Chapter 138
Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth
Dungeon Factory, Command Center
Alexandra frowned as she looked at the replay footage of the royal cobra golems. She had just hosted a series of full-scale military exercises on the third floor, mainly using her now obsolete musket and pike units, not to mention the crossbows—who, while technically obsolete, were still being manufactured for the second floor and thus would remain part of her army for a long time to come, even if only as emergency levies—and the results were…interesting. Disappointing, but interesting.
“You know, I’m not sure spellcasters will be that effective on the battlefield. I mean, they are, but they don’t have…”
“Sustained firepower?” Emilia said, before taking a sip of her iced tea. Alexandra had found a way to replicate the delicacy, and it turned out that the vampire girl had become an instant fan. As in “Darling, always have some ready or I’m going to poke you until you make some” fan. Ella found that absolutely hilarious for some reason, and Sarah was too busy sneaking some of it away for her own use to say anything. “That’s usual for most lower-level mages. And your version of mages is even worse because, well…”
“To make the runes be able to survive casting several spells, I need to make them so expensive the golem stops being cost-efficient. In a full-scale battle, at least.”
“Yep. But it’s more of a systemic problem, really. Notice how all the mages in the Republic’s army were on support and defense, outside of the war mages?” Alexandra nodded. “That’s the standard configuration. First off, because there are simply not many mages in most armies. They’re too rare and it doesn’t pay well. Most of them are probably there for a specific reason. Access to magic universities, which yes, some states like the Republic gate behind political favors or military service, criminal sentence reduction, or even just outright conscription. Second, in combat they’re always kept in reserve as they’re the best at providing an opening. Tanks, artillery, or even airships have got nothing on a company of pissed-off mages when it comes to providing a breakthrough in the frontlines or busting down a fortress wall. But…”
“They’ll only be able to do it once.”
“Yeah. Or a couple of times, at most. War mages have spells that are more sustainable, but it basically turns them into glorified artillery. Not that much different in firepower and effect than enchanted cannons.”
“Reminds me I need to make some of those.”
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“Right. And thirdly, well, quite simply mages can be used more effectively as a force multiplier than as a blunt instrument. Most nations have artillery, and other ways of making big booms. But deflecting incoming cannon shots, healing wounded soldiers in seconds, projecting shields, and all that? Far more complicated.”
“Didn’t seem to have worked out that well for the Republic.”
“You’d be surprised. With mages assisting they took your howitzer bombardment like it was nothing. In fact, had they been ready for a mass rocket attack I think half of their army would have survived, instead of the, what, twenty percent that did? Because if the mages had been ready they would have been able to save the edge formations. It would have been ugly but I think they’d have done it.”
“Huh. That’s good to know. And something to keep in mind. I really should start working on stuff like that for my forces, shouldn’t I?”
“Yes. I think you haven’t because you’re very focused on what you ‘know’ is warfare. You can think up remarkably good things when it comes to dungeons, probably because of your board games and ‘video games,’ which you still need to replicate for me by the way, but when it comes to field battles that kind of breaks down. Which is a major weakness; it’s your blind spot. Raw firepower and, what did you call them? Conventional tactics? Will carry you far but they won’t win you this war.”
Alexandra blinked, and then smiled at her advisor.
“Which is precisely why I got you and the maids! To kick my magnificent butt when I’m being too obtuse or blind about it!”
“We do far more than kick your butt.” Emilia shook her head. “Regardless. It’s something to keep in mind.”
“Right.” Alexandra blinked. “Also, what did you mean by ‘There are not that many mages in most armies?’ Most adventuring parties have a ton. Relatively, I mean.”
“Because there really aren’t that many to go around, and the army is hardly competitive in terms of salary. Adventurers are the opposite side of this, they have way too many mages.”
“Why?”
“Think about it, Alex. Mana is literally the world’s currency. Mages use actual, literal money to power their spells. For most civilians that’s devastating. But in a dungeon, where you regenerate your mana like crazy? Piece of cake. It’s part of why so many mages are in town as well. It’s paradise for them. Right now the town has to be starting to seriously drain the mage population of both Darthar and Erakis, and hell, the border provinces on both sides!”
“Oh. Right, that makes sense. I guess I never really thought of it, because…well, you know…”
“When you were an adventurer, you were a literal infinite source of mana on your own? Yeah, not surprising. Speaking of infinite sources…The NLR core?”
“Hidden away, in the core citadel. I still don’t trust this thing as far as I can throw the third floor’s ziggurat.”
“That bad?”
“You heard the adjudicator. A fucking angel of the God of Fire was interested in the damned thing. And weren’t wars fought over these things?”
“And wars were fought over dungeons. Shit, one is being fought over you right now.”
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“I am aware. But I also know to avoid advertising my strength unless I have something to gain from it, and to avoid painting a target on my back.”
“I suppose that’s fair. Still, what are you going to do with it?”
“Try to use it. Right now it’s just flooding the space it’s in with mana. I’m trying to find a way to link it to my core, but there seem to be…protections against outside tampering and mana transfers. Which is weird.”
“Dungeon cores were made to avoid being used as personal power-ups. Otherwise, every archon or other extremely powerful individual would just steal dungeon cores, jam them in their bodies, and use you as a portable power core.”
“That would be hilarious. Weird, but hilarious. Then I’d be like Cortana, constantly sassing them.” Alexandra blinked. “Wait, can you do the same with NLR cores?”
“In theory? Yes. In practice? Whatever powers these things…bends magic, so to speak. It’s not a good idea to put it close to a person’s core, and the more output the NLR has, the weirder things get.”
“Right, it plateaus.” Alexandra grimaced internally. She’d read the user’s manual Seraph had provided, as well as one sourced from Emilia’s family. Since the servants of the God of Fire already knew she had the damned thing, might as well get some help. They had differences but the manuals said essentially the same thing. The core operated in “plateaus,” or tiers. Give it a gigantic amount of mana, and bam, the core “spun up” and reached another tier, and suddenly produced ten times more energy, until someone shut it down and it went back down to zero. “The fact that it’s not adjustable does not bode well.”
“Why?”
“The only other tech that I know that worked like that were the reactors we used to power the freaking Dawnstars. They were less fusion reactors and more literal pocket stars hyper-compressed by gravity generators and barely held in check. If you lost containment…well, you were suddenly at ground zero for a gigatons range nuclear explosion.”
“And it worked in the same way?”
“Yeah. The containment fields had efficiency plateaus. Go out of them and they started taking more power than the reactor made. So you could only run the reactor at specific powers, and it took a giant pile of energy to keep the system running while you spun up to another, higher plateau. Or spin down to a lower one for that matter. Which is rather the problem here. It’s the same damned thing! Which is concerning.”
“I don’t think it uses fusion.”
“No, it probably doesn’t. But I was on the team that made the first antimatter reactor.” And she’d thought she’d gotten the job because she was sleeping with Arcadia and the AI wanted someone she could trust there. Given that she’d already been part of the mad AI’s gestalt at that point, she probably wanted her “own” hands in the pie even further. “Even if only peripherally.” Mainly to look into the feasibility of using them for the Dawnstars, which had been a resounding “no.” Too expensive, and clearly unstable enough that they were at least several decades from anyone being willing to use them as a power plant, much less one aboard a warship that was going to be shot at! “And it’s a problem all high-energy reactors have. Which tells me that this thing is basically a giant bomb.”
“Well…it’s a giant bomb that doesn’t go off much?”
“Much?”
“There have been…rumors about what happened to some destroyed NLR cores. But few people have actually managed to pierce them. They are extraordinarily resilient.”
“As in vampire resilient or…?”
“Much, much more than that. We are relatively fragile. We are, after all, based on feeble human flesh.”
Alexandra chuckled as Emilia gave her best sneer, which was kind of cute on the vampire girl, taking a sip of her hot cocoa—iced tea wasn't really up her alley, though she didn't dislike the stuff per se—grimacing as she found it cold, and quickly swapping the liquid for a piping hot one.
“Well, I guess it’s good I am a dungeon core, with an avatar made and sustained by sheer mana!”
“Yes. Yes it is.” Emilia smiled mischievously. “At least it’ll allow you to keep up in bed…maybe.”
Alexandra spit out the sip of hot chocolate she’d just taken, and coughed, more by reflex than anything, as her advisor burst out laughing.
“Damn it! Emi, what the fuck?”
“It’s so fun to tease you! Well…” The vampire girl looked at her frankly. “For some kinds of teasing, of course.”
Alexandra froze like a deer in headlights.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Honey, you are technically my wife in all but name, and I am getting extremely tired of my relatives making innuendos or saying how great sex is without having experienced it for myself. With you, at least.”
“With me?”
“I had…adventures early on. But still, it has been a very long while and I, at last, am growing weary.”
“Your mother will kill me.”
“My mother will do no such thing, because despite her antics she does want grandkids and has been doting on CQ whenever she could and she thought I wouldn’t catch her, even if only by ordering Sarah and Ella to do it by proxy, and she wants me happy and wishes me well.”
“She almost threatened me.”
“Yes, because she was afraid for my life—rightfully, mind you, given what the core thieves almost managed—and feared that you might not be able to protect me. You’ve…amply demonstrated that anyone who even so much as touches my hair is getting a one-way ticket to the deepest hell you could find. I mean hell, you killed an entire army for me.” Alexandra winced internally. That wasn’t entirely true, but protecting her advisor and de facto wife had been part of the reasoning. “So yes, once you’re less stressed, and not so worried about rescuing your adventuring friends, I’m having you make a bedroom, hand everything over to our subordinates, and you and I won’t leave it for…a week, yes, a solid week would be a good start.”
“A week?!? A ‘good start’?!?” Alexandra almost shrieked.
Emilia smiled innocently as she took a sip of her iced tea.
“Well, we both have superhuman endurance. And I am nothing if not an ample reader. There are very good books on the subject, you know. And they have a great many ideas.”
“Ideas in pornography are generally bad ones. They’re for show, not for real.”
“My siblings beg to differ.” Alexandra blinked. The vampire girl rarely mentioned her own siblings. Which was odd, because the Earth-born knew she had a lot. But then again, they had huge age differences, thanks to their parents being effectively immortal. “Besides, I have found something absolutely fascinating, which I will need…specialist equipment for. I believe the term comes from Earth, and it’s called bondage?”
Alexandra took a step back and licked her lips, wondering if it was too late to run away to someplace else on the planet. Or solar system. Or, hell, galaxy!
Emilia giggled.
“Relax, I’m not going to do anything to you unless you want me to. Just like you wouldn’t do anything to me without my approval.”
Alexandra sighed. She was certain the vampire meant it too, her other self’s objections notwithstanding. As soon as the apparition had contacted her, she’d gone over everything associated with Emilia when she had the time. The control programs had made her trust the vampire, nothing more. It hadn’t made her love Emilia, just sped up the process by cutting out the period of mistrust the apparition was going through right now. And the advisor seemed genuinely unaware of the control programs; otherwise, she’d have flipped out the second she brought out the railguns. Not to mention she’d have probably ratted her out to the adjudicator for having grabbed Seraph.
“I know, I know. It’s just a bit…”
“Surprising?”
“Well…yes.”
“It really shouldn’t be. I’ve been throwing hints and innuendos your way for over a month. You’re just denser than concrete.”
“Well jeez, thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome. So yes, to make it as explicit as possible, once this present crisis is over and you’re not digging trenches in the command center by pacing back and forth, I am most definitely going to have you make said bedroom, preferably soundproofed, some…marital aids, was it? And specialized equipment if you are comfortable with it, and yes, we’re going to spend a fair amount of time there. Understood?”
Alexandra recognized a “no arguments tone” when she heard it. Besides, despite her initial recoil…well, she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t interested.
“Fine.” She grinned. “But I have experience. Believe me, it’s your funeral.”
“It’s adorable that you really think so.” Emilia gave her a smile that made the Earth-born suddenly a lot less sure of her footing as her legs became all wobbly. “I suppose I’ll have to…correct those assumptions, mmmhhh?”
“R-Right.”
“Good girl.”