From the crow's nest temporarily erected on the deck in place of a mast came the ear-splitting cry of a sailor keeping watch.
"A huge island ahead!! It's land!"
Ayla and I locked eyes and simultaneously ran up the stairs from the lower deck.
Pushing through the soot of the engine room and standing at the bow, the silhouette of a massive land mass rose tall beyond the wide-open vista, cutting through the blue sea and coming into view.
The continent's greatest cotton-producing region, the pearl of the East nestled right beneath the jaw of the heathen empire.
Our final destination.
"Kipuro Island……."
Ayla murmured in a trance-like voice, facing the sea wind.
Exactly ten days since leaving Mishina on the Rom Peninsula.
A sea of death that would have taken an old-era sailing ship half a year, waiting for the trade winds—we had forcibly traversed it aboard a steel monster belching black smoke.
"Now then, Partner Ayla."
I gripped the whistle cord in the wheelhouse and laughed like a wild beast.
"Now it's time to sweep every last bale of Eastern cotton off the floor and go cut that old man Valerius's throat."
*
The port of Kipuro Island, called the Pearl of the East.
A territory of the Oseuan Empire, strewn with the thick scent of heathen spices and brilliant carpets—entirely different from the Rom Peninsula of the West that worshipped the God of Light.
Atop the cliffs overlooking the port, on the wide-open terrace of the Governor-General's residence built of marble, a woman stood.
Aisha.
First Imperial Princess of the Oseuan Empire.
Standing under the blazing Eastern sun, her bearing was like the most fatal yet elegant flower ever bloomed by a sixteenth-century imperial house.
Atop her head sat a splendid Heolgwikeu (a traditional ornament in the form of a small hat) densely embroidered with gold thread and pearls, and below it, black hair as dark and lustrous as ebony flowed down like a waterfall.
Though a thin, transparent silk veil covered her lower face mystically, the red lips and high nose bridge visible beyond it boasted breathtaking beauty.
The deep purple kaftan enveloping her body was studded densely with emeralds and sapphires, dazzling to the eye, and gracefully wrapped around her sensual yet dignified curves.
With each step she took, golden bells hanging from the hem of her silk garments rang out with clear sounds, scattering the deep, unique allure of the Oseuan Empire.
Especially beneath her deep double eyelids, her profound and mysterious golden irises, like a lake, flashed coldly and sharply—as if proving she was no mere ornament of the imperial court.
But this beautiful flower of the empire was, in truth, a woman trapped in profound resignation and escapism.
'Another galley has arrived. Is it the eldest brother this time, or the third brother?'
Aisha looked down at the sea with bitter eyes.
The chronic disease of the Oseuan Empire.
It was that whenever the old emperor collapsed, the grown princes would divide the nation's armies and territories among themselves and wage a bloody 'war of succession.'
Brothers cut each other's throats, and regional governors took sides with each prince, not even dreaming of cooperation but instead checking one another and gnawing away at national power.
Damnably, Aisha did not have the slightest authority to end this terrible civil war.
She was merely an imperial princess.
In the Oseuan Empire, a woman's authority was no different from a bird trapped in a cage.
No matter how noble her bloodline, she could not engage in politics, nor could she govern a territory.
Recently, as the war of succession intensified, the princes were desperate to marry Aisha off to powerful warlords or foreign royalty to use her as a political pawn to expand their own influence.
'And if not that, they would kill me so the other side couldn't use me.'
To escape those tiresome schemes and the threat of assassination, Aisha had left the imperial capital under the pretext of an indefinite recuperation at this Kipuro Island.
"The empire is rotting away, and here I am stuck looking at the sea."
Just as Aisha let out a sigh laced with self-mockery, at that very moment—
BWOOOOOOOO——!!!
A violent roar, as if tearing through the heavens, rougher and more savage than the bellow of a beast, struck the waters off Kipuro Island.
"……!!"
Aisha's golden eyes snapped wide open.
Black smoke billowing from beyond the horizon.
Ripping apart the windless sea on a breezeless day, a grotesque hulk without a single mast was charging toward the port at an incredible speed.
As the empire's citizens and guards at the port panicked and scrambled, screaming that a demonic ship had appeared—
The look in Aisha's eyes, standing on the terrace, was dyed not in fear, but in shock and profound awe.
'Th-that is…!'
Aisha instantly pierced through the essence of that ship.
In truth, though she lived suppressed by the imperial court's norms, the brain hidden behind her veil possessed a 'technological genius' sharper than any scholar in the Oseuan Empire.
She had to hide it because of the empire's laws, which forbade women from entering blacksmithies or participating in science and internal affairs.
In secret, she was a genuine engineer who had delved madly into Western physics texts, Arab geometry, and metallurgy.
'No sails. No movements of slaves rowing oars. Yet that heavy ship is moving against the waves.'
The cause?
Her keen mind found the answer in an instant.
'Those cylinders belching black smoke! They build fire to boil water, and transfer that power to the paddle wheels on both sides of the ship!'
She remembered the sight of a kettle boiling and its lid lifting off.
In her mind, the power conversion mechanism of a steam engine was completed like a lightning strike.
'It's unbelievable. Metal smelting technology capable of withstanding such insane thermal efficiency exists in the West? If that ship is commercialized… the empire's galleys, which have been subject to the rule of wind and current, will all become trash! Maritime supremacy will shift entirely!'
Aisha's heart began to race like mad.
But the eyes of a genius soon went beyond admiration, capturing the fatal 'warning signs' emanating from the ship's hull and steel boiler.
"Wait. They crossed the sea at that speed? There's no way that wooden hull and axle can fully endure the resistance of the waves and the rotational force of the outer wheels. And that irregular white steam leaking from the smokestack…!"
Without even noticing the Heolgwikeu ornament shaking, Aisha turned her body toward the terrace stairs.
"Clear the guards to the docks at once! I must go myself!"
*
At the same time, Kipuro Island Port.
"Drop anchor! Tie the ropes!"
With a rough grinding sound, the black steamship thudded against the dock.
I shut the valve in the engine room and let out a sigh of relief.
Ayla had already gone down to the deck, flashing an arrogant smile at the heathen merchants and imperial guards who had flocked to see the ship.
"We are the Karnoble Merchant Company from Western Pellua! We've come to sweep every last bale of cotton on your island, so call the trade masters at once!"
At Ayla's vigor of shaking a sack of gold coins scraped together from Mashina, the merchants of the Oseuan Empire began to buzz and clear a path.
I wiped off the oil stains in the engine room and walked outside.
From Pellua to Mashina, and then to Kipuro Island.
The extreme high-speed voyage had been successful, but unlike Earth's perfect ships, the wooden hull here was screaming in protest here and there.
'As expected, it shows signs of being a modified old ship through makeshift methods. The fatigue on the axle has built up considerably.'
I was calculating maintenance estimates in my head when—
"Make way! The First Imperial Princess of the Empire is passing through!"
The dock grew noisy, and the empire's finest guards, Yenicheri, holding shields emblazoned with the golden crescent moon, approached parting the crowd.
And at the sight of a woman walking out under the escort of those guards—Ayla, who had been strutting about on the ship, and the sailors alike held their breath for a moment.
'Wow… she's breathtaking.'
The imperial princess of the Oseuan Empire, fluttering a kaftan set with emeralds and sapphires, her golden eyes flashing beyond the mysterious silk veil.
"It is Princess Aisha! Prostrate yourselves and pay her reverence!"
"That is enough. I have words to speak, so let the foreign merchants hold their heads high."
The dignified air she radiated was the authority of the empire's pinnacle itself—a dimension apart from Ayla, a mere company agent.
"Are you the one in charge of this ship?"
Princess Aisha walked straight up to me and asked, looking me directly in the eye as I had just walked out from below deck.
An ordinary noble would have found it unpleasant even to exchange words with a dirty, foul-smelling merchant, but her gaze was fixed not on my face, but on the ship behind me.
"Yes, that is correct. I am Elpanso Karnoble of Pellua. However, what business does the Empire's esteemed princess have with a mere merchant ship…"
Just as I was politely bowing my head and trying to switch to merchant mode.
Aisha cut me off with an icy voice.
"That ship will explode if you do not immediately extinguish the furnace fire and vent all the steam."
"…What?"
Ayla and I simultaneously made blank expressions.
The princess lifted her skirt hem and, without regard for the guards' attempts to stop her, approached the ship close and pointed to the central axle of the outer wheel.
"I understand that you boil water to turn the wheels with that force. But it seems you did not consider that when this ship carries a heavy load and crosses rough waves, the depth to which the wheels on both sides submerge in the water changes arbitrarily."
My eyes widened greatly at the point that sprang from her mouth.
"Each time the ship tilts, one wheel spins uselessly in the air while the other is slammed against a heavy wall of water. Then what happens to the thick iron pillar connecting those two wheels? With the resisting forces on both sides uneven, it is forced to twist inside and grind away."
Aisha's eyes flashed sharply like a beast beyond the veil.
"That is precisely why the white steam erupting from that smokestack has been irregular and gasping since earlier. Because the pillar is twisting, the rhythm of the force bursting out from within is thrown off, and the force that has lost its way is thrashing about in reverse inside that giant iron cylinder. If you do not immediately vent that boiling energy, your proud ship will be torn to pieces entirely!"