Bjorn observed Victory's flight with Eri at his side. The young woman was enchanted by the majesty of the vast ship but looked questioningly at her very close friend. "You really built that ship?"

"Yes. It was a fun project." Bjorn grinned at her.

"Fun...?" She suddenly felt weak.

"Very, my dear Eri." He smiled charmingly.

"But that ship is enormous! How...?" She blushed and smiled after finally registering that ‘dear’ part, and unwittingly, she caught him by his hand. "Lord Bjorn, it must have taken you ages..."

"I told you already, Eri, just call me Bjorn," he sighed, reminding her about his wish. But then he cheered up and explained, "I had many helpers for this project. It's probably the biggest ship ever built in Nilmerthis and certainly in Aderon. What's more, its frame and hull do not require magic to sustain its shape. That warship will sail the seas and oceans of Nilmerthis without fail. Surprised?"

"But... But that's..." Eri gasped. She was sure that magic had to be involved. "Amazing... Was it your design?"

"Oh, no... The King brought from his world... Aaaa!" The Dwarf covered his mouth and looked around. After he made sure they were alone at the observation tower, he sighed. "I don't have to tell you it's a secret, right?"

"Of course!" She nodded in conviction. As far as she was concerned, the world ended outside the walls of Avalon.

"Thank you. The King has many, many books which he brought from his world. The knowledge in them is vast and covers so many aspects that it is breathtaking. One of these books was about "Ships and Warships Through the Ages," and a few others were about shipbuilding. The people of his world created so many ships." He smiled weakly. "But ships like Victory were not their best... They phased them out, replacing them with behemoths made of steel that didn't need the wind to travel. Powered by other means, their ships carried guns that could level the entire cities and shoot accurately further than you can see on the clearest day..."

Eri shook her head and stood in silence, watching Bjorn's subordinates work on the captured Bernan ship at the harbour in the lower castle. The gentle tug on her arm made her realise she was holding onto Bjorn, who smiled widely at her, not planning to let her hand go anytime soon. She giggled and matched his pace as they walked downstairs and towards his carriage waiting for them. She wondered what kind of surprise he prepared for her, but she was already happy to enter the watchtower. During one of their previous conversations, he had learnt that today was her birthday. They entered Bjorn's carriage, and she saw his mysterious smile as he sat before her.

"Close your eyes, Eri. And no peeking!"

"Hahaha." She laughed but obediently covered her eyes with her hands. "Is this really necessary?"

"Of course!" He laughed as well.

Soon after, the carriage came to a stop, and Bjorn helped her stand up. They walked a bit, but he held her as she patiently kept her eyes closed. "All right... You can open your eyes."

"Ohhhh!" She opened her eyes but covered her mouth in shock. She was standing on the parade deck of the HMS Victory, being welcomed by the crew and the Captain.

"Happy birthday, Miss Eri!" The tall Elf woman smiled at her and extended her hand towards the Dwarf woman. "My name is Admiral Janet A'nnet Sparrow. Welcome onboard my ship."

"It's an honour to meet you, Admiral." Eri shook her hand with pleasure and happily smiled at Bjorn. "Thank you so much. Fania and Idna are going to turn green from jealousy."

"Hahaha!" Admiral Sparrow laughed. "After this, for sure."

"After... What?" Eri looked at the Elf, not understanding what she was talking about, and only then she noticed that the sailors were running over the decks and climbing the masts.

"Anchor up!" someone yelled.

"Anchor is up!" another voice confirmed, and Eri felt the ship's movement under her feet.

"Wait..." Eri gripped Bjorn's hand tighter as he smiled like crazy.

"We are in the clear!"

"Set sails!" Admiral Sparrow shouted, still smiling at the overwhelmed Eri.

"Sails are set! Away she goes!"

"No..." Eri's eyes shined in excitement.

"Hahaha, yes!" Bjorn laughed.

"Miss Eri. The last command is Lift off." The Captain put her hand on Eri's shoulder and smiled. "Will you...?"

"Really?! Can I?" Eri gripped Bjorn's arm even tighter.

"Just for today. Consider it as a birthday bonus." Janet grinned.

Eri took a deep breath and let go of Bjorn's hand. She approached the railing, leaned over, and shouted, "Lift off!"

"Aye, aye! Lift off!" The helmsman replied, and the ship majestically started rising from the lake.

Without any wailing of wood or metal, the warship climbed in relative silence, disturbed only by the commands and sailors' voices. The wind gently blew the sails, and Eri's dress, and she watched as they flew over the Upper Castle's walls. She had never considered the possibility of flying onboard the airship, and the feeling was incredible.

"I will leave you... Yeah... I'll be in my cabin, Master Bjorn," the Admiral smiled and left them alone at the top deck.

"Lord Bjorn... I'm so happy." Eri admired the view as the familiar buildings of Avalon got smaller with each moment.

"Just Bjorn, Eri," she turned around, surprised by his voice, only to see him kneeling before her.

"Miss Eri, would you bestow upon me the greatest joy by becoming my wife?"

"Yes!" She exclaimed with tears in her eyes. "Yes..."

•••

I had too many recent matters on my mind to think about Jester and his exploits until now. He... He did things. I scratched my head as I weakly smiled, reading the report I forced him to produce. Well... I had to appreciate and admit that he had changed. He was still a derailed, unhinged maniac; however, he was a maniac with a sense of justice, which was fine… For now, at least. He had involved himself with some resistance groups formed by slaves in Berna, which surprised me. My Slimes could not detect such activities, so that was another boon of Jester running free. If I understood his report correctly, and it was an original report written by Jester, so he used crayons and included many doodles of him killing people using various... Well... Memes. Anyway, putting aside him doing hilarious things, I was secretly proud of what he was doing. He may have even found us an ally among Bernan nobility. He was surprisingly sparse about the details of how he exactly found out about such a man, but the image I managed to picture reading between the lines was amusing.

He might or might not have caused a tavern fire, during which he kidnapped a slave girl. For some reason, he needed to underline with a red crayon that she was of the Bunny-people race. He also included a reasonably impressive sketch draw with a pencil, so I knew he used crayons only for giggles... I rubbed my eyelids and continued reading. Using his Bard's class bullshittery, he called Eriar to cleanse, heal, and whatnot of that girl, and somehow, I could see my patron happily jumping on that unhinged bandwagon that was Jester's madness. The girl, whose name was Pyonta... Oh, God. Japanese people, I'm fucking sure of that... So he told Pyonta that he was a secret agent of Arcadia... NO, God, please, no... I weakly sighed and forced myself to finish the last few pages of Jester's report. Soooo... Thanks to her, he contacted Count Bernard Nova, who was a big shot in the Berna's hierarchy. Officially, his wealth came from iron and coal mines he ran using extensive slave labour, which allowed him to buy any and all slaves he might stumble upon due to their high mortality rate.

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That was a very elaborate lie. It seemed the Count was secretly in love with one of the Bunny-people's women, and under her influence, he started an entire slave-saving empire. So while slaves worked in his mines and on the vast fields growing crops, creating a neat, self-sufficient community, they enjoyed as much freedom as was possible while not endangering their benefactor. I smiled, hoping additional good people could be found in such a rotten place. I made a note to contact that man and let Elisabeth know if he needed help. I thought that concluded the report, but I flipped the page to be sure. Yes... There it was. It turns out that the Bunny-girl, Pyonta, wanted to help Jester. That poor soul thought that Jester was some kind of warrior of justice. And Jester, being Jester, came up with a brilliant plan. He would make a sidekick of her, and she actually agreed. So... He asked me to somehow assign her a class-changing quest, and of course, he already came up with its name. Keeping to the theme of Bird named sidekicks for no particular reason, she would be a Red Cardinal. I was genuinely surprised when the class description was more of a healer than a murderous maniac. There was still a little bit of murder involved in the class, so for Jester, it still checked out. I sighed and created that class quest. After all, he had given me a good laugh, so I felt somewhat obliged to reward his efforts. The show must go on, after all...

I had a feeling that future reports from Jester would provide me with a mix of anxiety, amusement, and amazement worthy of storing them for possible later use. You have to appreciate good memes like weaponized yo' mama jokes when you see them. Maybe a comic book? I sighed and proceeded with other, much more mundane problems of running a country.

As I thought, there had been a heated discussion that divided the people of Avalon. Surprisingly, there were three groups: one that loved HMS Victory the most, a second that loved Avalon's Wrath better, and a third that somehow missed the show and was utterly bitter about it. While Victory regularly sailed and fine-tuned her systems, magic formulas, and myriads of other details, the war titan returned to the underground forges. Airships were always the stuff of legends and tales, a symbol of the power and status of Kings and Queens. But HMS Victory outshined anything the people had expected or imagined. My ship of the line was a piece of art and a tool of war, combining utility and elegance, elevating both to heights never seen before. But the unfinished titan rivaled her in his might... Hell. Even I couldn't wait to see him in his full glory. The fact that we had been under attack somehow flew over the heads of my people but not mine. I had fifty-seven reasons to worry about.

According to Navka, Berna had many more airships, and while brigs were their dominant ship type in service, they had a few frigates and even a galeon or two. I had one-and-a-half ships since the formerly Bernan brig had to be repaired and refitted. We took a look at their ship, and while it was inferior in every way to Victory, it looked new. That could only mean the Bernans had retained the skills and knowledge to build new airships. This was a new finding after my experience with the Cridians: a civilization that had not declined over the years. Well... Their social standards left much to be desired. Nonetheless, their fleet posed a significant threat to my armies in Berna. Also, it would be extremely difficult to simultaneously cover my expedition forces and border cities in case of a retaliation strike. I was even eager to sacrifice that captured ship and test it to see if the field artillery placed by the city walls could take it down, but ultimately, I decided otherwise. Two ships would give me more flexibility and time until the next wave of airships would be ready.

I ordered eight more Victory-class battleships, but they were on low priority. The main focus was on building light frigates that carried forty guns, frigates, or cruisers; I argued with Admiral Sparrow on the nomenclature since, for me, a cruiser was a class of ship while for her, it was an independent patrol ship. Anyway, we agreed that a full-sized, sixty-gun frigate would be perfect for this role, no matter if I called it a heavy frigate or she called it a cruiser. The last two ship classes we had on our minds for the initial production were brigs and a smaller arrangement of widely unspecified sloops-of-war, which the Admiral would commission. She wanted to see a few of them, not only in the picture in my book, before deciding which would be the best for our Navy. She had seen the images of Iowa-class battleships and Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and wanted them instead, but I managed to convince her that we didn't have enough resources to build them, which wasn't even a lie. She murmured something but gave up, at least for now. Still, building the airship fleet would be resource-consuming even without these steel behemoths.

"I will need wood... So much wood that Lavender is going to cry..." I sighed heavily under my breath.

"You said something, Darling?" The Dryad in question raised her head from over her papers.

"Nothing!" I completely forgot she was with me today and saw her staring holes through me.

"Liar!" she accused me with her raised finger and mischievous smile.

"All right! All right!" I raised my hands in surrender and laughed. "We will need huge amounts of wood to build an airship fleet."

"Kirin, Talla, and Ceallach should have plenty of wood in their storages," Eva informed me, and Lavender laughed.

"Oh, I know... It's still not enough..."

"Eva?" Lavender looked at my secretary sceptically.

"I'm afraid I can't provide estimations since I am unfamiliar with the required quantities..."

"We speak about a few hundreds of thousands, possibly even one million tons of wood. Mostly oak or similar hardwood as the main component, but other, softer kinds of wood will be used as well..." I sighed.

"A million tons?!" Lavender eyes went wide in shock. "That's impossible! You must be wrong..."

"Honey... Victory weighs something over three and a half thousand tons. Add to that spare wood for emergency repairs, a spare mast... And I ordered eight more ships of her class. I commissioned almost one hundred and fifty warships and fifty cargo ships, which are almost as big as Victory." I leaned heavily over the back of my chair. "Then we have to build dry docks and entire harbours for them... Am I wrong with my estimations? Probably? The problem is that I suspect that I grossly underestimated this investment..."

"How much more wood do we need?" Lavender asked, rubbing her temples.

"If we ignore the infrastructure for now, I think... A few hundred thousand tons?" I shrugged.

"That is more achievable, my Dear... We will need to build a cargo ship or even a few of them..." Lavender took her notes and went towards the map on the wall, looking for something. The map was magical, of course, and worked almost as well as satellites, thanks to my Eagles patrolling the skies and my wolves patrolling the ground.

"I can transport the materials between the dungeons..."

"I know. But what about the wood outside of dungeons?" Lavender pointed at the road construction team that was heading towards Wolf Manor. They were currently cutting their way through the dense forest. "Realistically speaking, we don't need all that wood at once, right?"

"Well... Yes, yes." I facepalmed, ashamed of my oversight of something so basic yet important. "Sorry. You are absolutely right. Bjorn told me they could build four ships at once. He has no more skilled woodworkers to spare."

"See? Stay calm." She grinned. "Just order them to build a cargo ship or two that will collect all wood from the road construction site."

"Eva?" I looked at my secretary.

"At once, my Lord." She nodded and left the room.

"Thank you, my Love..." I sighed and smiled at her.

"You look tired. Are you sure you are fine?" She went to me and sat on my lap. "Your humanity seems to be on an acceptable level, my Dear, but you are worried."

"Yes... I'm worried about the people I sent to Berna. What if the Bernans use airships against them?" I admitted with a nervous voice.

"Hmmm..." She tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling with thoughtful expression. "Pardon my ignorance, but is that even possible?"

"Ummm... Why not? I'm more than sure that Victory is fully capable of engaging ground forces."

"While this is true for our ship and cannons, are you sure the Bernans have the same capabilities?"

"I don't see any reason why they couldn't..." I replied after a moment, but I already knew I had a few more questions for our Bernan prisoners.

"No... Wait. You told me not to underestimate the enemy..." Lavender corrected herself, but I raised my hand and closed her lips with my finger.

"Hush..." I said, focusing on the reports about the captured ship with my eyes closed. I furrowed my brows and hummed something inarticulate in confusion.

When I opened my eyes, Lavender could barely hold her laughter. Before I could ask what was so funny, she burst into muffled laughter as she tried to cover her mouth. "What's so funny?"

"Hahahaha! Theon, oh Gods... Please stop making such faces! Hahahaha."

"Heh... Sorry, my Sweetheart." I gave her a few moments to calm down.

"Haah... Ufff! So what made you make such faces?"

"Can you imagine that virtually no one tested the Bernans' guns? Or checked the overall performance of their magitech?" I wasn't sure how to feel about it.

"Hmmm... Should they have?" Lavender asked with an uncertain voice.

"I expected Ian to be the first to do that, to be honest..."

"Maybe he is busy?" My Queen suggested.

"God no..." I trembled. "The last time he was bored, they built Victory."

"Admit they were right, though." She stabbed her finger at my chest. "Without that ship, we would be in big trouble."

"Well... Kinda? I would just like to know what they are up to..." I told her seriously. "Anyway! Do you want to check on that ship?"

"That might be funny..." She fixed her hair with one hand and giggled.