Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 5.8 - Chapter 12

Lanzenave’s Ships

As we soared over the ocean toward the border gate, I took a moment to ask Ferdinand some questions: “Wolfaniels are feybeasts, right? Can you tell me more about them?”

“Wolfaniels obey anything that surpasses them in mana and attempt to devour anything in motion that does not. So indiscriminate is their hunger that attendants must put them outside before moving furniture; otherwise, the wolfaniels will try to consume it.”

“Wow, they really are indiscriminate...” I said just as an explosion shook the stalled ship below. Part of its hull shot up into the air.

Ferdinand wrapped an arm around me, using the other to keep steering his highbeast. “Watch out!” he shouted.

White smoke poured from the fresh hole in the side of the Lanzenavian ship. I wanted to take a closer look, but the risk was too great; maybe those on board would attack us with the silver needles Hannelore had mentioned.

Ferdinand took a moment to see how far the moving ships were from the country gate, then stopped just far enough from the stalled vessel that we wouldn’t need to worry about a volley of silver. “Rozemyne, enhance your vision and give me a report,” he said.

I glanced over my shoulder at him and nodded. For him to have entrusted such an important job to me, he must not have been capable of doing it himself. Was that why he’d ordered me to ride with him? To keep the others from finding out how little he’d recovered, he needed someone with enhanced vision to keep him abreast of the situation—to give him enough information that he could accurately instruct the knights.

He can’t rest because we’re not reliable enough on our own.

I’d managed to dye Ahrensbach’s foundation, but the duchy’s nobles were all strangers to me; they wouldn’t have thrown their weight behind me no matter how much they wanted to defeat Lanzenave. They were only helping us now because Ferdinand was instructing them, so supporting him was the least I could do. I enhanced my vision and squinted to see past the smoke.

“Someone dressed in silver just stepped out of the hole,” I said. “A man, from what I can tell.”

“Is he Lanzenavian or Dunkelfelgerian?” Ferdinand asked.

The man climbed atop the sleek vessel and cautiously looked around. As I leaned forward, waiting to see what he would do, he threw off his silver clothes and shot mana up into the air.

“That’s a schtappe!” I cried. “He must be from Dunkelfelger!”

“Lord Ferdinand!” Heisshitze exclaimed at almost the same moment. “The ship must have been fully subjugated!”

The knights had a system in place: they would shoot rotts into the sky when they needed aid and raw mana when their operation was a success. The earlier explosion had been caused by the Dunkelfelgerians infiltrating the ship.

As our knights let out roars of approval, an ordonnanz arrived. “The ship has been subjugated,” it announced, exactly as Heisshitze had predicted. “We will now begin freeing the hostages. Their highbeast feystones were confiscated, so the rescue might take a while.”

“Right.” Ferdinand squeezed the reins of his highbeast, and the lion flapped its wings. “Squad Six, help free the hostages and retrieve their feystones. Squads Seven and Eight, attack the ship closest to the gate. Squads Nine and Ten, attack the ship behind it.”

“Yes, sir!”

We raced toward the border gate, taking care to manage our speed so that we wouldn’t catch up with the fleeing vessels. The sky brightened, illuminating the waters below.

“Rozemyne, when the ships start changing color, I need you to grant them the aub’s protection,” Ferdinand said. “Do you have enough mana?”

“Enough to use the spell two more times. Anything more is beyond me.” I wasn’t going to lie or overestimate my mana—not when it risked jeopardizing our plans. “I drank a rejuvenation potion when teleporting between the country gates, then another while dyeing the foundation. Drinking any more will render me too sick to move, so I won’t do that until it’s safe for me to sleep.”

“I am glad to see you understand what you can tolerate. That said...” Ferdinand paused. “Two more times, hm...?”

As he fell into thought, a sense of unease spread through my chest. “Is there a problem?”

“As they move between countries, Lanzenave’s ships change from mana-deflecting silver to mana-absorbing black. The reason has yet to be ascertained, but the knights stationed at the border gate believe the vessels need to be filled with the country gate’s mana before they can teleport. If black plating truly is as absorptive as black feystones, then your protection spell might require even more mana than the one you just performed.”

Ferdinand understood that casting the aub’s protection required a considerable amount of mana, but because he’d never actually been an archduke, he couldn’t accurately determine how much of a burden it would place on me. The power of the spell depended on how much mana one put into one’s schtappe and varied from person to person.

“Furthermore,” he continued, “unless the Lanzenavians are extraordinarily foolish, they will not have both ships change color together. One will stay back and observe until the other has successfully made it through both gates. If we obliterate the first ship the moment it turns black, the second will remain silver. It will not be able to teleport, and we will not be able to damage it, leaving us at a stalemate. The pertinent question is how we can quickly and safely rescue the hostages in spite of your flagging mana...”

If not for the hostages, we could simply have dropped massive boulders on the ship as that one knight had suggested. Ferdinand was right, though: given his health and the situation back in Ehrenfest, we needed a quick solution.

“Rozemyne, can you think of a way to destroy the ships without expending much mana or harming the hostages?” Ferdinand said. He then brought his lips to my ear and whispered, “I ask not only because you have the Book of Mestionora but also because you have experience of a world without mana. Just making their silver plating vulnerable would do.”

I appreciated the need for secrecy, but his breath tickled my ear and sent a shiver down my spine. This was why sound-blockers existed, surely.

“Do you have any ideas?” he asked.

“There might not have been any mana in my world, but science can develop in all sorts of ways. I won’t be able to come up with any solutions without first understanding Lanzenave’s technologies.”

“Try nonetheless. I will inform you when it is time to grant the aub’s protection.”

I examined the silver ships, trying to think of a way to solve our problem without mana.

What is that silver material, anyway? The metallic sheen rules out cloth. Maybe it’s just paint. If so, my only ideas right now are peeling it away or trying to weaken the metal enough that physical attacks go through it.

Hmm... We could try melting the paint. How would we generate enough heat, though? And wouldn’t we cook the hostages alive in the process? Ehh...

“Once the aub’s protection has been applied, attack the nearest ship with all your might,” Ferdinand said. He was sending an ordonnanz to the knights at the gate. “Show no restraint; we cannot allow the Lanzenavians to return home. We shall rescue the hostages once the ship has been obliterated.”

A moment later, Ferdinand spoke again: “The ship closest to the border gate is changing color. Rozemyne, the spell. Squad Seven, Squad Eight, those stationed at the gate—prepare to attack!”

I saw then that the ship’s exterior comprised numerous tiles. One by one, they moved outward and then flipped, turning the vessel from silver to black. I created my schtappe and channeled mana into it; for the sake of preserving my mana, this had to be the best time to strike.

“Vollkowesen!”

I swung my schtappe, sending forth a sizable yellow bird. Perhaps because I was focusing the aub’s protection on a smaller area this time, it flew straight toward the ship instead of circling around it.

“Now!” Ferdinand ordered.

Ahrensbach knights deployed from the roof of the duchy’s border gate. They and their Dunkelfelger allies wielded schtappe swords that shone with increasingly complex colors as they descended on their Lanzenavian foes.

Ferdinand cut the air with his schtappe and shot a slender beam of mana that reminded me of a rott toward the ship below. Then, right on cue, the knights collectively swung their swords and unleashed their mana with loud roars. It twisted and contorted in the air until it was rainbow-colored, then crashed into the now fully black vessel.

The radiant ball of mana struck the ship with a boom so loud that my ears started to ring. Columns of white water leapt up from the ocean, swallowing the vessel whole before scattering chunks of its exterior all over the place.

“The hostages are safe! Beginning rescue operations!”

“Hurry! Secure them while they are still under the aub’s protection!”

I could see women floating on the ocean, enveloped in a protective light. They stared up at the sky in utter confusion as Dunkelfelger knights bound them with schtappes, fished them out of the water, and then carried them to the border gate. In the meantime, Ahrensbach knights wove light into massive nets which they then dragged through the waves to catch what remained: scattered magic tools and a few very bewildered noblewomen.

“EEK!” came a cry from the net.

One of the women was stuck in what could only be described as a wrestling match with a fish that must have been killed by the shock wave. My heart went out to her, but she would need to endure until our rescue operation was complete.

A surprising number of Lanzenavian soldiers had survived the explosion—no doubt thanks to their silver clothes that protected them from mana—and were now floundering in the ocean. They desperately swiped at the schtappe-made nets trawling the water, hoping to be saved, but the light went right through them. The most they could do was flail their arms around.

“Ferdinand, what will we do about the Lanzenavians?” I asked. “Should we capture them for their testimonies?”

“We already have two ships’ worth of Lanzenavians; we do not need any more,” Ferdinand said tersely before heading toward the other ship. It had almost been consumed by the massive waves made by the explosion but was now just rocking back and forth.

The ship was still silver. It wasn’t continuing toward the gates, nor was it heading back to the port. Just as Ferdinand had predicted, we were at a stalemate.

“Hm?”

A portion of the sleek submarine-like vessel opened, and out came a silver box covered with tiny holes.

“What is that?” Ferdinand murmured.

“Lanzenave’s volley weapon!” Heisshitze shouted. “The one that shoots needles!”

As expected, long-range mana attacks did nothing to the box. The knights’ magic tools were equally as useless. We had prepared countermeasures for Lanzenave’s silver cloth but not for its silver battleships. To be honest, I was frustrated about my own lack of foresight.

“They’re attacking!” one knight shouted.

“Keep your distance!” cried another as the ship fired indiscriminately into the air. Its needles were dangerous enough that we couldn’t risk a careless approach.

“This must be because they saw us destroy the other vessel...” Ferdinand mused. “Their partner was reduced to scraps, and now it is abundantly clear that they will not be able to pass through the country gate and return to Lanzenave. They should also have realized that returning to the port will only see them captured. I suspect they have descended into a state of sheer panic.”

Now I was really worried about the hostages. We needed to save them as soon as possible. There had to be a way to remove the silver from the vessel, like scratching away the paint. Or maybe we could jam knives into the gaps between the tiles and force them to turn over.

“If only we could seal those openings they’re using to attack us...” I said.

“Mana does not seem to work on them. Do you have any other ideas?”

I took a moment to consider my options as an aub. “Those dressed in silver still can’t pass through ivory walls or floors, right? Perhaps we could cover the openings with an entwickeln.”

Ferdinand shook his head and replied in an openly exasperated voice, “You come out with the most bizarre suggestions.”

“Hm? Would it not work?”

“Do you need to ask? You act as if sealing the openings would be simple, but who would measure them? Moreover, how do you intend to draw the schematics? We do not have the fey paper or ink necessary for an entwickeln, nor do we have the gold dust. You also seem to be forgetting what a tremendous amount of mana it would require.”

You’d normally be right, Ferdinand... but not this time.

“If we find a way to obtain those measurements, I think we can make this work,” I said. “Clarissa made so much spare fey paper that we were able to bring some with us, and we can use stylo in place of traditional ink, right? As for the gold dust, well... I just so happen to have some with me!”

I took out my necklace marked with the royal crest and indicated the parts of the chain that had started to crumble. We wouldn’t be able to get much gold dust from them, but I was sure it would do; our plan was to cover the vessel, not create an entire building.

“Well, Ferdinand...? Is this enough gold dust?”

“No, not even for a small cover. And destroying any more of the necklace is not an option; it would be far too disrespectful to the royal family. If you desire gold dust, I shall give you feystones to destroy.”

I couldn’t accept that alternative. Ferdinand was carrying high-capacity feystones, and there was no way I’d manage to turn them to dust when I was already so drained.

“The chain of my necklace is thoroughly saturated with mana,” I said. “It won’t take much more to turn it into dust. Perhaps I could make up for the damage by making an offering of some kind when I return it. I doubt the royals would consider a trinket in this state more important than human lives...”

“These hostages are nobles of a duchy that has started a rebellion; I sincerely doubt the royal family will value their lives as much as you do. And as we do not know how the royals will respond, we should avoid creating any unnecessary weaknesses that might be exploited. Besides, even if we do secure the gold dust we need, performing the entwickeln would require you to fly within range of Lanzenave’s weapons. Not a single one of your guard knights would permit it.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that, especially considering my current predicament. If an entwickeln was out of the question, then I would just need to come up with something else.

“Could we freeze the ship? That box won’t be able to shoot us if we cover it with ice.”

“A fine idea, but how do you intend to realize it?”

“Ngh... I would propose making Ewigeliebe’s sword, but it only works during the winter.”

It was already spring—and with how hot it was here in Ahrensbach, one could easily have assumed it was summer. Spring Prayer hadn’t yet finished, so Flutrane’s divine protection was still weak, but that didn’t mean we could use Ewigeliebe’s sword.

“I fail to see the problem,” Ferdinand said. “Could we not just make it winter?”

“Excuse me?”

“If we modify the circle that summons spring in Haldenzel, I imagine we can make one that summons winter.”

“Are you serious? How can you say that like it’s the most obvious thing in the world...?”

Modifying such a large circle was practically unheard of. Few would even think to attempt it. Well, it hadn’t crossed my mind, at least—maybe because I didn’t have a knack for improving magic circles.

“That said, even if we transform only the area around the vessel, activating the circle will not be easy. Do you have any feystones we could use instead of expending the rest of your mana?”

“I’ve got some filled with the mana I drained from Ahrensbach’s foundation before dyeing it myself.”

“Pray tell, why do you have those on you?”

In truth, I’d simply forgotten about them, but Ferdinand wouldn’t be able to figure that out on his own.

“And you also have fey paper, correct?” he asked.

“Correct. More than enough.” I reached into a pouch and pulled out several folded sheets.

“Your eccentricity never ceases to amaze me...” Ferdinand replied, sounding exhausted for some reason. “In any case, if we succeed in summoning winter, who will use Ewigeliebe’s sword? I would rather it not be one of us, since we will need our mana to close the border and country gates.”

I turned to my knights and proudly stuck out my chest; they hadn’t spent so much time in the temple for nothing. “In part because they competed to see who could create the divine instruments the fastest, every single one of my knights can use the sword. That includes Damuel. Amazing, aren’t they?”

Ferdinand stared at my knights for a moment, then started rubbing his forehead. “Aberrance only begets more aberrance...”

Aren’t you the king of aberrance, Mr. Let’s Summon Winter?