Southwest of England, near Land's End, Kanzaki Kaori lightly breathed in the smell of the sea wind through her nostrils. She purposefully looked around her surroundings to renew her focus.
The ocean surrounded her in all 360 degrees.
Her footing moved slightly up and down, matching the rhythm of the waves.
However, she was not aboard a boat.
She was on top of a pitch-black submarine poking above the ocean's surface.
"…I never thought that a magician such as myself would be receiving the assistance of one of these," she muttered.
A familiar voice reached her from the card-shaped spiritual item next to her ear. On the other side of the spiritual communication item was Sherry Cromwell from the Anglican Church.
"It's because England does not currently have any ground-based facilities from which to fire a ballistic missile. Of course, the same goes for rocket facilities that use missile technology for peaceful purposes."
In that country, ballistic missiles were primarily SLBMs- that is, submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Launching a manned rocket from a submarine was unprecedented, but it was not impossible given the technology. The reason that more facilities did not do it was that they had no reason to. Unlike ballistic missiles, there was no reason to hide the launching point of a manned rocket being used for a (supposedly) peaceful purpose. In fact, if it was not announced beforehand, it could be mistaken for a missile and shot down and a ballistic missile could even be fired back in retaliation.
The reason that Kanzaki was using such a roundabout method was simple.
As Sherry had said, England had no ground-based launching facilities.
"Let me double-check. We are using this rocket as a means to interfere with Radiosonde Castle which is at an altitude of 52,000 meters, right?"
"Yes," responded Sherry. "Neither an aircraft nor a rocket is suitable for use at that altitude. They're likely staying there for that very reason. That is why we are sending a rocket up into space first and then having it reenter the atmosphere to land on top of Radiosonde Castle."
"…That certainly is a broad plan."
"That is why we called you. A Saint can probably force that broad plan to work. You'll go up and then fall back down. …It sounds simple in words, but there are a lot of challenges. There had to be countermeasures against cosmic rays and the heat of the atmosphere, there's the issues of the pressure and the oxygen, and then there's the flight dynamics technology that goes into landing accurately on top of Radiosonde Castle."
"So you're saying that just dropping the rocket down from above the fortress is not enough."
"Magical flight may be blocked, but a rocket made of scientific technology is truly defenseless against magic. Just in case, it would be best to maintain an environment with magical protection while reentering the atmosphere."
"…Do we still not know whether Radiosonde Castle is from the magic side or the science side?"
"Orsola and others are investigating that now, but I doubt they'll have an answer by the time you launch," Sherry responded bitterly. "We don't know which techniques it uses. Of course, we also do not know why it is floating there. Is there a meaning in it being there? Is there a meaning in bringing it down? We don't even know that. We have not heard anyone saying what they intend to do with it. It has been complete silence. We can't even be sure that we will ever find out who is behind it as the situation develops."
Kanzaki sighed.
"I understand that I should use some magical protection, but what about magic interfering with the flight?"
"Oh, that is only an issue when you are trying to keep a stable flight. For this, everything up until you reach orbit will be carried out by the scientific rocket. After that, you will only be falling. Peter's spell brings down things that are actually flying. It will not be very effective on something that is simply falling."
Finding loopholes was the basis of magic.
Those loopholes would be closed up each time, but then you just had to find a new loophole opened up by that change. That repeated cycle in construction caused the entire magic side to writhe like a living being.
At that time, the submarine's hatch opened, and a member of the crew peered out. He gestured to get Kanzaki's attention. Making sure she was looking at him, the crew member spoke.
"It's almost time!! Please come inside and head to the missile tube. Head through the maintenance passageway, and climb inside the rocket."
"Understood."
"And…" said the crew member, sounding troubled.
The submarine was being borrowed on the orders of Queen Elizard, but the crew did not properly understand magic. Many occult phenomena had occurred during British Halloween and World War III, but that was not enough to grasp how it all worked.
"We do not have any spacesuits aboard. Did you bring that kind of thing with you?"
"No," Kanzaki simply responded.
She did not realize that the smooth way she had spoken had sent the crew member down into confusion.
"Y-you don't mean that you intend to go up in your jeans like that, do you!?"
"I do. This just does not seem like an incident where a normal spacesuit would be of any use."