Greatest Alchemist? Chapter 701

Transport Airship Construction 3

I decided to build the runway and aircraft hangar close to the knights’ training grounds.

The airships here don’t make noise when flying, but taking unexpected scenarios into consideration, it would not be appropriate to have it close to the residential district.

We’ve received materials such as wood and stone as remuneration for the joint training with Valkyra Kingdom’s Knight Order, so we weren’t lacking in building materials for the aircraft hangar and runway.

Well, even though the materials the Sanctuary has would have sufficed, but I wouldn’t want to waste the materials we’ve received after much trouble.

Transmuting the runway wasn’t that difficult.

Even so, I had to make various improvements.

I had to pave it with pulverized stones, and then strengthen it with an asphalt-like substance, but wasn’t actually going to use asphalt. The chemical bonding agent I was going to use was the resin of a plant-type monster. It was more ecofriendly than asphalt, after all.

「『Transmute!』」

With one cast of transmutation, a long runway was complete.

It was 5 meters wide, and 500m long.

Passenger and cargo planes typically need longer runways, but what we’re creating were airships powered by magic. To be honest, our transport ships could perform vertical and take off landing (VTOL) as well, but it doesn’t mean it can’t. It was simply designed to be a little bit more like a plane to be conservative with mana.

The new transport ship, fundamentally similar to the Ouranos, weren’t strictly VTOL aircrafts, but if magic power was taken out of the equation, it could also take off and land vertically. It meant that it needed far less runway compared to normal airplanes. I thought 500m was too long, but a short runway wouldn’t look too good.

I recall the runway of airports in my old life were about 4 kilometers long. Even I wouldn’t lay down a 4 kilometer runway in the Sanctuary just for appearances.

Satisfied after inspecting the newly created runway, I moved on to creating the hangar.

I was thinking of building the hanger out of steel beams with steel sheets like strong and rust-resistant like Galvalume.

That said, instead of zinc or aluminum plating, I’ll use the wonderful material that’s completely impervious to rust, mithril.

Unlike mithril alloy, it’ll be for plating so I’ll only need a small amount.

However, if the mithril plating was used as is, the hangar bay would be dazzlingly shiny, so I plan to paint it with a paint derived from the same resin of a plant-type monster, the same as what I used on the runway.

Off to the side of the completed runway, I took out materials such as steel, mithril, monster resin out of the Item Box and piled them up.

As I was doing it, I felt an approaching presence, perhaps of someone who was curious of what I’m doing. When I turned around, I saw that it was Galahad-san.

「Iruma-dono, what will you use these on?」
「Umm, we’ve talked about a transport airship before, correct?」

Galahad-san, the Commander of the Sanctuary Knights, already knew about the joint training requests from the Trination, as I had consulted him about it.

「Yeah, you did ask me about that matter. The situation of the Trination was not something you could refuse, after all. Then you talked about building an airship capable of transporting a large number of people, didn’t you?」
「Yes. It’s an airship meant for transportation, but taking off and landing vertically like the Ouranos consumes copious amounts of magic power, so I thought I’d try building a dedicated runway specifically for that. And now I’m creating a building to house the transport ship and the Ouranos.」
「Fumu, so that smooth ground is the runway? I see, so it would be used for acceleration before take off and deceleration for landing.」
「That said, it wouldn’t need that much distance on the runway, so it could actually have been shorter.」
「Either way, the transport ship would be a tremendous help for the Sanctuary Knights as well.」 I look forward to its completion. My apologies for interrupting your work.」

After saying that, Galahad-san returned to the knights’ headquarters.

Just as Galahad-san said, the idea of a transport airship was a godsend for the Sanctuary Knights as well.

Teleport Gates are convenient, but Gates can’t be set up just anywhere. My magic power might not be enough to teleport the entire knight order using my Teleportation Magic. Moreover, there’s also the limitation that I can’t teleport to places I don’t know.

And so, while they can travel to nearby locations on horseback or by carriage, but Galahad wanted a way to quickly deploy troops to far locations, so the creation of the transport airship was very much welcomed.

Even on its fastest settings, the Oceanus which has the highest capacity, could not compare in speed with the Ouranos because, in the end, it’s still a ship competing against a flying vehicle.

Once I finished taking out all the materials, I took a moment to solidify an image in my mind before carving out a magic circle then invoking transmutation.

「『Transmute』!」

The mountain of materials was enveloped in light, and in the next instant, a gigantic hangar bay was complete.

「Okay, I guess I should give Laeva a hand.」

Once I finished making the runway and hangar bay, I immediately teleported to the Southern Mines to help Laeva with mining for materials.

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