Steel and Mana

Chapter 148 – Flying

"Does it need to be scary-looking?" Luna asked, sitting in my lap while munching on a croissant, getting crumbs all over me.

"It is a weapon, so it has to be. Morale is a real thing and just as important as a weapon as anything we may put on the machine. Plus, it doesn't need ammunition or any other resources."

"I think the moment they see it walking towards them is enough to blast their morale apart."

"Maybe." I chuckled, patting her and putting my pen down.

Before us, on the drawing table, there was the fifth revision of the mech's future cockpit and its headpiece, looking like a stylized recreation of a skull, mixing with a medieval-style knight's helmet. From the outside, yeah, it will look grim, but that was my intention. I want anyone who looks at it to get the same kind of primal fear when we face a predator. Let my future enemies recognize it from afar and know that their resistance is futile, no matter what they do or hope. It will reach them, and it WILL crush them.

"And how are you going to deliver them to the battlefield?" She asked, holding up the croissant, letting me take a bite and taste the mixed fruit jam within it. "Make it walk all the way? That will deplete its energies before it even fights."

"It would be way too slow to make it trek large distances." I answered, shaking my head after gulping, "For now, I do not plan on attacking anybody, so I am not worried about leaving my region. For defending the city and our borders, it doesn't need to go far, but if later, I would have to..." I mumbled, leaning back, "I will have to develop our own flying ships that are capable of transporting them."

"I never flew before... It has to be awesome!" She sighed, licking the end of her fingers and making me smile.

"Flying is pretty easy."

"Yeah, sure!" She scoffed, rolling her eyes, "What? Can you build a machine that flies? Just like that?"

"Actually... yes. I can."

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"What's this?" Yuri asked, standing next to me while Sasha and I were checking all the ropes and weights attached to an oversized basket.

"He says this will... fly." Luna answered her, furrowing her brows as we all gathered out in a field. "I don't get how a massive... leather skirt will fly."

"I only know of magic formations allowing things to hover in the air, but I don't know anything besides the Ishillian warships that were capable of sailing the skies." Mikan interjected, studying it, getting scared as Merlin climbed out of the inside of the giant balloon.

"It doesn't even use magic! Well, we will use magic for the fire, but it could be easily replaced with something else!" He exclaimed, excited and dressed in something I could only describe as a mix between an adventurer and a pilot. "Sovereign, all checks are completed! We are good!"

"Are we trying to burn it down?" Yuri chuckled, looking at Merlin, "And aren't you cooking yourself in that getup?"

"If we get high, it will get cold!" He answered knowingly, making the girls look at each other. Yuri also had to lean back as his scarf almost slapped her as he flung it over his shoulders.

"It should be fine." Sasha clapped, drawing everyone's attention over after our inspection was done. "The principle behind it is quite simple. Hot air goes up, and that's it!"

"That's... it?" They asked back in perfect synchronization as if they practiced it.

"Yeah. It is simple, really." I agreed, "If we can bottle natural gases, we could produce mechanisms that would replace the need for Sasha to operate it... but it is a low priority considering what else we are working on."

"Yet you still made this." Luna countered, making me reach out and flick her forehead.

"I can't be working all day long! We all need a bit of downtime."

"Why not bring the kiddoes with us?" Yuri asked, making Sasha reject it at once.

"No way! I am not risking them falling out of it! Those two have no sense of danger... They are with their grandmother and getting pampered by her, so they are fine on the ground. Okay, okay! Let's start it!"

"Roger!" Merlin saluted as we spread out the balloon that was painted bright orange on the outside.

With Sasha playing the source of the fire, it was perfectly controlled, and using her staff to fill it with hot air was the easiest thing to do. The moment it made the basket stand upright with her standing in its middle, Merlin was the first to climb into it, ready to go, shouting at us.

"Get into the basket, and let's do this!"

"Someone is excited!" Yuri giggled, slapping my bottom while climbing in and reaching out, pulling Luna up into it.

"I'm not that tiny!" She protested when she was denied the chance to do it by herself.

"Yeah, yeah! Leocchy, go grab Mikki's big butt and push her in; I will pull by the tits!"

"Eh, ah, n-n-no, I can do it!" She stuttered instantly, and I won't lie; I was a bit disappointed to see her climb in.

"Che, Leocchy, you are slow... OWIE!"

"Stop fooling around..." Sasha grunted, slapping the back of Yuri's head while I entered the first hot-air balloon this world probably has ever seen. 

"Will this fly? Really?" Luna asked, her hands holding the edge of the basket that was reaching up to her chest.

"Have I ever lied to you?" I asked, making her shake her head.

It didn't take long for Sasha to increase the strength of the fire, and sure enough, we lifted from the ground, making everyone yell out in a mix of fear, surprise, and amazement. I watched as their eyes widened, seeing how the ground gradually began shrinking and we got higher and higher. 

"No shot!" Yuri gawked, leaning over so much that I grabbed her waist by reflex, pulling her backward... Which resulted in her moaning and wiggling her but. "I'm in if you want to do me in the air~!"

"Please, no..." Mikan whispered, her legs shaking, her face pale as a ghost, and sweating buckets, soaking her white dress. "Don't make the basket shake! Please!"

"Someone is not good with heights, huh?" I chuckled, watching her trying to force herself to stay calm and not look down.

"Hauh..."

"It will be fine!" Merlin giggled, running circles around us, wanting to see everything from every angle possible. "We ensured that even if the balloon gets popped, we have anti-gravity formations under the basket. We could activate it, and I can control it to float down slowly, so we should be fine!"

"Pop?! It... It can pop?!" Luna yelled, blinking her mismatched eyes like a panicking Morse code machine.

"Woah, woah!" I exclaimed, grabbing Mikan, who almost fainted, "Relax, okay? It won't pop. Geez, girls, would I take my lovelies on a ride that would kill all of us? Who am I, Leon or the new Emperor of Ishillia, assassinating his rival?"

"You could become an emperor." Yuri hummed, still pressing her butt to my crotch while leaning forward.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I'm fine here."

"Hmmm..."

"What is it?" we asked, turning toward Sasha, who was holding her staff with one hand and scratching her chin with the other. The staff's tip was glowing in a crimson light while a formation circled it, providing the fire, and she wasn't looking at us but toward the mountains.

"I was just contemplating how tall the mountains really are. We are nearing our 1,000-meter height, yet these are still going up and down. I don't think we could cross it with this."

"No, we couldn't." I agreed, looking towards them and enjoying the majestic scene from so high up that Avalon looked incredibly small from here. "These go way too high, and the air would become so thin that we would probably suffocate. Or freeze to death. Just think about it! If it is possible to fly over it, why no monster did it yet?"

"Yeah!" Merlin agreed. "If there are giant walking beasts, there must be flying ones. Maybe these mountains do pierce the sky..."

"The sky..." I said to myself, remembering my experience of seeing that cosmic image when I was on the verge of death. Maybe piercing the sky could be done here. Literally. Oh well! It is useless to think about things I have no control over.

"It is... beautiful... but when are we going back down?" Mikan turned to me, hugging my hand, looking desperate to land. 

"Soon, soon!" I giggled, smiling at her before glancing at Sasha, who was happily enjoying the view.

"I am lucky that I am short..." Luna murmured, holding the edge of the basket, finally calm enough to dare and look down. "Now Avalon is smaller than me."

"That is not a small feat." Yuri joked, the most nonchalant about the experience.

"I wonder..." Merlin mumbled, and I knew that tone and look on his face. He had an inspiration, for sure. "I think I just realized a new idea about the Imaginary that I thought up previously..."

"Then why the weird face?" I asked, making him furrow his brows even further.

"Because it doesn't feel new... as if I... already thought of it. Hmmm... It feels weird."

I didn't have an answer for him, but I had a very good hunch why or what he meant. Exchanging a quick glance with Sasha, we knew both of us thought of the same reason. The experience sparked something within Merlin's old memories... I was sure he was someone like me; I just didn't know who was lurking within that young body. Please, don't be a Mikki-3 situation.

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Of course, our little fight trip soon became headline news in the papers, and I began getting requests from the ministers about whether it was possible for them to go on a trip with me sometime. Well, for now, I decided to announce that it was a military test and it is not something that is open to the public. Yet. So, to stop people from bothering me with it every day, I clearly told them that it is a privilege not yet available to anyone else but a mage. We are working on bringing it for everyone, but for that to happen, they have to be patient. I understood their excitement, but I can't have my wife turn into a balloon operator when I need her to help me with so much more than that!

Still, the little trip was exactly what we all needed because Kraus, his team, Sasha, and I were molding and making the cockpit for the mech the next day with renewed energy. Watching my wife work was like looking at an artist working with clay, shaping metal with her bare fingers to the ideal shape. Witnessing how easily she does it was and will always be amazing.

Honestly, my presence was nothing but a glorified quality assurance, ensuring that Merlin's highly complex formation was installed correctly, drawn into the metal by Sasha's fingers. Even then, I had little to do as she was perfectly copying it without missing a rune or asking for directions. With the speed we were working with, the giant head would be completed in a week, and what remains then is testing it out. For that... we still didn't have a candidate.

No matter how much I trust Merlin, it is still a spell that is a prototype, and it would play with someone's brainwaves. Thoughts, maybe even feelings. Is it safe? Not really. Then who should I test it on? A criminal? We barely have criminals. The worst offenses we get are fighting breaking out between people or petty thieving. Since Avalon was established, we haven't had a murder case. Not counting the church incident, of course. But... why would I use a criminal for it? Wouldn't that be dangerous? What if something goes wrong, but we don't realize it? Then we install the head, and the machine goes live with a criminal's personality construct piloting it. Could it happen? Who knows! It's a mix of magic and science, so... Everything could be possible. Haaah... This... This won't be easy because even if I want to do it, I will have to persuade Sasha first to let me test it.