Dinner With Family by Hiroyuki Morioka (best novels for teenagers TXT) 📕

on playing with its siblings, evidently forgetting its embarrassing slip-up in a matter of seconds.

“If that isn’t the picture of peace,” said Jint.

“This isn’t ‘peace,’” Lafier stated, not taking her eyes off the screen projected from her wristgear. “This is just time in need of killing.”

“Oh, c’mon. A little leisure time’s a good thing.” Jint gazed out the window at the snowy scenery.

Suddenly, Sehrnye’s face took up part of the wall. “Your Highness, Your Excellency. A reply has arrived from the landworld administration.”

“Please send it to my wristgear,” said Jint.

“At once, sir,” she said, lowering her head. “Do you have any other requests?”

“Call Mr. Yestesh to the office, if you could. That’s it.”

“Understood,” said Sehrnye, before disappearing.

“Has that woman become your personal secretary?” asked Lafier.

“Yeah, but only temporarily,” said Jint. “Her job is antimatter fuel tank overseer, but here in ‘mine countdom,’ there aren’t any to oversee, so she’s got nothing to do. So she’s playing messenger for me, just to kill time.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Lafier. “I should have been the one doing that.”

“You?” said Jint, startled. According to most, Lafier would have exhibited much less psychological resistance to the idea of just barging in on him unannounced with whatever news, rather than playing messenger.

“What will you do now?”

“Work, of course.” Jint operated his wristgear, and the window, the snow, and the brick wall vanished, replaced by an inorganic wall and door. Beyond that door lay the office. Jint stepped through.

“An orbital tower construction base, you say? Oh, of course,” said Yestesh. “I forgot, this territory-nation doesn’t have an orbital tower yet.”

In the Empire, every landworld had an orbital tower, save for one. But the construction plan was exceedingly concrete. It was why the construction base existed. The war started right around when the base was completed, and it had been summarily abandoned. Martin’s star system government had proposed the construction base as a meeting place.

“I’ve never been there, but it seems like it ticks the boxes for a conference venue,” replied Jint, perusing the files attached with the proposal document. “The orbital tower construction plan is alive, and the base is being maintained, so it remains airtight. It also seems easy enough to guard.

“So you don’t have any objections to the meeting place, correct?” asked Lafier.

“Uh-huh. It may be a facility of the landworld administration, but it’s the closest thing to a neutral zone in my whole countdom.”

“I don’t have an opinion regarding the meeting place. But this...” Yestesh tracked the strings of characters on the screen embedded in the desk with his eyes. Just that moment, the landworld administration had sent a message detailing their conditions for giving sovereignty to the Empire, and the Investigator was processing them as he read.

Finally, after devouring the missive, Yestesh raised his head. “Do you intend to accept these terms?”

“Do you have any objections to that?” asked Jint, out of courtesy.

“Well, this is a matter between the landworld administration and the system’s Lord, so I can’t interpose. But I must tell you, it’s an exceptional case among exceptional cases,” he said, a tad pompously.

“I thought as much. Is it viable in the eyes of the law?”

“It should be. One of my subordinates is a specialist in that area; if you so desire, shall I have the terms scrutinized?”

“Please, by all means.”

“And if the terms are, in fact, legally valid, you will accept them?”

“I plan to, yes,” replied Jint.

“Not to overstep my bounds yet again, sir, but I don’t think that’s very wise. Isn’t this a tad weak-kneed of you?”

“It might be, but I believe it to be the best way.”

“I see...” Yestesh looked unconvinced, to say the least, but he sent the file to his legal specialist. “Now, allow me to make a suggestion to you as an official of the Empire.”

“Suggest away.”

“It would behoove you to add one more provision to the text.” Yestesh proceeded to explain how the landworld administration’s sovereignty should be limited to just the landworld of Martinh. It was de rigueur among the Empire’s territory-nations for the administrative domains of landworld administrations not to extend past their respective planets’ atmospheres. As such, in the star systems like the Archduchy of Laitpanh with three inhabited planets, each planet had its own landworld administration for a total of three in the system. In general, space, the stars, and uninhabited planets belonged to the Abh — that was the Empire’s fundamental policy.

“Far be it from me to thrust my nose into the finances of the House of Hyde, but if you do not make it clear that priority over the resources outside the landworld belongs to the Lord, it could hamper the operations of various imperial institutions, to say nothing of the Star Forces.”

“I understand. Let’s work out a draft,” said Jint, but there was no need. The phraseology was all boilerplate stuff pulled from a collection of legal ordinances. The specialist finished looking it all over within the space of about an hour. The Empire did not forbid any of the landworld administration’s proposals. The text was altered with a single amendment, and then sent back to the landworld administration as the final response of the House of Hyde.

The attack on the Forr Da Antohbeeta must have been effective, for the government of Hyde proved amenable to the added stipulation. With this, a meeting was no longer necessary, yet Jint wanted to go through with it anyway, for no other reason than to meet his family.

“Jint. You’ve gotten so big.”

“And you got older, Till.” Jint shifted his gaze on his other surrogate parent. “You haven’t changed at all, though, Lina.”

“When did you become such a flatterer?” she smiled.

“Since I was born. You never noticed?”

“I suppose.”

The place they were currently at was slated to become a worship chapel once the base became fully operational. As of now, however, it was all but empty. No cross, no pulpit, no pews. The stained glass images depicting religious icons and mysteries were all that hinted at the building’s future.