What the System had newly established as Streit Gunners meant that F-Rank stats were granted exclusively to gunners belonging to my family. It came out of nowhere without so much as a warning, so I was quite surprised.

I currently held six types of personal titles, and the highest-ranked among them were the D-Rank Knight and E-Rank Cavalry Commander titles, which had rapidly made me stronger.

So my personal titles were as follows:

D-Rank Knight (Military Power 40%, Courage 40%).

E-Rank Cavalry Commander (Breakthrough 30%, Charge 30%).

F-Rank Management (Management 20%).

F-Rank Negotiator (Persuasiveness 20%).

F-Rank Tournament Knight (Impact 20%, Defense 20%).

F-Rank Lord (Intimidation 20%).

Hmm, listing them all out like this made me feel like I’d gotten a failing grade.

Having a D-Rank title didn’t mean I myself was D-Rank. This was a small duchy within the Empire, sure, but it made no sense for one of a nation’s top fighters to be only D-Rank.

At first, I’d thought that consistently doing things related to each title would eventually raise its rank. But it turned out to be a matter of scale—meaning petty local skirmishes wouldn’t cut it for ranking up.

I’d been through many battles so far.

But in scale, they had been nothing more than neighborhood brawls.

I’d never experienced a desperate war between nations, nor fought on a battlefield with at least several thousand troops. Wouldn’t my rank go up only after distinguishing myself on that kind of battlefield?

So this civil war would be the largest conflict I’d faced yet. Perhaps quests that had been stagnant would start appearing one after another. I’d love it if I could earn points in bulk.

The civil war was a crisis for the entire duchy, but for me, it was a golden opportunity.

And the same was true for every lord participating.

A system where you had to spill blood to advance.

How ironic.

Ted and Oscar were also put through firearms training. Ted was the training instructor and Oscar was the commander, so the critical task was getting both of them to expert-level proficiency with firearms.

They peppered Ralph with passionate questions about this new technology. Ralph broke out in a cold sweat as he continued teaching officers who far outranked him how to use the weapons.

The knights who had witnessed the firearms demonstration grew worried after seeing how easily a bullet pierced through armor.

The scale was small for now, but what if a massive unit of gunners stood before them? Could cavalry truly survive that? That was why knights were overwhelmingly hostile toward firearms.

And so they were busy disparaging the weapons that might one day replace them, calling them the devil’s tools or crude weapons that violated the spirit of chivalry.

I was a knight just like them.

But I chose to seize the future rather than be left behind by it.

Even if I didn’t adopt firearms, gunners would appear before us someday. Did they plan to die clinging to outdated tactics when that day came? The Spanish army had swept across all of Europe with that new formation called the tercio.

Fiel and Viktor only seemed to grasp the reasoning behind the Gale Knights’ formation as a light cavalry unit after watching the firearms demonstration. The Gale Knights’ strength wasn’t frontal charges; it was guerrilla warfare.

In truth, there was a strong perception that the Gale Knights were merely a stepping stone toward transitioning into a heavy cavalry unit. In fact, some members had even been scouted by the Beren Lance Cavalry and transferred out. I let anyone who wanted to go leave. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Given all this, every cavalryman’s dream lay in the heavy cavalry that shattered enemy formations.

But this firearms demonstration had smashed that dream to pieces.

The sharper minds among them had probably realized what impact these firearms would have on future battlefields. Heavy cavalry was still the main force, but it was destined to be overtaken by firearms one day.

"Now I understand why you’ve been so focused on developing light cavalry, Commander."

Fiel was the eldest son of the Steinhof family, a knight proficient in their family’s unique swordsmanship, Steinhof-Wehr, and cavalry command, so he had absolutely no reason to welcome the emergence of firearms. But he was a perceptive man.

"How many moves ahead were you thinking?"

"You’ll understand when you become a lord yourself. A lord’s job is to always prepare for the future. And right now, firearms at this level can’t dominate a battlefield."

"The long reload time is definitely a problem."

"You think the reload time is the only issue? A single barrel of gunpowder costs five gold coins."

Fiel’s and Viktor’s jaws dropped. They’d been worried that cavalry would immediately be displaced by firearms, but now their faces were aghast for an entirely different reason. This was the harsh reality.

"With your current finances, Commander, wouldn’t even maintaining them be a struggle?"

"It is a struggle, that’s true. But I can manage on a small scale."

"But then, will they really make much difference on the battlefield?"

Fiel seemed worried that I was throwing money away, but what I actually wanted was for the majority of my residents to become familiar with firearms and to reduce their aversion to them. That was the biggest objective.

And if I could claim a substantial share of spoils from this civil war, I wouldn’t have to worry about maintenance costs for a while. I’d heard the South was that prosperous thanks to its trade with the Swiss Confederation.

It seemed I, too, was starting to think like a typical feudal lord.

That said, I had absolutely no intention of committing pointless plunder and massacre.

Bang!

Pffft!

"H-hit! It’s a hit!"

"Oh! This actually feels pretty good in my hands."

When Ted hit the target on his first try, the standing army soldiers cheered excitedly.

The complete opposite of the gloomy mood among the knights.

This time, I asked Fiel and Viktor to calm the knights down. Rather than stepping in myself, it was better to leave it to the vice commanders who had built camaraderie with the men by working alongside them.

After the firearms demonstration ended and I’d left the training to Ralph, I took a few firearms and visited the Feuzen Schmidts, the only blacksmith family in Feuzen. I brought Daniel along as my attendant.

They were in a tizzy over the lord’s visit.

I handed the firearms to the blacksmith and asked:

"Can you replicate these?"

"The structure itself isn’t complicated, but..."

"If it’s not beyond your skills, make it happen no matter what."

After the firearms demonstration, the standing army soldiers treated the arquebuses like sacred treasures, seeing them as a golden opportunity for advancement. If the status of gunners rose, they could earn more money accordingly, so they weren’t wrong.

However, I hadn’t explained the dangers of being a gunner to them. For now, I let them dream sweet dreams of the future before reality set in. The experience would hit differently once they stood face to face with cavalry.

Overcoming the fear of cavalry etched deep into their bones wasn’t as easy as it sounded. There weren’t many infantrymen who could hold their ground with composure against cavalry bearing down on them, making the earth itself tremble.

If the pikemen protecting the gunners collapsed, the gunners would be slaughtered in an instant. The current arquebus was not an innovative or powerful enough weapon to dominate a battlefield on its own.

So I planned to wait until the soldiers were comfortable with the firearms, then call Ted and Oscar aside and create a training manual for them. Since I had plenty of cavalry under my command, live drills where they experienced a cavalry charge head-on might be worthwhile.

"Daniel, send someone to Breisburg if you have to, but make sure the blacksmiths get every material they need. And don’t forget to keep watch over them. You know what I mean, right?"

"Understood. But isn’t there a specialized gunsmith for making firearms?"

"The problem is there isn’t one in Beren. Apparently gunsmiths came from Bavaria."

First and foremost, I needed to secure the technology for manufacturing firearms. Securing gunpowder was the most important thing, but that was absolutely not something that could be done in the short term, so I’d have no choice but to ask the Grand Duke for separate support.