If I Try Hard Enough, It Works Out
If you try hard enough, anything is possible.
That's not to say I'd be skipping school starting tomorrow to dive straight into the Tower. The Tower assault hasn't even begun yet — the moment we tell Nova "Okay, we're ready," they'll gather the remaining members and give the Hunter Association the go-ahead.
You'd think that would be the end of it, but nope, still not done.
Then the Association says, "Nova's coming, so let's all prepare," and everyone scrambles to get equipment sorted and gear up, until finally everyone assembles and actually enters the Tower for the assault. There are formations to drill with the strike team, and since I'm in a bit of a special situation, I need my own personal preparations in case something unexpected happens.
"So... this goes here, and then..."
"What are you doing, Eve?"
"Huh? Oh, I'm studying."
"Studying what? That's new."
Cho-a tilted her head as she skimmed over the engine diagrams I had pulled up on my tablet screen.
"What's this? Looks like blueprints. A new golem?"
"Oh, right — that's a secret, so you can't look at it. Sorry."
"Oh. Well, fair enough."
It was break time, so the other kids had crowded around me — which meant the engine blueprints absolutely could not be seen. Honestly, though, even I, the smartest kid in this entire class, couldn't make heads or tails of them. What were the odds anyone else could figure them out? These are elementary schoolers we're talking about.
Still, better safe than sorry, so I kept it hidden. For now, license studying came first...
After school, I was still glued to my license study books. Inside the Tower, the instanced gates, or dungeon structures, you can pilot vehicles without any license at all — but what I want is to drive around outside, too.
"Ophelia, why did you want me to study the engine blueprints, anyway?"
"Does My Lady understand the principle by which a rocket burns fuel to propel itself?"
"U-um... fire blasts out the back, and...?"
"Not every flame that burns confers thrust upon the object behind it."
...Huh. She had a point. I'd always just assumed that if fire blasted out the back hard enough, you'd go fast — but when I actually thought about it, I had no idea why. By that logic, shouldn't a lit candle just zip downward if you left it sitting there?
"The truth is, My Lady has no particular need to memorize the engine's design in its entirety."
"Wha..?"
"To utilize the engines destined for our golems at maximum efficiency, it is simply better that My Lady understands how they work."
"Th-that's all it was..!?"
And here I'd figured it would take me five years to memorize all of this. If that was the reason all along, she could've just told me from the start!
"So who's this engine for, anyway? Minium? Or Suri, since faster would be nice for her? Or maybe Grandpa Galahad could move around quicker?"
"It is intended for the construction of a new golem."
"Gasp..! Then that means... you're making another new golem?!"
"Not immediately, however. Some time will yet be required. Above all, the newly designed engine has not been verified in practice — it will need several rounds of revision and live testing first."
"Oh, I see."
After school today, I hadn't gone home — I'd come straight to the workshop instead. It wasn't like there was anything to do at home anyway.
The moment I stepped out of the car at the workshop, I could see just how much of the money Ophelia had been stockpiling was being burned through lately. Even Grandpa's forge, which had been completely stripped bare, was now stuffed to the brim with new arrivals, and outside the workshop, shipping containers left over from hauling in expensive materials were stacked everywhere.
"Princess! Welcome!"
"Grandpa!!"
They said everything would get collected and hauled away later, but I kind of want a container of my own. I could renovate one into a secret hideout. That'd be awesome.
"Grandpa, you've got so much stuff now! Work's going to be way easier, right?"
"Hmm! There are still a few things I could wish for at this level, but I can work to a reasonably satisfying degree!"
"Whoa, nice."
Grandpa was the type who burned enormous amounts of money both when building things and on everything they'd need afterward. Of course, all of it would help us in the end, so I couldn't complain. Besides, I didn't really know exactly how much it all cost anyway.
"Ophelia, is it really okay to spend money this freely, though? Do we still have plenty left?"
"Current expenditures exceed the income generated through our investments. However, as numerous high-value facilities were a necessity, this falls well within the anticipated range."
"So we're not going to end up broke later..?!"
"Revenue will arrive shortly, so there is no need for concern on that front."
"Revenue?! From where?!"
"In order to secure a steady supply of magic stones and a dedicated site for experimentation, we have purchased a small instanced gate. A gate entirely in My Lady's own name."
"A g-gate..?! Aren't those expensive?! How much did it cost?!"
Ophelia rubbed her chin for a moment, pondering my question, before finally opening her mouth.
"We are currently paying in installments on 26.8 billion won."
"HOEEEEK!!!!!"
"That was an inexpensive purchase, as instanced gates go. It was located deep in a remote mountain region with poor accessibility."
"Oh, oh, I see... So, does it have anything good inside..? Why else would it cost that much..."
"The ability to periodically secure magic stones and rare metals makes it a worthwhile choice from a long-term perspective."
Well, fair enough. We'd make money off it, buy another gate, then make money off that one too, and buy something else, and—
"Mm! We're gonna be suuuper rich!"
"However, there is one thing required to make that happen."
"What's that?"
"More personnel. Minium and Suri are currently hunting monsters inside the gate and mapping its interior. Effective resource harvesting and magic stone acquisition will demand additional labor."
"Oh, oh, right..!"
Even when a company or guild owns a gate, they almost never use it exclusively for themselves. Unless it's some secret jackpot mine they refuse to share, the number of hunters who can enter a gate at any given time is limited.
And even running hunters around the clock like machines wouldn't be practical. The usual model is opening it to the public and taking a cut of the profits from harvested materials and magic stone sales, or charging an entry fee for revenue.
"So we're not charging anyone entry fees?"
"No, My Lady. That is not in the plans at present."
"Oh, I see..."
Small or not, it was still an instanced gate — to squeeze maximum efficiency out of it, we'd need a ridiculous number of golems. And setting aside actually making them, could my mana even sustain them all..?
"As My Lady's renown continues to rise, your total mana capacity is climbing at a steep incline. That said, the drain is indeed considerable — one option is to supply the golems with magic stones extracted from the monsters dwelling inside the gate, thereby offsetting their mana consumption."
"Ahh... I see."
"Furthermore, the higher the rank of My Lady's innate skill, Powerless Princess, the more dramatically the mana consumed in creating and sustaining golems will decrease."
"It could do THAT?!"
The skill was C-rank now, I think. Compared to when it was F-rank, that's a pretty big jump. Ophelia's been eating fewer of those nasty, tasteless high-calorie nutrient cubes too, since the mana drain has gone down.
"Speaking of which, Daengdaengi, why do you keep tearing into bags of dog food, then?"
Whenever I'm late with his meals, Daengdaengi climbs inside the food bag and eats himself practically until he bursts. What even is this dog?
—Beep....
"Don't you judge me over what I eat." "No, seriously..."
Anyway, the point was: the higher my skill ranks climbed, the more my efficiency would explode in a super-super-SUPER-hurricane of growth. Time to go ham on upgrading Powerless Princess and Issuing Orders.
"At present, the cost of producing and sustaining roughly eighty golems of average B-rank hunter combat capability converges to zero when balanced against My Lady's mana recovery."
"No way. I've gotten that strong..? Is my mana, like, Pacific Ocean-sized or something?"
"Rather than any rise in absolute mana quantity, it is the change in the very nature of your mana, and the corresponding drop in upkeep costs, that matters most."
"Ahh..."
Put simply, my mana had just become really good golem food. It wasn't like I had some enormous amount of it or anything.
"Then we should start making golems right now!"
"..."
"O-Ophelia?"
Ophelia stared at me for a moment, as if weighing something in her mind. Her face was as expressionless as ever, but somehow, it looked... sad. Which bugged me a little.
"My Lady. May I ask you a single question?"
"Wh-what is it..?"
"Could My Lady bring herself to treat the golems she creates unequally?"
"Unequally..?"
"Yes. That is my question."
Ophelia, standing beside me, crouched down for a moment to bring herself to my eye level. Then she rested her hands on my shoulders and gently pinched and stroked my cheek.
"My Lady, as the number of golems grows, it will become impossible for you to personally care for every one of them."
"I... I suppose so..."
"All the more so for golems serving their duties far away from you. Such attentions would only grow more difficult."
"Ah..."
"Or perhaps — a golem may come into being who never once lays eyes on My Lady from the day of its creation until the day it is spent."
"Th-that's a little sad, isn't it..?"
They'd be my creations — sent off to work, and then never once checked up on. That just seemed cruel. If I were that golem, I think I'd resent the one who made me.
"But that is what it means to be a princess. A precious person's time is worth more than the time of those who are not. It is simply impossible to divide one's hours equally among all."
Even Grandpa Galahad's hammering, which had been thudding along in the background like background music, had gone silent. With only the quiet, low hum of machinery flowing through the workshop, my head spun with complicated thoughts.
"But if My Lady wishes to avoid that fate, and chooses never to create them at all — then those golems would never have existed in the first place. What will you do?"
"..."
For a long while, I avoided Ophelia's gaze and let my eyes wander across the floor. Her eyes were blank and expressionless, but when I kept looking into them, something came through. Something I couldn't quite name.
"And yet — for us, that is happiness. To be of use to My Lady is, quite simply, the reason we exist."
"That's... but, you'd want to be praised, wouldn't you?"
"..."
"No one should just work their whole life and break down without a single word of thanks. If I did a good job... no, even if I didn't do a good job, if I worked hard — then I'd want someone to tell me so."
I knew the sadness of working hard every single day and never getting praised. I knew it very, very well.
"My Lady, we are golems. Beings without a shred of emotion—"
"Liar."
Ophelia's hands, still resting on my shoulders, flinched — just barely. So that was her way of admitting her claim of having no emotions was a lie.
"I'm suuuper smart, you know. I'm not an idiot. Daengdaengi, Suri, Minium. You and Grandpa Galahad too. I know full well none of you are ordinary golems."
"That is..."
"But even so — even if I might not be able to look after you all properly after making you — I'm still not going to just not make you."
Because honestly, that felt like an even worse sin than creating someone and never watching over them for a lifetime.
"If I work really, really hard, I can praise a hundred of you. A thousand. Even a hundred million. Right?"
"That would... require a truly staggering amount of effort, My Lady."
"If I try hard enough, it works out. I'm smart, after all."
"KHAHAHAHAH—!! Now THAT is worthy of a princess—!!"
"G-Grandpa?!"
Just as tears were about to well up in my eyes, Grandpa Galahad came barreling toward me, slamming his fists into the floor with a thunderous boom-boom-boom. Then he scooped me up and hurled me skyward.
"UGYAAAAAH—!!!"
"Sir Galahad! Desist at once! The Princess's head is about to meet the plumbing!"
—KA-RANG
The sound of my scalp colliding with a water pipe rang out like a royal proclamation.
"...Geh."