Chapter 103
Chapter 103
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 103
Chapter Title: Monarchru Dock Station
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Monarchru Dock Station.
It was the true heart and history of the Monarch family’s enterprise.
At first, Monarchru Dock Station was just a decent-sized shipbuilding company.
Then, when the space age began, the Monarch family ancestor who had been pulling the strings poured the company’s full resources into manufacturing the trendy space exploration vessels.
They succeeded sometimes and failed others, gradually expanding their operations.
At some point, however, the Monarch family felt the limits of just building exploration ships and faced another crossroads.
Should they stick to their stable business, or expand the dock further and take on new challenges?
The Monarch family’s choice was, naturally, to challenge themselves.
With their accumulated technology, expertise, and passion for success, everything fell into place almost miraculously, allowing the Monarch family to claim one of the thrones of the new era based on Monarchru Dock Station’s capabilities.
No one could deny that they were the world’s best at spaceship construction.
Only Monarchru Dock Station could handle building massive spaceships displacing over 200,000 tons.
As their prosperity continued, the Monarch family embarked on yet another new challenge.
An exploration team they operated themselves had discovered a star system with dreamlike natural environments and resources.
It was too perfect to just hand over to others.
After much deliberation, the Monarch family’s greed to make it their private paradise led them to decide on relocation.
Naming the star system after themselves—Monarch—shows just how enthusiastic they were.
Everyone on the Monarch family payroll relocated as well.
Since manufacturing made up a large portion of their workforce, they semi-forcibly moved nearly everyone except sales networks and similar roles.
Most of the dock’s advanced facilities were transferred at that time too.
It was only natural, as they decided to concentrate all their efforts on the Monarch Star System.
The Monarch Star System, painstakingly developed, grew in just 20 years to surpass its former glory.
Immigrants drawn by rumors of an environment better than Earth’s joined, swelling the star system’s population to two billion at its peak.
Around then, whispers emerged that the Monarch family might be the world’s greatest.
Then it happened.
The Alien invasion.
Unfortunately, the Monarch Star System lay right on the Aliens’ main invasion route.
And since it was early in the invasion, with inadequate defenses, the damage snowballed, and the Monarch family lost their paradise all too easily.
They had to flee in such haste that they couldn’t even salvage most of the dock’s advanced facilities.
Those facilities weren’t something you could rebuild just by throwing money at them—they required vast quantities of rare minerals and the aid of ability users—so replacing them was no easy task.
The Monarch family naturally declined.
Even after falling, the saying “a rich family lasts three generations” held; they remained in the top 100 influential families. But losing so many advanced facilities critically weakened Monarchru Dock Station’s capabilities to a pitiful degree.
They went from churning out super-dreadnoughts to barely managing mid-to-small destroyers like the Murdoch-class.
‘I should stop by the main house. Come pick it up yourself.’
I examined the master key in my hand and recalled the message left by Naphiel.
‘No, wait… Naviel, was it?’
Naphiel’s twin sister.
I remembered realizing the source of that nagging feeling only after seeing the name at the end of the message.
Otherwise, I might not have figured it out until the end.
Come to think of it, telling me to pick it up myself might be petty because I didn’t recognize her.
‘You went out of your way to hide it. How was I supposed to know?’
I shook my head vigorously.
I was planning to drop by anyway.
Though they’d fallen, the Monarch family’s spaceship construction tech was still impressive.
Monarchru Dock Station’s shipwrights were still world-class, and their accumulated knowledge remained intact.
Given the resources, they could build something surpassing even the current top-tier Behemoth-class battleships.
In the war against Aliens, superior ships were one of the most crucial factors—no way I’d pass that up.
‘Research lab first.’
If you sketched humanity’s living space in 3D blueprints, it looked like an oval egg studded with jagged spines, poked repeatedly with a blunt pencil along the Alien invasion routes.
Earth sat slightly behind the center, with first-, second-, third-, and fourth-wave defense lines strung straight along the path.
Monarchru Dock Station was located diagonally inward from Terra Planet, so to minimize travel time, we had to go via Terra.
Roze and I arrived at Terra Planet after three straight days of nonstop AD Drive jumps.
With no other business elsewhere, we headed straight for the research lab.
As we entered the atmosphere, Roze peered outside and muttered,
“It’s cleaned up.”
“Yeah?”
My curiosity piqued, I looked out the window too.
Terra Planet, which had been a mess everywhere before the farewell ceremony when I left, had returned to its original state as if nothing had happened.
Under the bright sky, no signs of pollution marred the view anywhere.
‘Good to see.’
I’d heard the final casualty count exceeded ten million.
A staggering number, but considering how sudden the airstrikes were and how unprepared they’d been, it was actually a decent defense.
While we gazed out the windows, the transport ship arrived at the Salmon Research Lab.
But the entrance seemed even more crowded than before.
“Wow, so many people.”
Roze gaped, looking around.
They all looked like company reps from their attire and faces, but I had no idea what was going on.
‘Is this why they told me to stop by?’
I hadn’t paid much attention to the Salmon Research Lab beyond handing over the data I’d extracted.
Fontana had kept reports minimal, knowing how busy I was.
After hearing I was on leave, she’d insisted I visit, so something must be up.
“Roze, let’s go.”
“...Y-yeah.”
I called out as I strode forward, snapping Roze out of her people-watching as she hurried after me.
R3D3 would’ve already notified them of my arrival.
A few faces turned as I passed the executive entrance, but once inside, the stares faded.
-Beep! This way, Master!
R3D3 led us down a different path than before.
In a corner, it tinkered with something, and the wall parted to reveal a two-seater railcar for sitting and riding inward.
They’d built a direct route because regular travel took too long—this must be it.
Thanks to that, we reached Fontana’s lab in no time.
“What brings you out here waiting today?”
“It’d be rude not to greet a lady properly.”
Fontana, dressed sharper than usual, stood at the rail’s end to welcome us.
Instead of her usual white coat over a T-shirt, she wore a well-tailored suit.
Even under my cold stare, she boldly turned her head away.
“Nice to see you, Miss Roze.”
“Hello.”
Roze beamed back, pleased at being called a lady.
“Really, nothing going on?”
“There’s always work.”
“The director wouldn’t suit up like that for nothing. And come to think of it, I’ve never seen you in a suit before.”
“Oh, this? I wore it because today’s supplier selection day.”
“Supplier selection?”
Fontana led us inside and elaborated.
“We decided to produce bio-armorsuit prototypes this time. That’s why.”
“...All those company reps in the lobby were here for that? It’s still just small quantities, though.”
“The selected suppliers get high scores going forward. They’re thinking long-term.”
It made sense on reflection.
The initial supplier selection for combat machine materials and parts hadn’t been this intense.
But with military orders steadily increasing over nearly two years, suppliers saw this contract as a key to stable business.
“Still seems like a lot.”
“More variety this time, too.”
Bio-armorsuit development was nearing completion.
The chief researcher I’d sent had shaved off tons of time.
Fontana, who’d mostly handled mechanical aspects, said using Mutant Society’s know-how and database on mutants made short work of the fiddly bits.
The finished tech split into two main areas.
One smoothed out maintenance issues, as explained before; the other cut production costs.
Both tied to money, really—now usable at nearly half the price of standard bio-armorsuits.
“How many orders?”
“No idea yet. Even cheaper, it’s still pricey—no way it’s for regular grunts.”
Bio-armorsuits were superior to standard ones, no doubt.
Standard suits just aided survival in disasters, while bio-armorsuits boosted strength and mobility on top.
Once you wore a bio-armorsuit, standard ones felt stiff and unusable—huge difference.
Reports said even a low-grade one let regular soldiers handle Grade-1 threats in close combat.
But unless you planned melee for every grunt, issuing them was wasteful.
So only the usual elite wearers got them—naturally, orders wouldn’t match combat machines.
“Still, decent revenue. High unit price.”
“We need more improvements.”
“Performance boosts are still a ways off.”
Fontana shook her head, looking troubled.
She clearly wanted to move on to other things.
“How’re the researchers I sent?”
“Like they’re possessed—workaholics.”
“Take good care of them and hand off performance upgrades to them.”
“Was planning to. But still uneasy...”
I nodded in agreement.
Even desperate ex-Mutant Society researchers could turn anytime.
Needed close watch for now.
But their dedication so far was a good sign.
Probably stunned by the bio-armorsuit improvement data—drip-feed more, and it might keep them loyal.
“When’s supplier selection?”
“Oh, right! Time’s short. Come see this first.”
We followed into the lab’s inner room.
There sat a tank with the red body inside.
Compared to last time, the only change was the wings, shrunken noticeably from experiments.
About 30% smaller?
“Look at this. This.”
“What is it?”
Fontana showed a 30cm ring threaded at intervals onto a flat, pin-like metal rod.
The ring began slowly rotating along the rod as she operated it.
“Now, inject a trace of natural energy...”
With a zap, a faint light thread seeped into the ring.
It traveled along the rod, circling.
I noticed something odd.
“The light’s getting stronger.”
“Right? Right?”
Fontana grinned like a mischievous kid and sped up the ring’s rotation.
The light, slowly intensifying before, now grew markedly faster.
“Huh?”
But briefly—once about twice as strong, it plateaued.
“This uses the red wings, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. Impressive, huh? What do you think?”
I instantly grasped what it meant.
It artificially replicated the energy amplification from the red wings.