14xx/07/30 Johannes Calendar
90 days since arrival….
10 days in, and I barely scratched the surface of my knowledge. Any more of these and he will be eligible to a degree in general knowledge relating firearms in my world. Then again, he was letting me bunk in first-class without working as extra deck-hand here, so I guess I have to make my lessons worth it.
The only reason I stopped was because the Captain was getting overwhelmed. I understood what he meant and backed off to rest. How was he to expect that his trophy revolver and the Makinas loaded in his hold was made using science so advanced that even a well-read scholar like him couldn't even fathom? It's like giving an adolescent a quantum physic book and expect him to pass a university-level exam within a week!
But it wasn't a one-sided affair. As he was overwhelmed with the wisdom of 21st century, he countered with an assault of this world's wisdom, a part crucial to my understanding of this world. What does Makina means to the government bodies? How does this world's culture were shaped from such discoveries? What manner of invention was made based of their findings?
I learned that this world's reliance on magic has stifled the potential of Makinas they found. Too focused on the realm of thaumaturgy, unable to fathom the idea of an advanced magicless construct. Without the understanding of how it was made or the material needed to make them, they remained exclusively as collector's item and studying material for the royal family.
But some which were mercifully understandable, or the few that came with manual instructions are often recreated with local materials. For instance, the flintlock technology. Despite the promise that matchlock provides, the sheer power of magics and trained muscles simply outmatched them in combat. When flintlock tech was found 10 years ago, it caused an uproar within the royal family. Now a pack of peasants armed with flintlocks are a match against a squad of heavily-armoured knights.
Unfortunately, the next pack of knights came with blessed armour and learned healing magic, so they quickly overwhelm the poor rifle team. The name of the game then returned to the heroes blessed with magic once more, with gunpowder being a weapon of the lower class. Some clerics even said that it was a weapon of the devil, as it spat out sulphur and brimstone to combat against the specially-blessed warriors of Ilias.
But the flintlock's appeal endured, and with the blessing of the Pope the weapon endures with albeit in small but consistent productions. As to quote the good pope: "Better to have these in the hands of my warriors than the hands of theirs."
Unfortunately, not all shared his optimistic view. Most dismissed them as nothing more than mere novelties when spells and blade were far more effective. Some however, viewed them with intense loathing. Such hatred fostered by ignorance and dogmatic faith led to a schism among the populace, which accumulates into the bombing of the King of San Ilia himself. It wasn't a straightforward duel, nor was it a silent assassination of old. It was loud, brutal, uncaring of honour and collateral damage. The first terroristic bombing of San Ilia.
Fortunately for the Makina communities, that attack does nothing but reinforces their view as correct rather than disproves them. They're the one who supported the king all the way through, and they as hell weren't the one who planted the bomb. The fact that the king survived despite being on ground zero alone were taken as a divine sign of approval from the goddess.
That's why he's here collecting more of that stuff.
But their fears weren't unfounded. Some inventions they found in the early days were unsafe even to handle. Horror stories of men stumbling into a machine-like human who killed them in cold blood was a staple among other dungeon-crawlers. Hell, it doesn't even have to be human-shaped. The Cursed Green was a cautionary tale that such items doesn't even need to touch you to harm grievously.
And this is where Makina lies; a class of mysterious items with incredible potential, yet so alien to use or understand that unless you are a scholar specializing in their studies, they were better off collecting dust in a museum.
Such will be their fate; to be studied by old scholars who cannot understand how or why it was made, fruitlessly applying more magic despite the invention was made due to the lack of it. And what few that can be replicated, will remain so few for who can match the sheer volume of output a proper industrial factory can produce.
Man, and here I thought I would be exclusively be the teacher in this voyage.