Fly Again
Fly Again
Since the castle backyard and witches' dormitory was under construction for remodeling and enlarging, Leaf moved the plants to the front yard. Various types of vines climbed all over the walls, gallows, and hallways, which made the yard appear to be an ancient forest. The effect of shielding from the sun was apparent. The sunlight could only penetrate through the tiny gaps between the vigorous leaves, leaving scattered spots of sunlight on the ground.
Roland handed the witches a stack of paper, made them spread it into an enormous drawing paper, and had Soraya to draw the lightest coating of blue sky. Compared to the combination of cow skin and canvas that the first generation hot air balloon used, the coating fabric was much lighter and sturdier. There were no stitches on the connecting points so that there were no concerns over any breakdown of the hot air balloon in the air regardless of its size.
"I heard from Lightning that there might be witches coming from the Fjords?" Wendy asked in curiosity.
"If everything goes smoothly." Roland repeated the content of Princess Tilly's response letter. "We have to wait for Tilly Wimbledon's reply for any further conducts."
"Seems like that Ashes and her group succeeded," she said in contemplation, "it's unbelievable that these many witches gathered on Sleeping Island."
"Indeed, I'm afraid that Tilly has been planning for this migration over the past many years." Roland shrugged. "Besides the Kingdom of Graycastle, she has undercover witch networks over the other three superkingdoms. I believe that Witch Cooperation Association has received her invitation too. I guess that's why not a single witch visited even though the guards had been spreading the rumors for so long—we were one step behind Tilly."
"But Cara never mentioned this to us." Wendy rubbed her shoulder.
"If she had told your guys about Tilly's invitation, you guys wouldn't insist on seeking Holy Mountain anymore, Right?"
"There's such a possibility indeed. However, if that were the case, we wouldn't have met each other in Border Town." She shook her head with a smile. "So... this isn't bad at all."
"I also think this isn't bad," Lightning raised her hand and said.
"Maybe it would be even better if we went to the Fjords." Lily twitched her mouth. "After all, there're witches all over the island, unlike this town that we have to be extra cautious whenever we go out."
"This is still much better than before," Anna said in a serious tone, "I didn't even dare to go out at that time."
"Right, some people are like that. Even she instantly refused Ashes' invitation, she still put on a pretentious act," Mystery Moon murmured a complaint. "How dare she say that she's not a traitor!"
"You..." Lily widened her eyes. "Moron!"
"Traitor!"
The rest of the witches could not restrain their laughter.
"I think so too." Roland felt a sense of accomplishment raising in his heart. Even though he was not as intelligent as Princess Tilly, and was less powerful and less decisive compared to Timothy and Garcia, he was able to provide a free and comfortable environment for these witches at the same time bring higher living standards to his citizens.
"That hot air balloon... I'm afraid it'll be so many times larger than the previous one." Nightingale observed the parts that Soraya finished drawing so far. "Are you planning to use it to transport witches?"
Roland nodded and said, "Only this way will we be able to avert the harbor cities and arrive at the inner territory straight from the southern end of the town. Also, besides transporting the new visitors, it'll be a new experiment."
After the paper was painted on both sides, it became an interlayered fabric. Each fabric was about six meters in width and length—if it were regular canvas or linen, it would be difficult to drag the fabrics with a single hand. Yet the light-weighted coating's weight was similar to a stack of paper. When the 10 pieces of fabrics were connected and seamed with the adherence of the coating, it became a huge gasbag that was astonishing in size.
What Roland wanted to test was Soraya's ability to adhere the coatings. At least when Roland first saw Soraya's new ability, the half-done drawing of the "thick tree skin" on the desk was quite memorable. The two objects tightly stuck together that someone could lift the whole table by pulling the tree skin. How strong would the adherence between the coatings and the base be? Would it be able to support a huge gasbag and maintain its stability after inflating the balloon? These were all the things that Roland wanted to know.
The inflation of a hot air balloon still depended on Anna. The hydrogen balloon could be handled by anyone. Now with the presence of DC motor, they could produce hydrogen through electrolysis. The prominent Zeppelin seemed reachable to Roland at this point. As long as he could find the suitable materials for the lightweight backbone of the airship, this gigantic monster that could travel with a high velocity at two to three kilometers above the ground would be infallible. Its technical difficulty would be much less compared to that of the airplanes.
Although the accuracy of dropping bombs at a high altitude of 1,000 meters above the ground would be quite low, the enemy would not be able to retaliate at all—any enemies would be devastated if someone kept dropping bombs every day on their domain.
Imagine when Roland started the expedition against the Holy City of the church, four or five airships floating on air in a line and dropping bombs, shallow water gunboats bombarding the enemy's city gate and strongholds in river courses, and the infantry with flintlocks was supporting in the back. The army, navy, and air force would be cooperating with each other and fight against the enemy. Roland felt quite excited just by imagining that scene.
"Your Highness, what're you smiling about?" Anna let out a deep sigh and reached out to cover Roland's widening mouth.
"He's probably thinking about those newly arrived witches." Lily rolled her eyes. "The nature of men..."
After the gasbag was connected to the huge vine basket with hemp ropes, the new generation of hot air balloon was officially accomplished. The size of the new hot air balloon was almost four times larger than the first generation hot air balloon. The new hot air balloon would be able to contain 10 people. The top of the balloon was equipped with shade shed which could be used to shield from the sunlight. Of course, there would be a hole in the shed so that Anna could replenish hot air to the balloon.
Roland named the hot air balloon the Cloud Gazer. After completing various tests on the vacant area in the yard, Roland launched the first flight of the Cloud Gazer on the next day. The participating members of this test flight were five witches including Anna, Wendy, etc. Prince Roland himself was also in it.
The test flight went smoothly. The witches were chitchatting during the flight and marveled at the incredible views in the air—compared to the observation from last time, the sightseeing trip this time obviously aroused everyone's interest. The Cloud Gazer moved to the south under the stable wind-force produced by Wendy. They reached the mountain ranges around noun, crossed the summit of the mountain that had a banner on it, and finally stopped at the coastline.
The Cloud Gazer flew around the shallow beach and took the group back to the castle. Roland noticed that Wendy, who was responsible for controlling the direction, kept rubbing her shoulder and looked quite exhausted.
Roland heard that women with big breasts were prone to have sore shoulders. It was said that lingeries were made to solve this problem. Although Roland had not testified this theory, it would worth a try. Besides, as growing, Anna's body would start to develop too. Roland decided to make a small gift for every grown-up witch.