After Gavin Ward issued the order to build the port, the entire kingdom moved like a single machine. The location marked on his coastal map had been nothing but a sleepy fishing hamlet—no more than two hundred souls, a few cracked boats, and a row of huts that leaned together whenever the wind blew off the sea.
By the next dawn, it was unrecognizable.
Convoys of trucks thundered down the new trunk roads, their flatbeds stacked with steel rebar, timbers, cement, rivets, copper cable, diesel generators, turbines, cranes, and the black bread and boiled eggs that kept the workers going. Engineers stood in the backs of the lead vehicles with clipboards and survey scopes, barking orders over the drone of engines. A temporary rail spur began stitching itself from the main line to the coast; crews leapfrogged ahead to lay sleepers and track, while a ballast train followed like a metal snake, vomiting crushed stone into the ties.
From above, the movement looked like the tide reversing. Thousands of workers poured into the zone, mustering in battalion-like formations, each crew assigned to a dock segment, a breakwater, a warehouse pit, or a fuel depot footing. They moved to whistles and flags. A crane swung, a pile driver hammered, a concrete mixer howled—a symphony of construction that didn't care for sleep.
Saint Tianluan watched from the air, arms folded, cloak snapping in the sea wind. She had seen empires raise palaces from enchanted stone and move mountains with spells. But she had never seen mortals move like this—without magic, yet with a speed and focus that felt like sorcery. In less than ten days, the entire foundation plan of the great port was staked, poured, and set in sections, ready for upward growth. More than a month? For the first time, she believed it.
She did not linger long, though. "A lover who builds an ocean," she said under her breath, amused at the thought, then angled back toward Los City. She had work of her own—to deliver on the promise she'd made to Gavin: upgrade the captured orc flight rigs into something the Kingdom of Ross could produce, maintain, and trust.
---
The orc devices had been crude. Their knowledge of magic was shallow, their engineering worse. The frames Gavin captured looked like they had been bolted together from scrap—imbalanced, overstrained, barely controllable. When Gavin's workshops replaced a handful of key parts with precision Ross components, performance had jumped. But "works" is not the same as safe, and Gavin was done gambling with lives.
That was where Tianluan's genius came in. She arrived at the lab with a plan as blunt as it was brilliant: strip as much magic out as possible. Use hardware for what hardware does best—thrust, stability, protection—and restrict magic to a narrow role: ignition, surge protection, emergency hovering, and the interface for half-orc physiology. With the engineers' help, she redrew the runic lattice into a compact bridge that simply told the machine what to do, while the machine did the dangerous work itself.
Half a month later, she stood in Gavin's study and set two slim, jet-black cases on his desk. They were rectangular, all sharp lines and matte metal, each panel etched with the faintest crimson dragon insignia—the mark of Ross.
Gavin rested a hand on one. "What am I looking at?"
"Magic power supply device~~" Tianluan said, the old lilting rhythm returning now that others could be listening. The voice was syrup, but the eyes behind the mask were gleaming with pride.
He lifted a brow. "It looks like… a twin hip-mounted pack with leg supports."
"You can try it," she whispered, leaning in for a kiss.
Gavin slid a palm between them, chuckling despite himself, and picked up the cases instead. They were heavy in a reassuring way, not the clumsy dead weight of orc scrap. In the corridor he buckled the waist harness and clipped one case to each hip. Thin exoskeleton struts unfolded along his thighs and locked into the ankles, where thick-soled steel boots waited. A transparent visor-shield blinked alive over his face, shimmered, then vanished to standby.
"The shield is set to auto-deploy on impact or heat flash," Tianluan said from the doorway. "And local stabilization counters spin within two tenths of a second."
Gavin tested his stance, pivoted left, right. The packs moved with him, not against him. "Feels like an agile mobility rig," he murmured. "Three-dimensional… never mind."
"What is ~~three-di—**"
"Later," he said, unbuckling before he got too attached. He wasn't the right pilot for a full demo; the power interface was tuned for half-orc physiology that could channel ambient mana without backlash. "Schedule a test. If it passes, we spin up production."
An officer stepped in, saluted, and carefully carried the rig to the testing hall.
---
The hall was a square box of thick concrete with bulletproof glass galleries on two sides and a steel catwalk on the third. Behind the glass, a dozen researchers waited with clipboards and headsets; a medical team stood by with a trolley of supplies. On the floor, a half-orc girl in a simple flight suit looked up through her fringe of dark hair at the device on its stand.
Her name was Tanya. Stitches traced faint pale lines along her forearms where the Orc Empire had cut and sewn as if she were a piece of fabric. In the weeks since the Kingdom of Ross freed her, she had spoken little and obeyed perfectly, a quiet intensity in everything she did. To her, Ross was not just a nation. It was the first home that had asked instead of commanded.
"Tanya," the intercom crackled gently, "please suit up. Same steps as training."
She nodded once.
Belt around the waist. Right pack clipped to the hip rail. Left pack clipped. Back plate aligned and latched—this was the mana coupler, the only truly "magical" piece left, now tightly sealed and shielded. The leg struts nested down and kissed the slots in the boots, locking with clean clicks. The rig settled onto her frame as if it had always been built for her and not the other way around.
"Vitals?" the doctor asked.
"Stable. Mana flow is smooth. No rejection," a researcher replied.
"Ready to begin. Three… two… one… Start."
A soft surge rippled across Tanya's back, like a breath being pulled into bellows. She lifted, slow for a fraction of a heartbeat, then the pack translated that lift into forward thrust. She arrowed toward the far wall, rising, the stabilizers whispering her roll to neutral. Five human-shaped targets slammed upright from slots in the wall, each pivoting into a mock attack stance.
Tanya's hand moved without thought. She pulled the 98K from the mag-mount beneath her right pack, tucked the stock, rolled right, and fired.
Boom.
Bolt. Crack.
Boom.
Bolt. Crack.
Boom.
Bolt. Crack.
Boom.
Bolt. Crack.
Boom.
Five shots, five head targets down, the ringing shells tumbling on the concrete like coins. She carried through the roll, bled speed with a thought, and hovered at a safe distance while the shield flickered once—an automatic flare as a test dart smacked harmlessly against the barrier and fell away.
"Stabilizers at 92% efficiency," a tech called. "Shield auto-trigger accurate. Mana draw within safe band. Heat dispersion nominal."
"Run pattern Beta-Three," the doctor said.
Tanya dipped, pushed, and shot into a tight figure-eight, barely two meters off the deck, then snapped up into a reverse arc and braked against an invisible cushion. Two moving targets slid out on rails at different heights; she led both, two more clean strikes.
"Try the surge hover," a researcher asked into the mic.
Tanya exhaled and opened the emergency lift—a short, hard burst that caught and held her midair even as she cut main thrust to simulate an engine failure. The rig caught, held for the programmed seven seconds, then handed her gently back to the stabilizers, which took over with the smoothness of a practiced partner.
Another ripple of voices behind the glass. "Surge hover nominal. Transition clean. No overdraw."
Tanya flicked a glance upward. Through the glass, she saw the dark outline of a uniform and the softer silhouette beside it. She couldn't make out faces, but she knew who watched. She lifted a hand briefly, then refocused.
"Last series," the doctor said. "Shield stress and kinetic check."
Through a hidden slot, a rubberized training slug spat toward her center mass at speed. Tanya didn't flinch; the visored barrier blinked alive, caught the slug, bled the blow into the rig's frame, and dimmed again.
"Shield integrity at 100. No cracks."
"Bring her down," the doctor ordered, satisfied.
Tanya descended in a controlled spiral and touched down on the painted circle, boots clacking once, then still. Her chest rose and fell. A real smile—small, shy, but real—touched her mouth.
Behind the glass, applause erupted—short, professional, but full of pride. Several of the rescued half-orc girls pressed against the rail to see better, eyes bright with something like hope. A device that once used them might finally serve them.
---
In the observation gallery, Gavin stood with his hands behind his back. Tianluan leaned a shoulder into him, her mask tilted toward the floor.
"Well?" she asked softly.
Gavin's answer was simple. "We proceed to limited production. Ten units first. We'll issue them to a trial company—half-orcs only, for now. Full training doctrine to follow. Add a parachute as redundancy even if we think we won't need it."
Tianluan nodded. "I kept your parachute~~Of course I did."
He allowed himself the ghost of a smile. "Good."
A senior engineer trotted up the steps. "Your Majesty," he said, flushed with success, "stabilizer fins and gyros performed beyond expectations. With imperial approval, we can shift two assembly lines from truck mounts to flight-rig frames by tomorrow."
"Approved," Gavin said. "But no shortcuts on shielding or couplers. If we build fast and break people, we build nothing."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Tianluan tapped the glass lightly with a knuckle, watching Tanya unbuckle on the floor while medics checked her pulse and reflexes. "You changed the story," she murmured. "Machines that once turned them into victims now make them soldiers."
"People aren't tools," Gavin replied. "But tools can protect people, if we build them right."
She angled her head. "You're romantic~~when you pretend not to be."
"Don't start," he said, but there was no heat in it.
---
Word of the successful test raced through the palace and out into the city like wind in sails. Workshop foremen updated their chalkboards: steel for docks, steel for hulls, steel for rigs. Rail managers shifted schedules to prioritize casing metal, bearing kits, and tempered glass. The Port Corps kept pouring walls into the sea while the Flight Corps learned to pull the sky down close enough to wear.
That night, under lamps and a thinning moon, Gavin read the test reports a second time. Failure rates—low. Shield trigger—reliable. Coupler heat—well within tolerance. He initialed the page and reached the final line he'd written before the trial began:
> If the girl smiles when she lands, we did it right.
He closed the folder, satisfied.
---
The next morning brought wind from the west and the smell of cut stone, diesel, and brine. Gavin climbed into an open staff car with Tianluan and headed for the coast, where the port rose day by day like a city from the sea. They drove past silos going up like gray chess pieces, warehouse ribs arching against blue, and a dry dock whose pit already waited to receive its first steel skeleton.
Workers looked up and waved lazily with their hard hats. The car rolled to a stop on a ridge of crushed stone that stared out over the building site.
"In a month, ships will sleep here," Gavin said quietly. "And when they wake, they'll guard this coast and every friend who dreams beyond it."
Tianluan touched his sleeve. "In a month, your kingdom will have both wings and oars."
"And a wall," he said, nodding at the breakwater.
"And a wall," she agreed.
They stood there for a long minute, saying nothing else. The cranes swung, the mixers churned, the sea hissed and breathed. Behind them, the road hummed with trucks carrying more of the future.
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