Tyranny of Steel

Itami sat in her great hall, gazing upon her advisors and the heads of various government sectors. In the months since she had developed the plans for her new naval vessels, she had been doing her best to modernize her armed forces and expand her influence across the realm.

Because she had a smaller army than Berengar, she could arm them with the newest weapons that she had developed much more quickly than he could. Thirty thousand men had sworn their loyalty to the War Goddess, and now she was prepared to strike.

However, before she could launch an invasion of her first target for Imperial expansion, some troubling news came from her trade minister, who laid a device on the table that had come from a merchant who had travelled to the land Itami knew as India.

This device was not a simple arkebuse, instead it was a rifled flintlock musket. How did the Indians get their hands on such devices? Via their trade with the Timurid Empire who, through internal corruption, sold some of the weapons that were meant to go to their troops engaged in the war against the Catholic Church. Itami glared fiercely at the weapon that should not exist in this era and immediately questioned the minister of trade just how he obtained the weapon.

”Kono-san! Where did you get this weapon!?! ”