Starting from Zero

Chapter 17

Prev List Next

Book 4, Chapter 17

Temporary Salesman

           "Oh greeting my lady, the name isNameless, a Spectral Mage. It"s my pleasure to meet you!" Wayne appearedout of nowhere.
　　
　　    "What"s he doing?" Elfy whispered to me.
　　
　　    Ijust shook my head and looked at the sky.

           "Spring is coming."
　　
　　    "Ah."Everyone nodded in understanding.
　　
　　    Ipushed Wayne away. I got questions to ask her first.

"So...let"s have alittle talk."
　　
　　 "Ifyou promise not to send me to jail."

            Is she trying to bargain with me??
　　
　　    "Whywould I do that? I"m not a bounty hunter."
　　
　　    Sheseems surprised. "Huh...so you don"t know. If you use [Steal], whether itsucceeds or not, you will become "Wanted" for some time. If any victim can capture me to the jail they"ll have the right to take away half of my money. Now, I"llanswer whatever you ask as long as you don"t do that."
　　
　　    "Fine.I"ll let you go."
　　
　　    "Thanks!So what do you want to know?" She seems pretty relaxed now.
　　
　　    "First,your name. I"m Ziri, how do I call you?"
　　
　　    "Isaw your name when I stole your items. My name is [Golden Coin]."
　　
　　    "That"sa...worthy name for you." Elfy commented coldly.
　　
　　    "Good.So miss Coin, where did you get such powerful stealing skill? I don"t know aboutit but it must have something to do with our Luck attributes. My Luck is prettyhigh for that matter, it should be hard to steal items from me. How did youlift two items in one try?"
　　
　　    Shechuckled. "It"s coincidence. I do have a high skill level but this is onlythe third time I actually seized two items. You just had a tough luck, if you ask me."
　　
　　    Wellthat"s embarra.s.sing.

"I see. Are you wearing something that gives youa lot of speed? You ran faster than horses!"
　　
　　 Shejust displayed her equipment window on her shoes.

           "[Boots of the Spring Rabbit](Nation Treasure) Defense 300, Dexterity +7, Base Speed + 21, Movement Speed +300%,Evasion +50%, Jumping +500%. Active skill [Wind Walker]: Doubles speed for oneminute, cooldown: 1 hour..." Elfy read through the texts, "No wonderwe couldn"t catch her."
　　
　　    Razor:"Another nation treasure of ours!" 　　
　　

          Iinterrupted their discussion. "Do you have other parts of the set?"
　　
　　    Sheshook head. "I won"t be standing here in front of you if I did."
　　
　　    "Makessense." I nod. "What"s your cla.s.s? You can steal, use Taoistskills, and that stab on my shoulder can kill most people in one hit. There area lot of mysteries on you."
　　
　　    Shesmiles. "Same for you! I"m both Taoist and a.s.sa.s.sin. That attack is acombination of [a.s.sa.s.sination] and [Magic Pierce]. I created the combo myself. I"ve killedtanks with it before. Let me guess. You either have a lot of PvP experience soyou weren"t scared of the attack at all, or you have way more HP than that."
　　
　　    Ismiled too. "I don"t PvP much. Your damage is good but it willstill take three or four more hits like that to take me down."
　　
　　    "You"rethe craziest tank I ever met." She mumbled.
　　
　　    "You"rewrong. I"m not a tank. My HP is high but I mainly survive with my high Defense.You only did 3000 damage to me. That wasn"t really a deadly hit for averagewarrior cla.s.ses."
　　
　　    "Just3000? Your Defense is insane!" 　　
　　

           "You"rethe insane one. Usually that damage is impossible with such Defense level."
　　
　　    "That"snot what I mean!" She became excited. "I call that skill [Last Resort].It depletes my MP and halves my own Defense if I use it. After hitting a targetI"ll be locked in place for a full second, you just missed the chance to finishme off. This skill will either kill my target or myself every time I use it."
　　
　　    "Wow.Looks like there is no perfect skill after all."

Still, I think Coin"sskill is enough to help her win most 1-on-1 encounters.

"Oh right, yousaid you are a.s.sa.s.sin and Taoist. But a.s.sa.s.sins don"t learn [Steal]. Isn"t thata Rogue skill?"
　　
　　 "Istole it!"

She showed us her ring. I read it aloud:

           "[Eagle"s Knowledge]: Permanently learnthe skill that is activated by your enemy. Success rate: 0.1%. What the fu-- That"sway overpowered! Pity the trigger rate is too low."
　　
　　    Shecanceled the window. "That"s not the only problem. You need to be fightingwith the target. And they must use it at least twice. Also, the skill must hityou! I asked a rogue to help teach the skill. He kept stealing stuff from mefor four days before I finally learned it."
　　
　　    "Iwant to learn that Last Resort skill!" Wayne cut in.
　　
　　    Ikicked him away. "Didn"t you hear it? You need to take the skill, twice! You"dbe dead in one hit! ...Now I think about it, I can try to learn the skill."
　　
　　    "Yeah right!" Hawk pumped his fists. "If you can use that skill you"dbe killing dragons with it! When you go to j.a.pan, just one-shot whoever"s wearingtheir nation treasure and bring it back! No one would believe the host ofnation treasure can get killed like that!"
　　
　　    "Itwill take a lot of time. And I don"t think Coin"s gonna agree."
　　
　　    Shejumped. "Of course I agree! A living strike dummy to grind my skill level,why not? So what"s the plan, right now?"
　　
　　    "Uh,not today. I"ll tell you when I have time. That"s all I have to ask."
　　
　　    "I"llleave then. Remember to call me! I was worrying about how to level up my skill."

Coin rushed away. She doesn"t really meet the beauty standard but somehow Ilike her personality.

That reminded me of Red Moon. Ughhh. They"re completelyopposite beings.
　　
　　 Nowthat I get my items back, and know enough about the mysterious girl, there"s no point instaying here. I talked about the plans with everyone and decided to go levelinga bit. Don"t feel like going back to the streets now.

Hawk and Elfy asked to gowith me, Yuri and Red Moon won"t leave me, and Razor would come together aswell since he"s the only one left. A ninja can"t wander around the city byhimself.

          As for Wayne...He took off after Coin!
　　
　　    Wecame to the Dark Forest outside of the Lost City. We"re all good fighters so wesimply picked on high level monsters. Everyone made good progress during anafternoon. With the lowest level among all, I earned a hefty 8 levels. Now I"m at 321! Ishould have found a team like this sooner!
　　
　　    Ihave work from father on the next day so I told everyone to go without mefor several days and logged off.

           I drove to the laboratory the nextmorning. Father isn"t here, a senior researcher picked me up.
　　
　　    "Where"smy father?" I asked him when we reached the office.
　　
　　    "Thepresident is still busy with some affair so he told me to do this..." Hetyped something into the computer and turned the screen to me.
　　
　　    Fathershowed up on the display. "You"re here, son!"
　　
　　    "Ithought we"d talk about this here together?" 　　
　　

            "Isaid I"m busy! I won"t be asking you for help if I got enough time with it."
　　
　　    "Whatdo you need then?"
　　
　　    "RememberI said our nation is about to make a big move?" 　　
　　

Inodded. This sounds fun!

"What move?"
　　
　　 "Idon"t know. I"m not their commander, it"s cla.s.sified!"

            I hate secrets.
　　
　　    "Aren"tyou deputy of the congress? So what do you need me to do if you don"t knowanything?"
　　
　　    "Well,the military gave me a research schedule and a bunch of purchase plans. We"regoing to meet with their delegate today, I need someone I can trust, who knows ourtechnologies, to speak with them. That means you." 　　
　　

"Igot it. Where do I go?"
　　
　　 "Here."

           Father"s image moved to one corner. A map appeared on the screen.
　　
　　    Ilooked over the map. "Shanghai? Any particular reasons?"
　　
　　    "Youknow the Third Base beneath New Nanjing?" 　　
　　

"...Wegot another one under Shanghai?" 　　
　　

            "Exactly."He seems rather proud. "And it was built earlier than the Nanjing one. Theirrepresentatives will arrive at noon. You will be leading them through theshowcases of our company"s newest products while giving brief introductions. Youmay need to operate some of them on the scene, to show them the actualperformance. You can decide on the details!"
　　
　　    "Holdit!" I shouted before he can cut the chat. "That"s not enough. Whatare the prices for the products? How do I introduce them when I don"t even know what kind of stuff I"m going to sell?"
　　
　　    "I"vesent the data to your car. Go through it on your way! Sorry for the rush, theoriginal plan was that you can do it yesterday!"
　　
　　    "Will do then."

I hurriedly bid farewell with the researcher and took my car towards Shanghaicity. I set my GT8000 into auto-pilot mode and began to read through the newproducts. These things are pretty complicated in terms of productionprocedure and technologies but I only have to remember those technical figures and numberssince I"m about to be their salesman, not an engineer.
　　
　　 Thecomputer alerted me that I"ll be leaving the motorway soon. Geez, now I reallyhope I can use auto pilot on ordinary roadways too.

I came to where the map ispointing at. It"s a ma.s.s construction complex, the entrance is inside amilitary base!

            I"m stopped by the gate sentry. I lowered the sidewindow when a soldier walked over and gave me a salute.
　　
　　    "Thearea is off-limits, ma"am. Your permissions?"
　　
　　    "Shoot. Read it!" I handed over my ID card.
　　
　　    Hescanned the card on a device and gave it back. "I apologize. You"re freeto enter."
　　
　　    AfterI"ve left, the soldier mumbled:

"Huh that"s a man? I think I camped herefor too long. I need a holiday..."
　　
　　 WellI"ve no time to be concerned about what the soldiers are thinking. I went throughanother two check posts before I can reach the underground base. That"s sometight security.

The military representatives are already here. A dozen lead researchers are talking with them.
　　
　　 Iquickly parked my car and joined them. There are 7 people. Their leader is anofficer about the age of 50. I never learned how to read shoulder marks so Idon"t know his rank.

Two officers stand on his sides. One in his 40s, the otheris younger, must be around 25 or so. The remaining four men standing in theback must be guards.
　　
　　 Iwalked to their leader and raised my hand. "Welcome, sir. I"m Sairin, techdepartment CEO of Dragon Fate Corporation."

This department CEO is aposition my father forced on me just for this job. I used another two differentt.i.tles when doing similar work before. The representative is a high-rankingofficial this time which means we can"t send any ordinary employees here.
　　
　　 "Whyis the president Sai-Jingu absent?" The youngest officer asked first. Heseems unsatisfied.

Now this is fun. I don"t think that"s a wise move infront of our main guest, by which I mean his own boss.

He continued. "We"re here to settle acontract involving hundreds of billions worth of military a.s.sets, and they sent a woman?"
　　
　　 c.r.a.p.

Before I can explain, their leader took my hand. "Yan-Ray, lieutenantgeneral, manager of the General Armament Department. Your name is Sairin right?That isn"t a common name in China. Are you Mr. Jingu"s...?"
　　
　　 Oldwiser.

            "I"m his son."
　　
　　    "Ahh!"He gave me a firm handshake again. "We never heard about president Sai"sinheritor. The company surely keeps their secret tight!"
　　
　　    "It"snot really a secret. I"m the family"s only child so my father is justprotecting me from harm as best as he can. That means to keep my true ident.i.tylow." I tried to steer the topic back to the main course. "Shall Ishow you the products now, or do you prefer a lunch first?"
　　
　　    "Ohdon"t worry about eating. I"ve really wanted to see those wonders!"

Thegeneral is obviously the straightforward type. And speaking with these peoplesaves a lot of effort.
　　
　　 "Pleasefollow me."

            I led the way. When we arrived at the elevator I turned andasked him: "Can I know about your...companions?"
　　
　　    "Oh,my bad there. I forgot!" He dragged the 40-rish officer in front of him."This is colonel Shin, from the NSA." Then he faced the other officer."Major Junken, Political Department. And these four are my personal guardsmen."
　　
　　    Ishook hands with colonel Shin but left out Junken, intentionally.

"Thearea below is highly restricted, I"m afraid I can only take Mr. Yan-Ray andcolonel Shin with me." Then I asked a company personnel nearby: "Pleasetake the general"s guards, and the...other guest, to the lounge room."
　　
　　 Junkenfailed to conceal his anger. I didn"t even look at him.

I led the general andcolonel into the lift. The elevator began to descend after I went throughseveral super complex authentications.

           It kept moving for about 350 metersbefore reaching our destination.
　　
　　    Thepair stopped when they stepped out of the elevator door. The underground areain front of them is too big. We"re standing on the spiral observation platformin the middle of the room. The platform has many more levels to provide a betterview for weapon experiments from all angles.
　　
　　    Icalled the general"s name for three times before he noticed me.

           "How didyou build something like this below the surface? I think you at least need to remove anentire island."
　　
　　    "Thebase was not built in one go. Our initial plan is about a third of what you"reseeing now, and we enlarged the area to such size after three expansions. Thisplace is mainly used as a testing area for advanced weapons. We can test almostanything here excluding airplanes and nuclear weapons."
　　
　　    Thecolonel recovered from shock as well. He looked down at the vacant area belowour feet. "How deep is it? More than a hundred meters I"d say."
　　
　　    "174.We"re standing on the middle level, the area above us is a similar s.p.a.ce."　　
　　

"Impressive."
　　
　　 I took two copies of purchase plans from the secretary and gave them to thetwo officers. "Pray tell me which ones you"d like to see first and I"llshow them right here. Oh, no airplanes please. The digital plan books onyou hand have all the product numbers and brief introductions on them, alongwith the prices. Tap on them to check their pictures."

            The general lookedat the page number. "That"s over 200 pages. This will take some time."
　　
　　    "Don"tworry. You will be staying here for several days I a.s.sume? We have enough time."
　　
　　    Thecolonel pointed at something on the list first. "This...TZ-01 MagnetronTank, can we see it?"
　　
　　    Itold a worker to bring a tank in.

"Let"s get to the base level. The tankis not a hazardous weapon so we don"t have to stay far."
　　
　　 "I"dlove it!"

The general walked down first like a child waiting to see hisnew toy. But I think such weapons are pretty much toys for these militaryleaders.
　　
　　 Thetank is already stationed when we got there. It"s big, with blue-gray outlines.

They touched around the armor on the tank, while I searched around what Ilearned this morning and began to introduce:

           "Special alloy outer sh.e.l.l, produced byone-time metal stamping method. Hard to repair but can provide solid defense. Thefront armor can withstand multiple hits from kinetic projectile weapons using 120mm caliber or lesser ammunitions propelled from 200 meters or farther. Similarfor the side armors, against attacks from 400 meters or above."
　　
　　    Thecolonel looked up at the main cannon. "Isn"t the barrel too long for a tank?"
　　
　　    "That"sa 180mm electromagnetic cannon. We can"t put a standard-sized transformer on amobile tank cause it will too big, so we can only increase the barrel length togive the sh.e.l.l enough initial speed. Well new products always carry some flaws.But I guarantee the power and accuracy of these cannons are way beyond common explosive powered ones. And the sh.e.l.ls can be smaller because they don"t need allthe extra compound, which means you can carry more shots around."
　　
　　    "CanI see a live shot?" asked the colonel.
　　
　　    "Ready targets!"

Three armor plates raised at about 1.5k meters away from ourlocation. The plates are 200 centimeters thick, 10 meters away apart from eachother.

"Fire!"
　　
　　 Sharpelectric charging sound came from the barrel. After five seconds we heard adamp "Poof", then a distant explosion up ahead.

            I jumped onto thetank"s edge. "Let"s get close while you can see the mobility of this thingon the way."
　　
　　    General:"I"m afraid these old bones will break if I sit on that thing. I"ll justtake the cart." 　　
　　

Hegot into the tour cart prepared by a worker while the colonel jumped up besideme.

"Let go!"
　　
　　 Thetank levitated about half a meter above the ground and raced towards thetargets.

            "Can it shoot while moving?" the colonel asked.
　　
　　    Ilifted the hatch and told the operator inside: "Two shots on the move. UseAP sh.e.l.ls."
　　
　　    Poom.Poom.

I looked towards the colonel. "So what do you think? 5 seconds pershot, that"s 3 seconds faster than America"s STS-1." (*)
　　
　　 Wearrived at the target location. The plates are already scattered open from thecenter.

           The general reached us in his cart soon after. "That"s fast. Thisutility car can"t catch up with you!"
　　
　　    "Itcan run at 200 kph, and that vehicle of yours isn"t designed for suchspeed. Are you satisfied till now? This is the first electromagnetic cannon inhistory that can be actually used in real wars you know."
　　
　　    "Ofcourse I"m satisfied!" General nodded. "But what about fuelconsumption? We need to consider all aspects. We will put too much burden onthe support team if it eats oil like a lion."
　　
　　    Ispoke towards inside the tank again: "Open the engine chamber!"

           Psssssh! Therear hatch of the tank bounced open while releasing some white vapor, revealingthe signature radiation mark inside.
　　
　　    "Thisis nuclear powered??" The colonel yelled.
　　
　　    Igrabbed a handle, rotated it in three spins and pulled it out, bringing a waterbladder shaped container with it.

           "Atomic fusion reactor, driven bytritium rods. Each rod can last for seven years or so, we usually prepare twofor each unit, the other one is a backup in case the main rod malfunctions. Convenient,and safe."
　　
　　    "Isthis necessary?"
　　
　　    "Don"t get fooled by the speed you saw. The body weighs 27 tons! If it runs on liquidfuel then we"ll have to attach a pipe behind it at all times. Besides, tritium rods aresafer than fuel. They don"t blow up at least."
　　
　　    "Isee." Colonel seems satisfied.
　　
　　    Generalchecked his list. "Mark this down as preliminary selection. Oh one morething, how"s the fire control?"
　　
　　    "Youprobably can"t use the cannon to kill a mosquito but...we can try hitting a fly."

That was only a half-joke.
　　
　　 Thegeneral didn"t question my answer. I"m sure they know the computingcapabilities provided by Dragon Fate.

            "Here, what"s "ICA"? Never heard ofit."
　　
　　    "IndividualCombat Armor, can be worn by soldiers." (**) 　　
　　

"Bulletproof vests?"
　　
　　 "Ohno, totally different."

I asked the workers to recover the tank and bring an ICA over. Atrailer dragged a row of 2-meter high robot-like devices to us.

            "Theseare ICAs. Sometimes we just call them iron units."
　　
　　    "That"sa lot of them." Colonel looked among the armors. Every one looks different.
　　
　　    Iexplain: "What you see here is the entire armor series. The first one isa.s.sault unit, next is heavy suppressor unit, the third, anti-air unit, fourth, snipingunit, fifth, support scouter, sixth, automatic unit, the last one is anti-riot.They"re only meant for special forces because the production cost is too high. Youcan a.s.sign only one to each platoon at best even if I keep the price low for you."
　　
　　    Thecolonel seems interested. "I know it"s impossible to arm the entire armybut we can at least establish several special op divisions, no?" 　　
　　

"Ican only tell you that each of these costs 2 million, basic, since I don"t knowhow much expense you"re allowed. But I do know our country hasn"t put up muchwar expenditure in these years." (***) 　　
　　

Ijumped onto one of the a.s.sault types while they had their discussion. I openedthe front hatch and climbed in. The four limbs of the armor are designed forhuman bodies to fit their own limbs into them. Since the armor is bigger than ahuman, my hands and feet can only reach the elbow and knee part.

I controlledthe unit to jump down from the trailer. It"s simpler than I expected, just likeplaying in [Zero]--you give the command using your brain, and receive feedbackinside you brain too. Sigh. Even a game made by Dragon Fate has lot of crazytechnologies in it.
　　
　　 Thegeneral and colonel are still arguing over the armors when they see me hoppingaround with one. There are wheels under the feet of the armor so I can runfreely like skating. It"s even equipped with a booster system so I can makeshort-range flights, or really big leaps.

I made a demonstration in front ofthe general. The armor is able to jump as high as a hundred meters, and landslowly using the air thrusters.
　　
　　 Thegeneral said he would talk with the higher-ups. But his expression told me he"sgoing to buy it for sure, which is good news to me. If I sell enough of thesestuff I might as well ask father for one and put it into my collection.

(*) I didn"t find this tank. Maybe the author made it up.

(**) The original name created by the author makes no sense so I altered it.

(***) The novel started in the 00s, which means some concept will be a bit off according to modern standards, such as the cost for producing weapons.

Also, recent updates will be slower, because...

The author doesn"t control chapter length. I"m having a headache.
t.jpg10.8Ktt.jpg6.9K

Prev List Next