The second Gigantia-class airborne carrier, Agrios, lifted off.
Lavishly expending the vast energy produced by its three fusion reactors, twenty-four plasma jet engines and six jet engines drove the massive craft forward.
Combined with the acceleration produced by the solid-fuel rocket motors added for takeoff, the 4,500-ton mass rose slowly into the air.
“...You really went and built a machine made entirely out of sheer romantic obsession...”
“Well, back in the game era, it wasn’t something we could make easily.”
Eve and Amajio watched the footage of Agrios taking off together.
This Gigantia-class ship was being dispatched over the Prava Divine Kingdom, partly to familiarize its crew with operations, and partly for use in the ongoing campaign to subjugate the Divine Kingdom.
“I’m assigning Titan-class ships Five through Eight as escorts. Fifth ship Hyperion, sixth ship Iapetus, seventh ship Chronos, and eighth ship Theia. Mm... Against a human nation, that would be overwhelming force.”
“And yet I still can’t believe these five ships would get beaten back if you sent them into <Demon Forest>... I’d already started to suspect it, but yeah, this planet is seriously insane.”
“Right? If this were just a normal planet without magic, I think we’d have already taken control of the whole world by now...”
Eve grumbled.
And it was true. With <The Tree>’s level of technology, conquering an undeveloped planet should originally have been easy work. The fact that they had been stalled for several years showed just how enormous the influence of magic really was.
“Come to think of it, Mr. Amajio, haven’t you done any research into magic?”
“Hm? Ah... no. I can’t use it myself, so honestly I’ve barely done anything with it. In my country too, magic has basically been treated like a fringe technology. Though, seeing the Divine Kingdom’s offensive, I’ve started to wonder whether we chose the wrong direction for technological development.”
“I see... Well, for now it looks like magic depends too heavily on individual ability, so it doesn’t really pair well with the modernization of an army.”
Armies built on scientific civilization sought quality that was standardized and easy to procure.
A branch like mage soldiers, where quality varied wildly from one individual to another, was difficult to operate.
That said, it was not as though the Kingdom of Lepuitari had completely ignored magic.
After all, it was clearly using messenger birds by means of some mysterious magical principle, and it had also created something like flamethrowers.
“I’m not too involved in that area. I gave them the budget, though. Anyway, I’ll have the research results reported to you, so make good use of them.”
“Oh? Thanks. In return... let’s see. Maybe an expansion of your Fuelstone trade allotment.”
“You really do go straight for the practical stuff. Well, I’d had people working behind the scenes because I wasn’t sure how I felt about having our energy source controlled by someone else. But now that it’s come to this, all that maneuvering is pointless anyway. Fine. Let’s do it.”
While deciding the future of a kingdom through such casual conversation,
they watched Agrios, now airborne, link up with its Titan-class escorts.
“All right. From here, we’re going to fly Agrios all across the skies over the Prava Divine Kingdom. We plan to deploy drones equipped with subsurface exploration radar to search for mineral veins.”
“Oh? You can tell that from the air?”
“Yes. ...Though I don’t really know the details. Ichigo, can you explain?”
“Yes, Big Sis. Ground-penetrating surveys are possible with electromagnetic waves in the 1 GHz band. That is the radio band generally referred to as the L-band. We will form drone squadrons equipped with radar in that band and operate synthetic aperture radar. Using Agrios as the platform, we will conduct land surveys as extensively as possible. Ground forces will then be dispatched to promising locations to conduct detailed investigations.”
It was a full queenly performance—keeping Ichigo at her side and making her do the explaining—but since the two looked so similar, it was only charming. Amajio said nothing and simply nodded.
“If the mineral vein is close enough to the surface, this should let us spot it in most cases, and if we can identify fractures or groundwater, that gives us a lead for further exploration. Honestly, the ideal would be to run this kind of thing by satellite.”
“And while you’re at it, you’ll be taking down the towns and villages too.”
“Exactly. There are still small farming villages and untouched places left. Honestly, I wish these people would stop being religious fanatics. They just won’t respond to persuasion.”
It was not as though Eve believed every enemy had to be annihilated.
If possible, she would have preferred them to surrender without bloodshed.
But the cleric-soldiers, who formed the Prava Divine Kingdom’s main fighting force, simply did not listen to what the enemy had to say.
There might have been some rational individuals among them who would respond to persuasion, but they might also simply have been lying while waiting for an opening. It was difficult to tell.
For that reason, Eve had decided to accept it as a necessary sacrifice and eliminate all cleric-soldiers.
“Well, can’t be helped. Even now, I still can’t quite believe that their root source is an independent unit that originally belonged to us.”
“Starting a standalone independent nation and fabricating a religion on top of that... it really was a capable AI. We know there were apparently holy relics too, but I wonder whether any of them are still left...”
“I’m not expecting much on that front. But it definitely did send out multiple units for reconnaissance, even if none of them ever came back. They were mass-produced units with information just dumped into memory. If anything, they were supposed to be more or less disposable.”
“Oh, really? Well, if they were made with our technology, even that would still be plenty godlike. It’d be nice if we could recover them after the occupation.”
Having finished that heartwarming small talk, Amajio straightened his posture.
“Now then. Leaving the Prava Divine Kingdom aside, let’s talk about what comes next for my side—the Kingdom of Lepuitari.”
“...Right. Yes, let’s talk about that too.”
From here on, the real summit meeting between the leaders of the two powers finally began.
The only issue was that the hierarchy between them had already been decided.
“For now, let’s start with the situation at Moar Port. This is only within the range of what I personally know. Objectively, your side probably already has the full picture, but you’d want a local’s sense of it too, right?”
“Do impressions passed along through you really match a local’s sense of things, Mr. Amajio?”
“Well... compared to you people, I mean. Come on, close enough.”
At Eve’s entirely reasonable jab, Amajio could only give a wry smile. It was true that, from Amajio’s position, he /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ could not exactly gather opinions directly from the common people.
They would probably get better information by simply sending the humanoid Ixia to walk through the streets.
Still, even so.
Hearing the frank opinions of someone in the upper ranks was also a valuable opportunity. From here on, they would be able to obtain that kind of information in almost real time anyway.
“For now, the Divine Kingdom’s advance has been held down pretty well. Apparently they still lose positions once in a while, but fixed-point defense really is strong. They can even repel attacks if they have heavy machine guns. But it’s only fixed-point defense. Pushing them back and retaking territory is still difficult. Do you understand that part?”
“Yes. Our prediction is that if we hand over excessively powerful weapons, it’ll just cause internal fighting. What do you think?”
“I agree. From our perspective, those people are basically primitives. The second they get something, they try to line their own pockets. There’s been a little too much peace for too long.”
The Kingdom of Lepuitari was a relatively new state reborn after a civil war, so the people at the top were, on the whole, quite capable.
But the surrounding nations had apparently gone more than fifty years without any real warfare and had spent that time drifting along in complacency. The upper ranks simply lacked a sense of crisis.
That was why the Prava Divine Kingdom had been able to crush a couple of countries so easily.
“The basic strategy is to form one great coalition centered on the Kingdom of Lepuitari. Concentrate political power and technical capability in Lepuitari, and turn the surrounding nations into resource-producing states.”
“Yeah. That should be fine. After the Prava Divine Kingdom falls, we redraw the borders based on wherever the front line stands at that point. As a rule, my country will handle negotiations between states. There’s a chance people will start making noise about reparations and the like, but that’s exactly the sort of thing we can suppress by force.”
“Leave the weapons exports to us!”
“Really inspires confidence...”
