Chapter 46
What was the biggest problem wyvern knights had?
Kyle Leopold thought that problem lay in the wyvern knights' weapons.
The wyvern knights' greatest advantage was their overwhelming mobility. Three-dimensional movement, free from gravity's pull, was a power that could excel on any battlefield.
But the problem was that the end point of three-dimensional maneuvering was, in the end, close combat.
Wyvern knights had almost no ranged weapons.
Though depending on personal preference they sometimes used bows instead of lances, bows shot by the naked eye from atop a wyvern in three-dimensional motion weren't very accurate.
There had been attempts to put mages on wyverns.
But mages couldn't endure the wyvern's sudden maneuvers, nor could they properly weave spells up there.
It was impossible to teach a knight magic.
Although magic and aura both ultimately used the power called mana, their modes of expression were far too different.
"In the end, the drawback of wyvern knights up to now was close-quarters combat that couldn't make use of their overwhelming mobility."
"Then how do you plan to solve it?"
"Give them ranged weapons."
A wyvern is a fairly massive creature. With a body length of 25 to 35 meters, it's larger than a modern fighter jet.
That meant a lot could be mounted on top of a wyvern.
"For example, something like an autocannon."
A 20mm autocannon was certainly large enough to fit.
Under Kyle Leopold's orders, the engineers at the Design Bureau began developing an airborne version of the 20mm autocannon.
"First, I think we need to decide where to mount the autocannon."
"How about hanging it under the belly? That'd probably be the easiest place to design."
"It'd be easy to design, but if we did that, wouldn't the wyvern get hit the moment it dipped its head wrong?"
"Then how about mounting it on the saddle and having the rider fire it directly?"
"You want them to hold machine guns with both hands and fire while maneuvering in the air? Even if the knights are superhuman, that seems impossible."
"Mounting it directly on the wings... yeah, obviously impossible."
The Design Bureau, having received the order, traded countless opinions back and forth.
The 20mm autocannon was already an existing system, and thanks to the wyvern's overwhelming size there was no need to miniaturize it at all.
The problem was simply that there wasn't a suitable place to mount it.
A 20mm autocannon is a monster that shreds everything standing before it.
To mount such a monstrous weapon on a creature whose every movement a human can't fully control, a little research was needed.
The conclusion they came to was to attach it beside the wyvern's face.
"I think mounting it beside the face is best. If it's on the face, there won't be anywhere for the muzzle to catch, and if they just fire it like a breath attack, the knights will be able to use it comfortably too, right?"
"That is true... but wouldn't that put too much weight on the wyvern's head?"
"That's why we'd keep the magazine on the body and connect it with a feeding system. The head-mounted gun should be linked to the body saddle so the burden of recoil gets reduced too."
"And to keep the wyverns from losing their hearing, we'd need to add sound-dampening magic and earplugs and the like. No matter how sturdy wyverns are, the sound of an autocannon is no joke."
The conclusion was simple.
The engineers would be the ones to suffer for it.
About a week later.
"You made a new wyvern saddle?"
"Yes, knights."
The Design Bureau succeeded in completing a new saddle equipped with two 20mm autocannons.
The new saddle had a structure that looked as if steel armor had been fitted over the wyvern's head, neck, and saddle. To make the wyvern's neck withstand the autocannons' recoil and vibration, the armor was quite thick.
The red eyes shone through the slits in the steel helm, and two 20mm autocannons were mounted on either side.
"Oh, so this is that new saddle?"
It was a piece of equipment that really suited the knights.
Humans are beings who always admire steel.
Everyone admired the charge of a full-plate knight in steel armor.
Even wyvern knights, who had sacrificed defense for mobility, couldn't help but look.
"I'll try riding it right away."
With the extra weight, it couldn't be helped that maneuvering was slower than usual.
But that frustration vanished quickly.
The moment he pressed the red button attached to the saddle grip, the 20mm autocannons on either side of the wyvern's head roared, shredding everything ahead into pieces.
The wyvern liked it too.
The wyvern's instincts, as ruler of the skies, were destruction, and the experience of everything in its line of sight being smashed wherever it turned its gaze suited it perfectly.
"Haha, this is completely to my liking. I'd love to try it in real combat right away. Any problem?"
The place those eager knights were deployed to was pirate suppression.
To knights who had fought barbarians all their lives, pirates didn't seem all that different from barbarians.
"Wipe them all out!"
So without hesitation, they pressed the firing button on the saddle grip.
Buuuuuu-!
A low, trembling hum rang out, as if tearing the air apart.
In the blink of an eye, countless tiny splashes shot up over the sea.
"Ugh-!"
"W-Wait! Spare-"
There was nothing the pirates, already adrift on wooden planks after their ship had sunk, could do.
The weapon designed to smash through the knights' thick aura shredded the pirates' bodies in an instant.
In a single low-altitude pass, all the pirates floating on the sea were wiped out.
All that was left where thirty wyvern knights swept through was a sea stained red with blood.
***
"Enemy sailing ship unit annihilated. Undersea monster unit wiped out. It looks like the new weapon performance test has ended perfectly."
"Good. Then let's go finish the battle."
An area of sea about 10 km from where the battle was taking place.
The bridge of the huge warship, quietly floating on the calm sea, began to bustle once again.
If the submarine and wyvern knights' mission was to annihilate the undersea enemy, the role of the surface fleet was to destroy the eastern coast and secure a landing foothold.
They had done plenty of landing drills so far, but that didn't mean they could pass up such a safe opportunity for real combat.
"All hands, battle stations!"
As the giant ship's engine pulsed, the sea churned. The landing ships, converted from large merchant vessels waiting nearby, split the waves behind the battleship.
The sight of tens-of-thousands-of-tons steel ships advancing in formation was enough to shatter the pirates' morale.
"Sailing ships! Where are our sailing ships!"
"Bring up the coastal guns!"
"If they come any closer, we'll fire! Don't come any closer!"
With old-style cannons braced on the seawall, the pirates shouted desperately toward the warship closing in by the second.
But the battleship only kept approaching without a word, as if it meant to crush the harbor itself with that massive hull.
In the end, unable to bear the pressure of the battleship drawing closer by the second, the pirates gave the order to fire all at once.
"Fire!"
Boom!
At a distance of 600 meters, fifty old-style cannons all belched flame at once.
It was a bombardment powerful enough to blow away even the 5,000-ton wooden line-of-battle ships operated by the Eastern Army in a single shot.
There was just one thing the pirates hadn't taken into account.
That the dreadnought's defensive power was on a completely different level from a medieval wooden line-of-battle ship.
Ting-
The boldly fired cannonballs bounced helplessly off armor plates hundreds of millimeters thick.
The pirates' faces went pale at the feeble sound, hardly worthy of being called a ricochet.
***
Ting-
The sound of cannonballs bouncing off the front armor plate stirred the officers on the bridge.
"You dare fire cannons at regular troops?"
I had no intention of dousing that burning mood either.
Instead, I turned to the captain and said,
"We've been shelled, so let's return the favor with shelling."
The two 305mm main guns at the bow aimed at the center of the seawall.
"Fire!"
A fierce explosion incomparable to old-style cannons shook the sea.
The two orange beams that smashed through the seawall's main gate plunged straight into the center, destroying everything in their path.
Seeing the landing ships pass through the gap created by the battleship, I could be certain.
That we were now ready to stand up to the naval blockade.
A few days later.
"Your Highness, this is a document sent from the Eastern Archduke's residence."
"Thank you, Lucila."
A document had flown in from the Eastern Archduke's residence.
To summarize the long contents, it was simple.
"If you don't stop your attempts to annex the West, we'll impose restrictions on maritime passage... it says."
The clash with the East was now right before our eyes.