Chapter 59
A month had changed an astonishing amount.
If I had to name the biggest change, it would be that the Southern Fleet, which had consisted of a single battleship standing alone, had become a proper navy equipped with light cruisers, destroyers, and even makeshift aircraft carriers.
Well, even if they were called aircraft carriers, they were really just stripped-down shells: decks laid over existing 40,000-ton passenger liners, with their interiors stripped bare.
In truth, that wasn't particularly important.
Wyvern knights were versatile carrier aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing in any environment.
Besides, wyverns had been designed to fly from the very beginning and didn't require much in the way of repairs.
All they needed was raw meat instead of expensive mana stones or aviation fuel, and they didn't need a long deck for takeoff.
In practice, all they needed was a platform on the sea where they could set down and rest, so simply adding a deck to a passenger liner was sufficient.
"It's a ship converted from the RMS Horizon."
The Horizon, once a passenger liner, looked like the representative steamships we commonly picture, such as the Titanic.
After all its passenger cabins were stripped away, the flat ship left with only its smokestacks and funnels was the RMS Horizon.
No, it could now be called the SDS (South Ducal Ship) Horizon, formally commissioned into the Southern Navy.
"It's an aircraft carrier capable of transporting ten wyvern knights in peacetime and up to twenty in an emergency."
Three such converted carriers had been completed in total.
Two would accompany our fleet, while one would follow the submarine fleet.
That change wasn't limited to the aircraft carriers.
The fifteen destroyers originally designed solely as antiaircraft platforms had undergone major changes as well.
The biggest change, of course, was the torpedoes.
The destroyer's bamboo spear, which could send even a battleship to the bottom if thrown properly.
A destroyer carrying eight torpedoes in all—four loaded in its launchers and four in reserve—had become a force capable of taking on more than ten ships of the line by itself.
The 4,000-ton light cruisers, twice the size of the destroyers, were important as well.
The battleship was still the main damage dealer in our fleet, but its main guns could fire only twice a minute.
The 152mm gun batteries that would fill that gap were the light cruisers.
They fit perfectly between the fleet's powerful, long-ranged but slow-firing main guns and the destroyers' weaker, short-ranged but rapid-fire weapons.
"Looks like our preparations are more or less complete."
That was all thanks to decisively dealing with the West and the barbarians.
Once the land-based threat was gone, we could redirect every resource toward the navy.
The production lines of companies that had already been idle because of the economic sanctions were put to work producing military supplies; dying companies came back to life, and the naval buildup accelerated. It was a double benefit.
'...Though the money was going out at twice the rate.'
The Southern Grand Duchy was taking on the demand that should have gone to the Empire.
Naturally, the Grand Duchy's finances weren't infinite. We could somehow make up the difference for a month or so, but if this continued, we'd be suffocating too.
So that meant we also absolutely needed the East to attack, didn't it?
"Still no word of an attack?"
So I waited for Edward's next move with a certain amount of anxiety.
After a few more days passed like that, meaningful news finally began to arrive.
"At dawn today, a fleet including three 2nd-rate ships of the line and ten 3rd-rate ships of the line departed from the Eastern naval port of Kardia!"
"A report from one of the Intelligence Bureau's Black agents! Three ironclads have departed from Iron Fort, the Eastern Navy's deepest military harbor. Their destination is presumed to be the Belfort Archipelago!"
"We've also confirmed that frigates of 4th rate or lower have departed from the Rosenfeld family's port."
The Eastern Fleet's target was the Belfort Archipelago.
It was a strategic stronghold: the maritime border between the South and East, and the only large island in the southeastern Empire.
The South and East were already at war, so no declarations of war had been exchanged, but I could feel it instinctively.
A full-scale armed conflict was about to begin.
"The enemy fleet is expected to reach the Belfort Archipelago sometime between August 1 and 2."
"Then we can't just sit still either."
The moment the information came in, the Southern naval ports began to bustle.
Every surface vessel in the Southern Navy gathered, from ships already on active duty to newly constructed ones.
The submarine forces did the same.
In preparation for the decisive battle, they had even abandoned the naval blockade over the past week to service the submarines.
The new class of ship, the aircraft carrier, was also busy preparing for its maiden voyage.
"You've been working hard."
"N-No, Your Grace!"
At dawn on July 28, the naval port I visited in person was filled with warships ready to depart. Led by battleships and aircraft carriers, the vessels had taken on the proper appearance of a fleet.
"So we can no longer avoid civil war within the Empire."
The West was far from the Central region. So even if large armies clashed there, it could be dismissed as a local conflict.
But the moment we touched the East, the notion of 'peace in our time' was bound to collapse as well.
The forces each side was committing to this battle alone made that clear.
They were committing abyssal monsters and 100 sailing ships, while we were committing 25 surface ships and 60 submarines.
If this wasn't war, what was it?
'Peace in our time' was nothing more or less than an exercise in pretending not to see what was right in front of us.
Just like the situation in Europe on the eve of World War II.
When I boarded the bridge of the battleship I had grown accustomed to, the crew all raised their right hands in salute. I returned the brief salute and gave the order.
"All forces, set sail."
At that command, the massive ships began leaving the harbor one by one.
Bwooooooo-
Along with the deep blast of the massive ships' horns, the decisive fleet battle that would mark the end of the Age of Sail drew near.
***
It wasn't as though the Eastern Navy had never heard of battleships.
It had been a year and several months since a battleship had destroyed the Western fortress. The rumors had already spread far and wide.
But the East had confidence of its own.
"Battleships are certainly a formidable force, but there's no way a single one can annihilate our fleet of nearly a hundred ships."
Thanks to mages, the equation powerful firepower = slow rate of fire had become something of a rule.
Besides, the battleships had never actually demonstrated their true range.
The Sarsen Fortress, which had been bombarded from long range by a battleship? Anyone who witnessed it was already buried beneath the ruins of Sarsen Fortress.
The same was true of the Battle of the Arkal Plains. No one who witnessed that battle, in which every survivor was eliminated, remained alive.
As for Forbin Fortress, they had fought at extremely close range solely to blow up the mages' towers.
Besides, the range of the other long-range weapons the South had shown was only around 2 to 3 kilometers.
That was roughly comparable to the range of mages fighting at sea.
So the battle the Eastern Navy envisioned was simple.
"The frigates of 4th rate or lower will surround the ironclads. While the battleships bombard the fleet's outer perimeter, our mages will concentrate their fire and sink the enemy battleships."
A battle based on numbers.
They had heard that the number of enemy support ships had increased, but thought little of it.
"Even so, aren't they only 1,000- to 2,000-ton ships? If their destroyers are smaller than our 3rd-rate ships of the line, they must be weak too."
This, too, was a mistake born from a grave miscalculation about range.
The reason was that the South had never properly revealed the fleet's "true" range to its enemies.
Besides, this was the South's first proper naval battle. That was another factor boosting the Eastern Navy's confidence.
"We've ruled the seas for more than a thousand years, since the days of the kingdom before the Empire was founded! Our experience in fleet battles is on an entirely different level from those upstarts hastily assembled over the past few years!"
That was why the East, merely a province of the Empire, still used the name 'Royal Navy.'
It was the venerable name of the navy that had operated since the days of the kingdom, a thousand years ago.
No matter how much the East might be collapsing, its pride as ruler of the seas was not going anywhere.
Besides, the East's shipbuilding expertise, accumulated over a thousand years, really was exceptional. As long as it was a battle between sailing ships, there was nowhere that could defeat the Eastern Navy.
...Unless the opposing fleet was firing artillery with a range of around 10 kilometers.
Unaware of that fact, the men of the Eastern Navy were filled with confidence.
"Our Royal Navy has ironclads, a hundred warships, and Tusoteuthis, the most magnificent sea monster in the world!"
Carrying that confidence, the Eastern Navy set sail with its massive fleet.
The sight of the sailing fleet stretching all the way to the horizon made the sailors' hearts pound.
And at the very front of the fleet sailed five massive ironclads.
Twice the size of ordinary sailing ships, the ironclads looked like enormous fortresses that could never be sunk.
Ernst Kruger, captain of the Eastern Royal Navy, had much the same thought.
"Ha, no matter how impressive their weapons are, they can't ignore the weight built up over the years."
In his eyes, the Southern fleet, hastily assembled over the past few years, was still nothing more than a complete novice.
They couldn't possibly understand naval warfare properly. They had no idea what it meant for more than a hundred ships to move as one.
The abyssal monsters they used?
The East had no fewer than four Tusoteuthis. The abyssal monster legion accompanying them was effectively the East's military strength.
They had been too afraid to touch even two traveling together, and now there were four of them.
"This will be the final fleet battle of those Southern bastards' lives."
Captain Ernst thought that as he gazed at the Belfort Archipelago at dawn.
A red sun was rising behind the islands clustered together in the middle of the sea.
By the time that sun set again, not a single Southern warship would remain.
He believed that firmly.
The start of the naval battle was drawing near.