I was back in the mansion with Zidane as he told me we had to return now, due to him having to do his daily training routine. And also because a full supper had been served for all of us to have breakfast. It was now eight o'clock in the morning and a few hours had passed since the meeting with Lorenzo. I still had to purchase a change of clothes for later but the issue was money. And quite frankly, I didn’t want to just ask Nora for it.
And also, being supervised just to go shopping was even more annoying. The more I stayed, the more like a prison it felt. And I couldn’t just wait every day for Zidane to finish his duties because I had to at least be at that workshop with Lorenzo for a few days to get the rocket launcher finished.
Nonetheless, breakfast had been served in a hall with a long brown table situated in the middle. Glossy walls, flags of Vollaria hanging down and Nora already seated in the centre. Laura slowly handed out the dishes and stood over to Nora’s right, a little back. Rumena had already taken her seat with me standing at the entrance. “You may enter,” Nora said as if waiting for me to come.
Rumena had already begun to dig in, filling her plate with what seemed to be bread and meat drenched in a dark orange soup. Everything was laid out like a platter with fruits, vegetables, bread, meat and chicken. It almost seemed like this was more of a lunch meal.
“Also Laura, you should eat with us, I tell you this all the time,” Nora said, looking back at her.
“As you wish,” she said with a slight bow.
“You can speak without the formalities. It’s just us after all.”
Laura waved her hand with an awkward smile, “No, no. I could never.”
“Well, whatever suits you best,” she replied.
And so I took a seat beside Laura on the left side glancing over at all the options I had.
“There’s an option of fine meats and chicken, since I have two fighting forces on my team, I would need them to eat healthy and good.”
“Why doesn’t Zidane eat with us?” I questioned to which Rumena replied, holding a large bone in her hand, “He has a strict training routine at this time every day. And it lasts for a good few hours.”
“What could he possibly be doing for that long?” I asked.“He begins with strength training, then mastering the art of the sword, and then meditating,” Nora added on. She slightly stood up to reach over the table to which Laura immediately shot up.
“No no Laura, it’s fine. I told you,” Nora said gently, tenderly brushing away Laura’s hand, “I can get it myself. I told you, on this table, we are all the same.”
“Sorry,” she replied bashfully and sat back down.
“There is no need to apologise,” Nora said as she picked out some bread, and slid over some stew.
“Why don’t you take anything Axure?” She asked. And without responding, not knowing what to get, I just copied her as Laura quietly brought some fruits to dive into.
“Princess,” Rumena began to say as she ate, “The Aylanists, they’re on the move again clearly.”
“Yes, although their goal is always ambiguous. It is as if they move with no purpose yet have one at the same time.”
“I believe we may need to move around the country with more protection, Princess,” Laura said.
“Perhaps, but then again, we could just be attracting unwanted attention. I don’t want to start a sudden war and have dozens of soldiers killed.”“Well, we can get them all in one go!” Rumena added on.
“Maybe so…” Nora muttered as she faded into thought. I could never tell what that woman was thinking but whatever it was, I wanted nothing to do with her or the Aylanists. It was clear to me that she had a target on her back and so my new escape plan had to be initiated soon.
“What do you think, Axure?” She turned her attention toward me.
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re right about attracting too much attention,” I replied.
Yeah. Don’t take any protection and get killed off please.
“Why don’t we take a Reaper with us?” Laura asked.
“Nah, not happening,” Rumena blurted.
“What about Angel Historia?” Laura asked again.
“The issue with people like Angel and other Reapers alike are of two things,” Nora began to explain, “Number one being that a Reaper is situated in every city. Moreso, not to just fight off petty crime in the cities, that’s the guards and police forces job. Reapers are there to protect cities from crises and major attacks. So if a reaper leaves, then that leaves an opening for whomever, whether it’s Aylanists or terrorists and even monsters alike.”
“I see…” Laura said, dropping her head down in disappointment.
“What about the second?” I asked.
“That being Reapers are hard to manage,” she answered uncomfortably.
“Meaning?”
“You see, Reapers are at the top of the food chain in this country. And they’re employed by the Royal family and government alike. But they are very special exceptions. Firstly, they get an abundance of wealth and a great place to stay within their respective cities. Secondly, they all quite literally live on their own terms. Other than the orders to protect their cities, we cannot order them to do whatever else we want.” She spoke as she lifted her fingers one by one.
“But why?” I asked.
“Oh God, you ask a lot of questions don’t you?” Rumena cut in.
“No worries,” Nora responded as she continued, “As I said, they are powerful. Very much so. And if they were to defy us, then we’d have a national problem on our hands. Say they were to suddenly wreak havoc, who’s to stop them? Another Reaper, yes maybe. But if that one is killed in battle, then what? How many soldiers, airborne Razorbacks, cities and civilians will have to be sacrificed in order to stop one individual?”
The way she spoke… sent shivers down my spine. There were individuals that strong in this world.
Angel Historia. That man was a Reaper. A man who could parry bullets. A man who could topple the country upside down with his sheer strength alone.
“And the last problem, if that were to happen and a civil war broke out in our country just because of one Reaper, then that would leave a huge opening for the Novarion Empire. Ever since the war happened fifty years ago, things have still been tense ever since.”
My meal had been done and I retreated back to my room. So apparently, royals actually did things with their days, actually having important matters to tend to. And since there was no singular ruler of the country, work had been split up across the eighteen royals.
Different sectors and issues of the country they had to oversee. And Nora, had picked up on health and social care.
Sylvia on the other hand, worked on economics and finance.
The royals worked together with the government, reporting their findings, new implementations and general analytics reported by nobles and aristocrats from all over the country.
“People heavily tied to my sector, send over their issues, new projects or findings. The list goes on. Whether someone wants to build a new hospital, implement new practices or is struggling with financial issues, it comes over to me. And so I will handle some of the work, while handing over the financial side to Sylvia. That’s how the royal family works.”
“So what does the government even do?” I asked.
“They oversee the full thing together. Once everything is processed from all different sectors, reports from each royal family member are sent in for the government to finalise it, and if something isn’t working or needs compromise, we have conversations on how to move forward. The government is also responsible for collecting tax off of citizens and other tasks.”
“It must be a long wait for hundreds of reports to even get to you.”
“No. Not necessarily. With Skypost, these gorgeous birds travel at incredible speed, delivering letters to one another. It’s mainly aristocrats or government officials that are able to afford one. But you do sometimes see people living far from the capital having one too.”
The conversation with Nora had enlightened me a lot about how the country worked, and in a sense, it was brilliant to me how there was actually structure behind Vollaria. In a sense, they had many primitive values and practices, but at the same time, adopted many modern day practices. It could be fair to say, if they hadn’t had Mylan, they could have advanced in technology like humans.
But that wasn’t the reason I asked Nora about any of this. It was mainly because I wanted to memorise what everyone got up to on their day to day basis. I stayed back in the mansion today, for the full day in fact, just to observe what everyone was doing at each time. And after three days, I had observed a few things. Zidane always began training at 8:00AM sharp and finished at around eleven. Nora woke up around seven, got ready to present herself well and began breakfast with everyone at around the same time: 8AM. And after that, she began to focus on work, dealing with piles of paperwork and whatever nonsense she had to do.
Laura, being a maid, focused on helping Nora with her duties and mostly stayed by her side throughout the day. And when Nora did not need her, she would go on to assist the maids of this household with regular chores like cleaning.
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Rumena began her training at randomised times, and they didn’t usually last long but one thing about her was that I did not need to focus on her much. Because I knew the location in which she trained and that was the garden of the Mansion whereas Zidane focused on the front lawn. And when he meditated, he went over to the garden, and sat under a dome in silence for about an hour.
Over these past three days, I had conversed with the guards and the maids alike, trying to befriend them as much as I could. It was far harder with the guards, however, when they changed over, they usually turned off their stone cold act and became regular people. And that was when I mainly conversed with them since they were off shift. And due to them working in the mansion for most of their days, they actually slept inside the other rooms too.
I had been conversing with Laura quite a lot recently over these past few days, and in all honesty, she was genuinely the only person here I actually didn’t mind. Conversing with her at times and helping her carry out her maidenly tasks, was something I did to eat away at my time.
And at the end of the day, every day, I had begun writing a recollection of my life since I had gotten here.
Quite literally a diary. When I was a startup in my entrepreneurial life, I enjoyed journaling the end of my day and with all these intense events of madness occurring over these past few weeks, this calmed my mind down.
But escaping now, could not begin yet. I had memorised each of the guards’ names, the maids’ names, their duties and roles. I had observed the guard switchovers, what times Nora was occupied and the time frame of freedom Zidane had given me. And now the first step to even dream of surviving in this world, was to begin making the rocket launcher.
Part Two
“Nora, is it possible for me to go into the city?” I asked as she paused her writings upon the desk.
“Oh? What for?” She asked.
“I have an idea of something I want to create.”
“Zidane is currently training-”
“Could I perhaps take someone else with me?”
She thought for a moment.
“You could take Laura with you. She doesn’t need to actually work much here, she is just a sweet girl that overworks herself regardless. I think she may find it interesting to watch what you do.”
“Perfect.”
Perfect yes, but something was a little odd. Laura wasn’t a combatant. Or maybe she was. I needed to consider that because why would Nora send someone weak to keep watch over me? I thought about it for a moment recollecting my memories of the farce with the Aylanists. Laura hadn’t been doing anything but that may have been due to me being there. It seemed Laura was indeed a sweet girl and perhaps she didn’t fight just to stand and protect me.
If so, I couldn’t just make a run for it while she was with me. Regardless, escape wasn’t the priority now.
Me and the golden haired maid made our way to the workshop, following the same route I had gone with Zidane and upon arriving, I instantly skipped the pleasantries and spread out a wide sheet on Lorenzo’s table. When Laura was around me, she seemed to drop her usual maidenly act and acted like a regular person. Much more friendly and that was due to the amount we conversed the past three days. I practically felt her breath on my back.
“Okay, Lorenzo. Here we have it.”
Lorenzo slowly inspected the blueprint. I didn’t need to recreate an exact RPG since that would require the intricate manufacturing from earth that I didn’t have. Instead, I needed to recreate its purpose.
“You see, with the projectile head I nee-”
“Okay, one second Mr Avante. You see, before just showing me such an odd drawing, would you mind explaining to me what this is?” Lorenzo cut in.
“You see, this machinery is able to launch these explosive projectiles at targets, allowing me to shoot explosions, in a sense. So once these projectiles here make contact with something, they will blow.” I pointed over to the head of the RPG, the actual ammunition.
“Hmm, that is incredible. But are you sure this will work?”
I grunted.
“Of course it will work,” I shot back.
“I shall take your word for it.”
But he pointed at the projectiles this time. “This won’t work.”
I flung my head back with annoyance as I heard a little snicker escape Laura, covering her mouth.
“Why?” I replied.
“Well, if you’re asking me to create a number of these, I can’t exactly make them all the same. Precision wise.”
Fuck. That was true. Earth has machinery to perfectly replicate these things; this darned country has none of it.
And so I revised the drawing. Again, and again. We thought, edited and conversed, numbers of times as Laura continued to watch from the side. We had a few days to work on this and I didn’t want to extend it in case Nora decided she had to go on some ridiculous new excavation. Right now, I had memorised everyone's routine and I did not want to re-do that whole process. For once, I understood my variables.
The first day, we needed to create the actual launcher which was quite simply a strong, straight tube. “I can recommend a few metals that could help with this,” Lorenzo said.
“Oh? And can you get them?”
“Immediately.”
After a good fifteen minutes of me and Laura conversing over odd topics, Lorenzo had returned with a load of them, stacked in his bag.
“I need something that can withstand high temperatures,” I stated.
“High temperatures?”
“You’re joking right.”
And after Laura had begun to let out a louder laugh than the last, I sat for the next fifteen minutes explaining to him ‘high temperatures’ were.
“Ooohhh. That makes so much sense!” Laura exclaimed with a finger in the air. Me and Lorenzo simultaneously turned our heads to her in shock.
Is she studying as well?
Nonetheless, Lorenzo had understood the concept and instantly narrowed down the metals to one. “This is Tinkar, it should most likely have what you’re looking for.”
Okay. I need to test its properties.
I began a number of tests but something stuck out to me which was an incredible find. This metal, Tinkar, has higher heat resistance than Tungsten on earth… This. This is incredible.
And so the hard work began and Lorenzo became my pair of skilled hands.
Day in, day out, me and Laura traversed the city, continuously making our way to the workshop and the mansion.
“So what are we making today Axure!” Laura exclaimed in excitement.
“We need to work on propulsion. Something that accelerates it without destroying the launcher.”
“Uhhhh, I don’t know what that means but okay!”
It was as if the moment she left the walls surrounding her, she left her usual act along with it. But it was refreshing.
“Lorenzo! You worked on what we spoke about yesterday?”
“Yeah, I got it done all night. This shit has not let me get any sleep. Not that I’m complaining though!”
“Good, because we got a lot more to do.”
A few days passed, and we finally managed to get our hands on the first prototype, laying atop the middle table. “My God. This looks incredible,” he muttered.
“That’s the power of science Lorenzo.”
“Science?” Laura questioned with her finger on her lips.
Jay, you would have loved to see this.
“Lorenzo, you got a location where we could test this? Gotta be an open field though. Preferably outside the city.”
“Hmmm, yeah. Got a good place, literally right outside.”
But I felt a pull on my jacket and I looked back to see Laura. “I think we should wait to go with Zidane this time.”
“No. I don’t want to hinder his duties and I don’t have much time. I want to get this done as soon as possible.”
And so Lorenzo had taken us through a much more unconventional route than I expected. For I thought that we would be exiting the city walls through the front gates but no, we travelled deeper into the slums until we reached the edge. And something stuck out to me. There were small, nearly invisible cracks crawling out from a small area and then Lorenzo suddenly kicked away some piled up rocks revealing a lever. And when he did, like a replication of the gate but far smaller, a tiny opening raised. Small enough for someone to crawl through.
“What is this?” I said in astonishment.
“I made this haha,” he proudly said, “You aren’t the only engineer. You see, those big front gates are a problem for so many people inside or out. So this way, people from the streets can smuggle in whatever they need. Or out. Why do you think the streets love me so much?”
Incredible.
Lorenzo ducked down, going on all fours and so I followed as we travelled through the rocky tunnel. The patchwork was amazing, he had really made it seem as if there was nothing there. I had only realised because I looked into the peculiar pattern of the small cracks.
And finally, we reached the grasslands giving me brief nostalgia of the moment I tested the dynamites. Except this time, it was day time.
The RPG was heavy however, and that was a big issue but it was something I couldn’t really change as of now. And right now, I only had one warhead to test it out with. Pulling off the RPG strapped to my back, I slumped it on my shoulder and took aim at the floor.
“Alright. Here goes nothing. Laura, Lorenzo, step back please.”
And once I heard their footsteps go back, I pulled the trigger and it soured perfectly like a bird, crashing into the ground with a great explosion.
Is what I would have said if the projectile even launched.
Nothing even fucking happened.
Fuck.
“Uhh, Axure?” Laura innocently said.
Back in the workshop, I began to look into why it had failed, ultimately identifying the problem being the propulsion.
The first thing we worked on.
Great.
The next day came, and so it was the same trio and the same scene. Prototype two.
I slumped it on my shoulder once again and took aim. I took in a deep breath, feeling the weight of my finger on the trigger. And so I pulled it.
Feeling the force of the launch, I watched the warhead fly into the air. But something was wrong. Horribly wrong.
“Woah, woah, WOAH!”
The warhead began to shake mid air, suddenly dancing in circles violently changing its course and what was worse, is that when it made impact with the ground.
Nothing happened.
“Uh… Mr Avante…” Lorenzo said with hesitation, realising my annoyance.
“Onto the next one!” Laura jumped up and said.
Onto the next one in fucking deed.
The projectile balance was off and the warhead wasn’t producing the explosion. It was time to get back to the drawing board. Five days had passed and I didn’t want this to extend any further. I had to fix all these mistakes in one go, summarising all the initial problems with the manufacturing and perfecting it.
The next day had come. After a day and night of Lorenzo slaving away and me bashing my brain together, we had come to the third prototype.
The same scene.
The same grasslands.
The same trio.
And this heavy RPG weighing down on my shoulder. I breathed in, the same exact practice I had been doing all this time. I closed my eyes, recollecting everything I had done to get here.
And then pulled the trigger.
A burst of smoke erupted out of the front as the warhead sprung out, soaring for a short moment forward.
It was straight. It was fucking straight!
Only travelling a short distance however, it nosedived into the floor but that moment it did, filled my heart with a feeling only an engineer could ever feel.
The eruption of flames and smoke with the shake of the floor, the booming echo filled my heart with joy. I watched the orange and grey sight with elation, burning it into my memory. I looked over at Lorenzo behind me, with a smile from ear to ear and widened eyes.
I locked onto him.
He stood there frozen, with a drop of sweat running down his forehead. He looked terrified.
But he also looked accomplished because just below, his fist balled up with excitement. I looked out to the field again, trying to hold in my excitement.
“Watch out, Vollaria. The British are coming.”