[Blue Archive] I am the Trinity Checkpoint Chief – Chapter 13

Shiraishi Utaha, as the president of the Engineering Club at Millennium Science School, was the only third-year student to have received the Meister title. Since no second-year students had earned the title, she was practically treated as a veteran in the field of mechanical engineering.

Among her peers, there were plenty of students obsessed with engineering, but most were satisfied with a certain level of achievement, or their fixation on research topics spiraled into madness after years of grueling effort, quite literally driving them insane.

Of course, that meant Utaha was one of the rare few at Millennium who was “crazy” about machines in a refined and disciplined way, but she didn’t pay much attention to such labels.

She wasn’t crazy about machines—she loved them.

By definition, machines are inanimate steel constructs powered to move and perform tasks. But to Utaha, they were something else entirely—beautifully curved lines, spheres spanning two and three dimensions, and angular ridges sculpted into something extraordinary.

From above, they might seem merely round, but as you descend, they reveal sharp, unexpected twists: bolts. And nuts, which pair with bolts to connect everything from the most basic components to the critical core of a machine—there’s nowhere they can’t reach.

They were Utaha’s most beloved children.

Of course, even though the machines in the Engineering Club’s room boasted cutting-edge technology, they weren’t entirely made of just bolts and nuts. That would be more like an art piece from some Wild Hunt student.

Complex mechanisms, too intricate to name, ticked away like a 24-hour convenience store inside larger frameworks. They only stopped when all power to their bodies was cut off.

Within them were smaller circuits, intricate transistors, and various components, all joined and secured with bolts, nuts, copper wires, and thermal compounds. Displays, hydraulic systems, and turbine heat engines—all operated by electrical signals—were also connected by bolts and nuts.

The power sources for these circuits and their connected devices were typically standard batteries for smaller items, but for larger systems, compact reactors were sometimes used. In some cases, driven by sheer romanticism, old steam engines or coal generators were employed.

Utaha designed and loved them all.

All the machines in the world!

More than anyone else!

Even more than her Engineering Club underclassmen!

She loved them!

…Or so she often indulged in such fantasies, wasting time lost in her daydreams. Thanks to her underclassmen, who were one or two years younger, she often found herself alone, unable to spend much time with them.

To begin with, none of the three students were particularly fond of hanging out together. Unless they were passionately diving into a new development project, her underclassmen tended to stick to themselves.

Compared to the previous year, when she was alone in the massive Engineering Club room, tinkering with bolts, it was a huge improvement—no peers or even Meister underclassmen to keep her company back then. Still, there was a slight pang of longing in her girlish heart.

It felt like the awkward atmosphere at the start of a semester when you’re not quite clicking with classmates. But having lived her whole life as an engineering nerd, she wasn’t the type to take up sports or play the online games her underclassmen were into, which didn’t suit her tastes anyway.

Utaha decided to focus on what she called her “dreams” but others might call “delusions.” Lately, her underclassmen had started joining in on her daydreams a bit, so she figured it’d be fine, mentally reassuring herself.

That is, until she met this utterly bizarre client.

“…So, what exactly do you want us to do?”

“We’re looking to do a major remodel of the vehicle, starting with the engine. That’s… doable, right?”

“Of course it’s doable… but you’ve got to at least give us a rough idea of what you want.”

“Hmm… Just make it look cool, I guess? I don’t know much about vehicle design.”

Typically, clients come with very detailed ideas about their vehicle’s appearance—complete with sketches, plastic models, 3D-printed prototypes, welded titanium alloys, computer renderings, or even 1:1 scale mockups.

But these students from Trinity were asking them to just make something without any blueprints or concepts.

To be honest, in her 12 years at Millennium, Utaha had never encountered a client like this. To think that these people would shock the three of them, only to say, “Well, we’ll leave it to you,” like it was nothing, and then vanish like they were conducting a particle accelerator experiment!

Utaha and the other Engineering Club Meisters stood frozen for a few minutes after the group left.

Then, as if on cue…

“…Hooray!!!”

“A new research topic!”

“We’ve got another development platform!!”

They jumped around, filling the Engineering Club room with cheers—so loud that the Trinity students, who had wandered off talking about “Millennium sightseeing,” came back startled.

After some quick explaining to dismiss it as no big deal, they managed to send them off again, though Kotori nearly caused a scene by tearing up from uncontainable excitement.

The reason these symbols of Millennium’s technological prowess, often called living thesis printers of mechanical engineering, were jumping around like playful kids could be summed up in two points.

First, just when securing additional budget was proving difficult, a new platform for testing technology had appeared.

Second, in the Engineering Club’s eyes—or in the crude terms of Trinity Comprehensive Academy—this was a freaking massive platform.

The 8.3-meter-long base frame could probably be extended to about 10 meters, and with just a touch of Millennium-Technology applied to the engine, the output would be on a whole different scale.

The client had scribbled a note mentioning a lounge space behind the driver’s seat, so they’d need to shape the chassis to expand upward to create extra room. Naturally, they’d pack it with the latest devices developed by the Engineering Club.

Oh, and the most important reason—budget!

Budget, that damn beautiful yet terrifying word. The club had already burned through millions of yen in seminar budget cuts, and the Engineering Club was hit especially hard among other clubs.

Sure, blowing half the quarter’s budget on developing a railgun for a space battleship might seem justified to others, but not to Utaha or her club members.

They couldn’t complain too loudly since those who didn’t understand the joy of turning “idiotic” ideas into reality held the purse strings.

But not anymore. This fantastic development platform meant they could justify developing new weaponry for Millennium’s Defense Agency. Additional weapons development increased the chances of securing supplementary funding.

Whether this project would benefit Millennium or not depended on the client’s approval, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Utaha and her club members wouldn’t have to dip into their personal savings for this.

Utaha thought to herself: This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

With sparkling eyes, she grabbed a pen, clearly intent on creating this year’s masterpiece. Sensing her plan to pour every last yen of the remaining budget into this remodel, Kotori and Hibiki hurriedly pushed a desk aside and brought out a massive blueprint.

After about 30 minutes of scribbling graphite onto the blueprint, something occurred to Utaha. The blueprint was nearly complete, crafted with the fiery passion of students at the forefront of Millennium’s technological engineering, but the weaponry on the rear turret seemed a bit… small.

Sure, extending the chassis and raising it further made it look proportionally smaller, but that wasn’t the main issue.

Doesn’t it look too weak?

It was a shared thought among Utaha, Kotori, and Hibiki—the Engineering Club trio.

“…Isn’t a 105mm a bit lacking?”

“Right? That’s what I’m saying! We won’t get in too much trouble for upping it a bit, right? It’s all for making the truck look cooler—that’s the mindset, isn’t it?”

“That excuse might not fly with the client. Let’s just say we thought the firepower was underwhelming relative to the chassis size.”

“Wow, as expected of Utaha-senpai!”

Good grief, the checkpoint chief would be floored if they saw this. Worrying about an excuse the client might not buy and coming up with a more logical one instead!

Of course, that doesn’t mean, “Why waste your brain on making excuses?” but rather, “Why not just admit we’re beating up Gehenna and dare them to do something about it?” But since the checkpoint chief was probably off enjoying their sightseeing, it didn’t matter much.

While the Trinity bumpkins were marveling at Millennium-Technology, a not-so-secret scheme was brewing in the Engineering Club.