It also seemed that Shin wanted to collect more practical, real-world data about how the airship flew. There were plenty of aspects of flying a ship like that that you just couldn’t understand unless you’d had your fair share of hours behind the rudder. Wind-aspected aqua magia was precious, so we couldn’t send it up very often under normal circumstances, but we’d received a fair amount of fuel for the sake of the war. This was the perfect chance for Shin to get all sorts of data that wouldn’t be easy for him to amass under normal circumstances.
Charlotte would once again be the mage on board the ship, though this time, we’d have mages down below supplementing the attack as well. According to Rosell, the magical defenses that most forts employed had a surprising amount of flexibility when it came to which portions of the barrier they generated were sturdiest. That meant that it was likely the enemy would anticipate an attack from above and have the upper section of their barrier extra reinforced. Reinforcing its top, however, would leave its other segments weak in exchange unless they’d performed rather difficult modifications on the device that generated the barrier, and those modifications couldn’t be executed in such a short span of time.
In summary: there was a chance that either the front of the barrier, or one of its flanks, would be less sturdy than we would expect. Attacking from the surface would give us an opportunity to exploit that vulnerability. Couran had sent us a massive amount of explosive aqua magia, as well, so there was no need for us to be stingy with our firepower─except for the risk of blowing the fort away entirely, of course!
Not long after we made it to the vicinity of Fort Sokan, the airship arrived as well. We went on the attack at once, laying into the fort with the same magic we’d used on Fort Purledo. The barrier proved harder to destroy this time, as expected, but in the end, it fell just like Purledo’s had. We destroyed a number of mage’s towers next, and dealt a bit of damage to the fort’s walls as well before the airship ceased its attack. It seemed Charlotte had run out of explosive aqua magic.
The walls weren’t damaged enough for us to storm the fort just yet, but one explosive magic blast, cast by Musia from a large catalyzer we’d brought with us, had the potential to change that. The enemy couldn’t lob any powerful spells at us with their mage’s towers destroyed, and while they did pepper our troops with arrows, they didn’t have enough defenders to overwhelm us and a few raised shields was enough to mitigate the threat they posed.
Musia unleashed a single, incredibly powerful spell that blasted its way through the fort’s wall. Once I’d confirmed that the path was clear, I ordered our troops to charge. The defenders’ small numbers meant that they held out for but a moment before we’d overwhelmed them. The battle for Fort Purledo had ended in what felt like an instant, but somehow, this one had gone by even quicker─maybe thanks to the fort having been so short-staffed.
Once the fort was under our control, I enlisted the Shadows to search the building from top to bottom for secret rooms. They did discover a number of them, and there were indeed enemy soldiers hiding out within, all of whom were captured. Mireille attempted to torture details of their plans out of them, but it seemed they hadn’t been willing or able to give up any worthwhile information. I was too scared to ask about what she’d done with them afterward.
There’d been quite a few secret chambers in the castle, some of which were empty by the time the Shadows found them. That meant that some number of enemy agents had slipped past them and blended in with our troops already, so I instructed our whole army to report anyone who seemed even remotely suspicious. Anyone who came under suspicion was apprehended and searched from top to bottom. We hadn’t found anyone who we could prove was working for Seitz so far, but just to be on the safe side, we locked them all up in the fort’s jail. I felt bad for anyone innocent who just happened to get reported by accident, but we couldn’t afford to take any risks.
The airship touched down not long after that. Someone did take a potshot at it with a flaming arrow from afar, and that arrow did manage to lodge itself in the airship’s hull, but a bucket of water solved that problem in the blink of an eye. It seemed that the Seitzan forces had a rather impressive archer working for them. There just wasn’t any way for the airship to take off or land without exposing itself to enemy fire, so there was always a risk it would come under attack at those moments. Magical attacks had fairly short ranges and wouldn’t be an issue as long as we cleared the landing site of enemies, but a capable sniper was a whole different story.
Thankfully, capable snipers weren’t easy to come by and we probably wouldn’t have to worry about a rain of fire arrows any time soon. We could expect a single arrow to meet its mark at most, just like it had this time, but one flaming arrow could never burn up a whole airship on its own.
To make a long story short, the airship landed safely and my frayed nerves subsided. I tasked the Shadows and Braham with guarding the ship, and gave strict orders to not allow anyone other than a few specific individuals anywhere near it.
And so, Fort Sokan fell without a hitch. We got to work repairing it at once, biding our time while we waited for Couran and his army to arrive.
○
A few days later, a message arrived from Couran. He’d written both to thank me for bringing Fort Sokan under our control, and also to inform me that he had arrived in Purledo and would be joining up with our force. Considering the time it had taken for that letter to reach me, I knew it wouldn’t be long at all before he’d show up.
Just as expected, a mere two days later, Couran arrived at Fort Sokan.
“Ars! It’s been far too long!”
The moment Couran laid eyes on me, he gave me a very spirited greeting.
“It has indeed, Your Majesty,” I said, kneeling down as I replied to him.
“I don’t believe we’ve crossed paths since the day I declared Missian’s independence,” Couran continued. “You can’t imagine how concerned I was when I heard you’d collapsed shortly afterward. I hope your recovery has been a full one?”
“It has, Your Majesty, and I apologize for worrying you,” I replied.
“Now now, there’s no need for that. We both know that Seitz is to blame.”
Couran, apparently, was prepared to assume that Seitz had been responsible for the assassination attempt. We’d sent a report to him regarding the incident, and had informed him that we felt Seitz was the culprit, but had also noted that we had no conclusive proof to that effect. To be fair, I think anyone would jump to the same conclusion─Seitz was just that suspicious, in this case.