Ch.181Besfeld Coast (1)

Though dwarves had difficulty riding horses due to their short stature, that didn’t mean it was impossible.

The dwarf brothers rode a single warhorse together like the elven twins, and I learned for the first time that there were special saddles and stirrups designed specifically for dwarves.

Of course, the additional maintenance cost for the warhorse was a bitter pill to swallow, but it wasn’t feasible to prepare a separate cart just for the dwarves.

“If you don’t prove yourselves worth a hundred men with your bombs and flames, I won’t let you hear the end of it!”

“Hahaha! A hundred men? Our explosions and flames are easily worth a thousand men!”

When I said that, Haukman pounded his chest and boasted loudly.

I couldn’t tell if he was hitting his chest or his belly because he was a dwarf, but at least I knew the gesture represented bold ambition, so it didn’t really matter.

And so, watching the dwarf brothers give each other piggyback rides before mounting their horse, I began leading the way toward the Besfelt Coast.

*

“Do you know what the Besfelt Coast is like?”

“A coast is a coast. Unless the terrain is particularly rough… or there are special landmarks. Apart from five or six small coastal towns, there’s nothing special about it.”

“I see.”

Coasts were always dangerous places.

The sea itself was dangerous, and various marine monsters that dwelled in the ocean would periodically come ashore and wreak havoc.

Even in Parcifal, they would dispatch adventurers and naval forces every season to regularly exterminate monsters, but small towns couldn’t afford to do that. They could only hire adventurers to destroy a few small nests at most.

If an airship had crashed rather than landed on such a coast, it certainly wouldn’t remain in normal condition.

“They say an airship crashed. Do you think we can fix it?”

“Whether it’s a ship or an airship, it should have equipment and materials inside to deal with various breakdowns. Of course, the fact that it crashed means there was a defect that couldn’t be fixed with those materials alone, or they ran out of materials, or there was a defect that couldn’t be fixed with what they had. So I can’t promise anything.”

“I see…”

I had only ridden an airship once, but having grown up in a coastal city, I had a basic understanding of how ships were built.

How ironclad steamships were made, and how wooden sailing ships were constructed.

Airships were probably built in a similar way.

With proper design and quality materials in the hands of skilled technicians, you get something good. With shoddy design and subpar materials in the hands of uncertified technicians, you get something bad.

The saying “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” probably applies most strictly to houses and vehicles.

If you only look for cheap options for either, you’re likely to bid farewell to life before you can even get your money’s worth.

“Well… we can get materials from nearby towns. A town should have enough materials to build one airship, right?”

“True. Do you have money?”

“I’m starting to run a bit low, but I have some.”

“Oh my. Look at him acting all high and mighty as the captain. He’d rather die than ask us for money.”

I cracked Lucia’s head with my scabbard.

It was spring.

*

The Besfelt Coast was close to Amarantin.

The note said it would take two weeks, but since we had brought warhorse that defied comparison with ordinary horses, we could cover the distance in a week at most, even with a generous estimate.

“I heard dwarves eat bread made of stone. Is that true?”

“What? No! Who would make bread out of stone? That rumor probably started because we bake bread on stone slabs.”

“Human rumors! Then, do you humans bake cookies out of mud?”

“Yes.”

“Huh?”

“You knead fine mud with margarine, butter, cooking oil, and a bit of salt. Dry it in the sun, and you get mud cookies. On lucky days, there might be small crabs or dead fish inside, which improves the texture.”

“…”

Mud cookies weren’t common food, but it would be hard to say they didn’t exist.

I had made them myself and eaten them too.

“My master had a very difficult childhood.”

Raisha, who couldn’t bear to watch anymore, alluded to my past, and hearing this, the dwarf brothers scratched their heads and replied.

“I see… Sorry about that, Captain. Most knights we’ve met were from the upper class…”

“No, it’s fine. It’s all in the past now.”

I said that while filling a pot with water.

Soon the campfire was lit, and we gathered around it to warm ourselves.

“By the way… why do you brothers like explosions and flames so much?”

“Ah… when was it… 20 years ago?”

“It was 22 years ago. When I was 14.”

“Ah, right… Anyway, 22 years ago, we saw fireworks for the first time.”

“Really?”

I knew about fireworks too.

I had never set them off myself, but watching the sky was free, and I remembered making decent money collecting trash after firework shows.

“At that time, I felt something fantastic in the sound of the explosions… and my brother found great inspiration in the blazing fireworks.”

“So that’s why you two developed a taste for bombs and flames?”

“That’s right!”

I nodded as I watched Raisha put vegetables and meat into the pot to make stew.

Honestly, I didn’t understand it, but if that was the case, I could simply leave it as something I didn’t understand.

Because I was me and could never become someone else, I didn’t try too hard to understand others.

I could only accept it.

People who try to understand those different from themselves end up dying with blurred boundaries between themselves and others.

On the streets, I had seen the deaths of too many people playing the role of such saints.

Thinking this, I didn’t speak anymore, and neither did the other party members.

Trusting and relying on each other was perfectly acceptable and even recommended for comrades who shared life and death situations.

But considering each other family? That was impossible.

Except for Raisha, no one was my family, and I wasn’t part of their families either.

*

“I can see the ocean.”

“Ugh. I hate the sea. It smells fishy.”

“Says the woman who devours seafood without complaint?”

“I like eating fish, but I don’t like catching them. That’s all.”

I cracked Lucia’s head with my half-sword, then moved to the front of the group and gazed at the endless stretch of beach.

This was probably the first time in my life I had seen a completely natural beach, not a developed city coast bustling with ships and sailors.

There, where only the yellow of the sand and the blue of the sea existed, the wreckage of the airship we had been searching for was scattered.

“There it is. I can see it clearly.”

“Ooh… quite an impressive airship… The wreckage looks in good condition too. If we drain the seawater and repair the torn parts, we should be able to fix it somehow!”

Hearing the dwarves’ words, I led my party members and urged our warhorses to maximum speed, quickly reaching the airship wreckage.

As the note had described, it was a small airship, but it looked very sturdy with its iron armor plating.

“It’s about one-tenth the size of the airship we rode in the gorge… Just the right size for us.”

“That’s right. If it were any bigger, the maintenance would cost more than it’s worth. Still, being an airship, its cargo capacity should be excellent.”

“That’s fortunate then. Now we can make some money through trade or something.”

While Simon and I were overheating our hope circuits, the dwarves had entered the airship and were examining it from all angles.

When they didn’t come out for a while, I instructed the elven twins and my wife to set up camp, and Casia and Raisha, who had abandoned their head-cracked sister, took out the tents from the horses and began building a campsite.

“Simon, go inside and ask them how much they’ve checked.”

“Alright.”

Eventually, I sent Simon into the airship as well, and not long after, Simon and the dwarf brothers returned.

“How’s the condition?”

“We’re going to have to put in a lot of legwork. The gas bag exploded due to strong external force. We need to repair the gas bag, fix the torn hull… and to get helium or hydrogen…”

I took out all the gold coins I had from my spatial storage and entrusted them to Simon.

“Simon, get the necessary supplies from the nearest town.”

“Understood.”

Simon didn’t hesitate and departed on horseback, while the dwarf brothers praised me for my generous spending.

“Now I’m completely broke!”

“Hahaha! Think of it as an investment, Captain! When this airship flies again, you’ll be raking in gold coins by the handful!”

“Ugh…”

The groaning of the head-cracked Lucia could be heard, and the sun began to descend below the water’s surface.

Now, it was do or die.