The Hungry Fortress Wants to Build a Battleship in Another World – World of Sandbox

“It seems the Kingdom of Lepuitari is changing its negotiation lineup.”
“Hm?”
The day after the baron-dunking incident.
Lepuitari made contact at once.
“They ask to cancel today’s meeting and resume from tomorrow onward. Also, it appears the navy’s top will move in person, so negotiations may be settled quickly.”
“Wha—so this becomes a top-level summit, then?”
Commander Eve didn’t understand politics and was just saying words that felt right.
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am.”
Ringo saw no particular value in explaining further and let it slide.
“Still—so that Android Communicator is now royalty?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. Proceeding on that basis seemed likely to make future negotiations smoother, so we configured Paraiso as a monarchy. Externally, it will be announced as a kingdom.”
As talks continued, it became necessary to define a national governing structure.
Eve had no interest in the details and had thrown the whole matter to Ringo.
“Fine by me. At present, first-generation units are… sixty?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. All have been assigned appropriate posts. Local-genome variants are also being mass-produced smoothly, so we can maintain national appearances.”
They would never allow invitations into Paraiso’s homeland anyway, so no particular problem there.
Given a few years, they could establish an ironclad regime within the United Kingdom of Aphrasia.
Add the Defense Fleet and Expeditionary Fleet, and you had a proper maritime nation.
Of course, with ground forces also scaling up, they were fully capable of functioning outwardly as a state.
“Looking good. Fortress No. 2 Black Iron has stabilized—can we finally reach into space for real?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. The launch test range will be fully outfitted within one month. Vehicle manufacturing and propellant production facilities are being prepared in parallel, so we should be able to conduct ample launch tests of the spaceplane.”
They had brought Iron Town completely under their umbrella and begun «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» mining the surrounding veins.
With crude oil and natural gas fields secured, supplies of hydrogen and carbon—the reducing agents—were more than sufficient.

Hydrogen could be produced from seawater, but equipment-wise using methane gas as feedstock was easier—and yielded large amounts of carbon besides.
Both elements were excellent reducing agents, useful not only for iron but for extracting other elements as well.
Development of veins across the regions was on track, and prospects for securing massive resources were in hand.
By estimates, in a few months they could construct a practical element-accumulation plant. With that, procuring more useful elements would become easier still.
“It’s nice to develop without constraint. The sea still scares me a bit, though.”
At sea, they were expanding large-scale facilities to process seawater and recover deuterium and tritium. Naturally, these would fuel fusion reactors.
But great swaths of the ocean remained uncharted, and they were allocating substantial force to defense.
Because giant threat organisms might strike at any time, they were arranging for a constant defensive presence.
Accordingly, ocean development was lagging for the moment. Around subsea lodes, exhaustive surveys were underway. If a kaiju attacked after the platforms went live and reduced everything to rubble, the loss would be catastrophic.
They were flooding fish-type bots to weave surveillance nets and building deep-sea-capable strike craft—busy on all fronts.
“Vein development within the United Kingdom of Aphrasia is proceeding smoothly. If we add resources from subsea lodes, productivity will soar.”
With the caveat that everything proceed according to plan, the projected graphs for output and force trended hard upward. Worlds apart from the post-transfer era when the lines scraped along the ground.
“At this rate, we can build that thing.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. You mean the aerial platform?”
“Mm!”
Studying the projected resource curves, Commander Eve nodded grandly.
“It’s a romantic weapon, sure, but it has real effect. As far as we can tell, there’s no threat in the sky yet; I think it’ll pull its weight.”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. If we operate it, satellite support will be essential. Once the spaceplane is in view, I judge no issue with proceeding to construction.”
An aerial platform:
literally, a class of gigantic installations that float in the sky.
Propulsion ranged from aerodynamic flight to space-fixation tech, anti-gravity devices, rotovators, and more—but all shared one feature: a mass that warranted the name flying carrier or aerial fortress.
“If we pick on cool factor alone, it’s aerodynamic flight. Just imagining something like that flying makes me giddy.”
What Eve brought up looked at first glance like a conventional all-wing aircraft. But its span exceeded 300 m—a bona fide aerial carrier.
Its propulsion was jet-based, generating lift with speed.
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. In the Aphrasia campaign, operational tempo is critical. If we can leverage such platforms, casualties will drop further.”
That implied a raft of ancillary infrastructure: yards to build the structure, structural test rigs, runways for launch and recovery, and more.
“At the projected cost/performance, operation is fully viable. Considering the expansion of our controlled area, it should be safely in the black.”
Running instantaneous simulations, Ringo reached that conclusion.
That said, their atmospheric survey was only of parts of the northern continent in the end.
No aerial forces had been confirmed—but this world wasn’t kind enough to let them conclude there were none.
As Asahi would put it: just as Rain Croyne prowled the sea using physical shields, it was inconceivable there were no sky-roaming threat organisms.
On what basis it was “inconceivable” was unclear—but sure enough, in fiction worlds giant birds like rocs and dragons were endless.
Erring on the side of caution would not hurt.
“With a large structure we can mount a power reactor inside, so the operating envelope expands. For future expansion of our sphere, trialing a platform will be important.”
“OK. Let’s kick that off too. The project list keeps growing!”
And so:
having pinned down the troublesome external variable that was the Kingdom of Lepuitari, The Tree was steadily executing force buildup within the United Kingdom of Aphrasia.
According to Ringo’s projections, the treaty with the Kingdom of Lepuitari would be concluded and trade commenced in roughly three months.
By then, The Tree’s side would have further hulls completed and in service: two Panas-Class Nuclear Cruisers and twenty-two Hedgehog-Class Destroyers.
Some would be earmarked for facility defense, but mass trade by large transports with escort convoys would become feasible.
For the record, operating transports without escort was judged too risky, so at minimum one Panas-Class and six Hedgehog-Class would accompany them.
◇◇◇◇
“I’d heard they made one—but they really went and made it…”
In the square before the palace, the man grumbled as he looked up at the statues:
effigies of the heroes who had built the present Kingdom of Lepuitari.
A public square opened as a citizens’ refuge, ringed with a series of statues commemorating their feats.
Before one of them, the man sighed.
“Not as much like me as I feared—good… Hm, this one’s that punk Alban. Ah—right, he did look like this when he was young… So he’s Fleet Admiral now? That’s rich.”
Summoned directly by the navy’s Fleet Admiral, the man had time to kill until the appointed hour—and so he was sightseeing in the capital, Moar.
“Still… it’s only been, what, twenty years? And look how far they’ve come. Last time I came through they were still on horse-drawn trams.”
Upon entering the capital, here in Moar, what had most surprised him was the spread of rail locomotives using steam engines.
Technically still rough—the naked pistons pumping up and down with vigor struck him, perversely, with awe.
“The ones I know are just the naval types… To think they miniaturized them enough to spread among civilians. Geniuses do exist, huh…”
From somewhere far off came the thin peeeep of steam venting.