I Was Connected to Earth’s Black Market From Another World With The Skill [Market]! (WN)

Chapter 276

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Chapter 276 – Return to the Fort

In the faint moonlight, the ground-effect wing aircraft steadily gained distance while deftly avoiding obstacles. The autopilot mode created by the Casemaian engineering team, which I had heard was a good imitation, was quite excellent.

We had a relaxing time, taking a bite of our carry-on food and drinking mineral water. The Prince seemed less anxious after a light meal and some rest, and he and the twins became quiet in the backseat.

“Even in the worst case, the elves won’t be eaten. They just have to buy us time to escape.”

“We can manage that much.”

“If it comes to it, we’ll just go down to the sea and run quickly to the Hovercraft. We won’t die.”

Myrril’s optimistic comment made me reconsider my position. Well, we’ll make it somehow. But I’m scared.

“By the way, Rinko, can I fly this thing?”

“Yes. The controls are just the throttle, stick, and rudder pedals, so if you’ve played airplane games, you should be fine.”

“Gemu? What’s that?”

“Where I come from, we have a kind of play similar to this.”

I got the plane up to some altitude and turned off the autopilot, just to be sure. I tried to fly a little in the cockpit, and it wasn’t too difficult because the flight characteristics are extremely stability-oriented.

That’s true. It’s not like I’m doing combat maneuvers.

The hardest part of flying an airplane is takeoff and landing, especially landing, but in the case of a ground-effect wing, you just pull back on the throttle, and the plane lands quietly on the water.

“Prince and the others, would you like to try it?”

“”…Eh.””

“Are you sure?”

“I’d like to try it too.”

To wake up from their sleepiness, Myrril, the Prince, and the twins also tried a little bit of piloting. Surprisingly, Eyal was the one who took to the controls with enthusiasm and a twinkle in her eye. She seemed to have a great talent for wind magic, and when she piloted the plane, the speed increased rapidly even without opening the throttle. Old man Heimann’s eyes lit up as he looked at the gauges.

“Well, we’re at about five hundred and twenty ground speed now. If you put more magic power into reducing the drag, you can increase the speed a bit more.”

“Good, good, good. Then let’s try the speed of sound…”

“We won’t test it. Stop pushing the limits of speed just for fun.”

“””Tsk.”””

The Casemaian tech-geeks are not happy, but they should do that when there are no passengers on board.

By the way, Fel, one of the twins, has a high aptitude for water magic and healing magic, and although she tried to touch it at least once, she didn’t seem that interested in piloting it.

“Your Majesty, the Demon King, is this kind of tremendous technology produced in Casemaian on a daily basis?”

The Prince, who seemed to have an eye for new things that were unusual for an elf, watched with great interest. The old dwarves and Rinko puffed their chests and snickered at his words.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Oh. That place is a magic city now, in name as well as in reality. Skyscrapers with ‘elevators’ stand side by side, and autonomous golems patrol the streets for defense.”

“Today, magical devices are used for communication, lighting, heating, transportation, defense, manufacturing, entertainment, and every other aspect of daily life.”

“Hey… what are you going to do while we’re gone?”

“Because winters in Casemaian are so boring with all the snow. The only thing we have is a lot of magic cores from killing monsters to cultivating the Dark Forest.”

How much did they clear out? And how many monsters did they kill? I can’t speak for others, but it seems that everyone in Casemaian is having a pretty wild winter vacation.

“I hope you’re not going to cook up something dangerous out of boredom.”

“Don’t worry, Yoshua, we’ve decided not to make a ‘big open-air weapon.'”

“Of course not; if we slaughter more people, there will be no people left on the continent!”

“Yes, coming from the Demon King of Massacres, it sounds very realistic.”

“”Indeed.””

Rinko and the old men were horrified. When I looked back, the lord and the twins nodded their heads. I was not convinced, although Myrril-san just smiled.

“There’s a light ahead on the left… That must be a ship.”

Myrril-san, who was sitting in the navigator’s seat, told me the course of the ship and had Eyal in the cockpit to lower the altitude. My eyes still couldn’t see anything, but I was told it was a large sailing ship.

“What kind of ship?”

“I don’t see any markings.”

“If it is a large sailing ship, it must be a trading ship with the southern continent. We saw several of them when we came here.

If they are not hostile, we will pass through. I hope there are no problems, but I don’t have a bad feeling at the moment. I don’t think there are any weapons in this world that can reach the plane in flight.

“They’re not carrying any elf slaves or anything, are they?”

“”No sign of that.””

After a while, the large sailing ship came into view.

“Myrril, what do you see?”

“There is no sign of anything. There’s a lookout on the mast watching us, but they don’t seem to have any intention of attacking us.”

We pass high above and keep our course. I think I’ve been poisoned enough to think it’s rare that there’s no trouble.

“Prince, what’s the point of going back and forth for 7,000 kilometers through rough seas if you can’t expect to make a profit? What are they dealing with?”

“You mean besides the slaves?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. The people of Solbesia don’t have ships.”

I see. I’ve heard that they don’t even eat fish. If there were no fishing and no trade, they certainly wouldn’t need ships. If there were no large rivers in the area―or maybe there were originally, just because of desertification and lack of rainfall―water transport would not have developed either.

“As far as I know, the only place on the southern continent where shipbuilding thrives is in the Empire. I’ve heard that very few sailors return safely from the open sea, but if they survive, they bring back enough gold to live on for the rest of their lives.”

“I guess that’s about it.”

I had some idea that the purpose of the trade was cheap gold from the northern continent, but I could not get any specific information about the products of the southern continent.

“What kind of high-quality products are only available in the tropics?”

I asked, and Rinko nodded her head.

“By the standards of our former world, I can think of spices and perfumes. And coffee and cigarettes?”

“I’ve never seen anyone smoke. Coffee is distributed in the southern part of the kingdom, so it must be imported, but I have not heard the price. Is it expensive?”

“I don’t know.”

“Spices and herbs were used in cooking, but I didn’t get the sense that they were particularly valuable. Tomatoes… and similar tasting vegetables were used in cooking…”

“I don’t think it’s oil since there’s no internal combustion engine… Oh, and what about potatoes?”

“They are potatoes from Asia, right? However, similar root vegetables are already available in the Republic. Probably cheaper.” [T/n: Aren’t potatoes from South America? Correct me if I’m wrong.]

“If we’re talking about Asian trade, for example, silk fabrics… there were similar ones in Casemaian, right? 

What’s the rest?”

“Solbesia is famous for its horses, but you probably can’t transport them there.”

In the end, I could think of nothing. Sailors also risk their lives to cross the sea, and they bring back enough gold to play with for the rest of their lives, so I would think there would be some high-value-added product to go with it.

Perhaps because of the blessing of wind magic, the second half of the journey was quite a tailwind, and as the sky began to lighten, we could see the shadow of an island ahead of us. According to the map that Rinko and the others had created based on the information from the drone, we were only a few hundred kilometers from the coast of the northern continent. When we saw that the land was covered with snow, we realized that we were back on the northern continent.

“Yoshua and the others’ destination is southeast of the Republic, right?”

“Yes. It is about three miles off the east coast of the southern territories.”

“The area around the pirate fortress is an atoll, so we’d better go down there for a while.”

After landing the ground effect aircraft in a place where the waves were relatively calm, I set the Griffon down next to the plane. I opened the hatch and was greeted by bitterly cold air, unlike anything I’d experienced until yesterday.

“Ugh, it’s so cold!”

“Here are your coats, Prince and the others.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll be warm when we get back to the island, thanks to the currency of grace.”

“It’s cold up there, you know. We’re going to be on the sea for a while, so keep them on. You should put them on, too.”

“Yoshua, you’re like a mother.”

After transferring everyone to the Hovercraft through the short-range transition, I stowed the squid, started the engines, and headed for the pirate fortress. The distance is about a hundred kilometers or so.

“Wow, I’ve never been in a hovercraft before, but they’re surprisingly loud.”

“If it were only a matter of silence and speed, the Ekura no Puran might be superior. But it’s such a reliable vehicle that I don’t mind a little trouble. I don’t know how many lives have been saved thanks to the Hovercraft.”

“We are among them.”

Fell and Eyal nodded at the Prince’s words.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be mean. I’ve never been on one before, so I was just surprised by the sound.”

“But it’s actually quite a noise after all these years.”

Please clarify whether you want to raise it or lower it, Myrril-san. Well, it’s true that it’s loud. Of course, the conversation gets loud when you switch from a ground-effect plane that was mostly powered by magic and made almost nothing but turbine noise.

After an hour at sea, the island where the pirate fortress was located was easily recognizable even from a distance. This was because it was the only place on the snow-covered land where we could see a thick layer of green trees.

“”We’re back…””

“You’re all tired, aren’t you? When we get to the island, let’s build a fire and have a real meal.”

“I’m hungry for meat.”

“Good, meat. A hot pot would be good.”

Coming around from the southeast, we found a medium-sized ship anchored in the bay of the pirate fort, which was an inner bay. The red and white flag of the Southern Territories was visible.

“Is that a welcome for Lord McKin?”

“The Lord of the South himself is here… and perhaps that Lady Ecla as well?”

“Ecla, the ‘Witch of Sarz’ Myrril told me about earlier? Wow, I’ve never met her.”

I looked back at Myrril, ignoring the excitement of the clumsy saint, who seemed happy for some reason.

“I hope you’re not up to something again.”

“Is it something called a ‘flag’ or something?”

“Stop it…”

When I saw the figures gathered at the dock, I was already feeling a bit nervous.