Celestina Shoukan

Chapter 15 - The Stained Pride of The Empire

Papaldia Empire, Imperial Oversight Army, Eastern Fleet

Admiral Pioiotus observed the eastern sea. The skies were clear, but the breeze over the ocean was dry and pleasant. Currently, they were about 120km from the Kingdom of Selarong.

"?!"

There was something on the horizon.

"Something that looks like a ship has been spotted! It's approaching us!"

"?!... It's huge... and I don't think it's with Selarong..."

A small mountain was moving through the water. Was it a ship? He wasn't sure what to think, but it was much larger than anything he had ever seen moving on the ocean.

"All hands, prepare for battle!"

The huge, castle-like gray ship rapidly closed the distance. It was too fast!

"! Could it be... even faster than our ships?!"

The unknown ship came close and began sailing parallel to our fleet. It was all alone.

"Admiral... What do we do?"

The 3rd Foreign Affairs Department Head Kyeos had ordered them to punish Selarong in front of all the visiting officers and thoroughly intimidate their countries. If there was any interference, get rid of it. He was absolutely certain that the giant gray ship neither belonged to an allied country of Papaldia nor a private citizen. Considering it as an enemy, it was only a single ship, no matter how big it was, it couldn't possibly be superior to the 24 ships in a superpower's fleet. He also only saw a single, humongous cannon equipped, whereas his fleet consisted mainly of 50-gun ships-of-the-line, with no ships having fewer than 30 guns, and there were even some 80-gun ships.

Failure did not seem possible.

Furthermore, the enemy's single cannon reminded him of the Selarong navy's flagship, which had a piece of shared technology from the civilized areas. This was the thing: the superpowers all used cannons with a range of 2 km, while all the other non-superpower countries in the civilized areas only had access to cannons with a range of up to 1 km, and explosive shells weren't available on the market, so both the power and range on Papaldia cannons were superior. If this was a technology share cannon, then it was completely inferior to the originals.

...At least, that should have been the case, but... Pioiotus couldn't think of a country that could manufacture a cannon as abnormally large as that one. Regardless, the ship had clearly come from Selarong, so Admiral Pioiotus was determined to enact Papaldia's will and attack it. The enemy ship had come within 1,5 km of the fleet, and its main cannon was still pointed straight ahead.

"It's completely within our range... the fools... Fire magic cannon!!"

BABABABABA...

Smoke consumed the fleet.

BOBOBOBOBOBOOM!!!

The sound of cannons firing echoed over the sea. Still flush with confidence after obliterating Selarong's palace navy as easy as stealing candy from a baby, the 24 ships in the eastern fleet of the superpower Papaldia imperial oversight army threw all their might at the Celestina Imperial Navy Magnetic-class Destroyer Golden Lion.

"Reporting! All shots... missed the target!"

The trajectories of the cannon shells were quickly verified, and they confirmed that there were no hits. Since the coordinated broadside missed, there were gigantic splashes of water all over.

"The enemy ship has retreated outside the range of our magic cannons."

For something so big, its acceleration was monstrous, as evidenced by how fast the enemy ship separated from its fleet. After the first broadside missed, they decided to retreat out of range while the fleet was reloading.