Enlightened Empire

Chapter 472: Easy Rider (2)

"Riding a bicycle is easy," Corco explained to Fadelio, as he was still driving circles around him, "and you'll never forget once you learn. It's like..." Well, that's not gonna work, he realized before he awkwardly finished the sentence, "it's like something easy, you know? Anyways, they'll learn soon enough. And they'll have to. Not only the runners, but all of our soldiers."

"Is that not a bit much?" No doubt, Fadelio thought back to his own misadventures with the machines, and the many falls he had suffered in his attempts to learn from Corco. It was a good excuse for the king to join in on the memories and smirk at his friend's expense one more time. However, not everyone was in a mocking mood.

"Prime Minister Fadelio, it truly is not too complicated," Nabo made his presence felt. "Even a humble commoner craftsman such as I was able to learn the operation methods of the bicycle rather quickly."

That much was true. In fact, Corco was convinced the craftsman had begun to grow a beard in order to hide the wound around his chin from a particularly nasty fall. Though to his credit, he had stuck with it and eventually become the second cyclist in this world, before even Fadelio, who had given up halfway through.

"It's not just easy, it's necessary." Corco added, and stopped cycling again. This was too important of a topic, and he lacked gravitas whenever he was riding around. "If the soldiers don't want to learn it by themselves, we'll have to force them. And before you complain again: there's no alternative to this. These things are far too crucial for our future success. So we'll have to make bicycle lessons in the army mandatory for a while, until enough people learn it to prove how easy it truly is. Only then will the idea catch on by itself. Believe me, riding a bike feels counter intuitive at first, but once you get it, it's the easiest thing in the world. And once there's enough examples of people rising around, everyone will want to learn it, and we're gonna thoroughly revolutionize the way our society functions."

"I retain my judgment on that part. On all parts, in fact," Fadelio just said in response to Corco's enthusiastic speech.

"You would, wouldn't you." Corco sighed. Clearly, his enthusiasm wasn't contagious today, so he had to explain himself properly. Otherwise, there would be problems with policy implementation down the line.

"Right, I'll just give you this one factoid to spark your imagination," Corco tried again, "Once they learn how to ride one of these, each of our runners can cover a distance two or even three times as far as before, at like twice the speed. In the past year, we've been struggling with communication and control over the distant estates, right? Well, here's your solution: We'll just shorten the distance to those far-off estates from a week to a few days."

"That... would be helpful," Fadelio finally admitted, after a second of stunned silence. "However, it would not solve the fundamental problems of control in those estates. Even if the runners could arrive there more quickly, we would still be lacking military control in those distant areas, and our officials would continue to suffer under the non-compliance of the locals."

"Like I've said, the soldiers have to learn how to ride as well," the king repeated. "By then, they can also arrive in those distant estates more quickly. And just imagine the long-term benefits: On these, an entire army would be able to travel 150, 200, even 250 kilometers in a day on a forced march. Not to mention, a cyclist can transport many times more weight than an ordinary soldier, which will vastly improve our logistics, too. We'd always be able to choose the battlefield, and we'd never be out of position or out of supplies. By that point, who would ever be able to corner us, and who would ever be able to defeat us?"

Corco imagined the new units like dragoons, traveling to the battlefield by bike, and then dismounting to fight as ordinary infantry. He had images of street cycling races in his head after all. With some training, his soldiers would be able to travel next to each other in the thousands. As Corco voiced out the benefits of the bicycles more and more, Fadelio finally seemed to come around to the idea as well. At last, he began to see the genius in Corco's plan.

"That... sure sounds impressive, should it ever come true." Of course he had to add that little caveat in there. "Though if we can find enough men who will be able to tame these machines, I am still unsure."

Again with that. It's a personal vendetta, isn't it? Just because you've failed to ride a bike doesn't mean no one else can.

"No worries, I'll personally deal with the training," Corco reassured his friend, rather than complain about him. "Soon enough, you'll see the results, and you'll see just how easy it is to learn. Believe me, this is a fundamental shift in our country's future, one which will bring us irreversibly ahead of our enemies. With faster transportation and communication, the moment when we once more unify all of Medala won't be too far off anymore."

While the idea of a mounted cyclist army felt funny to Corco, he didn't have the luxury of using horses, since he hadn't found any yet. Their efforts to breed camels were also still at the very start.

Though objectively speaking, bicycles weren't any worse than horses in the first place. Rather, they were much better so long as their infrastructure was good enough.

After all, the bikes didn't need any supplies, couldn't fall ill, and didn't get tired. While horses were much better in rough terrain, the bicycles made more than up for it with their efficiency around roads. After all, as Saniya's army increased in size and technology, Corco's preferred form of engagement was large-scale battles along major roads.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

In the first place, the only reason bikes were rarely seriously used for war in the other world was because proper bikes weren't developed until better methods of transportation — like trains and even early automobiles — had already been invented.

Now however, the invention of the bicycle had been pushed ahead by hundreds of years, and there were also no horses to compete with them. Once introduced, these bikes would dominate the battlefields and streets of Medala for decades to come, at the very least. While Corco was still lost in thought about the future of his kingdom, his attendant seemed to have been hung up on an entirely different idea.

"Ah that reminds me, the reason why I've come," he said, and pulled a scroll from his pocket.

"What do you mean? What reminds you of what? The unification of Medala?" Corco tried to follow Fadelio's sudden jump in logic, before he realized why his attendant had come here to find him in the first place. "Is there more news from the north?"

After all, most of Medala had been remarkably quiet these days. After a hectic last year, most forces had calmed down to stabilize their positions or lick their wounds. Only the north had shown increased activity, and only after Brym had begun to stir up the place for his bond sales.

"Yes, the detailed report has arrived," Fadelio confirmed, as expected. Thus, the fun was over once and for all. Once more, Corco was forced to return back to his work, leaving behind the whimsical world of bicycle testing. Left with no other choice, he had to turn towards Nabo to invite him away. After all, this was classified information, not something a craftsman would be privy to.

"Sorry, could you leave us alone for a moment?" he tried to be as tactful as possible, since he was about to throw the craftsman from his own home. However, Nabo was as patient and understanding as he had been during the month-long building process of the bikes.

"Of course, King Corco," he just said, and turned to leave.

Thus, Corco and Fadelio had to wait in awkward silence until Nabo was out of earshot.

"Did something happen?" Corco was the first to speak up, confused that the north was still an issue at all. "I thought the news we got was that everything had been resolved already? Any further details should have been handled by your department, right? I mean, the contract was already signed and everything. Did Amautu make some sudden counterattack or something?" the king finally guessed. He really couldn't imagine what else would need his attention. After the mess in the north had been resolved so cleanly as per Antaya's last report, he had mentally already struck the issue off his endless to-do-list.

"No, the northern unrest has been resolved cleanly, just how the initial report said," Fadelio alleviated Corco's initial concerns. "However, the full report contains a few more details you should be aware of, things too important for me to just handle by myself."

"All right. So what is it then?" a relaxed Corco leaned into his bike's saddle, relieved that the worst case of a sudden defeat in the north hadn't happened. As expected, Fadelio's next words could at most be considered an issue, rather than a catastrophe.

"It's the ghosts," he explained. "They've suffered quite significant losses while defending the northern lords."

"We'll finally have to start training new people, huh?" Corco just commented. After all, the reestablishment of the Mausoleum had long been part of the king's plans. However, because there had always been more important things to deal with, it had been pushed back time and time again. Now, it was apparently no longer possible to delay the issue any further, or they would eventually just run out of people.

"That was Lady Antaya's suggestion as well," Fadelio confirmed. "Further, the lady has reported that King Amautu has developed an army of elite assassins, far stronger and more loyal than ordinary warriors, or even the ghosts."

"Another one, huh?" Corco sighed in response to more bad news. "First, he had strong warriors, now he has strong assassins, too. It looks like those Chutwa scholars are really far ahead of us when it comes to cultivation research."

"Yes, indeed. It's quite concerning to be this far behind," Fadelio admitted. "From our own reports, and from intelligence the central kingdom has shared with us, their supply of powerful warriors seems nearly endless. It's concerning for the future, especially if we end up in a military conflict with them."

"That's right. I think it's finally time to cash in on our own cultivation research," Corco concluded. "We've been working on this for a long time already. It's time we start seeing some results, no matter how ready we are."

No doubt, those were the exact words Fadelio had been waiting for, since he wrote down Corco's orders with a happy expression. After all, there was one more reason why they hadn't reestablished the Mausoleum until now.

Corco had blocked any early attempts to do so, because he wanted to develop new and improved cultivation techniques for his ghost warriors before they started on the wrong foot again. To achieve as such, the king had funded and organized research into cultivation techniques for years now. However, not even Fadelio had any access to the relevant information, let alone the results of the research. After all, Corco knew precious little about this one aspect of this world, and so he had decided to be as cautious as possible.

Thus, Fadelio could only ask Corco to release the research early if they wanted to rebuild the ghosts stronger than before. Now, they had run out of time, so even the perfectionist Corco had no choice to cut the experiments short. If Amautu overwhelmed them with an endless army of elite warriors, everything would be too late. If there were any problems arising from insufficient early research, they would have to deal with them later.

Thus, Corco rode his bicycle out of the yard, ready to return to the castle first, to plan a visit to distant islands around Medala. In fact, his mind wasn't on the research along. Hadn't he wanted to make up today's events to Maci? Surely, this was the perfect opportunity to travel around the islands of Medala and spend some time together, as a kind of second honeymoon.

Even with his long steps, Fadelio just barely managed to keep up with the absent-minded Corco, although the king had already slowed down out of consideration. Meanwhile, the king's guards had to break into a jog just to keep up with their king's whims.

"By the way, Laqhis," Fadelio suddenly said, already out of breath.

"What is it, friend?" Corco asked. Although he expected another question or remark about cultivation, or the ghosts, his mood was now restored, eager to tell Maci about his plans.

"How do you woo a woman?" Fadelio asked out of the blue, to baffle his king and the surrounding guards. Maybe, Corco thought as he stared at his embarrassed friend, it was time to give him some time off as well. With a proper social life, maybe he would bother him a bit less. Surely, this was an idea worth exploring.