Chapter XXVII: Do You Like My New Airship II

The Wildlands South of the Heian Kingdom, The Great Plateau

Month of the Garuda 37, 172 ,328 DE

Old Man Jones joins the Glare at Raymon club. He holds up the chest. "Fuck your airship. Where did you get this abomination from?"

I shrug. "Same place I got the airship."

"The abandoned Soul Iron mine?"

Despite trying to keep my expression neutral, I must give something away. Old Man Jones stops glaring at me and scowls at the chest.

"Did the ore vein reconnect to Spirit, somehow?" Old Man Jones' words are not meant for anyone. He is just verbalizing his thoughts. He often does that while working on new Engineering and Alchemy projects.

"Don't open it if you aren't in the clean room. I don't want to be within a hundred kilometers of you if the Watchtowers get pissed off." The clean room, as Old Man Jones named it, is a room, with spatial seals on it that make the ones in the mining compound look like a joke.

After the shitty old man glances at me and goes back to staring at the chest, I fish the support brace from the platform in the warehouse out of my pack. I throw it at Old Man Jones' head like a hatchet.

Without even looking up, Old Man Jones catches the brace with his flesh hand. "You're still too weak. To misquote the retarded rubes around here, you're a million years too early."

As a hint of barely restrained rage shows in Old Man Jones' scowl, his turns his attention the support brace. "An inter-Realm teleporter? Brat, you're like a dog bringing home rotting bones today."

"He's a thick-skulled hog." Vorn's cold quip follows right on the heels of Old Man Jones' comment.

After looking at Vorn for a moment, Old Man Jones looks back at me and displays a condescending smirk that rivals my best. "You should hang out with that son of a bear more often. He doesn't seem like the type to take your shit lying down."

As I look sidelong at Vorn, he grins, but I get the feeling that might be his version of a smirk, the damn smug cat.

Old Man Jones rakes his one-eyed gaze over the first mate, Vorn, and myself. The red crystal in the metal half of his face glows with bloody light. "The three of you, come with me!"

We follow Old Man Jones into our private factory. Looking at the equipment and projects in various stages of completion scattered around the large open building, Vorn whistles softly. Seeing several of my fire-powder cannon prototypes, the first mate runs over to them and starts inspecting them.

"Girl, leave the brat's toys alone and get your ass over here." A ten-day-dead corpse would not miss the anger in Old Man Jones' voice.

The first mate scampers back to our group and looks at the shitty old man with hero-worship gleaming in her eyes. "I can believe you made those just for Beast to play with. Do you have any new models that aren't up for sale, yet?"

Old Man Jones snorts derisively. "I don't waste my time making toys like that. The brat made them."

Looking rather comical, the first mate gapes at me. "You? You made those?"

"Hey! Shitty old man! You said you were going to sell those under your name to keep attention away from me. Why did you tell this human bitch about it?"

Old Man Jones looks over his shoulder at me. "She's involved with using Chaos to corrupt the Beasts. Were you planning to let her live?"

As I stare coldly at the first mate, her head snaps back and forth between Old Man Jones and myself. Her incredulous expression fails to hide the fear in her eyes and her scent. "You said I would live."

I give the first mate my best predator's smile. "I never said anything like that. I just told you would be the first to die if you gave us away. You didn't. For now, you're still alive, but it doesn't mean you'll stay that way."

The first mate shakes her head. "No. You can't kill me. I'm just a mercenary. My whole crew is."

"The rest of your crew is already dead. We killed them when we captured you."

The first mate shakes her head more frantically. "No. There was no reason to kill them. We were just hired to haul people and supplies. We're mercenaries … smugglers. We haul anything anywhere for the right price."

"What did you haul for the bitch princess?"

The first mate swallows heavily. "People and supplies. We picked them up from five different nations and took them to that old compound. Most of the supplies came through passes in the southern part of the Kami Kaze Mountains. Everything from here, we picked up in the forest to the south."

I glance at Old Man Jones. "She's not lying."

Old Man Jones frowns and lifts up the chest. "Downstairs. I want to see what kind of nasty present you brought me."

Repressing a shiver, I point at Old Man Jones' back, as he walks away. "Follow him. Or I can kill you now."

Visibly controlling her fear, the first mate follows Old Man Jones. Vorn and I follow her.

At the bottom of a stairwell in one corner of the factory, Old Man Jones unlocks the door to the clean room and walks in. The first mate follows him inside and stops dead in her tracks. With her mouth hanging wide open, she looks around the room.

Thousands upon thousands of sigils cover every visible centimeter of the walls, floor, and ceiling. Old Man Jones inscribed them all himself. I still have only a vague understanding of a good quarter of them, but every single one of them is meant to seal and restrain Power, including Primal Power.

As Vorn step into the room behind me, he releases a heavy sigh. "Grandmaster Jones, this looks more like the work of a sorcerer than an Engineer."

Old Man Jones snarls deep in his throat. He really hates being called Grandmaster. "You're spewing a bunch of words with no real meaning to them. Whether you talk about SORCERY or ENGINEERING, you're talking about the application of KNOWLEDGE."

Vorn and the first mate clap their hands to their ears. Having been subjected to the speaking of NAMES, expressions of pain twist their faces.

NAMES. According to Old Man Jones, they are expressions of Elemental Power. A NAME contains the true meaning of essence of the subject it defines. The concept of True Names spoken of in folklore about curses and using a True Name to take power over a person originates with the Elemental Power inherent in NAMES. Old Man Jones says that in theory everyone has True Name, but actually learning said True Name is next to impossible.

"Keep your moth close and your eyes open. You might learn a few about the truth of the Metaverse that you really don't want to know."

Old Man Jones glances over his shoulder at me. "Brat, seal the door."

I close and lock the door. Even though my Power has been fused to my Body, Mind, and Soul, I can still activate the sigils on the door. It requires nothing more than touching the control points of the various sigils in the correct order.

After all the sigils lining the walls, ceiling, and floor come to life, Old Man Jones set the chest down on the metal table in the center of the room. Without so much as touching the sigils inlaid into the table, he activates them, and a silver-grey glow radiates from the top of the table. Nodding to himself, Old Man Jones unlocks and opens the chest.

Polychromatic light shines from the open chest, and a cloud of polychromatic gas rises into the air to flow over it.

"Damn, Brat. You brought some bad shit home this time. The containment array will hold back the Power. All of you, take a look at this!" Old Man Jones points at the open chest.

We all approach the table and peer into the chest. I sense shivers, from Vorn and the first mate, that match my own. A polychromatic crystal lies in the middle of a puddle of polychromatic sludge. They exude a wrongness that seems to challenge the reality of our world. The simple sight of the sludge and crystal assaults my Body, Mind, and Soul. Their unnaturalness leaves me feeling lightheaded and nauseous.

The first mate collapses, and Vorn sways unsteadily, like a drunk. My thoughts become disjointed, and I step back to avoid losing consciousness.

After glancing disdainfully at the unconscious first mate, Old Man Jones grabs Vorn's collar and drags him away from the table. "That crystal is a lump of of Chaos that has congealed into a solid form. You two have the blood of the Great Beasts in your veins. It gives you some resistance to its corruption, but you're still too weak to withstand its nature."

Vorn rubs his face and kneads his eyes with his knuckles. "How can that …thing… exist on in this world?"

Old Man Jones shrugs. "It probably fell as a meteor."

Vorn frowns. "Things like that exist among the heavens? With the Dragon Gods?"

Old Man Jones scowls. "Fucking lizards. They've plunged this world into a dark age of ignorance. The heavens that the Temple of the Celestial Court preaches about don't exist in this Realm. Neither does Chaos."

Old Man Jones pauses and looks at the open chest. "The best way to think of Chaos is as the enemy, the enemy of all existence. Chaos is Power. It seeks to destroy everything in existence. That includes this world, its sun, and all the other suns and planets in this realm. Some of those lizards calling themselves Dragon Gods worship Chaos. The rest of them worship other Primal Powers, Powers just as bad as Chaos."

As Vorn stares silently at Old Man Jones, his face reveals a mix of incredulity and thoughtfulness. When Old Man Jones flips the chest's lid closed, Vorn shudders.

"Brat. You need to go to the Swords Temple. You can't screw around anymore. You have to become a Triune and claim the swords. They've been waiting for you for a long time. Take this son of a bear with you. Your little nudist girlfriend, too. Meeting the Great Tree will do her good. She's in the kitchen with Mika-chan and your fat otaku friend." When Old Man Jones says "Great Tree", the words carry the weight of a NAME.

I point at the first mate. "What about her and that chest?"

Old Man Jones scowls at the chest. "I'll deal with both of them."

In silence, Vorn follows me out of the factory and into the residence.

"Pervert Master!" Aoi spring out of her and charges into me full tilt. Wrapping her arms around me, she squeezes me with a surprising amount of strength.

"Aoi broke through to Bone Tempering! Praise Aoi!"

Shaking my head, I pat Aoi on the head. "You did good!"

"Heh. Heh. Heh-heh. Heh. Aoi did good. Pervert Master will use Aoi hard. Pervert Master will make a woman out of Aoi."

Thunk.

"Ow!" Aoi steps back and rubs her head.

"We're going on a field trip. We'll be gone for few days. Maybe longer."

When I look at Mika-chan, she bows. "I'll inform her parents, Raymon-san."

Looking ready to explode, Hoshi stuffs the last of his food in his mouth and swallows without chewing. "Beast! Why is the Silver Princess anchored at your compound?"

I shrug. "Do you like my new airship? I stole it from a traitorous bitch."

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