by Dojyomaru
Kuu was as quick to act as ever. If an idea occurred to him, he ran with it immediately.
“So, Taru, I want you to join the joint research team,” he continued.
“...Me?”
“Yeah. A knowledge of blades is going to be indispensable for this drill thing. Blacksmithing techniques are your bag, right? We’ll provide your expertise and some funding, and in return, we’ll get to join the project. Then the drill technology will be shared between the three countries.”
“The young master was amazing, you know,” Leporina put in. “The kingdom and Empire had been splitting the costs half and half between them, so he was told it would make sense for us to need to put up third, but by negotiating on the premise our country was weaker, he was able to reduce that to a fifth.”
The result was that the ratio of investment between the kingdom, Empire, and republic would be 4:4:2.
Incidentally, Kuu’s opening request had been ten percent, while Souma had wanted him to put in thirty percent, and after their long back and forth negotiations, they had finally settled on twenty percent.
“Ookeekee!” Kuu giggled. “If I’d been willing to oppose Bro, I could’ve brought him down to fifteen, though.”
“Don’t get a big head,” Leporina scolded. “Letting us only contribute twenty percent was a show of goodwill from Souma.”
“I know that. So, there you have it, Taru. Would you lend us a hand for the sake of our country?”
Kuu extended his hand to her. His eyes lacked their usual vapidness, and were full of something like the determination of one who bore responsibility for the next generation of his country.
Taru got lost in his eyes for a moment, but eventually she took his hand.
“...Okay. I’ll cooperate.”
“Thanks. Well, I’m taking off to report in to Bro right now!”
Kuu hopped up from his seat, dashing out of the workshop as fast as he had come in.
For a moment, Taru went, “Ah,” and reached out her arm after him, but Kuu was gone before her arm could stretch. With nowhere left for it to go, Taru wrapped that arm around her chest.
“If you’re like that, the young master will go far away, you know?” Leporina put in.
As if having a sudden realization, Taru looked over at her. “Master Kuu... he’s changed a little. Did something happen in the Union of Eastern Nations?”
“Yes. He saw a young king who was incredibly strong, with an immense power to draw people to him, and an ambition grand enough to cover the world. He was like the embodiment of the young master’s ideal ruler.”
Taru was silent.
“Because that was the young king of another country, it lit a fire in the young master’s belly. He doesn’t want to lose. That’s helped him to see things that are bigger than he could have before.” With a serious expression on her face, Leporina clenched her fist in front of her chest, as if in pain. “Don’t assume he’ll keep looking at you forever.”
“Huh?!”
“The young master is trying to move forward,” Leporina went on. “This relationship won’t stay the same forever. If you stand still, I’m sure you’ll be left behind.”
“I... I...” Taru tried to say something, but she couldn’t find the words.
Don’t assume he’ll keep looking at you forever.
Their relationship was fine as it was. A part of Taru believed that.
However, those feelings would be in Kuu’s way when he wanted to move forward. And Taru didn’t want that.
In the closed-off republic, covered in snow and ice, Kuu had smiled brighter than anyone as he drove onward. He’d done stupid things, too, but Taru had been drawn to him for that. That was why she didn’t want to do something like make Kuu stop.
While Taru hung her head, Leporina walked toward the entrance to the workshop and said, “I’ll follow the young master anywhere. Even if I’m not at the top of his attention now, I’ll get there someday. Taru... it’s about time you thought about what it is you want to do.”
Then, chasing after Kuu, she left the workshop.
Left behind, Taru continued to clench her fist for a while, but eventually raised her face.
In her eyes there was a powerful light that refused to let the other two outdo her.
◇ ◇ ◇
Later...
Taru was in the laboratory of the overscientist Genia Maxwell.
“You want to change the shape of the tip?” Trill, the third princess of the Empire, tilted her head to the side, causing her hair, which was tied into a single drill, to shake. “The best swords, the best spears, and the best arrows all of these have sharp, pointed tips. Is it not a cone, where the tip is at a more acute angle, which provides the most penetrative power?”
“For a normal weapon, sure,” Taru said, boldly expressing her opinion to the one who had proposed the project in the first place. “It only needs penetrative power when it hits the enemy. But a drill functions differently. It has to be designed to work for a long time.”
Trill crossed her arms and looked at her dubiously. “...Yes, and?”
“Though a sharp tip has penetrative power, the fact that the force is concentrated on that point means it’s brittle and easily breaks. Once it’s broken, it loses that penetrative power.”
“I see... you’re certainly right about that,” Genia, who was beside them, agreed.
Trill’s doubtful look disappeared. If those were the words of Genia, the head of the House of Maxwell, whom she so respected, Trill couldn’t possibly doubt her.
“If Young Miss Genia says so, she must be right,” Trill said. “But what is it you want to do, in that case?”
Taru used chalk to draw the shape she had thought of on the blackboard. “I propose that in order to disperse the force across the contact surface, we’ll actually make the tip flat, and by covering it in countless blades, we’ll chip away things as the drill spins.”
“Well... That’s an unexpected shape.” Merula said, letting out a sigh of admiration.
Taru looked straight at her and said, “Blades are my area of expertise. I won’t let anyone beat me at it.”
Taru was there, holding her own in arguments with geniuses like Genia, Merula, and Trill about the drill.
While she explained her idea to the other three, Taru made a commitment in her heart.
I have to do my best, too... so that those two don’t leave me behind.
So that Kuu would keep looking at her forever.
Cast of Characters Arc 5: The Shining Dragon
— One day in the 1st month, 1,548th year, Continental Calendar —
“Hmm...” Roroa muttered in consternation, her arms crossed. There was a feather pen tucked behind her ear.
She was in the staff room of a clothing store in Parnam called The Silver Deer. And not everything was as she wanted it to be.
The master of this shop, Sebastian, came in with tea for her. “What’s the matter, princess?”
“I dunno what to say, Sebastian,” Roroa said. “Have a look at this, would ya?”
She handed the man a number of sheets of paper.
Sebastian laid the prepared tea on the table, then took the proffered papers and looked through them. It seemed to be an expense report for the Silver Deer Trading Company.
In public, the representative of the trading company was Sebastian, but it was actually Roroa’s personal company. They dealt in clothing and sundries like Sebastian’s own business, The Silver Deer, but also a shipping business using the Roroa Maru, and management of restaurants serving dishes from Souma’s former world.
“Hmm...” Sebastian spent some time reading the report, but he couldn’t find anything that seemed particularly problematic.
The trade in medical supplies using the Roroa Maru seemed to be making a loss, but this was a national project, so it was the country that was seeing the return. That wasn’t an issue for the company.
Their other endeavors were similar. In fact, despite a
ll the pies Roroa had a finger in, she seemed to be getting some level of results from all of them. He was so surprised that it made him realize how skillful a businesswoman Roroa was all over again.
“I don’t see anything here that would cause you such worry,” Sebastian said.
“Out of all of them, which one takes the most work, and which one’s makin’ the most profit?”
“Would that be this ‘toys and related’ section?”
From what Sebastian could see, this business had a record of success for itself. Sales had grown bizarrely high for the amount of money invested.
Roroa nodded. “Ya got it. And eighty percent of those sales are comin’ from Overman Silvan goods.” Roroa counted off on her fingers as she recalled the things she’d turned into products. “Let’s see, there’s the Silvan Baton that Silvan swings around as he transforms, right? There are Silvan transformation costumes, rubber dolls of Silvan, Miss Dran, and Danbox, and even Silvan Cookies with Silvan’s face printed on ’em.”
“The cookies are one thing, but aren’t those transformation costumes rather expensive?” Sebastian queried.
“Rich kids from families in the noble and knightly classes are buyin’ them. I mean, we even got request from adults for adult-sized ones, and we made those into products.”
“Even adults are playing with Silvan transformation goods in this country?” Sebastian asked, astonished.
When he imagined the usually-well-dressed gentlemen changing into Silvan transformation costumes in their rooms and striking poses in front of the mirror, he became seriously concerned for the country’s future.
Roroa shook her head with a wry smile. “They’re not usin’ them for themselves. Seems like most’ve been buyin’ them to entertain their young kids and grandchildren.”
“Oh, is that it? I can see that...”
“Well, it does seem some of them are buyin’ them for themselves. I mean, even Big Sis Ai had one of those rubber dolls in her room...”
Sebastian went silent.
The woman who would one day become this country’s second primary queen was playing with Silvan dolls.
The common people might have trouble believing it, but for these two who knew Aisha’s childish side, all they could do was sigh.
“So, why the long face?” Sebastian asked, trying to shift the mood. “Sales are positive, are they not?”
Roroa scratched her head. “It’s just that... I’m all outta ideas. Right now, if we put out a Silvan product, it sells. That’s likely to continue for awhile, but we’ve already gone and turned near everythin’ we can into a product. There’s not enough variation in the products to meet the massive demand.”
“That... would be frustrating, as a business person, yes.”
“Right? Still, if we go and produce too many easy ideas like those cookies, it’ll end up reducin’ Silvan’s value as a product. There’re already pirated copies goin’ around.”
Indeed, some merchants had decided that if they had some connection with Silvan, it would improve their sales. So they’d begun to make copies of their goods, as well as fake Silvan food carts (which lacked the brand, and just had a vaguely Silvan-ish drawing on the containers).
The imitation goods were satisfying the demand of children who couldn’t afford the real deal and were willing to buy a cheap knock-off, so they couldn’t clamp down on them too hard.
That was why Roroa was working with the merchants’ guild to allow such things, so long as they were clearly marked as knock-offs and sold at an appropriate price.
Naturally, if anyone tried to pass off their fake goods as real, they would be prosecuted for fraud.
Roroa leaned over the table, letting out a groan. “I think we’ll need to rework things to create more products. But it’s not gonna be easy. The Silvan Sword we had them add before is sellin’ great, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy demand.”
“It would be strange for him to constantly change weapons,” Sebastian said.
“You’re right about that. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m gonna do...”
“Is there anything to do but rely on His Majesty’s knowledge here?” Sebastian suggested to Roroa, who was clutching her head. “This sort of... tokusatsu program, was it? It came from His Majesty’s world, correct? Might he not be aware of the products developed from them?”
“I guess that’s what it’ll have to be, yeah...”
“You’re not overly enthused by the idea?”
“I don’t want to go relyin’ on Darlin’ too much when it comes to runnin’ the company. Money’s my specialty, so I’d rather have him relyin’ on me.”
“What are you saying...?” Sebastian sounded exasperated. “That pride of yours isn’t worth a single copper. And relying on each other is what being a family is about. It’s the mark of a good wife to know when to have her husband indulge her.”
At the talk of being a good wife, Roroa’s ears perked up.
“Ya’ve got a point. I’m the cute, clever, well-loved kind of princess, right?”
“No, I didn’t say that...”
“I must’ve panicked a bit when I saw Big Sis Cia with the two babies.” Roroa stretched, standing up and grinning at Sebastian. “Well, I’m gonna go have Darlin’ adore me and spoil me rotten.”
Having said that, Roroa left with a gleeful spring in her step.
“Good grief...” Sebastian murmured, taking a sip of his warm black tea.
He watched her go.
◇ ◇ ◇
It was around the time things were settling down after the birth of the twins, near the end of the year and after the New Year’s festivities were over.
“So, there ya have it,” Roroa declared, leaning over onto my desk. “Got any good ideas?”
I stared down a pile of paper in the governmental affairs office, like I did almost every day. Then I let out a sigh. “I dunno what to tell you...”
It seemed she wanted to make business off the country’s current Silvan boom, but most of the possible goods had already been made, and she wanted to come up with something new.
Because Roroa’s company was the biggest sponsor of the production, I wanted to help, but... a new way to profit off a tokusatsu program, huh...
“Having a new weapon appear and selling that... is something we already did, isn’t it?” I asked.
“We just got finished puttin’ out the Silvan Sword.”
“Well, we can’t add a new weapon for a while, then.”
In the children’s programs in the other world, there was about a one cour break between new weapons being introduced. No, I guess there were shows that put out inexpensive add-ons regularly. That was because if they overdid it, the children’s backers, the parents, would end up with empty wallets.
“What about starting another tokusatsu program?” I asked.
“The special effects are made usin’ Ivan Juniro’s magic, right? We can’t start another one without endin’ Silvan first. I mean, we’re tryin’ to ride the Silvan boom, so there ain’t much point in startin’ another program that’s not Silvan, is there?”
“So we have to rework Silvan, then...” I tried to ponder how to do that.
“Hey, what were the tokusatsu programs back in your world like, Darlin’?” Roroa asked.
Well...
“They started with something like the period dramas where good punished evil, and then eventually programs for children where Something Mask or Something Man fights an evil organization became the mainstream. I based Overman Silvan on those sorts of heroes.”
“I see, I see...”
“There were lots of developments from there, and we got metallic machine heroes, giant heroes who fight giant monsters, and sentai teams where multiple heroes fight together. With the metallic heroes and the sentai heroes, as the monsters got bigger, they’d take them on with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth mentality where... Ah!”
“Hm? Is somethin’ wrong?” Roroa cocked her head to the si
de, but I was thinking and didn’t respond.
Yeah, I might have come up with something. A way to rework Silvan.
But was it possible to portray it with our current technology?
It might not be impossible, but it was going to require putting together a pretty good set to pull it off. That was going to cost a lot of money. This wasn’t like monsters, where we could make them out of cardboard and play pretend. Did we have the room to make proper sets each week...?
No, hold on. Was there a need to make a set to begin with?
We had that thing that wasn’t any use to our country and was just sitting in a warehouse somewhere.
If we used that... and just borrowed her power... Yeah, this might work.
“I’ve got it,” I said. “A way to rework the program.”
“Ya do?!”
I smiled wryly as I nodded to a sparkly-eyed Roroa.
“Yeah. This may seem sudden, but could you call Tomoe in here?”
“A-All right!” Roroa took off out of the room.
She always came in like a storm and left like one, too. Though the bureaucrats who came in after her smiled wryly, they were long since used to it.
Everyone liked Roroa best the way she was.
◇ ◇ ◇
Two weeks later, on the day of Overman Silvan’s broadcast...
Today’s broadcast of Overman Silvan was different from the very beginning.
First of all, Silvan and the rest of the cast were appearing outdoors.
It had always been shot in a studio in the castle using a room with panels for the backdrop before, but this time they were in an open field with nothing around.
In addition, the broadcast time was usually evening, but this time, they were starting early, at three in the afternoon.
Despite that, because this had been advertised in advance, and because it was a day off, there was an audience gathered.
The format was different, too. The Silvan Exercises that were popular with children were normally done at the end of the program, but today Ivan was doing them before the program in his non-transformed state.
“Good! Well done, everyone!”