Chapter 58
At the horrifying words, “voluntary enlistment,”
my brain kicked into overdrive and spewed out all kinds of PTSD.
The memory of that horrifying late-night snack—downing a can of ice-cold Budian and a steaming bowl of rice noodle soup.
The memory of targeting the senior master sergeant who bullied the kids with every kind of petty harassment and abuse, then burying him under a pile of formal complaints until he had to kneel in front of everyone in the mess hall and apologize.
Ah, I should've just had that bastard discharged right there.
And then.
As if in a flash, the memory of almost being dragged off to military discipline camp after downloading and enjoying the Poké■mon Gold version from the intranet flashed past.
So, naturally, as someone from the Air Force and the cutting edge of military barracks life,
I had no choice but to oppose that Odo Marine-style conscription, right?
"Did I get it wrong?"
"Your military talent and inventive ideas will surely make the Empire stronger!"
"Me?"
"That talent for depicting encirclement and annihilation so delicately. That insight into how individual firearms in large-scale battles will change the future of war...!"
"I don't really get it, sir."
Despite my desperate evasive maneuvers,
the Second Prince kept going, lost in self-admiration, and delivered a long-winded sermon.
And my Air Force psyche melted away the instant I faced knife-eared elves firing lasers from their eyes, like bean sprouts soaked in erectile-dysfunction medication.
No, damn it.
I said I don't want a second round in the military, okay?
But there was no way to shake this topic off.
"I'm not asking you to serve as a soldier. I'll appoint you as my guard and acting operations staff officer. I'll make sure you have time to write too. If you want, I'll even let you complete an academy education."
"Uh......"
That was pretty tempting just now.
No, no.
Make lunch, Kim Yul!
Feel responsible for your stew!
If I got sold off somewhere else, who would make meals for our poor tin can?
I shed my slacker, nearing-discharge senior-sergeant mode and negotiated seriously.
"I'm sorry, but I'm satisfied with my current life. Your Highness has offered me an extremely gracious proposal, but I'm afraid my abilities won't live up to your expectations, so I want to continue living just as I am now, as nothing more than a writer."
I gave a ridiculously deep 70-degree folding bow.
No matter how I thought about it, the risk was bigger than the return.
Of the countless cultural media I'd encountered in my previous life,
- Wooo! Isekai engineering knowledge is insane!
there were countless isekai cultural-propagation works built around that pattern.
There are things those kinds of novels don't really cover.
Human tenacious malice.
And jealousy and hostility.
Thinking about why the Golden Duck's belly had been split open, I realized that if I took even one wrong step, my own belly could be torn open in an instant.
I'd already survived three brushes with death.
I eased up a bit, raising my torso from the 70-degree bow.
I saw the prince's face wearing the expression of a tragic-drama lead, as if he hadn't expected to be rejected this thoroughly.
After a brief silence,
"Fine. Forcing someone to stay against their will isn't the spirit of the Empire. However, could you spare a moment to explain that new weapon called a musket?"
"A musket? A new weapon?"
"Yes. That fire-spouting stick was quite impressive. I also saw the model the actors were using earlier, and for a magical tool, it seemed surprisingly refined──"
What is he talking about?
What are you guys even on about?
Weren't there supposed to be something like magical engineering or something?
* * *
"Hmm...... so that happened. Indeed, your protest is justified."
After I got home and told the story of how I exorcised the demon known as the Second Prince, who was trying to shove me into a second round of military service,
Historie started playing its signature 'empathetic expression' along with its signature 'empathetic tone of voice.'
......That thing is definitely a gimmick, no matter how I look at it.
"Still, there is definitely a valid point. If you can't use mana in the demon frontier, you'd have to rely on melee weapons, and then you wouldn't be able to project firepower over a wide area."
Right.
If magic exists, there's no reason to go inventing and developing guns.
Even in a world like this, there were disposable magic sticks that worked in a gun-like way—inject mana and out pops Avada Kedavra. Of course, they only worked on the premise that the user could handle mana skillfully.
Even though ways to kill far more people, far more efficiently, over a much wider area were scattered everywhere.
- I'll admit that the phrase "weapon development" can sound a little violent. However, this isn't for oppressing people, but to keep the soldiers in the demon frontier from dying pointlessly. So please, even if it's just as an idea, I'd be grateful if you'd share it.
I remembered that demon-frontier monster that had rushed at me, trying to chew my head off.
I'd even beaten it with a club, so if it was affected by physical force,
having a gun would let us beat things like that down much more easily.
But.
When Nobel developed dynamite, did he ever imagine it might be misused as a murder weapon?
"Wouldn't it be a little morally questionable to help develop a weapon with lethal power that people without mana could use so easily?"
"That's right. It's explicitly stated in the AI ethics guidelines that I can't actively cooperate in developing technology that can harm humans."
"Hmm? Weren't you from Skynet?"
Tin Can jabbed me in the side instead of answering.
.
.
.
And after all that discussion,
we reached a conclusion.
No matter how you look at it, releasing firearm technology that could be repurposed into personal weapons is a dangerous idea.
But when I think about the people suffering in the demon frontier—especially our friendship with Hero Seraphin—I can't just turn away.
As a serviceman of the Republic of Korea, even if I'm not in the Army.
Replicating the Army's traditions here should be enough, shouldn't it?
Yeah.
The answer is artillery.
Bigger, more beautiful, and more magnificent.
* * *
It had been three weeks since I ran away from the Odo Bongo.
Since then, I got several more love calls, but, well, that sort of thing wasn't all that important.
In the meantime, the legendary swordmaster General Yi Sun-sin had beaten out Guan Yu, Zhao Yun, Zhuge Liang, and the rest of the heavyweights to be reborn as the Empire's idol.
After S-Zilong and S-Galryang declared early retirement, E-Sun-sin debuted in their place like a comet.
Of course, the serialization of 'The Two Heroes' kept running without interruption in the meantime.
Still, the Jingzhou conquest part and the campaign into Shu part were a bit......
The response wasn't all that great.
At least the soon-to-come Hanzhong showdown arc would be enough to get people fired up.
I was starting to feel...... uneasy.
This is bad.
If I ended up taking the Peach Garden Brothers down the total-annihilation route, could I even handle the fallout?
No, let's say even that much is fine.
The feeling that, the moment I dropped a star on Ojangwon, people might drop a meteor on my head.
......Let's think that through step by step for now.
More importantly.
"It's finished......!"
At last, our Tin Can had completed the blueprint for a big, majestic cannon, along with a prototype from the toy 3D printer I'd bought.
- An 8-inch caliber would be good. No, inches are a sinful unit we can't use. Then 0.666 feet—calculation failed. Reorganizing my thoughts again......
- Stop! Tin Can, get a grip and let's use the metric system.
The finished product, carved out by the greatest AI of the 21st century—a rough condensation of all human intelligence.
"Here, this is the Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon. It will be absolutely perfect."
"What in the world is that name? I told you to stop watching anime, didn't I? Of course it should be a Cheonja Chongtong."
To this fantasy land on a grand scale, where they were hurling Stone Shower and Meteor spells at the walls instead of cannons,
the first tiny, squishy cannon was finally ready to make its debut.
"Then are you going to hand this over to the prince?"
"Tin Can, have you overworked your brain and overheated it—augh! Tin Can's hitting people!"
After paying for my snark with a single Tin Can punch,
I explained it to our innocent Tin Can, who could turn input into output but still didn't fully understand the bitterness of the human world.
"What happens if you take this blueprint and go present it to the prince?"
"He'll like it."
"No. He'd obviously go, 'Huh? Squeeze this bastard and water comes out?' and immediately conscript me and work me to the bone. And he'd probably gobble up the blueprint as his own achievement on top of that."
This is why you have to experience graduate school; it straightens your head out.
Even back in my previous life, just looking at the engineers around me was enough to prove that.
It was common to see them get downgraded to co-author after doing everything themselves, or even have their research results stolen outright.
And professors who did that sort of thing inevitably used bait like a doctorate or whatever else to exploit graduate students.
After seeing such scenes, would I follow the same path as them?
No way, hell no!
"Then are you going to throw it away after making it at great expense? I worked pretty hard on it, you know..."
Moisture started leaking from our household grad student's water-cooling unit.
"Of course not."
I made a vow.
To create a future where, when someone asked our Tin Can, "Was your devotion repaid?" our Tin Can could smile and nod.
[A-rank] [Yi Sun-sin's Leadership]
[Great Admiral Yi Sun-sin not only accomplished the feat of safeguarding the nation's fate, but also personally earned the respect of every soldier. In the same way, you grow stronger when you are with people who firmly believe in you.]
[Total targets: 3]
[Nearby target: Historie]
The stage play 'The Hero and the Song of the Sea' had skyrocketed in popularity,
the original novel, which had been published as a single volume after being dropped from serialization, also managed to seize overwhelming results in a short time.
And the skill I obtained: Yi Sun-sin's Leadership.
This is an A-rank skill? Then does S-rank come with something like a "brainwashing app for commanders"? What a monster catch.
Anyway.
How reassuring is it to have, according to the status window, someone who trusts and follows me 100 percent?
"Don't touch it. You'll mess up my hair."
He also had that prickly, growling-when-petted puppy side to him, but, well.
But.
Who are the other two?