Flying Lantern

The strategist gestured for his lord to follow him, and the two walked to an open area within the military camp. Around the edges of this open space were large quantities of grain and fodder that had been moved here from their original location.

The Mang Army lord's gaze settled on those supplies, simply because they were enormous in volume and occupied a considerable area, making them the most conspicuous pile.

But the Mang Army lord quickly realized he had been mistaken. Seeing the strategist lead him toward the center of the open area rather than the edges, it was clear that what the strategist wanted to show him had nothing to do with the supplies that had been urgently moved here.

A great deal of miscellaneous equipment had been piled in the center, mostly wooden transport carts. It was naturally impossible to move grain and fodder so quickly through manpower alone; that was unrealistic, so tools were needed.

Under the Mang Army lord's puzzled gaze, the strategist laboriously dragged out a wooden object from among the clustered transport carts.

It was a wooden frame, roughly the size of four wooden transport carts. The frame was cubic, with four iron rods extending vertically upward and interlocking overhead to form a single structure. At the very top sat a bowl-shaped metal component.

"This is what I brought you here to see: a flying lantern."

The Mang Army strategist introduced the object he had laboriously dragged out.

"A flying lantern?"

The Mang Army lord studied the thing before him with an odd expression. No matter how he looked at it, he could not figure out its purpose. It seemed like nothing more than an ordinary wooden frame, and this was also the first time he had heard the term "flying lantern."

But