With his final class at the Valuva Higher Normal School finished, all of Rorschach’s business in the Holy Kingdom was concluded. Feeling a weight off his shoulders, he set off for the Bayern Kingdom with Mr. Pierre.
Mr. Pierre had been tasked with booking the airship tickets for ten in the morning. Crossing more than half of the Royal Capital wasn’t sothing they could do in an instant. Fortunately, Kano had lent them a carriage from the Tower of Stars (with a real human coachman, not one of those old-hand Alchemy Dolls). At the sight of the carriage’s insignia, all other vehicles gave way, ensuring Rorschach’s path out of the city was completely unimpeded.
"Rorschach Ma—... sir, over here!" Mr. Pierre waved, and they t up under the "Sky Tree."
Rorschach was currently dressed in a trench coat, leaning on a walking cane with one hand and pulling a rolling suitcase with the other. He attracted the gazes of many travelers.
"A piece of luggage with wheels and a handle?" Mr. Pierre was astonished. "Brilliant! This saves so much effort!" He then glanced at the other travelers in the great hall. "We could apply for a patent. This kind of suitcase would definitely make a fortune..."
In Rorschach’s previous life, rolling luggage hadn’t been invented until after humanity had already reached space. Perhaps everyone was so used to carrying bags and lifting suitcases that no one ever thought to stick so wheels on one and pull it along.
"Unfortunately, it’s a product of the Alchemy Departnt." Before setting out, Rorschach had rembered he needed more storage space. However, solidifying the Magic Array for a Storage Bag was a painstaking process; there wasn’t enough ti to commission one from the Alchemy Departnt or Master Fulcanelli. A rolling suitcase, on the other hand, was easy. Rorschach drew a schematic, and the guys at the Alchemy Departnt whipped it up overnight.
The guys didn’t charge him a single coin, but they did ask for authorization to have their subordinate rchant company produce them, promising Rorschach a cut of the profits, of course. So, Mr. Pierre was a step too slow. But anyone who had ever traveled a long distance would know at a glance what a good thing a rolling suitcase was. It was only natural that Nixingen wouldn’t be the first to it.
anwhile, all the space in the Storage Ring on Rorschach’s hand was being used to hold the most important thing—the complete blueprints for the Transmutation Dust Collector!
"Let’s go," Rorschach said, heading for the smaller passenger elevator, only to be pulled back. "My apologies, Mr. Rorschach. I... I bought a ticket for the regular cabin. We have to use the main lift."
...Mr. Pierre, it seed, could never quite manage to be charming. For instance, despite being the biggest liquor rchant in Valois, he was unwilling to buy a premium cabin ticket. Or how, in the dead of winter, he could grab a guest’s hand and let them stand outside in the freezing wind. But his marketing skills were still top-notch; you could now see people drinking a certain purple beverage all over Valuva.
Left with no choice, Rorschach revealed his status as a Mage at the front desk. The mont he presented his purple insignia, the receptionist flashed a professional smile and gave him a complintary upgrade. And then... Rorschach paid to upgrade Mr. Pierre’s ticket as well.
"You shouldn’t have! Oh, ooh, the view here is wonderful!" Nixingen, still holding onto his habits from his days as a small rchant, saved money wherever he could. This was his first ti in an airship’s premium cabin. "It’s just like a restaurant in the sky!"
"It’s more private here. We can discuss the itinerary and our plans for Bayern. I apologize, I’ve been too busy to get the details of your negotiations with Mr. Hasse."
"Good point." Pierre quickly took out the docunts from his leather bag to brief Rorschach. They now sat across from each other at a table covered with a white cloth. A waiter served them sparkling water in stemd glasses—it seed they were very confident in the airship’s stability.
The airship flew between the clouds. The Bayern Kingdom bordered the Holy Kingdom to the south, but the east-to-west distance between them was no shorter than the journey from the Royal Capital to the Imperial Capital.
"And that’s the situation." The general manager reported until his mouth was dry, speaking to the major shareholder and key partner. He quickly picked up his glass to take a drink.
Suddenly, the airship gave a violent lurch. Acting with lightning-fast reflexes, Rorschach unleashed a burst of cold air. The toppling stemd glass rolled off the table, its sparkling water frozen solid. A mixture of ice crystals and glass shattered on the floor. He shook the ice shards off the docunts and handed them back to Pierre, a bad feeling rising in his heart.
A sudden feeling of weightlessness washed over them—the entire vessel was plumting!
The drink in Pierre’s hand successfully spilled all over his pants. Which was just as well; if he pissed himself from fear, no one would notice. "Are we crashing? It’s over, it’s over... No, wait, Rorschach Mage, your Magic! Can your Magic save us?!"
Screams rose and fell, mixed with the sound of shattering glassware. The entire airship was shaking violently. Clouds streaked past the windows, and they could even see the mountains and forests of the earth below. A distorted voice ca from the brass-pipe speaker overhead: "Will any Mage or Priest passengers please co to the captain’s cabin imdiately!" The call repeated over and over.
Rorschach told Pierre not to panic and to protect the docunts and luggage. He threw on his Purple Robe and walked out of the private cabin.
In the hallway, a plainly dressed Priest stood with a crew mber. The crew mber’s eyes lit up when he saw Rorschach. "Are you a Middle Tier Mage? Quick, follow !"
"Take straight to the gasbags. That has to be where the problem is," Rorschach said. The crew mber asked the Priest to calm the passengers, then led Rorschach up into the airship’s gasbag compartnt.
As soon as he entered, Rorschach witnessed an incredible sight. The airship’s resident Mage stood with his arms outstretched, as if he were embracing a giant Fireball from a distance. Of course, he wasn’t casting [Fireball Skill]; the number three hydrogen gasbag in the center had exploded, and he was struggling to contain the resulting fiery blast. At the sa ti, a Dwarf was using a water pump to spray it, but against the massive Fireball, it was as futile as a child shooting a water gun at the sun.
Rorschach quickly used [Frozen Ray], continuously stripping the explosion of its energy. The Fireball finally began to shrink and dim until it went out, leaving behind the blackened fragnts of the gasbag and its fra. Alchemy Potion leaked from the broken pipes.
However, neither the Mage nor the Dwarf could catch their breath. Just because they had stopped one explosion didn’t an the airship had stopped falling. Rorschach noticed that only one gasbag was intact; the others had all triggered their Protection Arrays and were now just wreckage.
Light flickered across the inner and outer walls of the gasbags as Runes lit up. Seeing Rorschach in his Purple Robe, the onboard Mage shouted, "Sir, four of our gasbags are destroyed! The airship’s [Floating Skill] is slowing our descent, but the Alchemy Potion is running out of Ether!"
There were five Lightweight Flammable Elent storage bladders. Four had exploded for unknown reasons. The Protection Arrays on three of them had activated, but one had failed. The Mage had personally contained that explosion’s force, but the effort had drained him, leaving him unable to replenish the Ether for the ergency system’s Alchemy Potion.
Rorschach placed his hand on the Potion container. A new supply of Ether flowed in, and the Runes and Magic Circuits spread across the gasbags glowed a little brighter, but it still wasn’t enough to reverse the downward acceleration.
"Go get my luggage!"
The crew mber brought Rorschach’s rolling suitcase. He opened it and took out a canister of faintly glowing Blue Crystals. ’This was supposed to be a sample, but oh well...’ He poured out all the crystals, which dissolved the instant they touched the Alchemy Potion. The light from the circuits flared up again. This ti, starting from the storage tank, every part of the system the new Potion circulated to began to glow with a blue fluorescence.
As the transformation completed, the airship’s downward acceleration decreased a little more. Rorschach wasn’t a human stopwatch, but he could definitely feel the reduction in weightlessness.
However, more bad news arrived. The crew mber relayed a ssage from the captain: "The rudder is locked! We’ve made contact with the control tower in Bayern Munich, but if we can’t change course, we’re going to crash into the Kingdom Capital!" It seed this was a deliberate incident, and the objective was blatantly clear.
"I’ll figure out a way to stop the Power Furnace!" the Dwarf shouted, seeing that the gasbag situation was stable. He hurried off to the engine room.
’What the hell? It’s not September 11th, is it?’ Rorschach realized that he ran into trouble every ti he went out, and big trouble whenever he traveled far. If the Divination Masters of this world published sothing like an almanac, every single page for him would probably read "Inadvisable to travel."
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