The Worries Continue
The worries continued.
So what if I just expanded the fleet and racked up victory points that way?
No… even that was impossible right now.
Unfortunately, there was still far too much left to say about the fleet’s combat power. And even more unfortunately, the Holy Sevelian Empire simply didn’t have the money for anything like that.
“Ah, money! The root of every joy and sorrow in life!”
“Minister, why are you losing it again, yeah?”
I brushed Riel’s jab aside and vented my irritation once more.
“Just think about it for a second. Every single way to secure the Empire’s victory is so full of holes that there’s nothing I can actually do.”
“…”
“Do you understand this sorrow of mine?”
“…”
With that, I pulled up the resource consumption figures for the fleets on my terminal and pressed on.
“See this? How many resources our ridiculously overpowered fleets burn through in a single month?!”
“Whoa, they sure eat a lot, yeah.”
Riel’s reaction made my irritation spike all over again.
“It’s not just ‘a lot.’ It’s very, very much.”
I stared at the consumption data and sank back into thought.
Five regular fleets in the entire Empire. The amount they consume is enough to literally suck the Holy Sevelian Empire dry like a straw.
Even in peacetime, each fleet burned through the equivalent of half a year’s resources for an entire star system.
Yeah… expanding the fleet is out of the question too…
Just as I was wrapping up that particular headache, another thought struck me.
Wait a second. The fleet side of things is something the Defense Minister old man should already be worrying about.
Realizing I’d just wasted time on a pointless tangent made fresh irritation well up, but…
“Hoo… hoooo…”
Lately there hadn’t been any quests to speak of, so I had no way to recover my fatigue. I had to pour every ounce of effort into forcing that rising irritation back down.
And in the middle of that, I also realized something else: stewing alone like this was completely meaningless.
“So who are you planning to go see, yeah?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Let’s go.”
“Ah.”
The place I took Riel, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, was the private chambers of the one person I knew who ranked among the top hundred geniuses in the entire galaxy: our Empress, Artraia.
“…So that’s why you came?”
“Yeah.”
It had been a while since I’d last seen Artraia. For some reason, she had a first-aid kit—the kind her attendants normally used—sitting right beside her as she listened to me. And even though this was her private room, where she usually dressed more casually than usual…
Today her outfit was somehow even more… how to put it.
Bold? No. “Daring” fits better.
Yes. “Daring” was the perfect word for the look she was sporting.
Guess she picked up a new hobby.
Of course, I had no business commenting on the Empress’s hobbies, so I quietly ignored both the first-aid kit and the outfit.
“Anyway, what I’m planning is… like I just said, the founding of a massive galactic federation with our Empire at its head.”
“Mmm. That’s so like you, Arto. You were cooking up something even bigger than I expected.”
Artraia gave a light nod at my words, and I nodded back.
“After you got here you only said a few things and then just kept brooding, so I thought something was wrong.”
“Wha…”
Hearing from Artraia that I’d been sitting there fretting without even pausing left me flustered.
Crap. If I’m not careful I’ll get labeled as incompetent.
I made a mental note to watch my behavior more carefully from now on, then shrugged at her words.
“Well, something on this scale would make anyone brood, wouldn’t it?”
“True enough. It’s more than enough to brood over.”
Seeing Artraia let it slide, I decided to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“Anyway, we’ve been talking for quite a while. Let’s take a short break.”
“Mm… okay.”
And if we were going to rest, we might as well have a little tea time.
“Coffee’s black for you, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll have the same… Riel, what are you doing?”
“Why do you always only pick on me, yeah?”
“Should I make it myself, or should Artraia?”
“Go ahead and try, yeah.”
“If you and I both want to climb the guillotine for the crime of daring to insult the Empress and the Empire, then by all means keep it up.”
“…”
Even though I got a bit of teenage rebellion from Riel—who lately seemed to be going through some kind of humanoid puberty—she eventually accepted reality and stomped off to make the coffee, grumbling the whole way.
“That kid… she’s a humanoid, but is she hitting puberty or a rebellious phase?”
“So what? Isn’t she cute?”
“…”
While Riel was preparing the coffee, Artraia and I made small talk.
“By the way, I was really shocked. I never thought the day would come when you’d collapse from overwork, Arto.”
“Mmm…”
Hearing Artraia’s words, I couldn’t help but feel my head go blank as I remembered Riel’s freestyle rap from yesterday.
Wait… didn’t she say Artraia had been planning to visit me in the hospital?
Of course, I immediately scrubbed that ridiculous otaku fantasy out of my mind.
Ugh, you crazy bastard. Just because you got hospitalized doesn’t mean your brain has to break too.
Unfortunately, the process of repeatedly punching my own head earned me a worried look and words from Artraia.
“You’re really okay, right?”
“H-huh? Y-yeah… I’m fine enough to be discharged, I mean.”
The thought that I’d caused unnecessary worry, layered with the realization that the “personality pouch” was definitely earning its keep, left me feeling… something.
Get a grip, Arto!
I shook my head hard and decided to finish the conversation before the coffee arrived.
“Anyway, every method I’ve come up with has problems, just like I said.”
“That’s why lately I’ve also been considering directly developing some of the Empire’s unexplored planets.”
At Artraia’s words I waggled a finger in a clear “no way” gesture.
“How meaningless that approach is has been proven over the past several centuries by countless nations in this galaxy, including us, hasn’t it?”
“But we can’t just sit around doing nothing, can we? There are more than enough people willing to work, after all.”
“Mmm.”
“If we put criminals to work on the colonization, the crime rates on the major planets won’t climb any higher either.”
“…Oh.”
I hadn’t expected a reaction like that.
“Here, yeah.”
So the moment I heard Riel’s voice, I naturally reached for the coffee that should have been set beside me, but—
Tremble-tremble…
“…Huh?”
The one actually bringing the coffee was Gaia, still deep in recovery and so lacking in strength that her arms were shaking violently.
“H-here you gooo…”
“…Why are you out here?”
And standing right next to her was Riel, hand proudly on her hip as if she had just done something incredibly clever.
“How about that, yeah? I did good, right?”
“…”
“I acted exactly according to the training you gave me, Minister. And as a bonus, Gaia needs rehab training too, yeah.”
“…”
“I’m kinda amazing, yeah.”
Of course, the price for that insane stunt was steep.
“Why are you bullying a sick kid? Do you think you won’t get bullied if you get sick too?”
“AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
I couldn’t bring the etiquette-injection baton into the Empress’s presence since it was treated as a weapon, but the weight-class difference between Riel and me was still a weight-class difference.
After putting Riel through an Argentine backbreaker and a powerbomb—
“Hoo.”
“Mmm… is that really okay?”
“It’s fine. We’re always like this.”
I’d already been on the verge of exploding because the federation plan just wouldn’t come together. Now that Riel had left me looking somewhat refreshed, Artraia’s expression turned truly complicated.
“Sorry. Even so, this is in front of the Empress.”
“Mmm… you really must have built up a lot of stress. Well… it happens.”
In the suddenly awkward atmosphere I tried to calm myself by at least drinking the coffee, but—
“Here…”
“Ah, thank— wait, what?!”
The moment I saw Gaia bringing me the coffee, I realized the key to solving the problem I’d been agonizing over was standing right in front of me.
“That’s right—you were here all along!”
“Eek?!”
I lifted Gaia—the very key to solving this mess—into the air and cheered.
“It’s you! You’re the key!”
But that created one small problem…
Maybe it was because I’d been in such bad shape from overwork and nerves that I’d been hospitalized, but my reaction came out far stronger than usual. As a result, the way Artraia was looking at me became extremely strange.
“So that was your type after all.”
Of course, I could state with absolute certainty that I was not into whatever Artraia was thinking.
“No, Artraia. Whatever you’re imagining right now, I can say with complete confidence that it’s not that.”
“…That’s exactly the kind of thing criminals always say.”
“It’s not.”
In the end, clearing up Artraia’s misunderstanding took quite a bit of time… and required me to commit the catastrophic act of revealing my sexual preferences to a woman—namely Artraia herself.
“I! Like! People! With! Big! Chests!”
“…Eh.”