Emerging from the dressing room, Marie went to join Liam, moving at a rapid pace. Her adjutant, Haydi, had been waiting outside the room; he quickly fell in step beside her.
“Well, you’re in a bad mood all of a sudden. You were over the moon when you went in there.”
Marie’s cheerfulness before entering the dressing room had actually concerned Haydi a bit, but now she’d emerged with such a scowl that everyone they passed shrank back in fright.
“…I’ve told you before how I feel about Lady Rosetta, right, Haydi?”
“Yeah, I remember. She’s the descendent of that friend of yours who you couldn’t protect.”
Marie and Rosetta’s relationship transcended generations. Two thousand years ago, before Marie was petrified, she’d been close to a daughter of House Claudia. They’d met when Marie saved the young lady from space pirates, after which the daughter summoned Marie for something or other; they’d remained inseparable from then on. Soon, they were close enough to consider themselves best friends. Their relationship had come to an abrupt end, however.
Those two millennia ago, House Claudia had selected a groom from the Imperial family for the daughter. By the end of that time’s succession conflict, though, a prince from an opposing faction ended up on the throne. That new emperor’s rise to power was followed by a political purge, and opposing princes were rounded up for crimes they hadn’t committed and executed one after another. The emperor didn’t stop at that; even House Claudia was made to pay for associating with the opposition.
“To protect my friend—Rosetta’s ancestor—I fought and fought, and I made quite a name for myself.” Marie clenched her fists as she reminisced.
“Right,” Haydi said, urging her to continue.
“Yet not only did the emperor break his promise, that piece of garbage tormented House Claudia for two thousand years… And because of him, I became garbage who couldn’t even protect her friend as she’d promised.”
What Marie truly couldn’t forgive was her own weakness, her inability to protect her friend after vowing to do so.
“So that’s why you want to protect little Lady Rosetta now,” Haydi said.
“No. I want her to be happy. Maybe my friend will feel a little better if Lady Rosetta achieves the happiness she didn’t, right?” Rather than just protecting Rosetta, as she’d promised, Marie wanted to protect the young woman’s happiness. That was what she wished for. “That’s why, one day, I’m going to make sure those princes on the Capital Planet suffer for destroying Lady Rosetta’s happiness this way.”
“Sounds good to me. I’m all for it.” Two thousand years earlier, Haydi had been petrified, like Marie. He thus held a grudge against the Empire, as she did. “In that case, we should finish all this up as quickly as we can. Right, Marie?”
“Yeah… I’ll grind all the idiots causing us work needlessly into dust.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Several weapons factories supported the Algrand Empire’s military. Among them, it was the Seventh Weapons Factory that Liam had maintained a relationship with ever since taking over as lord of his house. That relationship had begun when the Seventh Weapons Factory repaired the Avid; since then, they’d been indispensable to House Banfield’s military might.
Engineering Major Nias Carlin, who worked with the Seventh Weapons Factory, had been summoned by her superior.
Once the two were alone in one of the mobile-knight design offices, Nias’s pale, tired-looking superior spoke. “Nias… I want you to design a machine to succeed the Avid.”
Nias cocked her head at her superior’s meek request. “That’s another task that’s pretty annoying. I don’t mind designing something, but making something with specs that surpassed the current Avid’s would be fairly difficult. I mean, it’s thanks to the Machine Heart that the thing’s evolving all on its own—and that tech is a black box. But if we work from the original design, we could at least make something pretty good.”
Nias wasn’t sure why her supervisor was asking her to do this. She’d assumed she would be told to build something that improved on the Avid eventually. Liam had installed the Machine Heart in the Avid himself, though, and she didn’t think any weapons factory could create a mobile knight with better specs. She was pretty sure no Imperial arms producer could.
“If House Banfield’s going to make such an annoying request, I wish they’d ask us to design a new mobile-knight model instead. I know I could make something to outshine the Raccoon and Teumessa!” she said proudly.
Her superior shook his head weakly. “That’s just it, Nias. The request isn’t from House Banfield.”
“Huh…?” Nias’s eyes widened.
She was taken aback for a simple reason. There were requests all over the Empire for a mobile knight like the Avid, and those requests could completely ignore cost-effectiveness. Reality was cruel, though; very few nobles had House Banfield’s vast budget and ability to obtain rare metals. Anyone with the money to spend on a machine like the Avid was better served purchasing a fleet of more affordable vessels. That was why the Seventh Weapons Factory’s upper management usually refused such requests politely. This time, however, Nias was being told to do the work.
“Is it from some big noble house?” she asked. “They must be doing pretty well if they have enough rare metals to throw around.”
She was responding in a carefree manner, but from her supervisor’s appearance, she guessed that something about this request was suspicious.
“They have the money, but not the rare metals.”
“Well, the model’s never going to measure up in terms of specs, then. I guess I could make it about sixty percent as powerful.”
Nias figured that reproducing the Avid’s original design would only give the craft six-tenths of the actual Avid’s capabilities. It likely wouldn’t even be half as strong as the current Avid.
As she considered her options, her superior still looked uncomfortable. “No, the client wants a next-gen machine that’ll surpass the Avid. And we’ll use rare metals from our own stock.”
“Our stock? Wait a second—our stock’s only on loan from House Banfield!”
The Seventh Weapons Factory did have a considerable store of rare metals, but since House Banfield had provided those, they couldn’t use them for someone else’s request—and Nias’s superior was well aware of that.
“I’m sure you can understand why I’m asking that you do this. We can’t decline this request.”
Right after her superior said that, an armed knight entered the design office. His weapon was sheathed, but his attitude still intimidated Nias. In a gentle tone, and with a smile pasted on his face, he told her ominously, “Engineering Major Nias Carlin, you will construct a mobile knight surpassing the Avid. Naturally, there’s no need to worry about the cost. Please use as many rare metals as the job requires.”
“Decline and I’ll kill you” went unsaid but was implied. Nias shot a look at her superior, who had obviously already been threatened.
“They’ll be watching both of us from today on,” he said helplessly. “The rest of our staff as well, of course. We won’t be able to contact House Banfield about this.”
Nias sighed lightly. “So, if we don’t cooperate, we’re all dead, eh…? Think Lord Liam will forgive us when this comes to light later?”
Her superior smiled nervously. “I hope we get out of it with just a scolding.”
Once he’d confirmed that he and Nias were resigned to their fate, the knight spoke up again. “I appreciate your cooperation. Now…I suggest that you start as soon as possible on developing a mobile knight that will surpass Liam’s Avid.”