“At last...! At last, we’ve made it this far...!”
Facing that, she threw both ears, both hands, and her tail up toward the sky and shouted.
“This is the large-scale construction dock! It’s huge! It’s wide!”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. Curing the concrete took time, but this now makes it possible to construct 300-meter-class warships.”
Having come to the large-ship dock complex built alongside the fortress <The Tree>, Commander Eve was in a state of extreme excitement.
“Hardships—hardships—I don’t even know how many days of hardships, but this is wonderful! Now our expansion will move along even faster!”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am.”
The construction dock was all-weather. The entire dock—400 meters long, 100 meters wide, and 15 meters deep—was covered by a structural shell. Inside, gigantic construction machinery moved in all directions, and construction of the commemorative first ship had begun.
“What overwhelming power!!”
“Big Sis. I want to see inside. Inside.”
“Of course. Let’s go!”
Urged on by Olive, Eve re-gripped her hand properly and started walking. From behind, both of their tails were whipping back and forth violently.
And they were moving at a pretty fast pace.
“<Ringo>. What are we building right now?”
“A battleship, <Hringhorni>. First ship of the Hringhorni class.”
As those two went ahead, <Ringo>, Akane, and Ichigo followed behind at a relaxed pace.
Utsugi and Erika had already run off.
“Hringhorni is the name of a gigantic ship in Norse mythology, said to be the largest in the world.”
At Akane’s explanation, <Ringo> nodded.
It was <The Tree>’s first battleship—named with delight by Eve.
“Overall length is 321 meters, beam 68 meters. It mounts four nuclear fusion reactors, and is designed for fully autonomous operation, running multiple strategic AIs. It will be operated as a fleet flagship and assumed as a dispatched force to various regions, but the first ship’s basic mission will be the defense of <The Tree>.”
“I’ve always thought <The Tree>’s maritime defense forces were insufficient. This finally lets me feel at ease.”
“I believe we prepared ten times the assumed enemy strength, but...?”
“I understand Akane’s concern. As Ichigo says, we have prepared the necessary forces, but whether that allows peace of mind is a separate issue. Personally, I still want to bring back half of the maritime forces currently deployed.”
“Because Big Sis allocates forces by judging them numerically, I can’t argue back. I’m not Asahi, but we could stand to fear fantasy’s irrationality a little more.”
Letting forces you have on hand just swim around didn’t suit Eve. That was what she said—meaning, it was simply a gamer’s nature.
Using a massive force only for defense when there was no imminent crisis was, admittedly, something to be avoided.
“By increasing patrol aircraft, we have responded, but I was worried. Because you agreed to keep the fleet around <The Tree> under the pretext of an experimental ship, the level of Commander Ma’am’s safety should also rise.”
An asset you don’t move is the same as zero.
That was Eve’s judgment.
But defense forces didn’t work like that. Their meaning was in being there.
At present, there was also breathing room in the resource balance. It was time to reconsider the defense of <The Tree> itself.
“Even so, as Commander Ma’am accumulates battles with monsters, it seems you have begun considering risk hedges regarding defense forces. ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) Fortress No. 2 Black Iron and the oil port, Oil Port, have both had their permanently stationed forces reinforced. It is dangerous that the home base is being left for later, but I understand it can’t be helped when considering the resource balance.”
“At present, it is analyzed that unless monsters’ territory is violated, the chance of clashing is low, so it is also true that <The Tree> is somewhat safer than other regions.”
“At minimum, there are no threats aside from wandering types like <Rain Kroin>. If we can build the defense net at this pace, <The Tree> will become unshakable.”
Vein development within the United Kingdom of Aphrasia, and seabed resource recovery, were also proceeding smoothly. Necessary elements were steadily accumulating. Allocation between recovery platforms and resources to be diverted into force reinforcement was being handled appropriately by <Ringo>.
On land, gigantic discs were shaving away the earth. On the seafloor, monstrous recovery machines crawled around.
And those sites were expanding steadily.
They had a clear outlook on recovering sufficient materials for battleship construction—each ship likely exceeding 100,000 tons. All that remained was mass production.
They stepped into the dock.
Ahead, where <Ringo> and the others were headed, Eve, Utsugi, Erika, and Olive were bunched together in a noisy cluster. In their excitement, they seemed to be shoving each other around.
Below them, a gate-shaped construction machine was directly outputting the battleship’s hull. According to the schedule, hull output would be complete in one week. After that, it would take roughly another week to fit out each system and launch the ship.
And there were three facilities of this size in total. In other words, running at full capacity meant weekly battleships were possible.
On top of that, no crew familiarization period was needed. From the start of construction, it meant roughly three weeks to field as combat power.
Even so, operating a battleship alone was, as expected, difficult. It needed escorts, and it also needed aircraft carriers as the core of strike power.
If there were no issues with this construction dock, the plan was to begin building carriers and supply ships in the second and third docks.
“<Ringo>. What about the land battleship Asahi proposed—do we have a path forward?”
“Akane observes well. Yes, simulations are currently running. Unlike the Gigantia class, movable large-scale facilities have vastly higher robustness. If invading the vast Prava Divine Kingdom, a plan to push the front line forward with land battleships as bases is worth examining.”
“......I don’t really understand the concept Big Sis often calls romance, but you said land battleships are romance.”
Watching the four of them—hands linked—start spinning in circles, <Ringo> and the others kept talking.
By the way, the reason they were exchanging information out loud was simply recreation.
If it were work, this level of conversation would end in milliseconds.
“Yes. There is romance, but viewed in terms of resource acquisition, it is also reasonably useful. Until defensive facilities are constructed, it can supply the land battleship’s defense power and motive power. After that, the land battleship moves to the next point. It can also be given a mothership function, so compared to mass operation of small machines, the operational range increases dramatically.”
“The problem is movement speed. Compared to the Gigantia class, deployment speed becomes the bottleneck.”
“I see. Even so, as a force that advances after the Gigantia class has seized control, it would be extremely useful. And if used as a mothership, air superiority can also be maintained.”
With the current resource balance, mass-producing land battleships was also possible.
The problem was likely transporting land battleships to the Prava Divine Kingdom, the main battlefield.
At present, <The Tree>’s base of operations on the northern continent existed only within the United Kingdom of Aphrasia.
So if they considered traveling overland, several countries lay in between. They couldn’t exactly pass land battleships through the territory of countries with which they had little interaction.
They couldn’t use the highways either—meaning it would just be outright trampling.
“It will be maritime transport. Airlifting is too far, and there are limits to payload. Assembling on site is also difficult, so directly sending them in with a large mothership is the most efficient.”
“In theory, advancing via the <Demon Forest> can be considered. Asahi warned the uncertainty was high, though.”
“If you go through the <Demon Forest>, there is the possibility of provoking unknown monsters. If you move a gigantic mobile machine like a land battleship through it, it’s true that nobody can predict what might happen.”
The <Demon Forest> stretched east-west, sealing off the north side of the southern countries of the northern continent. No country had succeeded in developing it. Therefore, even if they cut a path through the <Demon Forest> and passed through, there was no worry about being interfered with.
Of course, nobody could say what kind of monster might come out, so everyone—including Asahi—was opposed to developing that route.
“Because there is a high possibility useful resources are sleeping there, eventually it will be necessary to challenge it. But right now, preparations are not in place. Unnecessary risks should be avoided.”
The three of them played with conversation while keeping watch over their other sisters.
In their line of sight, Eve was staggering along, carrying Olive on her shoulders, with Utsugi in one arm and Erika in the other. Perhaps because of beastkin traits, they were far stronger than they looked.
