Chapter 1070: The Glider (I)
They marched in a column along the pavement, heading south.
The road on this side of the enclosure was lined with red brick buildings — some complete, some mid-construction, scaffolding still climbing their outer walls. According to Finkin, the whole area had been coastal wasteland just a year ago. A few tree stumps, some scrub grass, and the Swirling Sea. The construction teams had turned it into what the trainees had taken to calling a city within a city.
It was walled. The hedge wasn’t tall — nothing imposing — but it was high enough to establish a boundary, and the warning sign left nothing to interpretation: No climbing. Offenders will be shot. The enclosure held dormitories, cafeterias, playgrounds, training rooms, and classrooms. The trainees lived entirely within it, cut off from the rest of Neverwinter — what their instructor called a closed system. Good had been here several weeks and still wasn’t certain where the outer edge of the hedge was. The permitted area was narrow: dormitories to playground, and nowhere else without explicit permission.
The training school itself had gone up in a year. Good had known Neverwinter was fast, but the pace of it still surprised him. He had watched a red bungalow on the south side of the playground go from foundations to occupied in a single week.
They passed through the playground and emerged — and the group broke apart into murmuring.
This was a restricted zone. None of them had been here before.
Open ground stretched ahead: a vast flat clearing under a wide sky, white clouds above and, farther on, the unbroken gray-blue line of the Swirling Sea. A cold wind came off the water and hit Good’s face, and he felt himself wake up in a way that the spinning chair never quite managed — as if the world had been holding its breath inside those brick walls and had only just remembered to breathe.
“Strange,” Hinds said. “I thought there would be something here. It’s just a clearing.”
He wasn’t wrong. Aside from the wide blackstone tracks — broader than Kingdom Main Street, running east to west — there was nothing to see.
“Maybe they kept it restricted so we wouldn’t fall into the sea,” Finkin said. “Though I think I’d pay better attention to lessons if the classroom was out here.”
“You don’t pay attention anyway,” someone said.
“Want to make it a bet? Exam grades, last session—”
“Look over there.” Good raised his chin. “Someone’s already here.”
The other training cohort was assembled on the far side of the clearing.
Everything in Good’s group went quiet.
They had not spoken to the other cohort. But they had heard about them constantly — from Eagle Face, from the other instructors, from casual mentions that were never quite casual. The other cohort completed every daily task and then asked for more. Some of them had kept sitting in the spinning chair even while vomiting. They were the comparison group, the implied standard, the invisible competitors who were apparently better at every subject and made Good’s cohort look like the wrong answer on an exam.
They had become rivals without exchanging a single word.
“Heads up,” someone said quietly. “Don’t let them see us fold.”
“Stare them down.”
They straightened. The other cohort was already watching. Both sides regarded each other with the cold mutual assessment of people who have been competing without knowing it — long-faced, tense, nothing like the model students they were rumored to be.
The tension held until the distance forced them apart.
Eagle Face stopped them at the blackstone track. “You stand here. You do not move from this position, regardless of what you see. His Majesty and Her Highness will both be present. Any movement that could be interpreted as a threat will be treated as one. You know what that means.”
“The king will be here?” someone said.
Is already here, Good corrected silently. The shed on the opposite side of the clearing was already ringed with First Army soldiers and police. That level of coverage wasn’t assembled for a drill.
The king regarded the Aerial Knights with genuine attention. Good found, to his own surprise, that this mattered to him.
He pushed Eagle Face’s anticipatory smirk out of his mind.
Inside the hangar, everything was different.
The first glider — the Seagull — was ready for her initial flight.
She was the first manned glider built after Tilly had mastered the test model, and she was larger in every dimension: wider wings, deeper fuselage, a frame covered in cured skins. She had portholes, proper seating, and an airtight door at the rear that opened from the inside. She was, without qualification, a real aircraft.
Traditional gliders were simple things — wooden frames, patched canvas, passenger supplements for heavier cargo craft. The Seagull was the opposite of that tradition. Her primary structure was aluminum alloy and high-tensile steel, with most major components integrally molded to minimize the joints where stress concentrated. The non-structural panels were honeycombed with small perforations to strip unnecessary weight. A magic coating sealed every surface against pressure differentials. The belly was armored — not heavily, but enough: as long as the aircraft maintained stability on approach, the crew and passengers would survive a forced landing.
She was built to carry witches.
Since she would be Neverwinter’s only aircraft, Roland had built her to be absolutely safe.
“I’m boarding.” Anna pressed her lips to Roland’s cheek, light and brief. “See you tomorrow.”
“Stay safe. Don’t push yourself.” He had already said it several times. “If you encounter demons, protect yourself first.”
“I know.” She held his gaze with a patience that was not quite amusement. “You’ve said the same thing each time.”
“Please don’t worry.” Phyllis, the God’s Punishment Witch, said from nearby. Her voice carried the particular gravity of a person making a formal promise. “I will protect her.”
Roland let Anna go slowly. His hands found her shoulders and stayed there for a moment before he released her. “Off you go. I’ll be right here when you come back.”
The First Army had built an airport at the edge of Misty Forest, where the railways curved. There was no other way to move people and materiel five hundred kilometers in a single day — not without Maggie, and Maggie could not carry twenty passengers. The Seagull could: eighteen passengers plus Tilly as primary pilot and Wendy operating the airflow. Alternatively, the seats could be removed and she could carry a thousand kilograms of cargo. At two hundred miles per hour — which Wendy considered a conservative speed — she could complete two full round trips between Neverwinter and the front line within a day.
She was the fastest thing in the world.
Roland watched Anna walk up the ramp.
He had let half of Neverwinter’s witches onto a single new aircraft headed for a front five hundred kilometers away, and he was staying behind.
He watched until the door closed.
Chapter 1070: The Glider (I)
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN They filed out of the training room and marched along the pavement toward the south.
There were brand new red brick houses along the road, some were just completed and some were half-done. According to Finkin, it had been a coastal wasteland here just a year ago, with nothing but a few tree trunks here and there. Now, the construction team had turned this place into a “city within a city”.
The city was walled. Although the hedge was not high, it was tall enough to set a boundary between the city and the rest of the world. A warning sign which read “No climbing. Offenders will be shot down” was hung on the wall, keeping those who attempted to climb over the hedge away from this area.
There were several dormitories, cafeterias, playgrounds, training rooms and classrooms in this enclosure. It had actually taken Good a full day to completely understand what those weird words meant. In short, they lived and studied in here, cut off from contact with the outside world, leading an exclusive lifestyle which their instructor referred to as a “closed system”.
The enclosure was pretty big. Good had been here for several weeks, but he still did not know where the edge of the hedge was. One of the reasons for this was that the trainees were confined within the area between their dormitories and the playground. They were forbidden to go anywhere else unless given special permission.
It should be noted that the construction of the school had been completed within just a year.
Good had known a long time ago that Neverwinter was famous for its monstrous speed of building houses. However, he had no idea how fast it
actually was until he moved to the “city within a city” in the Western Region this winter.
It had only taken them one week to complete a red bungalow on the south side of the playground.
Compared to other cities, the work efficiency here was phenomenal.
After they crossed the playground, the group suddenly erupted into a loud murmur.
This was a restricted area normally forbidden to the students.
For the first time, they saw what this area looked like. Their view was filled with nothing but a vast open field. All they could see was the blue sky above dotted with puffs of white clouds. A short way farther on, they saw the endless Swirling Sea. A cold sea breeze brushed upon Good’s cheeks, instantly reviving his spirit.
Used to the familiar view of dense red brick houses, Good felt the whole world instantly expand in front of him.
“Strange… I thought there would be something marvelous here,” Hinds mumbled. “Isn’t it just a clearing?”
He was right. It was a clearing with nothing but a few blackstone tracks, wider than the main street in Neverwinter, which stretched away to the east and west.
No wonder Hinds did not understand why it was a restricted area.
“Probably because they feared we’d be too absorbed in this beautiful view to pay attention to the road underneath and fall into the sea.” Finkin grinned. “But I think I’ll be more willing to learn if our classroom is here.”
“But you have no desire to learn at all in the first place,” someone jested.
“Hey, do you want to make a bet?” Finkin stared back. “Let’s see who had a higher grade in the past exam?”
“Drop it. Look over there!” Good raised his brows. “Someone’s already here.”
“They’re from the other class…” At these words, the whole group fell silent. Although they had not talked to the other class, they had heard a lot about them from their instructor, who constantly spoke highly of their performances. They not only completed all the tasks assigned to them during the day but also requested for more in the evening. Some of them insisted on sitting in the chair even though they had vomit all over. They were the so-called top students who simply beat them in every subject, making them look like a bunch of dunces.
They thus automatically viewed the students from the other class as their rivals.
“Raise your head.”
“Stare right into their eyes. We don’t want to lose to them!”
They started to encourage each other.
Meanwhile, the other group of students looked just as intense as them.
Sensing the glares, those students all gazed at them coldly, long-faced, looking nothing like model students.
The tension between the two groups was not reduced until they had parted.
“Alright, you all wait here,” Eagle Face bellowed as he stopped at the blackstone track. “Remember, you’re not allowed to leave your spot no matter what you see. Both His Majesty and Her Highness will be here. Any frivolous action would be viewed as a potential danger, and you know very well its consequence.”
“The king… will come as well?”
“No, he should be here already,” thought Good, as he noticed the shed on the other side of the clearing had been surrounded by soldiers from the First
Army and the police. Apparently, only the presence of the King of Graycastle would require such seamless security.
It seemed that the king did highly regard the Aerial Knights.
Good started to look forward to the unfolding of the event.
For a second, he put Eagle Face’s meaningful sneer out of his mind.
…
In the hangar, there was completely a different scene.
The first glider, the “Seagull” was ready for her virgin trip.
This was also the very first manned glider after Tilly learned how to operate the testing gilder. Compared to the testing glider, this one was larger with wider and thicker wings. The frame of the glider was covered with skins. It was equipped with various supplementary facilities such as portholes, chairs, an airtight door that could be opened from the back, etc. In short, the “Seagull” was a real plane.
The traditional gliders in modern society were used as a supplementary transportation tool to cargo aircrafts. They were made of low-quality materials such as wooden frames and holey canvas. However, the “Seagull” was the exact opposite of her shabby predecessors. It was made of aaluminumalloys and steels with high tensile strength. Most of her major parts were integrally molded, with minimal bolts and welding. As for the non-structural parts, there were numerous small holes in it to minimize the weight of the aircraft. The magic coating ensured no gas would leak upon a huge air pressure difference. The bottom of the aircraft was armored for force landing purposes. As long as the plane maintained its stability, the armor would protect the crew and passengers from injuries even if the plane crashed.
The glider would be used to carry witches.
As the “Seagull” would be the only plane in Neverwinter, Roland had to make sure it was absolutely safe.
“Well then… I’m boarding.” Anna pressed a gentle kiss to Roland’s cheek. “See you tomorrow.”
“Stay safe. Don’t force yourself,” Roland reminded her. “If you encounter the demons, remember to protect yourself.”
Anna smiled. “I know. You’ve said the same thing to me over and over again.”
“Please don’t worry. I’ll protect her,” said Phyllis, the God’s Punishment Witch, solemnly.
Roland let Anna go reluctantly. After quite a while, he disengaged Anna and nodded slowly. “Off you go. I’ll wait for you right here.”
The First Army had actually built an airport at the edge of the forest, where the railways took a turn. Since there was no transportation tool that could complete a trip of over 500 miles within one day except Maggie, Roland had to invent a glider as an alternative.
The “Seagull” could carry 20 people at most. So, other than the pilots Tilly and Wendy, it could take 18 additional passengers in total, or cargo of 1,000 kilograms (when the chairs were removed). The speed of the glider depended on Wendy’s magic power. Even if it flew at a “low” speed of 200 miles an hour, it could at least complete two round trips between Neverwinter and the front within a day, which was the fastest they could achieve at present.