"Henry, Oscar, are you there?"
Henry, in Your Majesty's presence; forgive my intrusion.
Oscar is present.
"The reason I had you make time today is none other than the matter of Albert's son and his daughter."
"I took the measure of Albert's son here and sent him back to the capital. I'll keep the daughter in my care here for the time being."
You intend to see Albert's child dealt with, then.
"I made a promise to Albert. Though it was only verbal, I told him I would look after his surviving family."
Do you intend to restore his status?
"Yeah, see to it that it's done. On top of that, entrust him to Dustin. Tell him not to let the man do anything unnecessary until he lives out his natural lifespan."
As you will. He seems to be the optimal choice.
Even if he is placed under Dustin's supervision, it would be best to make his standing clear to those around him.
"Then I shall grant him the rank of imperial prince and a single character. He shall be 'Imperial Prince Mi.'"
Mi, as in secret—how fitting.
Incredible. Mi, as in sealed away, then.
"If we go that far, everyone else will take the hint as well. That is all. Are there any questions?"
None.
None.
"Then we are finished. Good work."
☆
We were in a room resembling a grand conference hall inside the governor-general's official residence.
I sat in a throne-like chair without a table before me.
Directly ahead stood a massive, wall-sized board, where an official was just jotting down the final words.
Each character was roughly the size of an adult man's fist, rendering the text clearly legible even from a distance.
I looked it over and nodded.
Near the bottom of the board, it read:
Minister of Military Affairs: None Minister of Internal Affairs: None Your Majesty: Then we are finished. Good work.
The entirety of our dialogue up to that point was transcribed line by line, each prefaced with the speaker's name.
Beside the board stood nearly ten people operating and deciphering the Humbaba thread.
Large beads of sweat dotted their foreheads, and they looked thoroughly exhausted.
"Incredible, Master," Zoe, standing poised diagonally behind me, said with a touch of excitement. "To think we can hold exchanges—a conference—in near real time like this."
"Umu."
I nodded.
I turned a satisfied gaze toward the board before me, the very manifestation of an idea brought to life.
"Up until now, we've used the Humbaba thread like letters, but I figured transcribing messages the instant they arrived would make the communication much more immediate."
What I had ordered on a whim was merely an extension of our existing methods.
First, the three of us—myself, Henry, and Oscar—set a prearranged time and stood by in our respective locations.
Then, whatever we spoke was transmitted on the spot via the Humbaba thread—instant communications.
Rather than receiving each transmission as a separate letter, transcribers recorded them sequentially across the massive board.
By mobilizing a significant amount of manpower—transmitters, decoders, and transcribers—we developed a method that allowed us to exchange a statement every thirty seconds or so.
It demanded even more coin and personnel than ordinary communications, which were already expensive, but given the resulting immediacy, I deemed it well worth the investment.
"Indeed! I handle communications myself, yet such an approach never crossed my mind."
"It's an idea anyone could have stumbled upon."
"Pardon?"
"A little while ago, Noufe mentioned that children from poorer families practice their writing in the sand."
"Ah, yes."
"That brought sand tables to mind. They're designed to update the state of a battle in real time. I realized that if we paired communications with the concept of a sand table, we could achieve instantaneous contact like this."
"Truly ingenious!"
"Putting it into practice, it clocks in at about thirty seconds per statement. What's more, keeping the preceding remarks on display is surprisingly useful."
"It is just as you say!"
"This was our first run, though. What do you think?"
I shifted my gaze from Zoe to the communications personnel.
The senior official overseeing the operators stepped forward and offered a deep bow before answering.
"Yes, Your Majesty! Factoring in their unfamiliarity and initial hesitation, I believe we can ultimately reduce the time to a mere ten seconds per statement. Provided, of course, that those serving the Em—the Governor-General and the Lord Ministers maintain the absolute pinnacle of skill and discipline."
"That is sufficient."
Ten seconds per statement.
Considering that even a courier horse on super express, riding at breakneck speed, would take several days, this pace was beyond reproach.
"No, practically speaking, couldn't we shave off even more time?"
"Meaning...?"
The man looked bewildered.
As a specialist and commander, he had just assessed and reported that ten seconds was the absolute limit. My suggestion that it could be narrowed further clearly flustered him.
I had voluntarily downgraded my title to governor-general and ordered that I be treated as such while in Enlil.
The staff had adapted, but the fact remained that I was still the Emperor.
An imperial decree was absolute; a field official could never dream of raising an objection.
Looking terrified that I might make an impossible demand, the man broke into a cold sweat that dripped profusely down his forehead.
"Ten seconds is the time it takes from receiving the message to finishing the transcription, correct?"
"That is correct, Your Excellency."
"Then we simply need to place someone in between to read the message aloud in a clear voice. In other words, separate the flash report from the verified log. Even if the flash report has minor discrepancies, hearing it first effectively saves us the time it takes to write it down."
"Ah...! Brilliant, Your Excellency! In that case, we could deliver the preliminary report in five seconds!"
"Umu."
I gave a firm nod.
And five seconds, I figured, was likely the true limit of human capability.
Incidentally, when I had asked what would happen if Humbaba handled the process entirely on her own...
It wouldn't even take a second, she had replied in her sleek, melodic voice.
In short, five seconds was the human limit, but the system itself had room for even greater speed.
Still, five seconds was plenty fast; there was no practical need for anything beyond that.
"Send regular communications to Oscar later. Instruct him to draw up a new budget for training communications personnel."
"Understood, sir."
"No, since we've come this far, we ought to formalize this on a grander scale. Tell him to consult with the respective Lord Ministers in advance, as I intend to discuss establishing a Ministry of Communications once I return to the capital."
"Understood, sir."
"This system relies heavily on individual proficiency. Any team that can consistently break thirty seconds per statement will have their stipends doubled; those that break ten seconds will have theirs increased tenfold. Keep at it, all of you."
"—!"
"We are unworthy of such benevolence!"
The supervisor caught his breath, and as the realization swept through the room, every last operator rose and dropped to their knees before me in unison.
"......"
"Is something wrong, Master?"
Noticing that I had lapsed into silence after issuing the orders, Zoe asked with concern.
"......"
Without a word, I raised a hand toward Zoe, gesturing for her to hold her tongue.
In the quiet, I organized the thoughts taking shape in my mind.
☆
In the heart of Larak, outside a building bearing Cindy's crest.
I arrived at the entrance with Zoe in tow.
Zoe pulled open the door and ushered me in ahead of her.
"Pardon us, we're not quite open for business—"
"Em—Governor-General?!"
Several workers were bustling about the shop floor, and just as one began to turn us away, Cindy noticed me from the back of the room.
At her cry of "Governor-General," everyone nearby froze in astonishment.
"Are you in the middle of something?"
"Not at all! Please, right this way!"
Cindy guided me toward the private reception room in the back, with Zoe following closely behind.
As we stepped inside, the hushed murmurs of the staff drifted in from the storefront.
"Hey, is that..."
"The real deal?"
"You can tell just by Lady Cindy's reaction!"
Her subordinates were buzzing among themselves.
Taking our places in the reception room, Cindy and I sat facing one another across the table, while Zoe stood silently behind me.
"Um, Lady Zoe. Please, take a seat," Cindy offered.
As the head steward of the Thirteenth Imperial Prince Mansion, Zoe was effectively the deputy governor-general.
Cindy's face betrayed her discomfort at remaining seated while someone of such standing remained on her feet.
"Thank you, but there is no seat for retainers in the presence of Master."
"Ah, of course..."
"Pay it no mind. She is more comfortable being treated that way."
"U-Understood..."
Cindy stole one last glance at Zoe, then deliberately averted her eyes and looked straight at me.
"What brings you here today, Your Excellency?"
"Do you still have that draft from the other day on hand?"
"Yes." Cindy nodded firmly. "Selecting the right escort took a bit longer than expected, so the plan was to depart the day after tomorrow, present the draft to the Ministry of Finance in the imperial capital, and then distribute and manage the funds through my main branch there."
"I see. If you had already set out, I was planning to have you recalled, but this makes things much simpler."
"Meaning...?"
"Hand the draft over to me for a moment."
"Right away—"
Cindy retrieved a carefully wrapped cloth bundle from her breast pocket and offered it to me.
I untied the cloth and removed the document inside.
Written on parchment, it bore my signature alongside the imperial seal.
The contents instructed the Ministry of Finance to disburse the specified sum to whoever presented the document.
Drafts took many forms.
To begin with, the promissory draft was a tool—or rather, a system—invented to bypass the need to haul heavy bullion.
Ten thousand Rien, for instance, amounted to a weight in gold coins that no single person could carry; moving it required an entire freight wagon.
Suppose there were two locations, Point A and Point B, separated by roughly ten days' travel on foot. Say a merchant transported ten thousand Rien worth of goods from Point A to Point B and converted them into ten thousand Rien in hard currency.
An itinerant peddler could simply use that cash to purchase fresh goods in Point B, then carry those back to Point A or elsewhere to sell.
However, established merchants—particularly those with fixed storefronts—didn't always find goods in Point B worth buying.
In that scenario, they would be forced to load a wagon and haul ten thousand Rien in raw coinage all the way back to Point A.
Vast sums of coin were just as heavy and cumbersome to transport as actual freight, and on the road, they drew the attention of bandits far more readily than ordinary cargo ever would.
That was why drafts had been invented. Large merchants with headquarters in Point A and branches in Point B could deliver goods to Point B, collect a written receipt—even a single slip of paper proving the transaction—and carry that back instead. Back in Point A, where the merchants' main branches were close to one another, settling the payment required only a brief local transfer of funds.
Alternatively, that draft could be exchanged for an equivalent value in goods to be shipped right back to Point B.
In this way, based on mutual trust, the draft system was devised to facilitate commerce without the burden of heavy, unwieldy cash.
To finance the seed merchant venture, I had drafted instructions directing the Ministry of Finance in the capital to release the investment funds to Cindy's flagship store, and handed the parchment to Cindy.
As long as Cindy presented this draft to the Ministry of Finance, she could claim the exact sum written upon it.
While this particular draft functioned more like an imperial decree, in terms of transferring money through trust and verifiable proof, it served the exact same fundamental purpose.
Taking the draft into my hands, I looked back and forth between Cindy and the parchment.