How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 1

“Exactly…Now, then.” I gave a big yawn and closed my eyes. “Let me sleep for a bit. When I wake up, we’ll go to the planned site for the new city together. Ludwin and his men are probably already there getting started… I need to go see them…”

“Okay.” She nodded. “Sleep tight, Souma.”

“Yeah, good nigh…?!”

There was a soft, warm sensation on my right cheek. I opened my eyes in shock, but Liscia was already gone.

Oh… A goodnight kiss… Th-That’s what it was, right? They’re not that uncommon in other countries, right? Yeah, it’s fine, it’s totally normal. Nothing special about it. Liscia did it casually, I’ll bet. There shouldn’t be any deeper meaning to it. Probably. I’m sure.

…In the end, I never did manage to get to sleep.

Do you remember how before, when I talked about how the technology of this country was all messed up, I mentioned that there were steel battleships, only they were drawn by massive sea dragons? When Liscia and I arrived at the planned site for the new city, we were greeted by one of those steel battleships.

Battleship Albert.

Bearing the name of the former king, it was the sole battleship in the possession of the Forbidden Army, and the flagship of the Royal Navy.

Its shape was similar to the Mikasa, which was the flagship of the Combined Fleet at the time of the Battle of Tsushima. There were two main batteries, one each at the fore and aft, for a total of four guns, with auxiliary guns along the sides, although the main batteries and auxiliary guns were all loaded onto the vessel, not fixed artillery. Also, because it wasn’t loaded with an internal combustion engine, the lack of a smokestack was another difference between the two.

It’s power source was a sea dragon. (These looked like plesiosaurs, but with short, thick necks and goat-like horns.) With a giant sea dragon pulling it, this battleship could run through the water. For an ordinary ship, one dragon was enough, but this ship was a two-dragon model.

Now seems like a good time, so let me explain about some of the imbalances in this country’s technology.

You might find it strange that a country which hadn’t even reached the industrial revolution had these sorts of near-modern warships. However, thanks to this world’s magic and mysterious creatures, they were able to do things they otherwise couldn’t.

Even if something is made of iron, if it’s been built with the proper calculations for buoyancy, it can be made to float. In other words, the outer frame of a battleship can be built even with Middle Ages technology. The reason they hadn’t been built until after the industrial revolution was because the engines that would be needed to move them didn’t exist. In an era where your only means of propelling a boat are catching the wind with sails or rowing with oars, an iron ship wouldn’t be able to do anything but float there.

However, in this world, there were powerful sea dragons that were strong enough to tow an iron ship. By training them to pull the ships, ocean navigation became possible. That was why iron ships were built.

It was the same for the large cannons aboard the battleship.

This world already had gunpowder. Now, that in and of itself wasn’t strange. Even on Earth, there are traces of gunpowder having been used that predate the appearance of black powder, which was one of China’s three great inventions. In the second century, during the time of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the general defending Chencang used an explosive weapon (something like a firecracker) to pulverize the invading army led by Zhuge Liang’s weapons.

However, in this world, there were no arquebuses.

Because they had magic for their long-range attacks, they had never developed firearms. Earth mages could fire off stones like a machine gun, fire mages could drop attacks that were like napalm bombs, wind mages could launch a vacuum slash from incredible range, while water mages could, at shorter range, penetrate obstacles with water pressure.

Furthermore, there were what were called “attachable spells.” By attaching spells with various effects to an object, it could be made stronger or able to cut better. Because of these, weapons with higher mass, which could have more spells embedded in them, tended to be more powerful.

Thus, an arrow was stronger than a bullet, a spear stronger than an arrow. To explain further, with a bullet’s small mass, even if you embedded an attack spell in it, it couldn’t pierce a suit of plated armor with a defensive spell embedded in it. It could be said that this was why they’d never developed guns.

However, while they didn’t have rifles, they did have cannons.