"We are sorry!" Said both Ningyo and Mei while kneeling on the floor with tears in their eyes. In front of them are members of Ningyo's family and Mei's mother, Consort Ling, with each of them sporting varying degrees of exasperation and reproach.

After learning of the partial collapse of the Mansion with their basement built of a Gauss cannon, the mothers of the group had hastily taken off to the site, fearing for their daughters' well-being. Thankfully, both Ningyo and Mei were ok while the people of the Mansion were relatively unscathed, bar a worker that fell down a scaffolding, thus breaking his leg. As for Mobius, even though she literally got sent two floors below ground unwillingly, she is safe from physical harm. Though a portion of her equipment will be needing replacements. And that extends to the Mansion itself, needing to be rebuilt due to its foundation being highly unstable currently. Einstein had immediately ordered a shutdown of the void reactor of the Mansion when the collapse happened. For the near future, any R&D must be conducted elsewhere.

Understandably, the responsible adults, which may or may not include Mobius, berated the two younguns for an hour, with them going around apologizing for those that were affected. Although no major harm was done in their childish endeavor, they are forced to learn the consequences of their action. Both Ningyo and Mei are ashamed of the troubles they had brought to everyone. They're smart enough to recognize their faults so the girls give the adults their words that this won't be happening ever again, that they will be more responsible from now on. And although their family would like to educate the girls more, Lu decides that the girls already have an eventful enough day, thus having Hel and Consort Ling lead them back to their respective abode.

After they're gone, however, Lu orders the brainiacs to give her their reports. While Yuki and Bryn are off in their own world, Lu has taken it upon herself to hold the fort for Yuki. Regardless, she truly doesn't expect a pair of young, albeit genius, girls to cause an upheaval right off the bat.

Per Lu's words, Einstein and Mobius give her a detailed damage report. While the damage to the building itself is intensive enough to cause it to be highly unsafe, the actual damage to any ongoing experiment or project is kept at a minimum. To avoid further mishaps, Mobius has given the words to relocate everything and Einstein will be having people reinforcing the Mansion's structure while they move stuff around. The sudden disruption has also forced them to take special care of the Mansion's void reactor. The machine is too valuable for a casual migration.

"But it will be an interesting learning experience." Einstein noted. "Of all the possible safety scenarios we have ever thought of, this particular case isn't in any of them. We're making up plans as we go to remove the reactor from the building and have it installed elsewhere."

Lu nods at this, she trusts that the doctors will have it sorted eventually. "If you need more manpower, I can delegate the Reichsguards to you."

"That will be much appreciated, Your Majesty. We also need the added security." Einstein responded favorably, to which Lu made a hand signal to a member of her guard. At this, the woman excuses herself to request additional reinforcement for Einstein.

Lu then asks Einstein. "What about the machine that caused this mess? From what I can see, it packed quite a punch."

Einstein then turns to an old scientist, one that was lucky enough to receive a personal commendation from Yuki a long time ago. "Doctor Martin Johnsen, do you have anything to add from your inspection of that room?"

Stroking his impressive beard, Martin says in a deliberate tone with a hint of excitement. "There is much to be said about the machine, but to put it short, it's a weapon that uses electromagnetic force to launch high-velocity projectiles. A cumbersome one currently, minds you, but extremely powerful even as a prototype. This kind of design was proposed by the Marshal a couple of years back but it was shelved due to our lacking industrial capability back then. It's slated to be revived in the future but even the Marshal doesn't have an exact timeframe for that. After all, our current military has just been overhauled and it will be another mess altogether in trying to incorporate newer weaponry into the mix."

Doctor Johnsen then pulls out a piece of degraded metal. "Obviously, there are benefits to the design, of the Gauss cannon. The first is firepower and the second is the cost to operate one. In fact, they can be around five to ten times as cheap as our precision missiles but still retain the same effectiveness. Nonetheless, a Gauss cannon, and in this particular case the basement railgun that Lady Ningyo and Lady Mei built, are very hard to make with the barrel having little life expectancy. The drawbacks are precisely why it was impractical to further develop this program then, and now. We simply haven't reached a scientific era where we can eliminate the drawbacks. But I do have a few ideas, if I may say it, Your Majesty?"

"Go ahead, Doctor." After hearing what he had said, Lu is interested in exploring more about this program that Yuki put aside for the most part. The old doctor nods, saying. "While it's not possible, yet, to simplify the production of a Gauss cannon, we can employ runes engraving to increase the longevity of the barrel of the ladies' railgun design, thus allowing it to fire more shots before being turned into molten slag. With this, we can gather more data at a reduced cost for the program. It's my hope that in the future, we will be able to mass-produce the design and employ them in field usage. Starting with the naval branch."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

While Lu is interested in a future like that, she turns to Einstein who is the mechanical genius here. Einstein gives her a nod, saying. "It's possible, Your Majesty. We can invest in it now that we have a good method to succeed, rather than waiting longer in the future. Yuki will have done the same now that it has come to this. I can also supervise this project to make sure it proceeds smoothly as I have enough time off from the success of my recent program."

Hearing Einstein's reassurance, Lu makes up her mind. "I hereby give you two the permission to explore the potentials of the Gauss cannon. I already have an idea as to how this will be the king off the battlefield in the future but both Yuki and I will be expecting good results to further funding this project."

Receiving their nods in return, Lu also calls it a day. While this decision is made without Yuki's knowledge, Lu isn't afraid of her being any bit upset over this. After all, both of them are no doubt of the same mind in this matter and Lu is not an Empress for no reason. Lu sees a potential for profit when she comes across one.

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"Achoo!" Morgan cutely sneezed in Base 794's armory, much to her weirdness since she usually doesn't sneeze unless she's very sick.

FN HiPer, who is nearby, steps closer to her in concern. "Are you alright, Morgan?"

Shaking her head with a small smile, Morgan replies. "I'm fine, thank you for asking. I have a feeling that it was one of my family members that spoke about me."

HiPer then nods, accepting her answer. She then lies on the table a few items that Morgan has requested from Kalina. "These are our auxiliary equipment," HiPer then gestures toward the armor plates, camouflage capes, and exoskeletons. "Depending on the task, our loadout will be modified accordingly. And in the case of our upcoming deep-recon mission in a few days, we will be bringing along our exoskeletons and capes. The plates, due to their cumbersome nature, will be taking the backseat."

Morgan comes closer to the equipment on the table. "The plates are hefty alright," Morgan commented as she picked up an armor plate with a bit of a struggle. "I can imagine why even a T-Doll will say that this thing is cumbersome. The thing is probably two to three times heavier than a level IV body armor."

HiPer nod while helping Morgan put away the armor plates. "But it does offer reliable protection against Sangvis' energy weapons, not most of them but better have that and nothing. Nonetheless, their weight means only high-end T-Doll chassis or specialized shotgun T-Dolls are able to go in combat with them. Though rare, we do use them in high-intensity, direct combat scenarios."

Morgans adds. "Which is not the case in the near future. I can imagine trying to conceal yourself with a hard vest will be quite annoying." HiPer smiles lightly at that while Morgan goes to unfold a neatly bundled camouflage cape.

"These are our thermoptic camouflage cape. They can adapt their patterns to the surrounding environment, aiding us in concealment against Sangvis' detection suite." HiPer explained, earning a nod from Morgan.

"Yes, I can see why this will be useful for you. From the look of it, a cape is powered by a battery system, presumably rechargeable and there's a passive scanner that takes in the ambient lighting to modify the camo. Highly interesting." Morgan commented, surprising HiPer that she could analyze that much from a glance.

"You're correct, Morgan, but the cape's camo system only works when we're moving very slowly or are stationary. If we want to perform any hasty maneuver, the camouflage system will bug out, casting weird artifacts instead. As for the battery time, it's rechargeable by using solar energy or by directly connecting with our combat frame."

Morgan smiles, now having an understanding of the capes. Moving on, Morgan analyzes an exoskeleton that is undeployed. HiPer then demonstrates the exo by attaching it to herself, Morgan can hear the motors come to life as HiPer maneuvers around the place for her to see. "Aside from SCAR-H, the rest of our echelon intensively used the exoskeletons as we tend to favor maneuver warfare and subtle combat. The exos provide us with increased mobility and physical prowess should the need arrive. But understandably, battery lives for exoskeletons run out quickly in proportion to how active we are on the field. There's also the issue that there are quite delicate pieces of machinery beneath the exos, and while they can take some hits, exoskeletons will most certainly fail if a single motor is damaged. This is offset by their modularity, meaning we can easily replace a part out of combat, but if you're P90 with her tendency to run around at Mach 5, you most certainly don't want it to fail in the heat of battle."

Morgan chuckles at the sudden jab toward Echelon 1's squirrel. "I figure that this happens quite often?"

HiPer dryly says. "You have no idea, Morgan. Thankfully, there's a quick-purge function on an Exo, allowing you to quickly discard it when damaged. Nevertheless, I was forced to take the unenviable task of patching up P90's broken exo so many times that I can just do it with my eyes close." HiPer sighed before adding. "But in my opinion, the glaring issue about an exo is that power management for it is a pain. P90 and SCAR-SC tend to purge them frequently in maneuver combat just because they run out of juice. And if they power an exo by their own frame, their staying power in combat will be drastically reduced."

Morgon nods, seeing the obvious limitations. "What's the percentage of power increase for an exo?"

HiPer answers with a thoughtful expression. "This is depending on the model and type of exoskeleton. Generalist models improve the all-around physical ability of us Dolls by 13-20%. While mobility models like what SCAR-SC and P90 use can improve their overall agility by 35-60%. There are even more specialized versions that are used by shotgun T-Dolls. These focus on increasing the wearers' strength, have slots for additional armor plates, supplies, and shields, turning them shotgun T-Dolls into walking tanks at the trade-off of mobility. On a side note, there are human-compatible exo but they're more simplistic in design and only improve the wearer's ability by around 5%."

Morgan nods, having received the run-down versions of the gears. In a way, they're like the first few prototypes of the Raven armor. Cheaper, and more easily mass-produced, but have harsh drawbacks. Still, Morgan can learn a few things from them all the same. "Alright, I have a general layout on what to do with your equipment. I will have to trouble you to get me the schematics for these gears so that I can work my magic on them with precision. Heck, if I have the time, I will try to work on the armor plates too, and see if I can slim them down without compromising the protection. By the end of this morning, I should be able to fit you all with the improved gears. By then, just tell me if anything needs a bit of tweaking. If we work fast on the auxiliary stuff, you will have more time to familiarise yourself with them." Morgan finished her speech with an excited smile, eager to get to work.

Being a mechanical expert herself, HiPer is also sporting an exciting grin as she skips away to grab the blueprints for Morgan. The pair then immediately dives headfirst into upgrading, at first, just a few pieces of equipment of Echelon 1. But then somewhere along the way, they go on an upgrading spree and try to improve everything, and I mean everything that Echelon 1 will use in the field. Even SCAR-SC's spare tactical visor isn't spared from their meddling.

At the very least, all of them turn out better than before... Maybe?