Chapter 28
Scarlett looked up at the peak and said,
“How am I supposed to get over this…?”
As she pondered, Victor knocked on a metal plate attached to the peak.
Twice, five times, twice…
As Scarlett watched him send the signal, a rope soon descended from the top of the peak.
Victor gestured for her to go up first. Scarlett picked up the bag with one hand and looked at the rope with a troubled expression. She tried grabbing it and climbing first, but she didn’t have enough strength and kept slipping.
“Come here.”
Victor called her over, so Scarlett reluctantly approached him. He tied the bag securely to the end of the rope, then lifted Scarlett up and made her wrap her arms around his neck.
“Hold on tight.”
“…Okay.”
Victor began climbing the rope with her in his arms. Frightened, Scarlett squeezed her eyes shut. The farther they got from the ground, the more her entire body trembled, but she couldn’t bring herself to say she was scared while Victor was carrying even her weight.
As soon as they reached the peak and Victor released the rope and stood upright, Scarlett climbed down. With an embarrassed expression spreading across her face, she said,
“Thank you.”
Victor looked at Scarlett for a moment, his expression somehow pained. He ran a hand through his hair once and then took a deep breath.
“…Was I too heavy?”
When Scarlett asked, Victor touched the neck where her breath had brushed against it, then sighed with a crumpled expression.
“Of course not.”
“Then… ah.”
Scarlett realized a beat too late why Victor looked so troubled. Her face burning, she fanned it with her hands and quickly turned away.
“Sorry.”
“Watch where you’re going.”
At Victor’s words, Scarlett raised her head. Then she looked down beyond the peak, and her mouth fell open on its own.
Beyond the peak, in the gorge where the Lyuse Falls were located, stood two official residences. And flying between the gorge was a glider that Scarlett had thought had disappeared after the pirates were wiped out.
“There are gliders…”
“Well, they’re useless without wind.”
Scarlett soon sat down on the peak and looked below. The two official residences each bore the insignia of the navy and the army.
When Scarlett turned around, Victor said,
“They’ve selected special forces from both the navy and army.”
“So, that special forces unit is…”
“The air force. Though we don’t have airplanes.”
“The air force doesn’t have airplanes?”
“There is one biplane made by the former heads of the Crimson family, but it’s broken.”
Victor grabbed Scarlett and turned her around.
“I’ll give you a chance even now. If you want to turn back, go back.”
“And if I don’t?”
“If you’re an associate of the Crimson family, then you must be the engineer who came to repair that biplane.”
“And if I can’t repair it…”
“You won’t be leaving this place.”
Scarlett froze at his words.
Victor pulled on the rope and lifted her bag as he said,
“As a courtesy to my former wife, I’ll make sure the prison is comfortable.”
Scarlett shot Victor a sideways glare. She had no idea when that man had started making jokes.
The two soon descended to the ground using an unstable lift attached to the mountain peak.
Just as her parents had told her, Lyuse Falls possessed a sacred power. It was beautiful, as though a mysterious force flowed along with the water.
Scarlett wanted to retrieve the pebbles from the water, so she took off her shoes. Victor looked uncomfortable and said,
“Do you want to go swimming in this weather?”
“No, those pebbles are the material… Ah, am I not supposed to tell you?”
“Are you worried I’ll sell the secret of how to make that watch?”
Come to think of it, there was no way Victor Dumfelt would do something like that.
Victor gestured to one of his men nearby. The sailor immediately went into the water, retrieved some pebbles, and came back out.
“Here you are, miss.”
“…Thank you.”
Honestly, this man was determined to make sure a lady couldn’t do a single thing with her own hands.
Then, suddenly curious, Scarlett said,
“Doesn’t the fact that I’m a watchmaker hurt your reputation?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Watchmaking technology is the finest scientific technology in the country.”
“Hmm…”
She had expected him to be narrow-minded about a lady working, but surprisingly, he had a flexible side to him. This was genuinely unexpected.
Scarlett thought about it as she put her shoes back on. Then she looked at the pebbles Victor’s subordinate had given her.
The pebbles still held a sparkle like condensed sunlight. She placed one into her bag when Farlin came running toward them, looking pale.
“Captain! What are you thinking…?”
“She said she was coming. How was I supposed to stop her?”
“You should have stopped her anyway! Even if you had to use force… Ah, seriously.”
Seeing Farlin’s face, Scarlett began to wonder if coming here recklessly might actually have put her life in danger.
She looked at Victor, whose expression remained calm. Perhaps it was fortunate after all. If Victor had been the kind of man who cared deeply about her and didn’t know what to do with himself, he might never have let her enter this place.
She had never imagined that Victor’s lukewarm feelings toward her would someday work in her favor.
I wish I could tell my past self. Don’t regret it too much. It’ll benefit you someday.
The official residence was a wooden building with plenty of sunlight streaming inside. The weather in the gorge was mild.
When they entered the enormous warehouse behind the residence, Scarlett saw the gliders. She wanted to look around a little longer, but Victor didn’t stop walking.
He headed toward the end of the warehouse. When he opened the innermost wooden door and stepped inside, Scarlett followed him—and her mouth fell open.
“Ah…”
There was a biplane.
It had enormous double-layered wooden wings and a complicated engine.
Somewhere in her mind, Scarlett searched for a memory of this biplane. A moment later, she remembered a conversation with her parents.
“It’s too heavy.”
“Yeah. It won’t be able to fly like this.”
This engine couldn’t fly.
Yet this was ultimately the last engine her parents had created. In other words, Salantier still didn’t possess the technology necessary to build airplanes.
Scarlett immediately moved to repair the engine, but Victor stopped her.
“Didn’t you hear?”
“Huh? What did you say?”
Blight, who was standing behind them, spoke in exasperation.
“She needs to change her clothes, miss.”
“Ah…”
Scarlett hurriedly nodded. Apparently, the moment she arrived, she had become so fascinated by the biplane that she hadn’t heard anything around her.
Meanwhile, many people had entered the warehouse, including an officer named Waldo, who led the army soldiers assigned to the air force.
“If the engine runs, there’s nothing I won’t acknowledge. But can a beautiful young lady really do such rough work?”
As he provoked her, Farlin approached and said,
“The former heads of the Crimson family couldn’t make it fly either. All she needs to do is get the engine running.”
“Who doesn’t know that? I’m asking whether that young lady can actually make it run.”
Scarlett looked troubled. Apparently, the navy and army stationed here weren’t on particularly good terms.
“If this is how it’s going to be, I should’ve brought my wife too.”
At Waldo’s words, the sailors openly clicked their tongues.
Scarlett turned to Victor, but apparently unconcerned about his divorced wife, he was already taking a cigarette out of his inner pocket. However, perhaps he couldn’t smoke here, because he headed toward the door. Then he said to the other soldiers,
“My ex-wife needs to change her clothes.”
At those words, the rest of the soldiers hurriedly filed out.
Left alone, Scarlett looked at the clothes Blight had brought her. They seemed to be the smallest clothes available here, but they were still too big for her. They were clearly servants’ clothes.
Reluctantly, Scarlett changed and began working on the repair.
The engine was old, but perhaps because it had been carefully maintained, it was remarkably clean. It wouldn’t be capable of flying with this engine, but compared to Salantier’s technology as a whole, it was still an impressive piece of engineering.
The more she learned, the less Scarlett understood why Salantier continually suppressed technological advancement.
Scarlett tied her hair up roughly and devoted herself to repairing the engine.
After working on it for an entire day, Victor eventually entered.
“Why don’t you take a break?”
“…”
“Scarlett Dumfelt.”
“…”
“Crimson.”
“Huh?”
Only then did Scarlett flinch and turn around. Her eyes were bloodshot. Then she looked at her watch and said,
“It’s only been three hours.”
Blight, standing beside her, said,
“It’s been fifteen hours, miss.”
“Really?”
Scarlett looked awkwardly at the engine again.
“I think I need to look at it a little longer… No. I’ll go back now.”
“Really? Then I’ll go get Mr. Waldo right away!”
Blight ran out, looking happier than anyone else.
Meanwhile, Scarlett asked Victor something she had been curious about throughout the fifteen hours she had spent repairing the engine.
“Now that I’m technically an insider, can I ask you something I’m curious about?”
“What?”
“Is Vestina really planning to start a war?”
“That’s too deep a question.”
Victor answered casually and brushed the question aside.
A short while later, people came rushing in.
Waldo said indignantly,
“She fixed that? That’s impossible!”
“How could she possibly fix something even an engineer who defected from Vestina couldn’t…”
They were making a commotion as they entered, but the moment Victor’s gaze fell upon them, they immediately fell silent.
No one had officially decided it, but implicitly, Victor Dumfelt was the commander of the air force stationed here. His position alone made him overwhelmingly superior, and so did his public standing. In terms of bloodline, there was no comparison between Victor, who had royal blood in his veins, and anyone else here.
The only reason Waldo had this much autonomy was because Victor respected him.
Victor quietly watched Scarlett as she finished repairing the engine she had removed.
Tools that he had never imagined Scarlett could handle moved effortlessly in her hands.
Victor silently stared at her hands.
