Chapter 43
Chapter 43
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 43
Chapter Title: In the Calm Before the Storm (1)
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“Hey, you there. Careful with that unload!”
“If even one of those things gets damaged, it’s straight to the brig. So snap to it!”
Lüshun Peninsula in China, Port Arthur.
The Russian Empire’s leased territory—known in this era as ‘Port Arthur’—was bustling from early morning with sailors and seamen unloading cargo from ships.
“What’s all this racket first thing in the morning?”
A man passing by the harbor street spotted the sailors yelling and frantically unloading something from the ship. He asked a nearby soldier about it.
The soldier responded with a suspicious tone, turning the question back on him.
“And who might you be to be asking?”
“Me? Just a businessman. A businessman.”
“A businessman?”
“I deal in timber. I was taking my morning stroll along the docks when I heard the commotion around here. Got curious, you know?”
“Hah. Rich folks sure live carefree lives.”
The soldier muttered under his breath at the man’s cheeky attitude, then gruffly continued.
“I don’t know the details myself. But according to the crew’s chatter, those are beer barrels brought over from Kiautschou.”
“Kiautschou? The German concession?”
“Probably for the bigwigs to drink. That German beer’s got one hell of a taste, that’s for sure.”
Of course, lowly grunts like him wouldn’t get a sip.
Thanks to that, the soldier grumbled to the man about having to work his tail off at dawn for no good reason.
It looked like there was quite a stack piled up above.
But none of that mattered to the man right now.
What mattered to him was the true nature of those crates.
The man eyed the stack of crates the soldiers had set down on the harbor floor, his gaze thick with suspicion.
Too big to pass for beer crates. And way too much security.
Deciding it was worth checking out, the man gave a slight nod of thanks to the soldier and headed toward the warehouse where the ‘beer crates’ were being moved.
There were two guards posted at the warehouse entrance,
but...
Mo-rak mo-rak~
“What’s that?”
“Damn it. Is that a fire?!”
...brushing them aside was child’s play for the man.
All it took was a single cigarette.
While the guards rushed off to investigate the smoke, the man deftly picked the lock in seconds and slipped inside the warehouse.
The dim interior was stacked floor-to-ceiling with the crates the Russian sailors had been unloading.
Kirrik—!
No reason to dawdle.
The man pulled out a hidden knife and pried open a crate.
But the moment the lid came off, his face hardened like ice, turning more grave than ever before.
“Hah. Beer? Beer?”
Damn Russians.
What lay inside wasn’t some German brew.
Machine guns.
If his eyes weren’t deceiving him, these were definitely machine guns.
Not barley booze, but weapons specialized for killing people.
A Maxim? No, this is...
MG99.
The machine gun used by the German Empire.
Why the hell did the Russian Empire have German machine guns?
As a new mystery dawned on him, the man felt a sudden craving for a smoke but hurried to check the other crates.
They were all the same.
“Unbelievable. You Ivans. How the hell did you get your hands on these?”
German machine guns, German rifles, German bullets, and even unidentified pipe guns.
Everything here was German-made weaponry.
After a quick once-over of the crates, the man let out a heavy sigh.
This was a grave issue that could send shockwaves through the international community.
Especially if it wasn’t unilateral Russian action but tied to the German Empire itself...
I need to report this fast.
His earlier nonchalance gone, the man slipped out of the warehouse before the guards returned.
Naturally, after erasing any trace of his entry.
“You’re back, boss.”
“Mariya. I’ve got something to handle. Keep everyone out of the office.”
“Understood.”
Returning to the company he’d set up as a front, the man instructed his secretary and locked himself in his office.
No bugs...
After checking for anything suspicious in his absence, he approached the telegraph in the corner.
Lucky break. Scooping up a big fish like this on the way back from meeting my source.
Muttering to himself, the man prepared to send the wire.
His recipient was his contact in St. Petersburg—and his wife, Margaret.
“Friedrich! Maximilian!”
Meanwhile, at Schloss Friedrichshof, where the winter chill was fading and spring breezes were starting to blow, Princess Margarete wandered the mansion’s gardens calling for her eldest son Friedrich and second son Maximilian.
“Good grief, where on earth did those boys run off to?”
It was time for lessons, yet they’d ditched their tutor and vanished who-knows-where.
Just as worry began to creep in, something irritating caught her eye: small creatures she’d rather not see.
“Coo. Coo.”
Pigeons.
A flock of them.
“Mr. Tesla!”
Princess Margarete called out the name with genuine fury, as if cursing.
Nikola Tesla.
The eccentric scientist who’d shown up one day to see Hans and ended up holing up here permanently.
At Hans’s request, she’d tolerated Tesla tinkering with bizarre machines all day, making noise.
She’d even endured—with great patience—the unsightly iron tower he’d erected in one corner of her mother Victoria Adelaide Dowager Empress’s estate.
But feeding pigeons and letting them overrun every garden? That was the last straw.
“I can’t take it anymore!”
She’d given warnings out of regard for Hans until now, but no more.
Determined to settle things with Tesla and those damn pigeons once and for all, Princess Margarete strode toward the annex that served as his lab.
“?”
Unlike usual, when he’d be buried in work inside the lab, Tesla was out in the front yard of the annex.
With her two missing sons, no less.
“Friedrich! Maximilian!”
“Eek!”
“So this is where you two were? What are you doing out here?!”
“W-well, you see...”
Friedrich and Maximilian trailed off, avoiding their furious mother’s glare.
They knew they were in the wrong.
As Princess Margarete geared up to unload a torrent of scolding on her unapologetic sons, Tesla scratched his disheveled hair and intervened.
“Ah, no need to get so upset, Princess. Friedrich and Maximilian were just helping with my experiment for a bit.”
“What?”
If anything, that made her even more appalled.
Princess Margarete knew little about the ‘radio’ Tesla was developing with Hans’s funding, but she knew it involved electricity.
And electricity was extremely dangerous—potentially lethal if mishandled.
“You had my boys doing something that hazardous?!”
“H-h-hazardous? No way! I wouldn’t let children near dangerous machines. I’m not that reckless!”
Terrified by her predatory glare, Tesla stammered his firm denial.
Not that it was easy to believe, given how Tesla threw caution to the wind for science.
“Then what exactly were Friedrich and Maximilian helping with?”
“Ah, it’s easier to show than tell. Friedrich! Maximilian!”
“Yes, sir!”
At Tesla’s cue, the boys replied energetically and dashed off somewhere.
If only they put that enthusiasm into their studies...
Unfortunately for Princess Margarete, her eldest and second son preferred hanging out with this mad scientist over books.
“Where’d they go?”
“The opposite side of the mansion.”
“Opposite side?”
“Yes. You won’t be disappointed.”
Tesla’s excited tone at her question was a far cry from his usual lethargy—doling out feed to pigeons on a bench.
He brimmed with energy during experiments.
What a weirdo. Are all scientists like this?
Beeeep—!
As Princess Margarete pondered, a sharp whine emanated from the large machine beside Tesla.
Soon after, a familiar voice crackled from it.
“Friedrich? Maximilian?”
Princess Margarete doubted her own ears.
It was unmistakably her sons’ voices.
“What in the world...”
Her first thought was a telephone or phonograph.
Those were the only machines in this era that could produce human voices.
But she shook her head.
No phone line connected to the device before her.
“Ahem. Right now, Friedrich and Maximilian are speaking into a microphone on the far side of the mansion. Their voices are carried by radio waves via that transmission tower and delivered right here to us! Ah, the wonders of science!”
As Tesla proudly proclaimed, Princess Margarete’s eyes widened.
She barely grasped half of what he said, but she knew crossing the estate took considerable time.
“This is ‘radio’! As long as the waves reach, voices or music can be sent anywhere. Of course, stable long-distance transmission still needs work...”
Lost in his world, Tesla rattled on about principles and improvements.
It all went in one ear and out the other for a typical 19th-century noblewoman like her, lacking scientific knowledge.
Still, seems there was good reason Hans went to the trouble of bringing in Mr. Tesla for this radio thing.
For now, it just struck her as a fascinating gadget.
But wasn’t this era defined by such marvels reshaping the world?
“Ah! Come to think of it, has the Baron returned from Russia?”
“Yes, quite a while ago.”
“I see. I lose track of time cooped up in the lab. Then I should write him a report-cum-letter. There are things I need to make radio practical.”
But by the time Tesla’s letter reached him,
“Stand up straight, Hans.”
“P-Prince Adalbert?”
“You little devil. Why the hell did you do that to Admiral Yi?!”
“?!”
Hans Choi faced an unprecedented crisis: the wrath of a die-hard fan.
Author’s Note: The Sidney Reilly in the story is the legendary British spy known as the ‘Ace of Spies,’ who in real life collaborated with Japan around this time. Posing as a timber company president, he extracted Russian military secrets in the Russian Far East and more.