Chapter 1479 — Rescue

"...I understand," Victoria said at last, giving a slow nod after a moment's hesitation. "I'll stay here and hold the fort. You and Maggie proceed with caution. Once you've recovered the two missing agents, try not to push deeper into the island. Be sure to return before sunset."

Mojin waved a hand in acknowledgment, then turned and left the command center with Maggie.

On the deck of the Cold Star, the black-haired maid transformed into a fully armed dragonborn. As her great wings spread, the steel wings mounted on Maggie's frame caught the sunlight with a metallic sheen; listening to the series of clicks as the mechanical assembly engaged and the hum of the arcane units charging from low to high, Mojin, standing at the deck's edge, could not help but remark: "I've seen it many times... but I still have to say it: this is truly a remarkable age."

"Before such an age arrived, no one could have imagined the world would turn out like this," Maggie lowered her head slightly, her fangs glinting coldly within the casing of her iron jaw. "Please climb onto my back. My flight is still much faster than a mage's flight spell."

"Then I won't stand on ceremony." Mojin nodded cheerfully and clambered straight up Maggie's lowered wing onto her broad back. Then the fully armed black dragon sprang from the deck—and behind Maggie came two dragoon aircraft setting out as well, along with two landing cutters just lowered from the Cold Star's flank.

This was the operational procedure decided from the start: once the vanguard had successfully made landfall and transmitted the basic environmental parameters, this follow-up force would carry various heavy equipment and supplies to rendezvous with them. Besides searching for the two missing personnel, their other task was to establish a temporary forward camp on the "old site" of Plandel—now reduced to a primordial coastline—to serve as a foothold for further exploration.

Of course, for safety's sake, everyone would still withdraw to the ships come nightfall—at least for the first night.

And so this second exploration force set out in grand procession from the steel leviathan floating on the sea, advancing toward that nearby coastline where an ancient city had once stood and which was now reduced to primordial terrain.

The high-altitude airstream was blocked by the protective barrier around the dragon. Gazing out over sea and sky from the dragon's back was exhilarating. Mojin gripped the steel wing assembly near Maggie's shoulder and neck, watching the coastline as he spoke cheerfully: "You know, hundreds of years ago I actually rode a dragon. I don't remember it, but there are records..."

"Being clutched in a dragon's talons doesn't count as 'riding,' Mr. Mojin," Maggie said, her voice low.

Mojin blinked: "Ah? You know about that?"

"I know Miss Metzen Ponia. Back in Xuanyao City, I met with her often."

"...Fair enough, that makes sense," Mojin shrugged, then muttered, "By the fashionable phrasing of the day, would this count as me being 'publicly embarrassed'?"

Maggie thought it over carefully. She was about to say that if the person in question was thick-skinned enough it didn't count—but then it struck her that the old fellow on her back, who looked none too reliable, was in fact Victoria's ancestor, and such a remark would not be appropriate. She swallowed the words back down.

Mojin, however, paid the topic little mind, for by now his attention had already settled on the coastline ahead.

A mere four nautical miles—for dragonkin, no more than a few beats of the wings. Already they had come to hover above the primeval, savage coastline of Violet Island, and Mojin was quick to spot the first exploration team signaling from the beach below, together with the two Military Intelligence Bureau agents standing among them.

Neither Hornet nor Night Owl had imagined rescue could arrive so swiftly. They did not know that Mojin had "returned" to Winterhold the moment the fog dispersed, and still less that a steel warship would sail straight out of North Port that very day to bring them back. In their bleakest estimate, word from the Violet Island direction would be cut off entirely, and North Port might need days—ten days, even—before a ship could be sent; after all, this mysterious hidden nation was forever locking down its transport routes, and signal interference around the island was a constant nuisance.

They had already steeled themselves to survive ten days in that raw wilderness: isolated, unreachable, without a scrap of supplies.

And yet the first day had not even ended before reinforcements arrived...

The fully armed Steel Ranger warriors gathered around her eased the nerves Hornet had kept taut since the day before. She gazed out at the great ship floating motionless on the distant sea, watched dragons, aircraft, and speedboats launch from its decks and converge on the shore, then watched the black dragon at the head of the formation beat its wings, first to reach the coast, settling smoothly onto the shingle a hundred meters away.

A figure that looked vaguely familiar leaped down from the dragon's back and drifted slowly to the ground on a levitation spell.

It was a mage of aged countenance, a black soft cap on his head, a dark robe of stars upon him, an orb and a spellbook hanging at his waist—his bearing gentle, mysterious, and quietly powerful.

Hornet and Night Owl were both a little dazed, and while they stood there dumbstruck, the old mage had already cast a flight spell and appeared directly before the two Bureau agents. Mojin looked at these two youngsters who had fought shoulder to shoulder with him in the "dream"—or rather, fled shoulder to shoulder with him—and spoke with a chuckle: "What's this? Don't recognize me anymore?"

"Mr. Mojin? It really is you?!" Only then did Hornet come to her senses, staring at the old man before her in astonishment and disbelief, the thought in her heart tumbling straight out of her mouth: "Sorry—you're wearing clothes, so I didn't recognize you..."

Mojin: "..."

"Clothes! I mean clothes!" The next second Hornet flushed scarlet, waving her hands in a fluster of nerves and shame. "I mean you've changed out of your pajamas into—"

"Maybe you'd better stop there... I know what you're trying to say." The old mage sighed, his face a study in helplessness.

Even for a great adventurer who had weathered countless storms, all he could do just then was marvel inwardly—thank heavens he had never been in the habit of sleeping naked...