by Dojyomaru
Sir Gouran and Maria were both nodding. I could probably assume I had their support thus far.
“Having confirmed the need for sharing of medical knowledge between our three countries, I will return to the conversation I was having with Sir Gouran before,” I said. “The discussion about how the kingdom will aim to train doctors and improve on their techniques, the republic will produce and develop medical equipment, and how we will trade our results. I’ve been thinking it is best to divide the labor, and focused research would be effective in leading to the development of the field of medicine. By having the Empire join us in this, I am hoping to have them handle the mass production of drugs, and the improvement of them.”
“Drugs...?” Maria asked, and I nodded.
“In my country, the three-eyed race has developed three-eyedine, an antibiotic. That’s a medicine that works well on infectious diseases, but the subspecies of gelin it’s extracted from will require land and manpower to raise, so we have not yet gotten to the point of mass production. If we can’t secure it in quantity, drugs will continue to be high-priced. For that reason, I want to request that the Empire, with its land, manpower, and funding handle the production of the drug.”
“That’s wonderful,” Maria said with a smile. “If you can tell us how it’s produced, I would like to create a system for mass-producing it at once.”
I could only imagine a dubbed in voice saying, “I want your technology” behind that smile, so I couldn’t help but smile wryly.
“I’ll tell you about how it’s made...” I said. “However, I do want something in return.”
“Of course. How much do you want us to pay you?”
I reflected on what I had been thinking about earlier. “I don’t want money. I want something else from you.”
“Something else? What might that be?”
“A Jewel Voice Broadcast jewel. In other words, a dungeon core. Looking at the scale of the Empire, don’t you have a lot more than we do? I’d like you to let me have one.”
“A dungeon core, is it...?” Maria got a pensive look on her face, but she must have felt there was no loss to her in the deal, because she soon nodded. “Very well. I accept those terms.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And Sir Gouran.”
“Hm?”
This time, I looked at Sir Gouran. “It must be inconvenient to only have one jewel to use in domestic broadcasts. I am thinking of giving the jewel I receive from the Empire to you. How does your providing us with medical equipment at no cost for the time being sound as a payment for that?”
“Hm... It’s certainly true that we can’t simply acquire a jewel whenever we want.” Gouran thought for a little while, then slapped his knee. “Very well! However, I will want to discuss the exact amounts to be provided further.”
“Yes. That will be fine.”
“This is some awfully indirect negotiating,” Maria said, sounding a little exasperated.
I smiled wryly and shrugged my shoulders. “I did my best to make things work out for all three parties. If the republic only has one jewel, that’s inconvenient for coordination between the three countries. I thought they’d definitely want one.”
“Gahaha!” Sir Gouran chuckled. “It seems you saw right through me.”
“I see...” Maria had a serious look on her face. “By the way, Sir Souma, I have one question for you.”
“What might that be?”
“In regards to the three countries each taking on a field of research, is it not allowed to research the other fields? In my country, for instance, would I not be able to research doctor training or medical equipment?”
“No, you’re free to research the other fields. In fact, I very much hope you will.”
“It’s fine, then?” Sir Gouran checked to confirm, and I nodded.
“The reason I say I want each of us to specialize is in the name of efficiency,” I said. “However, if that’s all we each do, the moment one of the three countries is lax in their duties, the whole thing falls apart. Besides, in order to improve our drugs and medical equipment, I’m sure the knowledge of doctors and their techniques will be needed. Please, I’d like both the republic and the Empire to send anyone you want to master the study of medicine to our country. They will study with us, teach what they’ve learned in our country when they return home, and give birth to more doctors. In they do that, then the Empire and republic should be able to educate their own doctors, too. On the opposite hand, I’d like the republic to send a number of craftspeople who can produce medical equipment to us, too. I want to get a system in place that allows us to produce our own medical equipment if the situation calls for it, after all.”
“However, if we do that, ultimately, won’t we all end up studying every field?” Sir Gouran asked. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of dividing the research among us?”
“No, Sir Gouran,” I said. “This is insurance, and it’s also a race. If we fully divide things, it will be over the moment one country decides to break off this relationship. By all of us studying each field, we can prepare for that situation, should it arise. Furthermore, the fact that other countries are also studying it means that if you neglect your research, the other countries may get ahead of you.”
“I see,” Maria said thoughtfully. “In order to prevent that, you’ve introduced the element of a race into this.”
You’re thought into this quite deeply, she seemed to be implying.
Well, of course. I had debated this to death with Hakuya. We’d spent almost the whole time in between this conference being called and my going out to slay the ogres discussing it.
Sir Gouran said, “Hm...” with a pensive look on his face.
“Was there some point that was unclear?” I asked.
“No, I think you’ve put a lot of thought into this, but... there remains one problem.”
“A problem?”
“I’m sure you’re aware, but in winter our land is closed off by snow, and our seas by ice. In that period, means of shipping are limited, and we can only carry out trade in the summer.”
In other words, Sir Gouran was concerned about shipping.
In this world, when you tried to ship large volumes, it either meant land shipping using large creatures like rhinoceroses, or sea shipping using boats. Neither was suited to the Republic of Turgis’s winter.
The seas froze in winter, preventing the ships from coming in, and the land was covered by snow, which forbid the entry of creatures that were susceptible to the cold like rhinoceroses. There were cold climate animals like the numoth, but the amount one of those could carry was limited, and they were slow, too. That was exactly why merchants only came to this country in the summer.
I couldn’t blame Sir Gouran for being concerned. However, I had already heard that from Kuu.
“I have some ideas about that,” I said. “Roroa.”
Roroa, who had been silent up until this point, pumped her arm as if to say, I’ve been waitin’ for this.
“It’s finally my turn! Let’s get on with showin’ ’em that thing, then!”
Maria and Sir Gouran were taken aback by her sudden enthusiasm, but it was too soon to be surprised.
We still had a card up our sleeve, after all.
I requested a temporary suspension of the meeting so I could prepare.
Having gained Maria and Sir Gouran’s assent, I explained the situation to Sir Gouran, and received permission to bring a certain thing in from the kingdom.
I’d assumed that if I brought that in without clearance, it would cause a huge fuss. If things went badly, they might even think it was an invasion.
I had Sir Gouran write up a document to show at the border, and had a messenger kui carry that document to the border where that thing was supposed to be waiting.
“I’ve given my permission, but... I find it hard to believe,” he said.
“Same here,” Kuu added. “Not that I think Souma’s lying.”
The Taisei f
ather and son gave their honest reactions as they watched the messenger kui fly away.
I shrugged with a wry smile. “You may find it hard to believe, but there is no lie or exaggeration in anything we’ve said, you know?”
“Yeah, you two just look forward to seein’ it.” Roroa had gone back to her less formal speech style at some point, but she spoke with confidence.
“Hmm, in that case, I find it all the harder to believe,” Sir Gouran said.
“Oookyakya!” Kuu laughed. “If it’s true, it’ll be worth seeing, now won’t it?”
Gouran was dubious, while Kuu laughed with enthusiasm. They were contrasting reactions.
Regardless, until that arrived, we decided to relax and drink tea.
About two hours later, maybe, there was suddenly a lot of hubbub outside, allowing me to confirm that had arrived.
When we all went outside the inn, that was already visible.
It was a large object, the bottom of which was black, the top of which was orange, and which was about the size of an elementary school’s gym, standing at the entrance to town where nothing had been before.
When we approached, it became apparent it had a two-layer structure. The top half, colored orange, was like a large ship, and it was supported by the lower half, which was made of a black, rubber-like substance.
That also made a constant sound like air was being expelled from it.
“How do ya like ’er? This is the amphibious ship, Roroa Maru!” Roroa shouted loud enough she could be heard over the sound it was making.
Gouran and Kuu’s mouths were agape at the majestic appearance of the Roroa Maru.
It was an amphibious ship. Yes, this was a ship. One that could travel by land or sea, at that.
I explained how it worked for Gouran and Kuu, who were still flabbergasted.
“Like Roroa said, this is a ship that can run on a water surface without waves, or on land. By constantly sending air into the black rubbery part, that large body floats, and even if there’s water underneath, it’s able to drive across it. In the world I came from, it would have been called a hovercraft.”
“Hovercraft...” Gouran repeated the unfamiliar word.
This massive object was the hovercraft Roroa Maru, which I had sent for from the kingdom.
This Roroa Maru hovercraft was the one of a kind, built as an experiment while we were looking for uses for the overscientist Genia’s invention, the Little Susumu Mark V.
The Little Susumu Mark V was a ring-shaped machine that created propulsion by pushing water or air that was in front of it out the back side. I’d thought it might be possible to create a hovercraft that floated off the ground if that ring was faced towards the ground, and the air was blown up into an enclosure made of the recently discovered rubber-like substance.
And so, with Genia’s design, and with funding from Rora and Sebastian’s company, The Silver Deer, the Roroa Maru was now complete. Incidentally, when I’d asked Roroa what she wanted it named, since she had put up the money to develop it...
“Hey, hey, darlin’, in the world you came from, what were ships’ names like?”
“Hmm... Most used the names of people or places.”
“Hmm, that ain’t much different from how we do things here.”
“Yeah. Oh, and for fishing ships, a lot of them had Maru on the ends of their names.”
“Maru? Hey, that’s got a cute sound to it... All righty then, I’ve decided! This ship’s gonna be the Roroa Maru!”
“Roroa Maru?! You’re putting your own name on it?!”
...And that was how it had ended up with that name.
It was registered to The Silver Deer, which was the investor. Dealing in everything from apparel to the dishes from Earth that Poncho and I had recreated, The Silver Deer had its fingers in a lot of pies, but did they plan to enter the trade business as well now? They had clothing, food, transportation... almost everything at this point.
“A ship that runs on land...” Maria said, sighing in admiration, on the other side of the simple receiver Aisha was carrying. “The kingdom can even make things like this, huh?”
We were having the jewel carried behind us so that she could see this scene clearly, too.
“Would you sell us this ship?” Maria asked. “I’m prepared to pay a handsome sum, you know?”
“It uses technologies that are a state secret, so I can’t sell it.”
“You can’t? That’s unfortunate.” Maria looked like a child who had been told she couldn’t buy a toy. She was as much of a quiet beauty as Juna, but her actions were a little childish.
“Well, it looks impressive, but it’s hard to use,” I said with a wry smile. “It’s got a bad cost-to-performance ratio, and it takes a fair amount of labor to move it.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes. Its top speed is only a little higher than a rhinoceros going at full speed, and its carrying capacity isn’t that high. Technically, it’s an amphibious vehicle, but using rhinoceroses on land and ships at sea is a much lower cost option.”
It had a Little Susumu installed, and it ran on magical power stored in curse ore. For the Little Susumu Mark V Light, which was loaded on wyverns, we had people charge it themselves, but the charging of the large model Little Susumu used on ships and such was carried out by multiple mages attached to the military.
Because of that, the amount of magic power that could be charged in a day was limited, so I had prioritized deploying the Roroa Maru on battleships or carriers over it being a substitute for the rhinoceros train on land.
These were also reasons why it was hard to apply the Little Susumu for use on civilian transport ships. To provide propulsion on civilian ships, we had to wait for the development of a motor as an alternate technology.
Setting that aside, though, the Roroa Maru did have its benefits.
“It’s not efficient enough as a means of transportation in peacetime, but because it doesn’t make contact with the surface, it has the benefit of it being hard for it to be affected by the terrain,” I said. “To be more specific, in places where it’s normally hard to move around, such as marshes, sand, and even snowy plains, it moves ahead smoothly.”
“Snowy plains... I see. So that’s it.” Sir Gouran seemed to realize what I was leading up to.
“Yes. This Roroa Maru is the only one we have for now, but if only in winter, I am sure it will serve as a viable means of transportation that links my country, the republic, and the Empire.”
“Certainly, if it can tie the three countries together as a means of winter transport that’s faster than a rhinoceros and has the same capacity as a ship, even if there is only one of them for the time being, it will become a valuable trade route.” Sir Gouran crossed his arms and grunted.
Then, as might be expected from a head of state, he began thinking about the trade route created by this Roroa Maru.
“Even in winter, domestically we can use our military numoths and other such livestock to secure transportation. If we gather all our goods at a port town, can we use this amphibious ship to trade with other countries? It looks like we’ll need to expand a port town like Moulin.”
Maria giggled. “Hee hee! I think we’ll need to open a port town near our border with the Republic of Turgis, too... I think I do want one of those ships, after all.”
She glanced sneakily in my direction, but I told her, “No can do,” with a shrug. “Please, don’t do anything like seize her the moment she comes into port, either. It’s hard to build one, and you’ll be forcing us to make it self-destruct just to keep our secrets.”
I said that to casually indicate to the two of them that if they tried to steal it, we would destroy it ourselves. I wasn’t bluffing, either. When we used this Roroa Maru for trade, I intended to have a mechanism in place that would cause it to self-destruct if seized.
I couldn’t let the Little Susumu and other technologies fall into the hands of other countries yet. In order to send the one-of-a-kind
Roroa Maru to other countries, I had to be prepared to destroy it, if necessary.
Maria gave a wry smile. “I know. I can’t put the relationship between our nations in danger over one ship. I really do want it, though.”
That was the third time she’d said she wanted it. Was this one of those It’s important, so I said it three times things?
Whatever the case, I wanted to wrap this topic up now.
“With the use of this Roroa Maru, I would like to conclude a medical alliance between our three countries, as I was saying before. How does that sound?”
Sir Gouran laughed heartily. “Gahaha! If you’ve gone this far, I’m not about to say no. I’ll accept your alliance.”
“We of the Gran Chaos Empire will accept, too.”
With Gouran and Maria’s assent, the Tripartite Medical Alliance between the Kingdom of Friedonia, Republic of Turgis, and Gran Chaos Empire was formed.
The formation of this alliance not only promised that the field of medicine would develop by leaps and bounds, it was also significant that, in this era of uncertainty, with the Demon Lord’s Domain sitting to the north, it was laying the groundwork for our three nations to coordinate.
While I was silently breathing a sigh of relief to have successfully concluded the medical alliance, Sir Gouran extended his hand to me.
“Sir Souma. We are now sworn friends. I look forward to working with you.”
“Yes, Sir Gouran.” I extended my own hand, and we exchanged a firm handshake. “I look forward to working with you, too.”
Maria, who was watching us, said, “It’s a shame. If I weren’t on the other side of a receiver, I could have shaken hands with you, too.”
Which made Sir Gouran and I look at one another and laugh.
Once we had finished laughing, Sir Gouran suddenly took on a serious expression. “Now then... Since you’ve become my sworn friend, there is a favor I’d like to ask of you.”
He had a pensive look on his face.
“A favor?” I asked.
“Indeed. The favor concerns my boy, Kuu. Could I ask you to keep Kuu with you in the kingdom for two to three years?”
