Over the following days, Seraphine ironed out the final details for the mountain expedition, all while ruthlessly supervising Karsfeld’s burgeoning economy with iron consistency.
Everything was progressing according to plan, but until the irrigation conduits bound the valley and the mines reached full extraction capacity, her role was largely reduced to tedious desk work.
Such monotony was slowly beginning to wear on her; above all else, she craved open air and decisive action.
Thus, Seraphine looked forward to the hunt; the crisp alpine breeze would bring a welcome reprieve, and with any luck, she would personally crush the wretched vermin who dared plot against her life.
On the day of departure, Seraphine headed straight for Sabine Keller’s workshop to claim her commissioned weapon. Crossing the threshold of the smithy - which now served as the beating heart of their nascent industrial district - she spotted the master artisan meticulously scouring a gleaming barrel. A proud smirk curved the heir’s lips.
“So, my latest design struck your fancy?”
Sabine tore her eyes from the iron immediately, straightening up with a profound gleam of awe shining in her gaze:
“It’s bloody brilliant, my lady! Who would have ever thought that carving spiral grooves inside a barrel would spin a lead ball, stabilizing its flight path so miraculously and granting such terrifying accuracy?”
It was a purely rhetorical question, of course - in this world, only one mind was capable of such revolutionary insight. With great reverence, Sabine placed the weapon into the aristocrat’s slender hands.
Seraphine inspected the lock mechanism and barrel with the practiced eye of a military engineer, and catching sight of the stamped proof mark confirming a successful test fire, she beamed:
“Sabine, you are a true artist!”
The artisan had already churned out hundreds of smoothbore muskets for the militia, but this rifled carbine was her maiden foray into rifling - and an absolute masterpiece at that.
The rifle boasted a formidable .58 caliber and fired Minié balls - conical lead bullets with a hollow base that expanded under the violent pressure of burning propellant, engaging the rifling grooves to perfection.
Coupled with a long, precision-machined barrel, the firearm utterly eclipsed anything known to this world, exceeding the accuracy of even the nineteenth-century Springfield rifles from Evelyn’s past life.
Seraphine clapped the forewoman on the shoulder with heartfelt gratitude:
“You have no idea how much this means to me, my friend.”
Sabine waved a hand dismissively, offering a modest grin:
“Just doing my duty, my lady. Mind you put it to good use up in those peaks. It’d be a mortal sin not to put something proper in the dirt with such a gorgeous piece of work.”
“I will be away from the fortress for a few days,” Seraphine replied. “Keep a close eye on the manufactory.”
“Rest easy, my lady. Everything will run like clockwork!”
Seraphine stepped out of the workshop with the carbine in hand, fitted with a leather sling and socket bayonet.
For this expedition, she donned practical feminine hunting attire in woodland shades - form-fitting leggings of dark green wool hugging the curve of her thighs and buttocks, paired with a brown leather bustier and a rugged tunic secured with sturdy drawstrings, blending seamlessly into the forest undergrowth.
As she cut through an alleyway near the square, delicate hands suddenly darted out from the shadows, wrapping around her waist.
Vivienne’s soft, lush breasts pressed flush against Seraphine’s back, her warm breath brushing the heir’s neck. Turning, Seraphine met the sapphire eyes of her favorite, glassy with tears of genuine dread.
“Please, watch over yourself... I could never bear it if anything happened to you,” the noblewoman whispered in a trembling voice.
The conditioning had yielded staggering results - Vivienne was now boundlessly devoted to her mistress. Seraphine tilted her chin upward, brushed a stray tear from her porcelain cheek with a thumb, and grazed her lips in a deep, reassuring kiss.
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“I know, little one,” she murmured with a confident smirk, slinging the rifle over her back and heading toward the courtyard.
Adelgarde had already assembled there with a modest retinue of servants and packhorses. The trail into the higher elevations was long, but the leather sling Seraphine had ordered fastened to the stock - a deceptively simple innovation utterly unknown to this era - turned the grueling march with a firearm over her shoulder into an effortless stroll.
By nightfall, the party pitched camp in a dense coniferous forest - the Baroness’s favorite hunting retreat. Adelgarde sprawled by the campfire, taking in the majesty of the rugged peaks, before thrusting a swollen waterskin toward her firstborn:
“Drink, Seraphine! A proper hunt without spirits is no hunt at all!”
The young futa vastly preferred keeping a sharp, clear head, well aware of the peril lurking in the dark, but she could hardly slight her Sire.
She took a deep swig, wiped her mouth with her sleeve, and handed the skin back. Adelgarde eyed her daughter’s sleek, peculiar weapon with mild skepticism - she could scarcely fathom stalking quarry with a powder engine rather than a bow or crossbow - yet she refrained from chiding the heir, genuinely relishing her presence.
Seraphine focused on a singular tactical objective: getting the Baroness dead drunk. She knew from Vivienne’s dispatch that the Arnsbruck assassins had encamped in a nearby ravine, just beyond earshot of gunfire from their clearing.
Once Adelgarde began swaying on her feet after several generous draughts, Seraphine smiled, steered her tipsy mother to her pavilion, and tucked her in for the night.
The moment the camp went quiet, the heir sprang into action. She smeared her face, hands, and fair hair with damp loam, melting into the nocturnal gloom. A full moon hung in a cloudless sky, casting a silvery sheen perfectly suited for a sniper’s stalk.
Prowling toward the designated ridge, she stumbled into an unforeseen snag.
One of the mercenaries had stepped out of the ravine to relieve herself, bringing them face-to-face mere paces apart. The woman failed to identify Seraphine beneath her camouflage, but catching sight of an ambush predator, she drew her sword in a heartbeat.
Seraphine’s carbine wasn't loaded! She dove behind the trunk of an ancient spruce, cutting through the air and locking the socket bayonet over the muzzle with a faint, metallic click.
The moment the assailant cautiously edged around the bark with her blade raised, the triangular steel spearhead of the bayonet slammed into her throat with savage force.
The woman gagged on her own blood, staring in mute horror at the tall figure in woodland garb before crumpling limp onto the pine needles.
Seraphine wrenched the steel free, wiping the blade on the corpse’s tunic without batting an eye. In her past life as a combat engineering officer, close-quarters skirmishes hadn't been unheard of - snuffing out an enemy's breath was nothing new to her.
Reaching a rocky outcrop commanding the gully, Seraphine scouted her targets. Beside a dying campfire sat three more Arnsbruck cutthroats, nursing jugs of wine in blissful oblivion.
Dropping to one knee, Seraphine drew a paper cartridge, tore off the end with her teeth, poured the measured powder down the bore, seated the conical Minié ball into the rifling, and rammed it home with the rod.
She cocked the flintlock, primed the flash pan, and brought the walnut stock firmly to her shoulder.
Front sight aligned with the rear notch, pinning dead center on the chest of the largest mercenary, who was clad in an iron brigandine. The woman was just raising a goblet to her lips when Seraphine smoothly squeezed the trigger.
The thunderous report ripped through the midnight silence like a lightning strike. The heavy .58-caliber slug punched cleanly through the iron plates of the armor, tearing the warrior’s ribs and heart to shreds.
A fountain of gore sprayed over the hearth, and the woman tumbled straight into the embers.
The remaining two scrambled to their feet in blind terror, unable to comprehend where the thunderbolt had fallen from - powder arms were exceptionally rare in these provinces, and nobody had ever heard of gunfire delivered from such range in the dead of night.
Before they could grasp the horror of their plight, a second sharp report cracked. The lead ball caught the next woman square between the eyes, shattering her skull like an earthen jar.
The final assassin dove behind a stack of wooden ration crates, shuddering in abject panic.
But to a modern lead slug, pine planks were little more than parchment - Seraphine’s third shot punched straight through the crate, splintering the hidden woman’s femur and severing the femoral artery.
The wounded killer bled out in under a minute.
Just like that, within a matter of minutes, Seraphine wiped out the entire hit squad without suffering a scratch.
Descending into the gorge, she rummaged through their packs. On the commander’s corpse, she unearthed the very prize she had hoped for: a rolled parchment outlining the hunting party’s itinerary and a layout of Adelgarde’s camp, stamped with the signature and personal seal of Cordelia Karsfeld.
A predatory, vindictive smirk blossomed on Seraphine’s lips. She now possessed absolute, ironclad proof of high treason and attempted fratricide.
For the rest of the night, she methodically scrubbed every trace: hurling the bodies into a deep crevasse, heaping boulders over them, and dismantling the camp to the bare earth.
Come morning, right on cue, a torrential downpour burst from the leaden clouds, washing away lingering traces of soot and blood. In all likelihood, Eleonora von Drachenberg would simply assume her hired swords had absconded with their advance coin.
Returning to her tent, Seraphine washed the mud from her skin and collapsed onto her cot.
She drifted off to the sound of the downpour drumming relentlessly against the canvas. Her parting thought before slipping into slumber was an exasperated sigh:
Stupid hunt... In the warmth of my quarters, I could be shamelessly riding Vivienne right now...