◈ 459. [Side Story] Battle of the Imperial Capital (4)
Gooooh!
The waiting imperial airships rose into the air all at once.
“Enemy ships are coming from high altitude! Stop it!”
Reina shouted as she ordered boarding.
“No matter what happens, we must stop it! Now in the imperial palace… … !”
Reina’s eyes glanced at the imperial palace.
The Palace of Thorns, a palace lined with rows of black spires, was there. Rayna shuddered and shouted.
“His Majesty Emperor Fernandez is in the final preparations for the ‘Ark’! Never let them get in the way!”
Fernandez was now preparing for the final stage of the plan while directly connected to Everblack.
I couldn’t let them ruin the end of the last one.
“Share the thermal scan results to all airships in real time! Follow the battleship heat source and spread squares along the expected path!”
“Ha but Sir Reina! The opponent is invisible!”
The wizard in the airship next to him urgently shouted.
“The enemy ship is stealthed! Thermal imaging has its limits in tracking… !”
The scanning magic is inevitably one beat slower than seeing it with the naked eye.
And in an aerial battle where the battle situation changes moment by moment, the time of one beat is equivalent to eternity.
Geronimo’s stealth function was truly vicious and fraudulent.
“… I induce.”
When Reina, who was a bad ass, went up to Alcatraz herself, the imperial flagship lifted her body high with a heavy engine sound.
“If you hit the first hit, stealth will be canceled. Then fire a volley.”
“But how do you hit the first blow-”
“Shut up and get ready!”
“I see!”
Kiyiying!
Alcatraz soared into the air at once.
“Kuh… !”
The sudden movement of the nostrils created enormous pressure. Grinding her teeth and enduring it, Reina glared into the air.
invisible to the naked eye
But- to the old wizard who has lived his entire life on the battlefield.
To this old soldier who always came back alive from the battlefield where he would die if he didn’t kill him first.
There was a transcendent intuition that could be called the sixth sense.
“… !”
In an instant, a faint light of magical power passed through the distant air.
Reina stretched out her arms through the half-open hatch and created magic like a gale.
“Is there-!”
Taang!
A magic bullet of wind was fired.
just one foot.
It was an attack of low power that could easily pierce a human body, but it was difficult to even scratch a solid mechanical device.
That magic bullet undoubtedly brushed past the side of the opponent’s non-empty ship that was hiding –
Chwaaaaaaa!
Removed the stealth curtain.
Suddenly, a gigantic emptiness appeared in the void.
It was a non-empty ship that rotated two propellers with a rugged appearance that was completely different from the imperial military formula – Geronimo.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Geronimo was honestly falling from the sky to the earth like a meteor. The end of that trajectory was undoubtedly toward the imperial palace.
「An enemy ship has appeared!」
「Shoot it!」
「Shoot it down!」
The imperial airships, urgently blocking Geronimo’s path, fired barrages all at once.
Red bullets covered the air like a shower. However, even in front of the screen that embroidered the air, Geronimo did not slow down.
Geronimo descended like lightning, holding up the unbreakable siren statue like a shield and toughly enduring the rain of bullets with thick gloves and protective magic.
Even with a barrage of bullets, Geronimo rushed forward without budging, and in the end, Reina had to make a decision.
“Listen to everyone! Block his path! Block it with your body!”
“Kuh… ! I see!」
The Imperial airships stopped firing and stood in the air, raising their barriers.
The defense power of an airship that entered a defensive posture is comparable to that of a fortress wall. A normal ship would explode as soon as it was rammed.
However, Rayna remembered the shock that Geronimo had attempted just yesterday. Geronimo might have a means to break through this defense.
‘Can I stop it?’
Reina gritted her teeth as she glared at the enemy ship falling with terrifying momentum.
But if he’s trying to break through this way.
This one, at least, was worth aiming for.
Raina started casting wind magic. The moment Geronimo crashed into this direction, it was intended to feed Geronimo a super-close tornado.
Wee-ae-ae-ae… … !
And Geronimo, who had fallen all the way down before he knew it, –
Tuhak-!
Suddenly, the side thrusters suddenly change course with flames gushing out.
After curving the angle of entry, he slowly turned his course – avoiding the square of the Imperial air raid fleet from a distance and making a detour.
“… ?”
Geronimo slowed down and flew parallel to the horizon, correcting its course outside the ecliptic rather than the imperial palace.
As if I had never rushed so fiercely… … He leisurely changed his course and left the sky above the ecliptic.
“what.”
Reina, who had been staring blankly at Geronimo’s trajectory, muttered in an absurd voice.
“… Are you running away now?”
It was.
Geronimo was on the run. As if the desperate charge just a moment ago had been a lie.
Raina opened her mouth slightly, not understanding the situation.
what?
What the hell are you doing?
「Sir Reina!」
Then the communication came in.
「Enemy ships are escaping! I will chase you!」
“No, wait… … .”
“Now that the stealth is broken, we must track down and shoot it down!”
“Kite One Kite Dropship is chasing!”
“Feather One Feather Two is
joining us!” went.
In an instant, most of the airships left the airspace one after another in pursuit of Geronimo.
“… .”
Reina watched this scene without restraint, but her heart did not calm down.
Clearly, Geronimo is a dangerous ship. It is of course the right decision to pursue and end it now that the stealth has been released.
but… What is this nasty ominous thing?
‘Prince Ash… … .’
Placing her messy brow on her forehead, Reina gnashed her teeth.
‘What are you aiming for? What’s the next number?’
Reina looked down at the entire view of the ecliptic.
The city she was trying to protect, sleeping in a precarious tranquility.
“I don’t feel good… .”
Reina, who was grinding her teeth, looked at the cockpit and shouted.
“Lower Alcatraz! Going down to the ecliptic… … I will have to look inside the city myself.”
***
same time.
inside the ecliptic. suburban slums.
Five people dressed in Imperial Army uniforms were moving stealthily along the deserted street.
It was a gambler’s party gamble club that succeeded in infiltrating the inside of the ecliptic as a spy yesterday.
“how… what’s this.”
They looked at the inside of the ecliptic, where there was no trace of human beings, as if bewildered.
“Is this the New Terra?”
“There were rumors that the streets were closed and people were not allowed to go out, but… .”
“No matter what, there are no traces of people at all.”
The city was eerie, as if it had been eaten by a ghost.
The footsteps of five people echoed in the desolate street where not a single rat was visible. The five gamblers stealthily headed deep into the slums like criminals.
In addition to being sparsely populated, there were a lot of strange things.
“… The door is blocked from the outside.”
The doors of every house on the street were boarded up and nailed from the outside. So were the windows.
As if they were trying to force the people inside to stop coming out… … .
‘why?’
Without knowing why, the five gamblers reached the center of the slum. There was one particularly large and fancy bar.
These five gamblers were the home of the organization that had the ‘back door’ they originally intended to trade.
At first, the Gamble Club heard rumors that they could live only by riding on the Ark of New Terra, so they tried to get into New Terra somehow to survive.
However, at that time, New Terra was already firmly sealed and there was no means to enter or exit.
It was then that I came into contact with this organization. Those who had been smuggling through the sewers of the ecliptic were now the few holders of means to travel in and out of the sealed city.
They did business by collecting huge tolls from those who wanted to enter and leave the imperial capital.
In just a few months, this organization has grown enormously, and I heard that business is booming… … .
“… .”
Wheein.
The tavern, from which the dreary wind blew, also had nails nailed to its entrance and windows.
The gamblers looked at each other. I was very reluctant, but there was no other choice anyway.
“Tear it off.”
“Damn, I don’t feel good… .”
Awesome! Great!
The five gamblers struggled and tore off the boards blocking the front door. It took a long time because all five were far from hard work.
When the planks were ripped open, a door was revealed. Violet, the party leader, swallowed dryly and grabbed the doorknob.
“Sir, even if a ghost or two pops out now, it’s not that scary… !”
It was already in the belly of a crocodile. What more to be afraid of?
Violet slowly opened the door.
Squeak—
the hinges made a scruffy sound, as if they hadn’t been used in a long time, and the door opened.
And here in the biggest bar in the slums… … .
“… ?!”
there were people
Stand at the bar or sit at a table. Holding a dry glass of wine. All of them sat still, motionless, staring into space with blank eyes.
Why the hell is everyone hanging out like stuffed dolls like this?
“Hey hey! Can you hear me?”
“I’m stuck. what the hell is this… … ?”
The gamblers who looked at the people up close were soon able to draw conclusions.
“I think everyone is hypnotized.”
“To so many people? Is that possible?”
“What could the emperor of the empire not do?”
“Let’s break the hypnosis for now.”
Since all the gamblers were specialists in this field, the method was quickly found.
Lime’s clairvoyance, Orange’s mind-reading, and Violet’s phantasmagoria were applied to release hypnosis.
“omg?!”
The middle-aged man whose hypnosis had been lifted first came to his senses in shock.
“Please save me, Your Majesty! please! I don’t want to die!”
The man struggled in embarrassment, but soon after lost strength in his legs and sat down on the floor. Violet approached him who was out of breath and threatened.
“Look, we are from outside the ecliptic. What the hell happened here?”
“omg… omg… What is His Majesty… … ? Were you in front of me a moment ago?”
The man was in a state of bewilderment, as if the hypnosis had not worked.
As a result of interrogating the confused man, we were able to get a rough idea of what had happened in the ecliptic.
In the meantime, dissatisfaction was rampant throughout the imperial capital due to the long blockade. Citizens were infested, and suppressing such dissatisfaction with military force was increasingly limited.
Signs of uprising and rebellion appeared, and clashes between the military and civilians became frequent.
Then Fernandez used his main skill.
Hypnosis and mental control were applied to the entire ecliptic using phantom magic.
Thousands of magic amplification artifacts were used to hypnotize citizens and forcibly inject them with messages.
And every door was sealed to prevent them from escaping.
That is why the streets were empty. Right now, all the citizens of the ecliptic were trapped in their own houses and were in a state of hypnosis.
“What message did His Majesty Emperor Fernandez send you?”
“’Now we’re going to Paradise’… … .”
The man muttered blankly.
“And ‘there you can have eternal life’… … .”
“… .”
“’Then wait a little more calmly’… … .”
The gamblers were at a loss for words.
“I’m going crazy, really… With nonsense like immortality, you enchant the whole nation and make it worse than dying?”
Violet grumbled as she scratched her purple hair.
“I bet my entire fortune on the fact that this is the only country in the world that would do such an idiot. I am.”
