The appearance of these two weapons on the battlefield had completely caught Theus off guard. He had never heard of them through any channel before.
Judging by their style, they looked somewhat like creations of the Mechanical Cathedral, yet subtly different. As the Empress, Isabella surely knew more about them.
"She said she had never seen these weapons before, neither in the Cathedral nor in the Candlelight Society."
Theus froze. "She hasn't seen them either?"
The Mechanical Cathedral had deep ties to the imperial family. Under the Candlelight Society's suppression, the royal family had initially sheltered the Mechanical Cathedral and allowed it to develop.
Because of this, while the Cathedral had not shared all of its knowledge with the imperial family, the royal family generally had a good idea of what it possessed.
Isabella was quite certain that the Mechanical Cathedral did not have these two creations.
"Then that's strange. Where did these weapons come from? Could the Holy See have developed them?"
The thought circled in Theus's mind for only a moment before he discarded it.
Research and development was not something that could be done by gathering a few people and tossing around ideas. Otherwise, Castel would not need so many testing grounds and researchers—Monica could simply figure everything out by herself.
The rest of Castel combined might not match her wild imagination.
Research required an entire, complete system to support it. And considering the level of educational access on the Holy See's side, talking about research was somewhat laughable.
They might be doing research into supernatural matters, but those steam tanks and battle fortresses did not look like supernatural power at all. They looked more like Castel's technological path.
"New weapons suddenly brought out... If the Holy See has changed in any way, it should be the