A mid-level (middle-aged) office worker's laid-back industrial revolution in another world - Chapter 168

Translator: Jasper Kadowaki | Editor: NovelMultiverse

“By the way, Takeo, how much do you think this will cost in funding?” asked the king. 

“Hm… If there’s no initial limit… I wonder what I could say so that the civil officials at the royal capital wouldn’t kill me… If we established and funded an Experimental Platoon in three districts… Frederick-san, how many soldiers are in each platoon in this city? Was it twenty?” asked Takeo. 

“Yes, twenty soldiers per platoon,” said Frederick. 

“Then, we can make it a platoon with half of the usual, with ten people. Since it’s a small platoon, the military commanders and civil officials at the royal capital should be more willing to equip them with cutting-edge equipment. They’ll consider it less of a militaristic threat. Considering we’ll employ ten soldiers… And since these posts will require confidentiality, each soldier should be paid 3 gold, which would come out to a yearly payroll of 360 gold. The equipment and horses, and costs pertaining to practicing maneuvers should come out to 50 gold. As for the invention of weapons and the production of new tactics… Three employees for that would cost 110 gold. The material costs of the inventions would cost about 80 gold per year… I suppose it would cost each noble family about 600 gold, yearly?”

“Hm… So it would be around that much…” said the king. 

“The capital would be expected to pay for it… It would be difficult for the noble families of these districts to pay for it all themselves.”

“Yes. It would be hard to raise funds for the equivalent of two platoons. If they had the money to do that, they would rather just use it on increasing the number of soldiers in their existing platoons,” said Frederick, stating his opinion on the matter.

“I see. The districts’ point of view is that they would rather replenish their existing battle platoons rather than create a new experimental platoon…” said King Azupal, nodding. 

“This laboratory and the experimental platoon… Well, I will leave it up to you all, Alan-san,” said Takeo.

“Hm? You’ll leave it to me?” asked King Azupal. 

“Yes. It’s a plan that would require around 2000 gold, after all. Even if one person could present the plan, it would be impossible to actualize it and fund it. There’s no real motivation to take up the job, either. This creation of this laboratory, the establishment of the experimental platoon, and the planning of a course of action against the Katoranda Empire are all things that the capital should be thinking about. Alan-san, you said you were close to the King, so you must be in a position of administration, correct? I think the nobles in the administration, the military commanders, and the civil officials need to come together to think about the country’s plans. It’s possible that a completely different plan would be formed, and it’s also possible that there would be agreement on this plan, and it would be further improved upon,” said Takeo. 

“You would be okay with the inventions being created at the royal capital?” asked the king. 

“No, I wouldn’t. It would be a good thing for the performance of all weapons across the country to be improved, wouldn’t it? The only thing is, it doesn’t seem like the weapons that I would like would be created, so I would just continue doing my personal research, and there shouldn’t be a problem,” said Takeo. 

“Personal research?” asked the king. 

“Yes. Currently, the Elvis household is not on the verge of a crisis. It’s not really necessary to rush the invention of new weapons. The reason why I would like to have the inventor of the rifle working under me is because I think that we could come up with more interesting inventions,” said Takeo. [Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]

“What do you mean by more interesting inventions?” asked the king. 

“Well… If this person is from the same place that I’m from… I think we might increase the number of culinary dishes,” said Takeo. 

“What? You’re talking about that, now?” asked Layla. 

“What? You mean when it comes to weapons?” asked Takeo. 

“Yes, as in, what we’ve been talking about,” said Layla. 

“Well… what I can think of now would be things like invisible swords or light but sturdy shields. Maybe something that can accurately measure the distance to an enemy?” 

“There was a strange one in there. An invisible sword… Would that be useful?” 

“What? It would be extremely useful. If the length of a sword is unknown, it would be hard to decide how close to get to its wielder, and you wouldn’t know if they were holding it in their left or right hand… It would be hard to predict their movements just by looking at their body movements, wouldn’t it?” In a one-on-one fight, it would be extremely effective. On top of that, if guards appear to be unarmed, enemies would probably attack carelessly. It would make it easier to spy and infiltrate… Wait a second. You could use it as an assassination weapon, couldn’t you?” 

“…Takeo, you’ve just suggested an impressive weapon, but… How would you actually go about making something like that?”

“If you could use wind and water magic, wouldn’t it be possible? If you atomized the water and then used wind magic to compress it, you could circulate high-speed air around the sword and maintain a prism effect, and that way…”

“Takeo… I don’t understand,” said King Azupal, looking confused. 

“Ah… Yes… Hm… Do you know about rainbows that appear after rain?”

“Hmm, yes.”

“That phenomenon occurs because the light from the sun is being bent through the water droplets in the air from the rain,” said Takeo. 

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Rainbows can be made very easily. You just need to make very small water droplets and disperse them.”

“That’s impossible, though…” said King Azupal. 

“Well… If you ever have the opportunity to do so, please try it. The light would have to be a prerequisite for this to work, though.”

“…According to what you’ve said, light can be bent?” asked William. 

“Yes, light is matter, too, so it doesn’t always travel straight. Of course, you wouldn’t know this unless someone taught you, so please don’t feel bad. For now, you can imagine that light travels straight,” said Takeo. 

“All right.”

“So, if you can get something reflective near a sword, and adjust it so that light travels around the sword, then the background behind the sword would be shown where you would normally see the sword.”

“…I don’t understand.”

“I’m not surprised. I’ve studied natural scientific phenomena, though, and maybe this inventor of ours has, too. I don’t remember any specific formulas, but I remember the general concepts.  So, if we also get a skilled mage on our side, it shouldn’t be very hard to create things like what I just mentioned… I could come up with the ideas, and Shopkeeper Taylor could do the crafting.”

“…You shouldn’t come to the royal capital, Takeo… Your way of thinking is so advanced that you would make other people jealous, probably.”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it? That seems very troublesome to me, so I would like to just invent things here.”

“Ah, all right. I understand. However, this conversation has made me want to get that inventor on our side even more than I did before. It’s dangerous to leave someone with ideas like you, Takeo, in an enemy country.”[Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the “Novel Multiverse dot com” website @ novelmultiverse.com]