Sean was boarding an airship in this world for the first time…
Actually, even if this opportunity hadn’t come up, he’d wanted to experience this world’s flying vehicles.
Being able to fly!
That should be the fastest mode of transport.
Only… it was a bit noisy.
“What did you say!?? I can’t hear you.”
“I asked where the fuel for this thing comes from, where to buy it?” Sean raised his voice again, because the noise from the pistons was too loud, and with the rotation of the wind wheel, standing on the airship was almost nothing but a rumbling sound.
“Buying something, are you? What does the guest want to buy?” the airship crew member shouted.
What the hell!
“I said buying fuel, the fuel in there!” Sean pointed at the large wind wheel at the back of the airship.
This wasn’t an exaggeration at all, because once the flight started, the noise kept going, and over time it caused a ringing in the ears. Especially for the long-term crew on these airships, they were nearly deaf during flights.
“Oh, that. You can buy it in every city!” The foreman finally understood.
“Does the guest have some knowledge of wind wheels?”
Sean waved his hand.
“Just curious.”
“What?!?”
Forget it, it’s too exhausting…
After boarding the airship, Sean had been very curious about this vehicle. If the hot air balloon shape could be made with simple craftsmanship, then the large wind wheel used for propulsion required a certain level of mechanical manufacturing skill.
Even if he came from a more advanced technological civilization, he could only talk about it; he couldn’t personally make such high-precision mechanical parts.
On the floor at the tail of the airship, there was black grease, which should be the airship’s fuel.
Because in his line of sight, its attribute showed [Crude Oil]…
And the operating principle of the mechanical wind wheel was similar to the engines he knew, though the manufacturing precision might be lower, and the size was very large… Finally, gears drove the wind wheel at the very end to rotate, speeding up the airship’s travel.
Even though in Sean’s eyes, the flying speed was still slow, not even comparable to Freya’s dragon at full speed, the only advantage was that a dragon couldn’t sustain long flights.
With an airship, if you could tolerate the noise, on good weather days, you could even fly day and night…
The tail was too noisy, so when Sean had nothing to do, he would go straight to the front of the airship.
It was quieter there, and the view was good too!
“Back already? I didn’t expect you to be interested in these machines?” Freya said, looking at Sean who had just returned.
The two had set out from Koga City in the morning and it wasn’t yet noon.
“Of course, machinery is a man’s romance!” Sean joked.
And above her head appeared the status [Curious!].
“Oh? I’ve never heard that saying… But speaking of which, how did a minor noble from a small place like you learn all this?” Freya looked at Sean curiously. If it was about magic, she could achieve something, but she knew nothing about machinery.
How could someone dedicated to studying magic have time to focus on other areas? Even if they did research, it should be in related fields.
“Is it not allowed?”
“It’s hard to understand.”
Sean hadn’t expected her to say that. Shouldn’t she just praise him as terrifyingly talented?
In stories, there were things like dual cultivation of magic and martial arts, but his dual cultivation of magic and machinery sounded impressive too!
“Why do you say that…”
“Do you know how machinery developed?”
Sean shook his head.
“Actually, machinery was originally just an auxiliary tool for people who couldn’t improve their Orderer rank. Since they couldn’t find a way to advance and many couldn’t stick to just physical training, they turned to mechanical equipment. Since you’ve learned magic and are still interested in this, isn’t that a bit of a sidetrack?”
Freya’s words reminded Sean that this was indeed the case.
Because his way of practicing magic was different from others, he never thought about the issue of specialization.
“I suggest that if you want to learn magic, you should focus on it, especially in the early stages. Unless you reach a point where it’s hard to improve, then consider other methods. Otherwise, it will greatly affect your future development.” This was almost exactly what Lucille had said back then.
“I know,” Sean replied.
“But there’s another thing I’m curious about. You’ve known little sister Elinta for less than half a month. How did you learn this magic? It wasn’t from her, was it?”
Seeing the status [Testing!] appear above her head.
Trying to probe him like that…
“Of course not. I paid the wizards who came to my town to teach me.”
“Paid wizards to teach you?” She clearly had an element of [Doubt!], after all, a local baron was too poor to have that much money for lessons.
Sean knew such a simple explanation wouldn’t fool her, so he mixed truth with lies:
“Of course, they also asked me about some things. There used to be an ancient tomb in my town, and many wizards followed the ‘Record Keeper’s’ archaeological team to search for treasure and asked me for help.”
“I see.”
This slightly eased Freya’s [Confusion!]. Among wizards, there were indeed many who sought ancient spells. Even though many ruins had no records or gains, they tirelessly searched.
Just like Lucille back then, aiming to improve her rank.
“So I made some deals with them… Do you know the Wizard Council?” Sean began to try and trick this leader of a certain wizard organization.
At the mention of that name, even Freya frowned.
“Was it someone from the Wizard Council who guided you in learning magic?”
“What, is there a problem with them?” he asked deliberately.
Sure enough, above her head appeared [Mixed Feelings!] and [Thinking!].
“If it’s just a deal, I suggest you have less to do with them in the future. The Wizard Council isn’t an organization of this country; its origin is across the southern sea, but it has many members in the Zambutar region. Because the management is far away, the Wizard Council members in all of Zambutar act without any rules, even resorting to unscrupulous means and breaking promises for their goals. Even among wizards, few want to deal with them.”
“So they’re dangerous elements?”
“Not entirely. As I said, they have no rules, so some of them also help the Empire. It’s hard to judge if they’re good or bad,” Freya replied.
That meant a neutral organization, like a mercenary group.
Sean recalled the Bachler he had met…
“Is there any particular group among wizard organizations that I should watch out for?” Sean suddenly asked.
“You’ll run into these issues sooner or later, so you should know a bit… Wizard organizations are like guilds. Although their purposes for forming differ, the root cause is survival. So some wizard organizations choose to attach themselves to a country.”
“Like yours?” Sean said.
“And your little sister’s Elinta as well. Elinta is a title; they exist in any border region of this country, north, south, east, or west, with the purpose of contributing border defense strength to the Basharan Empire.”
That sounded a bit like border guardians, but recalling Ignia’s battle back then…
It didn’t seem like they contributed much!
Freya probably noticed his frown and quickly explained…
“The incident in Koga City this time was clearly orchestrated during a period when Eshu wasn’t around. Otherwise, with his and my power, Count Hamilton might have lived a few more days.”
She said “lived a few more days,” not “survived”!
Clearly, Freya knew how serious the situation was. The infection from the stone slab’s power was beyond cure.
“You still haven’t said which group I need to watch out for.”
“For now, you only need to watch out for the Immortals! They are the most dangerous people.” Freya turned to look at Sean.
“I’ll explain these things to you slowly; it might take a while… Let’s look around for now. It’s rare to have such a nice view. We’ll reach the next stop by evening to rest.”
Airships struggled to travel at night, so they would stop at rest points along the way.
Just like inns for carriage convoys!