Ch.226Towards the Sky. Peledias (5)

The morning of the next day dawned.

I offered a prayer to the Sun in my heart, then gazed at the Sky Warden floating and being towed away, tethered to a ground vehicle, before moving on.

I’m not exactly at ease either. After what happened yesterday.

My wife clung to my right arm like a leech, saying nothing, and the party members refrained from speaking, knowing what had transpired last night.

But that didn’t last long. Since we couldn’t stay silent forever, I spoke first, and the others followed suit.

“Today we’re finally going to the museum. It’s been quite a journey… We’ll see the first spacecraft ever built there, enjoy ourselves a bit more, and then leave once the repairs are done.”

I pointed with my fingertip at the dome visible in the distance.

A domed museum—my first time seeing one, but the dwarves looked rather indifferent, suggesting it might be a common architectural style among them. Was it built by dwarves?

“Every time we reach a famous spot, we just see the highlights and leave. Feels like we’re just dipping our toes in and running.”

“Can’t be helped… It’s not like we’re going to live here for thousands of years. We can’t stay after we’ve seen everything there is to see.”

“Tsk. I suppose that’s true.”

Pilgrims typically struggle with money. Naturally, they have to manage the high costs of tourist destinations, along with various supplies and consumables needed for travel.

In that respect, we’re traveling in such luxury that most pilgrims would be green with envy—so much so that they’d have no right to complain even if they strangled us. While others trudge miserably through mud, we float leisurely in the sky.

“Anyway, let’s get a carriage first. There are too many of us for a rickshaw.”

“Can’t we just carry the dwarves in our arms?”

“What?!”

When Lucia said this with a grin, Berkman jumped in shock.

Could we really do that? The dwarves may be short, but they must weigh quite a bit…

“Don’t talk nonsense. Nobles can’t do something so undignified. It’s not like there’s a shortage of carriages or cars…”

Saying that, I headed toward the nearest carriage stop.

The coachmen were apparently idle, sipping coffee at their station. When they saw us approaching, they hurriedly gulped down their coffee and began opening the carriage doors.

Hmm. Doesn’t it burn when they drink it all at once like that? Or perhaps they drink cold coffee to avoid that very problem.

With such idle thoughts, all seven of us boarded the carriage, and I knocked on the wall, stating our destination.

“To the Peredias National Museum.”

“Yes sir! I’ll take you there right away!”

The coachman replied loudly enough to be heard inside, and with the clatter of hooves, we set off toward the museum.

And until then, my wife continued to grip my right arm tightly, refusing to let go.

Normally, I would have coaxed and comforted her, but… well, it was the day after I had administered 3,000 lashes to her, so I could forgive a little sulking.

A little.

*

“We have arrived.”

“Hmm.”

After getting out of the carriage, I paid the coachman and gazed at the enormous museum dominating my view.

The Peredias National Museum. The only museum in this city and also its largest.

Of course, even excluding its uniqueness, it’s still massive. It would probably take five or six department stores combined to match its size.

“Why is it so huge? Seems inefficient.”

“You can’t exactly put a spacecraft in a tiny space, can you?”

“Ah.”

When I thought about it, it was actually quite simple. The building had to be large to accommodate what was inside.

“You become sharp in critical moments, but seem rather dull otherwise. Is that your characteristic?”

“Well… I’m not that dull.”

Whether bland or dull, it means I’m a bit loose in the head during normal times. Mentally, I’m still somewhat immature, and above all, no one can stay focused on something for 36 hours straight.

Isn’t it human nature to relax during ordinary times and sharpen up when something important happens?

“Well, standing here is getting awkward, so let’s head in. I’m eager to see the spacecraft.”

As I said this and started walking, Lucia laughed heartily and remarked:

“Men! I don’t understand why you love those cold hunks of metal so much!”

“Cold hunks of metal?! Metal is best when it’s hot!”

“No! It’s best when it explodes!”

“Dwarves, please calm down a bit…”

Kasia sighed as she tried to pacify the dwarves.

Of course they’d spontaneously combust when someone mentioned “coldness” in front of pyromaniacs and demolition experts.

But even so, I had to object to the “cold hunks of metal” comment.

“What man doesn’t love something as romantic as a spacecraft? I love locomotives racing on rails, cars speeding down highways, planes soaring through the sky, and ships traversing the oceans!”

“Exactly! How glorious is it to see human creations conquering the world!”

“The sound of engines running, exhaust notes, whistles and horns, the sound of breaking the sound barrier, and the friction of heated metal—any man whose heart doesn’t race at these can’t call himself a man.”

“Eeek…”

As the dwarves and young human males united, Lucia looked at Simon as if begging for help.

But Simon subtly turned his head away and muttered quietly:

“If I hadn’t become a wizard, I would have wanted to be a mechanic.”

“Simon, not you too!”

“But I’ve always wanted to work on a 16-cylinder engine.”

As expected of Simon. I knew I could count on him.

*

As we entered the museum, our eyes were immediately drawn to an enormous and crude spacecraft placed in the center.

Looking closely, one could tell that the dome was built specifically to house this spacecraft—it was that massive. This was the first spacecraft built by humanity after their fall to this world.

Thirty years after the Sun rose high.

The first launch vehicle created by those with the audacious ambition to challenge the divine glory with human technology… filled with dreams and aspirations.

And their challenge succeeded. Countless rockets, built by those who claim to be their successors and descendants, continue to soar toward the sky and space even now.

“Frontier…”

A word meaning to pioneer.

It was so fitting that I had nothing to add, but I closed my eyes and recalled when this spacecraft first pierced the sky.

This isn’t my delusion or imagination. I’m merely receiving and contemplating the memories bestowed by the Sun.

And so I disappeared, and the Sun’s perspective filled my soul.

*

The sky viewed from above the sky.

From far below that vast expanse, white smoke rises through the clouds.

Not the beauty of falling, but the magnificence of rising finally catches the Sun’s eye.

The nose cone glows bright red from compression heat, and the crudely attached heat shields fall off one by one, revealing the ugly gray of bare metal.

But still, it doesn’t fall.

As if determined to burn even its soul to reach the Sun, that small and clumsy spacecraft pushes through the air, pierces the clouds, cuts through air currents, and continues to rise.

Soon, the white-hot lower stage stops. The fuel has run out.

But it doesn’t fall.

The lower stage explodes, and the newly exposed nozzles and engines on the shortened body ignite again, pushing it upward once more.

Continuing… continuing… continuing upward.

Endlessly upward until the long becomes short.

Like a snake shedding its skin, separating stages one by one, those carrying the pioneering spirit simply move forward in their ark woven from passion.

And the Sun merely observed.

[Such admirable creatures.]

It is them.

They are the reason for the Sun’s sacrifice.

The ultimate purpose of the ambition to engrave itself into the world and burn eternally in sacrifice, to give humanity blue skies once more—that’s what this humble exploration vessel demonstrates.

Why does humanity move forward knowing they will fall into endless sleep?

Because they know their descendants will cover them with blankets as they rest in eternal peace.

Why does humanity advance in the face of fear and death?

Because they know their successors will step on their corpses to make the world wider.

That is why those soaring through the sky deserve the world’s reverence and the respect of celestial gods.

Finally, that which soared begins to fall.

But there was dignity in it.

Like a whale that breaches the water’s surface before splashing back into the ocean, humanity’s spirit, having burst through the ocean of clouds in the blue world, was not yet ready, and so returns to the ground.

And they will challenge again.

They will tear through the sea of clouds, cut through the blue world, overcome the Sun’s heat, and advance toward the world of luminous bodies.

Not because they must, but because they want to.

The Sun briefly closed its eyes and caressed the unending pain that enveloped it.

And shortly after, a white blessing began to fall from the sky, and soon the white gathered to become blue.

*

I opened my eyes.

Before me was a pile of debris that had completely crumbled after enduring tens of thousands of years of intense history.

I stepped forward.

And with my hand, I grasped the titanium alloy that was so weathered that even paint could no longer conceal its deterioration.

Security guards began to gather, and I could hear my wife calling me, but my voice was stronger than theirs.

“Machine, be healed.”

A warm yellow power began to flow into the Frontier, gradually reversing the law of entropy, turning the old into new.

Weathered and eroded plates filled out again, and dangling wires and heat shields neatly returned to their proper places.

The broken and tilted keel began to rise vertically again, and shattered fragments gathered to restore and regenerate the damaged areas.

The realm of divinity, impossible even for magic.

As the Sun’s messenger and heaven’s apostle, I restored the ark that carried humanity’s pioneering spirit.

I blessed it so that it would not break or rust even after a million years.

Just as the human spirit never dies, the first pioneers will enjoy eternal life as long as humanity continues to advance.