by Dojyomaru
“Hahh... Hahh... Y-You make it sound so easy...” Hal came over and joined us, panting and looking exhausted.
It must have been a hard training session. Even though it was still only the second month of the year, he was drenched with sweat. He cut off his parachute, and maybe he felt hot, because he stripped down to nothing but a tank top on his top half.
Hal took a canteen of water from Kaede as he complained. “Honestly, you drop me from the sky again, and again, and again.”
“I’ll just remind you, there are safety precautions in place,” I said. “If you go into the danger zone without your parachute opening, the wyvern knights are supposed to retrieve you.”
“That’s not the problem,” Hal said. “It’s damn scary being thrown out into the sky. The wind roars as it races past your ears. I don’t know how many times I’ve thought I was going to die.”
“Ohh. Yeah... I don’t ever want to do it myself.”
“I’m not doing it because I want to, either!” he shouted.
While I was bantering with Hal, Castor raised a question he’d had.
“In order to drop dratroopers, don’t you need to break the enemy’s air power first? If the wyvern cavalry are carrying dratroopers, they can’t fight that well, can they?”
Hmm... That was the former General of the Air Force for you. He’d caught on to a good point.
“That’s why we’ve strengthened the wyverns’ abilities with the Little Susumu Mark V Light,” I said. “This is an innovation that affects both the dratroopers, who belong to the Army, and the wyvern cavalry, who belong to the Air Force, at the same time. We don’t have a system for mass production in place yet, so we have to prioritize where they’ll be deployed.”
“I see... It’s an upgrade you can carry out precisely because you unified everyone under the National Defense Force,” Castor said with a groan of admiration. He looked up into the sky where the wyvern cavalry were flying in formation, and muttered sadly, “Wyverns that fly faster than griffons and farther than dragons, huh. I wish I could ride on one. I’ve never felt more frustrated about being transferred to the Navy than I do right now...”
“...Castor?” I asked.
“Ha ha... It’s just the howling of a beaten dog. Pay me no mind.”
“...Is it?” I asked.
A beaten dog... huh?
True, I had won and Castor had lost. Now we were standing next to each other staring up into the sky. It was a strange feeling.
Excel watched our exchange with a wry smile.
“Now, let’s check out down below next,” I said.
After parting with Hal and Kaede, we had returned to the open plain we had walked across earlier. I was pointing towards a small, rocky mountain that was large enough to be seen from where we were.
“That rocky mountain over there is probably closest. Let’s go there.”
I lead the way. When we reached the foot of that rocky mountain, the wyvern knights were landing, having just finished their training. In the foothills of that rocky mountain, there was the opening to a cave large enough that a rhinoceros could easily pass through. The wyverns were going inside.
Seeing that, Castor asked me, “Is that where the wyvern stables are?”
“Oh, hey. You figured it out.”
“Normally, wyverns build their nests in rocky caves like that one,” he explained. “We built similar facilities in Red Dragon City. Compared to ordinary stables, the wyverns can relax more easily in a place like this.”
Ah, that made sense. He would be an expert on the topic.
“That’s right,” I said. “That cave is connected to the level beneath this one. Down on that level there are about one hundred or so small rooms that branch off to the side of the main cave. We have the wyverns living in them. There are twenty or so of them here at the moment, though.”
“One hundred?!” he yelped. “That’s one-tenth of all the wyverns we had at our command when I was commander! Do you need that many deployed here on this island?! Is this a front line base or something?!”
“Well, there’s a lot that goes into my reasoning for it,” I said.
While I was reassuring Castor, we entered the cave. It stank like a farm inside. (Or maybe a zoo.) We were doing our best to ventilate the place, but there was no helping this.
“So... the place down below that you wanted to show me, is it the wyvern’s roosts?” Castor asked, frowning. Maybe all the secrecy was starting to irritate him.
“No, it’s even further down,” I told him. “Come on, through here.”
In front of us there was a man-made door that was clearly out of place in the cave. There were cranks on either side of it, and there was a guard standing at attention next to each crank. Beyond the door there was a small, square room.
“Um, sire... It looks like an awfully small room?” Juna commented, a question mark floating over her head.
Oh, right. This was a first for Juna, too, huh. It was going to be fun seeing her reaction.
“Okay, people,” I said. “All aboard.”
“Aboard? Is this some sort of vehicle?”
“Don’t worry about it.” I turned to the soldiers on each side. “Okay, to the lower level, please.”
They saluted. ““Yes, sir! As you command!””
When everyone was inside the little room, the soldiers spoke into a communication tube. “Traveling from middle level to lower level.” Then, after the responses of “Upper level, roger,” and “Lower level, roger,” came, they began spinning the cranks beside the door. When they did, the little room began to slowly descend.
“Eek!” Juna shrieked.
The drop was slight, but it came suddenly, and Juna lost her balance, leaning against my chest for support. When I caught her, I felt the closeness of her soft body, and the scent of her hair tickled my nose. It was kind of nice for me.
“I-I’m sorry, sire,” Juna said, blushing.
“Hey, I’m not complaining,” I said. “You okay?”
“Y-Yes. ...Is this little room going down below?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You saw the cranks by the door, right? By turning them, they’re able to raise or lower this room.”
That’s right. This box-like room was an extremely simple manual elevator. The designer was Genia Maxwell.
I (not being so good at the sciences) didn’t understand the system that well myself, but there was a pulley with a counterweight on the opposite side of the elevator, and that somehow let them raise and lower the elevator with no more power than it took to pedal a bike.
The truth was, it had originally been designed to be installed in Genia’s dungeon laboratory. When she’d thought about it, though, even if the hassle of going up and down the stairs was removed, Genia wasn’t going to want to go outside any more often, so the plan had been scrapped.
The team I’d sent to organize Genia’s blueprints (they’d been stored so haphazardly, I’d dispatched a cleaning team—led by Ludwin, of course) had found the plans, so we’d tried setting one up here as a test. It was manually operated, not that fast, and required a lift attendant to be on hand at all times, but if they worked in one-hour shifts, it wasn’t that tiring for them.
There were currently only three stops, “Cave Entrance,” “Lowest Level,” and “Top Level,” so the one elevator only took six soldiers to operate.
Honestly, it only needed one person to operate it (two, if they were working in shifts), but the soldiers had said that, when there were requests from multiple levels, it caused confusion, so we had ended up with a six-person system in which the soldiers announced what they were doing before turning the cranks.
There were a number of elevators installed here. (Though this one here in the cave was the only one with three levels.) I intended to have them installed at the castle, too, sometime in the near future. The palace was a big place, and it was a lot of work going up and down the stars all the time, after all...
When I gave her that explanation,
Juna let out a sexy sigh for some reason. “I feel like I can understand why the princess has an exhausted look on her face sometimes.”
“Why are you bringing up Liscia now?” I queried.
“I understand this is a wonderful machine, but when you pop things that are beyond my understanding on me one after another, it’s hard to keep up.”
“Do you really need to think about it so deeply?” I asked. “I’m sure the guys here only think, ‘Hey, what a convenient new thing to have.’”
“That won’t do.” Juna was still leaning against my chest, and she gave me a soft smile. “Even if it’s exhausting... we want to understand you.”
“...That’s kind of embarrassing,” I admitted.
While we were talking, we arrived at the lowest level. The elevator doors opened into a wide, open space with a high ceiling.
There were a large number of machines, bizarre pieces of experimental apparatus, and “something” that appeared to be currently under construction. It was like the scene I had witnessed before in Genia’s dungeon laboratory.
If there was one difference, it was in the number of people. Here and there, there were people wearing the white lab coats that made them look like researchers, as well as construction workers traveling to and fro.
I explained this place to the three visitors with me. “This is where the military research and development department is based now. That piece of wyvern flight equipment, the Little Susumu Mark V Light, is being developed here, too.”
“You’re making them on an island? I would think it would be an inconvenient place to set up a workshop...” Castor presented the issue he was seeing. He was right, of course, but there was a reason for it.
“When it comes to military technology, we have to be worried about information leaking to other countries,” I explained. “In a place like this, surrounded by the sea, we’re able to put limits on who comes in, and what is taken out. That’s convenient. Well, it’s gotten cramped here, though, so I’m thinking we’ll eventually move to a larger place.”
Walking a bit further, a little glass room came into sight. Inside, the researchers were doing an operating test of the Little Susumu Mark V Light.
Technically, the glass was reinforced glass (not in terms of the materials used— It was glass that had been reinforced with magic), so if something terrible were to happen, like the equipment were to explode, or a researcher were to be sucked in and blown out, it wouldn’t have an effect on anything outside the room. Still, that wasn’t going to prevent damage and casualties inside of the room, so I hoped the researchers would be careful in their work.
“This is both an arsenal and a research institute,” I said. “That said, most of what they’re doing right now is testing Genia Maxwell’s inventions.”
The overscientist and inventor, Genia, was a stereotypical genius. Once she built one of her creations, that was enough to satisfy her. She apparently didn’t do much further research on the subject or refine it after that. She would rather devote the time and energy to making something else she wanted to create.
“That’s... a terrible waste,” Excel said, tilting her head to the side.
Yeah, I felt the same way. We had managed to use her Little Susumu Mark V to create the lightweight version, after all. But...
“I think that’s the most efficient way for Genia to work. It’s only natural that people have their own strengths and weaknesses. There are genius-types like Genia who have crazy ideas and pop them one after another, but there are also artisan-types like the researchers here who focus on studying one thing and achieve results that way. I want to praise both types equally.”
“Hee hee,” Excel giggled. “I think that’s an admirable way of thinking, sire.”
When I was given such an unreserved compliment by an important vassal who, contrary to her mid-twenties appearance, had supported this country for close to five hundred years, it tickled me a bit.
“Well, it’s not like we’ll see worthwhile results from all of it,” I admitted.
“Hm? Why do you say that?” she asked.
“To explain... Uh, was it over here, maybe?”
“Why do you sound so uncertain?”
“I’ve seen the blueprints for this place, but it’s my first time actually coming here, too,” I said. “It was easy to see where everything was on the upper level, so that was one thing, but the inside is kind of a convoluted mess.”
Following my vague memory of the blueprints, we soon came to our destination. It was a shooting range surrounded by walls and nets. There were bows leaned up against the wall, and for some reason, there were two suits of leather armor set up as targets. The range was only about ten meters deep.
“You even have a shooting range?” Castor asked. “But with the targets so close, it won’t be much use for training,” He picked up one of the bows that was leaning against the wall.
“That would be because it’s not for training, you see,” I said. “If they want to train, they can do it in the field on the upper level.”
“I guess that makes sense...”
“Rather, this place is for testing bows and arrows, or testing the durability of armor.” Explaining that, I handed Castor an arrow. “Castor. How are you with a bow?”
“Don’t make fun of me. I may not be one anymore, but a general must be familiar with all of the martial arts.”
“Good, then,” I said. “Just try taking an ordinary shot at the armor on your right.”
“I just have to hit it, right? Fine.”
Castor readied his bow, drew back the string... and released. With a twang, the arrow flew straight towards the armor, stabbing into the leather suit. However, only the arrow’s head stabbed into it, and it didn’t pierce through.
Castor cocked his head to the side questioningly. “That leather armor... Have they done something to it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “There’s a thin iron plate behind it. Okay, next. This time, fire like you would in combat, infusing the arrow with magic.”
“...Okay.”
Castor fired again. There was no visual difference in what he did, but this time the arrow pierced the leather armor. It was thanks to the magic he had put into it, no doubt. This demonstrated that, if it were enchanted with an element, an arrow could pass through a suit of armor with metal in it.
“Okay, next, shoot the suit on your left using another magic arrow,” I said.
“Roger.”
Castor fired again. When he did, there was a clang and the arrow bounced off. The leather armor was unscratched.
“That is a suit of the Empire’s Magic Armor Corps’ armor... or a pale imitation of it,” I said.
“Pale imitation?”
“We don’t have the technology to fully replicate it, I hear. But this suit of armor is reinforced with defensive magic, too. You saw it negate the magic, and the arrow was repelled, right? Well, these arrows were one of our failed attempts to come up with a way to counteract a suit of armor like this one.” I handed Castor an arrow with a black head.
“What is this arrow?” he asked.
“I call it an anti-magic arrow. The head is made with curse ore.”
“Curse ore?!” Castor looked closely at the arrowhead.
Curse ore was an ore that absorbed magical energy. You may remember that Genia used this ore as a power source for her Little Susumu Mark V. Because you couldn’t use magic when it was nearby (or rather, the energy from magic was absorbed), and magic was seen as the blessing of the gods or spirits in this world, it was called a cursed ore.
“We learned that curse ore doesn’t negate magic, it only works to absorb its energy,” I explained. “In that case, I thought maybe it could absorb the magic power placed in a piece of equipment using enchantment magic. So, we tested it, and... I was right.”
“That’s incredible, isn’t it?!” Castor said excitedly. “If that’s true, we don’t have anything to worry about from the Magic Armor Corps!”
; But I shook my head. “Didn’t I already tell you? It was a failed attempt. Curse ore absorbs more than just the enemy’s magic. We can’t enchant things with elemental magic, or reinforce our arrows either.”
“Ah! So that means...”
“Try it for yourself and see.”
“Uh, sure.” Castor let one of the anti-magic arrows loose. When he did, the anti-magic arrow scratched the surface of the magically enchanted armor a little, but the arrow head shattered into little pieces when it hit.
While Castor and the others were still taken aback, I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s like we’re back to where we started, hitting an ordinary suit of armor with an ordinary arrow. Curse ore is pretty brittle, so it’s not useful as an arrowhead on its own. And if we melt it down and put it inside an iron arrowhead, the decreased amount of curse ore weakens the effect. Meanwhile, if we increase the amount, the arrowhead gets too large, and it’s no longer functional as an arrow at all. To be blunt, we’ve hit a dead end.”
“...That’s why it’s a failure, huh.”
“That’s right.”
Still, even if there had been almost nothing gained from the attempt, it wasn’t a complete wash. We had put a slight dent in that enchanted armor. That suit of armor that was covered in fragments of curse ore had lost its enchantment. If it were hit with a bullet, or something else that had a high level of penetrating force even without magic, it would be possible to penetrate that armor.
Yes, when developing the anti-magic arrow, I had been thinking about introducing the gun, which hadn’t been developed in this world because it didn’t provide much of an advantage.
When I’d learned of the existence of curse ore, I’d thought it might be possible to shoot through the Magic Armor Corps. However, the result had been as I’d shown.
An ordinary bullet would be deflected by the enchantment. If we tried to use curse ore in the bullet, it would become too brittle to be usable. Besides, though it was common to strike curse ore in the kingdom, it had many uses, like the Little Susumu, so we didn’t have such a surplus that we could afford to waste it.
Furthermore, when used in a bullet, the curse ore could cause problems later. If land became littered with bullets that had missed their mark, it would make it impossible to use magic there for a while. In this world where magic was a part of people’s daily lives, that would make the land unlivable.