Chapter 721: Dragonrider Model I
It took Gawain a couple of seconds to fully register what he was seeing before an uncontrollable smile of pure joy spread across his face.
Amber had been chattering excitedly just moments before, but when she caught sight of Gawain’s expression, she suddenly fell silent, staring at him in surprise.
She rarely saw Gawain so openly expressive, and even more rarely saw him smile this genuinely happy.
Not even at his coronation had he smiled like this.
So that’s how important a “flying machine” really is?
“Let’s go see it together,” Gawain said, grabbing Amber’s hand and striding toward the door. “It’s at the East Suburb Testing Grounds, right?”
“Oh, yeah… Hey, let go! I can walk on my own! Don’t pull me… don’t grab me like that under the arm! I can—”
At the suburban testing grounds, the “Dragonrider” had already completed its maiden flight and was now resting steadily on the open field. A large group of technicians swarmed around the machine, meticulously inspecting every component again and again. Rebecca, the project’s lead, was right in the thick of it, tools in hand, circling the mechanical cockpit. Her face was streaked with grease, her clothes stained, but her smile outshone everyone else’s—she looked like a child who’d just gotten the best birthday present.
Maggie stood quietly nearby, watching the bustling, joyous scene unfold. Her gaze kept drifting back to Rebecca—over the years, Maggie had met all kinds of human nobility, but a “princess” like Rebecca was truly one of a kind.
“Perfect, perfect! Not a single flaw! No fractures, no parts fallen off, no overheating—none of the previous issues showed up this time,” a mage-engineer jumped down from the dragon-wing rudder’s connecting shaft, his face glowing with excitement. “The new structure works!”
“That’s more like it!” Rebecca emerged from beneath the main fuselage, her eyes sparkling. “All those thousands of tests weren’t for nothing…”
Maggie knew that Rebecca’s “thousands of tests” weren’t all actual flights; most had been simulations in the Origin Lab. But despite the virtual environment, every team member had poured in real sweat and effort.
Before Maggie could say anything, Rebecca had already turned to her with a radiant smile. “Hey, Maggie, how does it feel to fly?”
Maggie blinked, then lowered her head a little awkwardly and replied with proper etiquette, “It feels… very good, Your Highness.”
She was never quite comfortable with this princess’s casual, un-noble manner, but no matter what, she represented the Northern Duke’s dignity and had to maintain proper decorum.
“Don’t always be so stiff! We’re not in the city, Aunt Hetty and the ancestors can’t see us, so it’s okay to relax a bit,” Rebecca said, clapping Maggie on the shoulder. Then, realizing she’d just smudged grease on her, she yelped, quickly pulling her hand back and wiping it on her robe before patting Maggie’s other shoulder. “No titles in the lab—that’s what we agreed from the start.”
Maggie glanced behind Rebecca, her expression a little strange. “…But, Your Highness, I think some necessary etiquette is still important…”
Rebecca puckered her lips. “Why do you sound like my aunt? I’m telling you, being so tense all the time just makes you age faster. Aunt Hetty’s dark circles get worse every day, and the ancestors are always so serious—I’ve even seen their wrinkles…”
Maggie wisely chose to stay silent and stepped aside.
Several technicians nearby glanced behind Rebecca, exchanging odd looks before subtly backing away.
Rebecca looked around, sensed the mood, thought for a moment, and came to a conclusion—
“Oh no, I’m doomed.”
An experienced princess like her didn’t need anyone to tell her what to do next. She wiped both hands on her robe again, then wrapped her arms around her head and slowly crouched down. “Can we not start with a head pat this time…”
Before she could finish, a strong hand reached from behind, grabbed her collar, and yanked her upright. “Don’t crouch, Hetty’s not here.”
Rebecca recognized Gawain’s voice and, still held by the collar, turned to see the exasperated ancestor and Amber standing beside him—just the two of them, Aunt Hetty was definitely absent.
Her previously restrained expression instantly blossomed into a bright smile. “Ancestor, you’re here!!”
The ancestor had always been very fond of her. Though usually stern, his seriousness was different from Aunt Hetty’s—he never hit her on the head, and Rebecca was well aware of that.
She had always been optimistic, mainly because she could find her own sunshine and shine brightly on her own.
Gawain actually felt like giving her a light knock on the head. From what he knew, Rebecca hadn’t been scolded in three days, and judging by experience, her mood was probably swinging wildly between “tearing the roof off” and “setting the whole place on fire.” But before he could dwell on that, his attention shifted to the strange machine beside them.
He stared long and hard at the device, which looked nothing like the “airplanes” he remembered from Earth—both in design and principle. After a long moment, he whispered, “So this is our flying machine…”
It really was different. Completely different.
It was a gyro-like inverted cone, about two to three meters in diameter. The lower half of the cone floated inside a metal ring etched with runes—that ring was the anti-gravity ring, suspended by a long-lasting force field at the base of the cone, controlling the machine’s lift and gravity balance. On both sides and the top were crescent-shaped main wings and rudder wings modeled after dragon wings, giving the whole thing the look of a giant, upright steel insect—strange, yet imbued with the unique beauty of mage-engineering.
Gawain saw no trace of a traditional “airplane” in it.
This was the flying machine Rebecca and her team had built after he had completely let go of Earth’s designs, only providing the application requirements and some performance features. They had developed it based on the technology and logic of this world.
A bold experiment, and the results confirmed Gawain’s long-held belief: the magic world’s own technological path was the one best suited to it.
He had considered simply transplanting Earth’s airplanes here. After all, this world had wind and birds, meaning aerodynamic flight was possible. But in the end, he didn’t.
Because he didn’t know everything. Even with enhanced memory and vast “miscellaneous knowledge,” he had his blind spots—and aircraft manufacturing was definitely one of them.
In the early stages, simple machines could be cobbled together from his scattered knowledge, but aircraft were too specialized. He knew the rough sketches he could recall would only mislead the technicians. Moreover, this world’s unique elemental magic meant its aerodynamics knowledge was practically nonexistent, but it did have ready-made anti-gravity technology.
Instead of drawing flawed blueprints and forcing the team to start from scratch, it was better to let them build on the existing tech here. After all, this world already had flying units like griffon riders and giant eagle riders, and powerful mages who could fly unaided. The skies weren’t empty for mortals. Even if he spent years building primitive aerodynamic aircraft, they wouldn’t match the existing aerial units. Better to take a bold leap and let Rebecca’s team develop a mature anti-gravity air combat platform.
That bold attempt had produced this strange-looking but undeniably superior “Dragonrider.”
It took off vertically using anti-gravity, was highly agile, capable of aerial combat and suppression against trained griffon riders, powered by dragon-wing runes for “mana wave propulsion,” reaching speeds surpassing the elves’ giant eagles. Meanwhile, the wind-language runes covering the fuselage and the dragon-wing runes solved the wind resistance caused by its unusual shape. With advanced mage-engineered weapons and communication systems, it would undoubtedly become the most advanced and powerful air force of this era.
Of course, it still had many flaws. As a brand-new and the most complex, advanced technology product, it had many tests ahead and would take time before mass production. But no matter what, this path had been proven viable.
This flying machine’s architecture would become the foundation for Cecil’s future aerial technologies, and the experience gained might benefit generations to come…
“Yes, this is the flying machine we built,” Rebecca said, tilting her head back with a proud smile. “It took a lot of effort!”
Then she added, “Ancestor, do you want to give it an official name? ‘Dragonrider’ is just a code name…”
“Let’s just keep the official name as Dragonrider,” Gawain chuckled. “It’s vivid and sounds good. Like the Warhammer tanks, this first model of anti-gravity aircraft will be called Dragonrider Model I.”
At that moment, he glanced at Maggie, who was quietly standing nearby.
“By the way, as a dragon, what do you think of the name ‘Dragonrider’?”
Maggie thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t have any particular thoughts… Why do you ask, Your Majesty?”
“I’m just worried the name might offend the dragons,” Gawain said awkwardly. “When we picked the code name, I didn’t think much about it or ask your opinion. Now I’m wondering if it might be inappropriate. After all, it implies dragons are mere mounts…”
Maggie paused, then smiled faintly.
“Your Majesty, I don’t know how the dragons of Talrond would feel, but as far as I know, humans on the continent have been featuring dragons as major characters in epic tales and myths for hundreds, even thousands of years. Most of the time, these dragons aren’t exactly noble—they raid castles, kidnap princesses, steal treasures, threaten kingdoms. Brave adventurers and knights fight back, conquer dragon lairs, and sometimes even tame dragons as mounts. After all these years, have you ever heard of any bards or novelists being hunted down by Talrond or the Holy Dragon Duchy for making up such stories?”
“…I can’t say that I have…”
“Dragons don’t really care about human stories,” Maggie said with a faint smile. “No matter how long those stories are passed down, they eventually fade away with the wind. Even the ‘degraded dragonkin’ of the Holy Dragon Principality, whose lifespans are relatively short, have plenty of time to watch the most thrilling human legends turn to dust.” Then she added, “Of course, someone like you—who’s returned to the stage of history as a ‘story’s protagonist’—is probably quite the surprise to dragons…”
Gawain: “…”
It really was unexpected. The folks in the Mythril Vault, who’d made their fortunes by seizing entrusted items, had been thrown into chaos by this very resurrected client. Rumor had it they’d dug up over a thousand graves in just a month—and summoned hundreds of souls along the way…
Maggie seemed to find the topic a bit awkward too, and quickly steered the conversation back. “So overall, when it comes to these ‘insignificant offenses,’ dragons tend to be far more easygoing than you might imagine. Of course, that’s just my perspective. As for how the ‘true’ dragons of Talrond feel when they see the ‘Dragon Riders’… well, only that ‘high-level agent’ you know could really answer that.”
Gawain couldn’t help but picture My Little Pony in his mind.
He wondered what that blue dragon from the dragon realm would think upon learning that humans had copied the principles of dragon wings to create flying machines called ‘Dragon Riders.’
And he had no idea how Melita would respond if he asked whether dragons allowed humans to ride them—would she fly into a rage, or launch into a long explanation?
After thinking it over, Gawain suddenly suspected the answer might be something like: “Seven coins to start, five hundred for the whole day, tolls for crossing bridges, and extra charges for night rides…”
(End of chapter)