. "I've got a meeting that starts in an hour, so I've been wandering around a little."

"Oh, you're one of Alin's new students?" Jack guessed, getting a nod in response. "No problem at all. Sit, please."

"Thank you," she replied, a smile on her face as she sat down. Jack could tell she was curious about the mess on the table in front of the sofas, going by the darting eyes, trying to make sense of the chaos. "Could I ask what you are working on? I must admit I don't understand much of what this is."

"Not many around here do," Jack assured her with a grin, happy to have somebody new to explain this to. While Mila had more curiosity in her than a dozen regular adults combined, explaining the internal mechanisms of modern weapons of war to a six-year-old didn't feel right. "What you're seeing right here is about half of what you need to make a mortar. You can think of it as a portable, muzzle-loaded cannon that two people could easily travel with, allowing you to set up and shoot explosives several kilometers out just about anywhere."

This particular design probably wouldn't allow the range that the standard versions had, but Jack failed to mention that part.

"Interesting," Lily commented, which made Jack grin. Somebody saw his vision. "It's just… a special tube, a base to hold the tube in place, and then the explosives you're shooting?"

"There's this bipod meant to be placed here as well, that allows you to designate distance and direction, but you're more or less correct, yeah," Jack corrected, pointing out the part of his scribbles for the final part. He hadn't really begun on the design for that, since it required everything else to be more or less fully formed, but it wouldn't be too many days before that point. Maybe. "Once you've got everything put together, you can just chuck in rounds one after the other."

"That's actually incredible. You wouldn't even need a mage for the firing."

"Nope. If you had the right tools, you could make all of this without any kind of magical involvement as well. You'd probably need the dwarves to help get those tools, but whatever. It's very intuitive once you understand the underlying mechanics."

"I can imagine just that," Lily said. Jack felt his breathing deepen a little.

Which was strange. With the small scare and the fact that he was sitting next to a stranger, he'd expected to be a little more alert than normal, but he was having the opposite reaction.

Weird.

"Any plans to use these… mortars of yours for the war efforts?" she asked, which made Jack grin.

"Yeah, actually," he confirmed, giddy to share. "Since Alin has been busy changing up the walls and terrain, I asked if it was possible to put anything on top. You can see a lot from up there. A good vantage point, and it's more than wide enough to set up several dozen of these."

"You're planning to train people to use them then?"

"Not quite," Jack said, not wanting to be in charge of that nightmare. He remembered his old pals back in boot camp. Great friends, who he would've trusted with his life any day of the year, but having to train them, or anybody like them, was a punishment that would never end. "I've talked it over with Grace, who I'm sure you know already, and she's figured out this setup that allows them to self-load. By punching in coordinates, we should be able to remotely adjust and fire them, completely avoiding the risk of them somehow failing and making it possible to avoid having to train personnel."

And it would allow him to remotely control several dozen mortars, which was honestly a childhood dream of his.

"Genius."

"... Yeah, it kinda is, isn't it?"

Jack leaned back on the sofa, feeling his heart continue to slow. Lily didn't comment on his silence, even though normal social conventions would have her following up with some sort of question or comment.

This is wrong.

His neck relaxed, making his eyes look upwards. The sky was blue and cloudy, with hints of strange gray buzzing.

Very wrong.

"Sorry, Lily, I've been rambling a little too much about all of this," Jack apologized, forcing himself to sit properly. "What is it you're meeting with Alin about anyway?"

Now that he was thinking about it, his magical senses didn't detect any kind of aura from her. That wasn't the strangest thing in the world, since Jack knew that several masters hid their magical abilities below a veil, but Lily was meant to be an apprentice, right? Even if she had some practice in the art, she still looked his age and couldn't be that good at it.

"Just regular check-ups on my work, you know?" Lily explained in vague terms, making Jack narrow his eyes. He kept his eyes on her, even as Mila made another attempt to open the oily jar. "Are you alright, Jack? Your eyes are looking rather heavy."

Yup.

"Must be a lack of sleep," Jack lied, doing a quick stretch. His arms felt sluggish. His body seemed to be steadily shutting down. "You know—"

The glint of a blade made him force his body to lunge to the side and hit the ground, allowing him to narrowly avoid the blade aimed for his throat. His hands scrambled to his side as he failed to get his pistol out of the holster.

Lily didn't give him the chance, diving on top of him. The blade flew towards his head. He couldn't get his skull out of the way completely, and it pierced the side of his cheek and into the jawbone. It burned, but Jack used the burst of adrenaline to get his knee up and kick her away.

It barely did anything.

The crack of air igniting did.

"Oh, you little pestilence," Lily cursed, shoulder twitching from the hit as she switched targets. Mila had given it everything she had, crying out because of it, but it hadn't been enough to kill. "Die, you—"

Three shots fired in rapid succession made Jack's ears ring, but seeing Lily's body collapse before reaching Mila made it all worth it.

"You alright?" he said. Talking was difficult, on account of his left cheek being cut open, but Jack put up a calm front for Mila. "Come here. It's all fine."

It wasn't. Adrenaline was barely making his heart beat at a relaxed pace. Mila didn't need to know that, though. He just put his arm around the girl and hugged her.

"It's all fine," he repeated, because he wasn't sure he could formulate a new sentence at the moment. "Just… remember Vera's place? Vera…"

A jolt stopped him from closing his eyes, and Mila's screaming made his grip on the gun return. He blinked, fighting to clear his vision, before finally spotting the reason for Mila's increased crying.

A Nightmare, one of Fade's manifestations, had arrived, and the Dreamweaver came into his field of vision not long after.

"They really brought out Morrow's Lull to get at us," Fade cursed, as she kneeled beside Jack. He wanted to ask what exactly that meant, but just looking at the old woman was becoming a challenge. "Smart, if they weren't so arrogant that they would try it twice."

She pulled up his shirt before jamming a needle into the center of his ribcage. It hurt, and the pounding headache that came five seconds later, combined with his entire body feeling like it was covered in pins and needles, only made it worse.

"What just happened?" he got out between the gasps. The deep cut in his cheek, which continued to drip, was nothing in comparison to the full-body sensation. "Who was that?"

He grimaced when he saw the Nightmare crunching down on Lily's head, brain matter splattering on the stone tiles. She'd tried to hurt Mila, sure, but… never mind. As Jack's head began working properly again, he knew he'd done the right thing. Hopefully.

"You're looking at the first of the newest round of Castillan assassins," Fade explained bluntly, pushing the bits of brain matter into the dirt with her shoes. "Somebody didn't keep quiet about my presence, and they're using emotional blockers. I can't sense their fear or surface thoughts, letting them pass as any other idiot around here. Mix that in with slow heart stoppers that invoke a sense of peacefulness, and you've got the chance to kill without me picking up the slightest hint."

Jack's fears had saved them for once.

Not bad.

"Wait," he blurted out. "You said I was the second. Who did she try to kill first?"

"No 'trying.' She did. We've got two casualties on our side," Fade corrected bitterly. "Both of your mentor's proper apprentices, Oscar and Mary, are dead. Elijah was the prime target, but his absence made her take out the two healers-in-training nearby instead."

… Shit.