Chapter 6. After I Gave the Japanese Defense Research Institute Some Unsolicited Advice, Japan Became Obsessed
Chapter 6. After I Gave the Japanese Defense Research Institute Some Unsolicited Advice, Japan Became Obsessed
Tokyo, Setagaya.
“Is this the place?”
Taeju looked up at the building in front of us and spoke in a suspicious tone.
It was just too grand.
At the entrance to the building was an impressive plaque written in kanji, and when I ran it through the translator on my phone, it said this:
[Ground Systems Research Institute]
“It says it’s… a core research institute under the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency?”
(Translator’s Note: Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) — A Japanese defense agency under the Ministry of Defense responsible for procurement, research, development, and logistics. It was established in 2015.)
“Wait… are you saying our drones are in a Japanese Self-Defense Force research institute?”
(Translator’s Note: Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) — Japan’s military forces under its postwar self-defense framework. They were formally established in 1954.)
I had no idea why the drones we sold in Korea had ended up all the way in Japan.
Just then, I spotted a man in the distance who had found us and was hurrying over in a fluster. Neatly groomed hair, a suit, and a tie so tacky I could not even begin to understand why he was wearing it.
“Huff… huff… ah, hello there. You are the presidents of Science Facility, correct?”
The man greeted us in reasonably fluent Korean.
“Hello. I’m Ryu Hyesung.”
“I’m co-CEO Choi Taeju.”
Even while introducing ourselves, we looked at each other.
We were CEOs? How had things even gotten to this point?
“You must have had a difficult trip. I am Sato Shinji, and I will be guiding you. This way, please.”
His excessive politeness was burdensome enough to make me uncomfortable.
“Whoa, what the…”
Inside, all kinds of missiles and weapon systems were displayed in every size and type imaginable.
There were even weapons I had never seen before, and I was a full-blown weapon geek. They had clearly never been revealed in actual deployment.
As befitted a place that researched military weapons, every employee walking around was wearing a white lab coat.
The place Mr. Sato guided us to was a huge open space where the sky was visible again.
The building was structured in a square shape, with the entire center left open.
And in the middle of that empty space, the drones I had made were flying around like crazy, buzzing as if they were being tested at the very limits of their performance.
A researcher was standing there watching them and densely jotting things down on a chart.
Beside him stood a middle-aged man in an expensive suit, his chin resting on his hand.
The middle-aged man noticed our arrival and slowly approached us.
Mr. Sato handled all the interpreting.
“Are you the main developer of these drones?”
“Yes.”
The man studied my face carefully, then asked for a handshake.
“I am Kuroda Genshin, Technical Inspector of the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency. If you do not mind my asking, how old are you?”
He was the final approval authority over any weapon funded by the Japanese defense budget.
“I’m eighteen.”
At my answer, his eyes sharpened.
He was clearly suspicious of something.
“My goodness, you are still a high school student, aren’t you? How exactly did you program this?”
“Well, basically… the swarm drones exchange each other’s flight data in real time and use that feedback to control their posture…”
Just as I was about to explain without thinking, Taeju hurriedly cut me off and stepped in.
“That’s enough. That’s top-level company secret information. More importantly, we came here to handle A/S.”
At that, Mr. Kuroda smiled faintly and replied,
“...The claim that A/S was needed was a lie.”
“What?”
At his shameless answer, Taeju shot back in disbelief.
“President Ryu Hyesung. What is your company’s annual revenue at present?”
“Well, a little under 100 million won.”
Was he trying to acquire our company?
If so, what I had just said was a mistake.
I had named far too little.
Fortunately, after my honest answer, Taeju quickly added with a cough,
“We cannot even calculate annual revenue yet. It hasn’t been that long since the company was founded. We do not know what this year’s revenue will be.”
“I see. The real reason we invited you here today is to ask whether President Ryu might be willing to serve as the Chief Researcher of our Japanese Self-Defense Force defense laboratory.”
“Me? But I’m Korean…”
“We will compensate you generously. Japan is prepared.”
“...”
I was so shocked that I froze and could not answer, so Taeju swallowed and asked in my place,
“Uh… how much are you planning to offer?”
“Ten billion yen per year.”
“Hk.”
“Ah…”
Taeju and I both stood there with our mouths hanging open.
Ten billion yen per year? Wait, how much was that at the current exchange rate?
A hundred billion won? And they were saying they would pay that once every year?!
While we were still reeling in shock, Mr. Kuroda pushed up his glasses and spoke seriously.
“The truth is that Japan is currently far behind the United States and China in AI technology and drone control software. However, we proudly consider ourselves the strongest nation in the world when it comes to ultra-precision component machining for hardware.”
The man’s eyes gleamed with greed.
“If your genius software capabilities and Japan’s overwhelming precision engineering were to be combined… then we would surely be able to produce the strongest military equipment in the world. What do you think?”
The man standing in front of me had proposed an unbelievable amount of money.
It seemed obvious that he had the power to make that offer real.
“Japan does not consider it a waste to spend money on talent like you.”
Mr. Kuroda continued in an easy tone.
“Hey, Hyesung. What are you going to do?”
Taeju whispered quietly to me with a troubled expression.
“I don’t know. This is…”
It was not an easy decision.
With 100 billion won, I could work for just one year and live comfortably for the rest of my life.
“If it’s hard to decide, think it over after we get back to Korea.”
Taeju was absolutely right.
My instincts told me that the first priority was to make it back safely to Korean soil.
“Hmm… could you give me some time to think?”
The more I thought about it, the stranger it felt.
Weren’t all the things lying around this institute classified military secrets of another country?
A vague sense of dread crept over me at the thought of why they were openly showing them to foreign nationals like us.
“...Very well. While you think it over, would you care to tour our institute?”
An ordinary person might have hurriedly said, “No, that’s all right,” and run for it.
But for a severe weapon geek like me, there was no way I could just turn around and leave when they were offering to show me a place like this.
Just seeing it and storing it in my head would already be an astronomical gain.
“Then… would it be all right if we looked around just a little?”
The moment he heard my answer, Taeju’s face twisted into an expression that clearly said, Ah, this crazy bastard is about to cause trouble again.
In the end, we began a full tour of the top-level research institute together with Mr. Kuroda and Mr. Sato.
“This is the prototype of the new multi-warhead missile currently under development.”
What stood before us was a real military multi-warhead missile.
At a glance alone, the precision machining was overwhelming enough to call it a work of art.
“Chief Researcher, can you explain?”
At Mr. Kuroda’s order, a Japanese researcher in a white coat stepped forward and began giving an enthusiastic explanation.
“...So it is still in the prototype stage, and the problems with hit accuracy and ejection timing during multi-warhead separation have not yet been fully resolved.”
According to his explanation, they seemed to be struggling because they had not yet broken through several engineering hurdles.
As I listened, I realized I had once wrestled with exactly the same problem.
Mine had been small, but I too was, undeniably, a developer who had built a “multi-warhead missile.”
“Hmm… no matter how precisely you machine the warheads, once you assemble them, each part seems to end up with slightly different characteristics.”
The instant I opened my mouth, the noisy researchers all fell silent at once.
“Instead of trying to force that error down through hardware, try folding it all into the correction calculation values.”
“...Excuse me?”
“And the ejection timing too… it seems like the people developing the warheads and the people developing the propellant charges are not the same people.”
Even though I could sense the atmosphere turning strange, I could not stop the words from spilling out.
“Try having them actually talk to each other. In the data, the sync is completely off, and everything is drifting apart.”
Before I knew it, I had gone and backseat-driven them.
You know that feeling, right?
When you are watching someone next to you play a game at a PC café, and the way they play is so frustrating that you cannot help but blurt out advice.
It was exactly that feeling.
What could I do? I could see the problem too clearly.
“...Uh, what? Excuse me… Captain Sato, who exactly is this person?”
The Japanese researcher asked in disbelief.
At that, Mr. Kuroda, who was standing beside him, cut in with a solemn voice.
“For now… that remains a top-level classified secret of the Defense Agency.”
At Mr. Kuroda’s warning, the Japanese researchers stared at me in shock and began whispering among themselves.
At this rate, was I going to get arrested for the crime of backseat-driving Japanese weapons secrets?
But contrary to my fears, they sent us back to Korea perfectly safely.
Meanwhile, several weeks after Hyesung had swept through the institute—
Tokyo Ground Systems Research Institute.
“This is impossible… the margin of error has been reduced by a full seventy percent!”
The chief researcher held out the result chart with trembling hands.
Kuroda Genshin, Technical Inspector of the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency, clicked his tongue as he looked at the monitor.
“Are you telling me Japan is finally on the brink of successfully developing a new multi-warhead missile…!”
“Yes! The advice that boy gave us when he visited a few days ago… it matched perfectly.”
Development of the new missile had advanced significantly, but his heart was not entirely happy.
“When we were wandering in circles after pouring in an astronomical budget, that boy identified the problem just from seeing it once…?”
“As expected, we should never have sent that boy back to Korea that day.”
Sato spoke, shooting his superior a look that was almost accusatory.
That day, Sato had argued that Ryu Hyesung should not be sent back to Korea.
“Captain Sato!”
“Yes, sir!”
Captain Sato, an agent dispatched from the Intelligence Headquarters, answered in crisp posture.
“Bring President Ryu back to Japan… by any means necessary.”
It was break time after a Korean language class that had nearly put me to sleep.
“Hey, Hyesung. Snap out of it… orders are coming in like crazy right now.”
“What? How many?”
“Three hundred forty-two.”
“Holy…”
Taeju and I stared at each other with expressions of utter disbelief, our jaws practically falling off.
“Hey! You two in the back! How long are you going to keep talking? Class has already started.”
We had not even realized break time was over and the next class had begun.
The Korean history teacher standing at the podium had started barking at us sharply.
Out of conditioned reflex, our bodies were already pulling out our history textbooks, but our minds were somewhere else entirely.
The Shorts views, which had been at one hundred thousand, had shot past five million overnight.
And that explosive attention had translated directly into drone orders.
The total number of incoming orders was 342.
At 500,000 won per unit, that was a simple gross revenue of 171 million won.
It was a figure far beyond anything a cottage industry operation could handle.
The business we had started half as a joke, just to chase a little style and fun for ourselves, was now growing into something uncontrollably huge.
“There’s no way we can fill this volume by assembling everything by hand like last time.”
I whispered.
“So what are we going to do?”
“Let’s buy automation equipment and just build a factory.”
“What?”
“Let’s mass-produce them. I want drones being made even while we’re at school.”
I could not hear a single word of Korean history.
The only thing filling my head was the design of a process system where drones would be manufactured automatically.
The thing that had begun as a joke was getting bigger and bigger.