By the following afternoon, Rhodes Island officially crossed the Kazdel frontier. The crossing had gone entirely smoothly, with zero raiders or stray warbands rising up to harass their advance—a level of peace so absolute it actually left the high command feeling rather suspicious.
Since when had the predatory scavengers of the wastes lost interest in a titan-class landship? The Doctor, who had fully prepared her guard details to repel a dozen boarding actions, rubbed her chin in pure curiosity. It defied everything she knew about the region.
But since no immediate answers were forthcoming, she brushed the mystery aside. Perhaps some earth-shattering event was unfolding deeper within the nation, leaving the local factions with zero appetite to pick a fight with a mobile fortress.
As the strategist stood lost in thought, she spotted Jeanne shuffling out toward the main deck, looking thoroughly drained and sluggish. Right beside her, little Fafnir was dragging her small feet with the exact same lack of energy. Had these two skipped sleep entirely last night?
"What happened to the two of you? I remember the camp was completely secure last night. I didn't think any sudden crisis would have broken out to rob you of your rest."
Her immediate assumption was that a stray remnant of the enemy force had attempted a midnight raid, only to be systematically snuffed out in the cradle by the sleepless Saintess.
The more she thought about it, the more it sounded exactly like something Jeanne would do. But if her partner had spent the entire night fighting to keep the perimeter safe, the Doctor felt a rare twinge of guilt about pushing her team so hard.
After all, in a world as cynical and brutal as this, finding an ally who would willingly pull a grueling night shift was a miracle. To find a partner who did it without a single complaint made them an absolute saint.
"Don't even ask..." Jeanne sighed, rubbing her eyes as she leaned against a railing. "In the middle of the night, Fafnir suddenly complained that her stomach was completely empty. I was sitting in the tent with nothing to do anyway, so I took her out into the wastes to hunt down some wild game. We ended up chasing prey through the crags until the early hours of the morning..."
While Jeanne looked ready to collapse into a long nap, Fafnir was in remarkably high spirits, a profoundly satisfied smile stretching across her face as she happily relived the flavor of last night's feast.
Realizing her tactical deductions had completely missed the mark, the Doctor stood frozen for a moment, utterly speechless. She could only manage a sympathetic nod.
"Ah... then you truly had a grueling night. But wait... you didn't happen to ride Fafnir out into the darkness and fly right across the border territory, did you?"
Seeing Jeanne and the child offer a slow, synchronized nod, the pieces instantly clicked together in the Doctor's mind. She finally understood why no local syndicates had attempted to extort Rhodes Island today.
A colossal dragon had been spotted hunting in the dark! The surrounding warlords had likely assumed the sudden appearance of a mythical beast was infinitely more valuable than a common landship, and every single tracking party had abandoned their posts to hunt for the dragon's lair!
In reality, a living dragon's value was astronomical compared to their vessel. But the Doctor could already picture those greedy scavengers tracking the trail, only to find a pile of picked-clean bones and a cooling fire pit, throwing their hands up in pure, boiling fury.
"In that case, please head straight to your quarters and get some proper rest," the Doctor offered warmly, a trace of sheepishness in her tone. Jeanne really was an absolute blessing! Not only had she shattered the enemy vanguard, but she had also inadvertently cleared away all the border bandits while looking for a midnight snack!
Whenever Jeanne was around, an unbelievable streak of good fortune seemed to follow their tracks.
The Saintess didn't decline the offer. She gave a weary nod and slowly wandered back toward the interior cabins, desperate to let her frayed mental energy recover.
As for the ten colossal wyverns guarding the perimeter? She had already issued a strict command for the pack to hover near Rhodes Island and shield its journey toward Babel's central territory. They were smart enough to keep the peace without causing any unwanted trouble.
When Jeanne finally opened her eyes again, she was surprised to find the landship had already left the border regions far behind, maintaining a steady, even pace across the plains.
Peering through the thick reinforced glass of her cabin window, she could see the massive wyverns soaring gracefully alongside the hull. They looked incredibly joyful, tilting their wings into the wind as if they were thoroughly enjoying the thrill of a long-distance flight.
Even the broken metal vehicle clutched tightly within one of the lead wyvern's talons—and the terrified Sarkaz mercenaries trapped inside it—seemed to be part of the fun. The men inside the iron box were violently waving their arms through the cracked windows toward Jeanne's position, screaming something into the rushing wind.
Well, as long as they're enjoying themselves, Jeanne thought sleepily. Their expressions looked remarkably twisted and horrific up there in the clouds, but she assumed that was just the natural result of the freezing gale tearing across their faces. Content with this explanation, she prepared to sink back into her blankets.
"..."
A sudden wave of friction rippled through her drowsy mind. She froze beneath the covers, a nagging instinct whispering that something about that cheerful aerial display was profoundly wrong.
"Jeanne, what are those men doing outside? Did they ask the big dragons to pick them up because they wanted to see the clouds?"
Fafnir was looking out the window, her face pressed against the glass as she watched the wyverns wheel through the sky.
"Don't be ridiculous," Jeanne mumbled, her voice muffled by the pillow. "Who in their right mind would beg a feral wyvern to hurl them through the sky? Even if a person had lost all will to live, they wouldn't choose a torturous stunt like that to end it..."
The words died in her throat.
Jeanne's eyes snapped wide open. She bolted upright, staring straight through the glass at the heavy military transport vehicle being tossed back and forth between two massive wyverns like a crude toy ball.
Oh, good grief! She had only been asleep for a few hours, and her unruly pack had already engineered a disaster! Evaluating the battered state of that iron box, those poor souls had been trapped in that aerial nightmare for a very long time.
Throwing her boots on, she rushed out the door to check the deck. If these captives belonged to Babel, why on earth hadn't the Doctor or the officers woken her up to put an end to it?
"Are you going to spill the secrets now, or should we let our overgrown pets take you up for another spin? I highly doubt these little lizards will grow tired of playing with you anytime soon!"
Before she even cleared the companionway, a familiar, gloating voice echoed across the open air, utterly brimming with dark amusement.
Jeanne instantly recognized Warfarin's sharp, mocking tone. The realization brought a massive wave of relief to her chest; if the ancient Vampire was the one supervising the interrogation, it meant the men inside that crumpled vehicle were definitely hostile elements. As long as her dragons hadn't targeted innocent civilians, everything was perfectly manageable.
"What is the situation here?" Jeanne asked, stepping onto the main deck with a curious glance toward the edge of the hull.
Hearing her voice, Warfarin spun around, her eyes lighting up as she saw the Saintess had finally awakened. The eccentric Vampire immediately launched into an enthusiastic, rapid-fire breakdown of the morning's events.
To put it beautifully simply: a desperate strike force dispatched by Theresis had attempted to launch a quiet harassment raid while Jeanne was asleep. Unfortunately for them, their approach vector brought them directly beneath the shadow of the hovering wyverns, who had systematically vaporized the entire vanguard in a matter of seconds.
The terrified commander of the unit, realizing his elite fighters had been permanently erased without landing a single blow, had scrambled back into his heavy transport vehicle to flee the sector.
But the wyverns hadn't been ready to let their new toys go. They had swooped down, scooped up the heavy iron box, and turned it into an aerial plaything. Since everyone on the command deck was perfectly content to let the beasts burn off their energy, they had simply left the vehicle dangling in the sky until the commander was ready to surrender his intelligence.
Jeanne looked out at her giant wyverns, who were happily passing the crumpled truck back and forth through the clouds, and then listened to the muffled, blood-curdling screams of the Sarkaz officers inside invoking the names of their ancestors. She could only shrug her shoulders.
Was this treatment bordering on cruel and unusual punishment? Nonsense, she reasoned internally. Just look at how much energy those mercenaries were putting into their waving arms—they looked absolutely thrilled to be participating in the dragon's morning exercise!
Since the prisoners were in such capable hands, there was zero reason for the dragon's mistress to spoil the fun. When the broken soldiers inside were finally ready to talk, someone would undoubtedly come find her to command the wyverns to bring them down to earth. Until then, she might as well enjoy the peace.