Endless Silver Machine

The room where the negotiation was held was an ordinary crew room. There must be something in Feili's own room that she didn't want Lan Ming to see.

"To put it simply, I hope that the Bis Empire can end the exploration of all sea ruins."

Ruins, also known as unexplored areas. This term was born after the end of the cross-border war.

When the cross-border war a hundred years ago was in its final stages, magic equipment appeared.

The emergence of magic equipment has greatly shortened the duration of cross-border wars.

In the later stages of the cross-border war, people discovered that non-existent buildings appeared in areas that had been explored.

Immediately afterwards, floating islands not recorded on the map were also observed one after another.

With the cross-border war going on, no one would be interested in such a thing, but observers still put it on the map.

After the cross-border war, some scholars became interested in these unexplored areas that suddenly appeared, and they launched investigations.

After decades, someone finally made a bold hypothesis.

——The unexplored area known as the "Ruins" is the birthplace of magic equipment.

Only a few cases have confirmed this hypothesis, but people are willing to believe it.

As a result, while carrying out reconstruction work, some countries began to organize exploration of relics within their own national borders.

"The country has the right to explore the ruins within its national borders."

The exploration of ruins is part of the reconstruction plan of the Bis Empire and falls within the scope of internal affairs.

The Senate is responsible for managing the progress of the exploration of the ruins, and both the "left" and the "right" are involved.

"Eh? Don't you know that you are the most popular princess in the Bisi Empire?"

"Please stop emphasizing this point. There is no connection between the support of the people and the internal affairs of the empire."

Lan Ming frowned, still giving an official response.

"...It seems that the exploration of the ruins of the Bisi Empire is not so difficult that we must recruit soldiers from the citizens. My information is a bit out of date."

"The work of exploring the ruins is mainly participated by knights, scholars and a small number of troops. It will not cause any trouble to the lives of the people."

As far as Lan Ming knows about the current situation, only four ruins have been identified in the Bisi Empire.

One of the ruins is located in the Valen Mountains and is said to be a hollow on the mountainside. The family notes passed down by a certain noble confirmed that this was the place where their family's magic costume first appeared.

Now, the exploration of this ruins is being taken care of by the first prince of the Bis Empire. Lan Ming has not seen him in August for a long time.

He was not appointed by the Senate to be in charge, but took over the troublesome work voluntarily.

As long as he can escape the shackles of August, he will happily accept even the troubles that nobles avoid. He is such a casual person.

It has been a year and a half since he left Augustus. Lan Ming doesn't know if his current state of mind has changed, so he won't contact him rashly.

Since when did family members have to be suspicious of each other?

For such a long time, Lan Ming has been comforting himself with "This is the responsibility of the royal family", and gradually he can accept it.

But after Aika and the others met, her heart, which she thought had been numb, started to ripple again.

"...Are you listening? Hello? Idol Princess?"

Feili's distant voice pulled Lan Ming out of his thoughts.

"Ah, I'm sorry..."

"So, the Bisi Empire cannot explore ruins beyond its national borders, right?"

"... No relevant proposals have been made yet. We are already too busy exploring ruins within national borders, so we are not currently considering exploring overseas ruins."

"Does the 'we' here include you?"

"Eh?"

Lan Ming did not understand the meaning of this sentence.

"Recently, has the Bisi Empire begun to pay attention to the development of the maritime fleet?"

"that is……"

That's true. It is precisely because the Senate proposed to the emperor that the power of the ocean fleet should be taken seriously, so Lan Ming was able to use this point so smoothly to organize ocean fleet exercises.

"That's right?"

Lan Ming, who had been competing with Feili, was speechless for a moment, which was enough to become certain evidence.

She didn't know where Feili got this information. The Bisi Empire's military priorities were not news that could be reported publicly.

Rather than leaking information, she was more concerned about the clues that seemed to be connected in her mind.

In an era when magic machines dominated the battlefield, why did the Senate suddenly rank the importance of ocean fleets ahead of aviation magic ships?

Initially, Lan Ming also felt that the balanced development of the empire's military power was very important, so he did not have too many doubts about their proposition.

If the ocean fleet is not used for war, then it all makes sense.

"I don't have any physical evidence. I can only guarantee that what I said is true. The Bis Empire's maritime fleet has crossed the territorial waters and begun investigating overseas ruins."

"..."

"I've investigated your background, and in terms of political views, you tend to be more "right-wing."

The girl has more information about the Bisi Empire than Lan Ming, the imperial princess. It is not difficult to imagine where this information comes from.

"Is it okay for me to know these things?"

Lan Ming's implication is that since she already knows that there are spies within the Bisi Empire, as a royal family, she has the obligation to eliminate dangerous factors that may hinder the development of the Bisi Empire.

Feili was not offended by Lan Ming's subtext, but instead raised the corner of her mouth.

"I just want to take a gamble. You should put the people first."

Although her tone of determination made Lan Ming feel very unwilling, he could not deny Feili's words.

"...Even so," Feili said so much, but the most fundamental question was still not told to Lan Ming, "You said before that you wanted to end the exploration of the sea ruins. Does this citizen have anything to do with it?"

Since Feili believes that the people are her weakness, she must know the purpose of making such a request.

"It's hard to say. If the Bisi Empire continues, the people who will be troubled are not just the citizens."

"What does it mean……"

Lan Ming hated Feili's hypocritical attitude, but in order for the negotiation to proceed smoothly, she had to endure it.

"The world will be destroyed because of you."

A brief sentence, completely out of proportion to the impact it brings.

The world... is destroyed?

"The world" does not refer to the Bis Empire, nor does it refer to this continent, but to this space where all tangible and intangible things live together.

"Sorry, I can't understand it at all..."

Lan Ming felt that his throat was dry and he felt burning pain even when he swallowed.

Will the world be destroyed because of something like this? It has never occurred to me that the world would be destroyed.

"Idol Princess, how much do you know about the ruins?"

Lan Ming couldn't answer Feili's question. She had never considered wasting a lot of time on this kind of thing.

Her understanding of the ruins only stopped at "the place where the magic equipment was discovered during the cross-border war."

But even this has not been fully confirmed and has not been recognized by scholars.

"That's right. After all, there are no records to explain the appearance of the ruins. It's normal that you don't know."

Lan Ming did not answer. This senseless bragging was pointed out by Feili with a mocking tone, and she held her hands tighter.

"You and I haven't established a cooperative relationship yet, so everything else is a commercial secret. As long as you agree to my request, the contract will take effect immediately."

Feili deliberately aroused Lan Ming's interest, but stopped the topic here just to force her to make a decision now.

There are no witnesses in this private negotiation, and both parties can break the agreement at any time.

It seems that Feili is not worried that Lan Ming will do such a thing.

"I can agree to your request, but there is a precondition."

"That's what it's like! If you just agree without thinking about anything, you'd be so disappointed."

"Whether what you said is true, I will use my own method to confirm it."

"Yeah," Feili was not dissatisfied, "after all, it is a very complicated matter."

"If the behavior of the Bisi Empire will indeed lead to the destruction of the world as you said, I will definitely stop it with all my strength."

"...If you say so, I will disclose the information here."

Feili took out a small chip from her PDA and pushed it in front of Lan Ming with her finger.

"This is a copy. It doesn't matter if you take it away. All the information is in it. We will leave this sea area temporarily. You can contact us with this chip. Don't think about decrypting the chip, just in case it is compromised. It’s troublesome when it’s bad.”

"I understand, please give me a moment to confirm."

Lan Ming took the chip, stood up from the table, and declared the end of the negotiation.

"By the way, there is one more thing I want to remind you."

When Lan Ming and Xia Luo left the flagship deck, Feili added.

——There is not much time left.

…………

The small magic submarine carried Lan Ming and Xia Luo back to the command ship within the agreed time, and the situation did not turn into the worst situation.

After returning to Augustus, Charlotte prepared two PDAs for Lan Ming. One was because of Lan Ming's previous request, and the other was to read Feili's chip.

I can't completely believe that there is no virus in the chip, so I prepare a PDA that can be discarded at any time.

Then, Lan Ming learned the meaning of Feili's words.