Assault Colossus of the Nemesis Warfront - Chapter 84

Hyoue and Kurt were talking over the phone.

It wasn’t rare for them to talk at length from time to time, but their talk had gone especially long this time around.

「You sound practically glowing now that the Huckebein has prospects of finally being completed.」

「Yes. I can never thank Kou enough.」

Kurt had also received a proposal from Kou.

「The problem with actively replacing the arms and legs of Lanius and Wurger. His approach to tackling this problem was truly brilliant.」

「This is also thanks to your guidance, Kurt-san. I probably wouldn’t have been able to guide that kid quite as you did.」

Kou solved the problem faced by Lanius and Wurger’s limbs in the form of proposing an entirely new standard.

It was a truly simple solution.

The connection points of Silhouette limbs were of a common and uniform standard. And a human’s arm muscles and shoulder muscles worked in tandem as one unit. In the old system where the arms alone were the only things swappable, the degree of control one can exert on the artificial muscles after the swap would be drastically lowered. The same applied to the waist, thigh, and leg muscles.

Kou then proposed a solution.

It was to introduce a new standard connection system to only the Silhouette torsos which employed hybrid artificial muscle drives while maintaining compatibility with standard Silhouette limbs.

He designed the connection points to seamlessly combine the arms and torso as well as the waist and legs of Silhouettes. For example, when replacing a right arm, you’d have to replace the right arm and chest together. This goes for the legs as well. You’d need to replace the right leg and right hip together.

Of course, by employing this new system, it was inevitable for the overall maintenance costs to increase. But there was still significant merit to improving performance without sacrificing ease of maintenance. In the first place, when lacking replacement parts, you’d have no choice but to equip an arm using the old standard anyway. And the arm connection point itself was still compatible with the old regular standard in any case.

Kurt was satisfied with Kou’s proposal which emphasized maintainability rather than cost.

Cost-effectiveness was important, of course. However, one also needed to consider the type of user a machine caters to when designing them. Those who employ hybrid drives were mercenaries who can definitely afford the higher cost.

In the battlefield, there was simply no time to open up the armor of a Silhouette to connect the artificial muscles of its shoulder and the newly replaced arm.

「That idea was only realized due to his deep knowledge of the body as a whole and the body’s core. In any case, we were the only ones to have adapted the hybrid drive system among our peers. Let’s work harder to promote it from now on.」

「Yes. We cannot let all of Kou-kun’s efforts go to waste after all.」

「After looking at the list proposed by Okeanos, I’m convinced that the Silhouettes in the Nemesis warfront will all experience a significant rise in their performance. However, those improvements don’t include the aspect of shooting from long range.」

「Right. That kid seems to want to make this place a world more geared toward melee combat.」

「The value of hybrid drive machines will also increase significantly. And even though the cost-performance aspect can’t be said to be good, more and more high-end machines will probably adopt the hybrid drive system from here on out.」

The two then moved on to talk about the improvements in armor technology and the new measures against armor-piercing shells and lasers.

The technology list proposed by Okeanos didn’t include things related to firearms or guided weapons.

And the tech that was most related to them was the high-performance electromagnetic armor. It can even serve to protect against charged particle cannons.

「As the performance of the hybrid drive models increases, so will the performance of the regular models.」

「Indeed. New technologies will get introduced, and the best combinations would be researched and bricolaged, leading to Development Engineers all over the world spending lots of sleepless nights. Since the number of materials we can choose to use has increased as well, things are going to get a bit more troublesome.」

「But wouldn’t that also be more fun?」

「Indeed. It looks like we’re going to have these discussions more and more often from now on, Hyoue-san. Oh, right. Speaking of bricolage materials, Mr. Jack Cliff of John Arms seems to have purchased all the items on the list as soon as they went up for sale……」

The two eventually hung up after chatting for a few more minutes.

After hanging up, Kurt nodded satisfactorily after glancing at the proposal mailed by Kou and the technology list sent by Okeanos.

「It’s not a hybrid drive, but a completely new type of Silhouette drive system. Armor-type artificial muscle huh. This is exactly the type of artificial muscle drive system the Huckebein had aimed for. Kou-kun, I couldn’t even imagine that the principle of electromagnetic armor can actually be applied to artificial muscles.」

Kou had sent Kurt a proposal for completing the Huckebein.

The former proposed putting a medium inside the artificial muscle strands that were made out of extra-high tensile strength superelastic alloy and nanoceramics, turning them into electromagnetic armor.

The surface armor will only be a nanoceramic laminate. It focused on being as lightweight as possible, but the main point was that the entire frame of the machine will be covered by this new type of armor muscle system.

The total cost of the metallic hydrogen reactor technology and this new artificial muscle technology was far greater than any item Kurt had purchased thus far. But they allowed for the greatest chance of successfully completing his cherished Silhouette.

The main difference between plasma armor that makes use of general-purpose metallic hydrogen and high-performance electromagnetic armor was the medium. Plasma armor can be readily applied as long as a machine was equipped with a working reactor. A metallic hydrogen reactor wasn’t necessary.

However, high-performance electromagnetic armor makes use of metallic hydrogen as the medium itself. It was metal in a fluid state that was said to be present in the inner layers of Jupiter, near its core.

Metallic hydrogen – this liquid metal – will circulate throughout a Silhouette’s entire body like blood. And it will function similar to blood, allowing the artificial muscles to expand and contract like biological muscles.

Metallic hydrogen will not be able to maintain its fluid state once the supply of Whis gets interrupted. It will quickly turn into a gaseous state and diffuse into the atmosphere. In terms of managing such a vital resource, this can actually be considered a good thing.

「Now then, shall I also buy them all up? It would be quite a painful expense for those companies that started out comparatively late, but…… I’m sure Kou-kun will give Hyoue-san a lot of consideration, so I suppose there’s no problem.」

After informing Okeanos of his intention for a bulk purchase, Kurt headed for Huckebein with excitement and expectation bubbling in his heart.

「Thank you for coming, Kawakage. Please take a look at this.」

Takaba Hyoue had their company’s CEO, Kawakage, come over to his office. The latter was a good-natured man who was in his early fifties.

He’s had experience in traditional Japanese archery, and he’s also a master marksman in both the bow and the rifle. He was also an expert regarding various structural materials, and, needless to say, was one of the main contributors to our development of Silhouettes.

The man was a widely recognized B-Class Development Engineer.

「Hello, Chairman. Is this from Okeanos? This……」

Kawakage checked the tablet terminal handed to him by Hyoue.

「A request for restarting the mass-production plan of the TSW-R1 series?」

「The armor materials used have changed completely, but the basic structure of the frame itself remains virtually the same. With this, we will be able to make use of the production line for manufacturing Falco as is.」

「But this–! No. I see no particular problem with this mass-produced A1 type. But what is with this proposed B type? And there’s even a proposal for joint development of an Assault Flyer C type that will specialize in aerial combat.」

「I know. If we want to manufacture all of these, we will need a truly enormous amount of money. We will be forced to take some loans. Even so… Even so, I still want to make them.」

The Lanius was a work Hyoue took great pride in. However, it ended up very finicky when it comes to suitable pilots and didn’t do well in sales in the end.

Thanks to Kawakage’s efforts, the company managed to switch over to manufacturing the Falco, which was comparatively more versatile and easier to use and even managed to retain the hybrid drive system in its design.

「…Chairman. Let’s do it.」

「Eh? Is it really okay? These things will probably end up being too expensive and won’t sell well.」

Hyoue was sure the other man was going to oppose his decision, so he was a bit taken aback when Kawakage actually agreed.

The price for the relevant technologies in the list provided by Okeanos was a painful one for start-up companies.

They’d need at least 10 years to come up with the total amount needed. However, it was a different story if they accepted the request. All the technologies required for mass production will be provided free of charge, and they would even get sponsored with a fairly large amount of funds.

「There are no worthwhile merits to refusing this request. By accepting this, we will receive all needed technologies from Okeanos free of charge. And the client will end up owing us a favor as well.」

「True.」

「However, it will be hard for our company alone to handle the entire project. The main bodies of the A1 and B types can be handled by our company. How about proposing a partnership with Misumaru Heavy Industries to manufacture the flight unit’s additional armor components?」

「I see! They specialize in aircraft after all! We’ll need to negotiate, but shall we propose a deal with them?」

「If it doesn’t work out, we’ll do our best to take care of everything alone.」

「I’m grateful, but is this really okay with you? We probably won’t earn much profit you know. Rather, we would likely be in the red for a long time.」

「I don’t have any intention of getting left behind in the technological race you know.」

Kawakage laughed daringly.

「As long as we have a CEO like you handling the reigns of this company, I can retire with peace of mind.」

「You’re still very much in your prime, Chairman. Well then, I’ll go ahead and check the operational status of the Falco production line. If you’ll excuse me.」

Kawakage exited the room.

Hyoue checked the tablet terminal once more and gazed intently at the A1 and B type forms of his prided Lanius. He was already looking forward to their completion. It was enough to replace the armor and some parts of their current machines.

「You look really happy, Hyoue.」

A girl appeared next to Hyoue and peered at the screen of the tablet as well. It was the silver-haired girl, Asia.

「Oh. This is from Kou-kun.」

「Mm. It’s from Kou alright!」

「I hope Kou-kun will finally forgive me though.」

「What are you going on about now?」

「I mean, he hasn’t gotten in contact with me even until now you know. I’m sure he already knows I’m here as well. But he hasn’t mailed or called me once even if he’s already gotten in touch with Kurt-san. Ain’t that strange? I– I’m sure something happened on the day he came here.」

「I can’t really say anything about that myself. But he isn’t holding any kind of resentment toward you, I’m sure. He’s probably just delaying contact because he finds it awkward and is hesitating about how to interact with you again.」

「I sure hope that’s it. Well, if he was truly angry with me, then he would have just opted to send the request to Kurt-san instead of me huh? I’m sure that’s it.」

A hawk flew down and rested on Hyoue’s shoulder. It was his Familiar and trusted companion.

「You’re really such a worrywart, Hyoue. Please take a good look. It’s obvious that a message directly to you was included in these blueprints.」

「The usage of the trunk and this swordsmanship style. He even used the Niten Ichi-ryuu single sword style’s attack pattern records as an example. It would be impossible to come up with this stuff unless you were quite familiar with my school of swordsmanship.」

After seeing the articles, Hyoue evidently cheered up. He felt like he was conversing with Kou just like in the past.

「I’m sure he’ll call you in the near future. Kou also wants to see you, you know? Well then, I should be going now.」

「If Young Miss Asia says so, then there’s no doubt about it. Thank you. I suppose I’ll just wait patiently for our reunion.」

The figure of Asia quickly disappeared.

Hyoue kept gazing at the blueprints without any signs of getting tired of them.