The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 720: Airship Swap

Once they had put a few dozen rounds through their new rifles, the knights mounted up, and everyone prepared to leave Wistover, headed northeast through the Baronies, and then northwest up the main path through Lympsbury and into Kinewen Province.

With them gone, and everything set up to operate without interference on his part, Dominic assumed that things would begin to settle down for a little bit.

It would take weeks before the patrol was into Kinewen Province, and until then he wouldn’t have any updates on the situation within the region.

There wasn’t anyone there to report.

Sure, there were messages regularly from the airships that flew over, and the Merchant’s Guild had sent a few caravans through the region, but none of them had reported more than the occasional farming village closer to the border which hadn’t flooded.

In the northern regions of the Province, before they turned off the highway to avoid the ruins of the capital, they didn’t report seeing anything at all.

Still, Dominic didn’t slow down on his work.

In the mornings, he had meetings with the advisors, then lunch with Alexis, an afternoon in the forge, and back to the house for the evening.

It was a good routine, and he was generating a huge stockpile of rifles, spears and pistols. All of which could be included in the shipment to Dagos, as they were on the list. But he wouldn’t send them firearms, he wasn’t feeling that generous.

He might send them some uncommon grade spears.

They were expensive enough to be worth the space that they took up in a shipment, and the nation could certainly use a few thousand more of them.

But the Baronies had started submitting a portion of the harvest as tribute, though they were tax-exempt for the next year and a half still. They had decided it was better to set everyone’s expectations right from the start, so they took a tenth of the harvest, which was so large that they were having issues finding enough space to store it anyhow, and sent it to the city.

From there, Dominic forwarded it to the Merchant’s Guild, so they could send some to Dagos, and the rest toward Castle City and Darden, who were still suffering from a ruined crop and an influx of refugees.

It was keeping the supply routes fully stocked, and the money was flowing steadily back into the Duchy’s coffers.

Alexis and Julio took care of most of the financial issues, as she had decided that spending on events within the manor and the city was under her purview as a “Household Expense” which only left Dominic to deal with the businesses.

And business was booming.

Ten days after the knights left on patrol, two new airships were finished, a full week ahead of schedule. One went to Duke Seaveton, and the other went to the Merchant’s Guild, who had to hastily summon their customer to the city.

That brought Rill to Dominic’s office, instead of the other way around.

“Your Grace, it’s good to see you again. We’ve got a small matter for you today. One of our men would like to make a trade for his new airship, instead of selling assets to get the cash.” Rill began.

“Oh? Lay it on me. If it’s something that the Duchy needs, I’m willing to trade for it. I can afford to pay materials and labour for the airships.”

Rill smiled. That was an understatement. Even with the exorbitant rates that he paid the workers at the airship hangars, one airship’s sale would pay the entire team’s annual wage.

“Going by current market value, the new airships are worth five of the old schooner class airships. And that’s what he would like to trade. Direct transfer of five schooner class airships, set up for cargo, to the Duchy, in exchange for the new cargo airship.”

Dominic considered the offer. It was a good deal, as the trade rate should be closer to four and a half times the value of a schooner class airship in the old design.

They were relatively slow, barely making twenty nautical miles an hour. Now, compared to ground travel, that was amazing, as they didn’t have to stop at night, or get slowed by bad roads or traffic.

But the new ones could casually cruise close to sixty nautical miles an hour, a little over a hundred kilometres an hour in ground travel terms.

For cargo, the winner was clear. It might only hold twice as much as a Schooner pattern ship, which normally still had a full wooden hull, as a converted seafaring vessel.

But the speed made it a completely different business proposal.

That was not what Dominic wanted them for, though. He wanted to convert them to gunships, loaded with cannons, to patrol the Duchy. They didn’t need to be particularly fast, or fly higher than foreign interceptors could reach.

They needed to be able to see threats on the ground and target them.

“Alright, I will take that deal. Bring the airships to the hangars, and I will have the lads get to converting them when they’ve got a moment. I’ll be putting the old airships to work as a defensive fleet for the Duchy.

The fact that they can move cargo between us and the Baronies is just a bonus, and likely won’t even be necessary, at the rate that we’re building improved roads.”

Rill nodded. “I will give him the good news. He’s in line for two more airships in the new design, but plans to pay cash for those after liquidating the older ships in his fleet to you with this one.”

Dominic nodded. “As long as he has a fully trained crew, he won’t have to wait too long.”

“They’re already trained for the systems on the old ships, and they have a techno wizard in each crew. They’ll just need an update on the new systems, and I’m sure they’ll be fine. They’ll all arrive for training when they turn in their old ships, and they’ll remain until their new ones are ready.”

That made life easier, and Gully would be happy to have time to teach the Techno Wizards about all the systems as the ships were built.

And now, Wistover was going to have airborne artillery. Once he got more of those [Wings of Light] spells made, and soldiers trained, that would give him the perfect platform for magitech paratroopers as well.

If they were already in the air, there was no need to scramble them to deal with a threat.