Kingdom Of The Weak

***

By the time Mindy returned to KarGoth, she had three new plans regarding airships.

First, the Wasp fighters. Mindy"s latest trip had made sure they had the parts they needed for at least a prototype. Putting them all together, plus their structures and everything was up to Arnold"s crew, which was hands down the busiest group of people in all of KarGoth.

Second, she needed a new Sky Galleon, something on par with the Deutero galleons, though bigger or faster woud be nice, and very, very likely second-hand, because she really couldn"t afford full prices as yet. This meant a couple of trips to Germat, and one final purchasing trip to Ashdale. If all went as planned, she"d have a new airship within two weeks.

That is, unless she sold the Red Fang. But she wasn"t about to do that. Sentimental reasons aside, the Red Fang was going to be her new airship"s escort. Mindy wasn"t nuts enough to try flying a fat Galleon-cla.s.s airship around without military-grade protection. No way.

Then, third…

Mindy"s third idea was downright ridiculous. It was expensive. It was uneconomic. It was a luxury that even she thought was too much to afford.

But what if, just if… she built the fastest Galleon ever?

A corvette or a frigate would be too small. No, Mindy wanted to fit a Deluxe-grade magic-drive on board. That engine alone would take up more s.p.a.ce than a frigate could handle. Also, she wanted ample s.p.a.ce for living quarters, so…

It was an extreme version of the Deutero "speedy" Galleon. It followed the same concept as the Wind Voyager, was similar in size to the Deutero Sky Galleon, and used the same engines as the much, much larger Deutero Freight Cruisers. This was an airship that could theoretically go from Ashdale to KarGoth in half a day instead of three. The magic consumption would be horrifying, yet if it was used to sell high value cargo, like Flaming Bronze, for instance… it might still be profitable.

Also, it would only have one weapon. Yes, that"s right, one. This was a design style that Mindy always seemed to end up with; put the biggest, heaviest weapon she could think of on board, but only one. The Red Fang, for instance, had four light turrets and two cannon mounts. Many Galleons had twice or thrice that for protection. But Mindy"s dream-boat yacht design relied on speed for protection, not guns, and thus she reverted to her one-heavy-weapon style. This yacht could mount a heavy cannon, a single, extrranged monster roughly three times the size of a standard magic cannon. Decent cannons of this caliber should be able to at least hurt a Tier 5 like Spike. High quality heavy cannons should be able to kill a Tier 5 at very long range.

In other words, this was an airship design that could take on the Lords of the Wilds. Even if all it could do was. .h.i.t-and-run operations, it had enough bite to make them hurt and enough speed to get away.

Or at least, that was the plan. Being able to afford a heavy cannon of that kind of power and then provide it when the necessary mana, well… that was a whole different challenge. But that came later. First, they had to build the airship, and it had to be very, very fast and very, very comfortable.

After all, this was the airship she planned to live in herself.

Speaking of new airships, there was one approaching that she hadn"t seen before. It was a Deutero Sky Galleon E, but this one was unusually colored blue and brown. Plus, Deutero airships usually didn"t arrive two days after the Beast Wave. They usually arrived mid-week, or the day before.

Mindy raised her telescope to take a good look at this new airship, certain that she"d never seen it before… but then she saw a familiar face on board.

"Charlie?"

***

Since receiving that generous payout from George, Charlie had happily bought over a second-hand Sky Galleon E and thoroughly enjoyed trading with more than ten times his old airship"s cargo capacity. His profits had shot up so high, he needed a new chart to better reflect the new magnitudes of his earnings.

This time around, he"d picked up tons and tons of construction materials and brought them all to George, intending to buy more Fire Copper here while he was at it.

"You want all the Fire Copper?" George repeated. "Can you really manage it?"

"Do you have enough to fill up my holds?" Charlie challenged.

"Actually, we do, and more." George nodded.

"Wait! I wanted it! All of it!" Mindy protested. "If we empty out the stores for Charlie now, there won"t be enough to fill up my holds the next time I get back!"

"Ah, but by then, we"ll have Misty Steel for you." George pointed out.

"Misty Steel?!" Charlie jumped.

"And raw gems, and silver, and regular copper, and tin… but you don"t seem very excited about those…"

"Silver, copper and tin would be okay once the Fire Copper runs out, I guess?" Charlie scratched his head. "But you really should double down and ramp up production of the Fire Copper ores."

Mindy kept her mouth shut about a certain other elemental metal that she wanted all to herself.

"It"s not about the ores. It"s the smelting that"s the problem. We only have so much smelting capacity here. There"s a lot of push to build more smelters, but there"s the Wilds to consider, and the pollution…" George shook his head. "The Eagle Lady flat out told me that if we didn"t do something to reduce the air pollution, the Eagle Lord was not going to be friendly toward us for very long."

"The who?" Charlie blinked.

"Oh. We"ve met more Lords of the Wilds. The one I"m talking about is a literal eagle. He has a great many birds under his rule. If we upset him, I can"t guarantee the safety of any airship in the Wildlands."

Charlie gulped. He got the picture. "So then… the Fire Copper is limited forever?"

"Maybe not. I"m thinking of whether we can still use Andros and the Burning Steel. They"re at Fal"Herim now, and they have no problems building up heavy industrial facilities." George mentioned.

Mindy"s face fell. "You really want to work with traitors?"

"If necessary. In the end, it all comes down to what"s good and bad for us." George said. "Even if I"d rather trade punches with him than lir, I have to consider the end results."

Mindy patted him on the back sympathetically. "George… you"re growing up."

"So glad you noticed." George said wryly. "Maybe we should start going out on dates, soon."

"Oh? There"s someone here you have an eye on?" Mindy punched him in the shoulder playfully. "Who is it? You"re not going after Phoebe, are you? Or is it some new girl I"ve never met?"

"New girl…? W-what new girl?" George stammered, suddenly appearing fl.u.s.tered.

"There really IS a new girl?!" Mindy stared. "Who is she? What"s her name? Where did she come from? How pretty is she?!"

"Errr… um…" George stumbled. "That"s not…"

"Spill!" Mindy ordered, raising her fist threateningly.

"I don"t know!" George backed away hastily. "I don"t even know her name! She came with the latest batch of mercenaries…"

"AHA!" Mindy leapt up and dashed right out of the airport, keen senses honed in on acquiring new information on this mysterious new girl.

"But… but she"s not…" George"s face fell.

"You can say it, George. Mindy"s already gone." Charlie a.s.sured him.

"She"s not the girl I wanted to date." George sighed. He glanced at Charlie. "Don"t tell her I said that."

Charlie barked a laugh. "As you wish. In that case, you"re on your own with that one, buddy."

***

Remian approved of George"s idea. "Yes. We can do that. I technically still own fifty percent of Burning Steel. I think we should remind them about that."

"We can do that?" George gaped.

"Leave it to me." Remian a.s.sured him. "Mindy"s headed straight back north after this. I"ll ask her to drop me off at Fal"Herim, and I"ll weigh in on Andros from there. There"s a Deutero branch set up in that city, isn"t there? I still need to handle the investment banking offer and everything."

"Are… are you going to be okay?" George asked hesitantly. "I mean, all by yourself in Fal"Herim…"

"I don"t think they"ll let me bring in a clan of wolfcats, if that"s what you"re thinking." Remian advised.

"But maybe, the Iron Legion…"

"That"s possible. We get along quite well, so far." Remian nodded. "But I"m thinking I"ll just operate there as a normal businessman. I doubt Fal"Herim would cause me any trouble since I"m basically just investing in their heavy industries."

"I don"t know. Asda might not be entirely happy to see you in her turf." George mentioned. "Maybe you should bring Song Chen and a few FDF squads just in case."

"No way. If I"m going to bring anybody, it"ll be either Adventurers or Sand people. Salim or Aren or Taj"s people." Remian decided. "I think there"s a couple of those among Mindy"s crew."

George hesitated, then said, "You should bring Phoebe."

"What?" Remian blinked. "Why?"

"Because you look like you"re about to fall over." George advised him. "I wouldn"t feel comfortable about letting you waltz off to a city in the desert without some medical professional on hand."

"Fine." Remian sighed. "Let"s ask her if she wants to come along."