Chapter 2: The Kingdom's Secret Weapon part 3

“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.
While it wasn’t as lethal, in terms of remaining after the war and
negatively impacting the lives of civilians, curse ore was as bad as cluster
bombs or depleted uranium bullets. That was why it was necessary to be
cautious in how we used it, and to continue with the research.
“...So, like that, they spend their days here with repeated successes and
failures,” I concluded. “And even though it’s with only one step at a time,
they’re marching us towards a new era.”
“...You’re covering a pretty broad range of things here, huh,” Castor
remarked, looking half-impressed and half-exasperated.
“Well, though some of our research will be fruitless, I have to take every
measure I can as king,” I said.
“As king... That’s right. You’ve really become a king now...” Castor
murmured.
“Well, yeah. Now then, shall we go up now?”
“There’s still more?”
Having seen so much, Castor was looking a little fed up with it all, so I
told him, “The next one is the main event for today.”
“Up, you said? What, are we climbing the mountain now?”
I tut-tutted and waggled a finger at Castor. (Was that too old-fashioned?)
“Even further ‘up’ than that.”
Returning to the surface, we got aboard a wyvern gondola.
The gondola rose, leaving the surface further and further behind.
Not being blindfolded this time, Castor gave me a suspicious look, as if
to say, “What are you showing me now?” But once we rose in altitude and
he was able to see what was below us, he cried out in shock.
“Wha?! What is this?!”
Beneath us was a single, massive ship floating in the middle of the open
sea. The surface of the ship had soil packed on it, and there was a rocky
mountain, forest, grassy plain, red clay field, and more. From above, it
looked like nothing other than a lone islet in the distant seas. But beneath
the ground, it was a hunk of metal. Looking closely, the rocky mountain
was where the ship’s bridge would be.
That’s right. Up until now, we hadn’t been on an “island” at all. We had
been on that ship.
“Wyverns fear the sea,” I told Castor, who seemed at a loss for words at
the incredible sight. “That’s because wyverns, lacking the flight range of
dragons, can’t cross the sea, right? To be more precise, wyverns hate being
so far out to sea that they can’t see land. That’s why it’s been common sense
that you can’t employ wyverns in naval battles, right?”
“R-Right...” Castor nodded. Because dragons could fly continuously across incredible distances, they
could cross the sea in a single flight, and that meant they had no reason to
be afraid of it. However, wyverns, with their lesser flight range, would run
out of strength halfway if they tried to cross the sea. Because of that, they
feared going out far enough to lose sight of land. This held true for the
Empire’s griffon squadrons, too, which had an even shorter flight range
than the wyverns did. (In fact, they were even afraid of rivers if they
couldn’t see the other side, so they had it worse.)
“Huh?!” Castor cried. “Now that you mention it, the wyverns were
flying in formation earlier, weren’t they?! No, even the wyvern carrying this
gondola seems perfectly fine out here in the middle of the sea!”
Finally, Castor was beginning to grasp the situation. However, the more
he figured it out, the wider his eyes opened in surprise. His lips were
trembling.
“You... What the hell have you created here...?”
“A vessel which carries air power across the sea, and also acts as a base
for it,” I said. “In my world, a ship like this was called an aircraft carrier, or
just a carrier.”
That’s right. That island-shaped ship was analogous to a carrier, with
wyvern knights as an analogue to fighter planes. When I’d seen this world
had wyverns and steel ships, I had wondered if maybe I could combine the
two to create a carrier. When I’d first started planning it out, the first issue
that had been pointed out to me was the wyverns’ fear of the sea.
“So that was when I had an idea,” I explained, “to try and trick the
wyverns out of being afraid of the sea.”
I’d gotten the hint I needed from the first of the Thirty-Six Stratagems
from my world: “Deceive the emperor to cross the ocean.” It’s about
making your strategy look like nothing out of the ordinary, then acting
while your enemy’s guard is down. The stratagem had been based on an
event when, in order to get the Emperor of Tang, who feared the sea, aboard
a boat, his retainers had piled dirt on top of it to make it look like the land.
I’d thought that maybe I could use the same trick on wyverns.
First, I’d created a giant ship, then packed soil on top of it. Though a
portion was left as dirt, most was covered with grass or trees to create plains
and forests. The bridge had been covered in Roman concrete and painted to
disguise it as a rocky mountain. Then, in order to lower the wyverns’ stress
levels, their stables and everything below deck had been made to look like
the inside of a cave.
Basically, I was trying to make the wyverns recognize this carrier as an
“island.”
The issue had been how I was going to find the propulsion to move my
island-type carrier, but that had been solved thanks to Genia’s Little
Susumu Mark V. They weren’t visible from the air, but there were four
Little Susumu Mark Vs attached to the sides of this island-type carrier
below the waterline. The reason the distribution of the Light model wasn’t
further along was because I had prioritized the production of these larger
ones.
Now, as for this island-type carrier that we had built, it was still
incomplete. It had taken a long time to get the wyverns used to the carrier.
Our first priorities had been to give it the bare minimum features required
of a ship, make the outside look island-y, and focus on making it seaworthy.
In terms of propulsion, the plan was actually to have double the number of
Little Susumu Mark Vs (with the current number, it could only go at a
crawl), and the area currently being used as a military research and
development lab was eventually going to be used for equipment storage and
the crew’s quarters. (They were currently camping out in tents on the deck.)
Castor, who had been staring at the half-finished cruiser in a daze,
turned to me, his eyes filled with disbelief. “But this thing is massive... Just
how long have you been building it for?”
“Hm? If you mean when I started gathering funds and materials, I did
that right after taking the throne, you know?”
“Whaa?! Before you fought me and Amidonia?!”
“It was part of my plan to enrich the country and strengthen the
military,” I said. “As a trump card against the Empire.”
With my arms crossed, I leaned back in the gondola’s sofa.
“I didn’t know what the Empire was thinking back then, after all. I was
working on a plan that would give me a trump card when we had to oppose
them. Up against the more powerful and more populous Empire, we
wouldn’t stand a chance in a land-based arms race. I thought the path to
survival might lie in expanding our air or sea power, where technology
plays a much bigger role. Well... at that stage, I was just allocating the funds
and materials. Construction only began in earnest after the end of the war
with Amidonia.”
Besides, because I had been moving ahead with the new city project at
the same time, I hadn’t been able to gather quite enough funds or resources
for the project. If Roroa and Colbert hadn’t joined us, giving me a source of
funding, and if I hadn’t been able to secure a source of resources by
annexing Amidonia, construction might have started even later.
Still, once construction began, ship construction in this world went fast.
Actually, I’d felt this way when rolling out the transportation network and
building the new city, too but construction in this world went unusually fast.
Because they had magic here, there was no need for large pieces of
construction equipment. For instance, if you try to build something large on
Earth, you first need to build the cranes and such that will be used in
building it. At worst, there were even times you might need equipment to
build the equipment you needed to build the equipment... and so on.
However, because there were earth mages who could manipulate gravity
in this world, that equipment wasn’t necessary here. Also, an experienced
fire mage could handle casting metal and welding in no time. In this world
with its strange balance of things that could and couldn’t be done, it felt like
it actually took more time to secure the funds and materials than anything
else.
I got up and stood in front of Castor, who was still taken aback by
everything.
“Well, this is what I’ve been doing as king, Castor,” I said, looking him
straight in the eye. “You rebelled against me because you thought I was a
usurper. It seems your doubts had already been cleared up by Liscia and
Excel’s attempts to dissuade you from doing so, but in the end, you still
chose to oppose me, prepared to martyr yourself for your friendship with
Georg Carmine. Then you lost and were placed in Excel’s custody.”
Castor lowered his eyes. “You don’t need to tell me that now. I lost...
That’s all there is to it.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to say,” I said. “Right now, I’m showing you
my power as king of this country.”
“You mean that carrier?” Castor asked.
But I shook my head. “No. The carrier itself isn’t my power. If there is
one thing I can take pride in as king, it’s gathering gifted comrades,
preparing a place for their talents to shine, and creating a country that could
build that carrier. When you see what I’m capable of, does it not seem
fitting that you should serve under me?”
Castor shook his head with a wry smile. “You’ve got me beaten
completely. I can see clearly now... why King Albert left the country to you.
But I’m not fit to serve you.”
“Can I take that to mean you recognize me as the king of this country?”
I asked.
“Hm? Yeah, I recognize you. You’re one hell of a king.”
He’d recognized me as king. Now that I had dragged those words out of
Castor, I was finally certain of it. I didn’t sense any of the arrogance Castor
had had before. In his defeat, and with some polishing by Excel, he had
grown as a person. Considering that... I could trust him with it.
I placed a hand on Castor’s shoulder, looking him straight in the eye as I
said, “Castor, this carrier is an extremely unique weapon. Though it is a
ship attached to the Navy, it carries the troops of the Air Force. In order to
run it efficiently, it requires not just knowledge of handling a ship and
fighting at sea, but the knowledge and experience to command the Air
Force. I want to leave this ship under the command of someone with those
skills.”
Castor’s eyes opened wide. “Huh?! No... You can’t mean...”
It looked like he’d figured out where I was going with this. He was a
man who had been the former General of the Air Force, yet now he had
trained under Excel to learn how to control a naval force.
I grinned as I asked him, “I’m sure you’ve kept studying, even now that
you’re in the Navy, right?”
“...Yes, sir! Excel has beaten it all into me!”
Castor rose from his seat, then knelt, putting his hands together in front
of him and bowing his head. I placed the captain’s hat I had brought with
me on Castor’s bowed head. Because Castor had horns, it had been
specially made with holes for them.
“Good,” I approved. “Now, then... Castor who has no family name! I
appoint you as the first captain of this aircraft carrier!”
“Yes, sir! I humbly accept, my lord!”
My lord... huh. It was a bit embarrassing to be called that, but it was a
sign that Castor had truly accepted me as his lord, so I was more than happy
to take it.
While I was thinking about that, Excel, who had quietly watched over
the proceedings up until that point, spoke up. “Hee hee, I’m glad. That’s
one burden off of my shoulders.” Then she smiled.
I had already told her I wanted to make Castor the captain of this carrier
before she’d begun teaching him. “By the way, sire,” Excel continued. “I do think that carrier is a
wonderful ship, but it wouldn’t do to simply go on calling it ‘the carrier’
forever. Why don’t you give it a name now?”
“Hm? Oh... You have a point,” I said. “What would be a good name for
it?”
“Let’s see... I think the name of a place, or of the king who built it,
would be the most common options. How does Aircraft Carrier Souma
sound to you? When you build more of them, they would belong to the
Souma-class.”
“Absolutely not.”
I didn’t want that. If I put my own name on the ship that would be the
center of our navy, it’d make me seem conceited, and I didn’t want that.
Besides, if it had my name, they were going to say things like, “Souma,
departing!” and “Souma, withdrawing from the line of battle!” and “The
Souma has been sunk!” right?
...There was no way I wanted that. I needed to propose an alternate
name.
“Oh, hey, I know,” I said. “Why not give it the name of a carrier from
my world?”
“From Your Majesty’s world?”
I nodded. If I had to give it a name, why not use one that existed my
world? Let it be one that had never folded in the face of adversity, and that
had never given up fighting. It was going to be carrying wyverns, so this
was the perfect name.
I looked down at the island-type carrier beneath us and declared, “I
hereby name that carrier the Hiryuu!”
Having finished appointing Castor as captain of the Hiryuu, my work
was done, and we returned to Lagoon City in the Walter Duchy. Because
the sun was already setting when we arrived, we decided we would spend
the night at Excel’s mansion.
At least partly because it was a coastal city, we had a dinner that made
ample use of seafoo;, and then Juna, Excel, Castor and myself chatted over
tea in the parlor.
In the middle of that relaxed atmosphere, Excel suddenly put down her
teacup and asked, “Now that I think of it, sire, you have no plans after this,
do you?”
It was so sudden, Juna cocked her head to the side and looked at her
quizzically. “Grandmother?”
I was puzzled, too. What could she want, all of a sudden?
“Yeah...” I said. “When I get back to the castle, I’m sure there’ll be work
for me, but I haven’t brought anything with me.”
“I see. You have time right now, then?” The moment she said that, there
was an unsettling glint in Excel’s eye.
I shuddered, feeling a chill run down my spine. I got goosebumps, my
every instinct warning me. I sensed... danger? I almost jumped up from the
sofa despite myself, when...
Thump!
“Juna?!”
Juna, who was sitting next to me, fell to the side. She was slumped over
the arm of the sofa, already asleep.
Even asleep, she sure is charming... Wait, I didn’t have time to think
that! I looked over to Excel, who was smiling, a tiny bottle in hand.
“No need to worry. I’m just having her take a little nap.”
“Sleeping drugs?! You drugged your own granddaughter?!”
“It seemed like she would get in the way if she was awake, after all.”
Excel put a hand to her own cheek and let out a sigh.
No, no, no, no! She was giving me that, “Oh, goodness, she’s such a
handful,” look, but what she’d just done to Juna was pretty nasty!
“I couldn’t help it,” Excel said. “I received a request from the
chamberlain to give you some lessons.”
“From Marx?! You can’t mean...”
“What you might call ‘sexual education,’” she smiled. “As an older
woman, he wanted me to teach you some things, sire.”
“You’re more than just ‘older’!”
“Oh my, how rude. My body is still full of youth, you know.”
“Not your heart, though!” I shouted.
Excel rose from her seat, slowly closing in on me. “Creating an heir is a
serious matter for the country. Especially considering the shortage of royals.
Even though your betrothals are essentially already being seen as a
marriage, and even though those around you have been encouraging you to
hurry up and produce an heir, you’ve yet to lay a hand on the princess, or
Juna, or Aisha. It’s little wonder the chamberlain is so worried.”
“N-No... I was hoping to wait until I was a little more ready... you
know.”
“That leaves us worried,” Excel said. “It might be forgiven as a youthful
indiscretion now, but once you are formally man and wife, if you are
awkward and inept when you get down to ‘business,’ it could have an effect
on your relationship. That sort of discord between a royal couple can lead to
future strife within the house.”
Excel sat down on the back of the sofa, wrapping her arm around my
neck. What was this?! I was like a deer caught in headlights, unable to
move!
“That’s why the chamberlain asked an experienced woman like myself
to give you some direction. Now, sire, let’s move to the bedroom. Until
dawn comes, I will be giving you thorough lessons on how to handle a
woman. First, let’s start with some classroom lectures.”
Lectures?! I was going to be taking health and physical education
classes at my age?! I’d graduated from high school... Wait, I guess they
didn’t go into quite that much detail in health and physical education
classes.
“Wait, hold on! You just said ‘first,’ didn’t you?!” I shouted.
“Hee hee! In any field of study, it’s best to learn through experience,
don’t you think? If you want to, I wouldn’t mind keeping it a secret from
Juna and the others, you know? We can consider it a one night indiscretion,
and I’ll give you some hands-on training.”
I don’t want it, okay?! I cried out in my mind.
Excel smiled, putting her hands on my shoulders and leaning in close to
peer at my face. Yeah, she was definitely having fun seeing my reaction.
I turned to Castor, who was sitting there drinking tea as if nothing was
happening, for help. “Castor! You recognized me as your lord, right? Your
lord is in a tight spot! Help me, would you!”
“...I did indeed swear loyalty to you, my lord,” Castor set down his tea
and said with an all-too-serious look on his face. “However, I would like
nothing more than to see the lord I’ve devoted myself to leave behind
descendants who will prosper. I cannot get in Duchess Excel’s way. I can
only bite back tears as I ignore my lord’s request for aid.”
“You say that, but you just don’t want to get caught up in this!” I
shouted.
He pretty blatantly averted his eyes.
I hit the nail on the head, didn’t I, you jerk?!
“Now, sire, shall we be going?” Excel took a firm hold of the back of
my neck, then began dragging me towards the door of the parlor.
I was bracing myself to run for it, but I couldn’t even put up the slightest
resistance. Even factoring in my own weakness, her strength was incredible.
Where did that slim body of hers have that kind of strength?
“No, wait, please, Excel, come on,” I begged.
“Yes, yes. You can just leave everything to this big girl here. I’ll teach
you real good.”
“No, I mean... Okay, I’ll take your lessons! Just the lessons! None of
that hands-on stuff, okay?!” I screamed.
“...Good grief, I suppose it can’t be helped. But if you find yourself
wanting to get physical with me, do tell, okay?”
“As if I would!”
In the end, I was subjected to Excel’s lengthy lectures.
Having to take health and physical education classes from Excel, who
looked so much like Juna, was so embarrassing that I thought I might die.

Chapter end