CH 5: Airship Ahoy!

I nodded in agreement. "Right you are, both of you. I guess its a good thing then that I happen to know the world's best shipbuilder, eh Luxion?"

His red eye glowed menacingly. "Of course master, leave the preparations to me."

Luxion remained quiet for a few seconds before his sub-body projected a 3D holographic ship in front off us.

"I believe this design should meet all of your needs, master."

The ship was shaped like a massive triangular submarine, with over fifty anti-air rotary cannons, several titanic energy cannons, and a fuckload of missiles. The damn thing was over 700M (2296.6 ft) long, 200M (656.16 ft) wide, and massed a crispy 375,000 metric tons (41336.67 short tons).It was a beast of a ship that literally out-massed four Nimitz-class class nuclear aircraft carriers and packing enough firepower to level the kingdom...twice. It was also filled with every amenity imaginable, from luxurious sleeping quarters, to an integrated bathhouse, and even it's own casino. 

Irisdina's eyes widened in shock at the size of it. Beatrix just wolf whistled with a glint in her eyes that had me worried, considering her love of militaristic police states. I thought that was way to luxurious for a warship, but what do I know.

"I trust that it meets your expectations master?" Luxion said, sounding very pleased with himself.

I looked at him like he was crazy, "its fucking huge!"

On the other hand, Serena had no obvious reactions to the flying titan. She shrugged, "for a pre-spacefaring culture its not bad, but I've seen better." Right, Serena has seen entire star systems turned into amusement parks, so an airship like this wouldn't impress her much.

Luxion snapped towards her, red I glowing menacingly. "I'm sorry mistress Serena that I am unable to match the technological capabilities of an interstellar nation with millennia of experience in starship construction. I will reflect on my shortcomings, while you construct a superior vessel."

Serena was taken back a bit after Luxion's biting comment. I struggled to hold back my laughter. Dudes funny as hell.

Beatrix snickered, "good job pissing off ze killer varship Frau Holz. Keep making friends like zat und ve von't need enemies."

"You could've said zat a vittle more diplomatically Serena." Irisdina admonished her with a small smile, amused by the noble woman's plight.

Serena's face turned red before taking a step back and breathing deeply. "I apologize Luxion. It was not my intention to insult you, I am simply used to large warships capable of traveling a dozen lightyears a days."

Luxion's sub-unit lens pulsed with light. "Very well, as you are one of master mates, I shall forgive you." Serena's cheeks turned light red, trying to suppress her embarrassment. Didn't stop her from stepping closer to me and grabbing my arm, with a small smile. Luxion turned his gaze from Serena to myself. "Master, may I begin construction of the vessel?"

"Don't get me wrong partner, its a hell of a ship...but its complete overkill. Not only would it be an unnecessary burden on our limited material stores, but it wouldn't fit in most docks. Besides, how long would it take to build something like this?"

"One-hundred and twenty-four day to complete."

"That's pretty fast, but still not fast enough. I'll become an adult in a month-and-a-half, at which point I have to present the ship to the adventurers guild BEFORE we start pirate hunting. If I don't, the palace will charge me with fraud and have legal right to seize the vessel, which would cause some serious complications. Besides I ship off to the academy in only seven months, three months isn't enough time to establish ourselves. I'm sorry bud, but we can't be spending that much time on a single ship."

Luxion looked at me unflinching, though I could tell he was a little mad. At that point I was really glad that Luxion was already considered captured, and thus stamped. Its thanks to said stamp that I didn't have to worry if he would betray me, despite the amount of work that I was going to dump on him..

"Frankly we don't need that large of a vessel, just one big enough to be notable. I'm thinking somewhere between 300-350m (984.25-1148.29 ft) long, and a little less than 100,000 metric tons (110231.13 short tons). The biggest things we need are a fully function internal factory, and a hanger big enough for our personal knight armors plus a couple of dropship for boarding operations. The rest of the ship can be pretty barebones for now as we can use the internal factory to upgrade the ship as we go. That way we we free up your impressive production capabilities for everything else that we will need you to build."

His sub-unit dimmed for a fraction of a second before returning to its normal color. "Very well then. I don't believe this to be the most logical option; however, I admit that there is some logic to your thought process. What additional facilities do you deem necessary master?"

Despite his monotonous speech, I could tell that he didn't hate the idea. I turned towards the girls, seeing as they would have a better idea of what we would need. "Is there anything you ladies think we need?"

Irisdina was first to speak. "Comfortable crew quarters, a recreational facility, a medical facility, und training simulators."

"Don't forget ze sparring room und shooting range. Can't let my new man be veaker than mein self after all." Beatrix then wrapped wrapped her arms around me and rested her sizable assets on my back! Beatrix used chest missiles, its super effective! I had an inkling that I might be doing more than just training this next couple months, and I was so ready for it! 

"Ahem!" Serena glared at Beatrix while simultaneously partaking in the most perverted action of all, HAND HOLDING...FINGERS LOCKED! To think that Serena would be such a lewd woman.

"I will require a command bridge capable of maintaining command and control of all allied units in the vicinity. Additionally a ballroom for entertaining guests, a tearoom, and a study for personal use." Serena said while giving Beatrix a nasty side eye.

"Oh right!" I said, causing the ladies to look at me. "I need a decent size kitchen and mess hall? Also can you make the whole ship able to hide it's weapons? Originally, the only reason the palace ignored novel Leon's large vessel was do to it being lightly armed. If we only have two to three visibly recognizable cannons, and have the CWIS guns hidden, we can save ourselves a lot of scrutiny. Besides, pirates are more likely to approach us if they think we are an easy target." A vicious smile spread across my face.

Serena started to laugh which caused me to wonder if I said something stupid. Beatrix and Serena both looked at her quizzically. "Something funny about what I said?" She must've mistaken my tone because she immediately stopped laughing and looked at me with worry.

"N-no its not that. I just had a friend who did that same thing with his own mothership. I simply found the similarity amusing, I didn't mean to offend." Her shoulders sagged which caused me to feel like a dick.

I put on my best relaxed smile and gave her hand a squeeze. She looked up at me with the eyes of an abused puppy, delivering a direct hit right to the feels. "I wasn't mad at you, ya know that right?"

"Really, but I thought-"

I decided to try something a little bolder than I would usually do. I leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. She stared at me for a second before giving me an uncharacteristically sweet smile. Irisdina moved to take my other side, while Beatrix wolf whistled at the cheesy display, causing Serena and I to avert our gazes.

Luxion decided to intercede before our little drama sessions could go any further. "I am glad that you and your mate get along so well master. I shall prepare a room for you to conceive the next generation of old-humans." Even though I could tell that he was just fucking with us, I was stilled embarrassed that he just came out and said it. 

"W-well I know an heir is necessary to continue your house, I did not think that we would start so soon." Apparently Serena can't tell when Luxion's fucking with us, good to know.

I decided to let her know that I wasn't going to force her to do anything. "Serena."

She snapped to face me with a mix of anxiety and anticipation. "Luxion was just fucking with us."

A flurry of emotions crossed her face before she settled on on rage. She let go on my hand and crossed the distance between us and the snarky AI in a flash. Before he could move his sub-unit to safety, Serena grabbed the round body with both hands and squeezed.

I walked over to her and gently grabbed her arm. "Please, don't shake the lightbulb." 

She looked between me and the sub-unit before letting it go. As it flew away from her, I could indents in the shape of her hands in the metal surface. Jesus, I can imagine a few unfortunate scenarios with grip strength like that.

She stood tall and adjusted her officer's cap. "My apologies, I seemed to have become a bit emotional. Tis nothing to worry about, I assure you." 

I gave her an easy-going smile. "Its alright. He's a snarky little shit, but that's why we get along so well." I looked at the damaged sub-unit. "Got a new design for us buddy?"

The unit dipped its head towards me. "Indeed I do master. I have taken your requests into consideration, and created a design that I believe should satisfy all of your requirements. Please take a look." He then projected a 3d model of the ship, along with labels to highlight certain aspects.

The ship's front and mid section was a round triangle with two large main guns. The bridge was mounted on the centerline behind the main guns. the last part of the ship was a narrower section containing the ship's four prima-oooooh. I recognized this ship.

I smiled at him. "Alright bud, I see your a Gundam fan as well. I respect it."

He tilted his sub-unit. "I'm afraid I do not understand what you are talking about master."

"Oh please, you literally just took the Agamemnon-class from Gundam: SEED, then made slight alterations to pretend to follow copyright guidelines." I said with my arms crossed in front of my chest.

He shook the unit. "What ever you say master. Moving on, the new model was designed from the ground up to to meet your...interesting requirements." I just grinned as I had just found a fellow gundam fan. Even if he tried to hide it, I knew.

---

We cruised through the sky at over 220 kph (136.70 mph), I relaxed in a seat on the bridge of our new ship, the Virtuous Splendor. I wanted to name the ship Yorktown after the WWII carrier, but Serena said that she if she was going to captain the ship, she should get to name it. Irisdina agreed with Serena, and Beatrix just sat there smirking at me, so I was outvoted 2-to-1. I'm never letting Serena name another ship, fair or not.

Luxion managed to build the vessel, and our three exclusive armors, in only three weeks. During the construction period, we slept within Luxion's crew quarters. Keeping ourselves busy with training, training, and more training...and flirting of course. When I first used the armor pilot simulator, I managed to progress quickly clearing out harder and harder scenarios. The string of successes made me confident, and then I got my shit kicked in by Iris. She managed to destroy me in under twenty seconds, and I didn't land a single hit.

After a week I set a new record by surviving against her for two minutes and seventeen seconds. Iris and Beatrix were very impressed by my rapid growth, and asked me about it. I told them about my company bought talents, they immediately demanded that I do the same for them. Thirty credits later, I had talent sharing for martial and soul talent, plus educational talent as a useful bonus. Thanks to them having access to educational talent, my skills grew faster thanks to their excellent teaching.

I also spent time sparring with Serena. Against Iris and Beatrix I could win easy thanks to my augments, but Serena was also augmented. I may of held an absolute advantage in terms of raw power as Serena only had roughly four times the strength of an average male soldier. Unfortunately for me, that wasn't enough to win against Serena's speed, experience, and reflexes that allowed her to deflect lasers and cleave bullets midflight. After two weeks I managed to best her, by utilizing reinforcement magic to unleash an incredibly fast string of powerful blows that managed to break through her defenses.

When the Iris and Serena saw how strong Serena and I were, they requested I get them some sort of augment. I was going to give them access to Mobuseka magic four only five credits each, but then Luxion through a fit about me tainting their purity, so I bought them each a copy of Henshin Impact. With that, both Iris and Beatrix could summon a flying power armor with just a thought.

After Luxion managed to complete our new ship we moved a couple of islands together to make our own little archipelago. We mapped the location of our islands, and went to the nearest Adventurer's Guild hall, which in the territory of viscount Lenard Fou Morlaw.

We gave the poor folks a good scare when we rolled up. This wasn't too surprising, since our ship was 302M (990.81 ft) long and massed a respectable 96,500 tons (106373.04 short tons) empty. Even the viscount's flagship was only 140M (459.32 ft) long, and Luxion said it weighed in around 6,500 tons (7165.02 short tons), which put it into a similar class to smaller pre-dreadnought battleships.

After explaining the situation to the Viscount personally, we were brought to the Guild Hall. The poor guild staff were sweating bullets when we rolled up with a procession of knights and the viscount's second son. Their eyes became wide as dinner plates when we told them about ship and islands we "found". The credit of the discovery was given to me, with the girls claiming to be my childhood friends who accompanied me when I left on my adventure. It wasn't the best lie by any means, but the guild saw no reason to question it.

"I'm sorry sir, but could you repeat that for me," the guild receptionist asked. "I just want to make sure I understand you correctly," she said with a strained smile.

"No problem. I found the lost vessel that we," I said while gesturing to all the girls," arrived on in an uninhabited island a few hundred kilometers north-east of here. The island itself was the size of a small baronetcy, and heavily wooded. It was flanked by two smaller islands, another wooded one about a third the size, and a rocky island too desolate to realistically grow anything, but could be mined for float stone if nothing else."

"I-I see." She took a deep breathe. "The guild will have to send people to verify your discovery." She tensed as if expecting us to make a ruckus.

"No problem." I said in a lazy tone.

"The guild isn't doubting you brave adventurer, but we need to ensure that the islands in question weren't previously recorded and were simply missing from your map." It was rather enjoyable watching her try to politely tell me that the guild needed to see the islands for themselves because the claim seemed simply too outrageous.

I shrugged, "makes sense to me." My flat expression struggling to hide my growing amusement.

We ended up bringing a total of three guild employees, two support staff and the vice guild master of the Morlaw branch of the greater adventurer's guild, back to the islands with us. They were surprised by just how fast our ship was, after all, the fastest ships topped out around 65 kph (40.39 mph) and we we going almost three-and-a-half times that. It only took us a couple of days to get there, and then they took a hours to inspect and document the islands.

Mr. Fareed, the vice guild master of the Morlaw branch looked to me with a great deal of respect after seeing the islands for himself. He found me laying in a couch that I had out on the deck, with Serena to my left and Iris to my right, much to their delight. 

"I'll tell you what kid, I knew you had to find that fancy ship of yours somewhere, but this," he gestured towards the islands with a sweep of his arm, "is going to be big news. An island this big hasn't been found in over a century." He chuckled, "I'd expect a noble title coming your way."

I looked at him and smiled. "I would certainly hope so, "

"I'll second that kiddo. Cheer"

Upon our return to the viscount's territory we invited to have dinner with viscount and his family. It wasn't too bad, when his two sons weren't drooling over my girls. We stayed the night, and left in a hurry. Lord Morlaw was a chill guy overall, but we had things to do, and I wanted to avoid his sons. We stuck around until the guild hall was open, then asked them for information on any recent pirate activity.

The guild receptionist grabbed a map from a backroom and spread it out with some decorative wood blocks holding it down on the corners. We all leaned over as she began to speak.

"The immediately airspace around the Morlaw territory is very safe, thanks to the viscount's fleet. Having said that," She pointed to an area in between the Morlaw viscounty, and the Kellsure barony. "the trade route here has seen some trade vessels attacked in recent months. The viscount has tried to hunt down the pirates once already, but the scoundrels remain at large."

"Were they able to evade the viscount's forces?" I asked.

"Zey wouldn't even get ze chance if I vas zere," Beatrix claimed.

The guild receptionist nodded. "They ceased their attacks, and vanished before the viscount's forces arrived."

"What kind of force composition can we expect from these particular pirates?" Serena asked with a serious look.

The receptionist grabbed a few documents from the backroom before returning to the map. She took a few minutes to read through the papers before putting them down and looking back to us.

She bowed, "I apologize for making you wait brave adventurers. I had to go over guild reports on the recent pirate incursions to get you the information you needed."

"Zere is nothing for you to apologize for. Ve appreciate you taking ze time to bring us accurate information," Irisdina said with a small smile, while slipping her hand into mine.

The reception was stunned for a second by Irisdina's beauty, which I could definitely relate to. The receptionist responded with a smile of her own before continuing. "According to our reports, the pirates are known as the Cloud Cobras-"

"Cloud cobras? What, do they declare batchall before fights?!" I said with a laugh. I looked around and realized that the girls were all looking at me like I was crazy. "Come on girls, Cloud Cobras? Ya know, the SLDF exodus? One of the twenty clans of Nicholas Kerensky?"

Serena shook her head and turned back to the receptionist. "Ignore him. He bumped his head on one of the crates in the cargo bay on the way here."

The poor receptionist looked back and forth between Serena's stern glare, and my slightly offended pout. "I-I see. Well anyway, the Cloud Cobras have been seen operating no less than four different ships, two smaller sloops under 100M (328.08 ft) long, two captured cargo vessels converted into armed carriers, and between fourteen and twenty knight armors."

Serena gaze tightened upon hearing the numbers. Beatrix looked more excited than the first time we slept together. I was a bit embarrassed that I was beaten by a potential fight.

"Zat is a lot of fire power for mere pirates. Any idea vere they could've gotten zo much hardvare?" Irisdina asked the receptionist.

The receptionist shrugged with a troubled look on her face. "The guild couldn't confirm anything. Sorry." 

Irisdina shook her head. "Zat is fine. Zank you for ze information, but ve should be going."

"Indeed. Have a wonderful day madam. Come along Leon." Serena motioned us along with a swipe of her cape.

Irisdina gave her a quizzical look before tugging me along.

"Ah yes. I wish you the safest of travels." The receptionist said with a polite bow.

"Zat is much appreciated milady," Beatrix said in a flirtatious tone, while using one arm to emphasizing her breasts, causing the receptionist's face to turn bright red.

---

AN: And that is the second chapter this month. I honestly had a lot of fun writing this one, so much so that I had to split it halfway in order to get it out on time! 

I really don't think I have anything I need to explain from this one, I just included a lot of references because they were funny and they fit. Also, next chapter is already half written, so there is hope for a record breaking third chapter this month!

MC had 87 credits at the beginning of the chapter, then spent 70, leaving him only 17 credits left over. The boy is broke!

Anyway I hope you all have a wonderful day, and stay happy!