“Only four beds and an exposed front,” I said with a sigh.

“We will have to sleep in shifts,” Captain Francis replied while we looked over our newest airship.

It had only taken two days to get to a level 5 zone, another two days to kill the monsters, and then another two days back. This was why I wanted an airship. The travel times without one were incredibly frustrating. Especially when there were no roads.

Thankfully the Leader or his people didn’t become difficult. I had earned around 100 million points with two days of grinding. While level 5 monsters were annoying, they weren’t a huge challenge, or something I needed to be really worried about.

“What are you naming it?” Michelle asked me. I turned to give her a look. Since she didn’t name her monsters, but she shrugged at my stare. I had asked her about that in the past, but she had explained that they were monsters, not friends. They weren’t like Pokémon or something similar with their own personalities. They were murder machines at best, and mindless automatons at worst.

That was why she didn’t name them. Unlike the airship, which was a vortex of points. At least the medium airship only had one cannon, and it was only a level 2 cannon at that. A pea shooter in my mind, compared to what I could unleash.

“It’s like Air Force One, my airship is the Crystal Vortex, no matter what size it is,” I replied. We were on the newly purchase airship, at the airship port in the city of New Mecca. The airship port doubling as a prayer tower for the people. Not that it mattered much to me. There would be no state religions beyond the Power Church in my Empire.

“Only one floor as well and not kitchen. Supplies will be an issue,” Captain Francis added.

“We will just have to make do. Now we need to consider where we will go,” I replied. There was silence at this, since it was clearly my decision.

“You don’t want to head back?” Captain Francis asked me, and I shook my head.

“No. Going back will do nothing. For now, we need to find the sword, destroy it or contain it. Then do the same with the monster. I am thinking an attack on Meech will lure it out,” I replied.

“And what if you can’t?” Fiyaz asked. I frowned at this question. “Not to be rude Emperor Michael, but these people have been dealing with these two things for a long time. How would you plan to kill them? The monster escaped you once before.”

While it was an annoying question, it was a good one. “The airship as a mobile base and Captain Francis’s sensory skills, should be able to reveal the monster,” I replied.

“It escaped me before,” he added.

“Also, Michelle’s monsters,” I then said.

“And it disabled me,” she countered. I let out a heavy sigh.

“But we managed to locate it that way. Do you think you could resist if something like that happened again?” I asked.

“Maybe? It was actively keeping me unconscious. I would be highly vulnerable,” she said.

“We would need the sword user to work with us. Find the monster, since it clearly has a way. Then we take them out. As for the sword, we just poke Meech,” I replied.

“Michael, we barely survived the last attack. At that range and speed, we barely dodged,” Captain Francis said.

“Then give me solutions. I need solutions,” I countered and there was silence. I was a bit annoyed at all of them. It was easy fighting against monsters and humans, but against the unknown that had already bested us, it was far scarier.

“We go over a city with regular people and observe from a distance. Eventually the monster will take out the new arrivals based on what we saw before. As for the sword, Meech does seem to be a focal point. But it could target us directly if we take out the city. The Leader was hesitant about it as well,” Fiyaz suggested. That was a decent idea for both our targets.

There was a risk that I would be able to destroy or capture this sword and it would target me. I frowned at that. The sword was a personal threat, but it wasn’t civilization ending. The monster was stopping our expansion plans but seemed to be limited in scope and range with strict borders. While the sword user could go anywhere.

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“We will fly over one of the abandoned cities, maybe check out a couple. Also, I can purchase a Regional Map building directly. Use that to locate the monster,” I added.

“If it shows up,” Captain Francis said. I nodded at that.

“We won’t know unless we try. I prefer not to waste anymore time.” My thoughts when I had been talking to the Leader about achieving victory still resonated within me. There was no person that could threaten me anymore.

“Very well. That will mean you will need to handle the flying monsters. I am going to stay in the lower layers as much as possible,” Captain Francis said.

“That is fine. Let’s get going,” I replied. Captain Francis nodded, and we boarded the airship, separating it from the airship port. While we had our conversation in range of the Leader’s soldiers, I didn’t mind if he overheard. He was a non-issue, and not even a threat.

The airship took off, staying low to the ground, Captain Francis was taking things fairly slowly as we flew out of New Mecca. He was at the controls, I was sitting in a chair behind him. Michelle had her own room with the single bed, while Fiyaz and the three soldiers occupied the rear room, next to the engine. It was a really small airship.

That was why I had gotten a large one in the past. At least there we had showers, sinks, and a kitchen. On a medium airship we didn’t even have our own private rooms. A massive downgrade in status and space. It was frustrating, but it would only be temporary.

The air slammed into me and Captain Francis. Another downside of the smaller airships, or airboats, was that the wind impacted the person manning the controls. We followed the roads down below, staying just above them. It put us in range of skills, thankfully no one made a move to attack.

With the roads being flat, it was like following a highway, we could fly low and straight and avoid the flying monsters. It was something that we had discussed before, but rarely did. The risk of someone accidentally damaging the airship, or a monster on the ground doing so was quite high. Also in terrain like the jungle or mistlands, it was too hard to see in front of the road.

The roads made an arch of protection above them, a half circle. But it wasn’t a huge space. Maybe if a small airboat was careful it could squeeze through this protected space, with the bottom scraping the road, while the top barely touching the outer edge of protection. The problem is that once you left the protection of the space around the road, the monsters in the zone would attack.

That was why we normally flew at the fourth layer. The flying monsters were annoying, but that was the fastest way to travel, and we had learned to deal with them. Traveling lower brought us into the third layer, the airspace of the zone itself. If that zone had a bad monster type, then the airship could suffer damage.

Thankfully we knew the monsters near the road, and they wouldn’t give us too much trouble. The new Crystal Vortex might take some damage, but a medium sized airship was much cheaper to repair then a large airship.

We would reach New Mumbai in around a day, but that also meant flying past Meech. It was the abandoned city to the South of Meech. It seemed like a good spot to keep an eye out for the monster. The monster clearly moved from North to South, which meant New Mumbai was a key city. We would keep elevation and observe, trying to spot it.

I would make excursions down and Michelle would use her monsters. Captain Francis, or one of his soldiers would be ready to move the airship at a moment’s notice. There was quite a bit of leeway in terms of height before monster attacks above a city. So, we could have the Crystal Vortex hover fairly high up as we scouted for it.

It had been tempting to go back. In all honesty, I had considered it. But nothing would change in the end. The super monster and the sword were not Empire spanning threats. While I had no doubt Clarissa could work something out and bring a tremendous number of resources to bear, it would not help that much.

This was why a strong individual like myself was needed to counter individual problems. With the stealth and the donkey nature of the monster and the sword, running away, trying to pin them down would be difficult.

Even if I had a 1,000 people with stats like Michelle, it would be a challenge. Perhaps multiple summoners all putting pressure and hemming the monster in at the same time. That might work. Same thing with the sword user. Death by quantity was a core strategy of the Imperial Army. Combined with airships, we could put a tremendous amount of pressure on both threats.

However, I didn’t want that. I had come out here for an adventure and I was getting one. If I wanted to sit on a throne all day and collect passive income, I could do that, but it would make me weak. While the Divine Empress had been right in the past about going out and fighting herself, she had no sense of teamwork or structure for the people managing things.

I considered it like a final test of sorts. Once I defeated both these threats, then there would be nothing that could compete with me. I would have to check out the Southern nations once the sword and monster were killed, but from what Hamid, the Leader, had said they were caught up in their own drama, that I wanted nothing to do with.

I had very little patience for fools or for idiots. Also it was better in my mind, if they kept fighting instead of uniting against me. There was a risk the Leader would run off and try and do something like that, but the distance separating his cities compared to the others would make it difficult. And then there would be the inevitable fight of whom to empower to face me. If I never showed up or caused an issue, then there was no need for the opposing nation states to unite.

As the land zipped past underneath me, I felt calmer than before. It was good to be back in the air and no longer trudging across the ground a like a plebian. Airship was truly the way to travel and not waste any time.