Yeah, I’m all fired up as well now. Let’s sprint full throttle to the royal capital. We’ll do something heroic-like, attacking them like a tag team. I tag out, you give them another punch.
“Reina, I have something important to tell you...” Maika spoke up.
“I don’t want to hear it...” Reina responded.
“I get why, but it’s about you tagging along with them to go to the royal capital.”
“I said, I don’t want to hear it!”
“I mean, it’s not like Alicia or I can leave.”
It seemed like the girls were talking among themselves. They were also making preparations.
“First things first, once we have finished discussing the Yanga territory, we will begin preparations to head toward the royal capital. Hermes, please be quick about passing on your work to others.”
“All right, leave it to me. I’ll get them started on building our own aircraft. When their unveiling is finished, we’ll do our own,” Hermes said with a grin. Even if the royal capital’s aircraft is able to fly, we will do one better. I returned his grin, full of confidence and determination. Our rock-steady deputy chief laughed when he saw my expression.
“Look! Look at that! He looks exactly like a demon king with a smile like that!”
“Oh, Ash, you’re so cool...”
“I just feel so relieved and excited when he looks like he’ll destroy anything in his path.”
“Right? It’s cool, right?”
All the girls chatted excitedly. They seemed to be having fun.
Hermes and I left for the capital roughly one month after we received the invitation. We had plenty of time to prepare first. It seemed that the royal capital had chosen the day for the unveiling specifically to ensure a lot of people could gather to see it. Quite different from the council meeting.
“I wonder if the crown prince’s group really is able to make an aircraft fly?” Lady Reina asked as she stretched herself out after a long, cramped carriage ride. We had arrived at the Sacula manor in the royal capital. Lady Reina sat on the sofa in the lounge room with her hands reaching up. Hermes had been pouring drinks for her. Right now, she was drinking a spirit from Sacula—which, according to Officer Raino, got better as it matured. It was an odd choice for Lady Reina, who was usually a fan of ale, but I imagined it was because they did not have her favorite brand here in the royal capital.
“About that...” Our spymaster, Seire, had gotten to the capital ahead of us to scout for information. “We were able to learn something about that. Please have a look at this report.” She handed the documents over to Lady Reina who glanced at them and furrowed her brow before handing them on to Hermes who was much more knowledgeable about the topic.
“So... What do you think, Hermes? I feel like I’ve seen them somewhere before.”
“Yeah, these are definitely our blueprints. These are from back when Rockel was trying to make a small-scale steam engine. He was trying to make one light enough so that it could be used on an aircraft.” Rockel, one of the ex-prisoner artisans, was a firm believer in steam engines. I often excitedly looked on, wondering if I could make this the age of steampunk. Hermes was equally excited, but he also believed in the combustion and radial engines—the two of them were very close friends. I was still able to picture clearly in my mind the specifications of what we drew on the blueprints more than four years ago.
“The engine isn’t pretty to look at but...if it’s using Rockel’s blueprints, then it should be enough to power an airplane. This is an engine that can make an airplane fly.” Hermes had the look of a coolheaded engineer. He was taking the truth as it was. The only thing that gave away how bothered he was was the fact he was chewing his lips. “It hasn’t even been revised or changed. It’s exactly the same as ours—we have a copy of this saved in the Church. Who do they think they are, claiming this as their own?”
“Hermes, calm down.”
“Hey, don’t worry, I’m calm.” Hermes went on to explain why he was able to keep his temper in check. “If this is indeed Rockel’s steam engine, then the airplane can fly. But it’ll only be a few meters off the ground and only for a few seconds—at best. There’s a limit to how much water it can convert to steam and a limit on how much power it can produce. Around the time we made this blueprint, we were still using wood as fuel.”
That was one of the reasons why Hermes could not get a plane to fly. Small-scale steam engines were difficult to use. With Rockel’s blueprint, even if they had made a lightweight, small-scale steam engine, it would sacrifice the duration of the required power output. Specifically, the amount of water that is converted into steam, and the fuel inside the furnace were directly correlated. Naturally, it was hard to have both of these in an aircraft.
“Rockel was thinking of using liquid fuel after this.” Hermes continued. “That would work a lot better with a lightweight small-scale steam engine. But no matter how you do it, it’s gonna require a lot of water. For other purposes, a steam engine isn’t a bad idea though.” For example, the weight of the engine does not matter when powering machinery. There is the argument that it will take up a lot of space, but that was low on the list of priorities. While Rockel had been researching how to make the steam engine more lightweight, he had had little success. He was, however, having a lot of fun researching it. “In other words, if an aircraft flew with Rockel’s engine, it wouldn’t be able to fly in the sky like a bird. So if we build an aircraft that could fly, it’d shut them up real quick.”
Lady Seire huddled closer. “I’ll make sure people hear about it.”
“Next up is the design of the aircraft. There’s no evidence that they stole that from the blueprint. What’s up with the wings?” Hermes asked.
“About that...” The talented spymaster mumbled. “Nobody has witnessed the aircraft, so unfortunately I have no information regarding the design.” Everyone fell silent. The report had conjured an ominous feeling.
“Ms. Seire, by the way, how did you learn they were using the steam engine?” I asked.
“Mostly an informant from the Church who Father Birkan introduced me to, but I also visited a pub where a lot of tradesmen gather.”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
“Yes, it’s taken a lot of tradesmen to construct such a complicated piece of machinery. As for my informant within the Church, they themselves are a researcher. They were the one who explained the blueprints to the crown prince.” That must be how Father Birkan always managed to get extra information to Sacula. A few members of the Church must have gotten past the obstacles put by those who were against Sacula to whisper into Father Birkan’s ear. It would make sense for them to develop an airplane in this time period. It would be impossible to do it in secret, though.