“I’m just going to go over the conditions one more time, okay?” Lia said, carefully watching the woman in front of her. “If there’s no way for you to assume a more traditionally-sized form, or I determine that too much of the ship’s potential is being lost, then we’ll be canceling the conversion. In the latter case, reconversion will have to wait until we are producing ships ourselves again. Is that acceptable?”
The woman nodded. “Yes, my Queen.” She said. “Thank you for agreeing to my request.”
Lia shrugged. “I can’t say I’m not curious about the outcome myself, so it’s not that much of an ask. I actually have some materials in storage I’ve been meaning to use if someone asked for this, so I’ll be adding those in as well, they should hopefully bolster our chances of a success.”
The woman’s eyes gleamed. “I’m honored, my Queen.” She said. “Please, add whatever you wish.”
“Good, are you ready?”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“Please cocoon her again, then.” Lia instructed a woman to her side. “When finished, add her to the cocoon of the battleship, I’ll be sorting out the items I mentioned, then adding them one-by-one to help determine each of their effects, and once they’re all in, I’ll start the conversion.”
“At once, my Queen.” The other woman responded, walking over and laying her hands on the first woman, modeling wax beginning to flow from her palms.
As she worked, Lia began taking out the items she had prepared. Having foreseen the possibility that someone would want to be reconverted with the ship, she had asked Amelia for a number of things that would hopefully contribute to making the end result something that wouldn’t impact the person’s daily life too much.
It was a curious thing, really; the objects, by themselves, were almost pointless, wastes of time and Mana to create, but when taken in the context of conversion, became extremely useful. Take, for instance, the first object in her little lineup; it was nothing fancy, just a small cube that could shrink down to a tenth of its original size, nearly useless for most practical purposes.
However, in this case, it served an invaluable purpose in hopefully giving an ability that would allow the woman to gain a human-sized form. The rest of the items were similar, ranging from multiplicative increases to the Mana regeneration of Mana cannons, which couldn’t regenerate Mana on their own, to rings that boosted the wearer’s stats if they were carrying over a thousand pounds of weight.
One by one, she added the items to the cocoon in front of her, carefully noting what effects they had on the resulting options, until finally everything was in place and it was time for her to make her final decision. As was the case with almost all of her recent conversions, her final choice ended up being at the bottom of the list.
Auric Decimator-Class Shipgirl:
The Auric Decimator is a shipgirl made with battleships from Aura. Like most classes of shipgirls, the Auric Decimator is capable of switching between the form of a battleship and a humanoid form, and retains all capabilities of the battleship in humanoid form. While in humanoid form, a set of accessories and weapons roughly approximating the ship form’s capabilities will manifest, but can be put away at will.
When switching from battleship form to humanoid form, all cargo and crew is stored within a a copy of the battleship form, residing in an extradimensional space. Anything within this space can be accessed at will by the shipgirl, and entering into the space while she is in humanoid form is likewise possible with her assistance. If the shipgirl is directly addressed by a person within the ship, she will hear the voice telepathically, and be able to respond in kind.
Individuals within the space are capable of operating the shipgirl’s systems as normal, and all windows within the space show a view as if the shipgirl is in battleship form (even allowing vision through obstacles if they occupy the space the shipgirl’s battleship form would be in), and an apparition of the shipgirl’s humanoid form will appear on the deck centered on where the shipgirl is standing in physical space. If she desires, the shipgirl can prevent those inside her space from firing her weaponry or using any auxiliary systems on their own.
Should the shipgirl die in humanoid form, she will revert to battleship form, which will be damaged in areas roughly akin to the damage to her humanoid body. Shipgirls are treated as both a ship and a person for the sake of Skills that affect either. The Auric Decimator class of shipgirls has excellent HP, Stamina, Mana, Strength, Magic, and Dexterity, and good Defense, Magic Defense, and Mental Fortitude.
Lia started the conversion, then resumed converting the rest of the ships in the harbor. That only took around thirty or so minutes, so she took a chair out of her dimensional storage, sat down, and began reviewing the results of the day’s work. It was, by and large, what she had expected; further refinements to the numbers of materials needed to produce any sort of decent ship and one interesting observation she had made.
Namely, the extent to which a ship was damaged didn’t seem to have any sort of significant effect on the power of the creature post-conversion. Instead, it added options to make the ship a “ghost”, trading the ability to ship objects and carry passengers for significantly increased combat and stealth capabilities.
This discovery had come of a result of Lia noticing a particularly badly-damaged ship in the dock and trying to see if converting it would repair it, like conversion healed living beings. She was curious as to what these ghost ships would be capable of, so she had locked in that particular conversion instead of a more typical one.
By the time she had finished organizing her notes, she still had fifteen minutes left to go until the shipgirl finished her conversion, which was…a little less than ideal, but she would manage. After putting Conqueror of Death back on, she began working on her next task; studying. After only a couple days of working as a “conversion scientist”, she had realized that she had a huge amount of downtime, at least while she was at the ports. With that in mind, she had taken to reading through the textbooks and doing the homework Nailah had assigned her in her downtime.
According to Nailah, Lia was absorbing the material at a shockingly quick pace, far more than other students Nailah had seen, but Lia wasn’t letting that get to her head. She was likely far older than most students Nailah had come into contact with, and it would be embarrassing if she was a worse student than literal children. After all, she had studied at one of the universities the Glens had set up, and even if it had been cut short by her death, she had been as diligent as possible.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
But, at the end of the day, how she compared to other students didn’t matter. After all, Rose was right there, and she was a figure Lia wouldn’t catch up to for likely decades to come. Still…she was coming to accept that, perhaps, she didn’t need to. All she had to do was get to the level of a normal ruler, and then take advice from Rose on particularly important matters while doing all the day-to-day work herself.
Or, at least, do it that way until she was almost as competent as Rose. It’d take a while, but it was the best solution for both of them, really; Rose didn’t want to be in charge, and Lia wanted to at least be useful. Truthfully, she’d prefer a completely equal dynamic, but it would be selfish to force Rose into that if it wasn’t what she wanted.
After what seemed like only a moment, the timer Lia had set with her tablet rang, and she got up to go look for the newly-converted shipgirl. While she had seemed to default to her human-sized form, she was the first to finish converting, so all Lia had to do to find her was look for the dock that didn’t have a cocoon near it. And, as she approached, she saw the new shipgirl, standing on top of the water. No, standing was the wrong word, it was more like she was hovering just barely above the waves, the water occasionally touching her toes.
In terms of physical appearance, she herself hadn’t changed much, just being taller with a slightly better figure. Her clothing, on the other hand, had changed dramatically, becoming a stylized black and white naval coat, rimmed with chains on the arms and legs. The chains led to a set of Mana cannons that floated behind her, tracking her movements. In her hands was a sleek weapon of some sort, bearing a passing resemblance to an arquebus, but significantly more refined.
“My Queen!” She said brightly, gracefully skimming over the water as she approached. It was a mesmerizing movement, appearing almost as if she was skating over ice. “HMS Luna, at your service!” The chains and Mana cannons vanished, and she took one hand off of her weapon to give Lia a salute. “I feel…phenomenal. Words fail to describe how fantastic this is.”
“That good?” Lia asked. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“It’s better.” Luna confirmed. “I’ve been a woman of the sea for my whole life, but now…I feel closer to it than I could have ever imagined was possible.”
She suddenly dove beneath the waves, rising a moment later with a wide smile on her face. “I can be underwater for hours, and look, my clothes don’t even get wet!” She said proudly.
“Have you tried your other form yet?” Lia asked.
“Not yet, would you like me to?”
“Please do.”
There was a brief pause followed by a sudden gust of wind as Luna swelled in size, becoming what appeared to be an ordinary converted ship over the course of a couple of seconds. Oh, this is…different. Luna’s voice rang out in Lia’s mind. Not in a bad way or anything, it feels normal, but I’ve never been anything but humanoid before so it’s kinda novel.
“Do you mind if I board you? I want to see what it’s like when you transform while I’m inside.”
By all means, please do! Luna replied, her gangplank opening. Once Lia was on deck, the gangplank retracted, and Luna spoke again. Should I transform back now?
“Give me a second to go grab onto something in case it’s bumpy…” Lia replied, walking over to the door to a cabin and grabbing the handle. “Alright, go for it.”
In the span of a couple of seconds, a transparent dome had enclosed the deck, and then a transparent copy of Luna’s humanoid form appeared on the deck. Alright, all done. Luna said. How was it?
“I couldn’t feel a thing.” Lia confirmed. “Smooth as silk. I am curious, though, what happens if you turn around? You’re a lot more agile than a normal ship, so it might be a problem.”
Good point. I’m going to turn now, prepare yourself.
After a couple of seconds, the view swiftly rotated, leaving Lia slightly dizzy as the world around her blurred but she remained stationary. “Okay, that felt a little weird.” She said. “You’ll have to do more testing, but I think if you just turn slowly, it’ll be fine. Or…maybe there’s some Skill that would help with it? I don’t know, I’ll have to leave it to you sailors to figure things out, since you actually know what you’re doing.”
Several of us have gotten Skills that help us keep our feet even in choppy waters, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a similar one for this. But, you’re right, we’ll do some testing with it. Um…should I turn back to let you off, or would you like to explore more?
“Why don’t we see what disembarking and embarking is like while you’re in humanoid form?” Lia suggested.
Right, that’s important to know. Okay, I think I just…that feels right, is anything different for you?
Lia felt a slight, almost questioning tugging in her gut, and she let it take her. And then, just like that, she was back on the dock. “Handy, that.” She said. “How about embarking?”
Luna gave Lia a relieved look. “Good to hear. This should be pretty similar on my end…that working?”
Lia felt the same tugging sensation, and when she accepted it, she was standing at the edge of the deck, near the gangplank. “Perfect. I don’t think I need to check the rest of the ship, would you please let me out so we can talk face to face?”
Luna obliged, and within moments Lia was on the dock once again. Once Lia was out, Luna jumped, gracefully landing on the dock next to Lia. “What else can I do for you?” She asked.
“As a captain, what are your thoughts on how you are versus how regular ships are?” Lia asked. “It just took a couple of easily-produced devices to get a similar result, so if it’s good, then I’m going to look into making our entire navy shipgirls like you, provided there are enough volunteers, of course.”
“On my end, it seems like a strict upgrade.” Luna replied. “Being smaller and more mobile is huge; it practically forces our opponents to spend extra Mana applying homing to their weapons and spells, and it opens up significant new avenues of combat at sea. Like, I could board a ship and drop all my crew on it, or stand close enough that I’m in their blind spot while still being able to attack the ship myself, or…well, all sorts of things! I just don’t know how I compare to other converted ships, if there’s a drop in power or what.”
“I consulted with my Analysis Skill while I was waiting, and it indicates that there is no significant drop in power involved when giving a humanoid form. You’re just as powerful as you would be if everything else in the cocoon was the same, but you were converted into a ‘normal’ ship.” Lia replied.
“Then do it.” Luna said immediately. “Our navy will instantly jump a notch in power, even compared to the power boost it already seemed to be getting by conversion.”
Lia nodded. “That’s all I needed to know, then. I’m going to get more of these devices made when I get back home, and I’ll be back tomorrow to convert whatever volunteers there are. After that, I’d like it if I could take one of you with me for a week or two to show other shipyards as an example, to help allay any worries people might have about volunteering. We’d start at the couple of shipyards that I’ve already done, then work on the four or five others we have left.”
“Of course, my Queen.” Luna replied. “I’d be happy to act in that role for you, and I’ll gather volunteers from our sailors here today. I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll have more volunteers than ships, but if that happens, I’ll figure something out.”
“Thank you.” Lia said. “I’m going to head back to where I was while I was waiting for all the conversions to finish, then keep studying until Amelia picks me up. If you need anything, just let me know, I’ll be happy to help.”
“Understood.” Luna replied, giving another salute. “Farewell, my Queen.”
“Farewell.” Lia replied, heading back towards the spot she had been waiting in before. The project had been yet another unqualified success, and Rose had already said she was completely behind making the entire navy shipgirls if the “test” shipgirls worked out well, so Lia was sure she’d be excited to hear about it.
Until then, though, she needed to buckle down and do her homework; without effort, she was just going to stagnate and forever remain a figurehead, and she couldn’t stomach that. So, dull as it was at times, she was going to give it her all.