Chapter 32: The Night of Counting Stars (6)
A certain novel’s flying fish at least had stairs to climb; an aerial battleship has no such thing. And humans have no wings.
Accordingly, even if it floats bob-bob in the sky, perfectly still, and is even entirely off guard in the dead of night, infiltrating an aerial battleship is an exceedingly difficult undertaking.
And they now had to infiltrate that aerial battleship, coerce the captain, and handle the entire crew without a single fatality.
“At sea a battleship is often likened to a fortress. An aerial battleship might well be called a fortress of the heavens.”
Oswald said this with a soft smile. Not an incorrect statement, but a grating one.
“That bastard really thinks he’s an Elf.”
“I really am an Elf. Can you not see the ears.”
“Wow, corrupted into a pointy-ear right down to the soul. Big brother! I have a brilliant scheme!”
Yujin grumbled and shot a hand up. When Ivan jerked his chin, he shrugged proudly.
“That pointy-ear just has to use [Feather Step]!”
“How many times must I say I’m Mind Sorcery before you understand. Is your learning capacity poor because you’re human?”
“Wow, this bastard’s gone full pointy-ear. What are we trusting to form a party with a mage who can’t even use Feather Step? Big brother, let’s grab anyone from the Magic Faculty even now. Preferably from Destruction, the destruction school.”
“[Mind Fracture].”
When purple mana swirled at Oswald’s fingertips, Yujin’s pupils went limply slack.
Yujin dropped his head, drool trickling down.
Quiet came to the club room.
Useful. Ivan nodded.
“We need only wait until evening.”
“Is the warship suddenly going to make landfall this evening?”
“No. The fellows who need to go to the warship will appear.”
The Krasilov monarchy gave the warship a 3-day deadline for withdrawal. That was yesterday.
And yesterday evening, Elizaveta made bluster that she would shoot them down if they didn’t withdraw within a day.
From the warship captain’s standpoint he would be in an anxious state of mind. As of tomorrow the entire monarchy might undertake military action, and even failing that he’d assume Elizaveta would pull some trick within today.
In that case the captain absolutely had to make contact with the Crown Prince by today. Because it’s the only means of reversing the situation.
He wouldn’t move during broad daylight. As long as the Counterintelligence Command exists, all of Prichenkaya lies within Elizaveta’s field of view.
In that case it’s evening, at least the night after sunset.
“Um…… even granting the Crown Prince’s side contacts the warship, how do we slip in between?”
“Those fellows will use a carriage with a levitation spell applied.”
“Precisely. Are we going to ask them to make room in the carriage or something?”
“No.”
Ivan surveyed Oswald, watching him suspiciously, Yuri, still terrified and reading the room, and Yujin, out of his wits, then spoke to Yuri in a grave voice.
“If you had to carry one of these on your back, whom would you choose.”
“Pardon……?”
“Excluding me. Which of those 2 would you carry?”
Yuri looked at the 2 young men with trembling eyes. One was a Golden Sun, one a hypnotizing squinty-eyed character.
On top of that the hypnotizing squinty-eyed character had just proven his ability by casting a hypnosis spell on the Golden Sun.
Yuri bit her lip hard and barely managed to answer.
“That, Yujin…… I suppose. I’d sooner……”
“Sooner……?”
Ignoring Oswald flinching with a wounded expression, Ivan nodded readily.
“Then I’ll carry Oswald.”
“But suddenly we’re carrying people?”
“Yes. We’re going by hanging on.”
Roughly 800 meters up. An absurdly low altitude compared to Earth’s ordinary aircraft, but in this pre-modern world it’s a height impossible for a person to reach.
Even with Earth’s highly developed civil engineering, 800 m is Burj Khalifa territory. Which is to say, a position reachable only by the tallest structure in history.
Supposing they ascended to that height using another levitation-spelled conveyance, they would certainly be observed in advance.
So to infiltrate while evading notice, there’s no choice but to hide beneath the carriage the Crown Prince’s faction will send for contact.
If there’s a problem, it’s whether one has the stamina to hang beneath a carriage.
Oswald plainly looks impossible, and Yujin is thoroughly unreliable. Being good with a blade notwithstanding, isn’t he a priest.
Yuri, by contrast, is Knight Faculty top of class. Excepting Mord, she’s the student ranked strongest in practicals among the new students. Carrying one person and hanging on for about 10 minutes should be manageable.
“You speak as though you’ve infiltrated a vessel while hanging in midair before?”
“Fortunately I’ve done something similar.”
“What kind of life has he actually lived. Ah, I’m not particularly curious.”
Ivan ignored Oswald’s words and rose from his seat. There was much to prepare.
“Pack warm clothing, arm yourselves sufficiently, and come to the Magic Faculty’s astronomy spire.”
In Krasilov every season but summer differs little from winter. Because it runs in the order of little winter, summer, middle winter, and fucking winter.
Meaning it’s rather cold weather for flying at 800-meter altitude hanging from a carriage in the middle of the night. The possessors chewed over Ivan’s meaning and shuddered.
***
Ivan and the possessors, who had been lying flat waiting atop the spire since evening, only rose stretching their stiffened bodies after the sun had fully set.
Their hands had frozen numb from the cold. Around the time the possessors were sighing and loosening their hands and feet, only after a good while longer did Ivan finally raise his head.
After darkness had settled over everything, a small light momentarily flickered somewhere in the streets, which looked darker still owing to the enormous vessel’s shadow.
“Ready.”
Ivan cracked his shoulder loose once and drew an axe. He spun the rope-bound axe around and then extended it straight to gauge the distance.
The ropes attached to the two axes were tied around Yuri’s waist and Ivan’s respectively.
After confirming that Yuri had Yujin on her back, Ivan slowly drew his arm back.
“It’s coming.”
The possessors swallowed amid the tension. Ivan was staring straight at some point in the dark night sky where nothing was visible.
Magic power flows. Delicately tuned magic power running along Ivan’s muscle fibers.
Oswald, riding on his back, was inwardly impressed by that precise arrangement.
“You go first.”
“What? Ye……hek!!? Kyaaaaaah!!”
Fwooooosh!!
Ivan threw the axe without waiting for Yuri’s answer. The hatchet drew a clean straight line and stretched out beyond the night sky.
The rope hooked to the axe’s end billowed once, and then Yuri, tied at its end, went flying as though snatched away.
In an instant Yuri’s silhouette vanished into the darkness.
“Hold tight.”
“Uh, one moment. I’m not mentally prepared yet……. Hold on, we ought to reconsider—!!”
Fwooooosh!!!
“Uggghhhaaaaaaauuuurgh?!!!”
Oswald screamed, foaming, at the ground receding in an instant and the rough wind slapping both cheeks.
Terror of death, a beeep of tinnitus ringing. A sensation of floating as though dropped atop the sky……. I must have been mad, calling this a plan—! Oswald reflexively clutched Ivan’s shoulders tight and wailed.
“Uugh—! Uuurgh—!! Ugh—! Uh……?”
The tremendous noise slapping at his ears stopped with a snap.
When Oswald surveyed his surroundings with blank eyes, right beside him were a pale-faced Yuri and Yujin.
They were hanging from the carriage wheels.
“Uhh……? Uhhh……?”
“Wow……”
Far off, the spire they had leapt from was visible. This distance……? He crossed it by throwing a hatchet……? They looked at Ivan with fresh eyes.
“But won’t we be discovered this way?”
“Of course we’ll be discovered.”
Already Ivan’s ears caught the commotion inside the carriage.
The fellows in there aren’t deaf, and with the carriage suddenly lurching, 4 persons’ worth of weight added, and an axe driven in dead-on besides, there’s no way they wouldn’t notice.
For now they can’t open the carriage door, nor can they see beneath the wheels from a window, so it’s no problem, but that’s only for the moment.
The instant they step onto the deck they’ll be surrounded. Crown Prince Alexandr himself won’t be aboard, but having ambushed a carriage carrying a secret envoy, they’re naturally due to be attacked.
Which is to say, covert infiltration was an impossible plan from the start.
The possessors, realizing this, looked at Ivan with stunned eyes.
“So what do we do now?”
“Hold out.”
“Huh?”
Ivan stared straight at some point in the night sky and slowly pulled the axe from the carriage.
Below the clouds, the aerial battleship was slowly drawing near.
After confirming even the lights guiding the carriage’s landing point glittering on the deck, Ivan hooked Oswald onto the carriage wheel and hung on with one hand.
And then, aiming the drawn axe straight again, he tilted his head slightly.
“Come on, surely not. You’re abandoning us? Big brother, abandoning the Korean Patriotic Corps? No friendship?”
Ignoring Yujin stammering out nonsense, he stretched his arm back and circulated magic power.
Covert infiltration had been impossible from the outset.
In that case isn’t it right to go with feint east, strike west. Only natural. Because the Annihilation Corps always adhered to the doctrine of inducing confusion in enemy lines immediately before infiltration.
Discards…… well, not quite that, but decoys for dispersing attention.
On top of that, 2 of the possessors are nobles, one a high noble of the military establishment and one an Elf.
Which is to say, even if attacked they aren’t subjects for summary execution, and if only students turn up there was ample possibility of it being passed off as a childish prank.
That was why he said things like “no killing the crew.” To prevent the situation from flowing toward a fight to the death.
“I’ll come find you shortly.”
“No, hold on, big brother……? Big brother!!”
Vwooooom!!!
Ivan hurled the axe toward some point in the night sky. The carriage shook once from the powerful recoil, and by the time the possessors opened their eyes again—
—Ivan was already gone from the spot. He was flying like an arrow through the darkness of the night.
“That mad flying Santa Claus. He wouldn’t even need Rudolph.”
“Ahahaha……. What do we do now?”
“What else.”
Yujin gritted his teeth as he watched the deck drawing steadily nearer.
“We clear the quest.”
If this quest reward turns out to be nothing worth having, I’m killing this status window bastard by whatever means necessary.
***
Ivan was hanging beneath the warship’s waterline, an axe driven into a gunport.
Rough wind grazed his ears. The floating sensation felt beneath his feet, and far below that, streets studded like grains of sand.
Fall and it’s death, no. A height where not even a fragment of a limb would remain as a trace.
“Hup.”
Krak!!
At that height, hanging by one hand, twisting at the waist for recoil and driving straight into the gunport.
Krak! Krak! Krak! Krrrrunch!!
Swaying precariously as though about to drop at any instant, expressionlessly and steadily.
Silently. Like splitting wood while planted on solid ground.
Soon the wooden gunport gave way and a hole large enough for one person opened.
Wheeeeoo!! Wheeeeoo!!! Wheeeeoo!!!
Interior warning lights blinked madly, and the noise of crew rushing out in a mass was audible.
Attention dispersal successful.
Ivan nodded numbly and threw himself through the dark gap of the gunport.
Now, at this place.
The woodcutter has arrived.
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