Since the travel from Rome to Weis is a bit far to take by limousine, Empress Malty orders her royal train to take her to the Austrian territories. A steam train that has all of the luxuries of the palace on the go. A train that is heavily guarded by the palace guards, and a security train that travels ahead to make sure that everything is intact before the empress arrives. All other trains are cast aside for the Empress' train to push through the Empire. After the quick stop in Salzburg for Malty's favorite coffeehouse, which she enjoyed quite fondly, the train reached Weis station and a limo-Cade escorts the empress to Weis Research Laboratory.
A large building that can be converted to a war plant in just mere seconds, but right now it is researching on a weapon so destructible, when completed will be on par with the nuclear missiles. One of the scientists on this gargantuan project was one Senku Ishigami. He is a favorite with the empress, given that she likes to make fun of his weird bok-choy-like white and green hair. He usually wears a lab coat while doing his researching, but right now he is wearing work duds and overalls, for he is building something massive. This massive contraption is what one could call a mecha, a giant robot to be manned by soldiers. Equipped with high tech lasers, heat-seeking missies, and an array of machine guns. Senku sees the empress and immediately heads down to greet his empress.
"Ah! Your Graciousness!" Senku says after bowing to Malty. "I am so honored to have you here today".
"Well, you are lucky this place is near my favorite coffeehouse down in Salzburg, or I will have never come Bok-choy boy" Malty replies snarlingly.
"The name is Senku" he replies.
"What did you say?" Malty asks with temper.
"Never mind" Senku says not wanting to anger the empress. Having steady work within the empire without angering the empress with his more democratic ideals, he is willing to let the empress forget him rather than be executed for correcting the empress.
"Anyway" Kaname butts in, looking up at the mecha. "Is this what you want us to see?"
"Ah!! Yes!" Senku replies. "You are looking at the new machine that will usher a new era of mechanized warfare, it is decked out with our best lasers ready to take down enemy armor. Missiles to take down enemy aircraft, and a mass of machine guns to take down infantry. It is the perfect war machine to take out other weapons of war. I can bet you that this will change warfare ten billion percent". A colossus like this was never achieved by any other civilization... yet. Senku made sure that this project was under lock and key to create the ultimate mecha.
"That sounds amazing" Kaname says to Senku. She turns over to Empress Malty. "Your Graciousness, what do you think?". Malty seems a bit suspicious of the new gigantic machine. She thinks that her heavy bombers always does the best destruction upon an army, and her nuclear bombs and missiles cause major damage to major cities around the world, as mentioned previously in the Third International Catastrophe. Besides, it looked ungodly. Empress Malty prefers to have a stylish military, which is why she still has riflemen around in purple and gold colored uniforms while the rest of the world adopted green camouflage infantry regiments.
"Tell me Bok-Choy boy" Malty remarks looking at the behemoth. "Will this thing really bring in a new era of warfare?".
"Your Graciousness. I assure you that the entire world will tremble upon laying eyes on this great wonder of mechanized technology. Not even the gods can take these great machines down" Senku replies with confidence in his project. "Why, I sat down with the great scientists Thomas Edison, Johannes Kepler, and Albert Einstein to help come up with this colossus".
"Wait, what happened to our scientist Marie Curie?" Malty asks, disappointed that no female great scientists were present with this creation.
"Don't you remember? Marie Curie retired after figuring out gunpowder for you back in the 1730s for you".
"Anyway, you were saying" Kaname butts in again.
"Well, I was hoping your Graciousness if you would like to test this bad boy out?" Senku says.
"On that fugly thing?" Malty remarks, "I don't think so".
"Your Graciousness, come on" Kaname encourages Malty. "If you test this out, I'll pay for dinner at the Vienna Steakhouse later tonight". Malty does like her expensive steak dinners, especially at the Vienna Steakhouse where they only serve the finest beef grown in the Austrian territories. She would pay for it herself, but she doesn't really want to, and at least she is smart enough to know that taking all of it without paying would be bad for the economy.
"Oh alright" Malty says annoyed, "but not because I am being tempted to a delicious dinner". Senku grinned at the prospect of the empress trying out his machine.
"Excellent you Graciousness" Senku replies. "I have cleared the Weis training grounds for demonstration of this great marvel".
"So what do you call this thing anyway" Kaname asks.
"Our team decided to call this bad boy, the Giant Death Robot".
Over at the Weis Training grounds, next to the barracks, the GDR got reassembled in a matter of mere minutes, more or less at least 45 minutes but it was set up perfectly. After a brief rundown of how to operate this monstrosity, Malty enters the machine and begins operating it. The machine itself was a slow mover, slower than the outdated tanks of the Roman Empire. But once it gets to the target spot, it was ready to take down whatever targets are available. First comes the riflemen dummies, dummies wearing the uniforms of the enemies, with just one click of a button, the machine guns begin to fire off, taking down multiple dummies at once. Next game the old land ships from the 1950s, the original monstrosities of the land. The lasers began to light down on the old land ships and one by one each of them explode. The last thing to come were biplanes that were once used by the army in the Second International Catastrophe. The missiles go after the aircraft and immediately blow it smithereens.
In the eyes of Senku, Malty, and the commanding officer of the barracks General Tanya von Degurechaff, the machine works great! The machine wipes out the enemy clean and after further testing proved that it can wipe out an entire city granted that the test city wiped out was all made of wood. To the eyes of a former soldier, spy, and foreign advisor like Kaname, she views this with potentially being a lethal weapon on the battlefield, but the fact of the matter is that the technology of the targets are way outdated. It seems like a glorious victory, but the modern armies of the rest of the world are more equipped to take such damages. This might be their greatest defense against the empire and it's new toy.
"Well" Malty says as she gets out of the GDR. "I must say Bok-Choy boy. This machine does work wonders for destruction".
"I did work hard to create such a marvel of engineering you Graciousness. I just combined all of our modern technological weapons lying around".
"I think it's an excellent idea" General Tanya remarks. This blonde loli has a keen eye for great military advancement and tactics. She is on the top level of military commanders besides Malty's favorite great general Joan of Arc. "I personally like the idea of these robot on the battlefield. I think it will serve us famously".
"And if you are concerned about how ungodly this machine is, we can always paint these bad boys in our army purple" Senku adds on. "Now, these machines will have to consume uranium supplies to maintain their power".
"WHAT! That is WASTED URANIUM WE COULD BE USING FOR NUCLEAR WEAPON CONSTRUCTION!!!" Malty says shocked about the resource cost.
"I think it is a good use of unused uranium, since the International Senate is forcing us to abide to a non-nuclear agreement because of the Treaty of Berlin of 1986". The Treaty of Berlin caused an international ban on continuing the build of nuclear weapons. In exchange for ceased territories, the Roman Empire had to sign the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty as part of the clause of the treaty, though Empress Malty disapproved of it. At least she got the rest of the world to agree that Prince Edward would be a prisoner to the empire until action was taken on him. Feeling defeated, Malty sighs and caves in which she rarely does.
"Fine, I suppose I'll allow it".
"Excellent your Graciousness! I promise ten billion percent that this won't let you down" Senku replies. On the ground, Malty noticed something she hadn't noticed before. It was some sort of rifle that General Tanya was holding on the side. Malty was curious of the type of rifle she has never seen.
"General, what is that rifle you are holding, is that our model?" Malty asks.
"This?" Tanya says holding out the rifle, "we acquired one of these from the battlefield of the last war, from spies and research we have gained the knowledge that this is called a bolt-action rifle. These rifles are said to be more powerful than our own muzzle-loading rifles and can fire multiple rounds before having to reload". Their rifles were becoming old fashioned, Their rifles can only fire once before reloading, these enemy rifles can shoot up to five rounds before having to reload.
"Bok-choy boy" Malty says after reviewing the weapon. "See that you research this rifle and improve upon our enemies' design. And see if you can make armor that is fashionable to the eye and effective on the battlefield".
"Yes your Graciousness" Senku replies, thinking to himself that she should have done that years ago. He has wanted to modernize the military for quite sometime. After the Third International Catastrophe, their land and sea forces were tops in technological advancement. This meant that everyone had riflemen, but the Roman empire had landships, bombers, fighter planes, dreadnoughts, machine guns, and of course, the nuclear option which led to victory in the war. But from that time and now, there hasn't been much military technological progress for the empress proclaimed that there is nothing that can compare to the Roman Imperial Army at the time, but now the there nations had modern infantry, jets, modern armored tanks, battleships, and better nuclear capabilities than Rome, so upgrading the military is a must to compare to the more modern armies of their enemies.
"I want the world to see what a great war infantry battalion should look like, and I want the world to cower in our military supremacy. Anyone who tries to even get in my way shall be ruthlessly obliterated by my forces. The world will know of the might of the Roman Empire, and the heathens will bow down the gracious Three Heroes. I want this new battalion to be formed in five... no, three weeks!" Malty exclaims.
"Yes your Graciousness, I will see what I can do" Senku replies. Malty then commands for her entourage to leave for Vienna, while Kaname said she'd be there in a few seconds because she wanted to talk with Senku for a few minutes.
"Mr. Ishigami" Kaname said, "Are you going to have this "Great War" infantry done in the allotted time the empress granted?". She is pretty much worried as she knows what happens to people who failed to do their duty in time. A hard axing off the head is something she rather not see.
"I wouldn't have agreed to do it if I was ten billion percent confident" Seku replies with that same confidence he was talking about. "All I have to do is find a way to make every part systematically replacable".
"Are you sure that it is possible just for yourself t work on?".
"Of course it is. Take a look around the world. The industry of war has made it possible for each soldier to carry the same rifle made in the same factory with identical parts that makes it so that if one part breaks, it can be mended, and it provides great use in civilian industry. One man once told me that Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs. And I already worked on the GDR. It will take more than time to keep me from impressing the empress". On that note, Kaname leaves Senku to return to his lab, while she rejoins Malty on her private train to Vienna.
-End of Chapter Five-