After we left the green hell, the so-called 'forest', I was expecting our lives to change for the best. There were no wolves and no other worthless monsters that didn't yield a single upgrade point, and ahead of us were huge endless plains. The same kind that exists around every town and city of this world.

However, the initial optimism faded soon.

We already walked for 3 or 4 days with only stopping for a night. Elina and Albert were somewhat content, since they were no longer jumping up at every rustle, but the maids were getting tired of the constant movement. Their cheerfulness and vigor turned into weak attempts at keeping themselves busy to stop thinking about having to walk again as the dawn breaks.

Seeing that my companions were tired of our nomadic lifestyle, I decided to let us set up a temporary camp, and under this excuse I started reflecting on my own performance.

In the end I reached one conclusion: I don’t control aircraft groups efficiently.

Thus begun my first ever exercises.

I divided my airpower into two groups: defending, with 3 fighter groups; and attacking with the rest of my air power. I tried simulating a scenario of mass attack from the air. It might be applied to ground attacks as well.

My goal is to launch the fighters as fast as I can and intercept enemy forces. Considering that my normal reaction time is more than 10 minutes, I should give the attackers 5 minutes before they can bomb me.

The first few tries I failed miserably.

The bombers were catching my interceptors still on the deck, or the attacking group was overwhelming the few scrambled fighters at take off.

When I expended the fuel, I sent the groups for a short rest. Then began the new stage of my suffering: a mess landing. Sometimes I was messing up the circling patterns and the landing clearances. I even had an aircraft crash on landing.

However, I was not discouraged.

[If I ever want to best my enemies I must make sure that I can launch my air attacks rapidly and defend myself as fast.]

With each try I was getting better results.

While normally aircraft carriers have at least vague knowledge on how to operate their aircraft, I have none. There are no experienced officers available to me, and I never was a carrier in my human life, and I had no practice until now. I either launch my aircraft before the fight, or I have a lot of time to do that.

The camp adjusted to my shenanigans within an hour. My cheerleading team of fairies was trying their best to support me, while Elina and Albert were cooking, cleaning and doing everything else.

Of course, I was reflecting on the performance and my mistakes. I was playing around with the fighter refuel and rearmament patterns, with the initial interception sorties, and after my 15^th try I managed to intercept the attackers before they reached me. I decided to try a couple more times to make sure I have better capabilities.

Only after I was satisfied with the results I continued the exercises. The scenario has outlived itself, as I was just repeating the same thing until I got the correct results.

The next scenario was rapid deployment of attack aircraft. While I have only 4 flights of fighters, and so I can launch all of them within 2 minutes if needed, my bombing capabilities include 3 times more planes. And unlike the fighters they need their bombs and torpedoes loaded which takes a lot of time.

I know that it would be nice to be able to launch them fast but also I need to learn how to make coordinated airstrikes.

I started with the most basic thing: safely deploying the aircraft on deck. While it sounds easy, it requires me to safely arm and fuel the planes in the hangar, and then lift them up to the flight deck. A plane, a two, a flight, that would be easy. A freaking armada of aircraft is not.

The next stage of the exercise was the actual take off and landing procedure. My second rapid deployment exercise was not as bad as the first scenario. Overall, I lost only 3 planes and had 1 catapult malfunction. The 4^th catapult is of the worst quality so it was expected.

Soon enough I was capable of swift launching the majority of my craft. With this out of the way I began preparing for coordinated airstrike exercise.

It was all about having the attack flights gather above me, without colliding, and without interfering with the newly launched aircraft.

While I was busy training with the bombers, I sent my fighters to search for a suitable target.

Somewhere in the forest I discovered a huge goblin settlement. Those vermin really did annoy me in the forest so it was the time for my revenge. They might even yield me a point.

The settlement has a form vaguely looking like a ship, so my decision was to simulate attacking a warship.

I pre-planned the locations where a warship would have AA guns and where it would have its critical systems.

That would be a nice way to have some fun, train and destroy the green f*s!

I executed 4 airstrikes, some were only flying over the settlement to train low-altitude attacks with torpedo bombers, some were dive bombing the citadel, and after I was done fooling around, I prepared for the final touch.

All planes were loaded with bombs and prepared for carpet bombing.

While the planes were preparing, climbing and setting their course, I began artillery exercise. Not that firing a bunch of rifles and two 100mm guns can do something to the remnants of the goblin village.

While the strike itself was successful, I was not satisfied because if there would be any AA guns, my box formation will be annihilated. Also, it is hard to maintain all of them circling above me, guide the planes for landing, and making sure they are not hitting each other while taxiing on the deck. The exercise continues…

The entire bundle of exercises took the entire day, but that was not all. I had a night exercise planned after that. In the end I cancelled it because it was the time to continue moving forward.

In between the exercises I found an interesting place that perfectly suited my needs: a picturesque cliff with a large bay nearby. The only thing that may've interfered with my plans was an old shabby castle.

A castle under the duke's flag.