Chapter 917 — Three-Party Contact
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
"Let us hope your magitek engineers find a way. Thicker armor, stronger shields, higher speed... such measures might help your human ships endure the chaotic turbulence of the sea by brute force," Viola said unhurriedly. "Of course, we will also offer some 'siren-style' technical approaches, though those may not necessarily suit you land-dwellers..."
Byron recalled an earlier discussion with the siren technical experts about "emergency response in the event of a maritime disaster," and shook his head with a wry, helpless smile. "If the ship breaks apart, everyone just swims home, eh... That really won't work for us..."
Viola shrugged expressionlessly—a gesture she had recently learned from humans—then gazed into the distance. "We're nearing the harbor."
...
With the Curiousity's second whistle, the massive, advanced steel vessel began to slow while adjusting the heading of its bow, approaching the pier of Whitefeather Harbor like some colossal beast.
Standing on the pier, Paladin Brightstone gazed up as that leviathan drew closer bit by bit, amazement and envy gradually rising on his face. Then his already somewhat reddish nose grew redder still, and a grin spread across his face, the decorative metal ornaments at the ends of his beard clinking with the smile. This temporary envoy from the dwarven kingdom in the far west of the continent said cheerfully to the companions beside him: "Haiya! I want one of these too—those 'Cecil folk' have some real skill!"
"I want to know how this ship moves!" another dwarf bellowed at the top of his lungs. "If those Cecil folk are willing to teach, I'll give them my nephew as an apprentice for twenty years!"
"Enough—you've already given your nephew away as an apprentice to others under one pretext or another at least a hundred times! If every one of them counted, he'd be apprenticed until at least five hundred years from now—spare your nephew!"
"Quiet," Paladin Brightstone said at once, glaring at the clansmen trailing behind him. "We stand here representing Forgehold. Don't disgrace us before the humans."
The noisy dwarf delegates finally fell silent, and Wenna Whitebloom, standing beside them, quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Dwarves—that cheerful folk dwelling at the far western edge of the continent—were a race highly skilled at causing trouble. Though most of them liked to hole up beside their ancient great furnace, hammering away, no small number of dwarves left their kingdom to roam all over the world, and the Augury Tribal States bordering the dwarven kingdom dealt with these fellows most often. So Wenna knew the dwarves' temperament well—their innate optimism and reckless urge for adventure made them dare to try anything, and even on so solemn and formal an occasion as this, there was no guaranteeing that these gate-crashing "envoys" wouldn't stir up some mischief...
After all, the dwarves, who styled themselves the "Children of Iron," had never held human society's endless formalities in any regard.
She drew her attention back and looked at the magitek ship now docked alongside the pier and lowering its multiple stairways and gangplanks, and drew a deep breath.
When the dwarves saw the thing, they felt envy and delighted surprise—but she only felt a little suffocated.
She seemed suddenly to understand the means by which Emperor Gaoyang Cecil and the magitek legion he commanded had quelled a war and founded an empire in so short a time—to understand what all this great achievement rested upon, or at least one of the things it rested upon.