The adventures of the young engineer and Prinz Eugen Volume 2.

No. 7 Chapter 9

The young engineer was engrossed in his work and only noticed the approaching Prinz Eugen when the cruiser opened the door to the sideroom of the workshop he was in. "How are you doing?" She asked the young engineer. "Well, I never thought that my basic skills in sewing would be needed in my job as an engineer." He chuckled. "Your right rudder has been disassembled and I fixed the fabric of your shoe. The steering mechanism is fixed as well. All I need to do now is cut and weld together the new rudder blade." He explained. "You are making quick progress." Prinz Eugen praised the young engineer. "More or less, that was the easy part. Making your rudder with general tools will be a challenge. Thankfully I already have materials infused with Wisdomcube energy. Otherwise I would have had to build that rudder blade the conventional way." He elaborated. "It was certainly fortunate that Akashi had what you needed." Prinz Eugen agreed. Upon hearing that name the young engineer dropped the needle and thread he had in his hands and stood up. "You knew exactly what kind of greedly little ripoff that repairship is." He accused her. "Why didn't you tell me?" He asked betrayed. "It would have taken the fun out of the encounter for you." Prinz Eugen answered smugly with her signature smile. "I will certainly not pay your repairs out of my pocket. You owe me the money I spent for those materials and those stupid gems." He told the cruiser. "Wait? You bought the gems from her?" Prinz Eugen asked before bursting out in laughter. It took her some time until she had composed herself and explained her amusement to the visibly upset engineer. " You could have just asked for some, the base has plenty of them. You could have just gotten them from the commander." She explained while chuckling. "But it is alright, it is more than fair that I reimburse you." The cruiser agreed, trying to calm the engineer who started to be visibly upset. "In the end you got what you needed to do the repairs. That is the important thing." She concluded. "I suppose so. But please, tell me about such people before you send me off to meet them." The young engineer asked the cruiser. "I will be sure to do so." She smiled.

"I also did some things while you were here. I revoked your transfer to the research department and confirmed your continued position as my lead engineer." Prinz Eugen explained and changed the topic. "Next to that I informed Fritz Mahler and your godfather that you are alright. I am supposed to greet you from them." She continued on. "Thank you for transmitting their regards." The young engineer thanked her while he had resumed his work on repairing her shoe. "Fritz also told me that some of your thoughts and ideas seemed to have led to a potential breakthrough." Prinz Eugen added. "It did?" The young engineer asked surprised, focusing his attention fully on the cruiser. "Apparently so, although he did not tell me what you all were up to." Prinz Eugen answered and admitted her lack of knowledge on that matter. "Forschungsabteilung 2 is continuing their work on growing our fleet. One of the ideas was that it could potentially be enough to have full construction blueprints as physical evidence for a Shipgirl to manifest, given there are enough Wisdomcubes and materials present to form said ship. If that would be true it could mean we could create Shipgirls without the need to fully build their conventional hulls first and awakening them by changing the hull into a Shipgirl. That naturally would mean we could save a lot of resources, time and energy and all we would need to do was to finish the blueprints of previous ships and provide according materials infused with wisdomcube energy. The issue at hand is that no one of us knows how these Shipgirls could come into existence. From what we know from Weser, Mainz and Graf Zeppelin is that they have formed their conscious thought around the past of their hulls and what people attributed to them as characteristics. That is for example the reason Fritz and I think Weser and Mainz both came into existence at the same time, because we both thought of different ships. " The young engineer explained. Prinz Eugen raised an eyebrow in active thought for a couple of seconds while she took in the information. "So you mean to say that if you have the resources, blueprints and an engineer that is not too nuts to have a coherent thought of who it is they are creating, they should be able to create ships from of a couple of blueprints and proposals?" She asked. "Exactly that is the thought. The question is just how can we create the idea of what a living ships would be like and how do we envisioned them. If we could prove or figure out how such a thought or idea could be used to manifest a living form ..." The young engineer was at a loss for words. "It would be as big of a revelation as the change to living ships itself." Prinz Eugen finished his sentence for the young engineer. The latter nodded while making one last knot into the seam he had just finished. "How far have you guys developed that idea?" She asked. "Well, it is less of a development of thought but rather something that needs to be tried out." He explained while stowing away the sewing needle. "You mean to say that Mahler did not refer to a breakthrough in research but rather one in getting the allowance of trying that idea out." She concluded before the young engineer was able to say the same. "Exactly." He agreed and validated her conclusion. "What I would give to be there. That would be quite interesting to see." Prinz Eugen wondered. "Well, we are here sadly and with your latest orders and requests we will be here for quite a bit." Concluded the young engineer their conversation.

"Anyways. How did your work go after the two of us parted? Did you manage to unify the Iris factions in our alliance?" He asked her and changed the topic. "It did not change much. Both sides still don't trust each other and there was no way of getting both sides to join under either banner. Altogether I consider it 13 weeks of wasted time and that's it." Prinz Eugen summarized. "So in the end it all turned out to be a pointless slog?" The young engineer asked. "Not quite. Vichya has been strengthened in their opinion that we are more trustworthy and reliable as allies and that will certainly help our cause and alliance." Prinz Eugen countered. "And thanks to you being there we know that there seems to be an information leak we have not known before in our system. Not to mention that the Royal Navy is after our designs and technology." She added but the young engineer remained silent. "You are still having doubts right?" She asked the engineer after a while. "I have to admit it feels weird to be back around you like nothing happened. I mean it is certainly a good thing that we two are seemingly back to where we were before that issue between us. But it does feel offsetting." He tried to explain. "I think I understand what you mean, but I suppose it is just your subconscious telling you to be careful still." Prinz Eugen tried to explain her understanding of the matter.
Before the two could continue their conversation they were interrupted by a short and energetic knocking on the door to the workshop before the said door was flung open.

In strode Kumano with her happy and with her sharp toothed smile. "There you two are. We were totally looking for you two. I really need to text Suzuya and Atago that I found you two. We need to get you two going. Since you are celebrating the new year with us you have to come with us to Hiroshima to see the celebrations. It is going to be like really awesome to show you all the things." Kumano bubled out in her excitement while furiously tipping on the display of her phone. "We already need to go?" The young engineer asked, somewhat taken back. "Yes, we totally need to go if we want to see everything there is. There is so much we want to show to you two and do with you two that we need all the time. " Kumano explained. Prinz Eugen and the young engineer looked at eachother. "I have to wait for the Bulins to turn the materials I got for your rudder into Wisdomcube energy infused ones anyways, since they have no machinery here with which I could have done it myself." He commented and agreed to join Kumano. "It seems we have a couple of days off then, to celebrate the new year." Prinz Eugen agreed and stood up from the chair she was sitting on. "That will be so awesome. I have to get Suzuya so we all can go to Akashi and get us some nice outfits for the celebrations." Kumano cheered. "Prinz you will look like really awesome in one of our dresses. I can tell already." The sakuran cruiser continued in her excitement. "We have to go and see Akashi?" The young engineer asked, dismayed. "Yea, she is our tailor or rather the one who knows one. She makes like totally great outfits for us here and she is really cool. If you have a request you can be sure Akashi either has it or can get it." Kumano explained while the three left the workshop. Looking at Prinz Eugen the young engineer curled his eyebrows. "No matter what, I refuse to talk to that Shipgirl and I will not bargain with that scam artist of a merchant. I will wait outside." His frustrated statement earned him the laughter of amusement from the Ironblood cruiser. A sound he had not heard since they had left the Ironblood together for the Iris Libre over half a year ago.