Chapter 354: The Tin Knight and the Land of Emeralds (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 354: The Tin Knight and the Land of Emeralds (4)
The northern continent. The Magic State.
An incredulous voice escaped the mouth of a certain golden skull.
“...So, you’re saying you want to modify my ship right now? Is that it?”
“Yes! If we had more time, I’d prepare all sorts of things, but we’re short on time, so strengthening what we already have is the best option!”
One might have shrunk under such a dumbfounded gaze, but Gale’s demeanor was endlessly confident and unabashed.
Then again, this was the white witch who hadn’t lost an ounce of spirit even while being held captive in the underground.
A mere legendary pirate (?) wasn’t nearly enough to intimidate her.
“Look here, young lady. A ship, you see, is like a spouse to its crew, a partner of the soul! It’s not something you can just tamper with so lightly—”
Thwip.
Gale sharply raised a finger and pointed to the sky.
There, the Heavenly Realm periodically unleashed a barrage of emerald light, and two witches were fighting valiantly to block the attacks.
In truth, they were too far away to see the individual witches, but the sheer scale of the energy in motion made it more than possible to feel the aftershocks of their mana.
“If they can’t stop it, we and the Empire are next. The Empire’s capital will be the first to be shattered, and our magic towers will be wiped out. Then there will be no one left to continue the research to turn you back into a human. Besides, while we’re standing here talking, our time is ticking away!”
“...”
The golden skull, Cap’n Bill, remained silent.
Beside him, the girl, Trot, spoke cautiously.
“Captain. I understand your pride, but could you please help us?”
“Hmph.”
Cap’n Bill’s skull contorted into a scowl, but he soon let out a sigh and his shoulders slumped.
Trot was one of Cap’n Bill’s crew, as well as the dedicated researcher dispatched from the magic towers to break the curse of immortality placed upon them.
Since she was asking so pleadingly while still respecting his pride, Cap’n Bill found it difficult to remain stubborn. Besides, the situation didn’t allow for it.
“Tsk, I have no choice! But if you’re going to do it, you’d better turn her into a masterpiece!”
“I’ll make her into a ship the likes of which history has never seen!”
With Gale’s bold declaration, the mages of the magic towers began to move in perfect unison.
“First, pinpoint the Heavenly Realm’s location! Triangulate it from the holy power bombardments they’re firing now!”
“Send the flight-capable spirits with them! They need to act as an escort to keep the ship from being shot down!”
“Strengthen the flight capabilities first! It’s all meaningless if we can’t reach the Heavenly Realm!”
“We need to maximize passenger capacity with spatial expansion and weight reduction magic!”
Foresight. Annihilation. Control. Protection.
It was truly an operation that harnessed the full power of the four magic towers.
Putting aside Protection, which was essentially their home base, and Control, whose influence had been severely weakened, even Annihilation and Foresight put their full effort into the decisive battle against the Heavenly Realm, following Gale’s lead without resistance.
In truth, the Heavenly Realm had brought this upon themselves.
If they had realized all their plans had gone awry and simply gone silent and disappeared, the factions of the Magic State would not have thought to shed their own blood to invade the Heavenly Realm.
But the Heavenly Realm had revealed its intention to completely plow over the surface with massive bombardments, leaving those on the ground with no other choice.
Unless they planned on quietly letting the enemy kill them, there was no other way but to forget political considerations and backroom dealings and cooperate to beat the hell out of the Heavenly Realm.
Of course, the fact that the Tin Knight’s party had raised such a ruckus, diluting some of the Magic State’s darker undercurrents, also greatly contributed to their swift response.
Before long, Cap’n Bill’s golden ship, with the mages aboard and a swarm of spirits flying escort around it, ascended into the sky, heading for the center of the continent.
*
“Summon the elite forces.”
The Empress of the Empire. Meridia.
At her single command, the countless people who lived and breathed in the Empire began to move as one.
The Imperial direct corps, the court mages, the Adventurers Guild, and even the Lennart forces remaining within the Empire were no exception.
Naturally, such a drastic military operation was met with much opposition.
“Your Majesty the Empress, you must not! The military, which we have only just managed to leash, may run rampant once more!”
“If we move such a massive force outside the Empire and that vacuum is exploited by other nations or subversive elements, the risk will be too great to bear!”
“We know nothing of the Kingdom of Heaven’s strength. Fighting such an opponent is dangerous. We implore you to attempt dialogue first!”
And the Empress crushed these voices head-on.
“The army’s purpose is to fight foreign enemies. If we don’t use them at a time like this, what was the point of having an army in the first place?”
“In any case, the number of troops we can send to the sky is small. In terms of sheer numbers, it’s not even ten percent. We can handle that much.”
“Dialogue? I suppose it doesn’t feel real to you because the Crown Mage is blocking the attacks from the sky, but if those had been direct hits, several of the Empire’s cities would already be gone. Do you think we can reason with people who attack without a single declaration of war? Besides, all the priests have already fled, so how are we supposed to talk to them?”
The Empress’s life had been threatened in the last rebellion, but paradoxically, that was why the imperial family’s power was now stronger than ever.
With the Empress at the forefront crying for war, the ministers dared not argue further and had to pour all their efforts into hastily assembling and preparing the army.
Of course, such a coercive move was quite a burden, even for the Empress, but she pushed forward nonetheless.
There was the reason she had given her ministers—that the Kingdom of Heaven had made the first threatening move—but it was also because her one and only friend had earnestly asked it of her.
The Empress knew well how loyal the Witch of the South was to the Empire and how she had fought with all her might to protect the imperial family.
For such a person to bow her head and make a request, even the Iron Blood Empress did not want to apply a political yardstick to it.
The only problem was the lack of a proper means to carry the Empire’s mighty forces into the sky, but this was resolved with the help of the Magic State and the Federation.
The strongest and most elite soldiers in the Empire boarded Cap’n Bill’s pirate ship, its capacity greatly increased through modifications, or climbed onto special nets gripped at the four corners by homunculi, finishing their preparations to fly to the heavens.
*
Turning back the clock, to when the Heavenly Realm’s bombardment had just begun.
The first thing the Tin Knight did was run to the room where Dorothea had shut herself in.
He knew she needed time to mourn her master, but the situation was too urgent to afford such a luxury.
Fortunately, there was no need for a struggle over whether to open the locked door.
Before the Tin Knight could even grab the doorknob, Dorothea opened the door and came out.
“...What, did you come to make fun of me?”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says he came to give you a push, but now he sees there’s no need for that!]
Dorothea’s eyes were slightly bloodshot and her voice was a little hoarse, but instead of pointing it out, the Tin Knight gave a playful shrug.
As if noticing his consideration, Dorothea’s eyes narrowed slightly before she let out a wry laugh.
“Sir Knight! Lady Witch!”
A step behind the Tin Knight, Adelaide ran toward them.
Sophia was held in her arms.
As Adel came to a stop, Sophia was set down on the ground. She looked at Dorothea and asked:
“Unfortunately, it seems we don’t have time to mourn the dead at a leisurely pace. Are you able to move?”
“I was about to come out anyway. If I dawdled any longer, my master would probably come back to life just to smack me on the head.”
Her last words were tinged with self-deprecation.
Her voice, which seemed to wish that were actually possible, still held a lingering attachment she hadn’t completely shaken off.
But her companions did not see it as weakness.
True strength was not the absence of sorrow, but the heart to move forward even while knowing it.
Next was the strategy meeting.
“The Federation, the Magic State, and the Empire have decided to prepare to face the Heavenly Realm, with the disciples of the Four Great Witches at the core of the operation. The rendezvous point is in the northern Empire. Everyone will hurry as much as possible, but considering the time needed to prepare for flight and gather troops, it will likely take a few hours.”
“The Kingdom has also agreed to send knights and mages! People from my Lennart family will be joining as well. However, the problem is...”
Dorothea picked up where Adel’s trailing sentence left off.
“—That we have no way to reach the sky, right? Whatever Franka and Gale are preparing will be over capacity just from carrying the forces of the Empire and the Magic State.”
“Yes.”
There was no doubt that the Heavenly Realm’s forces were powerful.
But more than that, the problem was the overwhelmingly advantageous position the Heavenly Realm itself occupied.
No matter how many soldiers or skilled individuals there were on the ground, without a means to transport them to the sky, they couldn’t even get to the battlefield.
It was then, as the party was lost in thought.
“If that’s the issue, the answer lies in the Witch of the East’s workshop.”
The party’s gazes turned toward the sudden voice.
Algind Goodwitch.
Seeing her, Dorothea’s eyes widened.
“You...”
Algind’s body was slowly crumbling.
Her skin was like sand, her body temperature was extremely low, and the blood that should have flowed through her veins had dried up.
It was a critical situation by anyone’s standards, yet Algind herself was unconcerned.
“You don’t need to worry. I simply don’t have enough spare capacity to operate ‘this body’ as well. More importantly, let’s get to the point.”
Dorothea retorted at Algind’s words.
“If you say so. But what are you talking about? An answer in my master’s workshop?”
“For a long time, I have dreamed of a plan to stand against the Heavenly Realm. And that included preparations to invade them. The Heavenly Realm has always kept a strict watch over any flight-related tools or vehicles, so to avoid their eyes, the best place was the domain of someone they feared to even approach.”
“...And that was my master? What in the world is in her workshop?”
Algind. No, Glinda Goodwitch answered.
“The corpse of a dragon.”