Otherworld Advance Team
Chapter 886 - 879: Firearms Repair

Chapter 886: Chapter 879: Firearms Repair

"So you’ve decided to go to Xia Yue Island?" Axia asked with her arms crossed as she looked at them.

"Yes," Luo’er replied.

"To be honest, this is the first time I’ve met someone from the Otherworld," Axia couldn’t help saying. "But I find it strange. Are there elves in the Otherworld too?"

"No, my father is from Earth, and my mother is a Wood Elf," Luo’er answered truthfully.

"The love between your parents must be quite remarkable," Axia said, shaking her head.

As she spoke, she got up from where she was sitting and, with her back to everyone, said, "I’m sorry Eve brought you here to seek my help only for me to be of no use. Since you are all guests, if you don’t mind, you can stay here for the time being and leave when the ice and snow melt a bit. There’s no one for hundreds of miles around, and if you go out now, you may all starve on the way."

"No, you’ve provided us with a lot of insights, and on behalf of the Advance Team, I offer you our sincere thanks. As for settling down here, we..." Luo’er hesitated to say.

"Either stay or go out!" Axia turned her head back and said without mercy.

"Luo’er, don’t bother with the customs you used in the Otherworld when coming to Earth. She won’t fall for that," Cheng Ziang approached Luo’er and said with a bit of schadenfreude.

"Well, then, thank you very much..." Luo’er said awkwardly.

"You’re welcome. I just did it to have Eve stay with me a bit longer," Axia stated calmly.

After tidying up a bit, the Advance Team temporarily settled in Axia’s home. Her house didn’t seem very large, but there was actually a good-sized basement underground.

The basement was divided into two parts, one was a storage area with a large stock of dry goods and food, consisting mainly of wheat and flour—God knows where in this wilderness Axia got all this food from.

Luo’er estimated that the amount of food stored in the warehouse could last the Advance Team at least three months. In addition to these items, the storage area contained a large number of furs and precious medicines. If Luo’er wasn’t mistaken, Axia must have had quite a bit of contact with trade caravans, otherwise, she wouldn’t own a Mosinka-Nagant rifle.

Beside the storage area was what seemed to be a pharmacy, with an assortment of strange bottles and jars on a wooden table, amongst them not a few glass bottles from Earth, mostly wine bottles. It looked like this was where Axia normally concocted her medicines, and it was clear that Luo’er had underestimated her medical knowledge.

The pharmacy had a fireplace, which could keep the room warm when a fire was lit. After tidying up a bit, Axia had the Advance Team line up wooden boards to sleep on in a common room, while Eve went to sleep with Axia.

As payment, Luo’er gave Axia a large bag of spices, which were considered a hard currency in the Otherworld, equivalent to a larger bag of gold coins, which delighted Axia.

As mentioned before, Earthlings came together to earn gold in the Otherworld by designating certain items that were common on Earth but scarce in the Otherworld as luxuries, and strictly controlling their export. Spices were one of the main luxuries.

Since the Advance Team members grew up on Earth from a young age, they did not know the preciousness of these items, merely consuming them as goods. When on a mission, headquarters always provided them with these supplies, both for their own use and as hard currency for trade to alleviate any potential financial difficulties the Advance Team might face.

In the Otherworld, these items are extremely precious. Otherworldly nobles emulate the Earthlings’ lifestyle, and thus began to indulge in what they considered luxury goods, sparking a strange trend throughout the Otherworld to emulate the consumption of these items.

Now settled, the Advance Team finally got out of their exhausted state. Luo’er also felt that setting out again rashly might be dangerous, so he finally decided to stay until the snow melted before leaving.

Axia led a simple life. When the heavy snows came, she would sit in front of the fireplace to meditate or read, occasionally tinkering with her bottles and jars. After the Advance Team moved in, she no longer had the chance to prepare her medicines, so she would sit by the fireplace, fiddling with her only Mosinka-Nagant rifle.

After Luo’er and his party got settled, they walked up from the basement just in time to see Axia straining with the bolt handle of the Mosinka-Nagant rifle. So, Hu Daoke took a step forward and gestured to let him try.

Axia passed the rifle to Hu Daoke without any suspicion. Hu Daoke forcefully pulled the bolt handle, then withdrew the cartridge case from the chamber. That’s when they realized that the main reason Axia stopped after firing one shot was that she couldn’t pull back the bolt handle.

Hu Daoke briefly inspected her only Mosinka-Nagant rifle and couldn’t help but let out a cry of surprise.

"What’s with the fuss?" Cheng Ziang asked.

"Oh my, this is an antique gun, a model from 1891. This gun would be much more valuable as a collector’s piece than as a weapon to sell to someone. Just look, the rifling is almost worn smooth. I wonder which unscrupulous Earth arms dealer sold it to the Otherworld; they probably sold it by weight," Hu Daoke said with a sigh.

"What does rifling mean?" Axia looked up and asked him.

"Ah, you don’t know about rifling? Then how do you know how to use this gun?" Hu Daoke asked after a moment of surprise.

"Is it difficult? Just align the three points, rotate, pull it back, then chamber and pull the trigger. That’s what the merchants taught me," Axia said with a shrug, not seeming to care.

"Do you know how to repair guns?" Hu Daoke asked, somewhat speechlessly.

"No clue. When one breaks, I just buy another from those merchants. We know each other well by now, and they can bring me back another good one," Axia replied.

"Bring back a good one..." Hu Daoke muttered, made a few gestures to assess the situation, and couldn’t help but ask, "How long have you been using this rifle?"

"Bought it before winter this year," Axia said.

"Then you’ve been cheated, at the very least, this is not a ’good’ rifle. It’s basically on the verge of being scrapped," Hu Daoke said.

"You..." Axia looked at him uncertainly.

"Don’t underestimate our Old Hu; he’s a firearms expert, self-proclaimed, of course," Cheng Ziang said teasingly.

"Cut it out, I at least know more than you do," Hu Daoke replied, giving him a look.

"Can it still be repaired?" Axia asked, somewhat concerned.

"It’s not a question of whether it can be repaired or not, it’s that this gun is almost scrapped. Unless you can replace parts, it’s definitely beyond saving," Hu Daoke explained and then took a deep breath, looking at her and continued, "Actually, you initially intended to shoot Yue’er with one shot, right? It was only because the gun misfired that she was able to escape by luck."

"These damn swindlers!" Hearing this, Axia’s complexion finally changed as she gritted her teeth in anger.

"Besides this one, do you have any other guns?" Hu Daoke asked, setting down the Mosinka-Nagant rifle in his hands.

"I have a few others, but they’re all broken. I’ve put them all away," Axia replied.

"Let me see if they can still be repaired," Hu Daoke offered.

"Oh..." Axia’s eyes widened as she looked at him, then she turned and walked toward the basement.

Shortly after, she struggled to carry up three rifles of different styles, but all were bolt-action rifles. These rifles were not from the same brand; one was the commonly known ’Old Li’ Enfield rifle, another was the German G98 rifle, and there was even a Russian series SKS rifle.

Hu Daoke briefly examined them and found that only the G98 was still usable. Axia had thought it was broken mainly because she had used the wrong bullets, leading to a clog in the barrel, and she couldn’t even pull open the bolt handle.

It took Hu Daoke a good while to extract the stuck bullet and discovered it was a rimmed cartridge. If he wasn’t mistaken, Axia had probably forced a 7.7 bullet meant for the ’Old Li’ into the G98’s chamber, resulting in the damage.

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