Lunar Base

Babylon-the Hanging Gardens.

This was a restricted area directly behind the Babylon Temple, normally guarded by a heavy contingent from Birka's Sky Knight Order. Its designation was rather misleading: in essence, this place was a shipyard.

For now, it had been roughly divided into three sections.

Foundry: workshops for power generation, smelting, production, assembly, maintenance, and so on, along with supporting facilities such as hydrogen filling stations and heat-transfer oil boiler rooms, plus various storage depots.

Testing center: responsible for performance testing of newly built or repaired warships.

Docking port: equipped with protective facilities and capable of providing basic maintenance.

Apart from the basic structural framework, which was made of iron cloud, many of the internal facilities lavishly employed a series of special alloys designated [adamantine]. These were essentially a category of alloys composed primarily of gold.

Sephiroth himself knew very little about alloys, but the Rumble-Rumble Fruit let him cheat. Bypassing technological barriers through the power of "I reckon it works" really was wonderful. Besides various metals, he had also experimented with all kinds of Sky Island specialties as synthesis materials, eventually producing a series of gold alloys through exhaustive trial and error. Out of personal preference, he had named the entire category adamantine.

A ship with a distinctly science-fiction appearance sat in the assembly workshop.

It was the Wide-Area Silent Ship, modeled after the Pseudo-Nahel Argama-class assault landing ship from Gundam UC.

Red-robed tech-priests bustled back and forth like ants moving their nest... their outfits were yet another expression of someone's peculiar sense of humor.

The warship's main structure had actually been finished long ago, and its internal equipment was currently being calibrated. If Sephiroth had not taken a month-long holiday for his wedding four months earlier, the Wide-Area Silent Ship would have been ready for its launching ceremony by now.

Although its exterior imitated a warship from Gundam, its underlying design was still the Ark Maxim. In terms of performance, it hardly qualified as a space warship.

Without a Rumble-Rumble Fruit user controlling it, it barely amounted to a little skiff capable of crawling between a planet and its satellite.

On the Wide-Area Silent Ship's bridge, besides the red-robed figures bustling about, Sephiroth himself sat at a console debugging its systems. Something this excessively "innovative" was beyond the traditional tech-priests' ability to handle alone.

His new attendant, the warrior Laki, stood beside him like a bodyguard. Her current outfit, however, was very different from her former traditional Shandia attire-

Her hair had been dyed red and tied into a high ponytail. She wore a sexy race-queen-style outfit and leather boots, with a black motorcycle jacket patterned with flames over it. Her weapon was an electromagnetic rifle specially made by Sephiroth.

Ever since Laki had become his personal attendant, Sephiroth had considered what to do with her. In terms of looks, she had black hair, fair skin, and a pretty face, but nothing particularly distinctive.

Her combat ability was nothing special either: retainer-level close combat, with a preference for firearms, and overall fighting strength roughly on par with a knight.

Only after they gradually became familiar with each other and she shared some stories about herself did one detail give Sephiroth a flash of inspiration. Wyper's head of red hair had been dyed after he reached adulthood; before that, his hair had also been black.

He had never expected the Shandia to possess such natural-looking hair-dyeing techniques. There was no telling it had been dyed at all. Thus, Laki's current look had come into being, primarily modeled after Yoko, the heroine of Gurren Lagann.

...At present, Sephiroth stared intently at a large screen displaying a monochrome operating-system interface resembling that of a vacuum-tube computer from Blue Star in the 1950s.

Sephiroth really could not create a more advanced operating system. Some things remained impossible even when he cheated with his Fruit powers. The ship's computer room was packed with bulky, crude-looking calculation arrays, which bore a striking resemblance to humanity's earliest computers in Blue Star's history textbooks.

Of course, Laki had absolutely no idea what any of these things were. She merely thought that her god truly lived up to his name: both this warship and those incomprehensible screens were so miraculous.

"My lord god, thank you for your hard work. Here is your afternoon tea."

Carrying a bamboo basket, Conis approached the bridge with light steps, the hem of her white priestly robes fluttering gently. She seemed in much better spirits than when she had first arrived.

After all, the other maids were merely unaccustomed to having a personal attendant suddenly installed above them. They would never actually dare ostracize her-the story of the Holy Son stamping a bishop's face with a seal was still widely circulated within Birka.

"Mm, perfect timing. Laki, don't just stand there. Come sit with us."

The extensive bridge facilities aboard the Wide-Area Silent Ship were sufficient to serve as a fleet's frontline command headquarters.

Most of the consoles were intended for ordinary people. During an actual voyage, Sephiroth would sit at the command station toward the rear of the bridge.

The captain's seat was on the left side of the command station, while the fleet commander's dedicated seat was on the right. This was the central console through which the Rumble-Rumble Fruit's powers could control the warship.

The three settled into the command station's seats, pulled out the tray tables, and arranged the little snacks and coffee from the basket, the latter carried in a flask.

Since there were only two seats, Sephiroth stayed entirely true to his own desires and had the more petite Conis sit on his lap.

With her naturally blond hair and delicate, timid appearance, Conis in her white priestly robes really did look as though she were cosplaying the little Priestess from Goblin Slayer.

Seeing Conis's flushed face put Sephiroth in an excellent mood.

He certainly was not the Homelander type, but he also quite openly enjoyed the privileges afforded by a setting that combined individual supernatural might, a feudal society, and a religious state.

Not only did Lilith have no objections to this sort of thing, but even Isabella already had who knew how many additional stepmothers.

The three chatted while enjoying their afternoon tea, and the conversation naturally turned to the warship. Laki was very interested in weapons, so discussing that subject posed little difficulty. What was particularly precious was that Conis, despite understanding none of it, watched the other two discuss things with innocent, clear eyes, without the slightest impatience.

"To think the warship would be nearly finished after just over a year..."

Even though Laki knew nothing about shipbuilding, she understood that something this enormous involved far more work than could normally be completed in just over a year.

"Mm, so it's time to put the Moon Project on the agenda, too."

Sephiroth's so-called Moon Project was no secret among Birka's middle and upper ranks or within the Central Sixty-Four Chambers. Given the issue of migration, it had not been kept strictly secret from ordinary citizens either. They simply did not know the specifics, though they had some idea of its general direction.

The rapid progress really could be attributed primarily to Sephiroth, that nuclear-powered workhorse.

In terms of construction capabilities, he was effectively a gigantic, fully automated industrial park integrating smelting, machinery manufacturing, and processing, complete with its own physics laboratory and nuclear power plant, come to life.

...Just thinking about it was insane.

-Two weeks later.

The inaugural voyage ceremony for the Wide-Area Silent Ship was about to begin.

This was Babylon's first space warship. Although its actual technological sophistication was painfully lacking, with almost everything brute-forced through the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, its significance was extraordinary.

The ship measured 380 meters in total length and had five carrier aircraft launch ports. No aircraft had been assigned yet, so the Sky Knight Order, riding giant eagles, filled that role for the time being. Its primary power system was a magnetic-energy reactor, with a Flame Dial generator array serving as backup.

As for its armaments:

Forward main gun: Super Positron Siege Cannon ×1

Forward secondary guns: Reject Dial rocket cannons ×2

Broadside main guns: twin-mounted heavy reconnection electromagnetic cannons ×2

Broadside secondary guns: Flame Dial incineration cannons ×2

Close-defense weapons: plasma scatter cannons ×4, quadruple-mounted electromagnetic heavy machine guns ×6, Slash Dial array launchers ×6

The viewing stand stood on the temple's plaza platform. Besides members of the church, quite a few others had also come to attend the departure ceremony.

The space vessel's inaugural voyage ceremony largely followed the traditional ship-launching routine. After lengthy speeches, blessings, and prayers, a bottle of champagne shattered against the bow.

What best suited a certain someone's tastes was the group of machine-priests remaining in Babylon who rang the Golden Bell to see them off.

-Toll the great bell once, move the lever, start the pistons and pumps; toll the great bell twice, press the button, ignite the engine, kindle the turbine, instill life; toll the great bell thrice, sing in unison, praise the Machine God.

In response, a deep, tremendous blast sounded from the distant ship. It came not from a loudspeaker, but from a mechanically generated shriek-the departure whistle.

Even a space warship adhered to tradition in this respect.

The Wide-Area Silent Ship rose vertically from the ground in an incredible display and began to climb slowly. Applause resounded from the viewing stand, while nearby flocks of birds scattered in alarm at the departure whistle.

The so-called antigravity system aboard the Wide-Area Silent Ship could not actually counter universal gravitation. Essentially, it used the Rumble-Rumble Fruit to draw upon the planet's magnetic field and achieve an effect similar to magnetic levitation.

This technology was completely inadequate for a spacecraft, since it could not travel beyond the planet's magnetic field, but it was sufficient for moving between the planet and its satellite.

However, drawing on his own knowledge and the effects of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit's abilities, Sephiroth had designed a propulsion device absent from the original Ark Maxim blueprints-an electromagnetic rocket engine.

An electromagnetic rocket engine used electromagnetic fields to accelerate ionized propellant, which was ionized at high temperatures into electrically conductive, neutral plasma. Under the influence of a magnetic field, the current-carrying plasma experienced a Lorentz force, accelerating it outward to generate thrust.

On Blue Star, however, electric rockets were unreliable and suitable only for spacecraft attitude control and station keeping. They could not serve as primary propulsion at all.

The Rumble-Rumble Fruit specialized in integrating man and machine, while the Wide-Area Silent Ship's internal equipment consisted entirely of bulky, crude mechanical structures that were rugged and could take a beating.

Through sheer brute force, it had turned electromagnetic rockets into the main propulsion system.

As the warship rose and reached the appropriate angle, its electromagnetic rockets blasted out a blue radiance, sending it hurtling into the sky-

It was an utterly uneventful journey.

For this expedition, Sephiroth had brought only a few knights, machine-priests, and members of the Shandia guerrillas. Everyone had been brimming with excitement at departure, believing this would be a wondrous adventure.

After actually reaching the lunar surface, they found only a barren expanse.

But when their god blasted through a rock face with an electromagnetic cannon, as though he had known what lay there in advance, the ruins inside left them stunned.

"Your Majesty! This is-"

The architectural style alone made Wyper, the Shandia representative for this expedition, tremble all over... rather than saying it bore some relation to Shandia architecture, it would be more accurate to say it was identical.

"This already has you shocked? There's something even more outrageous..."

Sephiroth led the group deeper into the ruins, until mural after mural appeared before their eyes. The figures depicted wore traditional Skypiean clothing, yet sported traditional Shandia ornaments.

The contents of the final wall left Birka's clergy utterly dumbfounded: this lunar city's name was-Bilka.

"That's right... War ↗ Demon → Wyper!"

Sephiroth noticed that Wyper's expression had become quite entertaining, and so...

-Why did you come from the Blue Sea, yet have wings?

-Why was your architecture the same as the lunar city's?

-Why did you-

-Stop talking! -Wyper

-Then there was only one possible answer.

-Yamero! -Wyper

-You shared a common ancestor!