Failed prototypes had already piled into a small mountain outside the lab.
Edith's suggestion of modifying 'Fire of Heaven' in her report excited Roland. On the technical level, it was not difficult to move a thirty-five millimeter sniper cannon onto a biplane. All they had to do was embed the entire body of the cannon below the belly of the plane and remove the shooting seats. If they limited the ammunition they carried to less than ten rounds, the weight would be balanced out. Other than that, nothing needed to be changed.
The problem was that if they wanted to acquire large-caliber God's Stone bullets, they had to first use witch or demon blood to melt and separate God's Stones in the mine until they formed God's Stones of Retaliation in the desired size and shape. Only then could they be subjected to further processing. If the stones were too big, the blades and lathes they had at hand wouldn't be able to do anything about it. If they were too small, the God's Stones would be too brittle. The process of selecting base materials expended large amounts of magic blood. Even if the Witch Alliance and the Sleeping Spell supported him, the amount they had would not be enough to satisfy the requirements of war.
The real solution to this problem was in the demons.
Either they found out the reason why demons could process such large God's Stone pillars...
...Or they used their blood for creating the bullets.
'Fire of Heaven' could now return to Neverwinter from the frontline within a day. With the additional help of Agatha's refrigeration ability, directly transporting fresh demon blood from the battlefield didn't seem impossible.
Roland silently recorded his idea onto the agenda.
...
When it was nightfall, Roland followed his custom of entering the Dream World.
In order to accelerate the advancement of the Design Bureau of Graycastle's projects, Roland had dramatically increased the amount of times he entered the Dream World in the past month, causing time in the Dream World which had been falling behind the real world to catch up a fair amount. The city which had previously been in late summer now already had snowflakes floating about, as if this place and the outside belonged to the same world but just in different regions.
A typical morning in the neighborhood of his apartment was bustling with people. The expansion of Erosion and the great disaster in the Prism City didn't affect the residents at all; the two sides of the street were still full of breakfast food stalls with owners yelling about their sales without rest. People hurriedly moved about the street and the white snow that had accumulated throughout the night was already covered in footprints.
Even though Lan said that this world was also going to face a Battle of Divine Will, in comparison to the Red Mist-covered battlefield in the Kingdom of Wolfheart, this place was undeniably milder by a good deal.
Also, the long time he spent in the Dream World had not only caused the seasons to change, the demon world-traveller's attitude had also appeared to change significantly.
After observing for some time, Roland was basically certain that the demon who called herself Valkries was not actually a native from Cargarde Peninsula. Although the registration information restored by the Martialist Association verified it, there was no such person among the visiting group from the Peninsula. Yet, her behavior was difficult to explain with common sense.
Roland was not alien to the phenomenon of possessing a real identity but a greatly changed personality because he himself was an example of this. The best explanation was to describe her as a "world traveller".
In the beginning Valkries was able to maintain her guise of a normal martial artist, flipping through various different types of books and talking as little as possible. But with the passing of time, she became more and more agitated.
Especially after her injuries healed. Once, she secretly sneaked deep into the forbidden area of Prism City and stood silently and attentively in front of the Erosion rupture. According to Dawnen's report, at the time there was an evident expression of anxiety on Valkries' face, as if she was yearning for something. Dawnen even thought on multiple occasions that Valkries would leap into the Erosion, but in the end Valkries stopped herself from doing so.
It would be too much to claim that her actions were her mourning of her companions' deaths, because Valkries didn't stop for a single moment when the visiting group encountered danger; in fact, she was aiming for the Erosion from the very beginning.
If he thought about it from her perspective, it wasn't hard to understand the change in her attitude.
At the start, coming to this modern metropolis from the Demon city, she might had been able to keep her composure in order to figure out where she was. But the more time passed while her hope of returning still obscure as ever, it was unavoidable for anxiety to begin building. This might have been the real reason why Valkries sneaked into Prism city. She wanted to see if she could return to the world familiar to her through the chasm she arrived in.
Unfortunately, the memory fragment did not satisfy her desires.
No matter what, being able to disguise herself to this point was an incredibly difficult feat. After all, Valkries didn't know that her every move was being watched by Dawnen. If it wasn't for the small things that betrayed her when she was by herself, there was not a single flaw from the way she interacted with other martial artists that would give her away.
When Roland considered what would have happened if he were in her shoes, he thought that he definitely could not have achieved this.
Now that her identity had been confirmed, he had to think about what to do next.
At this moment, he received a SMS on his phone.
It was from Phyllis.
"Your Majesty, everyone is ready."
Roland put his phone back into in his pocket, turned and walked towards the living room.
Zero was busy carrying a bowl of egg noodles onto the meal table. Upon seeing Roland, she put her hands to her hips and said, "Uncle, you haven't forgotten what you promised me, have you?"
"What, you woke up so early because you were afraid that I would sneak off?"
"It's not the first time you've done that after all," she said, pouting.
"Relax, I definitely won't this time." Roland laughed, walked over and patted her head. "Let's eat breakfast first, afterwards we'll go next door, call Sister Garcia and then set off together."
Apart from New Years, the biggest event this winter was the Martial Arts Contest which occured once every four years. To all the junior high school students throughout the city, whoever could watch it live on the arena would become the center of discussion. Zero, who usually had no interest for such contests, was no exception. After her ceaseless begging, Roland had no choice but to agree to take her near the arena to experience it live when the school's winter break came.
There were guards supervising today's competition and it was still in the round robin stage so it was unlikely for Fallen Evils to appear. Besides, Zero had to return to her hometown everytime the holidays came around, so he could hardly refuse the little girl's 'only request.'
Roland decided to confront that demon world traveller directly.
*******************
It was already the fourth month.
Although Valkries looked like she was focusing all her attention on the rowdy battle ring, her heart was somewhere else.
The past four months had given her a basic understanding of this world and human legacies. On some levels, she herself had become a part of accepting legacies. As long as she could return to reality, she would definitely be able to bring huge benefits to her race—however the major problem was, all this time, she hadn't been able to find a way to leave the Realm of Mind.
Valkries had an enormous heap of intel, yet she didn't have anyone to share it with. It was as if she was in a desert and finally found a bottle of water, only to find it firmly sealed, unable to be opened.
Whether she sent out a signal for help to Hackzord, or used her mind to sense traces of the King, she didn't receive any reply. Even if she stood in the gap of this domain and meditated, the Realm of Mind didn't respond to her call at all—it was her first time encountering such a situation.
Valkries couldn't help but feel a little hateful towards the Sky Lord.
Why hadn't he, even after all this time, tried to wake her up?