Eve of the Festival (2): The Past
The war had ended with the canyon gates opening and a single siege of the capital. Yet the Empire had plotted five invasion routes and devised comprehensive plans for each.
"Thanks to your father opening the canyon gates, the invasion we'd prepared for thirty years turned to trash in a mere five minutes." After the kingdom fell, the emperor had once said that to me.
"For instance, out of three hundred tactics, two hundred ninety-nine assumed Crimson Gibraltar would join the battlefield—and they all became meaningless."
The Gibraltar family was always there in the kingdom's crises. When defending Gibraltar Canyon held no meaning. Or when the situation was so dire that they had to protect the capital instead of the canyon. From my current perspective, that would be when Mother was in the capital.
The canyon remained firmly under Gibraltar control due to its terrain, but a Sword Master could race across the land to anywhere in the kingdom. So, what other notable forces did the kingdom possess besides Sword Masters?
Without a doubt, the kingdom's Wyvern Knights. Led by Grand Duke Winchester Morgania, they were knights who dominated the battlefield mounted on tamed flying beasts—griffons, wyverns, drakes, and the like. In any war, no one could easily overcome a knight order with overwhelming mobility and the ability to strike from the skies.
There was even talk that the Empire developed the musket specifically to counter the Wyvern Knights, underscoring their significant influence within the kingdom.
The Empire wasn't foolish.
"Honestly, the part I put the most effort into was dismantling the Wyvern Knights." Naturally, we'd exhausted every means to neutralize them.
"One: The death of Grand Duke Winchester Morgania. The duke died."
"Ah, don't misunderstand. It wasn't assassination—it was from illness. He died of old age."
With the Wyvern Knights' leader gone, the next Morgania heir took over the order.
"In an atmosphere of peace, we fostered reconciliation so the aged veteran no longer needed to wield his spear. If it had been wartime, he would've clung to life on the ground for at least five more years. How would you have killed him?" the emperor asked.
"...It's a good method, but wasn't there a faster way to kill an old man?" I replied.
"Lead him to ruin with foods an old man would love? Stuff him with nothing but sugar and flour...?" The emperor let out a hollow laugh but nodded vigorously.
"Two: Striking at the wyverns. Much like tactics against cavalry horses, the emperor targeted the wyverns—their equivalent mounts."
"We bought off the breeders managing the Wyvern Knights' wyverns. We poisoned them to death or clipped their wings so they couldn't fly. Directly hitting them proved tricky in many ways, though..." In response, I offered a few suggestions.
"...Sprinkle medicine in their feed troughs right before battle to cause stomachaches and diarrhea? Ha. What about incapacitating them only for combat without killing or injuring them, then capturing them intact?" It was just a joke, but the emperor seemed to take it seriously.
One thing puzzled me, though.
"What? Weakening the enemy matters, but strengthening our own forces to match them is just as important, right?" Exactly. Correct. The emperor was thrilled by that question.
"To slay a dragon, you make it collapse and weaken first—but ultimately, to pierce its hide and drive a blade into its heart, you must cultivate your own strength." We waited until the Wyvern Knights' leader died. We left them unable to mount their wyverns, crawling on the ground instead.
"But we succeeded in creating our own flying unit." Even if those external measures failed, the emperor planned to crush the Wyvern Knights with the Empire's own capabilities.
"Even if the Wyvern Knights clashed with our Empire's 'air force,' we'd emerge victorious." I asked how, if the canyon gates hadn't opened, they planned to send all those soldiers into the kingdom.
"Load the soldiers onto ships and fly them through the skies," the emperor said.
"You've ridden one yourself—you can't cross the canyon, but you can pass the gates. The Empire surely would have come from the skies."
"If ships couldn't cross the sea, we'd fly over the canyon." Magitech development and the emperor's obsession had introduced humanity to a new concept.
"It didn't matter how many were shot down mid-flight. To cross the 50-meter gates."
"It didn't matter how many mana stones we burned as fuel to push air with mana bursts. To cross the 300-meter canyon."
"We just needed to fly over the canyon from above and land." Long-range flight be damned—it was an extreme transport developed solely for "crossing the canyon from above." Airships. No, airships (Flying Ships).
"We printed war bonds like mad and liquidated every asset of Iferia Industries to gather mana stones, all to fuel the airships' Wind Stones." The Empire's planned invasion route was the skies.
"We poured that much money into making those Wind Stones, but thanks to your father opening the gates, we just walked through the canyon. On paper."
"If I regret anything, it's wasting immense time and unit-scale budgets on those Wind Stone researchers." The forward-looking emperor, unburdened by the past, admitted his regret outright.
"Those trash researchers—if I could turn back time, I'd have wrung their necks first." We'd invested near-infinite time and budgets. Based on that technology, we'd even gutted the Empire's top corporation's ships to bolster our military.
But when Father snapped his fingers and opened the gates, all that preparation turned to bubbles. One of the researchers who developed that technology: Arshen Gillarus. A traitor who leaked the kingdom's prototype Wind Stone—Levitation Stone—tech docs to the Empire for bribes and received an imperial title.
* * *
Moments later, before Gate 3.
"We've arrived."
"Hah, huff, heuk...!"
Baron Arshen bowed his head, breathing raggedly. Pride intact, he braced his hands on his knees, panting, sweat pouring like rain.
"Are you alright?"
"Th-this...!"
Mages rarely exercised. Some even struggled with horses.
"Why ride when levitation magic gets you there?" Mages preferred flying over walking—as long as they had mana and spare stones, they could go anywhere. But only for short distances, like within buildings or cities.
"It's quite a way from the baron's castle to the canyon, isn't it?"
"Huff, heuk, kuh...!"
The man was on the verge of death from mana exhaustion.
"Young master." Sir Robert asked cautiously from behind.
"Is he okay?"
"He's fine. He won't die."
"No, I mean you, young master. Even if the margrave commanded it once, a guy like that..."
"He sees me as a child and holds a grudge."
Before coming here.
"Margrave! Even so, sending a mere child...!" Baron Arshen had feigned insult toward me before Father.
"What did you say?"
"Grey Gibraltar is my eldest son and the face I sent to receive you. What of it?"
"Ah, no, I mean..." He'd nearly died right there.
"When dealing with Grey Gibraltar, think of it as dealing with me, Crimson Gibraltar."
"Ah, y-yes!! Of, of course!!"
Thanks to that, I failed to maintain the image of "Grey, the useless eldest son discarded by Gibraltar"—
"Still, him groveling like that with his head bowed looks better."
"I agree."
As Robert said, some weren't worth buttering up. Bowing and scraping wouldn't boost Baron Arshen's ego much.
Sincerely. What a tragic fate. A man who'd achieve unparalleled feats in the future was, to me, merely a scale weighing "life or death."
"This way. Take the lift up."
"R-right. Okay."
Was it respect for elders? Or his personality, or a mage's stiff pride?
"Lead on. Y-you're not making me turn this by hand, right?"
Despite Father's words, he still treated me like a child.
"It's hand-cranked now. Since you're here, a question first."
"What?"
"There's wind magic, right?"
"Yes."
"Could you store it in a mana stone and, with just a mana puff, make constant wind in one direction?"
"...Not impossible."
Wind Stones or Levitation Stones—both based on "wind expulsion."
"Then, attach such a stone below this lift to blow wind only when ascending—could it go faster than now?"
I asked purely as a part for speed upgrade on this lift.
"Hmm... Not impossible, uh, wait..."
And a casual thought often sparks innovation in researchers.
"........."
"Sir Gillarus?"
"Ah, no. Nothing. Just pondering possibilities. Theory aside, we must consider practicality. Hmm."
He muttered to himself, eyes on the lift floor and walls—not me.
"I see. Pity."
Clunk, clunk. The lift hadn't reached half the wall height.
"If this were faster, we could give Queen Consort Carmen a fine view."
"Hmph, really...?"
I subtly dropped my connection to Carmen Queen to gauge his reaction.
"To you, speeding it up is all that matters?"
"Isn't that enough?"
"No! That's it. Just that instant acceleration feel."
His mind was sunk deeper into that than my ties to Carmen Queen.
'Seed planted.'
Wind Stones would be developed anyway. No Empire papers mentioned them yet—but
'With the navy dismantled, the 1st Fleet's warships are all docked.'
The hulls for airships were being moved from sea to somewhere else.
'Able to launch airships in 7 years means research or precursors are underway now.'
I didn't know details. The ship-to-sky concept might not exist yet. Or wings on ships to fly over the canyon. Or adding wheels to the keel for land battleships as mobile tents in polluted zones, later shifted to airships.
But the navy was gone; seafaring ships repurposed.
So.
'No issue if we develop Wind Stones first—or at least.'
Leave Wind Stone development to the original researcher.
"Then, care to test an explosion spell for the festival?"
"Kuhuhu, sure. It's a happy day for me...?"
Baron Arshen pulled a vial from his robes and gulped the white liquid inside.
"Hahaha. I'll fire off fireworks aplenty. What color?"
He drew a short-sword-like wand from his belt and aimed at the canyon above.
"Purple and sky blue mixed, bursting against the canyon wall."
"Haha, and collapse the canyon?"
"No non-Master has ever shaken it."
"Heh..."
Arshen sneered at me, then aimed his wand at the canyon.
"I won't recklessly touch this canyon. They say a curse falls on those who do!"
"Don't mages ignore curses?"
"As if! Curses must be heeded. Especially now... hehehe."
He grinned slyly, hiding something.
"Thinking of the great feats this body will achieve."
That was a poisoned chalice.
Technology ceases to be one's own once others can replicate it.
'That's why he was dragged before me and shot.'
The memory resurfaced clearly.
'Killing someone once is one thing; twice by my hand...?'
I'd forgotten amid the Silver Dust haze and musket fire.
'The crown prince purged him not for embezzlement, but arrogance, probably.'
This man was eliminated by the emperor.
'Can't strut about Wind Stone invention and get marked by Shadows.'
Regrettably.
'Develop the Wind Stone diligently, hand over results, then leave.'
Seemed he wouldn't survive ordinarily this life either.