Chapter 81 - More Revelation
Chapter 81 – More Revelation
Del and Andrew chatted for a while until an order came for Andrew. The order stated that Del must be wearing the sailor uniform during his time on the ship and he must work at the ship with Andrew as a supervisor.
"Well, I bet Cassandra is the one that gives the order, isn't she?" Del asked.
"Yeah, she made some adjustment to our captain, I bet," Andrew said.
"The captain of this ship has the same rank as Cassandra?" Del asked.
"Well, not really, Captain Gable is two ranks lower than our ship captain. But still, I think she can be a bit persuasive, but I really can't judge, this is the first time I met her, what are you expecting from me?" Andrew commented.
"Nothing, to be honest," Del smiled.
"Anyway, I usually spent my time patrolling the ship," Andrew said.
"Really, well, let's go then," Del said.
Andrew held Del back, "Wait, put on the uniform first, alright? I don't want any random person to restrict access to some essential areas of this ship to you, after all, I don't want to get in trouble to get a stranger to walk around the ship."
"What? Do you want me to change here?" Del asked.
"Yeah, why not? We're both men, don't you think? Well, on second thought, it might be a good idea for you to clean yourself first, there's a shower in this section, after all, I think it's not a good idea to get your new uniform sweaty and dirty. Besides, I get thirty minutes break," Andrew said.
Del left his helmet and his other belongings in the cabin. Del brought the uniform with him and Andrew led him to the shower section. Del took a quick shower to get the dirt and grime off his body. After that, he put on the sailor uniform that Andrew gave for him. It was not the best uniform around, but it was certainly something better than wearing dirty clothing.
"Damn, now you look like a sailor, anyway, I'm on the night shift, for the most part, our job is to pick up any scientist, to look around for any signal on the sky, and to guard the ship from any threat. It should be brief enough, I think. Anyway, I'm glad to have you onboard," Andrew explained.
"Sure, do we have any standard-issue weaponry or something?" Del asked.
"Standard-issue weaponry, huh? Maybe our grimoire is our standard-issue weaponry, but some of us are equipped with an optical rifle if you ask me," Andrew said.
"Optical rifle? What the hell is that? Cassandra never told me about that. Heck, she never ever said that she ever used a gun before," Del commented.
"Gun? Oh, I see," Andrew then laughed, "It looks like those two lied to you, or they don't want to tell their secret. We do have guns, but it's not exactly something that every single one of us uses. Still, Del, what's the big thing that you carry on your back, is that also a gun?"
"Yeah, more or less, but first, I want to hear your side of things first, your revelation shocked me," Del commented.
Andrew further laughed, "Hahahahahaha, well, all humans are like that, don't they? Well, to be honest, Ilbistirum always faced a rather unconventional threat in comparison to other kingdoms so we're pretty much always on high alert."
"How so?"
"You see, I am one of those people in Ilbistirum that would say that our technological advancement is because we are always under the threat of those ancient sites scattered around the country," Andrew further explained.
"Ah, I have entered that site before, it was very dangerous, wasn't it?" Del said.
"Are you lying?" Andrew asked.
"No, I am not," Del said.
Andrew stopped walking. He frowned when he looked at Del in disbelief. Maybe Del has forgotten that ancient sites still required a lot of demons to take over, but Del still managed to survive. It was simply something that Andrew never heard before.
"Out of all people, the one that survived entering an ancient site is a human?" Andrew commented.
"What's wrong with being a person that survived an ancient site?" Del asked.
"I don't know whether you are being ignorant right now, or simply don't know. Man, those robots, they literally rip and tear the strongest of demons," Andrew then showed Del a picture, it was in black and white, "This is one of the documentations that I could get when I was little, this is the Automata War. I bought this picture from a war museum."
The picture showed a bunch of dead bodies on the ground and there was one single entity that was still standing. The entity was mechanical. It had robotic arms, but it also looked pretty much humanoid. It was holding a rifle and the robot looked in the direction of the camera. Del believed that the photographer died taking that picture.
"Wow… I have no comment," Del said.
"Gruesome, isn't it? A battalion of battle-hardened soldiers got beaten down by a group of ten robots. We prefer to call it robots, but the real military designation for them is automata. So you can say them as automata," Andrew said.
"I see," Del nodded.
Andrew and Del headed back to their cabin. Del picked up his machine gun and carried it on his back. He wore his tactical rig, although Andrew said that it was unnecessary to carry that thing. Del refused to leave the machine gun there and saying that it was rather important if they were going to do a patrol on the ship.
"Dude, that thing is as big as heck," Andrew said.
"But hey, it still helps me in my fight against the automata," Del said.
Andrew sighed, "Fine, but please, be careful alright?"
"Don't worry, I will be very careful not to bump my machine gun into anyone," Del said.
"Good, now let's get out of this ship," Andrew said.
Del followed Andrew to the same door where he entered. The night breeze of the sea air hit their faces immediately. It was very cold. The sailor uniform protected him from the cold breeze of the night somehow. There were other sailors around the ship as well. Maybe there were around thirty of them on the top deck.
"These are the night shifts people, my group. We know each other, anyway, if you have any questions, just ask away, alright?" Andrew said.
"Sure," Del uttered.
They walked alongside the upper deck of the ship. Some of the crews were maintaining the ship cannons while the others were looking at the horizon. There were smaller turrets on the ship it seemed. The turret had a resemblance to a heavy machine gun turret on a ship.
"Don't tell me that's an…" Del muttered.
"Ah, that thing is an A3 Heavy Repeater, it shots a metal bolt at quick succession," Andrew explained. "It's very powerful, capable of penetrating even the heaviest of armor, it's too bad that it requires a lot of magical energy to operate."
"I see," Del observed that heavy repeater.
It looked like an M2 Browning, but instead of belts of bullets, it has belts of bolts. That bolts were feed into the heavy repeater. Del thought that it would propel the bolt at great velocity and destroy anything on its path. It was quite a genius invention.
"What? You haven't seen any heavy repeater before?" Andrew asked.
"Yeah, its working mechanism is weird for me," Del said.
"Well, I will explain it in a very simple term, the bolt moves into the gun, then magical energy propels it forward, is that clear enough?" Andrew asked.
Del nodded, then he realized something. There was simply no propellant in that gun and Del wouldn't think that it would be possible for someone such as Andrew to make a precision explosion inside of a gun barrel and Del really doubted that the energy of a fireball explosion would be enough to propel that bolt. It looked heavy. There was only one explanation about it.
"The energy manipulates the magnetic field in the gun barrel and it propels the bolt forward? Or does the heavy repeater is using a precision magical formation that is embedded in the repeater itself?" Del observed the heavy repeated.
"Damn, you are smart, yup, the latter is correct. The explosion will appear at the end of the gun and propel the bolt forward towards your target. However, the former is also not wrong since some of the heavier heavy repeaters do use magnetic field manipulation to fire," Andrew explained.
"Damn…" Del was speechless. Although it looked very conventional, the heavy repeater had the same mechanism as a combustion gun with the technology of a coil gun or a rail gun.. These were some high-tech bullshits. Who the hell did Ilbistirum have? Was there someone with tech knowledge there? If there was, who?