Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 72 - 72 57 Target Constantinople!_2

72: Chapter 57: Target, Constantinople!_2 72: Chapter 57: Target, Constantinople!_2 The knights were once again plunged into anxious unrest.

Although everyone followed the Western Catholic faith rather than the Eastern Orthodox, they nevertheless belonged to the same religion.

Rashly raising the slaughterous blade against fellow believers was surely to descend into Hell for judgement.

The authorization document from Pope Innocent slightly alleviated the knights’ doubts, but it was still insufficient for them to make up their minds.

A few hours later, the Frank Knights on the deck had clearly split into two distinct factions.

One faction had had enough of the days spent drifting and tossing on the sea; they were determined to follow the Marquis and the Governor to Constantinople, to first settle the debt owed to the Venetians, and then use this as a base to cut a path eastward until Jerusalem was reclaimed.

The other faction was adamantly opposed to being led by the nose by the Marquis and the Venetians, stating that Constantinople housed nearly ten million Catholic believers, and attacking the city would certainly defy God, thereby bringing terrible divine retribution upon them all.

The two sides argued incessantly, almost coming to the point of drawing their swords against each other on deck.

At that moment, Governor Enrique calmly stepped forward, stating that he respected the opinions of both factions of knights, but the sea ship belonged to Venice; those willing to attack Constantinople could stay.

And those unwilling to attack could take a small boat provided by the Venetians, whether they wished to go to Anatolia or return to the West; they were welcome to row there themselves!

As a result, actually hundreds of young and hot-blooded knights accepted this jest-like condition from the Venetians and set sail in the small boats.

What these knights who knew nothing of seamanship were unaware of was that the flat-bottomed small boats they boarded were specially designed for landing; with shallow draft and extremely thin bottoms, they wouldn’t last long at sea.

A few days later, their bodies were washed up on the nearby shores.

The majority of the remaining Frank Knights, whether willingly or unwillingly, had no choice but to follow the Venetian fleet towards the direction of Golden Horn Bay.

The defenses of Constantinople in this direction were extremely fragile; if the Venetian sea ships could successfully break into the Golden Horn Bay, they would be able to launch an assault on the vulnerable flank of Constantinople.

……

“Ha!” Eleanor’s right arm, holding the gun, bent slightly as she swiftly rotated the gun forward in a thrusting motion.

Spiral Charge!

Then the gun abruptly sank downward and was already being stepped on by Aske’s foot.

“What is the characteristic of the Spiral Charge?” Aske sternly asked her.

“It’s…” Eleanor bit her lower lip, “the rapid shaking and rotation of the gun during the thrusting process, which deflects weapons sticking to the gun body, generally used to break through an enemy’s block.”

“If it is a defense-breaking move, why use it as a Starting Move?” Aske frowned and asked.

“I wanted to catch him off guard,” Eleanor muttered.

Nora had come to her crying the entire night before, which had caused Eleanor to harbor a great deal of resentment toward Aske, and her thoughts of defeating him had become much stronger as well.

“Naive,” Aske shook his head, “next time try using the Dragon Spear as your Starting Move.”

From a distance, on the edge of a cliff, Miel was in a prone sniping position, holding the newly obtained Slaughterer III Rifle, aiming at a target in the distance.

“Distance 4.6, crosswind…”

“What are you mumbling about?” Aske walked over to her and asked.

“Trying to correct the trajectory,” Miel answered.

“This rifle has self-aiming components,” Aske said as he grabbed her rifle, demonstrating by flipping the magazine’s switch, “activate the infrared emitter here, and it will emit infrared light at 14um wavelength that is invisible to the naked eye, but visible through the rifle scope.”

“There’s an extra one,” Miel said, maintaining her aiming posture, “a red dot.”

“Move the red dot onto your target.

At that point, your firearm and the target’s red dot are connected by this infrared light path,” Aske explained, “Once the bullet leaves the barrel, it will automatically correct its path along the infrared light route.”

“That is to say, you don’t have to consider gravity deviation or anything like that, just aim the red dot at the target, and the bullet will automatically track the red dot to hit the target.”

With a “bang,” Miel had already pressed the trigger, and a burl on a distant tree trunk exploded, leaving behind a huge hole.

“Yes.” Miel tried according to his instruction and commented, “The self-aiming is very useful.”

“Beyond 2000 meters for long-range sniping, you can hardly compensate for the error manually, self-aiming is your only choice.” Aske continued, “Additionally, this rifle can switch modes—unlock the turning wheel, rotate the barrel beneath upwards, and it becomes an assault rifle with a range of approximately 50-400 meters.”

“The assault mode and the sniper mode use different magazines; the latter’s bullets are much more expensive, so it’s best to practice mainly in assault mode, try to shoot single shots, and avoid burst fire.

For sniping, just aim more.”

“Okay.” Miel replied.

The little girl was still not very talkative.

Aske shook his head and continued to inspect the training status of others when he saw Nora hurriedly walking past with a notebook in her arms.

“Nora!” Aske called out to her.

Nora lifted her head in a fluster and then stepped back two steps with some timidity, turning her head quietly, “What is it?”

“What’s with the look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Aske couldn’t help but feel a mix of amusement and frustration.

But he was well aware of the reason, and quickly shifted the subject, “How is the team doing with digesting the Magic Potion?”

“Eleanor, I, Mia, have all digested the Magic Potion already,” Nora said softly, “Sigrdrifa and Miel haven’t taken the Magic Potion yet.”

“That means five people will need to search for Magic Potion Materials next,” Aske pondered, “Understood.”

“Did you stop me to ask about this?” Nora asked timidly.

“No,” Aske wasn’t foolish enough to say “Of course,” but simply smiled and said, “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“I’m doing fine.” Nora extended her finger, awkwardly twirled a stray strand of hair beside her cheek, then took a deep breath, “That’s it, anything else?”

“Nothing more,” Aske shook his head, and in his heart, he couldn’t help but cry.

Ever since they had cleared the air last time, the relationship between the two had fallen into a kind of “Schrodinger state,” which was neither flirty nor purely platonic.

Communicating with her now was truly awkward!

No, he couldn’t let personal feelings interfere with work.

He made an effort to clear the clutter from his mind and smiled as he said goodbye to Nora.

Nora, holding her notebook, slowly walked down the mountain.

Reaching a small lake in the forest, she squatted by the water’s edge, looking at her own charming reflection.

Her chestnut hair was fluffy and soft, her delicate features small and gentle, the kind with a pure and sweet appearance.

Leaving aside the graceful figure characteristic of a female college student, with just her pretty face, she received over thirty love letters and confessions in a single semester when she was at the Solomon Theological School.

Really, where could she not find a boyfriend if she wanted to?

Why stubbornly hang on to this one tree?

Staring blankly at her reflection in the lake, tears began to flow unconsciously.

“Wait for ten years, huh…

That’s really…

too much…” she muttered to herself, biting her lower lip, “Aske, you bad person…”

Tears dropped onto the surface of the lake, causing ripples to spread.

She stared at the tearful face, fell silent for a long while, then used the back of her hand to wipe away the tears on her face, sadly smiling:

“Why the tears again, Nora?

When did you become such a crybaby…”

Speaking as if to chastise herself, she disturbed the reflection on the surface of the lake.

From behind a nearby tree, Eleanor looked on with a heart full of pity, also lost for words for a moment.