- Port Südwind, Ersten, The Capital of the Kingdom of Apollyon–

- Around 9.30 pm, the next day-

“what do you even mean that the ship can’t dock at the port?! The beam of the ship is small enough to fit!” the mercenary is currently irritated as the port authorities didn’t allow the Yukikaze to dock. The massive ship currently hovers several kilometres away from the continent, waiting for the news from him. Though the thing that’s far more concerning is that the people around who saw the reentry trails and watched as the Yukikaze hover nonchalantly far away from them, which cause a massive commotion all around the capital and the neighbouring port city. some people rumoured that it was the land of gods descended that made them excited while some are drowned in fear as they fear the gods will give a divine judgement for using the spell that the nation’s forbidden spell has been perfected for civil use so that it is safe, both of those reasons made them started to do mass prayers for their safety, which until now, the port is bustling with people who wanted to go to the pier and do prayers. Regardless of the commotion and everything, Jaeger once asked one of the kids there if they were scared by it, and to his surprise, the sight of something as big as an island hovering is spectacular for them and they thought it was cool.

The port authority scratches his head, frustrated at the hard-headed man, “Look here, just look at the size of that thing! IT’S THE SIZE OF AN ISLAND!!”

“it only has a 300-meter-ish width!”

“ONLY!!!?? YOU JUST SAID ONLY!??!?!” he groaned again, scratching his head even more as one of his men running to him and inform him something while shaking his head, “Even if it does fit, I don’t even think the ship will dock without damaging the surroundings since the water is very shallow around here. Furthermore, we don’t even know how to moor it since the port itself doesn’t support such large ship”

“ughh… fine… I’ll think of something, be right back”

Jaeger walks away from the pier, back to where a hooded man is waiting for him. As he got close, to his surprise, there were three hooded people and one of them waved at him happily, shouting his name. The mercenary didn’t waste his time and jogged towards them.

“so, how was it?” the one’s who waved at him asked, opening his hood, revealing that it was the crown prince himself, Conrad. Jaeger shook his head, disappointed with the news he brought. “they said it was too big, well… that’s what she said”

“What? She?”

“no, nothing, nevermind that”

“you know Jaeger, you often spout random words that we don’t know the context about which sometimes confuses me” the mercenary chuckled, confusing the three more. “sorry, it’s a force of habit of saying a joke out of anything, it reminds me of an old friend”

“Oh, I see, introduce me to him later, is he aboard the ship??”

“No, he was killed in action”

Conrad went silent as he felt that he accidentally stepped on a landmine conversation, “My condolences…”

“it’s fine, anything could happen in combat, he signed up for that mission anyway. That aside…” he looked at the two hooded people behind Conrad, “are you sure having your knights disguised is a good idea? Can’t you just not use any disguise whatsoever?”

The prince averted his gaze from Jaeger, chuckling nervously while scratching his head, “I… forgot to tell Father that I’ll be following you and these two took the initiative themselves to escort me”

“well of course we would your highness, your habit of sneaking out of the castle is quite a problem do you know that?” one of the knights opens her hood, having an irritated face, and the other also opened his hood, didn’t say a word. Both of them didn’t wear any heavy armour, only a chest plate and their shin guards, their swords were custom-made longswords with some wide blades since their scabbards were quite wide for longswords.

“I for one, agree with her, your highness. Ah, where are my manners? Sister, did you forget to introduce ourselves to Sir Wolvenford here?”

“oh right, sorry…”

The two then introduced themselves, the female knight named Remilia and the male knight, William. The two of them were siblings, under the family name Berlichter, they rose the ranks into Knights that are the main guards for Apollyon’s royalties, Kaiserritter or imperial knights. Imperial Knights are elite knights that mastered swordsmanship and high-grade magic, trained with the purpose of being the last line of defence and defeating any [Hero] that is a threat to the nation.

“in any way or another, they’re also my childhood friends, which is why they would even leave their posts just because of me sneaking out of the castle” Remilia stepped closer to Conrad, her eyes twitching with irritation at his nonchalant remark. “pardon me for doing this, your highness…” she said, before smacking Conrad’s head with her palm.

“ow! What was that for Remi!”

“for being a pain in my a*se”

Wiliam smacked Remilia right after she cussed, “Wordings, sister”, having himself glaring daggers at his sister.

“but Conrad is being a hassle to deal with every time he sneaks out! And it’s always me that’s at fault when he can’t be tracked!”

“well… the captain should’ve taken responsibility for the prince’s safety so it’s quite reasonable to have you at fault”

“I hate that my brother is very reasonable”

As they were talking to themselves, Jaeger reached out to his left ear with a wireless earphone that was connected to his exoskeleton radio. He then activated it and starts hearing some static sounds, he waited until the sound dissipated. “Castle, this is Intruder 1-1, do you read me? Over”

There was no reply, so he tried one more time, “Castle, this is Jaeger, can anyone respond? Over”

“hehe… Loud and clear Lt. Col, you sure make us worry” As the reply was said, he could hear a cheer from a group behind the Communications Operator, “Looks like you made contact huh?”

“It's a long story, by the way, the ship isn’t permitted to dock to the port, as-“

“We know, Geographic scientist just dropped a sonar buoy to scan the sea floor, which is pretty shallow on either continent. we’ll moor the Yukikaze 12 kilometres away from the shore, one of our docked frigates, a Donitz Class, will serve as a transport between the ship and the port.”

Jaeger scratched his head, hearing that the ship could even have her own escort being docked to it is just out of the ordinary. Furthermore, something else made him curious, “How many capital ships does the Institute have in the first place? I’ve seen three classes for now, do they intend to have a galactic conquest or something?”

“That's still in process of disclosure I guess, the confirmed ones are 27 of the Donitz class frigates not including the ones that were with the Yukikaze, 15 each of the Halifax class and the Kutznetzov class Destroyers. The one that was destroyed in orbit was the first of the two experimental Fletcher class Destroyer which has the railgun that was mounted to the Trailblazer class on its bow. I can’t say much since they said there’s more to come”

“damn, that’s quite the amount even for an independent organisation, anyway, I’ll inform you that our frigate will be the one that will dock here. What’s the dimension of it again?”

Jaeger heard the Communications Operator asking someone about the size of the frigate, to which that certain someone replied, “Around 280 meters in length and with a beam around 36 meters, its height is at 48 meters while the waterline is around 28 meters”

“copy, I’ll inform the Port crew, wait for further info from me”

The Communications Operator acknowledged and ended the call, the mercenary sighed, muttering, “How the heck ABEL got this many assets? it’s like they’re preparing for war themselves without the world knowing”

[do I need to access the mainframe of the institute’s server sir?]

“Wha- oh, no need Ofnir, It’s just my inner curiosity, I just hope nothing going to happen later on”

He then told the three that he was going to inform the port authorities about the change of plans, leaving them afterwards among the dense pack of crowds. At the Yukikaze, the human and the automated crews were scrambling to prepare the combined ship to undock, amongst them were also briefed as they will be selected to go aboard the frigate as the representative for the whole ship. While the ones that were selected were mostly engineers and a hundred specialized marines, their Commander insisted that she’ll go on board the frigate. “Jeanne! We need you onboard the flagship! I can’t risk having the highest authority in this operation isn’t at the bridge!”

“I’ll be fine Captain, besides, my brother’s there and he’s alive! He’s also one of the best assets on the ground we have currently”

“We can’t be sure that they’re hospitable enough!”

“you know this debate isn’t going anywhere right? I’ll have you in charge of the ship in the meantime, keep on proceeding with the repairs on the optical camouflage system, and take care of her.~” And with that, she trotted away from the bridge happily as she wanted to meet her “brother” again even though he only went missing for three days. The captain could only sit on his seat in a floppy posture, having his eyes covered by his officer hat while letting out a massive groan.

“that damned girl is a massive slave driver for f*ck sake! First of all, why am I even this ship’s captain!? I’m just her lab assistant! How in the hell am I even qualified!?”

“you know sir, just do what you always do, go with the flow. It’s not like you’ve done anything wrong for the past few days”

“you’ve always stayed positive huh, Lt. Sasha?” she smiled at his remark, though it didn’t bring down his frustration. “though… why is she still calling herself Commander? Didn’t she got promoted to Lieutenant Colonel or something since she switched her Officer Branch? I don’t get her mind honestly, even in the Lab, Jeanne is always like that, unpredictable”

“my dude, Lt. Colonel and Commander is the same rank”

“wait, it is??” The whole bridge crew nodded, agreeing with what Sasha said. The man just facepalmed himself, “I swear to god that I’m not suited for military stuff but here I am, as the acting captain of the flagship of this important mission, first of all, is Lieutenant Commander a high rank?”

One of the crew sighed, he wasn’t expecting that the captain of the ship didn’t know anything. “sir, sorry to be rude but what’s your name again?”

“Oliver, why you ask??”

“you know Lieutenant Commander Oliver, sir, I am more surprised that you were even qualified for this, what were the higher-ups thinking…”

“I could say the same man…”

Suddenly, the ship slightly rocks as the frigate undocks from the bow and the bridge crew heard some of the conversation from the carrier air traffic control crew with the one’s commanding the frigate, which is Jeanne herself. “this is the Müller, separations good and all systems are nominal. Heading towards the nearby port for liaison.” The ship then turned 90 degrees to the right and went half ahead, slowly descending towards the sea.

Back at the port, the people gathered there were in a panic as they saw part of the Yukikaze split up and headed towards them, though, unlike the civilians, the workers at the port were informed beforehand by Jaeger that there was going to be a smaller ship going to dock at the port. Which is why they’re currently preparing a space for it to moor. Jaeger also gave the head of the port crew one of his wireless communication equipment which is directly linked to the frequency that the crew of the Müller told him to use. apart from the communication issue since the port crew weren’t used to using such advanced telecommunication tech since it’s mostly owned by middle to high-class civilians, everything went perfectly as the ship slowly made an approach until they saw one major issue, the pier that’s supposed to accommodate the ship was too low for the ship crew to go down. They resorted to making one but Jaeger informed them that the ship has its own ladder to go down so they postponed that idea until most of the crew that was going off are on the pier.

The crew of the frigate rolled down a long ladder, the moderate breeze slightly flutter the ladder as it was hanging from the side of the ship. 3 men and one woman which Jaeger knows slowly go down the ladder while around the docks, people gathering as they wanted to see the otherworldly sight of the ship. The Donitz class itself is massive for them, the sleek and angled nature of it with the looks of a ship without any armaments visible also piqued their curiosity as they had never seen a ship without any canons whatsoever, though, they could see 5 of the CIWS turrets which they thought as its main weapon in awe as they never saw a rotary cannon before. The girl that finally reached the wooden pier turned around with a smile on her face towards Jaeger, saluting.

“so, the mission was a success then Jaeger?” the mercenary chuckles, replying the salute with one.

“you know it’s kinda weird for you to call me with my callsign,” she giggled and just jumped towards him with a massive hug which nearly made him tumble backwards. “geez… you made me worry Archie… I thought you were a goner… “

He didn’t answer and just caressed her head, comforting her. “sorry, a lot has happened”

“umm… Jaeger? Who’s this girl you’re hugging?” Jeanne stopped her hugging and noticed a girl hiding behind him wearing a hood, tugging Jaeger’s cloak, the appearance of her made her eyes grow wide in shock as Jeanne was reminded of something from their past. “!! who the heck are you!? Why are you acting so close to Achilles?!”

The girl was taken aback by the sudden glare and hostile tone towards her “wha-! I’m not acting close! furthermore, who in the world are you in the first place!?”

“I don’t need to explain that to you! also, why are you holding his clothing?!”

The mercenary sighed as his sister didn’t know that she was being hostile towards someone important. “Sis, can you at least let me explain for a moment”

“BUT-“

“Jeanne, let. Me. Explain…” His tone slightly changes into his stern one, which is effective towards his hard-headed sister that usually never listens to anyone, “the city is watching us right now, you’re making a scene”

“sorry…”

As he separated from his sister’s hug, the only thing crossed his mind was, “damn, I really hate where this is going…”