Chapter 2 – It Seems to Be Something Being Hidden

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Apparently a part of Emil’s prayer didn’t reach heaven. Because of that, the fire, which Renya ignited at some random spot of the fabric, went ablaze in the blink of an eye and turned into a ridiculously huge conflagration.

Of course, if you took a step back and thought about it logically, it was only natural for the whole thing to burn like cinder and spread like a wildfire as Renya had set on fire what was basically nothing more than a thick piece of cloth. Moreover, most of the scaffolding was made out of wood, so it was clear that this would catch and spread the fire quite quickly too.

In the end, flames raged across a huge area.

“Hey, didn’t you go a bit too far there?” Emil muttered while looking up to the flames as they illuminated the nightly sky.

But, there was no answer from Renya. Considering that to be odd, Emil peeled her eyes off the fiery flame show and looked in the direction of where Renya was supposed to be, just to spot him waving his finger through the air for some reason or another. After a short while, he nodded once and lowered his finger.

At that point he noticed Emil staring at him and turned his face in her direction, “What’s up?”

“No, I just asked whether you didn’t go too far here. Moreover, won’t this turn into a crime?”

Without so much as requiring to spend a serious thought on this, it was obvious that arson was labeled as a crime. Moreover, they had trespassed into an area concealed by the country and assaulted several of the patrols there. Emil felt like it wouldn’t be weird for them to be thrown into jail for a long time, if one added interference with public entities in the execution of their duties to the charges, and voiced that concern out, but Renya shifted his eyes to the fire without looking particularly worried about any of it, and then indifferently muttered, “Right now we’re in the middle of a war, right?”

“Eh? Well, you’re not wrong about that. So far as it goes, you could describe it like that.”

The hostile side were naturally the demons, or rather, the demon king. And the other four continents being in a state of war basically meant the humans, elves, and beastmen approved of this as well. This was also the very reason why Klinge had adopted a role similar to a frontline base.

Unfortunately, anything resembling governmental bodies had already been destroyed when it came to dragonoids. Their numbers had dwindled down to a very few, which luckily included their hero and shrine priestess, so they were in no state allowing them to perform any sort of confirmation in regards to the state of their continent, but Emil didn’t believe that any of them would doubt them being in a war with the demon king, if she were to ask the survivors.

“It’s not just the Trident Principality either. When I tried to check it moments ago, I found out that most of the humans have that sort of law, too.”

Renya’s talk about checking it moments ago referred to the help function which occasionally touted its own features since he didn’t actively use the function very often. Of course, Emil couldn’t see any of the help function’s descriptions, so it looked like Renya was merely waving his finger around in empty space in her eyes, but Renya had actually used the help function to look things up.

“The law states that during wartime landed nobles possess the authority to make simplified judgments on punishments and charges without having to request their country to make a judgment as long as it concerns their own territories.”

“Oh, so it’s a law approving lords to make arbitrary decisions, huh? If I remember correctly, a similar law existed among demons too.”

Holding a trial for each and every single crime and a lord checking back on their judgment with the country would make it hard to keep up with all the cases during wartime――a period when the number of crimes would naturally go up anyway――as it would unnecessarily add extremely complex procedures to a fief’s administration. As the countries’ administrations themselves couldn’t deal with each and every local case either, most of the countries had introduced a similar martial law.

Having answered up to that point, Emil realized why Renya had investigated this and what he wanted to tell her. Without saying anything further, she stared at him with a very skeptical look.

Going by her expression, Renya grasped that Emil had noticed his line of thinking and declared with a cocksure look, “Renya Kunugi, I deem you innocent.”

“Uwaahhh…that might be proper according to law, but I wonder what to think of this as a person?”

“Since it has been decided that I’m innocent, I don’t need to have any scruples towards anyone. Simplified judgments sure are great, aren’t they?”

Renya held his head up high, certain that no one would be able to complain about this. And since it did follow the law, even if someone were to complain about it, Emil didn’t bother either.

However, just as a part of Emil’s prayers hadn’t been granted, another part was actually granted ― her plea to not have any casualties or wounded.

While lurking in the shadows, Emil had judged that this might possibly turn into a disastrous incident due to the fire spreading faster and fiercer than she’d expected, but the reaction of the soldiers protecting the area was so quick that it exceeded Emil’s expectations.

As if they had anticipated that things would turn out like this, the soldiers swiftly assembled, retrieved buckets and trolleys filled with water and sand, and started to fight the fire efficiently. And before long, the fire’s intensity began to wane.

Emil admired their skill in handling such a sudden incident, but it was only natural that they couldn’t afford to stand around here and watch the soldiers go about their work indefinitely.

“The diversion is working. Let’s get going while we can.”

“Somehow… I know I’m supposed to be a demon, but it pains me watching this.”

Emil was certain that none of the soldiers would get injured or killed with that level of skill, but somehow she still felt guilty. But, because they had succeeded in drawing the soldiers’ attention away and with a feeling of shelving all sorts of issues, she accompanied Renya on his quest to invade the bungalow in the center.

The building itself had been built in such a shoddy way that Emil could only regard its builders as having cut corners left and right. Material like mortar and lumber had been for the construction, making it look as though it had a fairly sturdy design in and by itself, but you couldn’t say that it had been laid out in a way that would invite anyone to live in it.

In Emil’s eyes it looked like something that had been built for the sake of simply building some sort of cover as an improvised stopgap measure. On the other hand, it didn’t look like anything you would need to hide by all means. The windows were poor excuses of such. The entrance door was extremely crude and came equipped with a simple lock that would allow anyone to open it, even without having any particular abilities in regards to lock-picking.

“Just a bit of wire will be more than plenty for this, eh?”

By merely twisting a suitably bent wire a few times, Emil easily opened the door’s lock that had been closed shut as some sort of laughable measure against illegal entry.

“Quite simple, that.”

“From a crime prevention perspective, I feel like wanting to crack down on you a tiny bit.”

The two crept inside the building while bantering about such things, but although it was already somewhat clear from looking at the building from outside, the inside of the building was so empty that it was a good match for its exterior design. It had a few rooms, but there existed no traces of anyone having worked or stayed in any of those rooms. Several tables and rooms were installed as furniture, but nothing else.

“It’s full of stuff that doesn’t need to be hidden, right?” Renya asked Emil while searching the bungalow high and low, wondering whether he had overlooked something.

Emil answered with no more than a single nod.

Just like the building itself had no particularly noteworthy design, its interior also consisted of naught but worthless furniture. Neither Emil nor Renya could understand why the archduchess, the elven emperor, or the beastman queen would go out of their way to hide this underneath multiple layers of scaffolds and covers.

“Is it maybe a camouflage for something?”

“You mean to say the real facility isn’t here?”

It wasn’t that unusual a method to use a strict guard protocol on a place of no value in order to divert the attention of potential attackers away from something else. Renya tilted his head in doubt, not sure whether they had really fallen for such a simple trick here, but after pondering for a moment, Emil denied Renya’s thinking.

“No, the probability for that is rather low, don’t you think? If this were one of the major cities of a race, I’d still be able to understand, but we’re in your fief right now, right Renya? I highly doubt they’d be able to build a secret dummy structure while fully concealing the existence of another facility.”

“In that case, our actual target is supposed to be somewhere around here?”

“Yes, I’d say so. At least I believe it’d be reasonable for that to be the case.”

After answering, Emil began to randomly kick the floor underneath her with the tip of her boots. Going by her analysis, this bungalow had no place that could hide something. In addition, if you assumed this place to be the real deal, Emil could only think of adding a basement as a means to hide something. Based on that train of thought, she started to search for hollow places, and that would soon bear fruit.

Emil continued to patiently stomp on the floor while roaming the rooms. And once she entered a certain room, she noticed how the sound beneath her feet changed ever so slightly.

At once, she signaled Renya, who had been watching her do this, with her eyes. Noticing her signal, he cast a glance at the floor indicated by Emil and unleashed a flash of his katana at it. The floor ended up being hollowed out in a circular shape.

And what revealed itself underneath the floorboards was a stairway leading downwards.

“Wouldn’t it have been fine without cutting the floor as this got to have some sort of trick to move it?”

“We don’t have the time to waste on searching. If the soldiers come back and find us, all of our efforts will come to nothing,” Renya replied.

Together with Emil, he descended the stairway that appeared as soon as he activated a magic light ahead of his fingertip. The stairway itself wasn’t all that long, ending at a basement with several meters in size as far as Renya could sense.

Down there awaited them a metallic door so massive that it couldn’t be compared to the entrance door of the bungalow on the surface.

“Should I cut this as well?”

“No, this is…probably…equipped with some sort of alert mechanism, I think.”

Restraining Renya who was about to draw his katana, Emil carefully approached the door and slowly scrutinized its surface. That door had such a complex build that she immediately thought that they had made some silly mistake with the door on the surface. Going by a brief scan, she couldn’t find a knob or keyhole anywhere.

However, its entire surface was densely packed with exceedingly elaborate carvings of plants. That alone made it clear that this door had taken a considerable time, effort, and money to produce.

“I can’t see a keyhole, but…it sure doesn’t feel like it’d simply open if you push it either.”

“Are you saying it requires some procedures or possesses some mechanism to open it?”

“Yep. Probably it uses an elven sealing spell art.”

Assuming it is what my analysis suggests, the person, who made this, must have been quite devoted in wanting to hide whatever is hidden beyond the door, Emil conjectured. At least, that’s what it means when they explicitly use a powerful spell art of sealing as it’s passed down among the elves, and not just a simple magic lock.

“Well, they’ve got the personal support of the elven emperor, so I guess it’s not all that weird for them to use that.”

Just when Emil was about to touch the door while saying this, lightning jutted out of the door towards the finger of her right hand. Emil pulled her hand back as if it had been slapped away, accompanied by a loud cracking, but her fingertip had been burned back with a nasty smell of roasted flesh starting to fill the air as white smoke rose.

“Emil!?”

“Oops, that was silly of me. It looks like the method to cancel this is a different one.”

“Your finger…”

“This much is no problem, so don’t worry. But, if you insist on being concerned, it might quicken the healing if you lick this area for a bit.”

Renya looked bewildered when Emil mischievously laughed while hinting at her burned finger with her eyes. Seeing his reaction, Emil’s smile turned into a wry smile of sorts.

Being told to lick my finger although feeling worried after having seen my burnt finger has very likely triggered Renya to brood about what’s going on, Emil immediately realized.

“I was just joking, so please don’t look at me like that.”

With those words, Emil retrieved a small bottle from a pocket in her hotpants, poured the bottle’s very viscous liquid on her scalded finger, and rubbed it in with her other hand. By just doing that, her black skin quickly continued to return to its previous, spotless state. After making sure of the effect, Emil slowly stretched out her hand towards the door once more.

“Touching the ornaments in the right order should become the criterion for canceling the seal, but…analyzing this without a single hint will require much effort.”

If this was a dungeon, it might not have been weird for something that could serve as a hint on how to cancel the seal to be nearby, but the door Emil was trying to open right now was a regular door, so there was no need to expressly provide some sort of clue on how to open it.

In other words, Emil had to discover the sequence to unseal the door’s spell art without having any sort of clue, making this quite a taxing challenge.

“Since we’ve got no time, I suppose I have to resolve myself for quite some damage….Sorry Renya, but could you watch our back?”

“Okay, leave that part to me.”

After seeing Renya nod his approval, Emil gently placed the bottle with the ointment on the ground, and took out several other bottles from pockets. She cast a quick glance at Renya to make sure that his attention was turned to their rear, and then quickly drank the contents in the bottles.

“The damage isn’t that bad, but fingertips are sensitive, and I hate pain,” Emil muttered after drinking up the potions, which she had made out of materials with quite questionable origins, to limit the pain.

Then she began the challenge of analyzing the spell art on the door as quickly as possible since she felt like they wouldn’t have that much time to hang around here.

◆◇◆

For a while Emil went through several trials and errors. Each time her fingertip ended up scorched, but before long she apparently found the correct sequence. She let her finger glide across the door’s surface without hesitation, resulting in the door, which had stubbornly locked the two out of their destination thus far, to silently open up.

“You really gave me a hard time,” Emil muttered seriously.

Several empty bottles were lying at her feet. Renya picked those up and tossed them into his inventory.

Even though it wasn’t as though he didn’t want to hide the fact of them having come here, he also wasn’t keen on making it glaring obvious by leaving physical evidence behind. As such he thought that he might as well erase whatever evidence is easy enough to get rid of.

“Considering it’s an elven mechanism, it took a fair amount of time to analyze. The elf involved with this must be that elven princess with the plethora of bad habits whose heart is darker than darkness.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but I’ll go ahead.”

Feeling that it’d be smarter to not get involved with this, Renya passed through the open door, urging Emil to follow him.

“Now then, let’s see what they’re hiding…”

Renya started to say, but what they found on the other side of the door was a railing surrounding a part of the floor in a circle and a somewhat bigger box with drawings and embedded gems on its surface, which was installed alongside the wall.

“Does that mean they don’t want me to see this box?”

Just when Renya tried to approach that box which didn’t look all that amazing despite him not knowing what they were using it for, Emil stopped him. Renya decided to obediently watch Emil getting close to the box instead. At the very least, this method would come with less danger as a researcher like Emil knew much better how to handle such unknown items than Renya who would try to randomly touch it without knowing anything about the how-to. Moreover, Emil would have it easier to determine its true identity, too.

“This appears to be a control panel.”

And sure enough, Emil stated its true identity after simply staring at the box’s surface for a while.

“A control panel for what?”

“Wouldn’t it be for that?” Emil asked while pointing at the part that had been enclosed by a railing.

Next she told Renya to enter that closed-off part of the room. Of course, it wasn’t as though Renya didn’t feel a certain level of resistance towards entering something suspicious, but assuming that Emil wouldn’t have told him to do so if it was something dangerous, he climbed across the railing and stepped into the enclosed area.

Once he went inside, Emil let her hand run across the surface of the box she described as a control panel, and after pressing and pulling some parts of it, he chased after Renya, nimbly leaping inside the enclosure.

At the same time, the floor beneath them began to faintly tremble, before Renya could perceive how the floor was slowly descending. This sensation immediately reminded him of a similar device.

“The elevator we used over at the beastmen’s place, huh?”

They had used an elevator without knowing its underlying principle as a means to reach an underground city of the beastmen. Renya was lightly surprised by something similar to that elevator existing in Klinge without his knowledge, regardless of whether they brought it here or built it anew in this place.

The difference of this elevator to the one on the beastmen continent was its semi-transparent wall material, which didn’t allow you to look outside the tube, although a milky light faintly shone into the elevator from outside.

“Quite large-scale, I gotta say. Seriously, what are they building here?”

“We came here to find out, but somehow I can’t rid myself of the feeling that it’s not going to be anything decent anyway.”

Emil giggled at Renya’s grumbling that sounded like he was half-convinced of his own words. While they were having this conversation, the floor stopped its descent at some point, seemingly having reached its destination.

After making sure that the floor wouldn’t move any further, Renya pushed the door installed in the tube’s wall open and stepped outside.

“That’s how far you go, intruders!”

Renya reflexively stopped walking due to the voice suddenly calling out to him. Emil, who had tried to come out of the elevator shaft after Renya, bumped into his back, releasing a short, stifled yelp.

“First I shall praise you for having reached this place hidden beneath Klinge! However, now that you ran into me, Shion Femme Fatale, going any furt…wait…huh?”

Standing in front of the tube exit was Shion. She was wearing full armor and had thrust her katana’s point at Renya, but once she realized she was pointing her weapon at Renya, she quickly lowered the blade. And as if in exchange, Renya’s katana was thrust at Shion’s neck, after he had drawn it so quickly that no one could see his hand movements. He used the back of its blade to lightly lift Shion’s chin.

“Hey Shion, I do care for you, but…”

Renya’s tone lacked all harshness. Rather, it was full of tender gentleness, but Shion’s face very quickly turned pale as if the blade lifting her chin was also draining all her blood.

“Seeing how you’ve thrust a blade at me, I think I should deal with you in a suitable manner as a swordsman. But, what is your take on this?”

Shion clearly perceived that she’d be in a world of suffering if she made a mistake in her reply here, and thus she decided to bluntly say what crossed her mind, without honeying her words or using roundabout expressions.

“I’d be more than happy if you could at least spare my life.”

“Why has it become a premise for me to kill you?” Renya responded with an appalled yet dumbfounded voice while sheathing his katana as quickly as he drew it.

At the same time as the sheen of its blade vanished from her visual field, Shion breathed out long and hard, apparently feeling relieved.

While keeping her in line of sight, Renya checked the situation around them. The place right after exiting the tube seemed to be in the middle of some corridor. Looking from Renya’s point of view, the corridor extended straight to the left and right without an end in sight on either side. Given that it was a corridor underground, lights had been installed on the walls in intervals, but probably because it was nighttime, the lights’ intensity had been lowered, making the corridor itself somehow dim.

Upon a closer look at those lights, Renya saw that those were apparently run by magic since they didn’t seem to sway or flicker at all. Admiring the constructors for this as he guessed that this should have cost quite a bit of money, Renya kept scrutinizing the lights. But, then he heard several footsteps closing in on them from one side of the corridor.

“Shion-sama! It’s dangerous for you to head out alone! You have to deal with the intruders together with…bah, even though we came here with everyone, it was the off-limits guy!?”

“Hey, watch what you say…”

Ahead of Renya, who was unconsciously glaring with half-opened eyes, were several armed soldiers of Klinge. Spotting Renya, they stopped while dropping their weapons on the ground. They apparently thought that Renya would consider their actions as hostile if he saw them holding onto them.

This reaction followed the idea that they’d immediately forsake their lives if Renya interpreted things in such a way. As such, you couldn’t quite deny that they possessed a lot more crisis awareness than Shion.

However, if you considered this to be their response towards intruders as guards, this action was anything but praiseworthy.

“Earl-sama, why did you come here in person? Didn’t Her Majesty the Archduchess order you to not come here?”

Because they knew that use of force was out of question here, one of the soldiers apparently thought that he should at least attack Renya with words.

“Earl? No clue who you’re talking about. I’ m just a random trespasser.”

Hearing Renya’s reply, Emil cackled loudly while Shion stared at Renya with a flabbergasted, dejected expression.

“What are you going to do now that you’ve heard that?”

While believing that to be a rather mean question, Renya still opted to ask it.

All the soldiers began to look at each other. For them as guards, it’d be impossible to ignore someone calling himself a trespasser. But, the other party was doubtlessly Earl Kunugi. He was a swordsman who would be able to easily take down all of them at once without suffering a single injury. Moreover, in the eyes of the soldiers, Renya was their direct superior.

Even if they pondered how to deal with this, it was impossible to expect them to come up with some smart solution. Seeking assistance, the soldiers looked in Shion’s direction. Shion lightly tugged on Renya’s clothes, silently demanding his help.

“Renya, it’s wrong to tease them. I’ll secretly lead you around this place, so could you look the other way for them?”

“We’ve never been here. You guys didn’t see anything either. If something happens, Earl-sama will take responsibility. How about going with such a compromise, Renya?”

Due to Shion and Emil’s remarks, Renya averted his eyes from the soldiers. While feeling how relief spread among them, Renya nodded once.

“I don’t particularly mind, you know?”

“Please allow us to go with that policy then!”

Renya generously nodded back at the soldiers who had all lowered their heads at once.

Renya had his fair share of doubts what to think about this sort of discipline as guards in charge of security, but he also assessed it as possibly clever idea to step back from making the commitment of effectively expelling him from the facility, considering that he was an opponent they wouldn’t be able to handle on top of the potential casualties among their comrades and friends if the battle spread.

“I will guide those two. Could I have you secretly inform the other soldiers about it? If this whole show repeats itself each time they’re spotted, it’s very likely that it’ll draw the attention of people who are better left in the dark about this.”

“As you command.”

“Okay, please follow me, you two. As stealthily as possible, okay?”

Being beckoned over by Shion, Renya and Emil bid farewell from the soldiers and started to walk in the direction indicated by Shion.

Walking in front, Shion grumbled with the two in tow, “I thought it’d come to this sooner or later, but I’d predicted that Mother might come here as well.”

“It’s your own fault for hiding stuff from me in my own turf.”

“Personally, I fully agree with that. But it looks like the folks at the top agreed that you’d definitely be against it if we informed you about it.”

Renya considered how she should answer to Shion who basically told him to read between the lines. Using that opportunity, Emil butted into the conversation, and asked, “Still, partner, you sure got here fast, even though you were supposed to be asleep according to Renya, didn’t you?”

“I was woken up. Moreover, there was an agreement for the authorized personnel to meet up if some disturbance were to occur. In addition to the regular route, which you two used to get here, there exists an emergency route for guards like me.”

Even then, Shion and the others should have been in time, if Renya and Emil had carried on unhindered, but being stalled by the tricky sealing door gave the guards enough time to catch up. Renya suspected that the flat, scheming elf, as Emil had described her, would likely chuckle in triumph if she heard of this, but outwardly he simply shrugged his shoulders.

“Still, I gotta say it’s quite a big facility. You did well to erect something like this over such a period of time, didn’t you?”

“We basically threw masses of resources at it. As such, this is the outcome of employing magic and labor without any limits. It looks like quite a few of the workers got a burnout over this, but when it comes to the verdict by the highest authorities of three races, no one is able to defy it.”

Learning that this had been built by freely wielding governmental powers, Renya and Emil looked rather displeased, but Shion pretended to not notice any of it. After all, she was well aware that she couldn’t fathom the consequences waiting for her, if she faulted the rulers on such matters as she was different from Renya, who was outside the law anyway, and a demon like Emil.

“You used loads of magic stones as well, right?”

“That’s thanks to Frau, or I guess, Renya. Currently the supply of magic stones is extremely stable.”

Apparently the business of turning Renya’s mana into magic stones and selling them on the markets was still ongoing. Due to this, not only the Trident Principality, but all countries with trade relations to the principality were able to lavishly use a huge amount of magic stones. Being told that this business had also affected the construction over here, Renya’s look of displeasure grew even grimmer.

“Does Frau know about this?”

“I believe claiming that Frau doesn’t know of something happening in Klinge would be silly at best.”

Renya could agree on this being a fact, even if it might sound terrible. However, Frau knowing about something didn’t actually mean that she endorsed it. Then again, it was another fact that Frau would readily pretend to not be aware of things if she knew that approving of it could come at a backlash to herself.

The three continued their way through the hallways while talking, and although they were spotted by guards on several occasions, all of the soldiers had apparently been informed by the earlier soldiers, and let Renya’s group pass through while pretending to not have seen them.

Eventually, the three arrived in front of a huge door.

◆◇◆

At the point they had to use something like an elevator, even Renya had realized that they must have gone fairly deep underground. But, it was an entirely different question whether he’d be able to keep his calm, if that reality was thrust at him vividly and in all its glory.

After the huge door was opened, Renya initially couldn’t hide his astonishment over the space beyond. It was a ridiculously big place. If you looked above, the ceiling was in the far distance, and if you looked to the sides, the walls exceeded a distance that would make other people look like specks, going even further in range.

Several catwalks were installed at the walls. Several figures could be seen hurriedly running on top of those, despite it being nighttime.

Furthermore, this huge space was filled with loud noise. Somehow Renya could identify those sounds as metal being struck or cut. Also, things being carried around, dropped, and stacked up. The cacophony formed by all of these and what appeared to be footsteps and talking voices made it hard to distinguish a single sound, but all of those sounds meshed together, turning into a loud, chaotic concert.

The center of this space was occupied by another object excelling in size, something made out of metal. Because of its sheer size, it merely looked like a wall from Renya’s location. Yet, it possessed curves and straight lines that were clearly created by people’s hands.

Although Renya couldn’t tell at first glance what this gigantic something was supposed to be, he guessed that this had to be what the highest authorities of the three races had tried to conceal from him.

“What the heck is this?”

After gazing at it for a while and pulling a blank on its true identity, Renya gave up thinking about it any further and took a stab at Shion who probably knew the answer to it.

“Partner, what do you think?”

Having the ball passed to herself, Shion passed it on to Emil who was standing next to her.

Emil stared at the wall of metal in front of her while narrowing her eyes, and eventually answered with a voice that seemed to lack confidence for a change, “I definitely think I’m wrong here, but isn’t that a ship?”

Renya looked at the wall once more while wondering why Emil would answer like this if she didn’t believe in that answer to begin with. Now that an idea had been implanted in his head, he thought he could somehow make out the belly of a boat, but this whole thing was way too big to be described as a boat.

“What’s the reason for you to think that it definitely cannot be that?”

“Think of the location, Renya. We’re deep down under the ground. How are you going to get a ship up to the surface once it’s completed?”

Renya suspected that the ship would float up by itself if they filled the whole area with water, or if the ceiling could open up, but Emil had apparently accounted for all of this.

“Personally I think that this ship exceeds an overall length of 1,000 meters, but where do they intend to find the water necessary to make this thing float?”

Klinge had all sorts of water sources. Inside Renya’s castle, the irrigation channels all over the city, or the spa facility right next to the city all had water, but even if you drained all the water existent in those places, it’d clearly require a fairly long time to fill this place with enough water to let the ship-like object float to the surface.

And assuming one could really use that method to make the ship reach the surface, it still wouldn’t solve the fundamental problem of what to do with such a huge ship on land. After all, there existed no waterways which would allow the ship to sail away.

Moreover, if you planned to build a waterway broad and deep enough to allow for such a ship to use it with human hands, it’d become such a huge sink of money and labor that Renya couldn’t imagine how it could ever be realized.

“For that reason, its shape looks like that of a ship, but if it’s really one, I wouldn’t have any choice but to doubt the sanity of the humans, elves, and beastmen.”

“I’m sorry to say, partner, but this is a ship in fact. Or to be more precise, a warship.”

Shion had somewhat apologetically fallen back behind Emil who had made her remark while smiling as if looking down on someone unspecific. Next, Shion explained the truth to Emil, who appeared to be unable to believe any of it, with a muffled voice, “Back when I was told about this for the first time, I had also wondered what they were planning to do with something like this. But, this is a ship for real. It’d be correct to call it warship, and if I were to be fussy, battleship.”

The oceans of this world could be described as mostly unused because of the Katul’s existence. Naturally, the techniques in building ships were limited to vehicles allowing to traverse rivers, lakes, and the small areas of the ocean which the Katul ignored. As such, there was no reason to develop naval cruising any further than that.

And yet, the techniques to design and build such a huge ship existed. Moreover, the concept of battleships, which followed the idea of using ships to do battle, also existed. All of this caused Renya to feel surprised repeatedly.

At the same time, Renya felt like there didn’t exist a single reason within the explanation he’d heard so far why they’d need to hide this ship from him. Even if he might have considered it as an extremely pointless endeavor, seeing how they’d built a battleship in a place where it couldn’t even move, the funding for all of this came out of the pockets of the three rules and didn’t put any burden on Renya’s budget at all. So, even if he was going to say something about this, it’d be limited to some sarcastic nitpicking at the most.

“There’s something more to this, right?”

Emil commented as if representing Renya’S thoughts while smiling at Shion. In response, Shion shook her head in resignation.

“It’s something I’ve heard about for the first time, too. This is a treasure handed down through generations in the Trident Principality. It’s been constructed based on the blueprints inside something referred to as inheritance of a Lost.”

All information about the Lost who drew up the blueprint had long vanished within history as the era when he had lived was long past, but according to legends, he had black hair and eyes just like Renya, according to Shion.

“And that Lost carried the blueprint of this?”

“He possessed the blueprint which became the foundation for this.”

The Lost, who had wandered into this world while carrying that blueprint, learned about the existence of magic arts and various metals that didn’t exist in his former world. Before long, that Lost used all the knowledge he had gathered in this world and drew up a new blueprint for a battleship as if being possessed by the idea.

“I heard, he kept mumbling that his country might be saved if only they had a battleship of this caliber until the very moment of his death.”

“And here I thought the doctrine of big warships carrying big guns had been completely wiped by the appearance of airplanes.”

“Renya? Just now I felt like something you said made my senses tingle, you know?”

Emil’s face brightened up all of a sudden and she leaped at Renya. In reaction, Renya unleashed a somewhat powerful poke against Emil’s forehead, taking the wind out of her sails.

Renya suspected that the term ‘airplane’ might have triggered Emil just now, but even if she told him to give her proper explanation about airplanes, Renya would just pull a blank. Of course it wasn’t as though he thought he couldn’t provide a rough explanation of airplanes, but at the same time, he felt like Emil might actually build an airplane, even if he explained things so broadly.

Yet, Renya didn’t really want to see airplanes fly through the skies of this world. Furthermore, if he considered the possibility of some sort of mistake occurring during the creation, he found it hard to come to terms with the idea of Emil using those loose fragments of his knowledge.

“For this reason, this ship combines the design of another world and the materials of this world. Then again…” At that point, Shion stopped speaking and looked up to the hull of the ship while grimacing somewhat, “…despite having the blueprints, many parts of it were hard to decipher. Because of that it’s been considered impossible to build a ship that perfectly reflects the designer’s intention.”

In the first place, a battleship would find no opponents out on the sea, even if it could travel the waters. And if you also took the Katul into account, any ship would quickly end up in a watery grave, no matter how big a battleship it might be, making it rather pointless to build one to begin with in Renya’s eyes. In addition, the technological level of this world wouldn’t allow the reproduction of the engine necessary to make such a ship move.

Solving the issue with the engine might have been somewhat possible if they got the assistance of Emil, who had built a car in the past, and Renya’s fragmented knowledge, but they kept Emil in the dark about all of this. Moreover, Renya couldn’t even fathom Emil being able to create the necessary engine within a few days, seeing the wide difference in scale between a car and a battleship.

“Okay, so why did they build this?” Renya asked what appeared to be natural.

Emil answered faster than Shion.

“That’s because they discovered a purpose in running it, right?”

Since it didn’t have any use in the past, the blueprints had been disregarded so far. And because it was impossible to build, it hadn’t been built until now. Hence, if there was a use for it and if it became possible to build it, it’d be only natural to build the ship. Emil didn’t find anything strange about this.

“Even if you say they have a purpose in running it…”

“Renya, you seem to believe that they’re going to use it in the same way as it was used in your previous world, so you must feel conflicted as you can’t resolve your doubts.”

Renya perceived from Shion’s expression that the archduchess, emperor, and queen had a reason why they thought it was better to hide this from Renya, or rather, found it hard to mention the future plans to him.

“So you’re saying I’m wrong?”

“Yep. Going by what I heard from you, this had been used to float across the oceans in your previous world. But, this one here won’t float on the ocean.”

Renya was completely unable to grasp what Shion was trying to say. They built a battleship and yet it wouldn’t travel the sea, as such Renya wondered just how they had created such a huge object and for what reason. For some reason, his recent actions kept flashing past his inner eye, before a single event remained in his mind as if being some sort of revelation.

“Just the other day you rescued my partner, her little brother, and their town alongside all of its residents, didn’t you Renya?” Shion asked, as if just having waited for Renya to remember that very event.

Renya could only nod mechanically. In reality, he had succeeded in rescuing Emil and her kin from the demon king’s grasp by flying a town through the air. What made it possible was Renya’s absurd amount of mana and Frau’s spellcraft.

And now that his thinking had reached that level, it was easy to connect the dots between the huge object in front of his nose and the circumstance of an investigation team visiting the demon’s town.

“You people…investigated Emil’s town in order to analyze Frau’s spell formula instead of investigating the demons!?”

“Yeah. On top of that, it wasn’t just for the sake of analyzing it, but also to transcribe it into something like a battleship and get it into a form that would allow it to move the ship properly.”

The shapes of town and battleship were different, and originally the scales should have been different too, but the battleship down here boasted a size comparable to that of a small town.

Even so, they couldn’t simply use the spell formula applied on Emil’s town like that, and thus the investigation team had no choice but to analyze the formula from scratch, break it down into small sections for easier comprehension, and quickly research how to transfer it to the battleship while bringing about the same effect.

“And, it having taken this sort of shape…the power source for this battleship will be…”

“Allow me to explain things a bit. At first they had apparently planned to use magic stones as substitutes, but as result of having calculated things in various ways, they’d still fall short in reaching the demon continent with just magic stones, even if they crammed the entire ship full of it.”

“Let me supplement as someone doing research herself: the spell formula drawn by Frau naturally had you, Renya, being the power source as premise. If they tried to substitute you with magic stones, it’d be possible that it’d cause issues with the operation of the spell. In case of a small-scale spell, the distortion would be small as well, but if it comes to such a huge spell, the distortion might become just as big.”

“Personally I believe this to be the reason why Mother, His Majesty the Emperor, and Her Majesty the Queen didn’t want you to find out about this. But, what’s your take on it, Renya?”

“Yeah, I can somewhat understand the notion. Though I’m not happy about it.”

In the end, the battleship, which was still in construction, would depend on asking Renya to provide his abilities in order to move anywhere. The rulers of the three races clearly shared the belief that Renya would absolutely deny his assistance, if they were to openly approach him about it in advance. On the other hand, they were convinced that Renya would hesitate to let the battleship rot as a useless waste of labor, materials, and money, based on Renya’s character, if they asked him to cooperate after finishing the construction.

“I’m sure you’ve got quite a few complaints, but for the time being, allow me to introduce this to you. You two, this battleship is the Final Anti-Demon-King Weapon which the workers and engineers have been working on day and night. It’ll fly to the demon king’s castle while carrying the heroes and 10,000 soldiers. It’s made out of steel, has an overall length of 1,000 meters, and a width of 150 meters. It’s the Flying Assault Battleship <Ouu>.”

Shion declared while spreading her arms in front of the ship’s hull. In response, Emil began to laugh loudly due to the sheer absurdity of the whole thing while Renya held his forehead, guessing that he didn’t have the option to reject a cooperation now that he knew about all of this.

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