Claude couldn't be bothered with the affairs of his family anymore.
His father was still that sly old man in charge of the administration. Even if the fleet got into trouble and he lost everything he invested and was fired from his position, that kind of blow would be fatal to others and might cause them to be unable to recover from it.
Yet, Morssen was able to endure it. He even thought of ways to protect himself and not give his former enemy a chance to take revenge. Based on that, Claude felt that his worry for his father was pointless and pointless.
He was just a normal person and didn't know how he ended up in this world. He didn't have a grandfather or a system with him and he wasn't even sure if he had a cheat.
Perhaps it was due to his talent in magic that he became a magus out of sheer coincidence.
But that didn't make him like the main character in novels, Long Aotian, who hunted monsters, picked up equipment, and flirted with girls while waiting for his loyal servants to give him money, skills, and granddaughters until he became invincible.
He was still slowly cultivating at the level of a 1-ring Rune Mage, slowly enriching the mana inside the second hexagram in the meditation space. It seemed that he still had a long way to go before he could become a 2-ring Rune Mage.
Claude had never thought of himself as a genius, nor did he think he was that much smarter than others.
Although he had transmigrated, he realized that his experience and knowledge from his previous life could not help him much in this different world. On the contrary, it was his steady character and unflappable calmness that allowed him to safely get through several dangerous experiences.
Personality determined fate. That wasn't wrong.
The transmigrator only wanted to use Claude's identity to live out the rest of his life in peace. He also wanted to take a look around or explore the different sceneries of this world and understand the mysteries of magic. That would be enough for him.
He wasn't that much smarter than the people of this world. He had to blend in and become one of them so that he wouldn't be treated as an anomaly.
This was what the Transmigrator was constantly telling himself. Like the novel, where he slapped his opponent's face all the way to the top did not exist in reality. Although the Transmigrator's current identity was that of an 18-year-old youth, he had long since passed the age of chuunibyou.
In the Aueran census, Claude was only an 18-year-old commoner in Whitestag, one of the three southwestern prefectures. He was the second son of Morssen Ferd and didn't have the right to inherit.
The only difference from the others was that there was a note at the end that stated that he was ranked first among the sports students of Whitestag National High School's class 575 and was currently the supervisor of Normanley Wood.
So, he felt that it was better for him to focus on his job as the foreman of the wood and ignore the farce at home.
His father had said that the family property auction would continue until the end of the month, so that the whole town would know about it.
It was too vexing. Couldn't he just live his life peacefully?
He even wanted to bring his siblings to live with him in the shack so that they wouldn't have to suffer in a house where they had to pretend to be poor.
It was only because of his mother's firm opposition that he gave up on the idea.
As for his father's reminder for him to learn herbalism as soon as possible and become a low-rank herbalist, Claude didn't pay much attention to it.
It wasn't that he didn't understand his father's good intentions, but he didn't think he could do it.
Other things aside, memorizing nearly a thousand medicinal ingredients was already difficult enough for him.
Back when Maria was still teaching Claude in the wood, she told him that memorizing was useless. It was best to have a real object in hand to make a deeper impression. It was difficult to memorize something just by looking at a picture in a book.
For example, a stalk of medicinal herb would look very different after it was picked and refined. This difference was only briefly explained in books, and it was very easy to confuse it with other medicinal herbs.
The biggest difference between Claude and Maria was that he prioritized magic cultivation. Herbalism was just something he did out of interest.
Maria, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. She was a mid-rank herbalist and was proud of her identity.
She learned magic out of curiosity when she was young, but after she grew up, she didn't think much of it and treated it as something she could do without.
After returning to the wood, apart from patrolling and hunting, Claude spent most of his time in the shack.
He was experimenting with alchemy magic in his study, forging a gun barrel according to the metal formula in Landes's magic notebook.
But when he succeeded, he found that the quality of the barrel was much worse than the one he used for his aubass mark 2. As such, he did an experiment and stuffed the longest-range gunpowder into the barrel. He found that the barrel cracked after firing. It was obvious that it couldn't withstand the pressure of the gunpowder.
It seemed that the development of firearms on Freia hadn't stagnated as he imagined. At the very least, they had improved the quality of the barrel.
It was a pity that the formula for the barrel was kept a secret. If Claude wanted a barrel of the same quality, he would have to experiment with it himself and combine it with various metals.
After a week or so of hard work, he finally made two barrels that he was satisfied with. Even though they weren't as good as the aubass mark 2, they were more than enough for him.
What he needed to do next was to make a flintlock. With a gun barrel, the other parts weren't too difficult for him. He had already completed the blueprints long ago. All he had to do was adjust the dimensions when he was assembling it.
At the end of the month, Claude prepared to take the flintlock he made to the wood to test it out.
Forest caretaker Siori returned from town and told him that a messenger from the royal capital had informed the town hall of the merchant fleet being wiped out by pirates. The news was confirmed by the kingdom's navy.
The few survivors who surrendered to the pirates were pardoned and would be returning to town in a few days.
Siori said that the news caused a huge uproar in town. Close to a thousand families of the sailors gathered in front of the town hall, eager to hear news of their loved ones.
Everyone there was crying and sorrow shrouded the entire town.
It's finally here. Claude looked in the direction of the town and could only imagine the sorrowful scene.
He didn't want to join in the fun. As a bystander, he could only trust that his father and the others would be able to handle it.
His father and the others had made ample preparations for the day.
However, there was one person that Claude couldn't avoid: Erikson, his good friend.
After resting in bed for so long, his body had mostly recovered. The last time Claude and Welikro visited him, he was already able to get out of bed and do some light exercise.
He only hoped that the news wouldn't make him too sad and worsen his injuries.
The shooting tests of the new flintlock didn't go too well. Claude wasn't a firearms expert. He only made flintlocks based on the ones he saw in his previous life.
So, even though they looked exactly the same and even had the sights and shutters, they often malfunctioned during shooting tests.
The two biggest problems were that there would be five or six misfires out of ten shots, which meant that they couldn't fire.
The other problem was that the lock was too loose and it took too long for the trigger to be pulled.
The flintlock didn't seem to be very reliable. Sparks wouldn't come out every time it was hit and the sparks wouldn't be able to ignite the gunpowder in the pool. That was the main reason for the high misfire rate.
In order to make it easier to aim with a shutter, Claude moved the flintlock and the pool to the right of the barrel.
The so-called French-made antique flintlock he saw in his previous life looked exactly like that. It seemed that he had to make some adjustments.
The looseness of the lock was probably due to the material used. It was too soft and it would be best if it was made of flexible steel. Claude would have to slowly experiment with it to find the best material.
Also, due to the material of the barrel, the flintlock's range was only around 200 meters and its effective range was 120 meters.
Compared to a matchlock, the only advantage it had was that it was easier to aim and had higher accuracy.
But as Claude was preoccupied with what happened in town, he wasn't in the mood to make any changes to the flintlock in his hands. He put it aside and decided to go home for a while.
If he noticed anything amiss, he would bring his mother, sister and brother to the wood to prevent them from getting caught in the crossfire.
He drove the carriage home and found that nothing seemed to have happened.
He breathed a sigh of relief and asked his mother about it. She told him that his father had rushed to the town hall in the afternoon and gave a touching speech.
Mr. Morssen said that after he and his friends were inexplicably arrested on charges of endangering the kingdom, he vaguely sensed that something might have happened to the merchant fleet, which led to the arrest of the main investors of the fleet. However, he did not know the reason or the situation of the fleet at that time. He could do nothing but pray for the best.
But after he was released from his post and released home, he couldn't sleep at all. He worried about the fate of the fleet and had a bad feeling about it.
Therefore, during this period of time, he sold off his family property and cashed out all of his shares, just to be prepared before the bad news came.
He didn't want to run away. Instead, he wanted to shoulder the responsibility with his friends and provide the families of the sailors and crew with the necessary help.
According to the sailors who were forced to surrender by the pirates, more than 70 of the 300 or so sailors in the fleet died in battle with the pirates. Captain Altroni and five other sailors who refused to surrender were exiled to an uninhabited island in the Silent Ocean.
The remaining 200 or so sailors were divided among the various pirate gangs and became part of the pirates.
However, those few survivors hadn't returned to town yet and no one knew if their loved ones were still alive.
In fact, Morssen and the others only had to be responsible for the 70 sailors who died in battle with the pirates. The sailors who joined the pirates were no longer part of the fleet.
However, Morssen still announced that all members of the merchant fleet would receive a compensation of eight crowns, which was equivalent to three years of a sailor's salary.
As for the sailors who were confirmed to have died in battle, they would receive a pension of 15 crowns. That was enough for the bereaved family to live comfortably for five years.
It was said that after Morssen made the announcement, the town hall erupted in cheers. Almost everyone was praising the benevolence of Morssen and the other investors.
As the families of the sailors and crew, most of them knew that going out to sea was a life-threatening task and were mentally prepared for it. It was a job that risked one's life in the first place.
Usually, the pension for a sailor or crew member was about three crowns in a year's salary.
Morssen and the others tripled that amount and that was only the compensation. The pension was increased fivefold and the grief of losing a loved one was lessened by quite a bit.
Moreover, their loved ones might still be alive and might escape from the pirates one day.