03—10—1560 WC
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Rider Al was on a patrol mission in the northeastern region of the Kingdom, Riding a wyvern. There was nothing in this part of the country. To the east, only the Ocean.
Because of recent tensions with the Lativa Kingdom, patrols were necessary to detect and counter warships going off-course for possible surprise attacks, thus explaining why he and his partner were in this empty region.
"―!?"
He spotted something.
"What is that?"
He should have been alone in the skies, but something else was there. In normal situations, anything other than a friendly wyvern was unthinkable. Even by wyvern, the flight distance from Lativa Kingdom to here was nothing to sneeze at. The super countries apparently had a flying dragon carrier called the Elder Dragon, but something like that should have nothing to do with this remote area.
The flying object, starting at the size of a grain, steadily approached. As it came closer, he confirmed it was not a friendly wyvern.
"Nothing appears to be flapping…"
He immediately contacted headquarters with a magical communication tool.
"Unidentified objects in the sky. Preparing flyby to identify. Current location…"
They were at the same altitude. Intending to pass it by, he closed in.
He flew past the unidentified object. It was very large. Nothing was flapping, but what appeared to be the wings had 4 objects spinning around loudly. A light shined at the tip of the body and the wings, blinking on and off brightly.
He turned around, his partner flapping its wings fiercely. The wind pressure pushed hard against him, threatening to throw him off.
He kept at a distance… or at least, he intended to, but he couldn't even catch up to it. He couldn't even determine if it was a living thing or not.
"Kuh! What the heck is that thing!"
...
"HQ! HQ! I'm trying to confirm the object, but it's way too fast! I can't catch it at all! The object is heading towards Patro. I repeat, it's heading for Patro!"
Headquarters, after receiving the report, buzzed furiously like an angry beehive. Something that could even outrace a wyvern was headed for the economic center, Patro. If it was attacked, that would stain the prestige of the military. Judging from its speed, it probably already entered the mainland's airspace. Orders were relayed via communication magic.
"3rd Wyvern squadron, all wyverns fly! An unidentified object appears to be entering Patro's airspace! Shoot on sight! Repeat, shoot on sight!"
Wyverns crowded the runway. There were 12 total, all geared up for a sortie. They launched into the clear blue skies and soared up high.
The 3rd Wyvern squadron was luckily right in front of the unidentified object and could confront it directly. From the reports, this opponent was capable of extreme flight speeds. If it was really that fast, they only had a small window of opportunity. The 12 riders in the Wyvern squadron lined up horizontally, wyverns' mouths gaping open. A simultaneous fire blast – if it hit, no dragon could survive such an attack.
In the wyverns' mouths, balls of fire began to take shape. But just then, the unidentified object began to ascend. Because the riders were already at the wyverns' maximum altitude of 4000 meters, this was a completely unexpected situation. It climbed at an alarming rate.
The 3rd Wyvern squadron, lamely outranged by the unidentified object, was left behind.
"Unidentified object found. Attempted to engage, but the object ascended out of range and is proceeding to Patro at a ridiculous altitude. I repeat―"
The leader of Patro's defensive order, Captain Jiggor, received the report from the 3rd Wyvern squadron and looked up at the sky.
What exactly was it?
Something that's far faster than a Wyvern. A frightening object that can surpass the altitude limits of a wyvern would soon appear over the commercial city Patro.
Captain Jiggor continued to stare at the sky.
From far away, a sound could be heard. It was an unfamiliar VNNNNN, and, after a short while, it arrived in Patro's skies. The object descended and turned in the sky. It was a large, white, otherworldly object that emitted strange noises with wings that didn't move
It was clearly impinging on Patro's airspace, but their wyverns were in the midst of transit from far away, and, while there were some viable defensive measures, this threat arrived too quickly and none of them were ready to be deployed. In other words, the city was effectively defenseless.
The object circled the air over Patro a number of times, then sped off to the northeast.
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Gorontalo Province— It is a large island in the Kingdom of Britannia with a total area of approximately 97,000 square kilometers. This province is governed by a governor who is appointed by the Queen herself, as this region is directly under the rule of the royal family.
★★————
Governor Pakaya was worried. In yesterday's incident, with regards to the defense of Gorontalo province, the military reported that an unknown object invaded Patro's airspace, circled the city numerous times, and then left.
It was so fast a wyvern couldn't give chase, and it invaded from a superior altitude.
Its origin was completely unknown. There were red circles drawn inside a green rectangle on the craft, but no country in the world had such a national flag.
"Well, what do you all think of this report? How should we interpret it?" he asked the room.
The intelligence representative raised his hand.
"According to our intelligence, the Venus Republic, the second largest country in the North and a High Nation, has developed a flying device that is similar to this unknown object. However, we believe that their latest model only reaches a top speed of 350 km/h, while the object from the incident is said to have exceeded 600 km/h. But…"
"But what?"
"In the far north of Venus, there are reports of a rising power, a new Super country. It is expanding its borders, by annexing neighboring countries. They have named themselves the Magnus Empire and have declared war on a coalition of small and medium-sized countries on the same continent, according to intelligence reports we received yesterday. Their weapons are completely unknown to us."
Light laughter rippled across the meeting room. Although it is a super country, it is a new power, and it is a reckless move to make so many enemies at once. Even though their enemies are weaker than them.
"However, they are very far away. Even just considering our distance from Venus, it is already more than thirty thousand kilometers. It is hard to believe that the object of this event could come from there."
The meeting circled back to the fact that they simply knew nothing. In any case, tensions with the Lativa Kingdom continued, forcing their nation into a constant semi-emergency state. This new incident was just an added headache for the leadership. If the object were an ally, simply making contact would be sufficient, so to deliberately perform a hostile act like invading their airspace meant that the chances of this being an enemy were quite high.
At that moment, a young official from foreign affairs burst into the meeting, completely out of breath.
"What's wrong?"
"Reporting in!" the official exclaimed loudly.
The official gave his report, which was as follows:
This morning, off the north coast of Gorontalo, a giant sea craft 260 meters in length appeared. According to the navy, they met an envoy from a country calling itself "Bernard Empire"