One Hundred Years of Technology – Part 2

“What the actual hell is this?!” I cried when I got out.

Airships weren’t exactly something I saw every day back on Earth. In fact, they went the way of the dodo since they had this terrible habit of bursting into flames, and airplanes were superior in every way. And, no, Arcforge didn’t have airships. It was a medieval fantasy game, not steampunk, for god’s sake!

And yet, the absolutely enormous object in front of me was most definitely an airship.

Oh man, oh man! This is awesome!

I couldn’t precisely tell how long it was, but it snuggled fit in Luribel’s central square, to the point it just barely managed to squeeze in-between the houses. There were even propellers on the side of the cabin for propulsion. It was a sight so ludicrous I actually had trouble understanding what I was seeing at first.

How do they even power this thing?

“First time seeing an airship?” The dude who came into the room with Yzara earlier—Keil, I think his name was—said. “No wonder you’re stunned like this, if you just spawned in.”

“Yeah… this is something else.”

And this guy probably has no idea why I’m that shocked about it.

“No wonder you didn’t know about the airships, then,” Keil continued. “They are a recent invention, and oh boy, do they make a huge difference!”

My inner kid aside, this was remarkable from a developer point of view.

First guns, now airships… What else have these people come up with in the past one hundred years?

I really wanted to use the Debuggun to see exactly what the airship was made of, but I certainly wasn’t going to whip it out in front of them.

“My name’s Keil, the Magic Sniper, by the way. Feel free to look around. I’m gonna help Tanney prepare the food for you two.”

“Tanney?”

Only then did I notice that from inside the ship’s cabin, a little demihuman girl was poking her head out. Her fur and hair were flaming orange, and there were tall spiky ears on top of her head—a fox girl. The moment I locked eyes with her, though, she returned inside like a little squirrel hiding in its burrow.

“She’s a little shy, but she’s a good girl,” he said with a genuine smile on his face. “Her title is ‘Transmuter’, and she’s the one who creates the gas that keeps the Airdrake floating for us.”

“Ohhh!”

Alchemist was a class you could only get by having tons of EXP in every elemental magic type, plus even more in Profane Magic. Not an easy feat, that’s for sure. “Transmuter” was a title you got when you performed your first transmutation using alchemy. Honestly, it seemed a little quaint, considering she could create helium or hydrogen on command.

This girl’s the real deal!

I was seriously impressed. Somehow, these NPCs had managed to figure out chemistry and near-modern technology all on their own? And in a measly hundred years, too?

“Oh, I’ll help!” Yzara said, interrupting my thoughts, as she ran from elsewhere to Keil.

“Thanks, Chloe! That will be a huge help.”

Chloe? Guess that’s the fake name she’s using.

As Keil and “Chloe” entered the airship, Fianna exited ahead of them.

“You seem to have something on your mind related to the Airdrake,” she asked, her expression quite a bit softer than before.

“I was just wondering what propelled you guys to create such impressive technology.”

“Hmm… I suppose you haven’t been told a lot of what happened. One day, about a hundred years ago, the Heroes disappeared from this world. Soon, the White Death invaded most of the lands they held, with the Polis they left behind surrounded and isolated. But they still held important resources for the civilized races, and the safest way to travel between them became the air. A lot of technological development happened to allow for the reconquest of the Polis, which culminated in the airships like the Airdrake,” she said, pointing at the ship. “That’s a very shorted version of it.”

“So what exactly are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere? Carrying cargo or something between the Polis?”

“Not quite. We’re culling mobs.”

“Culling…?”

“The White Death can’t spread inside a Polis’ protective area, but that area is very limited, so infected monsters can still attack the exposed surrounding areas. To keep their numbers low, we target infected monsters in the area surrounding the Polis.”

“So that’s why there are barely any monsters around here!”

“Indeed. That would be the work of us and other adventurers. It doesn’t hurt that we get to keep any spoils and the experience we collect from the monsters we hunt.”

That finally explained why this area was so barren. They were actively trying to keep monster populations down and protect the Polis around here!

“Hey, we’re done!” Keil said as he finished setting up the table. Chloe was happily chatting with him, and from his demeanor, I could tell he was starting to fancy her company. Well, I couldn’t blame him; she was quite cute like this.

“Go on ahead, Takashi. Food’s on us.”

“Hey, thanks a bunch. You really saved us.”

“But…,” she started saying with a rather un-elf-like smirk, “Now’s your turn. I want to know how you two got into this situation.”