Ch.839Preparation for Departure

After about ten minutes of discussion, the nobles and officials of Hestella had to admit that their opposition couldn’t stop the plan to raid Ordos.

Even the regent Eleonora and the administrative director—equivalent to the Empire’s chancellor—Lambert had to back down with expressions that said “there’s no way to persuade someone who won’t listen to reason.” How could the civil officials beneath them possibly change my mind?

If they couldn’t trust my abilities, they could challenge me directly and experience the stubbornness of the strongest human alive.

They all looked at Josef with desperate eyes, clearly hoping that Josef, known as Landenburg’s strongest, would step forward and persuade me, but…

“Ahem.”

Josef merely cleared his throat, ignoring their pleading gazes.

Unlike the civil officials who mistakenly thought that as a fellow Hero he might stand a chance against me, Josef understood more clearly than anyone the vast gulf between us precisely because he was a Hero himself.

To be blunt, if I activated Defying Fate and approached him during its duration to cut his throat, taking him down in a single strike wouldn’t be particularly difficult.

To counter Defying Fate, one would need to either maintain enough distance to prevent me from approaching within 5 seconds, be fast enough to match Defying Fate, or have the ability to withstand my strike—all three of which were impossible for Josef.

Josef’s Tale of Heroes, Sword of Giant Hunting, was a ranged attack technique, but… it wasn’t nearly enough.

Unless the sword grew to over a hundred meters in size, he couldn’t block my approach with a mere ten-meter range—something that had been proven through numerous sparring matches long ago.

That’s why Josef remained silent. Once I had taken the position of “come at me if you’re upset,” he was certain that stopping the attack on Ordos was impossible.

Moreover, the justification was on my side.

“According to reports, Ordos has fallen into the hands of sorcerers—Eastern mages. And not just ordinary mages, but ones who are preparing some unknown large-scale ritual through human sacrifice.”

The enemies occupying Ordos weren’t just Ka’har warriors.

“Human sacrifice…!”

“Such heretics who deserve to burn…!”

As I had expected from the moment I mentioned it, Adamante and Bethania, who belonged to the Church of Astraea, showed passionate reactions to the words “human sacrifice.”

Like Pavlov’s dogs trained to convulse at the sound of a bell.

It was a natural reaction, of course. The core doctrine of the Church of Astraea itself was to capture and burn such people.

While other churches outwardly maintained core doctrines of grace, love, mercy, blessing, sacrifice, or rest, the Church of Astraea had placed the blood-scented words “Extermination of Evil Spirits” as its first doctrine on the very first page of its scripture.

From the beginning, the concept of order that the goddess Astraea presided over meant a quiet and peaceful world achieved by completely eradicating evil.

How could Adamante and Bethania, raised in such a church, remain calm after learning that the enemy wasn’t just evil, but scum who practiced human sacrifice?

“Grrrr…”

Their eyes had already changed.

The expressions that had questioned the need to attack despite the risks had transformed into faces ready to run to Ordos and turn it into a sea of flames at a moment’s command.

It was truly the exemplary appearance of judges and priests.

“Whether it’s a type of necromancy or part of a ritual worshipping an evil god, we can’t know without checking directly… but either way, there’s no question that it’s heretical. If we didn’t know about it, that would be one thing, but now that we do, I cannot stand by as a saint of the goddess.”

“Your words are most righteous, Astika!”

The justification of a saint eliminating heretics. To oppose this would be no different from helping the heretics.

As a result, all the ministers gathered in the audience chamber had no choice but to agree to the attack on Ordos.

—-

After unanimously approving the attack on Ordos, I gathered only those who would be part of the attack force to discuss the detailed plan.

Since Imara’s information wasn’t enough to fully understand the situation in Ordos, all we could discuss was “how to enter” and “how to escape.”

“How about asking the Empire to borrow cloaks of concealment?”

“They’d have at most six or seven cloaks. We might be able to hide our presence, but not the horses we’re riding.”

“What about infiltrating disguised as a slave caravan? I could take on the role of a slave trader, pretending to be selling Western slaves captured in raids…”

“That won’t work. The warriors of Ordos would recognize your face, Jahan, and even if they didn’t, a single warrior leading more than ten slaves would be extremely suspicious. If you want to disguise yourself as a slave trader, you’d need at least six or seven warriors.”

Unfortunately, no brilliant ideas emerged.

“So we’re left with a frontal approach… troublesome. The lady—or should I say Her Majesty the Queen now? Your Majesty would have no problems, but honestly, I’m not confident about moving around without being detected by those creatures. If we’re caught on the way, won’t we be like rabbits in a hunting ground?”

“I’m more concerned about the retreat. Even if fortune favors us and we reach Ordos undetected, after we take down these sorcerers, fierce pursuit will follow. I wonder if it will be possible to shake them off.”

“Good point.”

I nodded slightly, affirming Josef’s opinion that we needed to secure an escape route.

As he said, once we caused trouble, all the Ka’har warriors in the area would come after us. While Jahan and I might manage, the others’ riding skills wouldn’t be enough to escape the warriors’ pursuit.

“That’s why your role and mine, and Heinrich’s, will be crucial. Your Tale of Heroes should easily break through any encirclement, and Heinrich’s Tale of Heroes is perfect for shaking off cavalry pursuing us.”

Add my flames to that, and no matter how excellent the Ka’har’s horsemanship, they would have no way to respond.

If they tried to approach through the sea of fire, they’d stumble in the earthquake created by Heinrich, and even if they avoided that, the moment they came within twenty meters, the Sword of Giant Hunting would swing at all of them.

“You understand what I mean? Don’t fight with all your strength—conserve your power. Enough to easily manifest your Tale of Heroes three or four times.”

That should be sufficient to shake off the pursuit temporarily. Once we create distance, it will take considerable time for them to close it again, and if we continue to flee while recovering our spent Karma, we should be able to retreat safely to the Wall.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

In this way, we formulated a plan to raid Ordos, quickly eliminate Meiharin and the other sorcerers, and retreat before being surrounded by thousands of warriors.

And then…

“…We worried for nothing.”

All our plans were scrapped in just two days.

– Woooong!

A means far superior to anything we had devised came flying into Landenburg territory.

“What on earth is that?!”

Knights looked up at the sky with eyes full of doubt. Those from the Imperial territories were somewhat less shocked, having witnessed such a sight before, but the Landenburg natives were literally dumbfounded.

“A ship…?”

At the sight of a strangely shaped sailing vessel navigating the blue sky.

The airship.

Just as its playful name given by the Magic Tower researchers suggested, following the prototype that had disappeared like tears in the rain, the pinnacle of Imperial magical engineering was slowly descending with a heavy engine sound.

—-

The Empire’s Magic Tower’s second airship, Larmes de sang (Blood Tears).

The absence of “Tower Master’s” in the name perhaps meant there were even more people shedding tears in the Magic Tower.

It was honestly absurd that they hadn’t learned their lesson after losing the unfortunately named prototype, and had now explicitly named this one “Blood Tears.”

It still had the same flaw of being unable to withstand extreme environments like the Sky Mountains, but they had generously utilized the dragon remains I had donated to strengthen the armor’s defense while actually making it lighter.

Moreover, while I was staying in Hestella, some kind of technological revolution must have occurred in the Imperial territories, as unlike the previous airship that was armed only with dragon-slaying crossbows, this one was equipped with what looked like cannons.

“What are these? Did the dwarves finally share their gunpowder formula?”

“Haha. That’s impossible. Those dwarves would rather shave their beards than break their stubbornness.”

The mage operating the vessel shook his head with a proud face and proudly introduced their new weapon.

Mana cannons.

Though they looked similar to dwarven cannons, unlike firearms that used gunpowder to fire projectiles, these were pure magical engineering products.

They worked by causing an explosion through oversupplying mana to mana stones inscribed with runes of fire and reinforcement.

The basic principle of using explosive pressure to launch projectiles was the same, but since they didn’t use gunpowder, even the dwarves couldn’t raise objections.

There were issues—they couldn’t be operated without mages’ support, and the cost of making one mana stone projectile could produce at least fifty cannon shells—but…

This meant that humans here now had an artillery branch.

“This is quite good…”

I stroked the barrel of the mana cannon with a satisfied smile. To think they created such a weapon in just a few months.

I understand why Leopold keeps squeezing the Tower Master and researchers.

When you push them to work without sleep, they produce such masterpieces—how could you resist squeezing them?

If Floheta were here, I’d hug her and kiss her cheek—that’s how pleased I was with the result.

Moreover, the mana cannon wasn’t the only new weapon developed by the Magic Tower. There was another weapon just as impressive.

Small mana reactors the size of a human torso, inspired by the accident where a mana engine explosion blew away the outer wall of Faelrun Castle.

They had reduced the intensity but increased the output, designed from the start to explode from overload—carpet bombing mana bombs piled up in the lower part of the airship.