Yes, firearms had once appeared in Coriel World. Strictly speaking, they were called flintlocks.
Why say they had once appeared?
Naturally, because they had been cast aside by the choices of the age.
It had to be said that in a world like Coriel, filled with layer upon layer of supernatural powers, firearms—especially such damnable things as flintlocks, which were troublesome to load and lacking somewhat in power—were in an exceedingly awkward position.
After all, the mainstay of this world's battlefields was ultimately heavy cavalry.
Faced with a mass charge of iron cans clad head to toe in plate armor, such "fire pokers" were simply willing but powerless.
Though some had tried using enchantments to strengthen their power, never mind the cost-effectiveness—flintlocks that had not even invented rifling still needed luck to hit a person. Unless they adopted the Napoleonic-era Blue Star method of lining up for volleys, they might have had a little power.
But then another problem arose: with that much effort, a group of even lightly trained archers firing a volley would utterly crush a gun squad in both accuracy and rate of fire.
After all, the upper limit to which this world's creatures could improve their various physical qualities through training was absurdly high.
So its elimination had been almost inevitable.
Igg, Tiger, and the others had clearly heard of the antique known as firearms. Though firearms were utterly awful, Goblin Engineering Explosives made from the same alchemical materials were still widely used in all sorts of fields.
Before Li Wei went to Zelandia, Tiger and the Golden Miner Brotherhood often used Goblin Engineering Explosives to open up mines. It was just that their power was somewhat uncontrollable, and they could easily cause accidental mine collapses. After Li Wei established Hogg Mining and proposed the Steam