Chapter 106 - The assassin builds a communication network
Translator: VALIANT
Maha’s voice emerged from the large communication device.
『I’m so deeply moved. After 2 years of hard labor, it’s finally complete. When you first told me about it, Lugh-niisan, I didn’t think it would be possible.』(Maha)
[Yeah, I guess. But now we have a communication network that connects all the main bases.] (Lugh)
『Indeed. Orna is going to be invincible. And I will be able to support you more than ever, Lugh-niisan.』(Maha)
It really did take a long time.
There had been many obstacles in completing this communication network, and we patiently solved each one of them.
I also made use of this experiment to hear Maha about the results of a survey I asked her to do on Orna’s trends.
Yes. No problem with the audio quality either.
If I had to name one fault in it, it’d be the short lag caused by the transmission distance. But that was within the acceptable limits.
『Also, is it just me or do I hear the voice of a girl I don’t know coming from behind you? Not only that, but I have the impression that she’s quite the beauty and holds special feelings for you… Fufufu… So while I did my best for you to the point of nearly overworking myself to death, you found yourself a new girlfriend? It’s so funny my heart might break.』(Maha)
We ended the call with that private conversation.
That was scary. The scary part was that she hung up the phone without even listening to my excuses, and not in anger, but in an awfully exhausted voice.
I should go visit her sometime.
I make unreasonable demands on her all the time.
When the call ended, Nevan came at me as if she was going to bite me.
[U-Um…! Was she really talking from Milteu!? But there’s less than 400 km between here and there. Could it be that… you’re actually playing a prank on us? There isn’t a girl hiding inside that box, is there?] (Nevan)
[I wouldn’t do something so stupid. Her voice really did come from 400 km away.] (Lugh)
Nevan was at loss for words.
This went beyond just spreading one’s voice on the battlefield, it could downright connect everyone in the whole country.
There was no way she wouldn’t understand what that meant.
Information had its degree of freshness.
If you had a constant grasp of the market price in each city, you could amass a huge fortune just by distributing products from right to left. The reason why not everyone was able to do that was because transmitting information took time, and by the time the goods were purchased and delivered, the market price would have changed, or they would be competing with others who were thinking of doing something similar.
But with this communication network, it would be possible to deliver the products before the market prices changed. In other words, even a monkey could turn in a profit.
And it didn’t only provide business advantages.
In every area, including politics and military affairs, we could start making our moves a few days earlier than those who had no communication networks.
If we could take actions a few days earlier, then we would always be one step ahead of them.
There was nothing that connected the people of this world to each other.
The further apart they were, the more time it took to share information. And in the midst of all this, only this was connected to the rest of the world and acting as if it were a single organism.
This was the kind of invention that would reshape the world as we knew it.
[…If you made full use of this invention, you could take over the world.] (Nevan)
[If I wanted to, yeah. But as I said earlier, I have no intention of doing anything like that. This is merely a tool to improve my information network.] (Lugh)
Aside from a few uses in Orna’s business, I intended to only use it as a means of communication.
[Um, so how did you make it possible to communicate from so far away?] (Tarte)
[Ah! I was wondering the same thing. Despite its size, it only has a maximum range of 2 km, right? Then how did it suddenly become 200 times more efficient than that?] (Dia)
Tarte and Dia, who didn’t realize the value of this device as well as Nevan did, apparently recovered more quickly from the shock.
They asked me a legitimate question.
[What I used earlier was wireless communication, but this box can also provide wired communication. It has a cable attached to it. And the signals travel along it. That’s how they can be transmitted over much longer distances than without a cable.] (Lugh)
[But I don’t see any cable.] (Dia)
[Because it’s underground.] (Lugh)
And that’s why it took 2 years to build this communication network.
[But… Isn’t that worrisome? If the cable gets cut off, then the network will be out of order.] (Tarte)
[You’re right. That’s why I made it so they couldn’t be cut. Here’s a genuine cable. This is what connects those huge communication devices together.] (Lugh)
I took out a communication cable from my【Leather Crane Bag】.
[It’s pretty thick, isn’t it? It’s even thicker than my thigh.] (Tarte)
[The part that’s actually used for communication is pretty thin, but the material that protects it is thick. Let me show you how tough it is. Use your knife to slash it with all your might. You can use your mana to enhance it if you want.] (Lugh)
[W… Well then… I’ll give it a try!] (Tarte)
As I held the cable with both hands to stretch it, Tarte slashed at it.
I felt the tremendous impact of her mana-enhanced heavy blow.
The knife she wielded was a magic sword made of a special alloy I had created.
Her blow could’ve even sliced a steel plate.
However…
[No way… I can’t cut it.] (Tarte)
[Exactly. It can even withstand a mana- enhanced attack from you. Also, it’s supple enough to bend like this, so it won’t snap. This thing was buried at least 5 m deep underground. Cutting it is not easy, and even if it did get cut, I have a safe solution for that.] (Lugh)
[I’m curious to know. Tell us.] (Dia)
[The main bases have a redundant configuration with two routes between them, so even if one route is cut off, the signal will still arrive from the other one.] (Lugh)
I had decided on Milteu and Tuatha Dé as the main bases, between which there were two routes : one in the East, and one in the West.
[Wait a minute. If you speak about main bases, that means there are regular bases too, right?] (Dia)
[Of course. In total, there are 20 locations where the communication devices have been installed. They’ve already been installed in all the major cities of the country.] (Lugh)
[Um, so what you mean is… If we speak a message from one of those 20 bases, we can send it to any of the others?] (Dia)
[That’s right.] (Lugh)
That’s why it was called a communication “network”.
Normally, whether it was wired or not, the maximum transmission distance was about 80 km.
Therefore, the maximum distance between the bases was limited to about 80 kilometers, and once the communication reached one of the bases, the signal was amplified again and sent to the next base, making it possible to communicate over hundreds of kilometers.
We had prepared two routes in case a cable was cut, but also in case a base was destroyed.
[That’s on such a large scale. No wonder it took you 2 years to build it.] (Dia)
[The scale of this project was a factor, but the fact that it had to be done in secret was also a factor in why it took so long to finish it. And it’s not like we could’ve hired any average workers, we needed a number of mages who could use earth magic. It took 40% of Orna’s total assets to build this communication network.] (Lugh)
[U-Um… 40% of Orna’s wealth is enough to easily afford a castle, isn’t it?] (Tarte)
Mages who were willing to do your dirty work, and furthermore capable of keeping a secret, weren’t easy to come by, and in the eventuality that you did find them, they would charge you an absurdly high price.
In spite of having built the phone lines and the equipment myself, the amount of money that was blown off was mostly labor costs and bribes to get the authorities to turn a blind eye to our activities.
[Yikes…! That’s mind-bogglingly pricey.] (Dia)
[It was awfully expensive, but that’s not a problem. As long as the communication network is complete, we can earn it all back in two months.] (Lugh)
This wasn’t wishful thinking, but the minimum amount of money we could earn at worst.
My calculations proved that we could make more than that.
If Orna was the only one capable of real-time communication, then it would be easy to achieve.
[…I am astonished that you would show this to me. Romanlung would destroy a city or two to acquire such a creation, you know?] (Nevan)
[I know you wouldn’t use force, because you think I’m worth even more than that, right? Wouldn’t you like to see what else I can come up with?] (Lugh)
[Fufufu! Like the goose that lays the golden eggs, is it? …Very well, I shall keep this to myself. I truly can’t get enough of being by your side.] (Nevan)
Nevan giggled.
Then she began to mutter and ponder how to make the best use of this communication network.
[Also, I was wondering, but earlier, you were giving us advice from here via radio communication as we were flying in the sky, right? Would it be possible for, you know, the information to be transmitted from a different base to this box through the cable, and then wirelessly from this box to our portable devices?] (Dia)
[You’re really perceptive. And you’re absolutely right. It also works the other way around. Although the portable devices only have a range of 100 m, they can be used to send information to the other bases.] (Lugh)
I didn’t think Dia would notice it. I made use of both the wired and the wireless functions for this kind of operation.
By using a large wired device as the center and sending information to nearby wireless portable devices all at once, there was no need to be at a different base to receive communications, and vice versa.
This system was the same as the one used for cell phones back in my former world.
I made it like this partly because it was convenient, but also because I didn’t want to disclose the location of the communication devices to my operatives at all the various bases.
I only gave them the portable units, while I kept the existence of the main units a secret from them. I didn’t tell them that I had developed them, I told them that they were sacred treasures I had discovered.
The only thing they understood was that if they used the portable units in specific locations, they could communicate with all the other bases. They didn’t even know about the main units.
In the hypothesis that they betrayed us, their assumption that those were sacred treasures wouldn’t be much of a big problem, and if they stole the portable units, none of what they could do with them would matter.
Even if we selected the most trustworthy people to be our operatives, we had to be careful with them.
[Fueh…! That’s incredible.] (Tarte)
[And that’s why you must keep your communicators on at all times from now on. As long as you have them, you can spread your voice from anywhere in numerous cities. And even if you’re absent when a transmission comes in, you’ll be able to listen to all the transmissions of the day later.] (Lugh)
[Yes! I will treasure it!] (Tarte)
[Wow, I’d better not lose it.] (Dia)
[I will never let go of it.] (Nevan)
The three of them held their portable devices with great care.
I should teach them how to use them later.
There were channels for communication, and each one of them had its own purpose.
I set the girls’ phones to receive only transmissions from the channel I used for my private use.
[Well, that’s the end of my experiment. Now let’s go home.] (Lugh)
[Ah! I’ll fly home with my hang-glider.] (Dia)
[I will do the same as well. After all, I won’t need to carry it on the way home if I use it to go back.] (Nevan)
[Suit yourselves.] (Lugh)
Apparently, they had taken a real liking to their hang-gliders.
I watched them fly away.
As I did so, my own phone rang.
It was set on the channel used by my operatives based in the royal capital.
I listened until they finished their report.
[Um, Lugh-sama… You’re making a really scary face.] (Tarte)
When Tarte saw me, she was frightened.
[Sorry. I just received some bad news. …My communication network came in handy real quick. If I had gotten that information only three days later, it would’ve been too late. The jealousy of aristocracy is inexcusably unsightly.] (Lugh)
Real-time information was truly mighty.
Investing in it was not a mistake by any standards.
I think I’ll take advantage of the fact that I got the information early and take them by surprise.
With the kind of swiftness that those guys from the royal capital could never imagine.