Chapter 32 — Holy Church

The Holy Church was THE most influential and powerful organisation on the continent. They had countless believers in every country and their influence was unparalleled. However, their main leverage lied in their anti-demon abilities. Demons were their mortal enemies, and they had the most powerful and advanced counters against them. They could manufacture holy metals through secret means and their wizards specialised in purification magic which was rumoured to be granted directly from their God. The Demon Prince that Konrad's army encountered before only came through the rift because he didn't detect any holy magic. If he did, he would have been much more cautious. Currently, an Archbishop of the Church was being led by General Erwin on a tour through the Third Reich.

Shouts came from a house nearby and gunshots broke out. The secret police had just discovered a family hiding a family of demi-humans in their house. Whilst the anti-demihuman movement had been hugely successful throughout the country, there were still some demi-human sympathisers.

They didn't speak out for fear of being sent to the concentration camps, but many hid and sheltered demi-humans in their houses. Therefore, the secret police were tasked with finding and exterminating such people with the help of the People's Army. It was evident that that was what had just happened.

A small pool of blood flowed out from the front door of the house. Led by soldiers from the People's Army, a group of handcuffed demi-humans and humans were forcibly escorted into a steam car waiting outside. They would be sent straight to the camps.

[Excuse me, your holiness. Don't mind this scene]

A heavily armed convoy of steam trucks and tanks was moving through the streets of Canariel. They were escorting Archbishop Alexandra of the Holy Church, showing him the prosperity and power of the Third Reich and had just come from the industrial district into the residential areas.

[Mister Erwin, what I've seen has been very shocking! It's unbelievable that you managed to develop such a high level of technology in such a short time!]

From the sky, a small and inconspicuous ship flew down. With a hiss of steam, the cargo bay opened.

[What you've seen is nothing]

The Archbishop stepped into the ship with Erwin and it shot up to the sky.

[This is our latest small patrol ship, very cheap and easy to manufacture. However, it is nothing when compared to the pride of the fleet, the dreadnought]

Erwin gestured towards the clear sky as if expecting a dreadnought to be there.

The Archbishop was confused and looked around the windows of the ship. As a powerful magic user, he cast investigation spells but found nothing in the area.

[To my knowledge, the dreadnought is a humongous metal ship. If that is the case, why don't I see anything?]

[That's because. It's hidden]

A large patch of the sky suddenly flickered and pixelated. The blue patch of sky rapidly changed colour and texture and gave way to reveal a dreadnought in the sky. The giant metal monster hung high in the sky, menacingly casting a long shadow over the city.

[Impossible… Is that invisibility magic? But how is that possible?]

The dreadnought showed signs of being hidden with invisibility magic, but that had never been done before. The only way to achieve that effect would be with countless expensive magic arrays, but it wasn't just a matter of slapping them on a ship. It was much more complicated than that. You had to inscribe every inch, nook and cranny and have the different inscriptions all work in harmony with each other!

The array would have to be unbelievably complex and precise for it to even work at all, let alone work efficiently and be able to hide from the Archbishop's investigation magic. Grandmasters in magic arrays could spend their entire lives trying to inscribe an object dozens of metres wide, let alone a gigantic dreadnought which only got more complex the larger you went. The calculations were so complex that it was practically impossible!

However, this was in the context of trying to calculate it by hand. The Third Reich had the ultimate computing power of the modern world: supercomputers. Imputed with the exact schematics of the dreadnought and a simulation of magic rules, gigantic supercomputers had worked around the clock to calculate the most optimal array placement schematic and had resulted in a computer file with a size of multiple petabytes (1 petabytes=1000 terabytes).

It could be imagined why something of this scale and complexity had never been done or even attempted before. It would simply cost so many resources to do it by hand that you might as well just build more armies for a fraction of the price.

However, the result of completing such a project was evident. No country would feel safe with the knowledge that a deadly weapon of war, or an entire fleet could suddenly appear above their capital. The reason the Archbishop could learn of this secret was because it was being used right now, in a sneak attack on the Elsass Empire. The technology was going to be exposed anyway, so it might as well be used as a display of might.

This was also because the Third Reich had started adopting a slower and more stable growth. While their technology and weapons were powerful, they would still be crushed if the continent united against them, let alone what other threats and otherworlders might exist. Instead, Konrad wanted to sufficiently grow his country and become a superpower before challenging the world. The Empires of the continent were warily watching this emerging power, and if Konrad started indiscriminately waging war, they would instantly unite against him.

However, if he didn't show too much aggression, they would make concession after concession as none of them were willing to be the first to start a war until it was absolutely necessary. Even if they knew it would harm them in the long run, none were willing to be the first to jump out. They were like frogs slowly being boiled in the water.

But still, even if they were deterred by his force, they still greatly desired the technology Konrad held. Soon, they would start making moves to obtain it. That was why Konrad planned to sell the WW1 era technology at extremely high prices to the Holy Church. Although they rarely participated in politics, the Holy Church held great influence and would become the Third Reich's strongest shield and closest ally.