“Woah, are you for real?” Hou Fei laughed as he saw the live-feed of Lord Wolte emerging out of the waters as a heavy battlecruiser. Although he hardly used it since he was busy with real-life commitments, Hou Fei still had a phone with System capabilities on it.
Jin had recently assisted him with installing it as he was long since considered a part of their family. Moreover, it would be easier for the System to teleport him around this way when needed. (Him being the General of the Royal Snakes provided the perfect excuse for the control type that was the System.)
Thus, with a simple voice command, within seconds, Hou Fei was sitting down beside Qiu Yue and started querying her about the Stalingrad. She quickly pulled the blueprints out for the General to preview them.
“Does Lord Wolte need help operating the controls or something? Because it would be a great help if my boys could have some naval refresher too.” Hou Fei asked bluntly. He figured Qiu Yue should be smart enough to see through his intentions anyway, so there was no need to pretend he did not want to join in.
“You’ll have to ask Lord Wolte himself. As long as you allow him to still call the shots, I don’t see any reason he might be against it. We can disguise him as the Ship’s advanced AI if required so your guys won’t question much of his commands.” Moloch suggested, and Hou Fei agreed.
In the meantime, Kraft had established a secure channel to Wolte, and Hou Fei began his rapid-fire round of questions. Fortunately, Lord Wolte was still happy basking in the glory of his ultimate form. Did Kraft decide to connect to him when Wolte was at his pinnacle of happiness? Was the world going under that this crafty fox did something for someone else?!
“Sure, why not? I am still not used to handling this many weapons so the extra help will be appreciated. It should allow us to increase the efficiency of my firing output.” Lord Wolte gleefully accepted the proposition.
“Alright, if that is the case, I will gather and inform them. System, please teleport me over to my men and then teleport us on to Lord Wolte.” Hou Fei requested as he personally entered the fray, getting his troops ready.
Many were shocked when they saw their General, assuming it was some sort of audit to make sure that they were still on guard with the current battle and didn’t slack off just because it was an exercise in a dungeon.
The ones he selected couldn’t thank their lucky stars enough for the new task their General entrusted them with. A lot, in fact, all of them who were handpicked knew the legend of the Stalingrad and could not hold their expectations in when they found out Hou Fei was taking them there.
As soon as the soldiers with naval experience were teleported onto the ship, they were greeted by Wolte. The voice was crusty and dense, a stark contrast to the robotic sound used by the mini snake pets they had with them. This ‘advanced AI’ was informing them about which stations needed to be manned while at the same time adjusting its guns towards the siege weapons as a test.
Lord Wolte figured they were a good first target to practice on since they were quite the nuisance when he had been defending the bridge. Most importantly, the siege weapons were stationary and hence allowed him to perform a quick configuration of his guns.
Unlike the siege weapons, whose demon engineers needed more time and shots to confirm their distance, Wolte had the System to rely on, which only required to consider all the external factors that could be affecting the trajectory. The System was sure that its calibration for Lord Wolte was more than sufficient since the seas were artificially calm and there was no wind in the skies…unless Prince Stolas’ wind magic would interfere.
Some of the soldiers that were on the upper deck watched the firing of the cannons and regretted not being able to record it. Most of them felt nostalgic as the sound of the main cannons was like music to their ears.
One even quickly took his binoculars out to see where the shots were going to land and holy shit. He could not believe the power of the gun when he saw the explosion from afar. As a soldier with much naval and land experience, Gan Yang could easily differentiate what a cannon shot looked like compared against the old fashion artillery their monster allies were using.
“This is a great ship. No, that doesn’t do it justice. It’s a supreme ship.” Gan Yang praised under his breath as he took a glance around the consoles as well as the blueprint design that hung on the wall. After which, being the highest-ranking soldier among their group, he quickly took over command and started to dispatch troops to their respective stations.
All the sailors within the vicinity also acknowledged his experience in the naval scene since he was one of the only few guys in the Royal Snake Battalions that had more than ten sorties to the Somalia Bays for peacekeeping efforts.
Despite copying a Cold War design, the consoles were modernized and with the AI, it was easy to control the ship. Lord Wolte did not mind these humans interacting with his consoles (it did tickle him though) as he observed them himself. He got more information about how the soldiers communicated with each other and the things to monitor for a ship.
Useful knowledge he planned to apply to instruct his loyal followers. (After all, the only types of ships he ever sailed on were solely from the Dungeon World.)
“All weapon systems nominal, main engines operational, targeting systems are online and working fine! Captain Gan Yang, awaiting your instructions!” A sailor reported with a slight hint of joke which made Gan Yang feel embarrassed. He knew the responsibility of a Captain and had no intention of becoming one.
But it doesn’t hurt to pretend as Captain for a day, right?
“Alright, the AI named Wolte has determined the Giant’s leader, Barbatos, to be the most important threat that needs to be eliminated. And so, we will be firing at him until he retaliates or when the AI said so. Reports have it that he could be strong enough to jump on board, so get those anti-gia- erm…” Gan Yang stuttered, and the sailors around him chuckled.
There was definitely no anti-giant defences back in their world, so it was natural, they didn’t have any term against such monsters.
“Prepare weapons with armour piercing rounds. We have to protect this ship as if it was real. If this sinks all of you will have to stay on board! Let’s pay them back for everything they did to the cultivators protecting the bridge!” Gan Yang cleared his throat and gave his briefing. The sailors acknowledged and began sending communications to the crew in the munitions storage to start reloading the next round of shells to be fired.
“Ahhh, I feel so alive having people working under me again!” Lord Wolte happily thought to himself. The sailors used the System’s data to continue their fire on the Siege Weapons before the ‘AI’ recommended to start pointing them at Earl Barbatos.
