At the port of the 38th Floating Island, inside the strategic battleship Utica, a Gremian mechanic was hard at work.
The state-of-the-art airship was filled to the brink of bursting with the latest cutting-edge technology. As he"d come to find, that came with certain side effects. If the enchanted furnace was in a different location, the quarantine area surrounding it changed as well. If the position and amount of alt.i.tude-control wings was different, so would be the shape of the equipment that managed them. A ma.s.sive number of pipes ran through the narrow pa.s.sageways, caring not whether they ought to be thick or thin. He hadn"t the foggiest clue what in the world was supposed to be running through them.
All in all, the theory of how conventional airships should operate simply did not work aboard the Utica. Those who would sail the ship, be they amateurs or professionals, had long since given up all hope. Forget the idea of fighting a Beast that can soar through the sky; they had to try their absolute best just to take off from the harbor.
That was what terrified the Gremian, more than anything else. This monstrous airship was made of a hodgepodge of materials sold and installed separately. As the Utica lacked any dedicated crew or workers, it would need to be somehow steered by personnel from the Fifth Division a.s.signed to it ahead of time.
Whenever he touched part of the airship"s interior, he got the distinct feeling that he could see the smiles of the twisted architects that designed it. How about it? If you work hard and properly draw out the ability hidden within this mechanical masterpiece, you"ll be able to slay even the Beasts, so do your best! He wished he could be the one to punch those mocking smirks with all the force he could muster.
"Geez, this is no laughing matter." Complaining and grumbling to himself as he came to the end of a dark, gloomy pa.s.sageway, the Gremian banged his wrench against one of the pipes running along the walls. He put his ear against the cold metal, listening to its echo. "Noise"s fading already, so this must be part of the power system. If it"s headed towards the controls, I can"t risk messing with it…"
A woman"s voice suddenly came from behind him, close enough to breathe into his ears. "What are you doing?"
"Yaaargh?!" The Gremian jumped and spun. "…Oh, it"s just you," he said in relief, relaxing. "Don"t go scaring a poor mechanic like that, will you?"
"Sorry. You were concentrating so hard, I wasn"t sure when I should get your attention. But anyway, what are you doing?"
"Ah, nothing much. Just trying to figure out this guy"s true nature." The Gremian tapped the pipe, which answered him with a clear, loud clang! "The guys who built this probably knew what went where, so they didn"t care about marking stuff, but it"s a matter of life and death for anybody who might man the ship, so I"ve got to work it out as soon as possible."
He lightly shook the multi-colored wires in his left hand. He"d been tying them around each pipe, each color indicating different contents. "I"d be scared of flying her "til all this stuff is done."
"If you do finish, will it fly?"
"Eh, good enough for basic stuff. If we"re trying to get it to a fight, the crew riding it will probably all need to get training."
"Do you think it"ll be able to defeat the Croyance?"
The Gremian barked a short laugh. "n.o.body can guarantee that. Could be a fair match, maybe? It"s certainly got plenty of top-cla.s.s power and equipment, so no complaints there."
He returned his gaze to the pipes and walls, confident in his a.s.sessment. In terms of pure performance ability, the Utica was most definitely a spectacular airship. While he would very much like to strangle the people who designed it, as a individual who happened to be an engineer, there was one thing he couldn"t help but admit.
"I want to see the visage of this gigantic airship taking off at full power, and hear it roar as it heads into the sky."
"Mm…"
He smiled bitterly at her vague reply. Well, can"t be helped. That"s just my brand of romanticism. Not exactly something everyone"s gonna sympathize with. "Well, that"s really more up to the officers than… us…"
When he turned around, n.o.body was there. "Huh?"
He looked around the pa.s.sageway, but there wasn"t any place for someone to stay hidden from sight. Did she get bored? Well, I guess that can"t be helped. Even for someone in my line of work, this kind of job is simple and boring enough to make anyone angry that they have to do it. It"s probably no fun to watch as an outsider.
"Ah, what a harsh place."
This kind of thing happened often enough to mechanics that the Gremian couldn"t get too worked up over it. He rubbed and cracked his shoulders, then went back to work.
Clang.
Listening carefully to the echoing sounds, he asked the pipes what their true nature was. Who are you, and where are you from? From where to where are you connected? What job do you do?
The Gremian didn"t consider for a moment that the pipes weren"t the only things he should have wondered about. The person he"d spoken to just now, the woman who had disappeared from his sight…
He knew nothing about her at all.