“Incoming fire confirmed! Beast Vassal Warhead! Entering our airspace in twenty-five seconds!”
The sensor operator’s voice reverberated across the bridge of the armored airship Böðvildr.
The ship was sailing above the Celebes Sea in the Western Pacific Ocean. The Böðvildr served as the flagship for an armored airship fleet of fourteen ships approaching the MAR headquarters known as Arnica Quad. Their objective was to take over Arnica Quad with a lightning raid, whittling away at MAR’s military strength.
Their operation had been obstructed by the appearance of a Deva Necropolis from another world. It had launched a Beast Vassal Warhead without warning. Such an act of violence violated not just the Holy Grounds Treaty limiting the use of sorcerous weaponry, but the international laws of war.
The crew of the Böðvildr was not nervous, however. They’d expected from the beginning that the Devas would respond with drastic measures. The Devas were so short on manpower that the Beast Vassal Warheads were all they could rely on.
“Böðvildr, all ahead at forty-two knots!”
The weathered captain, looking much like a pirate, sent commands flying in a coarse, throaty voice. The beautiful, pale blue hull glowed with magical energy as it accelerated.
The other accompanying airships spread out some distance away. The Böðvildr, their flagship, ended up charging into the Beast Vassal Warhead’s effective range alone.
“Now then, what will we do? Taking on a primogenitor-class Beast Vassal is a bit difficult in the ship’s current condition.”
The captain murmured with a strained expression, furiously stroking his beard.
“We really forced it against Kojou’s Beast Vassal, after all.”
The princess sitting beside the captain—La Folia Rihavein—smiled with elegance.
Her words, irresponsibly spoken as if she had nothing to do with it, made the captain lift his eyes to the sky in exasperation. The Böðvildr’s hull remained deeply damaged, the cost of holding a primogenitor-class Beast Vassal at bay all by itself.
Not even three days had passed before they were facing a Beast Vassal Warhead. The princess’s recklessness seemed to know no bounds. That all obeyed her without a single complaint despite this was no doubt the work of the tremendous charisma she possessed.
“We have a lock on the Beast Vassal Warhead. On-screen!”
The bridge’s main screen switched to imagery of the Beast Vassal Warhead flying at high speed.
It was a beautiful crystal reminiscent of a gemstone. The faint silhouette within was that of a girl holding her knees as she slept.
“Five seconds to contact! Outer shell collapsing!”
The area around the warhead was enveloped in a faint light. The gemstone-like outer shell shattered, the fragments thereof reflecting the light. As the crystal fell away in tiny pieces, the girl inside it was much more vivid to the eye, the girl within which a ferocious Beast Vassal dwelled—
“Outer shell dissipated! No Beast Vassal on sensors!”
The operator’s voice included a faint whiff of surprise.
The Beast Vassal Warhead’s crystal completely shattered, casting the girl serving as the icon into midair.
Her long, golden hair spread into the night sky. A strong wind blew, causing the girl’s naked body to dance in the air. The Beast Vassal did not emerge. The girl remained asleep as she gently fell toward the sea.
“Princess, this is…?”
The captain looked at La Folia in surprise. La Folia’s blue eyes narrowed as she smiled.
“Just as Kojou and the others planned. As expected of you, Priestess of Cain…no, Asagi Aiba.”
The still-accelerating Böðvildr crossed paths with the girl serving as a host, yet the Beast Vassal still did not emerge. The Beast Vassal Warhead fired by the Necropolis had misfired. Their attack had failed.
“Captain, recover the girl.”
La Folia gently issued the command. The captain gasped and came to his senses.
“Understood. Drop the Aerial Knights!”
“Aerial Knights, first lance, second lance, dropping!”
Knights equipped with flight units flew from the Böðvildr one after another. La Folia had them on standby in the hangar beforehand.
In other words, La Folia knew from the beginning that the Beast Vassal summons would fail. The Beast Vassal Warhead had not misfired by chance. It had been set up to misfire from the beginning.
“Those Devas must be in quite a state right about now.”
The captain glared at the Necropolis floating straight ahead with a hard look.
“We must bring down the Necropolis before it retreats into the ether.”
La Folia spoke with a composed tone. The Deva Necropolis had the ability to submerge itself into another world. If they allowed it to escape, it would not be possible to predict where the Necropolis would emerge next.
“—Daughters of the Gods that dwell in my body, ye who select the dead to bring victory in the Age of the Sword!”
La Folia was enveloped by the glow of spiritual essence as she chanted. She was using her own flesh and blood as an icon in which to summon a spirit from higher-dimensional space. This vast spiritual energy coursed into the spiritual reactor of the Böðvildr, enabling it to exhibit exceptional output far beyond the norm.
“Deploy bow ram! Flank speed! Activate the Völundr System!”
The captain issued one command after another. The Necropolis was a floating fortress reaching an entire kilometer in diameter. On top of that, it possessed a powerful defensive wall employing spatial control magic. Most artillery attacks wouldn’t even scratch it.
The Böðvildr had a trump card to break through that wall.
“Target is Necropolis center, Beast Vassal Warhead launch site! All hands, brace for impact! Ram her—!”
The captain let out a ferocious roar. They were using the Völundr System for a ramming attack, using the hull itself as a giant holy sword.
Protected by spiritual essence, the hull crashed into the center of the Necropolis. They impaled it through the gunnery hatch left wide open from just launching the Beast Vassal Warhead, smashing through the exterior wall.
The Böðvildr was struck by ferocious recoil, but the impact was less than they’d expected. The output of the Völundr System rivaled that of the Necropolis’s own defense.
“Hull, damage report! Reactor, maintain output! Status of the Necropolis?!”
“Envelopes Number Four and Number Six damaged. Buoyancy down to eighty-four percent. No hindrance to sailing.”
“Radar dome electrical system damage. Switching to spare circuit! Sixty seconds to reboot!”
“Necropolis outer wall magical energy reaction confirmed vanished. Mass suddenly increasing!”
Crew members replied one after another to the captain’s questions. They couldn’t allow themselves optimism, but the situation wasn’t all that bad. The Necropolis’s mass suddenly increasing was particularly good news. An increase in mass on the real-world side meant it had lost its ability to submerge into another.
“The Death Returner’s report has proved true, I see. The Necropolis completely surfaces into the real world at the instant it fires a Beast Vassal Warhead…also, it is possible to penetrate the Necropolis’s otherworldly defensive wall with an attack from a higher dimension.”
Releasing her spirit summons, La Folia smiled as she gazed at the Necropolis’s wrecked outer wall.
The lone archeologist dubbed Death Returner had conveyed the Necropolis’s abilities and weakness to the Kingdom of Aldegia. As a result, La Folia had been able to achieve maximum results with minimum loss, inflicting mortal damage on the Deva Necropolis.
“Incoming message from the HGTO battle fleet, sender: Chaos Zone, Third Primogenitor—‘We thank the Kingdom of the Valkyries for its valiant fighting.’”
The communication officer looked back at La Folia and reported. The multinational armada dispatched by the HGTO emerged from the sea to the Böðvildr’s rear, primarily composed of the Chaos Zone’s submersible aircraft carriers. Judging from magical camouflage deployed on a vast enough scale to cover an entire fleet, the Third Primogenitor, Giada Kukulkan, was likely there in person.
Aldegia’s airship fleet wasn’t carrying enough ground fighting power to take over the Necropolis and Arnica Quad to begin with. It was best to leave all the annoying mopping up to her forces.
“It seems we’ve sorted out this end. That leaves Tokyo Bay…”
An expression of relief came over the bearded captain as he spoke.
The Böðvildr had already received word that the Necropolis appearing above Tokyo Bay had employed a Beast Vassal Warhead. The current government of Japan couldn’t have had the firepower to stop it.
“There is surely no need for concern.”
La Folia spoke those words without hesitation. The princess gazed at her left ring finger as a small smile rich in implication came over her.
“I am not the only servant born of the Royal Family of Aldegia—”