Chapter 82
Saeb shot up from his seat.
I could feel a renewed sense of hostility rising from him as he blinked in disbelief.
One might think he was overreacting to every little thing, but considering his position of having to protect the aerial base Ederka, it was not entirely incomprehensible.
Fearing this sensitive administrator would jump to conclusions and hold a blade to my neck again, I quickly spoke the next words.
“With my Authority, it is possible to detect locations where mana is concentrated. And in an aerial base, the place with the highest concentration of mana is the engine room.”
“…Is that why you know the location of Ederka’s engine room?”
“Yes. If I can confirm Dersia with my own eyes, I can also identify the exact location of its engine room.”
In truth, the Eye of the Dragon had no such function.
But I knew Dersia down to the smallest detail.
The location of the engine room?
That was information I had obtained while playing D&K.
And from what I had observed over the past few days, Dersia and Ederka had remarkably similar structures, likely due to technical issues.
No, it would not be an exaggeration to say they were not just similar, but perfectly identical.
Just in case, I had tried to check the third basent level beforehand, but unlike the fully accessible first and second basent levels, the third was a military facility with completely restricted access.
“Will you give it serious consideration? If we succeed in bringing down Dersia, the Alliance will gain not only Roka's corpse but also an absolute advantage in the Frey Archipelago from now on.”
“…”
Saeb did not give a definite answer.
However, judging by his expression and the furrow in his brow, it did not seem like it would take long for him to reach a conclusion.
* * *
“Haa… It is cold.”
Selina shivered slightly in the blowing wind.
As she said, the wind chill was considerably low.
I adjusted the strap of the exceedingly uncomfortable goggles and breathed out, my breath turning white.
I could feel my stamina being sapped in real-ti, just like the cold I had experienced at the front lines of Achimlab Fortress.
The problem was that, given the season, we had no cold-weather gear.
If this were an ordinary airship, we would have been sowhat protected from the low temperatures at high altitudes by magic, but unfortunately, we were currently on a reconnaissance airship.
This airship, with all its functions focused on reconnaissance and stealth, had no consideration for its occupants.
It did not block the wind, nor did it protect its passengers from the low temperatures.
In the end, all we could do was huddle and shiver to resist the cold.
But we could not complain.
We were currently inside enemy territory, searching for the location of the Purity aerial base, Dersia.
No matter how thick and vast the clouds were, obscuring our vision, we were flying through enemy lines with a great deal of risk, so we could not complain, even if it was uncomfortable.
SNIFFLE.
I heard a sniffle from beside .
It was Saeb.
As if he had no pride to uphold as the administrator of Ederka, he had wrapped his body in his cloak, much like I would wrap myself in a blanket on a cold winter day.
“I did not realize you were so passionate as to jump into the heart of enemy territory yourself.”
I had naturally assud he would just send his subordinates and be done with it.
Surprisingly, Saeb chose to board this uncomfortable airship himself.
Sniffling once more at my question, Saeb opened his mouth, his voice full of dissatisfaction.
“Ederka’s main forces are currently down at sea level to secure Roka. Among the remaining soldiers, there is no one who could subdue Rian Kaltz in the event of an ergency.”
“You still have not completely shed your suspicions of , even after coming all this way.”
“It may be uncomfortable, but please understand.”
“I am not uncomfortable.”
Trust is a word with considerable weight.
Moreover, he was a man with a great many responsibilities.
The fact that he continued to suspect in this way made him seem like soone who, contrary to his appearance, took his role seriously.
I could see that the Alliance did not operate its military in an inefficient manner, completely buried in a hierarchical society.
“By the way, did you not say it was around here?”
“Yes. We should be able to see Dersia with the naked eye soon. Could you instruct the crew to extinguish all the airship’s light sources?”
Saeb nodded at my request and gave the order. Our airship extinguished all its lights and entered a silent state, quietly cutting through the clouds.
To eliminate sound, the engine’s output was lowered to a minimum, making our progress incredibly slow.
How long had we been moving in silence?
“Hup!”
One of the crew mbers barely managed to stifle a scream, clapping a hand over his mouth.
A crewman at the stern quickly waved his hand, and the airship, already moving slowly, killed its speed completely and ca to a halt.
Only about fifty ters ahead.
There was a massive shadow there.
“My word… To think Dersia is really in a place like this…”
Saeb’s lips twitched, as if he could hardly believe his eyes.
I could tell just by its shape.
Dersia had not changed one bit from the ti I had seen it through the screen.
Neither its appearance nor its level of defense.
“Rian Kaltz, can you confirm where Dersia’s engine is?” Saeb asked, having cald his excitent.
His question implicitly urged to use my Authority to locate the engine room, but there was no need to raise his suspicions by using my real Authority.
I already knew.
“The third basent level.”
“The third basent level, you say…”
“Yes. Ederka and Dersia. The location of the engine rooms is exactly the sa.”
“…”
Saeb silently stared at the massive form of Dersia.
He said nothing else.
But I could see an indescribably complex emotion in the two eyes that gazed upon Dersia.
It was not that I could not understand his feelings.
As the long-ti administrator of Ederka, he had searched for the enemy's stronghold, Dersia, while enduring the wretched living conditions unique to an aerial base for a long ti.
How overwhelming must his emotions be, with the mont to end the long battle right before his eyes.
“We are returning for now.”
There was still one problem to solve before finishing off Dersia.
Saeb’s voice trembled as he gave the order to return.
And.
The hostility and suspicion in his eyes, which had been directed at , were no longer there.
* * *
If Ederka’s main cannon were to strike the engine room, Dersia could be sent plumting into the sea below.
But our goal was not simply to shoot down Dersia.
It was to wipe out, in a single blow, the Purity forces that had gathered from all over to seize the benefits obtainable from Roka’s corpse.
That was the real objective.
To achieve that, we first had to find out the coordinates of the location where the Purity airships were gathered.
We had to deduce in which direction and how Dersia would fall after its engine room was hit by the main cannon.
And we had to devise a way to alter its trajectory and drop Dersia precisely on top of the airships.
These three were the problems that needed to be solved imdiately.
“Is this even really possible?”
Perhaps people are the sa no matter what world they are in.
Saeb, hunched over his desk, ruffling his neatly combed hair and chewing on the back of his pen, looked just like a student facing a difficult math problem before an exam.
“It seems possible to change Dersia’s trajectory by firing an airship’s main cannon at its side as it falls. The problem is that there are too many things to calculate… The angle of trajectory shift will change depending on the direction of the hit, and we have to do this without any simulations? I wonder if this is sothing a human can do.”
“It is also impossible to keep hitting the sa spot. The extent of Dersia’s damage will change with each bombardnt.”
“…This is driving crazy.”
Saeb, as if throwing the pen, finally slamd his head on the desk.
That was not all.
Judging it impossible to do alone, Saeb had not only gathered mathematicians but also anyone in Ederka who was known to be a bit clever and set them to work on the calculations.
However, the progress was remarkably slow.
It was not surprising.
They had likely never perford such precise calculations before.
‘…It is not easy.’
I was quite fond of this kind of calculation and was confident in it.
To be precise, should I say I had no choice but to like it?
Was it not a characteristic of Koreans to throw fun out the window when playing gas and pursue extre efficiency, even going so far as to create calculation tables?
This tendency was particularly strong in D&K.
While you could use powerful skills with a single click of a button, the calculations required for that one click were imnse.
Ultra-long-range bombardnt, teleportation coordinate calculations, and so on…
It could be said to be a necessary virtue to beco a ranker.
‘To be exact, the players who could not do that were the ones who fell behind.’
And that was not all.
I knew more about Dersia than anyone else gathered here.
Where and how to hit it to cause a certain amount of damage, and what the next strike should be to push Dersia in the desired direction by the desired amount.
How the airships should be positioned for that.
There was a certain fun in the calculations.
Of course, there were limits to what I could do alone, but as I added the calculation formulas written by the mathematicians, the answer seed to be gradually erging.
The plans were sent to Saeb bit by bit, and under his judgnt, they were combined into one and moved toward completion.
After a considerable amount of ti.
“…This should be enough.”
The plan was complete.
Saeb seed to lack confidence, but there was no hesitation in his actions.
In the first place, even if this plan failed, Saeb did not have much to lose.
Even if he failed to wipe out the Purity forces that were desperately fighting below, Saeb would have found and shot down Dersia, thus earning rit.
Although our forces would suffer great damage and be defeated in the naval battle over Roka.
The responsibility for that battle did not lie with Saeb.
So, the ones who most earnestly wished for this plan to succeed would be the low-ranking soldiers, including myself, who would die in the war.
“We will begin. To your positions.”
His voice was gentle, but strangely, it had a sense of power.
At that one word, people moved in perfect order.
Personnel unnecessary for battle quickly dispersed, and soldiers used communicators to carry and deliver Saeb’s orders.
“Ederka’s main cannon, opening.”
THUD.
A low impact sound.
It was followed by a loud chanical noise and the sound of gears shing.
A tightly sealed wall opened, and parts were disassembled and reassembled to form a cannon turret.
A long cannon barrel befitting Ederka’s size.
A mana circuit was drawn on the inner barrel, and blue mana gathered.
“Ederka’s output is decreasing. Diverting all energy except for the flotation function to the main cannon firing. All residents of Ederka, prepare for impact.”
All the lights inside Ederka went out.
There was no artificial light source; the natural light pouring through the windows was now all the light that illuminated Ederka.
The mana that had reached its limit let out a loud noise.
“Fire.”
Saeb’s command fell.
Imdiately after.
KRAKOOOOM!
A bright light as if the sun had exploded before my eyes, a deafening roar, and an unbearable vibration engulfed Ederka.
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