“Commanding all dragons! Descend! Rush! Overrun!”
That highly respected Carla swung her right hand down, and the Air Force soldiers began swooping down onto the battleship [Alberto]. On the field, the Air Force’s sure-kill tactics are to do a nose dive while at the same time release the dragons’ [Flame Breath] attack, then swoop back up and withdraw. Normally one wouldn’t be able to deal with this high-power high-manoeuvrability attack using ground-based equipment.
The battleship Alberto’s main armaments wouldn’t be able to deal with the speed, and her armor wouldn’t be able to stand for long in the face of the wyverns’ attack. Which is why battleship [Alberto]’s destruction was just a matter of time … or that was how things should have gone.
*shwump* *shwump* *shwump* *shwump* *shwump* *shwump* *shwump*
“What! Arrows!?”
“Ughaa, my shoulder …”
“My dragon’s hit! I, I’m falling! Somebody, help …”
“Take cover! Take coveeeeeerr!”
A rain of arrows from the battleship [Alberto] was launched onto the swooping dragon cavalry. Unable to bear the volley of arrows like a torrent of rain rising from the earth, the dragon cavalry climbed back up. With just this one attack several wyverns fell, and there are those among the ones who were able to safely withdraw that had anguished faces from having an arrow lodged somewhere on their bodies.
Looking at the terrible scene, Carla rammed her fist on her knee.
“What are those arrows! Such numbers!”
“They reached wyvern cavalry who were still hundreds of meters in the air. This was not a human feat. And those numbers … I think they might be anti-air machine ballistae endowed with wind magic”
Tolman analyzed as calmly as he could. Carla scrunched her eyebrows.
“Machine ballistae!? Why are those things loaded on a ship!?”
Anti-air ballistae weapons that can fire off several tens of wind magic enhanced exceptionally high range arrows a second, a weapon specialized for anti-wyvern battles. Normally installed on castle walls, having them on board ships was unheard of. The reason was because of one of the differences between dragons and wyverns – dragons do not fear the sea while wyverns do. Wyverns have the nature of being startled and going out of control when they saw ocean without land in sight. In other words, there would be no fighting between land-based wyverns and sea-based battleships, and therefore battleships do not need to be equipped with anti-wyvern weaponry.
“That false king even expects to fight wyverns on the sea!?”
“He probably appropriated some from a fort somewhere. Which means that battleship is now already a small fortress. What a nuisance”
Carla clicked her tongue, having listened to Tolman’s analysis.
“Damnations… what should I do”
“I wonder … even though you can call it a small fortress it’s still battleship-shaped. I think it still has the same blind spot”
“A battleship’s blind spot?”
“Between the deck and the waterline. Battleships do not have a means of attacking anything lower than their decks. In case of the Alberto, the space between the ground and the deck is a blind spot. Which means if we were to attack the ship …”
“We only need to approach flying low!”
Carla rejoiced having obtained a good plan. Flying low with wyverns is usually an act fraught with the danger of eventually crashing onto the ground, but these were skilled Air Force units.