Nuke Under the Sea (2)
Whispering these words to myself was nothing more than a ritual, a mere formality.
No matter what the top technical manager handling HMS Vanguard’s SLBM had to say, securing the United Kingdom’s sole nuclear power had already been decided long ago.
Of course, I couldn’t dismantle the SLBM itself right here.
Soviet reconnaissance planes or spy satellites, along with their anti-air defenses and fighters, would be watching the naval base from a remote altitude it could never reach.
Moreover, to try and tear one apart, my organization’s technical staff would have to pack their bags and move with haste.
Anyway, the moment I had exposed the submarine crew’s rotation schedule without mercy, I might as well have obtained the right to approach the SLBM aboard any strategic patrol submarine I chose.
That was why I had walked straight into HMNB Clyde—not to command the captain and senior officers with Charm, but that was all it came down to.
Of course, that didn’t mean—
Just because the reason is simple doesn’t mean the fallout is simple.
With that, the organization now possessed not only formidable magical power but nuclear power as well.
Under the premise that we had built the Syndicate from the ground up—excluding the magic institutions of every nation that had once been mere tools of the state—I suspected this might be the first time such a criminal organization had risen so far.
It was obvious, but nuclear power wasn’t omnipotent.
For instance, SLBMs had a serious flaw: they required more than thirty minutes from launch to impact because they had to cross the atmosphere and return from orbit.
That meant to actually use them, I would need to pin down a target for at least an hour in advance.
But facing a mage powerful enough to wield nuclear weapons, pinning down a target for a whole hour through conventional means was unthinkable.
The ultimate deterrent to keep the opposing mage in place was, ultimately, myself.
Only a mage of Yerina Bronska’s caliber could provide that minimum hour of safety.
But in this case, the vast damage radius of nuclear weapons became no advantage at all.
No matter how violently the hydrogen fusion from plutonium fission might burn, if I were caught in the blast zone, what point would it serve?
Defensive magic or not, even using the Spiegel would be pointless.
The Spiegel could block the nuclear storm while the barrier was active…
But the problem this time was how long the barrier would take to activate.
Just as with all conventional “physical” weapons, nuclear weapons mostly scattered their energy into heat and light.
The difference was simply that the heat and light were far more intense.
It was notable that the Spiegel could block the flash of a nuclear explosion for the first full breath of maximum brightness.
But that was its only advantage.
After the maximum flash came the explosive thermal expansion, followed by repeated air compressions and expansions that would tear me apart like paper.
If I was unlucky, the radiation would turn me into plasma, erasing both body and soul—the power of a god.
As long as I didn’t burrow into the deep underground bunker prepared in Greenwich, London, there was no way to survive the SLBM blast.
As someone managing a massive criminal syndicate, I was always prepared to deal with the worst—even if it was unpleasant.
And letting the Soviet communists drop a nuke right in the middle of London was one of the “worst” scenarios I had always prepared for since the organization established its structure.
I had already ordered my subordinates to build a bunker in a hidden spot near the organization’s headquarters in Greenwich to prepare for exactly this worst case.
The more precise location was the spot jutting out toward the Thames from Greenwich, treated as an administrative district.
The Blackwall Tunnel that Delis and I had first crossed when I raided the prisoner transport convoy passed right through it.
I couldn’t say why, but when I had ordered my subordinates to investigate the site’s feasibility for the bunker, I had felt a faint spark of joy in my chest.
The survey results showed that the very spot I had chosen—more precisely, the ground directly above it—was about to become the heart of a planned cultural complex.
At its core stood the Millennium Dome, built along the Thames and destined to host a new-millennium exposition.
Of course, as a standalone attraction it made no profit.
A joint report from the intelligence and finance departments noted that once the new-millennium special events ended, the dome would be converted into a multi-purpose venue—concert hall, stadium, or whatever—by private concession.
The report also mentioned that the rights included renaming the Millennium Dome itself, and at the time the name “O2 Arena” was already under consideration.
Names weren’t important anyway.
Quickly grasping the situation, I told my subordinates to bend the current cultural complex plan just enough to add some underground facilities.
What was now being built with great enthusiasm was the Greenwich underground nuclear bunker—exclusively for the organization.
It would maintain connectivity with the other air-raid shelters the British government had scattered around London, while incorporating every comfort for independent operation.
The slime research institute built at Southend Abbey could even be relocated there if needed.
The bunker was deliberately modular so that even if certain sections failed, damage would not spread to the rest.
Each individual module was under construction right now, and if we maintained the current construction speed, the first module would be fully operational by the end of the year.
It would have been wonderful to carry a bunker around with me, but dragging something the size of a concrete-and-lead tank was impossible.
Therefore, using the SLBM in direct confrontation with an opposing mage was something I absolutely must avoid.
I valued my own life above all else, and I had no intention of sacrificing it for some vague “greater good” just to kill my opponent.
Because of that, I wanted to find a simpler way to utilize nuclear weapons.
“Delis, the second-generation kids are coming, right?”
“Yes, I just confirmed. We’re ready to intercept the warheads for the next overhaul.”
“Good, because nuclear material is the most important part.”
Instead of using the SLBM as is, I intended to extract only the plutonium and hydrogen-isotope nuclear materials inside it.
Making nuclear weapons into actual power required three main things: engineering blueprints to weaponize the fission, transport vehicles to deliver the completed device, and the nuclear material itself.
The last and most important was the nuclear material.
No matter how skilled the technology or missile systems, without plutonium and hydrogen isotopes there was no nuclear weapon.
In other words, as long as I had the nuclear material, the rest could be improvised, and I could unleash total destruction on the surface as much as I wanted.
Among the various ways to deliver nukes, I had focused on nuclear artillery shells.
Unlike bombing runs from aircraft or ICBMs and SLBMs that required missiles, the nuclear artillery method—loading shells into cannons and firing them—had a far simpler structure.
Enough that the United States had even tried to make it portable for infantry during the Cold War.
Of course, with real combat data now available, conventional weapons had proven more practical, but the idea still gave me plenty of inspiration.
There was no need to worry that plutonium exceeding critical mass would accidentally trigger a chain reaction during transport.
I just need to keep it inside the Shattenmädchen.
This was the supremacy of the mage—combining existing physical weapons in ways humans outside magic could never imagine.
Store the dedicated low-yield nuclear cannon and shells inside my shadow beast, and when combat erupted, pull the nuclear material from my own sub-dimensional space to fire.
With this method, no existing physical detection could ever locate my nuclear material.
After all, it was stored somewhere outside this world, and humans outside magic had no way to find it.
If I practiced a little more, I could even magically create a gun, load the nuclear material directly, and fire—without any dedicated cannon at all.
That was the so-called application of magic bullets.
In that case, I would become a mage capable of firing magic bullets that destroyed magical entities, physical entities, and then nuclear weapons themselves.
Really… I can’t wait.
Subdividing the intercepted nuclear material to carry inside the shadow beast was something my organization’s technical staff would handle.
Unlike common belief, nuclear material that had not yet reached critical mass was not particularly dangerous on its own.
The gamma rays released were extremely minimal, so proper shielding was all it needed.
Alpha particles couldn’t even penetrate a person’s skin, and fallout after a nuclear explosion wasn’t worth considering.
The timing when this meticulously prepared weapon would be used most was the final day in Moscow, and did I really need to think that far ahead?
On the day of the final battle, I would deploy my full power at the heart of the Soviet Union.
That was also why the Benjamin Ashford slime constantly being refined at Southend was part of the plan.
“Yerina-nim. Time is almost up.”
“Already?”
“We’ve seen everything we needed to see here. It’s fine to depart anytime.”
Just as always, imagining the ashes of Moscow, Delis whispered beside me and spoke.
Come to think of it, there was still one more item on today’s schedule.
Directly, I wanted to see with my own eyes the advanced research of the cultured slime that we had been working on right up until yesterday.
To do that, I had to return to Southend by road.
Returning to Glasgow by road, then flying on a private plane would take little time, so nothing would delay me.
“Elze said she would come, right?”
“You remember. She’s waiting.”
One more visitor was scheduled for today’s inspection of the human factory.
I had been there once before when I was in the United States, and the impression had been so strong that I wanted to visit again.
There was no reason not to.
The infinite possibilities that could be created using cultured slime had drawn even my gaze.
This was all thanks to the fact that highly advanced magic fused with highly advanced technology could do literally anything.
Highly developed science and highly developed magic were indistinguishable from each other.