Ch.202Making plans is damn hard.

# Chapter 202: Making Plans is Damn Hard

Of course, openly calling it a “coup plan” would be a bit much.

Internally, we decided to avoid drawing attention by giving it the extremely bright and wholesome title of “Prosnack Mental Control Disruption Plan.”

…Of course, by “attention,” I meant potential Prosnack agents or foreign spies who might be lurking somewhere in this Diplomatic Enforcement Planet.

Moreover, to actually implement Ambassador Samiya’s plan, there were numerous mountains we needed to climb.

“Minister, according to your plan… are we launching a preemptive strike against the Prosnack Federation?”

“Huh?”

“What?”

As someone pointed out during the meeting, there was a possibility that our actions could be interpreted by the Prosnack Federation as a “surprise attack without declaration of war.”

In terms of my previous life, it would be like something the Japanese Manchurian Army would do.

What’s worse, strictly speaking, we weren’t even military personnel.

From other nations’ perspectives, wouldn’t it look insane for non-military personnel to launch an armed preemptive strike against another country and lead a rebellion?

‘…Come to think of it, this really does look completely insane, doesn’t it?’

If we did something like that, we might lose our hard-earned leadership position in ISTO, the Interstellar Security Treaty Organization, to someone else.

We had to invest quite a lot of time to execute our scheme of making Ambassador Samiya the Prosnack Queen.

But after pushing our strategy slaves(?) to their limits, we did manage to come up with a somewhat plausible strategy.

“So we equip high-speed vessels with signal jammers, infiltrate the Prosnack Federation, and create interference fields while flying at maximum speed?”

“This sounds pretty good.”

“If necessary, we could even modify missiles by removing the warheads and installing personnel and signal jammers instead…”

“That doesn’t sound so good.”

Nodding at Riel’s assessment of that approach, I began preparing to proceed with the full-scale operation.

—————————————————-

But the biggest hurdle in this operation wasn’t just coming up with a meticulous plan…

“Here is the prototype of the signal jammer with the specifications you requested!”

“…It’s big.”

“Very big.”

It was the “signal jammer,” the core element of this operation.

This thing was acting as a significant obstacle, preventing the operation from proceeding.

At the very least, it needed to be small enough to be mounted on a high-speed vessel.

A high-performance signal jammer capable of blocking the management waves received by those paranoid conspiracy theorists’ berry chips…

The problem was that the prototype shown by the research team had both a height and width… larger than a typical commercial building.

“Now, make it smaller.”

“…Excuse me?”

“I mean make it as small as possible, if you can.”

Of course, they say there’s nothing in the world that can’t be solved with power and money, but…

“It’s impossible, Minister.”

“With our empire’s current technology, it’s difficult to miniaturize and mass-produce such an item.”

‘What.’

In this world, there are problems that can’t be solved no matter how much money and time you throw at them.

No matter how much we pushed those innocent technicians, asking them to solve a practically impossible problem would just be a waste of time.

But since we didn’t have any better ideas at the moment, there seemed to be no other option than to keep pressuring those poor technicians.

————————————

However, in the midst of this painful existence…

“It’s been a while, everyone.”

“Oh, hello there.”

For some reason, Levia appeared at the Diplomatic Enforcement Planet in her biocores form.

“It’s been a while, Levia.”

“Hello, Minister.”

Perhaps because I’d only seen her in ship form for the past year.

Seeing her biocore form after so long made me feel strangely glad.

But I couldn’t maintain that gladness for long.

-Beep beep beep.

“Yes, it’s me. You still need additional funds?”

That damned signal jammer’s production was still holding us back.

“Try to handle it with the remaining budget after deducting expenses. If necessary, you can allocate part of my dignity maintenance funds.”

“…You seem quite busy.”

Of course, our attitude wasn’t particularly problematic.

After all, Levia, observing our situation and atmosphere, quietly sat on the office sofa and patiently waited.

She clearly had the look of “someone who came to visit but has nothing to do because everyone is busy,” so there was even less reason to pay attention to her…

——————————————-

It wasn’t until about five hours later, during dinner time, that I spoke to Levia again.

“By the way, Levia, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen you in biocore form.”

“Has it?”

As we enjoyed the dinner course prepared by professional chefs, we finally had some free time and asked Levia why she had come here.

In response to our question, Levia picked up a piece of steak with her fork and said:

“It’s nothing special. I just came to see if there was anything I could help with regarding the recent activities at the Diplomatic Enforcement Planet.”

“Hmm.”

As Levia said this while stuffing the steak into her mouth and chewing, I felt genuinely touched.

‘She’s completely different from someone who always demands rest at the slightest opportunity.’

Of course, if Riel had heard my thoughts, she would have been furious and whined endlessly.

Keeping these thoughts to myself, I continued savoring my food and said to Levia:

“Come to think of it, I don’t think I told you… Currently, we need to create signal jammers to block Prosnack’s mental control waves… The problem is that we’re really stuck on the production part.”

“I see.”

The words were flowing out smoothly, which showed how stressed I was about this issue.

“Yes, if we could just solve that, we could honestly proceed with the operation right away.”

“Sigh.”

After quietly listening to us, Levia tilted her head in confusion and said:

“Why is that? A signal jammer that blocks specific waves is a basic electronic warfare weapon that can be made easily, isn’t it?”

“The problem is that this ‘basic’ electronic warfare weapon needs to block something from the Dark Age.”

Saying that, I showed Levia the blueprints and photos of the signal jammer we were producing.

“As a result, when we increased the performance of the signal jammer to block those strange waves, it became ridiculously huge and couldn’t be loaded onto ships.”

“That’s right.”

As Riel and I sighed deeply, Levia carefully examined the required specifications on the blueprint…

Then she looked up at me, still seeming confused, and tilted her head as she spoke:

“I could produce this with the manufacturing facilities in my hull… Why didn’t you ask me?”

“…Huh?”

“What?”

“Excuse me?”

Upon hearing Levia’s words, I momentarily lost my ability to speak and just stared blankly at her.

But that didn’t last long.

After what felt like a few seconds.

Riel, who had also been frozen in shock, was the first to recover and spoke to the calmly seated Levia with disbelief:

“If you had something like that, couldn’t you have just mentioned it first…?”

‘Exactly.’

In response to Riel’s rhetorical question, Levia tilted her head again, then shrugged and said:

“You didn’t seem curious about it.”

“…”

At that moment.

I remembered that Levia had acted the same way during the Nano Machine War.

‘Oh, damn it.’

Of course, I wasn’t going to curse at Levia for this.

‘Thank you for coming, even if it’s late…!’

Regardless of the reason, Levia herself had come with the intention of helping us.

‘Alright, alright, so now the foundation of the plan with Ambassador Samiya is starting to take shape.’

Therefore, after dinner:

“Levia, please expedite the production preparations for the signal jammers in your hull.”

“Understood, Minister.”

After sending off Levia, who had enjoyed a hearty steak dinner, I threw myself into my favorite chair and let out a deep sigh.

“This is truly exhausting… but thanks to her, one burden has been lifted.”

“…”

“If things continue like this, everything will go according to plan.”

Muttering that, I was about to look through the reports that had already come in for the afternoon’s work while enjoying my after-dinner coffee…

‘Oh no.’

Unfortunately, I felt a slight sadness upon realizing that my beloved caffeine had run out.

“Riel, sorry, but could you go get some coffee…”

For some reason, I asked Riel, who was standing still, to brew some coffee for me.

But right after that.

“Skrrt, kkt, urgh…”

“???”

Suddenly, Riel started making strange noises, as if she were malfunctioning.

-!!!…!!

“Mi-Mi-Min…”

Even showing an odd reaction mixed with electronic beeping sounds, which seemed completely out of character, I couldn’t hide my bewilderment.

‘Is asking for coffee really such an offensive request?’

Still, the way she was acting as if she were being forcibly hacked was so realistic.

I shook my head at Riel’s behavior, thinking to myself that I’d have to get up and make it myself since she was resisting so much.

But at that moment.

-Click.

Riel’s seizure suddenly stopped.

“Ah… hmm, hmm.”

Abruptly abandoning her usual way of speaking, she looked straight at me and began to speak.

“…Hmm, having everything go according to plan is truly a pleasant thing, and it seems you feel the same way.”

And she spoke in a manner that was all too familiar—the very manner that had been grinding away at my mental stability.

The moment I heard that speech pattern.

[Pause]

I immediately activated the pause function to preserve my mental stability, which was about to crumble.