“Support supplies for the United Kingdom of Adea Beasteen—handover complete!”
“Good work. The transport unit gets leave until the four-bell at 4 a.m. the morning after tomorrow. You, however, submit your report first.”
“Understood, Captain!”
The support-supply transport unit affiliated with the Kingdom of Lepuitari arrived safely in the border city, and completed the handover of the supplies—wagons and all—to the other country.
There was no plan to bring anything back, so the unit planned to cram personnel into the wagons and turn right around.
Even so, the transport unit’s morale was high, because the wagons’ ride comfort had improved dramatically.
For the record, what had been handed over were ten <Paraiso>-made wagons for transferring weapons and ammunition.
They would swap horses in this border city, and from here on, the United Kingdom of Adea Beasteen would be responsible for hauling the shipment to the front.
Naturally, the Kingdom of Lepuitari would not be involved in weapon distribution or how the weapons were used.
“...Well, whatever they do with it has nothing to do with us...”
The captain snorted, then returned to the assigned quarters to finish the last job.
There would be a meeting with the city’s important people.
This border city was the farthest place from the front, which meant the sense of crisis was fundamentally lacking.
Most likely, the captain would be subjected to an endless barrage of annoying hospitality.
The captain had said repeatedly that the position came with no authority, but it had not been very effective.
“They told me back home not to worry about it, but still...”
Annoying was annoying.
On top of that, in this country—less civilized than the homeland—the food was not very enjoyable either.
The transport captain sighed again, and headed to the bathhouse to wash off the dust.
◇◇◇◇
“We have secured sufficient bandwidth for radio communications. Link level is above the specified value. Confirming normal operation across all devices. Power-supply voltage is normal. No impact to the surrounding environment has been observed.”
“Commander Sis-ter... it worked....”
The microwave power-supply grid from satellite orbit—whose construction Eve had entrusted to Olive—had completed its live test without incident.
“Alright. Excellent work, Olive!”
“...Hehe.”
Eve stood from the command seat and praised Olive, and Olive answered with a shy smile.
“For one month, we’ll observe at minimum output. After that, we’ll gradually raise the power-supply output. Olive, I’m leaving the fine-tuning of the plan to you.”
“Yeah... leave it to me.”
If energy could be supplied from satellite orbit, <The Tree>’s operating range would expand dramatically. For now, the demonstration experiment was proceeding without problems.
The location chosen for this experiment was a trade city located on the border between the United Kingdom of Adea Beasteen and the Republic of Franca.
Microwave reception equipment and reconnaissance bots had been built into wagons being handled as support supplies from the Kingdom of Lepuitari, and microwaves were transmitted to those wagons from satellite orbit to supply power.
The result was extremely good.
The straight-line distance from <The Tree> was about 2,100 km, but the surrounding nations were all countries with no diplomatic relations. Even from the nearest base inside the United Kingdom of Aphrasia, the site was more than 900 km away.
Even if a power-supply drone were floated over Aphrasian airspace, the distance would be right on the edge—barely within range, or barely out of it. The fact that <The Tree>’s forces could now sustain ongoing activity there was a major gain.
The power-supply device in orbit had also been newly built for this experiment. To minimize impact on the surrounding environment, the system’s directivity had been increased as much as possible. As a result, the position-targeting mechanism required extremely delicate control.
After all, the device itself was circling at an altitude of 600 km.
Until now, the power-supply drones had operated at an altitude of 20 km. The required control precision became something staggering.
“For the time being, the plan is to supply power to the surrounding area via power-reception spots.”
“We still don’t have enough transmission antennas... unless we build a power-supply grid in satellite orbit, we can’t provide individual power to every device....”
“Haa. Well, that’s true. Even right now, we have a ton of power-supply drones in the air.”
Around bases where the power-supply antennas were deployed, things were still manageable, but right now the drones were being moved around to match whatever equipment had been dispatched.
This satellite-orbit power-supply experiment was also using only three satellites.
With that, a 24-hour power-supply posture was impossible. At best, power could be supplied to local equipment only when the satellites passed overhead a few times a day.
“Well, for now, it’s good that the front can secure power. Will it make the bots easier to move, too?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. Deployment bots have already been loaded onto the wagons. The plan is to deploy them in sequence at suitable locations.”
“Mhm mhm. It’s going smoothly.”
And like that, across an even broader area, <The Tree>’s intelligence network would continue to expand.
◇◇◇◇
From the rocket launch site, a long rocket roared as it climbed into the sky.
What <The Tree> launched was an early-warning reconnaissance satellite.
A three-stage rocket would place three reconnaissance satellites into a 400 km orbit.
The first stage—and even the second stage—would return to the ground automatically, and were reusable.
Using these rockets, the plan was to launch nine reconnaissance satellites in total.
This also served as an operational test for reusable rockets.
As for the third stage, after placing the satellites into orbit, it would be sent straight into atmospheric reentry. The flight speed was extremely high, making recovery difficult, and as a rocket it had low functionality—so making it disposable was more efficient.
It was a <The Tree>-made rocket that had already succeeded in orbital insertion many times.
Even if this was a new model, it was a product <Ringo> had simulated in detail again and again, so the mission completed cleanly without any trouble.
As <The Tree>’s operating range expanded, the warning line had grown extremely long.
There was no way to permanently station security machines along all of it.
That was why the eyes in the sky needed to increase. With observation from above, at the very least, anything visible could be grasped almost completely.
Since the satellites themselves carried simple AI, there was no worry about placing a heavy load on ground processing capacity. <The Tree> was steadily expanding its controlled area.
And yet.
The area <The Tree> currently controlled was still only a ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ small part of this vast planet.
“Reconnaissance satellites: all units deployed. Each unit is entering operational testing.”
“Telemetry received normally. Automatic analysis has begun. Communication link confirmed established. Beginning calibration.”
Listening to reports from Ichigo and <Ringo>, Eve stared vaguely at the world map.
What was spread across the entire wall was a rectangular planetary map displayed in Mercator projection.
The terrain data had already been surveyed, and the coastlines of each continent were confirmed. However, altitude was still an approximate value. In truth, Eve wanted to obtain an accurate topographic map using laser surveying, but emitting lasers from satellite orbit was prohibited.
It was a precaution against being perceived as some form of attack and shot down from the ground.
This was not something to laugh off as excessive caution.
Even the human species—described as fragile compared to monsters—could shoot a simple arrow up to 20 km. If a powerful monster species existed, an attack reaching satellite orbit would not be surprising.
“All functions: normal signals received. Permission granted for adjustment of each device.”
The reconnaissance satellites began operating autonomously. They did not possess selfhood on the level of a Brain Unit, but they had been granted enough authority to make some decisions. Of course, the core function was simply monitoring the ground; at most, they only had capabilities like orbital correction for debris detection.
“After confirming the satellites’ functions, we plan to focus observation on that site.”
“That site?”
“The site where the electromagnetic reflection phenomenon was confirmed.”
“Ahhh. That place.”
Increasing the number of reconnaissance satellites was partly about increasing the number of eyes, but the biggest purpose was to observe a point inside <Demon Forest>.
Judging from the footage, it was nothing more than a rocky mountain covered in green.
There were fewer trees than in the surrounding area, but because the geology was rocky mountain, it was an environment where large trees had difficulty growing—so it did not feel especially strange.
And yet, because electromagnetic emission had been confirmed from that site, <The Tree> had strengthened its vigilance.
That said, what was confirmed was a reflected wave. A radar wave emitted by <The Tree>’s flying machine had come back unchanged.
If that were all, it could have ended as nothing more than some sort of radio-wave-reflective material buried there, but—
“The electromagnetic wave is being emitted with a 0.3-second delay compared to the assumption. If it were merely reflecting, there is no reason for the electromagnetic wave’s arrival to be delayed.”
“It’s creepy... that delay is way too large to call an error...”
In the world of electromagnetic waves, receiving something with a 0.3-second delay—no matter how identical the waveform—forced the assumption that a different transmitter existed.
But the location was relatively deep inside <Demon Forest>, and it was also a bit too far to send survey equipment.
