The Hungry Fortress Wants to Build a Battleship in Another World – World of Sandbox-Chapter 28Vol 3. : Lively Chatter

“The basic unit of length used by the Forest Kingdom of Levresta is the TAN—approximately 1.53 meters.

The volume standard is the cube of one-tenth of a TAN, called a MIKUS—about 3.8 liters.

The standard unit of mass is the RUK, which equals roughly 0.43 kilograms.

Being the embassy, they had complete sets of standard reference weights and measures.”

“There’s a discrepancy between the definition and the actual volume, isn’t there...?”

“...Probably... a replication of the standard instruments... their precision... is bad... maybe...”

“Maybe they’re fudging the weight~?”

“Sounds like a corrupt official—maybe they’re doing some shady business, huh~?”

Negotiations with the Forest Kingdom of Levresta had been dragging on largely due to the immense time required to align value standards between the two sides.

Moreover, the other party firmly believed themselves to hold the superior position and would often take a patronizing stance.

Well, for <Paraiso>, resources were being supplied in unlimited quantity from <The Tree>, so being overcharged wasn’t exactly painful.

But simply accepting unfavorable terms without resistance would only lead to being taken lightly.

Thus, the local strategic AI—under <Ringo>’s support—was steadily and quietly hammering out the conditions.

And now, the five sisters were gathered around, noisily reviewing the logs of that negotiation.

“The oil plant’s settled down for now, and these girls have gotten some solid experience out of it. Things are quiet around us too—how about letting them go back to regular routines for a week or so?”

That was Commander Eve’s suggestion.

<Ringo> approved, and the five sisters were granted official consecutive leave.

Of course, “leave” in their case still included command simulations and predictive scenario training—it was practically work.

But with their beloved Big Sister Eve participating, it would still be a fun time for them.

Whether Commander Eve thought so or not was irrelevant—the sisters were thoroughly enjoying their rare bonding time.

“So both sides agreed to treat Magic Stones as objects of mutual value. All exchanges are now calculated based on them. Are Magic Stones also valued within the United Kingdom of Aphrasia?”

“Yeah... according to the official in charge of East Gate City... they can... apparently... be exchanged for coins...?”

“Mm. There’s a merchant guild, and it seems they accept them for trade. Magic Stones are power sources for magic tools. Magic tools?”

“Apparently they can heat things, blow wind, light fires—stuff like that?”

The sisters were currently reviewing the results of the trade negotiations with the Forest Kingdom of Levresta.

They could’ve downloaded the data in one shot through the network, but this was part of their downtime too, so they were taking the opportunity to read through the material themselves.

Besides, after this session, they had a debriefing chat with their Commander-Sister, so they were studying in earnest.

“So, in the current state of the United Kingdom of Aphrasia, Magic Stones are far more useful than coins.”

“To begin with, their coinage is poor in quality. Lots of impurities. That’s why Levresta doesn’t use coins as a trade basis.”

“The ingots prepared by <Paraiso> can apparently be exchanged for Levresta coins by weight.”

“But if we’re talking about impurities, Levresta’s coins aren’t that great either. I mean, our ingots are 99.9%—Triple Nine—pure, right? The rate is way too skewed.”

“...I think... they don’t have the technology... to tell the difference...”

Incidentally, if they really wanted to, they could produce 99.9999%—Eleven Nines—purity ingots, but there was no point in doing so.

They were keeping it within sane, practical levels.

Unfortunately, this world's understanding of such standards was severely underdeveloped.

Given that their refining technology was unknown, there was no helping it.

“From <Paraiso>’s perspective, the high-value trade items are cellulose thread and cellulose cloth. Seems like there’s strong demand for them as luxury textiles.”

“It’s because they’re bleached bright white~. Unless you have really good bleach, you’d have to do it all by hand~?”

“Dyed threads and dyed fabrics are getting high marks too. Looks like the lack of color unevenness is highly valued~”

“According to a Levresta popular culture book we got, the closer to white the cloth is, the more likely it is to be worn by people of high status. Even now, with better bleaching tech, that tradition seems to persist.”

“Akane, I wasn’t aware of that information. Can you share it with us?”

“We’d like it too~!”

“Sure. The info came from a book we got by trading bleached paper. It’s not directly related to the Levresta deal, so I think that’s why it didn’t come up in the search tags.”

They had managed to obtain several magazines that were part of the Levresta Embassy’s collection.

Apparently, within Levresta itself, mass-produced plant-based paper circulated to a certain degree.

According to the ambassador, it wasn’t exactly cheap, but the upper classes considered reading such public magazines a kind of status symbol.

As part of that trend, the embassy received regular shipments of those mass-market magazines.

Even though trading bleached paper for such magazines felt like a bit of a loss in terms of raw exchange rate, the general cultural knowledge gained made it worth pursuing.

“A lot of the magazines are filled with celebrity gossip and unverified rumors. Some even contain complaints about the Council of Elders. Then again, those articles were few and far between. That suggests either a benevolent regime or tight media control.”

“I see. If it’s under control, then it’s likely a permitted pressure release. They seem to understand how to steer public sentiment.”

“Maybe they’re really great politicians~?”

“Like kind grandpas~?”

“The higher probability is information control. If they weren’t controlling speech, then we’d expect to see some degree of government criticism. That’s what historical texts show. And if they were loved, we’d also expect to see at least some articles praising them. But unfortunately, none were found.”

“So it looks peaceful, but it’s got deep shadows, huh.”

“...Scary. Let’s stay away from them...”

This line of analysis had already been conducted by <Ringo>.

And the conclusion Akane reached was nearly identical—an indication of her excellent analytical insight.

However, since she hadn’t incorporated a magical-fantasy perspective, <Ringo> had calculated the reliability of that conclusion at 60%.

There was simply too much unknown information for a definitive analysis.

“This month’s new release~. A coat made of plains-rabbit fur~”

“Lucky item~. A plains-stone necklace? Maybe something good will happen??”

“Advertisements for clothing stores and accessory shops. Paper-based advertising has begun. It’s still unsophisticated. Seems like a few sharp-eyed merchants are just starting to make use of it.”

“...The media... seems immature...”

“Looks like mass-printing with woodcuts. Could be movable type?”

“There are also three-color print pages. Front cover feature. The illustrations are probably woodcuts. The text might be from a different method. For movable type, the alignment is a bit too perfect. But there are ink smudges, so it’s likely printed using plates.”

“You can infer a lot about tech levels just from a book. So they haven’t reached the level of automated printing machines, huh?”

“According to the Levresta ambassador, the magazine’s circulation is in the hundreds. So even if they have plates, it’s almost certainly hand-printed.”

“Only a few hundred? At <The Tree>, we could produce thousands of copies per hour with no issue.”

“...Leave it to me. Including the printer, I can have everything ready... in under two hours...”

“That’s our Olive~. I doubt Erika could do it~”

“I don’t think Utsugi could either~”

Once again reminded of the enormous gap between <The Tree>’s technological level and that of this world, the girls continued poring over the materials.

“Even just a simple magic tool would be fine—I want to analyze one. Can’t we get one in Fratara City?”

“Hmm... maybe? Apparently, magic tools are pretty common in Fratara City.”

“Looks like the local strategic AIs have already sent a few for analysis~. Olive, maybe you can check them out later~?”

“...Okay...”