Hephaes was unable to say anything for a moment.
His face was still smiling, so naturally, there was no way to know what thoughts were passing behind it.
But one thing was clear.
He was flustered.
“…If you intend to play word games with me, you had best stop, Aizen. I am here as…”
“As the royal palace’s representative. Unfortunately, this is not a word game.”
I spoke quietly as I looked at Hephaes.
“I’ll be frank. At present, not a single Cyclops to be delivered to the royal palace has been completed.”
“I know that four Cyclops have already been completed, and that a fifth is currently under production, Aizen.”
“That’s right. But those are not the Cyclops to be delivered to the royal palace. If anything, they’re for civilian use.”
“You sold weapons that were supposed to be delivered to the royal palace to another noble as you pleased and made a profit from it, did you not?”
Hephaes quietly revealed his bewilderment.
On the other hand, I found myself growing more composed.
“What the fifth Saintess of the Saras Order is buying from me is the preliminary design drafts and preliminary technical drafts limited to the Cyclops. Strictly speaking, they are unfinished products.”
“There is a contract as well.”
Mina was already taking out the contract she had organized at some point.
First, she would invest all the costs required for golem production, and Mina would take the right to sell them, as well as the naming rights—which was a little heartbreaking for me.
Second, as mentioned earlier, what I sold to Mina was strictly a preliminary draft, and Mina had the authority to modify and sell it.
Third, from then on as well, Mina would support me with the costs and materials needed for the development and improvement of next-generation golems, take the sales rights, and then share the profits.
“What the Saintess of the Saras Order is selling is nothing more than something produced after improving what was originally a preliminary draft. And in order to create the completed version to be delivered to the royal family, data from the units produced based on this draft is necessary as well.”
“By that logic, it means you could postpone delivery indefinitely, Aizen.”
“The royal palace has not clearly specified a completion deadline, Mr. Hephaes. There is such a thing as the principle of good faith, and it is a contract with the royal palace, so naturally, I have no intention of putting it off forever.”
…I wasn’t entirely sure whether the principle of good faith existed in this world, and strictly speaking, I was exploiting the contract, but at least by this place’s standards, it wasn’t wrong.
Besides, the royal palace was not exactly in a position to throw its weight around.
The extent of the palace’s investment was sending me to the Academy.
Aside from that, there had not been a single bit of financial support or anything of the sort.
To begin with, they had been satisfied with the Caterpillar Golem alone, so when they wrote the contract, they had probably only been thinking that I would refine it so the Academy could mass-produce Caterpillar Golems.
They hadn’t invested much, and from their perspective, a sufficiently complete product already existed. So they must have thought that even without specifying a deadline, they could simply demand it whenever during my enrollment at the Academy.
And that complacent arrangement had likely been caused by the schemes and restraints of the Avatus Count family, to which the Hephaes before me belonged.
That was why it was a loophole I could exploit.
“…As for the matter of leaking confidential information…”
“Not only was it not researched in an officially supported confidential facility within the Academy, but the part that must remain confidential is my contract with the royal palace, not the golem itself.”
Strictly speaking, the contract I had made with the royal palace was confidential, and the contents said not to disclose its details to outsiders.
The fact that it was only the contract, and not the golem itself, that was confidential—was that because they had been wary of jealous nobles interfering with the plan?
To begin with, it was impossible to complete a golem without revealing it.
“And yet, it seemed the Saintess of the Saras Order knew about it.”
“Am I in a position where I can be held responsible even for what the other party inferred on their own?”
Of course, I was not.
In reality, back then, I had only said that I had a prior arrangement.
Who the other party to that arrangement was had been entirely guessed by Mina at the time.
To begin with, though it was called confidential, it seemed that people connected to the royal palace had all managed to figure it out by their own means, so it would be difficult to start a dispute over responsibility with this.
Even more so because, broadly speaking, everyone likely thought the subject of the contract was the Caterpillar Golem. No one would have imagined that a bipedal weapon called the Cyclops would pop out, so from the other side’s perspective, this part was a smokescreen operation brought about by an absurdly fast development speed.
‘Well, even I didn’t think I’d be able to take the next step in less than a year.’
If one examined it closely, had Mina not supported me, there was a chance the Cyclops would never have come into being.
I’m saying there had been nothing that could be called financial support.
How was I supposed to make a Cyclops without a single coin of research funding?
In a way, one could even say Mina had helped create a better result.
At any rate, I needed to press the point before Hephaes regained his composure.
“Well, that said, I never intended to milk this forever. I was just about to submit the blueprints anyway.”
“You intend to ask the royal palace to wait with a few sketches?”
“They are not sketches, but blueprints. I prepared them precisely because I heard a representative was coming.”
I slightly opened the box I had brought in advance.
Inside were drawings of two Cyclops.
One was the Cyclops Mina had agreed to produce and sell.
The other was…
“This would be the official mass-production Cyclops for delivery to the royal family.”
“There is no difference!”
Hephaes shouted as he compared the two drawings.
No difference?
This was why amateurs were hopeless!
“The inside is different! …My apologies. The greatest feature would be the Overload function.”
“Over…?”
While Hephaes looked puzzled, I clasped my hands together and spoke.
“It is a function that increases mobility, but it is dangerous, so the Cyclops sold to civilians will have that function removed so it cannot be used.”
Judging by the damage my Cyclops had sustained after using Overload, I had thought that putting it into a civilian-use model and selling it would be nothing but selling a dangerous bomb.
Moreover, after testing it a few more times, using Overload placed a heavy burden both magically and physically.
Later, we verified the performance of another Cyclops during Overload, and even Erika, who helped with the testing, could not draw out as much performance as I had.
However, when Erika used Overload, its mobility still rose by about twenty percent in terms of speed alone, so there was a meaningful performance improvement.
If one could endure it, it was powerful enough.
“And if it is the knights of the royal palace, they should be able to endure the load of Overload well enough.”
Knights were masters of combat who had received specialized training.
Even if ordinary people could not endure it, those who had been trained could.
Mina said with a smile,
“The Cyclops used by the royal family will come equipped with that function, so its performance will be superior.”
“In other words, the two machines are separate models with a difference in their core function.”
Their usual specs would actually be identical, but because the core function was different, they had to be considered different.
One might want to say that aside from that, they were exactly the same, but…
“I am the one who made the golem. And naturally, I am also the one who understands it best.”
The one who could clearly determine that difference was none other than me.
And since I was not particularly deceiving anyone and there truly was a difference, even if another expert suddenly appeared, it could be proven.
“Am I wrong?”
I asked Hephaes again.
The handsome middle-aged nobleman, still smiling, said,
“Hoho, it seems you have gotten me.”
He still did not lose his smile.
Only, his hand was trembling slightly.
“…In that case, you can submit the blueprints now. I have come as the royal palace’s representative, after all.”
“They require some review, and I must finish consulting with the Academy professors. The reason the royal palace informed at least the Academy about the contract itself was for situations such as this, was it not? I believe the blueprints will be sent to you through Professor Reina or Professor Iserina.”
Hephaes narrowed his eyes for a moment.
I wondered if his patience had finally reached its limit… but then he was smiling again.
“Let us do that. Then our discussion is over.”
“It is not. Even so, I have brought a new contract proposal for the sake of the royal palace.”
“The royal palace is not a place you can freely trade with at your own discretion. Mind your words and actions.”
The attitude he had shown at first, as if he would accept anything, was gone.
I could clearly tell he was boiling inside.
“This is a matter that will benefit the royal palace.”
“…I will hear it. For now.”
Hephaes waved his hand as if telling me to try speaking.
Then Mina said with a smile,
“Strictly speaking, since Aizen would be mediating and I would be the one trading with the royal palace, I’ll take it from here.”
Hephaes did not answer.
Mina spoke with a smile.
“It’s very simple. The royal palace’s Cyclops—we’ll make them at our merchant company.”
“Not worth hearing.”
Hephaes dismissed it simply.
However, Mina was still in the middle of negotiations.
“Three months’ worth of the kingdom’s operating budget.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you want to save that, then listen.”
Mina crossed her arms.
“You have the Cyclops blueprints and the technology, but how do you intend to produce them?”
“That, of course, Aizen will…”
Hephaes stopped speaking for a moment.
And only then did he realize a simple fact.
“Aizen’s role is design and fabrication. The rights to production belong entirely to the royal palace immediately after delivery.”
In other words, I could not be involved with the royal palace’s Cyclops.
It would be possible if they paid and hired me, though.
Mina continued.
“The Cyclops requires standardized facilities. It also requires land and equipment suited to that. On top of that, it requires materials.”
“Do you think the royal palace cannot manage that?”
“Even if they can, it will take two to three months, so three months’ operating budget will be wasted just producing the first unit. On top of that, without skilled production workers, the chance of defective products will be much higher.”
In short.
If the royal palace produced the Cyclops with only their own power, it would require a considerable amount of time and money.
It was not something that would simply pop out just because they had the blueprints.
“On the other hand, we have skilled artisans, and we already have the land and facilities. We have also secured supply routes for the materials.”
Conversely, since Mina had essentially been with me from the beginning, she had secured all the know-how, equipment, and even the supply routes.
“Contract manufacturing. We can do as much of it as you like.”
This time, Mina smiled.
Hephaes, too, was still smiling, as expected, but…
“…That is not a matter I came here prepared to discuss today, so it would be difficult to give you an easy answer.”
“We’re not in a hurry either, so it’s an offer you can consider at your leisure.”
Hephaes looked at Mina.
Then he rose with a smile as picturesque as a painting.
“It seems my work here is done, so I shall take my leave.”
“We have work to do as well, so we will not see you far out.”
I extended my hand toward Hephaes.
It seemed the culture of handshakes existed here as well.
Hephaes’s expression changed, but he took my hand.
“Have a good day.”
His words felt like a strange curse, as though he was telling me to have a bad day instead.
Hephaes, who said only with his eyes that I should wait and see, left the reception room without looking back.
****
“How was it?”
“So that’s what experience looks like, I suppose.”
I answered Mina’s soft question quietly.
“So that is the Avatus Count family.”
It was the first time I had felt that a gentle face could, in truth, be cold.
I understood why everyone had been cautious. And I had a feeling—something not quite an intuition—that he was probably not even in that important a position within that family.
“I really couldn’t handle politics.”
It meant having to fight opponents like that all the time.
Thinking that I did not want to deal with someone like him again if possible, while at the same time thinking I probably would, I left the reception room with Mina.
“By the way, Aizen. You will explain to me in detail what you meant about removing Overload from the civilian-use model.”
“Ah.”
Professor Reina, the buyer of the civilian-use Cyclops, was smiling brightly as she gripped my shoulder.
When I looked to the side, I realized Mina had also been caught, and the two of us were dragged amicably back into the reception room.