Chapter 512: Something In The Distance
Now, with her mysterious connections in the Empire, it wasn’t impossible for Celestina to request such a Spirit Smith be sent over, but the cost would be absolutely ridiculous.
Besides, it wasn’t really a necessity.
A Grade 3 Spirit Smith who was familiar with Skyship repair and maintenance would visit the South-Central Region once every 10 years to service all the flying ships that the forces in the 5 kingdoms possessed. This was a ’free service’ that the company responsible for manufacturing Skyships in the Empire provided to all its customers.
Of course, the cost of the repairs were always borne by the Skyship owners, as was the cost of hosting and entertaining such a Spirit Professional for the duration of said repairs.
’Gifts’ for the Spirit Smith and their work crew were also expected as a show of thanks, so saying this service was ’free’ was more than a bit of a misnomer, but still, it was far cheaper to wait for this 10-year service visit than to not.
Fortunately, the next scheduled service trip for the South-Central Region was only a little more than a year form now, so Celestina had decided to wait instead of paying the ridiculous 100,000 Low-Grade Spirit Crystal fee for an ’emergency’ repair job.
As an aside, Lucas and Braxton at one point had requested permission to take apart the Sunchaser so they could study the Levitation Array, the two of them arguing that since it was already broken and had to be repaired, it wouldn’t matter if they tinkered with it a bit.
Celestina had naturally refused and banned the two explosion maniacs from going anywhere near her precious Skyship.
Recalling that incident, and how her Master had literally kicked her Senior Brother and the grumpy old blacksmith out of her office, Christina couldn’t help laughing, "Well, I’m sure that you’ll be back flying again soon enough, Captain."
"En," Lana nodded as she swept her eyes out across the dark waters.
Truth be told, Lana didn’t hate sailing, nor taking her time getting from one place to another aboard a river ship, it was just that nothing quite compared to the thrill of flying.
Lana and Christina chatted for a bit longer before the older woman decided to retire for the night. Whether she had really just come out for a breath of fresh air, or whether she was there to check on Christina and see how she was holding up on her first night-watch, only she would know.
Several hours passed by, each one less eventful than the last, as the ship very slowly sailed up the Lorren.
Despite her best efforts, Christina couldn’t stifle a yawn.
She had started her shift at full attention, completely alert and awake, but as time dragged on and nothing of note took place, she eventually began to slack a little. She remained vigilant, but instead of holding a strict posture, she had allowed herself to at least lean on the railing.
A few more hours passed by like this, and the sky began to brighten, signaling the end of the night.
Christina stretched and cracked her neck, preparing to hand over watch duty to the next shift when she spotted something in the distance.
It was only thanks to the faint light of dawn that this anomaly caught her eye, but the moment it did, Christina jolted awake.
Pulling out a small metal tube from her Space Bag, Christina extended it and peered through the smaller end.
This ’telescope’ was another of Lucas’ inventions, though he had to order the glass lenses from the Vast Ocean Trading Company as such things couldn’t be made in the Rockwell Kingdom.
Still, it was an incredibly useful tool that let Christina to see much further than was normally possible, and right now allowed her to spot black smoke rising from a spot on the shore.
Something was on fire, several somethings actually.
Through her telescope, Christina was vaguely able to determine that it wasn’t just one column of smoke, it was at least a dozen. It was definitely on shore rather than in the river, and while it was still too far away to tell for certain, it certainly resembled the outline of a small village.
Christina lowered her telescope and immediately thought to sound the alarm, but then she noticed with side of the river this suspected village was on and hesitated.
They were sailing upstream, and the smoke was rising from her right, which meant that whatever had happened, it happened in the Darr Kingdom.
The current patrol mission was technically a joint operation between the Rockwell and Darr Kingdoms, but while that was the case on paper, the two forces were still basically operating separately.
A Rockwell Kingdom military ship landing troops in the Darr Kingdom at the sight of a burning village could easily be interpreted poorly, leading to significant complications in all sorts of ways.
All these thoughts and considerations flashed across the young princess’ mind, and she knew that any decision she made right now may have far-reaching negative consequences; however, after only a brief pause, Christina snorted and shouted, "Possible enemy activity! All hands to stations!"
So what if it’s a Darr Kingdom village? So what if there might be negative consequences? Why am I worrying about politics when innocent people could be dying?! Christina scolded herself, If it were Sister Eris here, she wouldn’t have hesitated!
Now, whether Eris was the role model she should be following here, or whether being cautious and pragmatic was the better option was debatable, but even from a logical perspective, it made sense for Christina to sound the alarm.
Sure, landing troops on enemy soil might be misinterpreted later on, even if they were doing so with the best of intentions, but there was an equal chance that they would be blamed for not doing anything after noticing this attack.
If there were downsides to both options, Christina preferred to help others first and worry about the consequences later.
Besides, although she may have forgotten in the heat of the moment, the final decision whether to act or not wasn’t hers to make.
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*Warning: There will be some intense graphic and emotional content for the next several Chapters, see author’s notes below if you have trouble with such things*