7

“A princess who slaughters merchants, now suddenly wanting to talk?”

The words flew out at the same instant the soldiers around us drew their swords and pointed them at the man.

The man, crushed flat against the ground, just laughed as he watched the blade pierce his chest.

“Heh. So this is how royalty plays the game. Kill me if you want. I’m already dead anyway, right? Eh, princess?”

“That’s right. That’s unavoidable, isn’t it?”

The princess replied calmly.

Then, slowly, she tilted her head.

“But really… what a strange tale. Me, the merchant killer? I’m honestly quite curious—what on earth made me earn that name?”

So that’s what you are—just a fancy decoration, huh? Make something like this, then act like it don’t affect us at all. You made it, you’re the ones who’ll reap the benefits! It’s a full-on thief, stealing every single trade route we’ve worked for! You think? A little brain power, and you’d see it—move tons of timber and iron at once, haul people and livestock with ease. Faster than any wagon, never needs rest. Once this thing’s built, we’re all out of work! It’s the same as killing us! What kind of war is this? You want us to die for *this*? What you’re doing—right now—is the same as murdering your own people!

“Cut it out!”

A soldier kicked the man who’d been shouting at the princess hard in the ribs.

The man doubled over, gasping, his breath wheezing out like a broken bellows.

“So you’re saying the moment the magitech train’s done, your job’ll vanish, huh?”

“Thought? No—*will*. Thanks to it, a whole bunch of traders’ve already left town. Wonder if they’re lost out in the wilds by now? Princess must be *loved* by all those folks.”

Hmm. If this man’s telling the truth, then yeah—maybe she deserves the hate. The train’s transport capacity’s off the charts. If it starts linking cities all across the realm, traders who’ve been moving goods between towns for years? They’ll be wiped out for sure.

But then—something feels off. His words are too certain. The train’s not even finished yet. No goods have even been shipped. And still, he’s claiming most traders are desperate, and the princess is hated? That’s not right. That’s not right at all.

Better not take this man’s word for it.

And the princess’s reaction’s got me worried. Too calm. If this were true, she’d have said something by now.

Would she really miss something this big?

“Cough—what’s with the silence? You want to talk, don’t you? Murderer, oh, princess…”

“Huh…”

The man glared at her, sweat beading on his forehead. She exhaled once. Plainly exasperated.

“I was curious how much of a merchant you really are. Now I see—just about this much.”

“What?!”

“Mostly, you inherited a family line that’s grown a little bigger each generation, handed down like a chore. But your work’s been shrinking, your business sinking, and now you’re cornered. Isn’t that right?”

“H-how… how could you know…?”

Why? It’s simple. You didn’t try. Didn’t look ahead. Didn’t bother to find out for yourself. Just leaned on others all the time. That’s exactly why you’re left behind now.

The princess stood from her seat and stepped slowly toward the man.

The guards around us tried to stop her—but I cut them off. If he makes a move, I’ll handle it on the spot.

“You’re telling me we built all this, and you really did nothing? Of course we’ve kept things running smoothly with the merchants.”

“Liar! Then why was my shop cut off?!”

“It’s simple. You were deemed unnecessary by the same merchants. You said yourself, didn’t you, that the other traders have all left town? Of course they did. Small-scale merchants spot new routes and move on quick enough. Big ones? They’re in the middle of negotiations right now—about the right to use the magitech train chassis, that is.”

And then the princess began speaking about the entrenched interests surrounding the magitech train.

The royal family had obviously noticed the train’s superior transport capacity. And the resulting transport revolution, too. Naturally, the merchant guild had submitted their objections. And in turn, the royal family had summoned the guild’s representatives for discussions.

In the end, when the route to Laitaik was opened, they decided to use it as a test case for economic shifts caused by the new line.

That’s when they came up with the idea: the *chassis rental rights* for traveling merchants.

The magic train itself is run by the crown—but some of its freight cars are loaned out to merchants, who can use them freely.

Now the merchants can tap into the train’s hauling power, and it’s no longer a one-way loss. In fact, thanks to this, goods that couldn’t be shipped before—because of freshness or weight—can now be moved. The range of what they can sell has grown.

At first glance, only rich merchants who can afford the rental rights seem to benefit.

But small-time traders get their share too. It’s about opening new routes.

The magic trains will get priority placement in major cities. But between those cities? There’ll be villages and towns. And some places won’t be reachable at all—too rough, too steep, too wild for the rails to run.

Only light, nimble traders could cover those places. They’d pick up goods from the station and sell them right in the towns—plenty of buyers waiting.

Like the merchant who came to our village, they’d carve out new routes, trade with new settlements, build their own networks.

Normally, this man should’ve been moving on to find new routes right away. But instead, he’d just been leaning on his name, thinking the other side would bend over backward for him. Cut off? Well, that’s exactly what he deserved.

“S-so… that’s…”

The man stared down, dazed, face buried in his hands.

“W-well, then what I did…”

“Pointless,” the princess said, smiling. “Worse—just a self-destruct.”

She returned to her seat, then gave a quiet order to the soldiers.

The man was dragged out of the tent, kicking and struggling.

"Was a waste of time, wasn’t it?"

"Just a useless fool, really."

"But it’s true— even fools like them managed to get their hands on an Abnomyle."

That man couldn’t even steer the Abnomyle worth a damn, so we got off easy. But if he’d known the slightest bit how to handle it… well, maybe the magitek train tracks would’ve been destroyed by now.

Can’t just leave a situation like that hanging, can we?

"Maybe we should alert the prince and have him double-check what the merchants are dealing in. And we’ll need to figure out what to do with the units deemed unrecoverable."

The princess picked up her pen and began writing a letter to the king.

The capital of the Fatal Kingdom. In a room at the Armunale base command center, Orel and Carine leaned in close to each other.

What’s in my hands is the development data for the new model.

Built based on Eld’s requests and the accumulated data from previous units.

Well, now that we’ve got all this sorted out…

How should we shape this, huh?

Right after arriving in the capital, they’d split off—one chasing data analysis, the other scouring documents. Two weeks in, and they’d wrapped it all up. Here we are again, face to face.

Right now, the supplies for storage and development aren’t ready yet. We’ll order parts and such based on the aircraft’s design concept—starting from scratch.

But before that, there was something else that needed simmering down.

Optimization of manual control.

Eld’s greatest strength—and also his most glaring weakness—is especially crucial in this new aircraft’s development.

If we’re not going to squash the weakness while playing up the strength, then what’s the point of building a new machine at all?

“Manually controlling it—once you’ve got the data laid out, you can really see just how odd it is.”

“I’ve gotten used to it, sure—but even so, anyone looking at it normally would call it madness.”

What’s shown on the screen before me is the control history, calculated backward from the physical simulator—the sense board. Any mechanic worth their salt would notice the absurdity immediately.

The left arm’s operational rate barely reaches forty percent during combat. It should be seventy to eighty, at least. Half that? No wonder it’s shocking. And this number’s even more absurd when you consider it’s after Karine and Orel improved the physical simulator and cockpit controls, allowing a little more movement from the left arm in the first place.

Incidentally, the pre-upgrade figures were around twenty-five percent.

And from the logs, you could tell they were tweaking all sorts of things on the fly—output calibration, balancer adjustments, recoil control—endless little settings that could go on forever.

“We’re aiming to build a machine where the left arm moves normally, once we’ve accounted for all this, right?”

“Of course. But to do that—”

“The cockpit itself needs a complete overhaul. More like designing a new one than upgrading.”

“That’s right. We’ve been patching things together before, but now we’ll build on that experience and come up with proper ideas.”

“Yes.”

From the current control system to a brand-new cockpit.

Together, they bent their minds, tossing out plans.

Sitting down, we’re adding buttons to the control lever. First, scrap the lever entirely—just input, no movement. One rod to handle both arms. Track the pilot’s motions.

From what’s possible now, all the way to the impossible.

An hour passed, tossing out every idea we could think of. Two of us, staring at a long row of paper, checking each one.

“Nah, this one’s out.”

“Yeah, what about this one?”

“Durability’s a worry. Who knows how much the captain’ll be moving?”

“Then this one.”

“Possible, but—wait! That lever’s got six fingers!”

“Ah, then that’s no good.”

Another thirty minutes like that. We narrowed it down to just a few options.

“Guess we’ll just have to build it and see?”

“Can’t tell how it’ll feel in use.”

“Then let’s just set the pilot’s seat right here for now.”

Carine tapped the stacked papers flat on the table, then pulled out another sheet.

This one was about armaments.

Orell scowled at it.

"Too much thinking—gives me a fever. I’m better off moving my body than sitting still."

"Maybe, but this one’s not really my strong suit."

Carine’s specialty was physics calculators—senseboards—and she’d only offered input on the cockpit design as a side effect.

But weapons? That was a different matter entirely.

She knew next to nothing, at best able to suggest where Eld could easily reach them.

"I know. Just one more push, that’s all."

Both lowered their eyes to the papers. The list detailed the armaments Eld had used before, and a catalog of the kingdom’s existing gear.

Most of the gear Eld used was custom-made, so it didn’t really fit in with the kingdom’s standard-issue stuff.

“Out of these, the easiest to handle was Artifigoj and Perfilizzi, right?”

“True enough. They matched Eld’s movements like clockwork. Artifigoj, in particular, was a real lifesaver—seemed to help with the sheer number of weapons he had to carry.”

Eld fought so many enemies at once that his gear wore down fast. That’s why Artifigoj—capable of carrying a whole arsenal of swords—was a real boon to him.

Perfilizzi, on the other hand, was one of the more sensible, useful weapons Eld had come up with. The way it boosted firepower wasn’t exactly conventional, but its usefulness had been proven—especially from a distance.

To prove the point, they’re already developing a sniper rifle called the Peelyzi—basically a downgraded version of the Perfilizzi—across parts of the kingdom. Deployment in actual combat was still fresh, they said.

“Well, these two might be useful references, but this one? Nah.”

Karyne sighed, eyeing the Armunale. A high-powered thermal beam attack powered solely by sunlight, after all fuel had been spent. Sure, the power was off the charts, and enemy eradication was near total—but the cost? Too steep.

Honestly, not worth fitting onto the Armunale.

If you really wanted it, just seize a nearby hill, set up the parts, and go.

“Let’s leave this one out.”

“Indeed. And there’s another thing—an ask from Eld: he’d like us to mount the fuel tanks once used by the Eight Generals.”

“Well, that’s not a bad idea, is it? The captain’s machine burns through fuel something fierce.”

“Other weapons—well, we could probably squeeze an Artifigoj here and there, I suppose.”

“But the real question is—where do we even put the Artifigoj?”

Given the whole point of this design is to free up the left arm, putting the Artifigoj right in the left arm as a weapon rack? That’s the absolute opposite of what we’re aiming for.

But without it, we can’t pull off Eld’s request.

So how do we square the circle?

“What about slinging it on the back?”

“Too heavy—would mess up the captain’s movements. She’s always doing wild flips and such.”

“Still, we’re putting the tanks on, right?”

“Length mismatch, you see. An Artifigoj would stick out all the way to the knees. Bending down? That’d be a real chore.”

When it was on my arm, I could lean forward or sideways without trouble—just a little out, a little to the side. But slung across my back? You can’t help but worry about what’s behind you.

Even just rounding my back a bit—could turn it into a wrecking weapon, smashing whatever’s behind me. Locking it on the hanger? That’d be a real pain.

“No good. How about diagonal, then?”

“Can’t work. You can’t be fiddling with the Artifigoj every time you want to switch weapons—straighten it up, twist it to the right spot, grab the thing that pops out of the slot. That’s a gap in battle.”

“Tricky, huh. What if we just… take it apart? Put the parts on separately? As long as we’ve got the same number of weapons, it’s the same, right?”

“Hmm… take it apart, huh…”

Orell considered Karine’s idea.

True, once it’s no longer strapped to the left arm, there’s no need to stick to the shape of an artificial golem. Eld used the artifact as a shield before, but that’s just a matter of fitting a shield somewhere else.

Now it’s just a question of where and how much to mount each weapon—

“Let me think on it a bit. Where’s the prototype frame?”

“This one.”

“Hmm, make the left-arm shield smaller, stash the spare tank on the right shoulder, and the physical processor—sense board—on the left shoulder, maybe a Perfilizzi too?”

“Perfilizzi’s usually held in the right hand, so the right shoulder or waist would be better.”

“Hmm, where to put the sword?”

“Can’t we just attach it to the waist or the tank?”

“Possible, but it’d be awkward to draw.”

“Then make the tank on the shoulder movable.”

“Hmm, maybe we could take a cue from Lieutenant Exelia’s wings.”

“Perfect, a sword-wing’s too dangerous—way too much like the captain’s machine. If we go with that, the nickname ‘One-Arm’’ll vanish, and I want something instantly recognizable, you know?”

Caline’s voice rose with excitement. Orell, suddenly realizing he was the one who’d have to build it, shook his head.

“Leave that for when we’ve got time. My head’s already spinning.”

The development plan, slow at first, began inching forward—chipping away at their sleep, bit by bit, steadily moving toward completion.

They were just barely avoiding a plunge into the age of thieves using Abnomyle.

And Eld’s machine? Still in the planning stage. The two of them are struggling through it, one stubborn thought at a time.