HEAT

"The Greater Russia Empire? That rotten, reactionary prison collapsed a year ago!"

For once, Andrei sounded pleased.

"Most of the vampires in the Romanov Family were sent to the gallows by an angry populace. They got what they deserved."

Morin was startled.

This world's equivalent of Tsarist Russia had collapsed a year ago, and it sounded as though the Romanov Family had fared no better than in his previous life.

"Then what's Russia like now...?"

"Russia now?"

The chemistry professor sighed and took over.

"Russia is nothing but a war-torn hell."

"After the Romanov Family fell, the whole country shattered into factions large and small... Hell, I don't even know how many. They're all fighting one another."

"There are people like us, who want to build a communist state; monarchists who want to restore the tsar; ethnic groups declaring independence and carving out their own territories; and, of course, places controlled by lawless warlords..."

"Which faction is the strongest right now?"

Andrei said, "The Supreme Autocratic Principality of All Russia, founded by former imperial admiral Kolchak and the monarchist nobility... The Britannians back them. They have excellent weapons and vast forces, and they're our strongest enemy."

Fuck. The White Army.

As Andrei continued, notifications kept telling Morin that he had gathered more information. Morin also began to get a general picture of Russia's situation.

In short, it had entered an All-Russia Battle Royale more than a decade early...

At present, the two most powerful warlord factions were those founded by former admiral Kolchak and former army general Denikin.

Both were backed by the Britannians, and both had been trying to wipe out the factions between them so their forces could link up.

That brought to mind someone Morin couldn't overlook.

"Andrei, have you heard of a famous proletarian revolutionary in Russia?"

"A revolutionary? We've got plenty of those. One pops up here today, another over there tomorrow..."

"Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov? Does that name ring a bell?"

"No..."

"What about Lenin?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

Andrei looked at Morin in confusion. He had no idea why this lieutenant from the Saxon Empire had suddenly taken such an interest in Russia.

"You said you wanted to build a communist state. I was curious who your leader was..."

"Oh, that's what you meant? Hah, you Saxon are pretty invested in this."

Realization dawned on Andrei. He paused, seemingly gathering his thoughts, then went on.

"Most of the original leadership died during the revolution that overthrew the Romanov Dynasty, thanks to Kolchak playing both sides and the monarchists getting involved. Our leader now is a man named... uh, Kerensky."

"But he clearly doesn't know much about running a country, so our economy, production, and everything else are a complete mess."

The conversation with Andrei raised the system's information-gathering progress again, to 23%.

It also left Morin increasingly curious about what would happen when it reached 100%... Would he become omniscient and omnipotent?

Meanwhile, the System Map had updated substantially. When Morin zoomed out, he saw that the fog of war had lifted from quite a few parts of Russia, revealing factions large and small.

The political landscape and revolutionary movements of this world were far more complicated than Morin had expected.

The man known as the "mentor" in the world Morin had come from seemed to have left the stage early.

The Romanov Dynasty was gone, but the red state had never been founded. The closest thing to it was led by Kerensky, of all people...

Foreign powers had helped turn all of Russia into a chaotic battlefield. As things stood, none of the factions looked capable of ending the fighting quickly.

That was why Andrei and the others had chosen another path. With help from the Saxons, they might be able to tie down the Britannians elsewhere, or even deal them a devastating blow.

Then the Britannians would have less attention and fewer resources to spare for Russia...

Which meant the Kingdom of Aragon was only one stop on their long journey.

This world is way too dark. What is this, the DC universe?

As Morin thought about it, he tried to pan the map toward the familiar East. Instead, all he found was dense fog of war and a small line of text.

[Come back and explore this region later.]

Holy shit...

While Morin was still processing all this, one of the workers suddenly shouted with excitement.

"It's done! The hollow cone's cast!"

Everyone turned at once.

Morin and Andrei broke off their conversation and hurried over.

A hollow copper cone had finished cooling and lay before them.

Its surface was not particularly smooth, but the cone's angle was perfect, and all its measurements matched Morin's and the chemistry professor's calculations.

Elsewhere, the artillerymen had extracted the yellow explosive from more than a dozen shells and stacked it neatly in wooden crates.

A worker who had once moonlighted as a watchmaker brought over an intricate little metal device made of springs, a firing pin, and other components. He had finished his part too.

All the components were ready.

"Begin final assembly!" Morin ordered.

The next steps demanded even more skill and nerve.

Under Morin's guidance, the veteran artillerymen first installed the intricate, manually triggered fuze deep inside a 105-millimeter shell casing.

Then they lined the hollow casing with a layer of fabric to separate the metal before packing explosive back into it.

This time, however, they did not fill it completely. They left a precisely calculated cavity at the front of the warhead.

Then came the final and most crucial step.

They carefully fitted the fully cooled copper cone into the cavity at the front of the casing, its tip pointing inward toward the explosive at the base.

Once the last component was secured, they had a strange-looking "shell" that seemed cobbled together from mismatched parts.

It had the thick body of a 105-millimeter shell, but its nose was an inward-facing funnel.

A mechanical contact fuze sat at the rear, its extended mechanism attached to several lances whose heads had been cut off and whose shafts had been bound together.

Morin checked the time. From start to finish, it had taken an hour and thirty minutes.

That was about as fast as he remembered German combat engineers in another world repairing artillery on the battlefield using similar methods...

Ludwig walked over and examined the freshly made "weapon" with curiosity. No matter how he looked at it, it did not seem reliable.

"Morin, is this the... 'Can Opener' you mentioned?"

"That's right." Morin nodded. "More precisely, it's a Shaped-Charge Anti-Armor Round."

"A Shaped-Charge Anti-Armor Round... So we put it in a cannon and aim and fire it like any other shell?"

As Ludwig asked, he circled the device, curious but wary.

"No. One of you Armored Knights has to carry it in close and detonate it. Why else would I have attached a pole to the back?"

"Wait..." Ludwig froze. "Didn't you just call it a round? Why does someone have to detonate it by hand?"

"Because I haven't found another reliable way to deliver it yet."

Morin shrugged. Then, as if struck by a sudden realization, he stared at Ludwig in shock.

"My God, my lord of the Teutonic Order. You weren't thinking of sending infantry in to use this, were you?"

"What? No, I wasn't..."

"My lord, with this much explosive, the blast alone would leave them half-dead. It'd be a suicide attack. I'm not as ruthless as you..."

"...Fine, fine. We Armored Knights will use it. Now tell me how, and let's run a test."

Ludwig finally raised his hands in surrender, then hurried to the other side and climbed into his machine to conduct the test himself.

Before entering the cockpit, he waved several Knight Squires over and had them bring the thickest chest armor plate they could find among the wreckage of a destroyed Order of the Garter Armored Knight.

They propped the plate at an angle against a ruined wall. An elaborate coat of arms and scars from battle were still visible on it.

Morin went in for a closer look. Judging by its cross section, it was nowhere near sixty to seventy millimeters thick. Forty at most, perhaps only thirty-five.

So special manufacturing techniques and enchantment alone could increase the plate's protection by nearly fifty percent.

Damn, this magic really is something.

As Morin marveled at it, Ludwig's Siegfried Type 1 Armored Knight approached.

It carefully picked up the weapon Morin had dubbed the "Melee Shaped-Charge Anti-Armor Round."

"I just release the safety and trigger it against the target?"

Ludwig's voice came from somewhere inside the Armored Knight, with a slight echo.

"That's right," Morin said. "For the best chance of penetration, I suggest keeping the warhead about twenty centimeters from the target."

"Got it... Everyone, stand back!"

Ludwig shouted. Once everyone had moved to a safe distance, he raised the Shaped-Charge Anti-Armor Round like a lance and aimed its warhead at the target.

Will this thing really work?

Ludwig was full of doubt.

It looked like something a gang of third-rate craftsmen at a country workshop had made while drunk: crude and utterly unpredictable.

But he chose to trust Morin and triggered the anti-armor round without hesitation.