Why Did You Summon Me?

In this world, pure grit and hardened backbones were of tremendous value, so it stood to reason that the crew possessed nerves of steel. This made it easy to stabilize the situation and quickly elect a Captain. That being said, watching the large marionette come to life and slaughter a dozen comrades in the blink of an eye was quite traumatic for the crew. Only two people were left on the deck: the engineer and the new Captain.

“I — a being beyond your understanding — come from another world,” said the marionette, which was being controlled by Baiyi at this point. The marionette pointed at the charred corpses that littered the deck and said, “I was just curious about your world, and you welcomed me with malice; thus, I was forced to display my power.”

The engineer and the new captain nodded vigorously from their kneeling positions, but in their minds, they protested. ‘You started the whole thing by killing our Captain without provocation!’

“I’m interested in this world. Steer your ship to the nearest city,” Baiyi commanded. “Before that, bring me your seafaring logbook, and every book you have about your history and technology. Finally, take me to this ship’s engine; bring me to her Core.”

The former captain’s memory showed that the “heart” of the ship, which was called the “Core”, was located in the engine room. It was this core that powered the ship. However, the former captain did not seem to know how the Core worked, or how it was made. What he did know was that Cores could be found in abandoned ghost cities or plundered from other ships.

Baiyi wondered if shipbuilders here would know moe. He knew that a visit to the engine room would reveal if a highly-advanced civilization had ever existed in this world.

A few moments later, the marionette reached the entrance of the engine room, only suffering a little accident on the way. The new Captain had not completely surrendered, it seemed, as evident by his secret order to hide fighters in the engine room to ambush the marionette.

The engineer stumbled towards the engine room a few moments later, with a box full of books atop his arms, and he was shocked to find the floor littered with fresh corpses, some of whom were missing limbs.

The marionette, whose arms were stained with blood, casually took the box from the stunned engineer. “From this moment, you’re the captain of the ship. If anyone disagrees, tell them to see me.”

“Do not disturb me until we reach the city,” said the marionette, after which it entered the engine room and closed the door behind it.

The new captain quickly fled the surrounding in panic, falling over a few times as he ran. The marionette’s red eye began to study the ship’s propulsion system.

Contrary to the expectation of the Voidwalkers, the ship’s core was more of an expansive magical system than a piece of technology from a galactic race in sci-fi movies. The core, which emitted a mysterious glow, was about five meters high and resembled a large version of the Orbment system from a certain JRPG game¹. No matter how the Voidwalkers looked at it, they could not shake the feeling that it was different from the snowmobiles, muskets, and all other low-tech tools that the crew had used.

“What an exquisite design!” The Engineer Walker sighed with praise. “However, its working principle is easy to understand; I can even replicate it now. I can make a similar propulsion system using Isythre’s present technology. Although the replication won’t be difficult, I doubt I could make mine as small and delicate as this one!”

“The structure of this system is not simple, and the Laws it utilizes are quite different. We shouldn’t be making unfounded comparisons,” Baiyi replied calmly.

In reality, Baiyi was not amazed. He had hoped that the core would be something from a spectacular scientific civilization and not another magical item, as the Void lacked experts in technology.

Two days passed, and the new captain did not bother the marionette. The Voidwalkers were getting enough time to examine the ship’s core and pour over books, to bridge the missing information in the former captain’s memories.

First, magic existed in this world, and the Laws that powered it were similar to those in Isythre’s. It was though the magic in both worlds were branches of one common magic system. This discovery was not surprising, though. If the magic systems of both worlds were completely different, the War God’s portal would not have worked.

Second, this world had had technologically advanced ancestors. After examining the Orbment System, the Voidwalkers realized that the ancient civilization of this world had a weaker grasp of magic than the ancient civilization of Isythre. Sorcery did not even exist in this world. The books brought by the new captain and information obtained from the former captain’s memories did not make any mention of sorcery or its practice.

Although magic existed in this world, its people did could not tap into it; they could only utilize it using external devices and contraptions. This path was different from the one walked by the people of Isythre, but it was impressive, nonetheless. The feats of this world’s ancient civilization were also inferior to those of the ancient civilization of Isythre. If both worlds were to wage war, Isythre would wipe the floor with this world’s ancient civilization, and also the current one, whose technology was inferior to its ancient civilization’s.

The current civilization was severely disconnected from their forefather. The muskets used during the ambush did not apply on any understanding of chemistry nor physics, but through incredibly rudimentary, inanely-executed magic. They were so useless that even real, antiquated muskets from Earth could overwhelm them with little effort.

There were signs that modern residents had tried to improve their technology by studying and learning from their forefathers, but their progress was execrable. The Captain’s memories and their written records showed that muskets with firepower rivaling BB guns had been available for at least ten years; this meant that the most developed weapons they had were, in fact, a decade old!

The snowmobiles-resembling “sky-skis” were no better. These vehicles were powered by an ineffectual propulsion system clobbered from whatever scant resources modern residents could find, thus explaining their underperformances. The maximum load for the sky-ski to continue working were two adult riders; one could expect the challenge towing a three-ton-marionette was.

In conclusion, this was an incredibly primitive world.

However, one must remember that this was just their current theory, crafted from the limited information the Walkers had at the moment. Maybe the cities would provide more surprises — maybe they could even subvert expectations.

It was at this moment the new captain knocked on the door.

“What’s the matter? Have we arrived at our destination yet?” The marionette’s unemotional grunt rang from the other side.

“N-no… It’s… We haven’t… But it’s… Sire… We are, uh, f-facing a s-s-situation…” The new captain reported with a stutter.

It took an opened door and a more direct interrogation for Baiyi to understand that the ship was under attack. By the time he reached the deck with the new captain, Baiyi had found himself watching several sky-skis pelting the deck with a salvo of musket rounds and arrows. The crew of SS Meryl was retaliating with their fiercest as well.

For a very long time, neither side had gained a clear advantage. The battle was a noisy one, yet no one had died. The weapons used by both sides were so crude that what could have been a bloody fight now had been reduced to the Lost Boys versus the Neverland pirates.

Baiyi did notice that the way their sky-skis dove and shot the decks call back to the sort naval warfare during World War Two.

From a distance, he could see three more gigantic steamships steering towards the SS Meryl with white flags proudly waving in the wind. Who knew that white flags meant no surrender in this world!

“Um, SS Meryl is an old maid, Sire,” said the new captain, who was peaking out from the protection behind a cabin door. “She’s not as fast as those ships are. As for our retaliation forces, well, most of our crew were, er… Your visit, Sire, um…”

He had barely finished when an arrow hit the hinge on his door. The enemies had taken easy notice of a gigantic robot. A few of these mad lads had even steered their sky-skis closer, waving their ropes around before lassoing it before tightening them on the marionette’s body.

“I got it! Pull!” The riders cried and tapped on their partners’ shoulders excitedly.

“Wasted effort,” The marionette grunted before gripping the ropes itself and yanked. The strength immediately split the sky-skis into half, causing the riders to capsize and plunged from the altitude with a trail of a shrill, unending yell.

“Hahaha! Come on, tell me how extra my Full Burst Mode is again!” The Engineer Walker giddily taunted as he drew up his Multi Lock-on Screen and aimed at all of the enemies on the screen.

A dazzling display of colors later, the seemingly-sturdy sky-skis were all hit with absolute precision before going down as fireballs, plummeting down in a trail of thick, rolling black smoke.

The crew beheld the terrifying monsters before them in frightful silence before turning back to the cleared sky. They gulped.

The new captain was the first to know what to do. He fell to his knees, leading the crew and suddenly the deck was filled with kneeling people. It seemed that it was base nature for all living things to show respect and fear to the alpha of the packs.

At the same time, the captain from the enemy steamships took one look at the spyglass, rubbed his eyes, then looked back at it again. He examined the situation as hard as he could before turning to his First Mate. “So… All of our riders just died.”

“Including our ship raiders,” replied the First Mate. His voice was monotonous from shock.

“Can anyone just tell me what happened? All I saw was some explosive shower of pretty lights and then everyone was suddenly gone!” The enemy’s captain asked.

No one answered him this time. Everyone remained in a stupor before suddenly, someone cried, “The enemy has been spotted!”

When did an old ship like the SS Meryl suddenly turn direction and now dashing towards them with full knots ahead?

“I thought all of their riders are put down! Now they’re thinking of waging a boarding war?!” The captain snapped out of his startle. Out of his instincts and reflex, he made the decision to face the enemy head-on. He had three ships under his command; he had the advantage of numbers on his side!

“No, I don’t think so. Only two sky-skis are heading our way!” One of his crew standing post on the crow’s nest shouted. The SS Meryl had sent two silhouettes; one significantly larger than the next — zipping through the sky towards them.

“One of them looked very bizarre…”