Chapter 269 - Empire in the Skies

3 and a half years ago, when Cecil and his party first arrived at the Machina Reggio Empire after making their way through the neutral territory separating the Empire and the Tempest Kingdom, they arrived at the only city located in the Empire.

This Empire was very unique because there were no villages, towns, or any other city besides the capital city.

When one passed into the borders of the Machina Reggio Empire, they would be greeted to a land full of mountains. The entire empire's lands were located within a super large mountain range which had active volcanoes in it.

The capital city, Mecca, was built over a large super volcano. This city drew power from this volcano to keep things in the city running. As for where this capital city was located, it was high up above the mountains.

That's right, high up above, not on, but above. Mecca was located in the skies just above the super volcano called Brüttsáuger. What was unique about this floating city was that it was a chain of floating fortresses connected together through teleportation gates left behind from the ancient era.

Right when one entered the Empire, they would be teleported up into the floating fortresses in the sky collectively called Mecca from the border checkpoint. The Empire was a power filled with genius artificers that were able to replicate ancient flying fortresses and create them using modern day runic arrays, magic formations, and materials.

They created 50 flying fortresses which roamed about in the skies of the Machina Reggio Empire in predetermined flight routes. When Cecil and the party first arrived, they were amazed at how technologically advanced the Empire was.

Cecil especially, he was in awe of EVERYTHING the Empire had to offer. Each flying fortress was like a city of their own, but they were instead labeled as Districts and not cities. With the original flying fortress plus the other 50 created by the Empire, the superpower had 51 Districts in all and the only way to get from one district to another was via teleportation gates.

First time visitors would arrive at district 50 and they'd be able to freely move around between Districts 30-49. The rest of the Districts were for Empire citizens only and the Imperial Family was located in District 0 which only citizens from District 1-10 would have access to.

******

When the party arrived in this magnificent place, the first thing on Cecil's mind was, "Let's go to the Library!"

"Aww, Cel, no!"

"Darling come on! At least take us out on a date or something!"

The two girls naturally complained when they saw that his curiosity had gotten the better of him. Visiting a new place that had plenty of tourist attractions in the districts they were given access to, Cecil didn't think about taking them out to go sightseeing, instead he wanted to stuff his brain and Magic Tome full of the Empire's knowledge.

"Cel, you already have all that ancient knowledge from the World Tree and you even told me that the modern day's magi-tech advancement was very lacking, do you really expect to get anything from their library that practically has obsolete knowledge? Not to mention the more important stuff is probably locked in the Imperial Family's library!"

Cecil was hoping to get some of the Empire's advanced magi-tech knowledge that they developed in this age, but thinking about what Lucia had said, that kind of knowledge was most likely a tightly kept secret available only for the Empire's most trusted people. He was just an adventurer totally unrelated to the Empire, there's no way they'd share that kind of knowledge with him.

"Ugh...you're right..."

"Darling, remember, we're only here to stop by the Empire, we have to continue our journey soon!"

"Y-yeah...okay..."

"So~ since we're here, the 3 of us should go on a date!" Serilla added as she locked arms with Cecil. She eyed Lucia and the girl immediately caught on. She flashed next to Cecil and wrapped her arm around his.

"...You guys are just preventing me from running away..."

"Uhuh~" The two replied in unison.

"Sheesh, I'll take you both on a date, but are you alright with this? Don't you want to take separate dates?"

"It's fine with me~ what about you, Seri?" Lucia asked as she turned her attention to the other girl next to Cecil.

"I'm okay with it~ let's just go go go~!"

"Wait! At least let's check into an inn first! Then we'll go on our date!" Cecil said as he quickly ordered Sleipnir to head towards the nearest inn.

It was astonishing, but the civilization on Mecca greatly resembled that of Earth's. All around him, Cecil could see tall buildings created from either metal or concrete. The roads were paved, they had streetlights, and he actually saw city patrol guards carrying something that resembled rifles on their backs!

When they arrived at one of the inns inside district 50, Cecil couldn't help but think that the inns greatly resembled that of hotels which had multiple floors and numerous rooms.

Once they check into one of these 'hotels' Cecil immediately went out with the girls on their date.

"Silv, Yuna, we're going out. We might teleport to another District, so can I ask you to stay here?"

"Sure, Master, I guess big sis Yuna and I will go on a date as well!" Silver answered cheekily. Cecil only laughed this off as the kid acting like a cheeky little brat, but he didn't see that Yuna was actually blushing when Silver had practically announced their relationship to the party.

Lucia already knew about this, but Serilla was immediately surprised. Over the past half year, she did have her suspicions when she saw how intimately close the two were, but with Silver's somewhat vague, yet straight-forward announcement, she immediately connected the dots and silently congratulated Yuna and wished the couple well.

"Alright, Silv, we'll be going now so you better not cause trouble for Yuna, y'hear? Yuna, please look after him!" Cecil said as he exited the hotel with the two girls.

Silver only rolled his eyes at his master, Lucia and Serilla had already caught on, but he couldn't believe how stupidly dense his master was.

"Big sis, shall we go out?"

"Hm~ How about we go back to our room? We can go on a date tomorrow~"

******

Cecil took the girls out to go sightseeing. The Empire's large flying fortresses were amazing. From down below, Cecil only saw it as a large flying castle built from steel and iron, but on the flying cities, he saw a very complex and advanced civilization. He even saw wildlife and artificial wildernesses present on the flying fortress.

They walked past the walls separating the large city and this artificial wilderness and Cecil thought that it was pretty interesting.

When he spread his Mana Sense into these artificially created wildernesses, he actually saw adventurers gathering materials or battling against monsters. What was surprising was that the materials being collected were pretty uncommon ones while the monsters all ranged from ranks D to S.

He actually saw S ranked monsters leading large communities of other monsters inside the flying fortresses.

"Woah, they're so advanced and confident...doesn't the Imperial family know that S ranks are pretty dangerous? Actually, all the monsters are dangerous...if one happens to evolve into a rank higher then S...it could spell trouble for the district that spawns this monster..."

"I don't think you need to worry, Cel... Look at those large cannons..." Lucia pointed up at the walls that were separating the wilderness and the city. "That's the thingy you were trying to develop all this time, right?"

Cecil turned back and saw cannons poking out of large openings on the city walls. From what he saw, those cannons looked similar to the old model of the magi-tech cannon he was currently developing.

"Holy shit...that's the Storm Howler Mk. I!" Cecil exclaimed in shock when he saw the real life version of the blueprints stored inside his magic tome.

"Oh~ so that's what it's called... is it powerful?"

"O-of course it is! It's not as powerful as the one I'm developing, but these humans actually created this thing?!"

"So darling was creating those 'battery' things for these cannon?"

"Well... yes, but the one I'm creating is for an enhanced version, the Storm Howler Mk. II. Theoretically, it should be a couple of times stronger than this one. However, I didn't think it'd be possible to actually build these things using modern times' materials and techniques... I mean—" Cecil started talking about incomprehensible things that didn't make sense at all to the girls.

Material this, material that, technique this, crafting method that, rune formation this, and magic array that, it was all greek to the 2 girls, but they only smiled at him gently. They really loved looking at this kind of Cecil who was enthusiastically explaining things to them.

"I'm guessing that the output is going to be the lacking compared to the ones in my blue prints, but that's inevitable. I have to say though; the Empire's craftsmen and artificers are really talented and resourceful to have created this thing!"

Serilla and Lucia only nodded at Cecil's words. They didn't understand a single thing he was rambling on since before, but they were proud to have such a smart and capable boyfriend. As Cecil was still marveling at the large cannons, a young voice suddenly interrupted his chain of thoughts.

"Hey! What do you mean by that? These magnificent Mag-Cannons' power are lacking?!"

When Cecil turned around, he saw a young boy yelling and pointing at him. He was wearing a very baggy black robe and was a little skinny for his age.

"Hm?" Cecil looked around in confusion, but the little boy immediately quipped up, "I'm talking to you buddy! The know-it-all that just said my Empire's cannons are lacking!"

"Oh, I said that? You must've heard wrong! Hahaha, well, we'll be on our way now. Lulu, Seri, let's go."

He was about to head back into the city, but the young boy from earlier blocked his path and demanded, "I'm not done talking with you!"

Cecil raised an eyebrow at him and said, "Kid, just forget you heard anything."

"No way! Not when you just bad-mouthed my Empire!"

"Bad-mouthed? Kid, that's hardly bad-mouthing anything!"

"Nuh-uh, those cannons are the pride and joy of my Empire's artificers! They have a—" The little kid began a long tirade about the Empire's Mag-Cannons' specifications, and this drew Cecil's attention in a little.

He decided to listen to it all, but in the end, the specs were lacking compared to the one described in the Storm Howler Mk.I's specifications.

When the kid ended his explanation, he immediately yelled at Cecil, "They are Alterna's most cutting edge magi-tech weapons! Yet, you just said they were lacking! What do you mean by that?!"

"Sorry, did I say that before? I don't recall. Anyway, we'll be going now." Cecil played dumb and walked around the boy. The girls were only giggling at him as they followed behind. They honestly thought that Cecil would start a long explanation about what the cannon was lacking and utterly destroy the little boy's self-confidence in the Empire's magi-tech weapons.

"Hey! I told you, I'm not finished with you! Don't think that just because I'm a kid you could fool me by playing dumb!" The boy turned around and chased after Cecil and the girls. "I heard what you said earlier! The techniques and methods, also those lost materials that you listed! I can tell you're an artificer just based on your knowledge, so explain to me what my Empire's cannons are lacking!"