Editing City Series:Volume1 Chapter 6 (section)

===Part 3===

At 8:38 AM, the sun had risen to a certain extent. The sky was clear and filled with just enough of a chill to tense the skin. A cold fog covered the Grunewald Forest.

A single car was parked in the forest’s airfield and a man stood next to it. It was Gaston.

His shoulders shook once and he sighed.

He began to walk with his face pointed straight forward.

His gaze was on the giant factory. Its large door was open and the nose of a ship could be seen within.

“She really is doing this, isn’t she?”

He approached, and saw a man crouched below the ship with some kind of diagram in one hand. Gaston recognized the man. He was the old man in charge of the factory.

“Steinmetz!” he called out and quickened his pace.

The other man seemed to notice Gaston’s voice because he set the diagram on the floor, paused, and raised a hand.

“Oh, Gaston.”

He tapped his back as he stood up and Gaston asked him a question.

“How is Else doing?”

“She’s checking the course in the office.”

“I see.”

He was relieved that his daughter was still so nearby even if she was planning to leave him. She wanted to eventually fly into the sky and travel as far from this earth as she could.

“She’s a good girl.”

“I think you mean rebellious.”

“No, it isn’t often you find someone who looks so at home in a work outfit.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment? I raised her to be the daughter of a respectable family.”

“Are hard workers not respectable?”

“I just want the Breuer family to be respectable.”

The old man smiled bitterly at that.

“She’s quite something. She did almost all of the external wiring and exterior on her own. She went two nights without sleep to do it.”

“She did that much?”

The old man scratched his head and nodded.

“Well, she messed some of it up, but I fixed it for her.”

“Sorry for the trouble.”

“Don’t be. Getting this ship to fly is an important job.”

He looked up into Gaston’s eyes from below.

“Do you think it’s important, too?”

Gaston hesitated but responded clearly.

“I do.” He lowered his gaze a little. “This ship might end up filling the world with trouble. It could even start a war and that could destroy the world.”

He took a breath and looked back up at the ship in front of him.

“But…”

“But?”

“If the world would be destroyed by something like that, is there any point in letting it continue to exist? I feel like whatever place survives this will be a suitable place for Else and the people who can keep up with them.”

''That really sounds like something a weapons maker would say,'' he thought.

“This may be a harsh thing to say…but the age we live in is definitely going to change.”

“Ha ha ha. That isn’t something that just changes. We have to change it ourselves.”

“Oh? Well said.”

“I got that one from your daughter.”

“Else said that?”

“A nice saying, isn’t it?”

“She was just trying to sound mature.”

He just about smiled as he said that, but he restrained himself.

“She’s an interesting girl,” said the old man. “She cut her hair because of that incident, right?”

“Yes, she blew up the fireworks during the school festival last year.”

“I hear that was a sight to see.”

“Never before in the history of the University of Berlin has a student blown up the statue of the university president. I had to go apologize.”

“Sounds a lot like you used to be,” commented Steinmetz. “The way both corners of her mouth rise when she smiles looks exactly like your smile. When I saw her smile like that earlier, it reminded me of something.”

“What was that?”

“Back in the day, you used to look that happy when you smiled too.”

“…!”

That line shocked Gaston.

He had wanted Else to smile.

“Back in the day?”

His voice may have been trembling as he asked that question.

“It was fifteen years ago. Didn’t you have a habit of visiting this factory to watch the planes fly? And you brought your young daughter with you.”

“…”

It all came back to him.

…''He might be…right.

Else had smiled so innocently back then and he may have as well.

“How about it? Can you look up into sky again? No, can you look up to a place even higher than the sky?”

“…”

“Personally, I’m having a blast doing this.”

Gaston nodded.

…''Having a blast, huh?

“You’re right,” he said. “Maybe I should do what I can.”