Tradition or Progress

The morning after Kye's party was a busy one. His new friends all departed with their families and few were left past the afternoon. Some more important people to the territory stayed behind for political talks while others had arranged alternative accommodation and intended to explore more of Runia, the capital of the Runewalker territory.

Runia was highly developed, even for the Alioth Kingdom which did away with its traditionalist factions many centuries ago in favour of progress and adaption. Due to some kind of natural phenomenon, the air of the Runewalker territory was richer in certain mana than other parts of the kingdom which induced more diversity in biomes, from the fridged south and alpine regions surrounding it to volcanic mountain ranges in the east. The centre was filled with forest and jungle while the west was a massive plane with certain areas being wetlands and marshes. The north was a narrow land bridge that connected two continents, with the Runewalker territory being the only way to physically enter the rest of the Alioth Kingdom's land.

Despite the high variety of climates, the Runewalker people had settled everywhere around the territory, turning much of it into an urban environment. Well-paved roads lead from one walled city to the next with very few villages remaining outside walled protection. Runia itself was a sprawling metropolis with nearly 2 million people living in the city alone. Despite the large population, the standard of living was fairly high across the Runewalker territory due to a civil engineering boom that happened in the last few decades. Running water, washing devices and even broadcasted programmes on crystal sheets in the living room of many blue-collar workers.

It wouldn't be incorrect to say that while the Runewalker territory upheld its military traditions and had a large standing force of soldiers and knights, that the living conditions in the Runewalker territory were the best they had been ever. Kye was seeking to introduce the next step in civilian luxury through Spellweave and Weavetech but he had put off many of his plans for industrial and military applications. Kye had finished designing the first Weavetech rifle to completion just one day before the party and he was now ready to show his family the finished design. Carrying it in a runic locked case, he knocked on the door to his father's study where he had asked they all gather in the morning before breakfast for this reveal.

"Come in." Kye opened the door and hurried up to the desk, placing the case down with a thud.

"This design took a while to get working but through a lot of runic matrix tweaking, I finally have the final product."

Kye unlocked the case and pulled out a pristine dark grey rifle. It had a long barrel with a front and back sight aperture, the magazine was situated just before the trigger but what stood out from the normal infantry rifles used was the lack of a cocking lever. On the side where the ejection port would normally be situated, there was a vent that opened by sliding back. Frey took the rifle into his hands and hoisted it into his shoulder before looking down-sight. Nodding after inspecting the sight picture, he handed the rifle to Rose who was standing behind him.

"Now, it's a wonderful design but how exactly does it operate? I don't see a lever or a bolt."

"That's what makes this design special, it doesn't need one. The mechanism re-loads the runic matrix in the firing position automatically after every shot so that there is no manual part of the loading process. This gun can be fired as fast as you can pull the trigger to a certain extent."

"That's incredible! But what exactly do you mean when you say 'to a certain extent'?"

"Well, to make the mechanism work, some parts had to be compacted into an enclosed space which restricts airflow. The standard magical bolt spell inscribed onto this runic matrix generates a fair amount of heat when activated, leading to the weapon overheating and possibly detonating in the user's hand if used too rapidly. So, I installed a mechanism that when you pull this vent plate back, the matrix gets exposed to a rush of cool air, allowing it to rapidly cool and resume firing. To make it easy to understand when venting is needed, there is a small gem just under the rear sight that will glow red when the weapon is overheating,"

Frey nodded along with Kye's explanation, understanding little of the technical side of things but fully comprehending that this type of weapon would revolutionise the effectiveness of a soldier squad. Being able to take several shots without pause would be a game-changer in skirmishes. Rose had been operating the rifle as Kye explained so she could see how easy it was to operate and agreed that something this simple to operate would do wonders for their combat efficiency. She put the rifle down in the case and closed it gently, letting the self-locking mechanism seal the box shut.

"Kye, we need to get this into production as soon as we possibly can. Do you have blueprints for it so we can set about tooling a few factories for this rifle?" Kye smiled.

"I can do you one better. I have all my press plates and moulds I used to make this one. You can take them and replicate them one-to-one for easy transitions."

"That's perfect, Kyla, would you be so kind as to collect these from Kye's room?"

"On it." Kyla left the office to get the press plates and moulds while Rose continued asking about the weapon.

"So what's next for this weapon system Kye? I noticed something else in the case you brought." Kye opened the case and brought out a gauntlet used by the knights of the territory however, Kye had mounted something to the wrist that had a wire leading off of it to nothing. Kye motioned to the gauntlet and looked at Frey and Rose.

"If one of you could put the gauntlet on please." Rose didn't hesitate and put her left arm inside the armour.

"What is this strange contraption on the palm?"

"That's the trigger system. What this is, is a gauntlet mounted autogun. When connected to a power system, this will allow our knights to have a ranged option that won't reduce their melee combat effectiveness. It's still many iterations and changes away from even being a prototype but I brought it here to ask if this would be something you would be interested in. I don't want to waste time on a concept you have no use for."

Rose looked at Frey who just shrugged his shoulders, leaving it all up to her. She sighed and thought about it for a brief moment. The benefits of such a weapon are obvious, giving the knights some way to engage in ranged combat is something that has been played around with for many years, even considering giving some knights rifles but high-level crested individuals in melee combat could tackle foot soldier squads easily enough with proper equipment. With rifles like Kye's however, the need for knights would drop unless they were brought up to speed with new equipment. Knights were a territories pride thus having them outfitted with this new equipment was beneficial from both an image and military standpoint, but Rose couldn't help feel conflicted.

She had spent her entire life training with the greatsword her grandfather left her and an advancement like this would mean that she would have to retrain herself to properly use this new device. Logically, she had no reason to refuse but somehow emotionally, she couldn't bring herself to accept that this was a good new direction for the knights.

"I'm sorry Kye, but could we put it aside for now? I'll need to assess some things before I make a decision." But Kye was smart enough to not take those words at face value.

"Is there something wrong with trying to diversify our war assets?"

"No, not inherently but knights spend a lot of time mastering a weapon. Throwing something like this into their arsenal might diminish their fighting styles." This wasn't something Kye had anticipated in the discussion. Was it knightly pride that stopped them from adapting? It made no sense to Kye. Regardless, Kye didn't feel like getting into an argument and just nodded while putting the gauntlet back into his case.

"Well, that's all I had. I need to go ask Aunt Amatiya about my proposal so if you will excuse me."

Kye left the case on the desk and exited the office, gently closing the door behind him. His look of confusion from earlier didn't escape his parent's notice, however, and Alicia wasn't one to stay silent when it came to her son.

"Why didn't you want Kye to develop the gauntlet, Rose? It seemed to me like it would help our knights in battle."

"It's... hard to explain to those who haven't practised a style for so long as knights do." Alicia scoffed.

"Don't give me that. I've been practising mage techniques since I could walk and you know what happened every time I got a new spellbook? I learnt the spell inside and out and added it to my combat repertoire."

"Well, it's a bit different for martial techniques." Rose said bluntly, clearly not accepting Alicia's point.

"No, it isn't, you're just hung up on honouring your technique too much that you aren't accepting new things because they go against it. That's just ignorant."

"I don't expect you to understand what being a knight is about Alicia, I just ask you to keep your nose out of my business."

"Then allow me to interject instead." Layla stood up and faced Rose. "I come from a knight family so I'm well aware of a knights pride in their technique. To a knight, their technique is what makes them, it's everything they are as a person. But guess what Rose, knights die because of this stubborn pride every day and families are left behind to pick up the pieces. What good is their pride when it leaves families in the throes of grief? I lost all my brothers and my father to war because of their stubborn pride. Do you think I would rather have them or their medals?"

Rose couldn't refute that argument. If Kye's equipment could save the life of even one knight, wouldn't that be worth it? If pride was all that was stopping her from accepting it, didn't that make her the unreasonable one? Even though her greatsword technique was never meant for a woman to use, she adapted it into her own many years ago, would integrating this weapon into her arsenal be any different to the changes she made? Questions like these made Rose hate being the Knight-General of the territory. She looked at her husband in the hope he would add something on either side to make her choice more clear. Frey saw her look and sighed.

"Look, as much as I get what Layla and Alicia are saying, it means too much to knights to introduce this new thing to them and then ask them to use it alongside a martial technique they have practised for many years. On the other hand, the issue arises from the fact that we lack elite ranged soldiers who would be able to utilise this new technology to its fullest." Frey turned to look at all of them before continuing. "The way I see it, we need something new. Something that will function as an elite group that has full access to Kye's inventions and new Weavetech devices that he can lead once he gets his crest and graduates from the academy. If we get him to think seriously about an outfit of soldiers like this, who knows what he might come up with."

Rose agreed that this was the best compromise but she had her misgivings about setting Kye up to lead his own outfit. While she recognised that Kye was very talented in the art of command, she didn't want this role to feed his ego and potentially ruin his current disposition. He needed to prove himself to her first before she would sign off on anything involving a command position for him.

"For now, maybe we can just ask him to develop things for a new unit we'll be making and leave the future command stuff out of the equation. He needs experience first before he gets that kind of responsibility." Frey nodded along to Rose's words and picked up the case on the desk.

"Whatever the case, Kye will bring about a new era of military technology along with whatever else he invents. If we don't start accepting new ways we'll be left behind even though he offered them all to us. This should be the first and only reminder we need about this." He then left with the case in hand as he went to go find Kyla. Rose looked down at the floor while Layla and Alicia scowled at her before leaving as well. This wasn't the first time the Runewalker wives had fought like this and it wouldn't be the last, but this time felt different. Rose could tell she held the minority opinion on the matter and could see how her argument was flawed. It wasn't based on logic but rather emotion as a knight. To accept new ways or to keep too long-held beliefs? Tradition or progress?

It was a debate their ancestors had before them and they chose progress. Who was she to deny the wisdom of those who came before her? Rose shook her head to rid herself of these philosophical thoughts, they weren't something she was used to thinking about and it made her head hurt. She was a knight, so she went to train with her weapon to get over these doubts in her mind. It was all she felt she could do.