Otherworld Advance Team
Chapter 489 - 482: Arrival of the Airboat_1

Chapter 489: Chapter 482: Arrival of the Airboat_1

In the following days, Luo’er focused on recovering his health, awaiting the arrival of the headquarters’ airship. His unintentional remarks last time seemed to have deeply hurt Nina. Although they had finally reunited as mother and son, Nina hid in the palace and refused to see anyone, even Luo’er.

During this time, Tangmo and Baiyue were the ones going in and out of the palace and relaying messages. To them, this was a golden opportunity that landed in their laps. They didn’t feel burdened at all and, in fact, fought over who got to do it.

According to them, Nina’s mental state was fragile, so she couldn’t face Luo’er. Because Luo’er reminded her so much of Luo Chuan, she could spiral into an emotional torrent at the slightest trigger. Luo’er understood her reasoning. After all, his own father had been absent for over two decades, so he was already used to a life without him.

But Nina was different. She had only learned of Luo Chuan’s death in the past few days. The happy memories of the past were frozen in time, and the eternal longing for a family reunion was extinguished forever. The blow was hard and real for her.

In his recovering days, Luo’er listened to Cheng Ziang’s report. He learned for the first time all that had transpired, and what surprised him most was the revelation about Nina’s identity.

He had initially thought Nina was just an ordinary Wood Elf, but who would have expected her to be the only daughter of the reigning queen and a highly likely successor to the throne of Ilanadale. This sudden promotion was overwhelming.

To save Luo’er, Cheng Ziang had taken advantage of this fact and deceived both the headquarters and the Divine Wood Down, putting Luo’er on the front line of their cooperative relationship, leaving him with no way of escape.

Although the queen was still unwilling to acknowledge his identity, to put it bluntly, even if she did, Luo’er wasn’t sure he would accept her.

As of now, the only ones Luo’er considered as family were probably Nina, Luo Qishan, and the "adopted" sister who always managed to anger him. Even if the queen recognized Luo’er, he might not consider her his own grandmother.

His attitude towards kinship has always been absolute; he never blurred the lines. In his relationship with Luo Qishan, for instance, although they mistrusted each other, they still cared for one another. The hatred Luo’er held for Luo Qishan was paralleled by an equal measure of love.

As for Cheng Ziang’s reckless actions, Luo’er felt helpless. After all, everything Cheng Ziang did was for Luo’er’s survival. Although the sudden arrival of a large group of adopted family members was hard for him to get used to.

His current biggest concern was the reactions of the headquarters personnel. Despite knowing Luo’er’s ties with Ilanadale, how could they resist exploiting the situation?

What Luo’er feared most was that the headquarters would disband their advance team because of his supposed ’prince’ status. He doubted the people at the headquarters would let him continue adventuring. Although Wang Xu held a certain amount of power within the group, Luo’er was still worried that things would go out of control.

He had already made up his mind that if the headquarters forcibly disbanded the advance team and called them back to Earth, he would take his team members, mother, and sister, and stay in the Otherworld permanently. This would force a compromise out of the headquarters.

However, for now, Luo’er felt rather secure about his current situation. The one making the direct decisions at the headquarters was Lin Wei. Although Luo’er didn’t quite understand Lin Wei, he had a gut feeling that Lin Wei would side with him.

In the following days, the priests continued to monitor Luo’er’s condition. Their treatment was a huge success, not only healing Luo’er’s fatal injuries but also alleviating his long-standing Magic Power Erosion.

The current Luo’er was no longer the weakling who couldn’t even handle level one magic. Thanks to the priests’ treatment, Luo’er had essentially recovered his ability to use level two magic. According to the priests, his recuperation was due to his Wood Elf heritage; otherwise, he might have been limited to level one magic.

Even though his magic qualifications had dropped a level compared with before, he himself didn’t mind at all. After all, as a rifleman in the Advance Team, his main weapon was a rifle. In the one and a half years he had spent in the Otherworld, he had only used magic for combat a handful of times.

In the next few days, Luo’er had another quarrel with Luoya. Cheng Ziang even thought that the two siblings must have been enemies in their past lives as every meeting ended in an argument. Luo’er, a gentle person otherwise, could never hold back when faced with Luoya and always ended up scolding her.

With all the back-and-forths, Cheng Ziang has become a messenger between the two, leaving him amused and exasperated.

The day of the airship’s arrival finally arrived. The day before, the airship had forwarded information reporting their current location. By then, the airship had already entered the airspace of Ilanadale.

The nobles and queen of Divine Wood Town, as well as the advance team, had come early to the open space outside the town, ready to guide the airship to its berth.

Although the airships of the Otherworld are equipped with anti-gravity devices, they can only land on water. Due to the inferior materials science of the High-peak dwarves, the bottom of the airship is unable to support the weight of the ship body, and must rely on water to alleviate the weight.

Once the airship lands, the engine must be turned off, which means deactivating the anti-gravity furnace. As a result, all of the airship’s weight is borne by the ship bottom. This issue is not a big problem for Earth, but it is a significant issue for the Otherworld.

Especially when carrying cargo, the weight of a large amount of cargo can easily break the bottom. So after long-term research, the High-peak people came up with this compromise solution.

The river outside of Divine Wood Town is the best choice for the airship landing. Here, far from the shade of the giant trees, the dense leaves won’t obstruct the view.

Not long after they arrived outside the town, the roaring sound of the propeller came from the distance, and a massive airship appeared in the sky. This airship uses steam-powered propellers and is at least twice as large as the one they rode the first time.

Baiyue has studied the High-peak people’s airship categorization and according to her, this is a converted military airship. For convenience, the High-peak people generally only research one model of airship, converting it to military use with weapons for an airship and to civilian use by retrofitting it into a civilian airship. The airship approaching them is said to be one level lower than the High-peak people’s current High-peak class airship.

Of course, some question if the High-peak people aren’t afraid that others will manage to master their military airship structure and then reproduce one themselves. The answer is not at all, as throughout the entire Otherworld continent, no other country or race besides the High-peak people has successfully researched airship technology.

So even if they let others copy openly, others may not necessarily figure it out. That is what the High-peak people are proud of.

Of course, it needs to be mentioned that the military-to-civilian converted airships are only for use by Ronisca merchants. Foreigners, or other countries wanting airships, can only place orders for custom builds. It’s impossible to merely take a military airship, convert it to civilian use, and then sell it.

The airship they rode last time was a typical custom build, not a military conversion, and its owner was actually a businessman from Yazhi City.

Generally speaking, Ronisca merchants would not rent out their airships, but the headquarters is an exception. After all, the two sides have cooperated for over three decades, and they do have mutual trust. The airship brought by headquarters this time was rented directly from a Ronisca merchant.

This is an enormous airship, with four propellers on both sides of the ship, humming loudly. Two large chimneys spewing black smoke, and a pipe in the front issuing a torrent of steam.

Clearly converted from a military model, the airship still has many firing ports for ground weapons. Some ports have already been fitted with large-caliber machine guns used to threaten and disperse ground enemies.

The airships of the Otherworld bear no resemblance to those in Earth’s traditional imagination, which generally use hydrogen or helium gases as lifting gases and are shaped long and slim. In contrast, the Otherworld’s airships are bona fide aerial warships.

How to describe these airships? It’s like separating the top and bottom halves of a battleship and then sticking two top halves together. However, because airships need to berth on the water, the bottom is often designed like a traditional ship structure to be used as a naval warship when unable to fly.

But notably, as the combat philosophy has changed, this approach has gradually changed. The High-peak people’s latest warship, the High-peak class airship, has canceled this dual-purpose water-air design and has entirely moved to a design for air use only.