Chapter 017: The Stone Launcher

There isn’t a woman who isn’t vain or fond of praise, especially Lena, who had always been proud of her beauty since childhood.
But when she heard Du Fan’s “cruel” words, she went wild and wanted to scream!
As a lady, she wouldn’t allow herself to do so, so she forced down her anger and deliberately walked back and forth in front of Du Fan, her fair, slender legs swaying in front of his eyes. Meanwhile, Du Fan kept drawing with what he had in his hand.
A casual remark from Lena gave Du Fan an idea. His territory was full of worthless stones and trees. If used merely as raw materials, selling them all wouldn’t bring much money, and cutting down trees was no different from killing a goose to get its eggs—something Du Fan certainly wouldn’t do.
So he had to think of ways to turn those trees and stones into goods to sell.
“I’m a normal man.”
Du Fan hadn’t failed to notice Lena’s behavior; he just pretended not to. But with her legs on display, swaying in front of him, it was impossible for him not to react. Yet he couldn’t! Ringtone might not be able to force him to marry her, but this Miss Lena certainly could.
He already had a fiancée! He wasn’t keeping his chastity because Angel was a princess—he just didn’t want to bring trouble like Lena home. Most importantly, he didn’t like her.
Du Fan suddenly spoke up, startling Lena, who had been bored to the point of exhaustion. Hearing him speak suddenly, her first reaction was to clutch at her collar.
“If you think what you’re doing works, go ahead and keep swaying in front of me. But I promise, if you do it one more time, I’ll throw you on the bed! I already said—I’m a normal man, and you… seem pretty tasty…”
Before Du Fan could finish, Lena screamed and ran back to her room.
Du Fan shook his head and stopped thinking about her.
With the carriage, though they traveled more slowly, they still managed to return within half a month, as per Du Fan’s initial plan. When Du Fan arrived, the first person to greet him was Old Mark. But when he saw Du Fan accompanied by twenty people, he quickly shut up and asked about his journey. Of course, Du Fan only said positive things, detailing his achievements along the way in hopes that Old Mark would let him go soon.

Though he thought this way, he wasn’t annoyed at all by Old Mark’s nagging toward his children; instead, he felt a sense of home having such a person by his side. Old Mark realized Du Fan hadn’t listened to him, so he said nothing more and went to arrange accommodation for Lenna and the others. The next to arrive was Elsik. Du Fan teased him, “I thought it would be you who rushed to me first to talk about how much you ‘miss’ me.” Elsik knew Du Fan was saying this on purpose, but his face still turned red—not entirely because of Du Fan’s words, but because he had come to see Du Fan for a matter. If it weren’t urgent, he would still be at the construction site. But Du Fan was the lord! It would be wrong of him not to greet the lord upon his return. Du Fan, however, wasn’t bothered. He understood what Elsik meant, but as Elsik was still thinking about how to start, Du Fan asked first, “What’s the problem?” “Two big issues!” Since Du Fan had initiated the conversation, he spoke more freely. “According to the city lord, we can definitely build a great fortress, but there’s still a problem. You mean we should develop other areas as well, without giving up, but the funding… and the grain…” Elsik’s voice grew quieter. As the city lord appointed by Du Fan, he was respected by everyone, but when he ordered some grain to be sent to other cities, the people in the city refused, as Du Fan had promised them it wouldn’t be taken back. Even when Elsik said it would be sent back later and that it was only for emergency use, they still wouldn’t budge. This made Elsik feel ashamed and even more embarrassed to face Du Fan. Du Fan trusted him so much, yet he couldn’t even handle this task properly. After hearing this, Du Fan smiled and said, “Don’t worry too much. We can just go to other provinces and buy some grain.” “But the funding…” Elsik had only just started speaking when Du Fan took out three diamond cards worth a million gold coins from his ring, leaving Elsik speechless. Could their duke really create money? Just half a month later, he already had three million gold coins? Elsik pinched himself on the leg, let out a pained cry, and muttered, “The duke truly can create money!” This made Du Fan smile bitterly. They really thought he was omnipotent!

He casually tossed his drawn design plans to Ailixikek and went to his own room. It had changed a lot—though not yet luxurious, it was quite good. The study served as an office, and there was also a bedroom inside. It looked much better than before.

Du Fan threw his coat aside and sat down in a chair, leaning back lazily. Ailixikek cursed himself for being stupid—Du Fan had just returned, yet he hadn’t allowed him to rest, wasting time talking here. He wanted to leave, but Du Fan stopped him, saying, “It’s fine. Just speak if you have anything to say. I’m not tired.”

Though he claimed he wasn’t tired, there was a hint of fatigue in Du Fan’s eyes. Seeing that, Ailixikek’s eyes reddened. Nobles his age should be enjoying life at home, but Du Fan was working hard for them. He was still just a young boy, at an age when he should be with his parents…

“What’s wrong?” Du Fan felt like he might fall asleep because he had been drawing design plans while they rested. Naturally, he felt tired.

Ailixikek knew Du Fan wouldn’t rest until he finished listening to his report, so he had to quickly say everything and then send someone to help Du Fan rest. With that in mind, Ailixikek held up the design plan and asked Du Fan, “What’s this?”

“A trebuchet.”

“A trebuchet?!” Ailixikek couldn’t believe it. Why would Du Fan give him such a thing?

Du Fan became excited talking about the trebuchet. “Didn’t you say you were short of money? This is the only 13 million I can earn right now. You’ve probably used up the 10 million already, right? You want to use the remaining 3 million to support other cities, right? With all these stones here, if we just sell them to build cities, how long will it take to use them up? So we need to process them into goods! Like this trebuchet!”

Du Fan licked his lips, realizing he hadn’t drunk water in a long time. Ailixikek immediately ran outside and shouted, “Can’t you see the Duke has returned? Where’s the tea? The snacks? Are everyone dead?”

Unexpectedly, Ailixikek had quite the confidence, shouting loudly. Du Fan thought amusingly that Ailixikek, unable to wait, had gone to urge them himself. Who was actually thirsty anyway!

Remembering he still had things to do, he first went to Du Fan. Since the person had already been caught, tea was prepared for Du Fan. When Du Fan saw Elsik return, he naturally started by talking about his design. “Ballistae are usually very bulky, but the ballista I designed is lightweight and can move freely in any direction.”

“Lightweight? Can it move?” Elsik lowered his head and examined it carefully. Although Du Fan had only drawn a sketch and some details were not clear, he could see that some aspects indeed matched what Du Fan said—it was theoretically possible to make it mobile. In practice, he was 80% confident they could build it!

No! It couldn’t be 80%—they must succeed! The duke had worked hard to create these designs, and with 80% confidence, they absolutely had to bring them to life!

Du Fan was unaware of Elsik’s thoughts. He muttered to himself, “We only need to provide some labor; the materials are already available. This should support them for a while. I’ll think of more solutions later. Besides, this is a time of many challenges. Such a ballista only requires two people to operate, so it should sell well, right?”

It wouldn’t just sell well! Elsik could already imagine what might happen once such ballistas hit the market! Du Fan hadn’t lived through the age of cold weapons, and though he had read related materials, his understanding wasn’t thorough. But Elsik was different—he was still the ruler of a city, so he knew a lot about siege and defense tactics. Therefore, when Du Fan showed him the ballista design, he had already considered making such things, as trees and stones were abundant here.

He shared Du Fan’s view—that raw materials like stones and trees wouldn’t be valuable if sold alone. As for things like ballistae, he couldn’t design anything better, at least not in the short term, due to limitations in scientific development.

But Du Fan was different. In his past life, ballistae were even more ancient than antiques, probably only visible in very large museums. Though he didn’t know much about those, he understood some of the basic principles. Combined with what he had learned about mechanics and the intricate yet simple machines he had seen…

Thinking of this, he came up with more ideas, though some were challenging and required further organization. But there was no rush.

Anyway, building tunnels didn’t require much capital—just eliminate those damned bandit groups and restore the passages here…

Du Fan thought about future developments, while Eirik was so excited that he didn’t notice Du Fan daydreaming. Eirik couldn’t hide the excitement on his face. “We’ll definitely finish this as soon as possible!”
Seeing his expression, Du Fan knew there was still hope, so he didn’t overthink it. He just set a general direction and let Eirik figure out the details.
“By the way,” Eirik remembered something else. He took a map from the bookshelf and spread it out in front of Du Fan. “My lord, look. We’ve already dug tunnels. I thought we could just extend them all the way outside the city—maybe it might be useful in the future. In roughly this direction, when we reached outside the city, we found a cave.”
“A cave?” Du Fan became interested. If Eirik had brought it up specifically, there must be something special about it.
“It’s called a cave, but it’s actually a bit too big—there’s no bottom to be seen. I thought that with that place available, we could dig a few more entrances. Even if bandits came, we could just move down to live in the city. So I wanted to check out what’s inside. But there are some problems. We sent three third-level swordsmen in, but they never came back.”
When Du Fan heard Eirik mention the cave, he had the same thought. “They haven’t come back? How long have they been in?”
“Three days!”