Preparing for Innovation

The Captain of the Royal Guard, Ludwin Arcs.

Though only in his late twenties, this excellent man was the captain of

the Royal Guard, charged with leading the 40,000-strong Forbidden Army

in times of crisis.

Ever since the Kingdom's Forbidden Army and Army, Navy, and Air

Force had been dismantled and reorganized as the National Defense Force,

he'd been seen as the next in line to become Supreme Commander. He was

currently training under the current Supreme Commander, Excel, as her

second-in-command.

He was a handsome man with straight blond hair who came from a good

family. He was also highly popular with the maids who worked in the

castle. However, despite all that, there were never any rumors of him

becoming involved with a woman, and he had once become troubled when

weird rumors started to spread that he might swing the other way.

Speaking of weird rumors about Ludwin, there was one more: the rumor

that his family finances were difficult.

That came from the fact that Ludwin, for some reason, was always

eating at the cafeteria for the maids and guards who worked at the castle, as

if he were trying to keep his expenses to a minimum. He came from a good

family, held an important position, and received a good salary, so it was

hard to imagine; but from time to time Ludwin was spotted eating the

cheapest bun that the cafeteria offered.

In response to this, many theories were offered.

"He wants to share his men's joys and sorrows by eating the same things

they eat," or "By being frugal, he is preparing himself for a time of crisis"

were some of the more positive interpretations. But...

"Actually, maybe he's a penny-pinching miser," said some, and

"Perhaps he has a lover and a secret child, and all his money goes to them,"

gossiped others.

However, while there was no talk of Ludwin making ostentatious

displays of spending money, there was no sign of him saving it, either. So

where was Ludwin's salary going?

The answer to that question was something we would eventually find

out.

◇ ◇ ◇

—Early in the 11th month, 1546th year, Continental Calendar — Royal

Capital Parnam

With autumn growing deeper, the days grew gradually colder.

With the post-war arrangements with the Principality of Amidonia

concluded and the corrupt nobles that had been working behind the scenes

to hinder me domestically swept aside, Elfrieden was enjoying a fleeting

peace.

Because the internal threat of the corrupt nobles and the external threat

of Amidonia had both been taken care of at the same time, the people's

opinion of myself as king and Hakuya as the prime minister had improved.

With the nobles who had chosen not to take a side in the conflict with the

three dukes now swearing loyalty to me, I was able to quickly centralize

power.

It was that sort of autumn afternoon where I could imagine my political

reforms would be moving forward in leaps and bounds.

Currently, I was in the governmental affairs office in Parnam, showing

Liscia a certain something. "Take a look at this. What do you think?"

"It's very... long, thin, and curved." With a curious look on her face,

Liscia stared intently at the thing I was showing her.

"Do you want to try it?" I asked.

"Can I? Well, then..."

Liscia's thin, white fingers reached for the rapier at her waist. Then,

narrowing her eyes, she drew her blade and swung it at the thing. In the

next instant, there was the screech of metal on metal and the tip of her

rapier was cut off and fell to the ground.

Liscia looked back and forth from the severed tip to her rapier, then

cried out in surprise, "M-My sword?!"

As Liscia lost her mind over what had happened, I let out a big sigh.

"What're you suddenly taking a swing at it for...?"

"Well, you asked if I wanted to test it!" she exclaimed.

"I meant for you to hold it, maybe take a few practice swings," I said. "I

have no idea why you suddenly tried slashing it..."

Liscia could be a bit of a meat head sometimes. Was it her teacher

Georg's influence?

"Besides, you must know what would happen when you swing two

blades at each other, right?" I asked.

Liscia's eyes wandered around the room awkwardly. "W-Well, you

know... That's a Nine-Headed Dragon katana, right? I was interested in its

cutting edge, you could say..."

"Honestly..."

The blade that had chopped Liscia's sword in two was a type of katana,

specifically a Nine-Headed Dragon katana, forged in the Nine-Headed

Dragon Archipelago Union, a maritime state that ruled the Nine-Headed

Dragon Archipelago to the east of Elfrieden.

It was single-edged, with a thin, narrow, curved blade. There was a

blood groove running between the blade ridge and back. That's enough

detail to make it clear that, for those in the know, it should have been

apparent that the Nine-Headed Dragon katana closely resembled a Japanese

katana.

Unlike this country's swords, which were meant to chop through things

(the Western style), it was specially designed to cut by pushing or pulling.

Exactly the same as a Japanese katana. Maybe the manufacturing process

was the same, too.

That Nine-Headed Dragon katana was out of its sheath and its blade was

exposed, sitting on top of a sword rack with its blade facing upwards. That

was how it had been when Liscia had taken a swing at it and lost.

Liscia was now staring intently at the Nine-Headed Dragon katana's

blade. "It's got an incredible cutting edge, huh."

"We had swords like these in the country I came from, and when it came

to cutting power, they were top class," I said.

In one program I'd watched, I had even seen a katana cut through the

stream of a water cutter (a machine that used high pressure water to cut

through things), after all. They had to have some pretty impressive cutting

power.

Liscia let out an impressed grunt. "That's really something. But what's a

Nine-Headed Dragon katana doing here?"

"It was a gift from Excel," I said. "It apparently came from a fishing

ship from the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago that they seized."

"A fishing ship?"

"There've been a lot of them lately, I hear. Ships from the Nine-Headed

Dragon Archipelago that come into our waters to fish illegally."

In this world, there were large creatures called sea dragons (they looked

like monstrous plesiosauruses with goat horns) used to tug iron ships. Sea

dragons were relatively docile, but among the large sea creatures of this

world, there were also vicious and dangerous ones like the super-massive

sharks called megalodons. Because those sorts of dangerous sea creatures

mainly lived in the deep sea, fishing was, by necessity, restricted to the

coastal waters of the continent and islands.

There were still enough fish to catch, so it wasn't much of a problem,

but in recent years, the number of ships from the Nine-Headed Dragon

Archipelago coming to fish in our waters had increased.

In this world, it was commonly accepted that fishing should be done in

one's own country's coastal waters or on the open sea (though that was, of

course, dangerous), and fishing in another country's coastal waters was

considered illegal. Illegal fishing ships could be seized or sunk without

recourse. And yet, the number of illegal fishing vessels entering our waters

was on the rise.

Correlating with that, there had been an increase in the number of

clashes between fishermen.

"We've submitted a formal complaint to the Nine-Headed Dragon

Archipelago Union, but... there's been no reply," I said. "I have Excel's fleet

out patrolling our waters, but it doesn't seem to be having much of an

effect."

"It's a maritime state you're dealing with, after all," said Liscia. "They

have the best shipbuilders and helmsmen in the world."

She was right. In the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago, they trained

other creatures that could draw their ships in addition to the usual sea

dragons. I had heard they were incredibly fast. That, and because fishing

ships were made of wood and not loaded with cannons, they could move

quickly. If they focused on trying to escape, a military ship couldn't catch

up to them.

"Even this ship they seized recently was only caught when they had the

bad luck to run aground," I added.

"Then why don't we chase after them with fast wooden ships of our

own?" Liscia asked.

"If we did that and they were armed, we'd take heavy losses, you

know?"

"...You're right."

It hurt that, as the ones guarding, there was a bare minimum of

equipment we would need to get ready.

Liscia crossed her arms and thought deeply about it. "Still, it's a bit

strange. It's true that, if they make it to our coastal waters, they can fish

here easily, but to get here, they have to travel over the open sea where

there are large sea creatures, right? Why would they go through that risk to

fish here illegally when there's the chance they'll be caught?"

"Who knows..." I said. "There might be something going on in the

archipelago, and there's no way for us to find out what it is. We get barely

any information on the island countries."

Even if I had my clandestine operations unit, the Black Cats, infiltrate

the country to collect intelligence, the country was surrounded by the sea,

making it hard to get information out. Messenger kuis couldn't travel over

large stretches of sea when there was no place to rest, and a jewel for the

Jewel Voice Broadcast would be large enough that it would be difficult to

sneak in. That, and there was the risk we'd lose it.

In the end, we'd have to resort to sending people over the sea to deliver

the information, but that would take days to arrive. Intel had to be fresh.

Even if our spies got their hands on important intel, it would be

meaningless if there was no way to communicate it back home

immediately.

I had asked those who, like one of our top loreleis Nanna, had drifted

here from the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago, but it turned out that,

while all islands swore loyalty to the Nine-Headed Dragon King, the living

situation on each was different. While I could gather fragmented pieces of

information, it was hard to put together any larger picture.

"I've gotta say, it's harder to deal with a country when you don't know

what they're thinking than it is to deal with one that's clearly hostile," I

said. "I don't even know if we should be getting ready to defend ourselves."

"That's true..."

Liscia and I both wracked our brains, but we came to no conclusion.

"Well, there's not much point in us thinking about it here," I said at last.

"Getting back to the topic of the Nine-Headed Dragon katana, the katanas

from my world were incredibly sharp, but they had the drawback that they

couldn't stand up to impacts and would break or warp easily," I said. "But

in this world, there's enchantment magic, right? That's how this katana is

sturdy enough to stand up to trading blows for a while."

"That would make it the best in its class as a sword blade, yeah," said

Liscia. "But, well... that's only for the blade itself."

"Huh? What do you mean?" I asked.

"We don't fight on the strength of our weapons alone. Everyone in this

world can use magic to a greater or lesser degree, and most of us use fire,

water, earth, or wind elemental magic. When it comes to a fight, we can

wreathe our blades with those elements, too."

Oh, I've seen that, I thought. I recalled Aisha having used wind magic to

increase the cutting power and attack range of her greatsword, while Hal

had used fire magic to make his weapon explode when thrown at the

enemy.

"That's why the cutting ability of the weapon itself isn't so important,"

said Liscia. "Though, that said, I'm sure that in a battle on the seas, where

everything but water elemental magic is harder to use, these would be the

strongest. The main way people from the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago

fight at sea is to close in quickly and board their enemies, like pirates."

"Hmm... It's a weapon suited to a maritime nation, huh..." While

listening to Liscia's explanation, I looked closely at the blade of the katana.

"But... I would like to get my hands on these smithing techniques."

"Huh? Didn't I just tell you it's largely meaningless?" she asked.

"For weapons, yes. But there are a lot of other uses for sharp blades,

aren't there?"

If we mass-produced knives with a good, sharp edge, I was sure the

chefs would be able to produce more delicate and tasty dishes. If we had

sharper tools, we might be able to use them to produce even better tools.

Then there were medical applications, like scalpels. I thought that might be

the most urgent. In surgery, the sharper the tools used, the less stress would

be put on the patient's body.

It was a technique with all these applications. I wanted it badly.

"Technically, I have people researching it here, too, but... it seems like

that's gonna take a while," I said.

When it came to Japanese swords, I knew that they heated and folded

the iron and hit it. That was the sort of rough general knowledge I had.

Tamahagane or hihi'irokane; which was the one that actually existed again?

With this level of knowledge, there was no way I was going to be able to

recreate the Japanese sword.

"If we just had diplomatic relations with them, I'd pay a good amount

for them to transfer knowledge of those techniques to us..." I pondered.

"Which is why you're wondering what the Nine-Headed Dragon

Archipelago Union is thinking?" she asked.

"Exactly."

"It sounds like a hard problem to solve," Liscia said.

She could say that again. Amidonia had had a clear intent to invade, and

I had made the decision to fight them because we'd been in a situation that

forced us to, but I couldn't keep this country intact if we were fighting wars

with our neighbors year in and year out. I wanted to open diplomatic

relations if only to avoid an unnecessary confrontation.

"Well, anyway," I said at last, "we need to develop techniques of our

own that other countries won't have. Technology and scholarship will build

an unshakable base for the country."

"That sounds reasonable, but do you have any specific ideas?" Liscia

asked.

"Techniques are created by people," I said. "That's why we have no

choice but to go after anyone who might have those techniques. I have just

the person in mind, too."

"Just the right person?" Liscia asked, looking at me dubiously.

I nodded. "Ludwin was telling us about it a while back, remember? He

said there's a mad scientist in the Forbidden Army. I think I'll have him

follow through with his promise to introduce us sometime."

Then, just as we were talking about that, there was a knock and the

office door opened, with Ludwin himself rushing through the door.

He suddenly got down on the floor, lowering his head to the point it was

almost touching the ground. It wasn't quite a formal kowtow, but it was

pretty close.

"Your Majesty! I am so sorry!" he suddenly burst out.

In response, Liscia and I opened our eyes wide and spoke

simultaneously.

"What are you suddenly apologizing for?" I demanded.

"Did something happen, Sir Ludwin?" she asked.

Ludwin raised his face and spoke, carefully choosing his words. "Well,

you see... an acquaintance of mine has gone and done something

outrageous..."

"Something outrageous?" I asked cautiously.

Had something bad happened? Now, when I had finally sorted out the

mountain of things that I had to do after being given the throne, was

something going to happen again? I was starting to feel a little fed up with it

all.

Ludwin hesitantly asked, "Um... sire. Do you perhaps remember that I

said there was a person I wanted you to meet?"

"Hm? Ohh. Liscia and I were just talking about that," I said. "The mad

scientist you know, right? I've been wanting to meet them, but things have

been so busy lately. Sorry I haven't been able to find time."

"No, I completely understand that. It's just..."

Ludwin looked hesitant to speak at first, but he seemed to find his

resolve and continued.

"That acquaintance of mine happens to be the one responsible."

◇ ◇ ◇

The Arcs fiefdom lay between the royal capital Parnam and the new

coastal city Venetinova.

This was the land ruled over by the Captain of the Royal Guard, Ludwin

Arcs, who was head of the House of Arcs. Because Ludwin lived in the

castle, he normally had a magistrate here who acted in his stead.

When compared to the fiefs held by other members of the nobility and

knighthood in this country, it was around medium-sized. Ludwin had

distinguished himself in the recent war, so I had wanted to transfer him to a

larger fief, but Ludwin had been very particular about his own domain, and

had stubbornly refused. I didn't see any reason to force the transfer, so I

opted to expand the boundaries of his current fief to suit his preferences.

Liscia, Ludwin, and I had come to the Arcs fiefdom in a gondola carried

by one of the royal house's wyverns. We had come to verify the facts of

what Ludwin had told us some days earlier.

"Was it okay to leave Aisha behind like that?" Liscia asked.

"Well, we've got Ludwin here, after all," I said.

I hadn't brought a bodyguard on this outing. Aisha had been concerned

and made a fuss about it, but with the Captain of the Royal Guard around, I

figured it would be fine. Besides... I wanted to keep this quiet, so the fewer

people involved, the better.

From the air, the Arcs fiefdom had been stained in fall colors by the

leaves that had fallen from the trees. There were a lot of fields and pastures,

too, so the scenery that spread out before us had a feeling of tranquility to it.

This was just based on my own senses, but this continent, which was a

bit larger than China had been in the Three Kingdoms Period, had a

considerable difference in its climate between the north and the south.

The further north you went, the hotter, and the further south you went,

the colder it became. That was true even within this country, and in the

southernmost reaches, the snow had already begun to fly. The Arcs fiefdom,

being more to the north, was still experiencing a temperate autumn climate.

"Wish we could just take it easy and have a picnic or something," I

grumbled.

"I know the feeling, really I do, but we'll do it another time, okay?"

Liscia gently rebuked me. "We came here today for a reason, didn't we?"

"I know that, but, hey, it's such a nice day out..."

"Ah, this is it, sire," Ludwin interrupted. "Please, take us down here."

Following Ludwin's directions, we landed the gondola and disembarked

at the edge of a little forest. Even once I was out of the gondola, all I could

see was trees. Nothing looked out of the ordinary about this forest.

I ordered the gondola's driver to wait for us here, then asked Ludwin, "Is

it really in the forest?"

"Yes," he said. "Though, to be precise, it's not 'in,' but 'under.'"

"Under?" I asked.

"I think it would be faster to just show you." With that said, Ludwin set

off toward the forest. "Now, sire, princess, please follow me."

Trailing after Ludwin, Liscia and I walked through the forest side by

side. As a precaution against wild creatures, I had the mouse dolls that I

used while providing relief to the dark elf village scouting the area, but

there didn't seem to be any wild animals that were a threat. It was a small

forest, and I could tell that people entered it often. With the leaves having

fallen from the trees, it was bright inside the forest, which provided good

visibility, too.

If it came down to it, I figured Ludwin and Liscia could handle any

problems that arose.

Ludwin was ahead of us, clearing any branches that would be in our way

with his sword and shield, so all we had to do was walk behind him. While

walking on the fallen leaves, I started to get into the mood for a picnic

again. I naturally started singing a song that matched the atmosphere.

"That's a nice song. What is it?" Liscia asked me.

"The theme to the first movie of a monster anime that every person in

my country would know," I said.

"...The one thing I do know is that what you just said made no sense to

me." Liscia just sort of rolled her eyes, but then she suddenly took on a

more thoughtful look. I wondered what was up, but the next moment, she

wrapped her arm around mine. "How's that? Does it feel a bit more like a

picnic now?"

Seeing Liscia's shy smile, I said...

"...I'm getting weirdly sweaty now."

"Why?!" she exclaimed.

"Because you're too cute, and it's making my heart race."

"Huh?! O-Oh... My heart is, too," she flirted back.

Ludwin came to a stop. "This is the place, sire, princess."

Ludwin turned around, so I quickly backed up. Then I noticed

something I hadn't up until now. There was something big right in front of

us. It was...

"...A garage?" I asked. That seemed like the only way to describe the

rectangular object.

It was moss-covered, but it seemed to be made of something like

concrete, and had a shutter on one side. It was big enough for an average

car to fit into. While they sometimes had technologies that seemed far

ahead of their time, this world was at a pre-industrial revolution level on

average, so this design seemed out of place.

While I was reacting with confusion, Ludwin shook his head. "It's not a

garage. This isn't tall enough for a horse-drawn carriage to enter, after all."

In this world, the common assumption would be that a garage was for

holding carriages. In my world, a van might not have fit inside, but an

ordinary car would have easily fit. Not that there was any point in trying to

explain... but, come to think of it, that made the design of this building all

the harder to understand.

"Well, what is it?" I asked, and Ludwin responded with all seriousness.

"The entrance to a dungeon, sire."

Dungeons.

These labyrinthine places had their own unique and mysterious ecology.

They were also the one place where monsters had been confirmed to

exist before the coming of the Demon Lord.

When I had been using my Little Musashibos to play at being an

adventurer, I had heard about them from Dece, Juno, and the other members

of their party. But the one they had told me about had been a cave, like you

would imagine. I hadn't heard anything about this sort of clearly artificial

entrance.

I presented my doubts, but apparently dungeons came in many forms.

"There are all sorts of different dungeons," Liscia explained. "They

appear everywhere from the plains to the forest to the mountains, and even

to the depths of the sea. They can be like caves inside, or paved with stone

like the basement of a castle, or even a bizarre space with metal walls."

I vaguely recalled that the jewels we used for the Jewel Voice Broadcast

had come from inside a dungeon. I'd heard of other such pieces of overtechnology coming out of dungeons, too, so it wasn't strange to find a

dungeon itself was made out of over-technology... maybe?

"Hey, wait. How did people even discover undersea dungeons?" I asked.

Liscia said, "There are races that work underwater, and some of the

undersea dungeons have air inside, so in those cases, people go down to

them inside these big bell-like things."

Oh, a diving bell, huh? That was a sort of diving machine shaped like a

bell that you continuously pumped air into as it sank. I only knew them

from manga, but... I kind of wanted to try riding in one.

"Well, are there any monsters in this dungeon, then?" I asked.

Ludwin shook his head. "No. You could call this a ruined dungeon. The

monsters and creatures inside have long since been exterminated."

"It's already been cleared, you mean?" I asked.

"Yes. And now, this is where a person from the House of Maxwell, a

family of eccentrics that were given the rights to this ruined dungeon and

turned it into a laboratory, currently lives."

Ludwin turned and spoke into a metal tube next to the entrance.

"Genia! It's me! Ludwin Arcs! You rarely go outside, so I doubt you're

not there, so respond if you are!"

It must have been a speaking tube he was shouting into. They'd had

them on the battleship Albert, too. And wait, was this person he was calling

a shut-in, I wondered? This person called Genia (based on that name, was

she a girl, maybe?).

Coming from the speaking tube...

Bang, crash! ...there was a sound of something falling over, followed by

a young woman's voice.

"Ow... Hey, Big Brother Luu. What's up?"

"No, not 'What's up?'" Ludwin shot back. "There was a pretty loud

crash just now. Are you okay?"

"I was surprised when you suddenly called out to me, so I accidentally

knocked some stuff over," Genia said. "Well, it wasn't dangerous

chemicals, so it's all good."

"It's not good at all," Ludwin said. "You're always doing this..."

"Ahaha, getting lectured through a speaking tube is kind of a fresh

experience."

Faced with a voice that showed no sign of regret whatsoever, Ludwin's

shoulders slumped. I felt like I could tell how their relationship worked just

from what I'd seen here. One did crazy things and the other chased after

her.

Ludwin shook his head and tried to get back on track. "Anyway, I've

brought some important guests to see the place today. Let us in."

"Important?" Genia asked. "Okay. I'm opening it up now."

The closed shutter began to rise on its own. Was it switch-operated,

maybe? It felt more and more out of place in this world.

When the shutter had opened fully, there was a set of stairs leading

down underground. It seemed this garage really was just the entrance. With

no regard for my surprise, this Genia person said in a cheery, singsong

voice, "Okay, Luu, and my guests, too, come on in."

We descended the stairs into the underground and soon came to an open

space.

From what Ludwin had told me, this wasn't a particularly huge

dungeon. It was like a large six or seven floor building, only buried

underground. What was more, the House of Maxwell who owned this

dungeon had taken out all the walls and floors between levels to secure

more space, so it was just one big rectangular space now.

The massive staircase that stretched out along the walls of that massive

space felt like being at the edge of a sheer cliff face, and it was pretty scary.

I wished they had at least put in railings.

The walls also seemed to be made of metal. Liscia had described

dungeons like this as "bizarre spaces with metal walls," but to me, it was

like being inside a futuristic spaceship. The metal walls seemed to give off a

faint light. The way that it wasn't dark, even though we were underground,

felt futuristic, too.

Internally, I was shocked to see this incongruously advanced technology,

but Liscia and Ludwin didn't seem to be bothered by it. Apparently the two

of them thought the walls were shining because of magic or something like

that. Because magic could do anything, perhaps the people of this world

didn't have much of a sense of wonder.

As we descended the stairs, I asked about the House of Maxwell.

"The Maxwells were the noble house that originally ruled over this

area," Liscia explained. "It must be in their blood, because the House of

Maxwell has produced many great researchers, and it's said that they have

greatly raised the level of this country's civilization. They're particularly

well recognized for their analysis of technologies discovered in dungeons. It

was the Maxwells who discovered how to use simple receivers for the

Jewel Voice Broadcast."

Wow... I thought. So it was the Maxwells who discovered how to use

those simple receivers, huh?

"Wait, huh?" I burst out. "I think they're using them in the Empire, too,

aren't they?"

"It was a fairly long time ago, after all," Liscia said. "One king a number

of generations ago sold the knowledge to various foreign powers."

"Hmm... Well, it's hard for me to say that was a bad move, I guess," I

said.

It was scary to see cutting edge technology leak out, but if the

technology would have little effect and someone else was going to discover

it eventually, selling the knowledge while it was still worth something

might be okay, maybe. That, or exchanging it for knowledge of something

else.

"For that achievement, they were given this ruined dungeon and the land

around it to rule," Ludwin said. "However, the Maxwells, passionate as they

were about their research, showed no interest in managing the land. With

the understanding of the royal family, they delegated management of the

land to us, their neighbors in the House of Arcs. Half of what they earn

from the land is given to the House of Arcs, while the other half goes to

supporting their lifestyle and funding their research. That's the system that

we adopted."

"That's... pretty amazing, in a way," I said. Managing the lands of their

fief was a noble's duty. To think they were neglecting that to spend their

days on nothing but research... "But, wait, isn't the House of Arcs losing

out on that deal?"

"Because the House of Maxwell's contributions were so great, it was

allowed," Ludwin said. "Besides, if their research brings us new

knowledge, the country will prosper even more. Though, that said, as the

times have gone by, the Maxwells' lands have been incorporated into the

Arcs fiefdom, and now we're treated as their patrons."

Basically, while their house had been allowed to continue, their lands

had been reduced to just this dungeon. And the House of Maxwell was

being supported financially by the House of Arcs.

"...Huh? You're the head of the House of Arcs, aren't you?" I asked.

"Yes. I am."

"And this Genia person is the only one here?" I asked.

"Yes. Genia Maxwell. At present, she is the last of the Maxwells."

"In other words, right now, you're paying to support this Genia, right?"

"Urkh..."

When I asked him that, Ludwin was at a loss for words. That was when I

remembered those rumors that maybe Ludwin was facing financial

difficulties.

"Don't tell me, the reason you eat the cheapest bun the cafeteria has to

offer is..." I said slowly.

"...Genia is five years younger than me, and we were raised like brother

and sister," Ludwin began with a far off look in his eyes. "The amount of

support to be paid to the House of Maxwell is set at a fixed rate, but, well...

Both my parents and Genia's have already passed away... That makes each

of us like the only relative the other has left... and, well... I'm a sucker when

it comes to things my little sister asks for, and I can't help but draw from

my own salary, too..."

I was speechless.

I clapped Ludwin on the shoulder.

When we reached the bottom, I finally got a grasp of the scale of this

space.

Up until that point, while the walls had been emitting light, the center of

the space had been dark, and I hadn't been able to see. Here at the bottom

the floor also glowed with the same faint light, so I could tell that the space

was split up with the same sort of cloth dividers you would see at a

construction site.

First, there was one massive divider that split the space into two halves.

In the remaining space, there was one medium-sized area that had been

divided off, a number of box-like objects with cloth over top of them, and a

(two floor) log house.

I wondered what was behind the massive divider, but seeing a house that

looked like it belonged in a forest here inside this metal space, it looked like

a joke. That house had probably been the living space (and experimenting

space?) of the owners of this dungeon, the House of Maxwell.

Ludwin knocked on the door to it. "Genia, it's me. I've brought guests,

so please open up."

When Ludwin called out, a vapid sounding voice responded. "Okiedokie. I'm opening it nooooow."

Then the door opened, and out came a woman in her early twenties

wearing a wrinkled lab coat. She looked a bit underfed, but she had regular

features, and if she had taken proper care of herself, she would probably

have been reasonably beautiful. However, her clearly unkempt semi-long

hair ruined it.

This, I presumed, was Genia Maxwell. The small, round glasses resting

on the bridge of her nose looked just like what I'd expect a researcher to be

wearing.

"Hey, Luu," Genia smiled. "Glad you're here. ...Who're they?" She

tilted her head to the side.

Seeing her reaction, Ludwin hastily bowed his head in apology. "H-Hey,

you're being rude! I-I'm terribly sorry, sire, princess! Genia! This is His

Majesty King Souma and Princess Liscia!"

"Oh, hey... you're right," Genia said. "That's the face I'm used to seeing

on the Jewel Voice Broadcast."

In contrast to Ludwin's panic, Genia seemed relaxed. She lifted up the

hem of her lab coat as if it were a dress and curtsied to us. "We haven't met

before, Your Majesty. My name is Genia Maxwell. Welcome to my messy

home."

I couldn't tell if she was being respectful with that greeting or not, but

she didn't seem to be trying to insult us, at least. She was a little off, but this

was probably her doing her best at being respectful.

I introduced myself. "I am the (provisional) King of Elfrieden, Souma

Kazuya. This is my fiancée, Liscia."

"I'm Liscia Elfrieden," Liscia said.

"Hee hee! I am aware," giggled Genia. "I do humbly note my pleasure

to find you in good health."

Ludwin buried his face in his hands, unable to watch. Her attempt at

polite language was so bad, she came off like a clown.

"If you're not used to it, there's no need to stand on formality," I said.

"We're the ones who dropped in unannounced. Feel free to talk whatever

way is easiest for you."

"Y'sure? Well, that's what I'm gonna do, then."

"G-Genia!" Ludwin exclaimed.

Ludwin started to protest at Genia's sudden shift to a more easygoing

tone, but I held up a hand to stop him. "It's fine. We're the only ones here."

"B-But... when you consider why we came here..." Ludwin stuttered.

"Oh, we can leave that for later," I said. "In the short time we've talked,

I've more or less become convinced that she's not the type to be plotting

anything nefarious. Before that, I think I'm more interested in hearing more

about her."

"I-I see..." Ludwin seemed deflated.

Genia chuckled. "Well, no point standing at the door all day. Come in!

Even in a house like this, I can at least serve coffee."

She led us inside to a living room of sorts. When we sat at the table

there, Genia brought out four mugs of coffee. She apparently had no cream

or sugar.

When Genia had finished giving everyone their coffee and had taken a

seat, she introduced herself once more. "Once again, I am Genia Maxwell.

I'm the head of the House of Maxwell, the owner of this dungeon, and also

a researcher, scientist, and inventor. Oh, I'm technically a mage in the

Forbidden Army, too. I was originally in weapons development, but I did

some stuff, you see..."

It started as a relatively smooth self-introduction, but Genia had gotten

vague with that last part.

"You 'did some stuff'...?" I asked. "Just what did you go and do?"

"She created something outrageous." Ludwin said with a frown.

Genia hastily explained. "Hey, you know how wars are always laying

waste to the land? Well, to make sure the land is full of greenery after the

battle, I made these arrows with fast-growing plant seeds loaded into them."

"Planting trees on the battlefield?! Isn't that idea way too far out of left

field?!" I exclaimed.

Oh. But while that wasn't an idea that should have been coming out of

the weapons development department, it felt a little weak as a reason to

drive her out. As I was thinking that, Genia seemed to be deep in thought.

"Hrm... I think it was a good idea, just that maybe it was a mistake to

enchant them with light elemental magic to encourage growth. They started

growing incredibly fast, you see. Ahaha... I never thought that the one test

shot I fired would engulf the training grounds, and the lab attached to them

in a sea of tress."

"That was you?!" Liscia shouted in surprise.

It seemed to have happened before I came to this world, but it might be

a rather well-known incident here.

...Yeah. I could see how she'd gotten thrown out.

Genia was laughing it off, but Ludwin was clutching his head in his

hands.

"Well, I didn't like the atmosphere in the development department much

anyhow, so that was fine by me, really," said Genia. "They're all just sort of

going in the same direction. Wouldn't it be better if they were more free in

the way they think?"

"No, in your case, I think you were a little too free," I said.

"No, no, I think a superior culture or civilization can only be born from

freely pursuing ideas," she insisted. "If you ask me, development is an

explosion!"

"That's the one thing we don't want to let explode!"

Please, let art be the only thing that's an explosion. I mean, if whatever

you're developing explodes, that's just an accident.

It wasn't just Ludwin now; Liscia looked exhausted just from listening.

"It feels like having three Soumas here."

"Huh? Does that mean dealing with me is half as exhausting as dealing

with her?" I asked.

"Ever since we were betrothed, you've been running me ragged," she

said. "Though... lately, I'm starting to feel that's not so bad."

"Ahaha!" Genia said teasingly. "I'm glad to see the future royal couple

are so close."

Liscia turned bright red and looked at the ground.

"We had a good atmosphere going there, and now you've ruined it," I

complained.

"Sorry about that," said Genia. "Well, anyway, that's about all there is to

say about me. By the way, Your Majesty, have you heard what kind of

pedigree the House of Maxwell has?"

"Your house distinguished themselves by studying artifacts discovered

in dungeons, right?" I asked.

"Precisely!" Genia declared, with a snap of her fingers. "My family has

been researching dungeon artifacts for a long time. These are things that go

well beyond what this world's technology can replicate, and we've studied

them for generations. And so, in the long time we've spent researching,

we've vaguely come to see a certain thing."

"A certain thing?" I asked.

"It's a principle of this world, separate from magic."

A principle that's separate from magic? I thought. What's that?

"I hear that you're using the Jewel Voice Broadcast." Genia put on a

meaningful smile, then asked, "Do you understand what sort of thing it is?"

"If I recall... it's an artifact from the dungeons, filled with the magic of

the sylphs and undines. The jewel is a tool to send out images and sounds it

picks up... right?"

"Yeah," said Genia. "That's the answer about 99% of the people who

know about the Jewel Voice Broadcast would give, I'm sure. But there are

two mistakes in that understanding."

"Mistakes?"

Genia nodded solemnly. "They're found in the dungeon. That part's fine.

Mistake number one is the 'filled with the magic of the sylphs and undines'

part. You said it like it was a given, but have you ever seen a sylph or

undine yourself?"

"Well, no, I haven't, but... I'm not from this world, but weren't they

supposed to exist here?" I asked.

"Okay, let's ask the princess next to you, then. Princess, have you ever

seen a spirit?"

Liscia hurriedly shook her head. "I-I've never seen one. I mean, spirits

are the stuff of legend. But magic, and magicium, the base substance used

to produce it, is said to be a gift from the spirits. They've got to be out there

somewhere, right?"

"That's not enough to prove their existence," Genia shrugged, looking

dismayed. "Do you see now, Your Majesty? Maybe you, as someone not

originally from this world, might actually be more able to understand?

Because there's this mysterious power called magic in this world, it's harder

for people to see the truth. Snow falls and the ice forms in the rivers in

winter, then it melts when it gets warmer in the spring. That sort of obvious

thing is simply hidden from them by magic."

That was... something I had sensed myself. I had just been thinking,

"Because magic can do anything, perhaps the people of this world don't

have much of a sense of wonder," earlier.

"Everything mysterious or miraculous is hand-waved as the power of

magic or little spirits we can't see," said Genia. "Until we solve this thing

called magic, the greatest mystery of all, we can't completely deny their

absurd theories. It's such a pain."

The frown on Genia's face after she said that probably wasn't only

because of the sip of coffee she took.

"This is the truth," she went on. "While we were studying the jewel

discovered in the dungeon, we had the chance discovery that if we used

water and wind elemental magic on it, it would take in the scenery around it

and project it through the receivers that were also discovered. The bit about

sylphs and undines was just an explanation someone came up with later,

thinking that maybe it was made possible by the spirits' blessings."

"Then, are there no sylphs or undines?" I asked.

"I can't go as far as ruling that out, either. They may be out there,

somewhere. I mean, we've got a country conspicuously called the Spirit

Kingdom of Garlan, after all. But, at present, I have no definitive proof of

their existence."

Well, it was impossible to prove the non-existence of a thing, after all.

But this was huge.

I had assumed this was a world of sword and sorcery, like the kind you'd

see in an RPG. No, well, they did have both swords and sorcery. That's why

I assumed it wouldn't be weird for spirits to exist, too. Was that just

something I convinced myself of?

"Well, what about the godbeast said to protect the dark elves' forest,

then?" I asked.

"Oh, that one's fine," said Genia. "Godbeasts definitely exist, or did at

one point. I couldn't tell you if there's one in their forest or not, though."

"That one exists?!"

"I mean, the greatest godbeast of all, Mother Dragon, really does exist in

the Star Dragon Mountain Range. Yep, yep, I can understand why you're

confused. The line between things that exist and things that don't is vague

in this world. That's another factor that makes it hard to see the truth."

"My head's starting to hurt," I complained.

"Are you okay?" Liscia placed a concerned hand on my shoulder.

I put my own hand on top of hers and answered, "I'm fine," but...

internally, I wasn't fine at all. In the course of a few minutes, I had lost my

understanding of this world.

There was magic, but I didn't know if there were spirits or not; but these

things called godbeasts did exist... nothing made sense to me anymore. I

would need to collect a list of more things that did and didn't exist, then

compare the two before I would have even a vague sense of what this world

was like. That was how I was starting to feel.

"Getting back on topic, here's the second mistake," said Genia. "Well,

I've pretty much told you it already, but it's 'the jewel is a tool to send out

images and sounds it picks up' part. Like I told you before, the 'broadcast

function' of the jewel is something we discovered by accident when we

tried using water and wind magic on it. In other words, we've only been

using the jewel for broadcasting."

"Wha?!" I exclaimed.

Then, did she mean... the jewel wasn't only a tool for broadcasting

images and sound?

"For instance, mankind uses the water wheel in a wide variety of

applications," said Genia. "They're not just for irrigation; we also use them

to thresh and pulverize wheat, and to spin thread, too. But, if someone who

had never seen a water wheel before saw a spinning wheel, don't you think

they'd assume it was a tool for spinning thread?"

"That makes sense..." I said slowly.

Though, if she'd used an example with more applications, it would have

been easier to understand. For instance, imagine if someone in this world

discovered a cellular phone, and then they accidentally discovered it took

photos while they were messing around with it. The people in this world

would think that cell phones were cameras. The same way we had been

thinking of the Jewel Voice Broadcast jewel as a TV camera...

"Well, then... what are those jewels, really?" I asked.

"Yeah. We know that one." Genia gave my hesitant question a clear and

confident answer. "They're what's commonly referred to as a dungeon

core."

Dungeon cores.

They were said to be the most important part of a dungeon, maintaining

the unique ecology of the labyrinth from its deepest level.

I say they were said to be, because it was just someone's deduction.

If these dungeon cores were destroyed or stopped, the environment

inside the dungeon (the temperature, the humidity, and more) and its

ecology would collapse, turning it into a ruined dungeon. While wild

creatures might come from outside to live in a ruined dungeon, no more

monsters would appear after that point, so it was assumed that these cores

were central to a dungeon's function.

Incidentally, the adventurers of this world made their living exploring

dungeons, but their ultimate goal was to clear the dungeons by stopping

these cores.

As I had just heard, dungeon cores were used as Jewel Voice Broadcast

jewels. If they brought them back, they could sell them to the state for fame

and an immense fortune. However, it tended to be that the closer they got to

the lowest point of the dungeon, the more powerful the monsters that

appeared. Across the whole continent, it was only every few years, or

decades, that a dungeon would be cleared.

That was why ordinary adventurers like Dece and Juno made their living

protecting merchants and caravans from bandits and wild beasts, or killing

monsters that came out of dungeons or the Demon Lord's Domain. Even if

adventurers occasionally went dungeon delving, most did it to sell materials

from the monsters they defeated there, or to sell off the artifacts they might,

on rare occasions, find. (There was nothing convenient, like treasure

chests.)

Let's get back to talking about dungeon cores.

Until a dungeon core was stopped, it would continue to give birth to

fierce monsters from somewhere. To this point, no one had ever brought

back a core without stopping it. That was because no one wanted to see the

surface end up full of monsters as a result of bringing back a working core

against all common sense.

In other words, dungeon cores had only ever been studied in a broken

state.

In my earlier cell phone example, it would be like the person playing

with it had somehow managed to fix just the camera function and were

using it for that. In that case, you might think it would be a good idea to

research them and search for other functions they might have, but... Here's

something to consider.

Cell phones don't spit out monsters.

If you knew that the cell phone had a self-destruct function that would

blow away everything around it, would you want to search for any other

features it had?

That was one of the reasons why research on dungeon cores hadn't

advanced.

"Though, with the level of technology in this world, restarting a

dungeon core once it's been stopped is impossible," Genia said. "I mean,

we don't even know how it worked in the first place." Genia shrugged,

looking down into her mug. "I can understand why people would want to

explain it with magic, I guess. It's fear of the unknown. It's scary to have

something exist that you can't see or explain, so people try to force an

explanation in order to grasp and understand it. ...No, just to feel they

understand it, maybe?"

"That's why they make it the work of magic or miracles," I said.

"Precisely! Oh, I'm glad our king is the understanding sort," said Genia.

"If this had been the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria, I could have been

thrown in jail or, worse, burned at the stake for talking like this."

"Burned at the stake..." I thought she must be exaggerating, but Genia

looked absolutely serious.

"There's a tendency in this world to think of magic as the grace of gods

or spirits," she said. "That tendency becomes stronger with the strength of a

person's faith in religion. That country's a theocracy. The gods or spirits are

the very source of their authority. They can't recognize the existence of any

research... or researcher if it would pull back the curtain on that divine

mystery."

"...You could be right," I said.

In countries with too much religious fervor, those who try to discover

the laws of nature sometimes become suppressed. Those who give

explanations against the teachings of the faith might be treated as heretics

and, in the worst cases... killed. Even Galileo had been forced to recant his

theory.

...How stupid.

"This country won't end up like that," I said. "I won't allow it."

"I'm very happy to hear that." Genia clapped her hands on her lap and

smiled broadly. "So, here's the thing about us people from the House of

Maxwell. We thought that there might be another principle in this world

outside of magic, and we've been studying it. It's true that some of the

dungeon core's functions were brought back to life with magic, but when

we imagine how the dungeon core was created, we think it has to be a

product of engineering, or mathematics. It's not the power of miracles; if

we investigate it thoroughly, we believe there is a functional truth to be

found. For convenience's sake, we call this separate principle 'overscience.'"

"Over-science..." I murmured.

"That's O-Sci for short."

"'Oh, sigh'... Don't shorten it like that," I said.

"And so, our clan, as people who study over-science, refer to ourselves

as over-scientists." Genia puffed out her chest with unironic pride.

"I heard from Ludwin that you're a mad scientist, though?" I asked.

"I'd rather not have a lame name like that."

"I don't see the difference!" I cried. "Over" was cool, but "mad" wasn't?

...I didn't quite get her logic.

Genia said, "Now then..." and stood up. "I'd like this king, who seems

like he'll become a sympathetic supporter of mine, to see my inventions."

"Yeah, that's what we came here for," I said. "Please, show me."

"Roger that," she said happily. "I think I've got just the thing. Could you

come outside with me?"

Genia rose from her seat and left the house. Apparently the invention

she wanted to show me was outside. If so, it might have been behind the

divider I saw on the bottom level.

Ludwin had muttered "Honestly..." to himself and followed after Genia,

so it was just me and Liscia left behind in the house.

"If there's one thing to say about her, she's different," Liscia said with a

wry smile.

She must have meant Genia. I largely agreed with that opinion, but I was

beginning to have certain hopeful expectations for her.

"Still, she may be just the kind of talented person we've been looking

for." I kept my arms crossed as I expressed my thoughts. "When I saw the

imposing sight of the Imperial Army at Van, I realized we can't leave things

the way they are. I've made do with things that already exist up until now,

but going forward, we'll need to be able to come up with and create things

no one has seen before. To create revolutionary new technologies, adopt

them, and move the times forward. If we don't, this country will never be

able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Empire."

"...You're right," Liscia said.

"So, I've finally found a method for moving forward into a new era."

"A method?" Liscia echoed questioningly.

I nodded firmly in response. "In the history of mankind, there have been

those who were ahead of their time. They have a gift of foresight, break

down established notions, and one of them alone can be enough to change

history. Although in many cases, they're lost in the flow of the times, or

weeded out by natural selection."

For instance, take the "universal genius," Leonardo da Vinci.

Da Vinci is famous for his painting, the Mona Lisa, but he left behind

designs for a surprising number of inventions. They say there were even

designs for a tank, a diving suit, and a helicopter in there. Setting aside the

feasibility of them, if those inventions of his had been researched properly,

the history of Europe might have changed dramatically.

In addition to his outrageous inventions, he had also produced accurate

anatomical drawings of the human body. In an era when the Christian

church had held great influence, he had purchased dead bodies and cut them

up in ways that might have been seen as blasphemous by the church, all in

order to learn about the structure of the human body. If these anatomical

drawings had spread, they would no doubt have led to great advances in

medicine. However, he'd sealed them away for a long time, fearing the

power of the church, and so he'd been unable to contribute to medical

science.

"Those sorts of people are said by later generations to have been 'born

before their time,'" I said. "However, what if the ruler of the time saw such

a person for what they were, protected them, and gave them an important

position? Then, what if, not just the person in power, but the people as a

whole, could be led to recognize them for what they were? Don't you think

that could lead to a major advance?"

"You mean, make the times adjust to the person who's ahead of them?"

asked Liscia.

"Precisely!" I said. "Though I didn't expect you to get it on the first try."

"I haven't been hanging around with you for half a year for nothing, you

know," Liscia said with a laugh, but then quickly took on a pensive look.

"But, by that reasoning, shouldn't you be the one to lead, Souma? The

technological level of your world was far ahead of this one, wasn't it?"

"Well, I can understand why you'd say that, but... Yeah, no, I can't," I

said.

"Why not?"

"It's because my world isn't further down the path that this one will

eventually follow."

My former world had no magic.

I had felt that this world's technology was all over the place because of

the existence of magic before, but that was one way that this world moved

forward. Some pieces of technology, like the jewels for the Jewel Voice

Broadcast, were already superior to the technology in the other world. This

world was probably going to continue along a different path from my own.

"If I butt in when I shouldn't, there's a risk that I might end up delaying

development," I said. "That's why I think it's best if this world's progress is

driven mainly by its own people."

"I understand what you're thinking." That was what she said, but

Liscia's face didn't look satisfied with my explanation at all. If anything,

she looked both angry and sad.

While I was wondering what was up, Liscia took my hand and squeezed

it tight.

"I understand what you're thinking, Souma. Still, there are parts of it

that I can't accept."

"...Such as?" I asked.

"The part about 'this world's people!' You belong to this country now,

too, Souma!" Liscia pulled my hand and placed it against her cheek. "My

father was the one to tear you away from your old world, so I, as his

daughter, may not be the one to say this, but... What you said just now, it

made me feel incredibly sad."

"Oh, um... sorry," I said.

"Please, don't ever divide yourself from us again." With misty tears

forming in Liscia's eyes, she seemed unbearably lovely to me.

"Okay... I won't say it again." I took the hand she wasn't holding and

went to place it on her other cheek.

"Heyyyyy, Your Majestyyyyy," Genia called from outside. "Hurry

uuuuup."

Suddenly pulled out of our own little world, Liscia and I looked at one

another, and laughed in awkward embarrassment.

Genia led us in front of the medium-sized area that had been divided off.

Yes, the divider was big enough that I had to look up at it, but more than

anything, I was curious what was behind the massive divider that was

separating off half of this space. It looked to be over twenty meters high.

Wasn't she going to let me see what's behind that one?

As I was thinking that, Genia raised her hands aloft and said, "Come

forth, golem."

The moment after she did, the earth swelled up in a spot where the

ground was exposed. Eventually, two giants, each around three meters tall,

appeared. Those earthen giants began to lumber forward.

"Is this your magic, Genia?" I asked.

"Yep," she said. "My magic is to create golems from earth and to

manipulate them. They can't do any delicate work, but they've got power. I

get a lot of use out of them when it comes to carrying things."

"Manipulating mud dolls..." I mused. "That's a lot like my own ability,

huh. Is it a dark-type?"

"No. It's earth-type," she said. "Because I can only manipulate earth.

Being able to move them around like dolls probably falls under gravity

manipulation. Besides, the four major categories and light and dark are just

something people came up with to make it easier to understand. I don't

think of them as being strict limitations."

"What am I even supposed to believe in anymore...?" I murmured.

Ever since I'd come here, my understanding of this world kept being

constantly shaken. When it came to phenomena that were unknown to

people on Earth, if this world's people said something was obvious, I had

assumed it must be; but now I was being told that wasn't necessarily the

case. It wasn't a known unknown, but an unknown unknown. From here on

out, I might have to approach every phenomenon from a position of doubt.

"Well, setting that aside, this here is what I wanted you to see," Genia

said, indicating something. The golems took down the divider that was

covering it.

When we saw what came out from inside, both Liscia and I were

dumbstruck by the utter incomprehensibility of it. Before our eyes, there

was an object that looked like it was the size of a two story building. If I

were to describe it in the easiest way to understand...

"A ridiculously huge D*son fan?" I burst out.

"Hm? What's that?" Genia asked.

"Ah, never mind... Just talking to myself."

No, still, the only thing I could see it as was a gigantic Dy*on fan.

As far as the silhouette went, the torso was like a kokeshi; one of those

short, wooden Japanese dolls with no arms, but the head was a big ring. It

wasn't clear at a glance what it might be used for, and the way it just looked

like some sort of art object was the same. It did concern me that just the

portion in contact with the ground was firmly fixed in place, though...

I asked Genia, "What is this thing?"

"It's 'Little Susumu Mark V.'"

What a lame name! I thought. ...Wait, Mark V?!

"What, then there are another four of these things?!" I burst out.

"That?! After seeing this thing, that's what gets your attention?!" Liscia

exclaimed.

As she watched our surprised reactions, Genia smiled with satisfaction.

"Well, you know, with all the getting blown away, and exploding, and other

stuff, Little Susumu Marks I-IV are now no more."

"It's that dangerous?!" I cried.

"The Mark V is fine," she assured me. "This one... is the finished

product."

Having said that, Genia launched into an explanation of the Little

Susumu Mark V.

"I suspect you're already aware, but the large ships in this world are

either powered by the wind or tugged by sea dragons, right? This Little

Susumu Mark V is a replacement for those sea dragons, you see. When

attached to the keel, one of these devices can drive the vessel forward with

power equivalent to a sea dragon."

"...Ah! You mean, it's a propulsion system!" I cried.

Like a screw propeller, or a motor, huh?

When I said that, Genia smiled and laid a hand on Little Susumu Mark

V's torso section. "The thing about this machine is, it can suck in whatever

is in front of the ring, then force it out through the back. When it operates in

the sea, it takes in sea water and expels it out the rear. That water pressure

will create enough propulsion to move an iron warship." In other words, it

was like there was an invisible propeller in the empty space in the middle of

that ring.

"Hm? If it sucks in whatever's in front of it, what would happen if you

used it here and now?" I asked.

"You're very perceptive, I see," she said. "On land, it can suck in air and

expel it out the rear. Let's try an experiment, shall we?"

Genia had the golems prepare a large sheet. Then, with us standing back

at a distance of around twenty meters, the golems held it up between them

like a movie screen.

"Now, observers, the Little Susumu Mark V will suck in air from our

side, then expel it out the other side. Witness its power for yourselves."

"Ah! Genia, hold on a...!" Ludwin hurriedly tried to stop her, but Genia

didn't care.

"And click," she said in a singsong tone, then pressed some sort of

switch. In an instant...

Bowahhhhh!

There was a sudden loud noise as a sudden gust of wind blew us away.

"Whoa?!" I exclaimed.

"Eek!" Liscia cried.

"Bwah!" Genia laughed.

"Not agaaaaain!" Ludwin wailed.

The sudden and powerful blast of wind threw us all against the wall.

Wait... Th-This wind, it's too strong! I screamed in my mind. The wind

pressure had me pinned to the wall and I couldn't move at all. It looked like

Liscia and Genia were in the same boat.

Until Ludwin crawled toward the machine with great difficulty, pressing

the same switch to stop it, we were pinned against the wall like a bunch of

insect specimens. When we were finally released from that wind, Genia

laughed, "Ahaha..." and put on a dry smile.

"Whoops, sorry. Looks like I had the front and back mixed up. Because

I gave it a highly efficient form, with all waste removed, it's hard to tell the

front from the back."

"If you know that, then take precautions..." I muttered.

"I said I'm sorry, sire," she said unashamedly. "Anyway, I think you see

how powerful this Little Susumu Mark V is now, yes?"

"...I literally experienced it firsthand." I said that sarcastically, but it

really was an incredible machine.

If it hadn't been firmly affixed to the floor, the machine itself might have

been blown away. Ah... was that why Marks I-IV had blown up or been

blown away? While I was figuring out that strange little detail, Genia

launched into an enthusiastic explanation of how the system worked.

"This ring segment is made of a special metal, and it has a modified

version of an enchantment for deflecting energy carved into it. This

enchantment was based on a failed version of the enchantment for

nullifying magic that the Empire's Magic Armor Corps uses, you see.

"Originally, it was an enchantment for deflecting magic. Deflecting it

was good enough for the Magic Armor Corps themselves, but the other

troops behind them were still taking damage, so they discontinued

researching it. That failed enchantment caught my attention.

"If it was able to deflect magic, I thought it must be exerting some

influence on the way magicium worked. They say that magicium exists in

both the atmosphere and in our water. That being the case, if I could apply a

direction to it, maybe I could create something that would suck it in and

blow it out. If I could concentrate the power from expelling it, maybe I

could create a propulsion system... Well, that was the idea.

"That's because moving the magicium in the air and water is the same as

moving the air and water themselves. And so, I put a modified version of

that enchantment into a metal ring, and that's how I completed the Little

Susumu Mark V, which sucks in magicium and blows it back out when you

run energy through it!"

I was dumbfounded.

Genia was very articulate in her explanation, but the moment she started

talking about enchantment magic, it went beyond my ability to judge

whether what she said was true or false. Though, given the experiment went

exactly the way Genia was saying, I figured she was correct... probably.

"Did you understand that, Liscia?" I asked.

"Not even the teensiest tiniest bit of it."

It seemed it was a difficult subject for people from this world, too.

Realizing we hadn't been able to follow her explanation at all, Genia

forced herself to smile and shrug. "Well, like I was saying before, so long as

you understand that one of these devices can do the same work as one sea

dragon, that's good enough."

The man who had been clutching his head in his hands up, Ludwin, now

spoke up. "But isn't this thing kind of useless, then? I mean, you spent

considerable resources just to build this one device, didn't you?"

"Yeah... Well, it was easily enough to maintain ten sea dragons for a

period of ten years..." Genia said.

"If it only does the work of one, then that's a huge loss, isn't it?"

Ludwin asked. "Besides, unlike sea dragons, it can't make tight turns."

"Wh-What are you saying, Luu?! Can't you see what this invention will

bring?!" Genia cried.

"What it will bring?" Ludwin asked.

Ludwin seemed confused, but I had to agree with Genia on this point.

"She's right. It really is an incredible invention, Ludwin."

"Y-You, too, sire?" he asked.

"Just think," I said. "If one of these can do the work of a sea dragon,

then, applying some simple math, ten of them could do the work of ten sea

dragons, right?"

"I suppose...?"

As Ludwin didn't seem to get my point, I explained it in a way that

would be easier for him to understand. "Well, can you actually bind ten sea

dragons to something? I thought even a two-dragon setup like our

battleship, the Albert, was unusual?"

"Well... Yes, that's right. Even if you could bind ten sea dragons to

something, it would be impossible to make them all follow the same order.

Even in other countries, I think three is probably the limit."

"In other words, even its use were limited to ships, with this machine,

we would be able to move ships that were more massive than any before.

For instance... imagine a cargo ship with five of these installed. It would

revolutionize shipping."

It would allow the shipping of large amounts of freight at once, you see.

The reason I had wanted to absorb Amidonia was because more than half of

this country's border was with the sea. The new city we were constructing

as a focal point for shipping was nearing completion, too, so being able to

strengthen our maritime shipping capacity would be huge.

"Th-That makes a lot of sense..." Ludwin stuttered. It looked like

Ludwin understood just how incredible this invention was now.

I asked Genia, "You said something about running energy through it

before, right? What's the power source?"

Since coming to this world, I hadn't seen a single electrical generator, or

even so much as a steam engine. Would the energy source for something

mechanical like this be magic, like I was expecting?

"Well, sire, I've installed these inside it." Genia pulled some sort of

lump from her lab coat pocket and passed it to me. Though it fit in the palm

of my hand, the jet black crystal cube was heavier than it looked. (It felt

similar to holding a weight.)

"What's this?" I asked.

"It's a type of crystal commonly called curse ore."

"Did you say curse ore?!" Liscia burst out.

"You know what that is, Liscia?!" I asked in the same tone.

"You didn't have to say it like that..." she murmured. "In this world, we

also use magic to mine ore. Water magic for digging, earth magic for

reinforcing tunnels, wind magic for supplying air, and fire magic for

melting down metals. But when we're near a vein of curse ore, for whatever

reason, we lose the ability to use magic. What's more, if we try to force

ourselves to use it..."

Liscia made a gesture where she quickly opened her closed fist, and said

"Boom."

"It explodes?!" I cried. "Aren't explosions inside a mine really

dangerous?"

"It's a real source of frustration for the miners," Liscia said. "If they're

digging a mine and they strike a vein of this stuff, they can't dig any further,

after all. In this world, we think of magic as the blessing of the gods and

spirits, so this ore that makes magic unusable is a cursed rock that can't

accept their blessings. Basically, that's why we call it curse ore. The

troublesome thing is, it's commonly found underground in Elfrieden,"

Liscia added with an air of self-mockery.

The Elfrieden Kingdom was a country with little mineral wealth to begin

with. Because of its mostly level terrain, it was possible to get a decent

amount of iron, but gold and other such precious metals weren't common

here. If there were large amounts of curse ore thrown into the mix, too, then

that would make the process of mining itself difficult. There sure were a lot

of things I had yet to learn...

As I was thinking that, Genia wore a bold smile. "This ore is cursed?

You shouldn't say such silly things, princess. If anything, you could say this

country has been blessed by the gods to have so much of this ore buried

underground!"

Genia waved her arms with an exaggerated reaction.

"It's because we look at it through the veil of mystery that we come up

with childish ideas like it being cursed. Curse ore isn't rendering magic

unusable. It's absorbing the energy from it. Think about that. If we can't use

magic near curse ore, and if we do, it explodes, where did you think that

explosive energy came from? Isn't it more natural to think that, because it's

absorbing the energy from magic, it explodes when it overcomes its

tolerance threshold?"

Hrm... So, basically, curse ore was like a chargeable battery that had

been absorbing the energy from magic? Then, if it was overcharged, it

would explode.

...What was this feeling of restlessness? Were we, right now, witnessing

something incredible? Something big enough that it might change the

world?

Then Genia said something incredible. "So, I've succeeded in extracting

the energy from curse ore once it's absorbed magical energy. That's what I

use to power this device."

"Wha?!" I yelped.

Her words sent a chill down my spine. If that was true, it really was like

a battery!

There was still a lot I couldn't understand just yet, but I could

understand just how incredible the secret of curse ore was, and how

incredible the woman who'd discovered it was. This was a world without

electricity, or even steam engines. If we could acquire a technology for

storing energy before any other country, this country would make great

strides forward. In fact, it was a big enough deal that even growing more

powerful than the Empire wouldn't be just a dream.

Then, at the same time, the danger of this power occurred to me.

First, there were the superstitions surrounding curse ore. If people

discovered we were researching curse ore, which hadn't received the

blessings of the gods, in this superstitious world, people might grow

distrustful of us.

If it were only within the country, I might be able to enlighten the people

with time, but I was sure to make an enemy of theocracies like the

Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria. For a nation ruled by religious doctrine,

anything that might undermine a part of their dogma (even if it was of

superstitious variety) would lead to a decline in their authority. They could

never accept it.

Furthermore, if they learned a land without much in the way of faith had

a technology like this, they were sure to demand we hand it over. From

what Liscia was just saying, it seemed there was a considerable amount of

curse ore in this country, too. If we weren't careful, the neighboring

countries might invade us for our resources.

It was looking like I could form a secret alliance with the Empire, and

the threat posed by Amidonia had finally been removed; but if that sort of

situation arose, this country would be wiped off the map. While this

technology had the potential to make us the greatest power on the continent,

it also had the hidden risk of destroying this country utterly.

I stumbled. "What am I gonna do...?"

"H-Hold on, Souma?! What's wrong?!" Liscia cried out, supporting me.

"...Sorry," I said. "I was imagining something high risk, high return, and

I started to not feel so good."

"Imagining something?" Liscia asked.

I explained my imaginings to Liscia and the others. As they listened,

Liscia and Ludwin's faces went pale. They must have felt the same fear as I

did.

However, Genia was the only one who seemed unperturbed. "What's

there to worry about? We just need to finish the research before the other

countries can start targeting us, then grow so strong they can't say a word

against us."

"...You're overly optimistic about it, but I guess it's the only way, huh," I

said. "Still, we need to proceed with absolute secrecy on this..."

In which case, custody of Genia was going to be an issue. At this point,

she was as vital to the welfare of this country as Tomoe. I couldn't let her

run off to another country, or to be kidnapped, and I wanted to leave her in

the hands of someone I could trust. She seemed wholly devoted to her

studies, but she was still in her early twenties; a young woman in her prime.

I wanted to avoid a situation where some noble realized her importance and

tried to make a move on her.

—In that case...

I waved to Liscia and whispered in her ear what I was thinking. Then,

after I had her opinion on it, I turned to the handsome Captain of the Royal

Guard who was looking at me dubiously.

"...Hey, Ludwin," I said.

"Yes? What is it, sire?" he asked.

"Tell me, do you love Genia?"

Ludwin was clearly shaken. "Wh-What's this, out of nowhere?! Sire!"

"It's important," I said, giving the flustered Ludwin a serious answer.

"Depending on how you feel about Genia... and how Genia feels about you,

I'll need to change how I handle things here."

Genia was a very important person to this country now. If possible, I

wanted her to marry someone close to me, so she would put down deep

roots in this country. That was why... if Ludwin was prepared to do it, all

the better; but if not, I would have to come up with other plans.

Before I'd proposed this idea, I had whispered:

"Hey, Liscia. I'm thinking I should have Genia marry Ludwin. As a

woman yourself, do you think Genia likes him?"

"...It's a 60% chance, I'd say," she'd whispered back. "She probably

does."

"That's not a very clear answer," I'd whispered. "Why so uncertain?"

"Girls are hard to read. But I don't think you need to worry, you know?

Genia's a daughter of the nobility. If the king commands it, she won't

refuse."

"You may be right, but... I don't want to force anyone if I don't have to."

"...I see. Well, how do you think Sir Ludwin would feel about it?" she'd

whispered.

"I'd say it's like a 99% chance he loves her."

"You sound awfully certain of that."

"Guys are easy to read when it comes to this stuff," I'd whispered.

All that stuff we'd whispered back and forth had been a secret.

Now, perhaps Ludwin realized I was serious, because his lips were

pursed. He must have been wondering how best to answer.

At that point, the other involved party tilted her head to the side and

asked, "Am I going to be Luu's wife?" She said it in such a relaxed tone

that you wouldn't have assumed it was a decision affecting her.

"Would it upset you marrying Ludwin, Genia?" I asked.

"Nah. It wouldn't upset me at all." Genia said it so clearly and easily

that it was almost a letdown. "I'm a woman, after all. I was thinking I'd like

to get together with someone eventually, and I was also thinking I'd like

that somebody to be Luu. Though, with Luu being as popular with the

ladies as he is, I was fine with waiting until he found a proper wife and then

having him take me as his third wife or so."

Ludwin's eyes went wide at Genia's confession, but Liscia seemed to

have found some point in it to sympathize with because she was nodding

emphatically.

When Ludwin came back to his senses, he said with a pained look,

"Sire, I ask you to forgive me for speaking against you," then refuted me.

"No matter how important of a person Genia is to this country, suddenly

tying her down with marriage seems a little much..."

"You're going to say that to the two of us?" I asked archly.

The former king, Sir Albert, had given his daughter Liscia to me in order

to make me the king of this country. Conversely, from Liscia's perspective,

she had been made my bride to keep me as the king of this country. Though

our relationship had started out in that warped way, now that we had

overcome many trials and tribulations, we were bound by an absolutely

unbreakable bond.

I patted Ludwin on the shoulder. "Having been through it myself, let me

say, how the relationship starts isn't the issue. It's how you two spend your

time together after that which is important, don't you think? Besides, you

already have all the time you've spent with her as childhood friends, don't

you?"

"Sire..." Ludwin murmured.

"Do you need another push? If you take Genia as your wife, you can call

your house Maxwell-Arcs," I said. "That way, the House of Maxwell's

name will remain. On top of that, the Royal House will cover all expenses

for your wedding. ...Also, the country will cover nine-tenths of the expenses

for Genia's research from here on. The House of Arcs won't need to carry

that burden alone."

"I-I'm very grateful for the offer, but... we still have to cover one-tenth

of it ourselves?" he asked.

"If I don't make you pay at least a little of it yourselves, I feel like there

would be no limit to the amount of money she'd sink into it," I explained.

No matter how useful the invention, I couldn't have Genia upending the

country's economy to build it.

When I shot her a cold glance, Genia looked the other way and whistled

innocently.

When he saw that, Ludwin said, "I see..." and laughed wryly. "You want

me to keep a firm grip on her reins, then."

"Or to become a work-horse that can support larger expenses, I

suppose," I said.

"I'm afraid that seems like the more likely outcome," he said wryly.

"All right, Ludwin," I said. "Genia's said her piece. Now I think it's

your turn, don't you?"

"...Y-Yes, sire!"

Ludwin and Genia faced one another.

Ludwin had turned a bright shade of red, but Genia's cheeks might have

turned just a touch more pink. Though Ludwin was the taller of the two if

you were to compare, with him freezing up from tension, they looked about

the same. I worried if he was going to be all right, given how tense he

looked, but this was the handsome Captain of the Guard who had led an

army of tens of thousands. He quickly composed himself.

"Genia. Will you be my wife?"

"...Are you sure, Luu?" she asked. "I don't think I'm really noble wife

material, you know?"

"I know," he said. "Still, I want to have you at my side forever."

"You've got odd tastes... But, sure. Okay. Take good care of me,

Darling."

Then, the two of them shook hands.

I had to think, Shouldn't you hug instead? but... well, this was more like

them. They looked happy, so I wasn't about to say anything. I was glad the

matter had been settled quietly.

"Whew... Is that everything neatly taken care of?" I asked.

"...No, sire." The moment I tried to relax, Ludwin said that with a

deeply-troubled look. "Not yet."

He'd looked so happy just a moment ago. What happened in that one

instant?

"I'd forgotten up until now, too, but... Have you forgotten why we came

here today?" Ludwin added, his face still looking troubled.

Ah... come to think of it, he was right. I had completely forgotten, but

we hadn't come here to see her inventions.

That was when Ludwin bonked Genia on the head with his fist.

"Ow?!" she cried. "Luu, I don't want domestic violence when we just

got engaged."

"You idiot!" he shouted. "Listen, just apologize to His Majesty along

with me!"

Having said that, Ludwin grabbed Genia's head and pressed it to the

floor. He then bowed low enough himself that his head scrapped the floor,

too. It wasn't quite the same, but it was this country's style of double

kowtow.

Ludwin apologized as he held Genia's head down. "My... fiancée has

done something truly outrageous this time..."

"Ow, that hurts, Luu," she complained. "You're pulling my hair out."

"Genia, be quiet! I humbly, humbly, beseech you, sire, have mercy."

No, he didn't have to apologize so fervently... I wasn't that bothered by

it, you know. "Ludwin, Genia, both of you raise your heads. I'm not

particularly looking to find fault here."

"Sire... Thank you!" Ludwin cried.

"Ahh, but I am curious about it." I sat down, looking Genia straight in

the eyes and asked her, "Tell me, would you, Genia? Why did you take

those dragon bones?"

You may remember, this had happened about half a year ago.

When we'd dug a hole for a sedimentation pond as part of the process of

installing a water system in our major cities, we'd discovered a large

number of monster bones. From among them, a full set of giant dragon

bones had just up and vanished.

Because I had heard that dragons who died while bearing a grudge could

come back as skull dragons, I had worried for a while that that might be the

cause. Had that been the case, however, the skull dragon would have spread

its miasma. Given that Parnam had stayed peaceful and quiet, that

possibility had seemed unlikely.

My next suspicion was that someone had stolen them, but I had no

inkling as to why they would. If they'd still had magic in them, they might

be useful as a magic catalyst or an ingredient for crafting equipment, but

these bones had been fully drained and lacking that value. In fact, it was

precisely because there was nothing to be done with them that I had been

keeping them in storage to eventually display in a museum. So, in the end,

people had said a collector must have made off with them.

While it was a strange case, I hadn't seen it leading to anything too

major, so it had gradually faded from my memory... or it would have, if the

truth hadn't come to light just the other day.

There had been a single piece of paper mixed in with Ludwin's work

papers. It had simply said: "Dear Luu, I'm gonna take the dragon bones,

handle the paperwork plzkthx — Genia."

Yes. The one who had taken the dragon bones was Genia.

She had apparently used the golems to carry them off. I suppose it could

be said that the way she'd only turned in a single piece of paper saying

she'd be doing it, then went ahead and did it without waiting for a reply,

was very much like her. That paper had been turned in while things were a

real mess, so it had gotten mixed up with some other documents.

The other day, when that paper had finally been discovered, learning his

childhood friend was the criminal, Ludwin had come to prostrate himself

before me in apology. Now, today, to confirm the location of the bones, we

had come to visit Genia's dungeon laboratory together.

And so, we at last learned where the missing bones had gone, but...

""Whaa?!"" we cried out in surprise.

The bones had changed completely... or rather, they looked totally

different.

When asked where the bones were, Genia had led us inside the tent that

covered half of this huge space. When we'd gone inside, my eyes nearly

jumped out of my skull at the sight of that giant mechanical dragon with its

shining, metallic body. The moment I'd seen that thing which was only fit

to be called a mechadragon, the main theme of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla

with its low and heavy sounds started to play in my head.

No, it wasn't that big, and it was only twenty meters tall at most, but its

form was just so far away from anything that felt real.

While I was standing there dumbfounded, Genia proudly began to

explain, "I call this baby 'Mechadra.' I put armor and parts from wild

creatures and monsters on top of the skeleton of a dragon, then threw in

some mystery parts found in a dungeon to flesh it out and make my own

mechanical dragon."

Genia was cheerfully explaining in a singsong tone, but... I dunno. The

materials from monsters and mysterious parts from the dungeons were

giving me nothing but a bad feeling.

Liscia was still gaping, and Ludwin looked like he might faint.

I asked Genia, "This thing won't go on a rampage, right?"

"Ahaha," she laughed. "There's no way it'd do that."

Then Genia approached Mechadra, touching the underside of its foot

lightly.

"I mean, it doesn't even move."

"Huh? It doesn't?" I asked.

"Of course not," she said. "I think the outer frame is pretty well

complete, but it lacks the all important control system to send orders to all

the parts. The way it is... it's just a glorified scarecrow."

What are you, the "I'm gonna kill you nooooow!!" guy...? I thought,

making a reference no one was going to get.

I saw the situation now. She had made a mechanical dragon, and that

was all well and good, but the program and circuits to operate it didn't exist.

It was apparently something she had built to study the workings of living

creatures' joints, and she had never intended for it to move. But, well, much

as that should have been a given with the level of technology in this world,

when Genia was involved, my sense for that was numbed, you know.

Genia was moving one of Mechadra's foot talon parts up and down with

one hand. "Look, it moves smoothly like this. Even without power, you can

make it move."

"Yeah, that's amazing," I said. "It's amazing, but... what did you go and

make this thing for...?"

I clutched my head in my hands. I figured this was probably gonna get

me in trouble with the Star Dragon Mountain Range.

With ancient humans, sure, maybe we'd put them on display in a

museum. But if you started embedding one in a machine, people would start

to draw the line. It could be taken as profaning the bodies of the dead, after

all. If they found out that one of their kind's bodies was being used like this,

the dragons might come to attack.

...When I get back, I'll write a letter of apology to the Star Dragon

Mountain Range, I thought. Depending on their response, we'll dismantle

the thing and either bury it or send it back to them.

As I was swearing that to myself, Genia's words, "The way it is... It's

just a glorified scarecrow," came back to me.

A scarecrow... A doll put up to protect the fields... A doll?! Don't tell

me...

I tried touching the tip of the Mechadra's toe. Then, using Living

Poltergeists, I transferred one of my consciousnesses into it. When I did,

with a great sound of metal creaking... Mechadra began to move.

Whoa?! I managed to control it?!

"Hold on, Your Majesty?! Did you do something?!" Genia exclaimed.

Even she had to be surprised by this turn of events.

As I looked up at Mechadra spreading its arms like a monster from a

kaiju movie, then start doing radio calisthenics, I held my head in my

hands.

Seriously, what was I going to do with this thing? Might the ability to

move an iron dragon be seen as a threat by other countries?

"But even if you can move the iron dragon, will it be any use in battle?"

Liscia asked.

I snapped back to my senses. Now that she mentioned it, if all it could

do was move around, an iron dragon wasn't going to be much of an asset in

battle. With its big, bulky body, it would make a prime target. If the wyvern

cavalry focused their aerial bombardment and dragon breath on it, it would

be blown to pieces in no time.

"Is Mechadra armed?" I asked.

"Of course not," Genia said. "Even I'm not so whimsical that I'd install

armaments on something I never even considered moving."

"I wouldn't put it past you..." I murmured.

If that was the case, it really was useless. The best thing I could think to

do with it was set it up somewhere like the Odaiba G*ndam and use it to

attract tourists. It was likely to make other countries cautious of us, but it

had absolutely no use. It was the absolute worst. Talk about a white

elephant.

In conclusion, all information regarding Mechadra was declared top

secret, and until I received a response from the Star Dragon Mountain

Range, it was to be kept sealed. Would it ever eventually see the light of

day?

As for Genia, who had produced the dangerous thing, we had her move

to a lab built especially for her close to the capital. Even now, she was

working on research and development there. As soon as the country began

supplying her with most of the funding for her research, it only spurred her

to work harder.

...I think I'll send Ludwin some stomach medicine sometime soon.