Chapter 2: The Kingdom’s Secret Weapon (1)

The middle of the 2nd month, 1,547th year, Continental Calendar

"Ohh! Why Your Majesty, welcome and thank you for gracing us with your

presence."

When I passed through the door into the Jewel Voice Broadcast studio that we

had set up in the castle, a well-built middle-aged nobleman welcomed me with an

exaggerated flourish.

This was Moltov Juniro, the father of Ivan Juniro, who played Silvan, the Kingdom

of Friedonia's first tokusatsu hero.

"Hey, Moltov," I said. "How are things going on the program?"

"Sire, we've been doing our best to follow the example you set."

The truth was, the other day, partly because his son's Silvan had become so

popular, I had decided to go all the way and appoint Moltov as the director of

broadcast program production. I'd done that because I wanted to be able to keep the

programs in production even when I was busy.

Moltov, like his son Ivan, had an ability that made it so there was no need for

special effects, so I'd decided that would make him a good pick for the position.

Moltov stroked his beard and said, "Well, this program-making business is

deeper than you might think. There are things the people want to see, things that

they don't want to see, things that we want them to see, things that we don't want

them to see... It's quite difficult to strike a proper balance."

Moltov groaned in consternation.

I was relieved to see him taking his job so seriously. "Do you want to quit?"

"No! I appreciate the challenge!" Moltov responded with a lively smile.

Somehow, I felt that that was a better look for him than when he was trying to

foist his daughter Siena off on me.

On that subject, Siena, who was now appearing alongside her brother Ivan as a

supporting heroine (something similar to **ckle in St**nger), had said with a gentle

smile, "I believe my father has found his purpose in life. There are a limited number

of ways to rise in stature as a noble. You can distinguish yourself in the military or

administration, or you can become a maternal relative of the Royal House. Those

have always been the only ways, so he had been wholeheartedly pursuing them.

However, Your Majesty, you taught my father something: the joy of creating a

broadcast program to entertain the people. Thank you so much."

Sigh... She was such a good daughter, I almost had to doubt she was actually a

blood relative of that boisterous father and son.

Anyway, let's get back on topic.

Like Siena had said, Moltov was enthusiastically working on creating broadcast

programs.

I extended my hand to him. "I have great expectations, Moltov. If you keep

developing your craft, I'm sure eventually I'll be leaving a jewel in your care."

"My word! You'd give me a jewel?!"

"Yeah. I'd want you to use it not for public broadcasts, but to open your own

broadcasting station."

In other words, making him a private broadcaster. If all we had was a public

broadcaster, there were limits to the number of programs that could be produced,

after all. In order to make such a thing happen, there would need to be further

advances in technology, and the appropriate laws would need to be put in place, so it

couldn't happen right away. Still, it was best to start preparing for five, ten years

from now.

Moltov gave a jolly laugh. "You'll be giving me my own independent station, huh!

The dreams are endless!"

"Yeah. So, work hard for it."

"Leave it to me!" Moltov thumped his chest proudly. "By the way, sire, what were

you doing here today?"

"Oh, yeah, that's right. I think Juna was supposed to be around here

somewhere..."

"If you mean Ms. Juna Doma, she is currently shooting the educational program."

Moltov pointed towards the studio.

It just so happened, Juna was currently in the middle of a live broadcast for the

educational program. The song she was currently singing and dancing to was a

children's song from the other world with a slightly Asian style. The way Juna looked

as she danced with the strings wrapped around her sleeves fluttering was just like a

celestial maiden. It made me want to pray, "Close the pathway through the clouds."

Eventually the broadcast came to an end. Juna noticed me and rushed over, still

in her stage outfit. "What's going on, Your Majesty? I didn't think you were planning

to come here today, were you?"

"Well, no, I wasn't, but... I had a favor I wanted to ask of you."

"Of me?" Juna asked.

I nodded. "For about three days, starting tomorrow, I'm going to be away from

the castle to meet with someone. I'd like to have you escort me."

"I don't mind, but... you're leaving the capital unattended for three whole days?"

Juna tilted her head to the side, looking slightly perplexed. "With all due respect,

won't the government's work be impeded by your absence?"

"Oh, that should be fine. That thing I had Genia developing is complete now."

"What... am I supposed to say...?" Juna was at a loss for words.

I had waited for Juna to get changed, then we'd gone to the office. Now she was

looking at the thing I had been talking about.

Yeah... I could understand.

I had put in an order with Ludwin's fiancée and self-proclaimed "overscientist,"

Genia Maxwell, to have her develop a certain thing for me.

My ability, Living Poltergeists, could imbue objects with a part of my

consciousness; could make them float; and could allow me to see them from an

overhead view; but it was only effective within a range of a hundred meters or so. If I

had a pen doing paperwork in the governmental affairs office, I had to stay within a

one hundred meter radius of it at all times. Because of that, during the time just after

the handover of the throne when things had been really busy, I'd never left the

capital for more than a day unless there was a crisis.

Also, as you already know, this ability's effective range could be ignored if the

target was a doll; but, unfortunately, dolls weren't able to write very well. It was

easy to write when I was controlling the pen directly, but for some reason, it was

unusually hard to do it when I had a doll holding the pen. It was like using a remote

control to operate a robot arm that was holding a pen. It took an awful lot of focus,

and what I wrote still ended up looking like chicken scratch.

I couldn't have messy writing on important documents. There were a lot of

documents where it could cause major problems if they were misread.

In the end, even though dolls negated the range limitation of my ability, that

hadn't changed the situation which was keeping me from leaving the castle for an

extended period of time. I'd known that if I'd had a machine that could write letters,

I could do my work from a distance, and that would let me leave the castle without

worries.

That was around when I'd discovered the highly capable Genia.

She had used dragon bones as a basic frame, combining them with various

mechanical and organic parts to create the mechanical dragon, Mechadra. I'd

figured, Maybe she could create a doll that moves like a human hand.

With that thought in mind, I'd made the order, and just the other day, Factory

Arm #1 (named by yours truly) had been completed.

From the side, it looked like an arm had bizarrely sprouted from an L-shaped

platform. In simple terms, it was like a prosthetic arm or a manipulator. However, it

was strangely realistic and human-like in a way that was creepy and off-putting.

That much was evident from Juna's reaction to seeing the thing.

Oh, Genia, why did you have to make it so realistic?

Well, I'd experimented with using Living Poltergeists to control Factory Arm #1.

The artificial arm moved smoothly, grasping the pen and writing letters on a piece of

paper.

...It was twice as creepy in motion. So this was the "uncanny valley," huh?

"When the bureaucrats see this thing doing work, they're always scared stiff," I

said. "Oh, and when the maids bring tea, they often scream and faint."

"I completely understand how they feel." Even Juna's smile was twitching a little

as she said that. It did look like something out of a horror story, after all.

"In any event, now that I can have Factory Arm #1 do work for me, I'm able to

travel outside the capital," I said. "I'm already having a number of them made."

"Having a whole bunch of them moving... I don't even want to imagine what that

looks like," Juna said sounding apologetic, but I agreed with her.

The arm dolls, in an empty room, writing endlessly. Even imagining it was

grinding away at my SAN stat.

Juna shook her head, trying to put the image out of her mind so she could get

things back on track. "But, sire, why do you want to have me with you as your

partner? Wouldn't the princess, Aisha, or Roroa do just as well?"

"Hmm... Considering who I'm dealing with this time, I want you to lend me your

strength," I said. "I think for the others... they'd be no match for her."

"Her? Who are you talking about?"

"National Defense Force Commander Excel Walter."

"...I see. Grandmother, huh? That's why you want me."

Juna seemed satisfied with that explanation. However, she soon cocked her head

to the side quizzically.

"But, sire, Grandmother has been your ally all along, hasn't she? When you say

they'd be no match for her, is there some reason you would be taking a stance

against her?"

When I saw the worried look on Juna's face, I said, "Oh, that's not it," and shook

my head. "The reason we're leaving the capital for three days is to survey the

progress on a project I've had Excel working on; but aside from that... I've heard that

Marx recently made contact with Excel."

"The chamberlain? Now why would he do that...? Was it for something

important?"

"Oh, no, nothing that important. He didn't seem to be making any secret of it. He

was just getting her advice on some things, but... it's what he was getting advice

about that worries me..."

"...And what do you think he was getting advice about?"

"It seems... it had something to do with a 'sexual instructor' for me."

The moment I said that, Juna winced a little.

Sexual instructors were a custom of the upper classes in this country. (The

knights, the nobility, and higher.) When a man came of age, an "experienced woman"

would be dispatched. To ensure that he wouldn't embarrass himself when he took a

wife, she would teach him, well... "bedroom etiquette," and other such things.

It was standard for those lessons to be taught at a desk like a health and physical

education class, but there were some houses that included "hands-on learning."

I scratched my head awkwardly. "I'm turning twenty this year, and I've got

beauties like Liscia, Aisha, and you by my side. I guess they thought that, as a healthy

young man, if they just left us alone, I'd lay my hands on at least one of you

eventually, so it never came up before. But because I've taken so long, Marx has

gotten impatient, and he's been saying that maybe some education is needed. It

seems Hakuya agreed with him on that."

"I see... So that's what it was." Juna nodded, her expression still twitching.

This country's Royal House was on the verge of extinction due to the succession

crisis that had broken out upon the death of the king before the last one, so Marx

was always badgering me to "hurry and produce an heir." While the wedding had yet

to take place, I was already betrothed to Liscia and the others, so it apparently didn't

count as premarital sexual relations in his mind. That was how bad the shortage of

royals in this country was.