Magi Craft Meister

Magi Craft Meister 585

18 Further Progress Arc

18-05 To Blueland

It was the morning of October 8th.

The rain that had been falling on Kaina Village had already stopped, but the sky was still lead-colored.

Even so, the clouds were still quite high up in the sky, and the visibility was very good.

"So, are you ready?"

A large number of people had gathered in front of Nidou Castle. Every single one of them was facing diagonally upwards in the same way.

What they were staring at was the blimp, which was currently suspended in midair.

"…Is that thing going to fly?…"

"He has once again achieved the unthinkable, hasn't he…"

"Well, it's Jin after all…"

Everyone was commenting about how amazed and impressed they were.

"M-Master Jin, are you going to go with this!?"

"Yeah, that's right. With this, you can reach the Shouro Empire in two days."

"T-Two days!?"

Jin had improved his blimp. It could now fly at a speed of nearly 100km/h. Since the distance between Kaina Village and the capital of the Shouro Empire, Loizart, was less than 900 kilometers, it would actually be possible to fly there in a single day with a little effort, but doing it like that would be no fun.

He was planning to spend several nights in the Egelia Kingdom. Beana and Count Kuzuma, both of whom he hadn't seen in a long time, were getting married soon.

Barrow and Belle nodded when Jin explained this again.

"Understood, Master Jin. We will make sure to be on our best behavior as we act as your butler and maid on this journey."

It was roughly the same thing he had heard from them the other day, but this time it made Jin realize once again how much the two of them had grown.

"…But can this thing really fly?"

Still, Barrow was skeptical about flying on the blimp.

"Take care, Big Brother!"

This time, rather than sightseeing, it was more about reconnecting with old friends, and about Barrow and Belle returning to their homeland. And there was also the discussion about the desiccant manufacturing plant at Reinhardt's place, so it wouldn't be very interesting enough to have Hanna join them on this occasion.

"Sure! I'll stay here and look after the house."

Having listened to Jin's words diligently, Hanna sounded a little more mature.

Jin felt a little bit of a heartache seeing Hanna's admirable behavior. So he decided he'd have Hanna join them at the Shouro Empire via Warp Gate after they had finished with all their errands.

"Well, we're off"

With Jin, Elsa, Reiko, Edgar, Barrow, and Belle all on board, the blimp slowly begun to float upwards.

"Ohh!"

"It's floating… no, it's flying!"

"Jin's creations really are amazing."

"Have a safe trip, Big Brother!"

The voices of the villagers grew progressively quieter as the surface of the world grew farther away.

"Whoa, it's really flying!"

Barrow clung to the gondola, shivering a little.

"Wow, what a nice view!"

Belle, on the other hand, was fascinated by the view of the ground from the sky, which was a first for her.

"Okay, let's fly!"

Jin loudly declared this before activating the blimp's propulsion device.

The blimp then started moving slowly and gradually gained speed. Then, when the speed reached about 80 km/h, the acceleration stopped.

"Brother Jin, what improvements have you made to the blimp?"

Having nestled close to Jin, Elsa asked him that question. After making up his mind about going to the Shouro Empire, Jin had spent two days improving his blimp.

"Well, I've done a few things. Some of them are experimental. The first thing I did was set up a resistance reduction barrier."

"A resistance reduction barrier? I can somehow guess what it does, but how does it work?"

Elsa tilted her head to the side. That gesture made Jin's heart beat a little faster.

"Ah, umm, you know about air resistance, right?"

Elsa nodded, so Jin continued.

"Well, until now, I used a wind barrier to reduce resistance, but this time it's different. I'm not using that barrier."

"Huh?"

"You can barely feel the wind, can you?"

"Now that you mention it…"

Until now, the wind had been 'reduced' by the Wind Barrier, so she would have felt a slight headwind.

"I'm pushing the blimp from behind with wind magic."

"Huh? But the recoil… Oh, I see."

"Right? It's moving the entire mass of air that envelops this blimp."

Mr. Techres, a very important merchant who operated in the southern part of the Celuroa Kingdom, had built a large ship with a propulsion system that used Wind Magic to blow wind onto the sails to propel the entire vessel forward.

Jin was applying the same theory to his blimp.

Normal Wind Magic has no recoil. No matter how strong the wind blows, the caster would feel no recoil.

The details about how it actually works have been explained previously, but the important thing was that Jin was using it as his main driving force.

"But since it's not as efficient, the blimp won't go faster than 100km/h."

"Still, it's amazing. You really do make your title of Magi Craft Meister justice, Brother Jin."

With that, Elsa leaned closer to Jin, perhaps because she was feeling a bit cold. Jin had been slightly uneasy since a while ago.

(Until now, I've always seen Elsa as my younger sister, and in fact, I wouldn't feel anything at all whenever she would get this close… Could it be that this is also a result of my cells being activated?)

His guess was correct.

Until now, Jin's withered attitude and his lack of interest in women were all due to the fact that the synthetic cells in his reconstructed body were inactive.

In other words, his inactive cells caused his secretion of hormones and brain substances such as adrenaline, noradrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin and their effects on the body to be greatly diminished (not that they were completely absent).

However, as a result of the complete activation of his body and the normalization of all its functions, the emotions and reactions that are natural of a man of Jin's age seemed to have returned as well.

Moreover, because this change was so sudden, Jin was mostly taken aback because he could not keep up with his newfound sensations.

Elsa, who had no way of knowing about Jin's inner conflict, was simply expressing the feelings of gratitude she had cultivated up to that point, which had peaked after Jin cured her of the illness she had been suffering from for so long.

As for Reiko, she couldn't help but feel a bit sad. After all, she had been the one who reconstructed Jin's body after he was summoned to this world. The resulting inactive cells in his body have probably caused all sorts of misunderstandings that had been making Jin uncomfortable up until now.

At any rate, the blimp continued to fly towards its destination regardless of the feelings of those on board.

The straight-line distance between Kaina Village and Blueland was nearly 500 km. At their current speed, it would take them a little less than 7 hours in total for the blimp to arrive there.

The blimp was heading southwest. If Barrow and Belle knew even a little about navigation, they would have wondered how they could be flying in that direction with such certainty.

And the answer to that question would have been that the Quinta Regulus 5 was stationed in Blueland as a landmark, and with Reiko at the helm, she would have no problem heading for his location in a straight line.

At noon, they enjoyed the great experience of eating lunch while looking down at the surface of the world from the skies. The tea served from the thermos was hot and delicious as well.

Barrow was confused at first, but after three hours of flight he got used to it and was enjoying looking down at the ground with Belle.

"We're about to pass through the Klein Kingdom and fly over to the Rivas region, at the eastern part of the Celuroa Kingdom."

Jin informed them of their current location.

The Rivas region was mostly mountainous and sparsely populated compared to other regions.

However, since it wasn't a particularly friendly region, Jin raised the altitude a little. At the same time, he activated the Wind Barrier to keep the air pressure from going down at a higher altitude.

They had been flying at an altitude of nearly 2,000 meters so far, but this was now increased to 3,000 meters.

This region was already at a high altitude itself, so even though Jin and the others were flying at an altitude of 3,000 meters, the distance from the ground in this region was less than half than that, at merely about 1,200 meters.

Still, with that much altitude, the blimp would only look like a small dot on the sky when viewed from the ground.

After flying like that for about two hours, they finally entered the airspace of the Egelia Kingdom. About 5 hours have passed so far since their departure.

"We'll reach our destination in about two hours."

They were scheduled to land on the outskirts of Blueland.

The mountainous area that had continued from the Celuroa Kingdom was also gradually lowering its altitude. And Jin lowered the altitude of his blimp accordingly.

"Oh, what is that tall mountain?"

"Oh, that's Mount Garat. It's a good landmark."

Mount Garat towers between Asunto, the capital of the Egelia Kingdom, and Blueland, their destination.

As they left the mountain behind on their right, they could finally see the fortified city of Blueland below.

"Reiko, have you found our landing site?"

"Yes, Father. Regulus 5 is already waiting for us there."

Reiko can see through even the distance that Jin can't see. As a result, Reiko's eyes could clearly see Regulus 5 standing in an open space, about five kilometers away.

"Let's lower our altitude."

Jin's blimp could change its altitude normally without changing the angle of its air sac.

This meant that the gondola itself could remain parallel to the ground as they descended.

The blimp started heading towards its destination as it descended at an angle of about 30 degrees.

"There they are."

Regulus 4 and 5 were waving their hands right in the middle of a clearing. The blimp landed beside them without any complications. Just before the gondola would hit the ground, Regulus 5 helped it down.

"Welcome, Chief."

"Good job, Regulus."

Regulus 5 used its hands to support the gondola so that it wouldn't sway. Jin, Elsa, and Edgar were the first ones to descend from the blimp.

Barrow and Belle shortly followed after them.

"Ah, umm, Master Jin? Who are these people?"

"Oh, this is Beat. And this is Mark."

Beat was Regulus 5, Mark was Regulus 4.

Since Jin hadn't really gone into much detail about anything with Barrow and Belle, he had no choice but to give the Regulus units some easy to remember names.

"Oh, I see. Nice to meet you, Mr. Beat, Mr. Mark."

Then Reiko finally came down.

"Father, I have finished checking the engine. Everything is normal."

"Thank you. Now, Mark, please take care of the blimp for a while."

"Right away."

Mark -that is, Regulus 4- boarded the blimp and slowly moved it towards the forest.

As Jin looked at this, he turned to Beat.

"Where's the Count?"

"He said he would come pick us up in a carriage shortly."