episode_0633
by admin
‘Then in noir the world would look like a black and white film.’
-That’s right.
‘The universe is truly vast.’
All sorts of strange environments were scattered here and there. Of course, even so, there weren’t many planets as unique as Noir.
Anyway, if I thought about living in a place like that for the rest of my life, I think I’d go crazy, but I thought it wouldn’t be so bad to just go and have fun for a little while.
-Now that the artificial synthesis method of Noir Black has been developed, it has become more efficient to make it directly rather than extracting it from Noir, but in the past, the importance of the Altair planetary system was very great because of the Dyson Sphere.
‘Well, energy is a big deal.’
No matter how developed the world is, producing the energy that serves as its foundation is of utmost importance. No, in fact, the importance of energy is even greater in a world that has developed to this extent.
Because almost everything in the world relies on energy, unless we’re in the Middle Ages, where there was no infrastructure at all.
‘But the fact that artificial synthesis has emerged means that the importance of the Altair planetary system has decreased significantly?’
-Yes, that’s right. Not just anyone can make a Dyson Sphere, and with the demand plummeting due to artificial synthesis, the value that Noir had was bound to fall. Aside from Noir Black, it’s not really a planet with any special products. It’s currently treated as a sub-planet of another planet, Silva.
In some ways, it could be said to be an obvious story.
If an economical synthetic method of producing oil had been developed in reality, the importance of the Middle East would have fallen to an incomparable degree compared to today. If oil had been excluded, all that would have remained in the region would have been deserts and cities built with money earned from selling oil.
Something similar would have happened in the past when the price of guano plummeted after nitrogen fixation was developed.
Anyway, the reason we wanted Noir Black, which was necessary for making Dyson Spheres, was simple.
A research facility disguised as a moon of Orbis, one of the planets in the Novaris system.
Because the energy supply for this research facility I am in now is a Dyson sphere.
“You must know the true scale of the human empire.”
He looked around and muttered in a weary voice.
The place where I was standing was the control room that controlled the entire research facility.
The entire size of the control room alone is as large as a city.
It’s astonishing that they built an entire satellite as a research facility, but producing the electricity to run that research facility with a Dyson Sphere is something that’s beyond my imagination.
‘So the sun is at the center of this satellite, or rather, this research facility?’
– It’s not the sun, it’s a neutron star. The sun is too big, and neutron stars are celestial bodies with an average diameter of only 8 to 12 kilometers, but they contain enormous mass and energy. The star that the Dyson Sphere of this research facility uses as its energy source is that neutron star.
‘There is a star with such a small diameter… Can something so small produce enough energy?’
I tilted my head, not knowing much about space and physics, but Maria’s voice was firm.
-What’s important is not the diameter, but the mass. The energy that neutron stars possess is that enormous. Some neutron stars can tear apart a person hundreds of kilometers away just with the magnetic fields they naturally emit.
‘If Maria’s superpowers were to spread across a planetary scale, would something like that happen? … But are there any actual records of that happening?’
-It’s not real, but there are records left in the Human Empire network.
So then that kind of accident really happened… I didn’t really want to know what on earth they did to cause it to happen.
However, I felt a little uneasy when I heard that story.
‘The universe is truly amazing. Anyway, if I dig under my feet right now, I’ll find a star.’
-That’s right.
‘If I do this wrong, it’ll explode or something? It feels like I’m sleeping with a landmine under my pillow…’
Feeling uneasy for no reason, I grumbled to Maria, but she calmly consoled me.
– It’s okay. The power produced is almost non-existent, but the Dyson Sphere itself is stable. If something goes wrong, the entire planetary system could be blown away, so when the Dyson Sphere was built, it was designed so that the facility would be able to stop stably no matter what happened. If something goes wrong, something worse than a real nuclear power plant accident will happen, so of course we have to be careful.
‘Then I feel relieved.’
– However, it is not good if this situation continues, so we need to normalize the research facility as quickly as possible before the safety devices are damaged. If people do not directly manage it, there is no way to know what will happen. In order to do that, what we need right now is Noir Black.
This research facility is currently without power, and all functions except for a few essential devices such as life support equipment and gravity regulators are disabled.
Thanks to that, we sent an expedition to Noir to normalize the research facility.
Although the artificial synthesis method has been developed, we do not know what materials go into the artificial synthesis of Noir Black. So in the end, the only way was to purchase it directly.
If we can get enough samples, we could use them to repair Dyson Spheres and study the remaining quantities to produce our own.
‘I also want to go to Noir and see the whole world in black and white.’
-Master, you have work to do here.
‘That’s true.’
I answered like that and spread my arms wide.
The control room, most of which was shrouded in darkness. I sensed that some being was hiding beyond the darkness.
This research facility was built in the territory of the Lazarian family through a joint venture between the Valkyrian and Serapian families.
It was necessary to consider why such a huge facility the size of a satellite and even a Dyson Sphere, which must have required a huge amount of capital, were left abandoned.
This wasn’t mentioned at all in the original, so we didn’t know why until we got there.
But we soon realized, as soon as we entered the facility, why they had abandoned it.
Broken test tubes and traces of familiar organic matter are visible throughout the facility.
Research materials extracted by Maria.
Evidence of battles and massacres remains here and there.
‘…I never thought I’d encounter a bug here.’
This research facility was a place to study Xenobriax, bugs.
Even though it is called the Empire of Man, are humans really human?
They were trying to find a way to exploit the bug race here.
It is no exaggeration to say that the species that has reached the pinnacle of biological weapons is the bugs.
A species that is a biological weapon in itself, adapting to any environment on any planet, polluting and using all resources, and unleashing legions in a matter of moments.
Perhaps the Valkyrian family built this facility to study and find more effective ways to deal with the bug race, while the Serapian family built this facility to integrate their research findings into medicine and their philosophy.
The only problem is that during the research process, an accident occurred and the bug test subject escaped.
And while we cared about the stability of the Dyson Sphere, we paid the price of not caring enough about the escape of the test subject.
-It seems that all the people who were managing the research facility were unable to escape and were all killed.
‘That easily?’
-Master, you already fought them once, so you know. They are smarter and stronger than you think.
Maria was right.
The bugs I fought would try to run away as soon as they thought I was too strong. So I had to pretend to be weak and prepare a big technique to draw them in, and then draw them closer.
They were such clever guys, it wouldn’t have been strange if they had waited for the perfect opportunity to escape and wipe out the facility.
No matter how many armed troops there were, it would have been difficult for the research facility’s troops to deal with the bugs.
‘Then the Valkyrian and Serapian families don’t know about this facility?’
In fact, this was the most important thing.
If I take over this facility, will those two families just sit still?
Or maybe they won’t come back later to clean up.
Maria analyzed the data from the lab and came up with an answer.
– First of all, according to the data, it seems that all of those responsible died here. Maybe the two families don’t even know about the existence of this facility. And if they do know about it, there’s a high chance that they’ll keep quiet. It’s a waste of money, but if they find out that they brought bugs into the Lazarian family’s territory, a war could break out between the families.
‘That’s definitely true.’
Perhaps they had planned this kind of unfortunate event from the beginning and secretly used the planetary system of the Lazarian family. If they had simply planned to conduct quiet research, they would have built facilities in the territories of the other two families.
‘Then it’s okay for me to eat here.’
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
-But don’t let your guard down. The reason we need Noir Black is because bugs ate most of it. You already know how the ones that ate it evolved from the data, right?
‘They evolved into a body optimized for hiding. Most of the people in the research facility died without even knowing where they were being attacked.’
But even those guys can’t escape my affections.
And there was someone in our group besides me who had the perfect skills for this kind of problem.
“Jiyu, are you ready?”
“Yeah.”
The shadow that had been lying behind me answered, writhing.
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