Summoning Our Country - NHS Kai

Chapter 20: Proclamation Day

NOTE: This is rose. We're sorry for the nearly three week disappearance. I'm afraid that a weekly release will become a bit more difficult as we at Team Kai deal with busier schedules in real life. Still, the releases will push through.

On that note, the rewrite for Kai's first EIGHT chapters is almost finished. Along the way, we've decided to do minor revisions on the remaining chapters, up until Chapter 16.5 "Yoha no Naka", to polish mistakes we've left out and update some of the information in them to reflect the rewritten first eight chapters.

Discord: https://discord.gg/p7NJppEjza

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Cent. Calendar 15/07/1639, Altaras Strait, 14:00

"Ugh, I'm about to get sick..."

Standing next to the railings of the Shikishima patrol vessel rocking back and forth while traversing the Altaras Strait, diplomat Tanaka Noboru put his hands on his belly as he attempted to reign in his stomach from pushing his lunch back through his throat. Despite having spent the entire day on the ship, he was still unaccustomed to the turbulent tendencies of sea travel.

"Want me to get you a bag?"

Next to him was one of his aides, who unlike Tanaka was unfazed by the rolling and pitching movements of the ship. He looked at his aide's smug face with disdain, regarding it as a mockery of his suffering.

"Nah, I'm good."

Eager to change the subject to forget about his unruly gut, he looked out to the sea towards another ship traveling alongside them.

"Never thought I'd see an old steamship like that ever again."

"You said it. It's as if we had time traveled, huh?"

Chugging alongside their vessel was a steamship that resembled one from the late 19th century. It wasn't a complete steamship yet, as it still had rigged masts from which its sails provided propulsion, but the two funnels at its midship were an indication of its capability to move at its own power. Smashing headlong into the waves, the ship's black, steel hull looked menacing to them, a frightening appearance that was backed by the cannons jutting out of equally spaced openings in its hull.

"They really wanna put us on edge huh? As far as I know, they could close the lids on those so they could tuck away the cannons. But naw, they had to go out of their way to get them out and point them right at us."

Tanaka scoffed, his cutting remarks fading away into the foreground of noise created by the billowing waves.

Having their cannons out was a gesture of mistrust on the part of the Parpaldians, but they were intelligent enough to at least have some restraint. So far, in their voyage from Jin-Hark to Esthirant, the Parpaldians have been on their best behavior, maintaining a safe distance from the Shikishima and not pulling off dangerous maneuvers.

"I think it's only fair that they do that. They don't really know us, and with the high chance that they've heard of what we did to Louria, they know that we're not somebody to mess around with."

His aide replied to him as he blew his runny nose on a sheet of tissue paper.

"Maybe it's unfair? They have their mistrust on full display, while ours are beyond their sight. What having better tech does to us, I guess?"

Tanaka remembers their arrangement with the Ministry of Defense.

While Foreign Affairs handled the discussions with the Parpaldians on their accommodations and itinerary during the Proclamation Day celebrations, the Ministry of Defense was called upon for the security of the delegation. Due to the numerous reports and accounts from surrounding nations on Parpaldian hostility in general, the Japanese government had long known to keep their eyes wide open for Parpaldian movements. It is for this reason that while on paper, the Japanese government sent the Shikishima, a civilian Coast Guard vessel to ferry the delegation to the imperial capital Esthirant, it was also shadowed by several Maritime Self Defense Force vessels for in the event the situation turns hot. Constantly under the watchful eye of the SDF's beyond-visual-range protection, the Shikishima traveled without having to even flash its own guns at the Parpaldian escort. Should the Parpaldian ship attack anyway, the Coast Guard vessel could outrun it, slipping out of its armaments' range before more could be done. In addition, coming with them was an attache of Self Defense Force officers for their personal protection during their excursion in the Parpaldian mainland.