Chapter 202 - Ration Selection

A nervous company presenter in a suit shifted his tie slightly, as beads of sweats formed in the creases of his chubby neck, coating it in a thin film. His eyes glanced around the conference hall, meeting Kyle’s for a moment before he gulped instinctively, quickly averting his gaze.

Unexpectedly, Kyle gave a curt smile, a patronizing one at best. The presenter was slightly taken aback by the smile, the reputation of the ADCON’s boss terrorizing his wild imaginations of how he would be killed if he messed up the demonstration.

“Please begin.” Kyle prompted, the presenter awkwardly bowing as low as he could before beginning, pointing towards an armor suit.

“Uhm… uh… our company is brand new, but we have big dreams… uhh… sorry… Yes! Our company’s name is Gastromotion, and we are aiming to specialize in combat rations. We believe our capabilities and heritage put us in a unique position to fulfill the requirements of the business development plan and, subsequently, the tender for…

“Get to the point.” Yona urged, not wanting to waste any more time on the blubbering presenter. “Just show us how it works, how much it would cost, and be done with it.”

“Yes, ma’am, sorry ma’am.” The presenter quickly had one of his assistants drag up a rusty, rickety model, an old Versian diving suit that had clearly outlasted its lifespan. No one had a model exosuit to work on, Kyle being the only one to have such an exosuit, so the companies presenting only had a rough idea to go on, thinking that it was akin to a diving suit of sorts.

“Here is the encased helmet as requested, and within the helmet, we have engineered motors and mechanical arms that would feed the user as requested. Food will be inserted through the helmet’s space on the side…”

“Hold on,” Kyle interjected, getting off his seat and walking up to the old diving suit, checking internally. “How much food can be stored in the helmet?”

“Err… it depends on the size of the helmet. This diving suit’s helmet can store about two kilograms.”

Kyle was no longer smiling. “You want my troops to carry two kilograms on their heads? As if the helmet itself was not heavy enough. How many moving parts?”

“Uhh, about 15…”

“Can you cut it down to two?”

“Two parts is impossible!” The presenter blurted out, before realizing who he was talking to. “ I mean, we can try to work on it, but it was not listed in the requirements.”

“Simply fulfilling the requirements is not good business practice – every other company can fulfill the requirements as well. What sets you apart from them? The amount of mechanical parts would be a pain point for the ADCON troops, and terrible to repair.”

“Well, we can provide trained maintenance crew-“

“And have you leech off us with service costs?” Kyle scoffed. “Please leave the room; you will be notified of the outcome in a week.”

The presenter opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it and left quietly, the diving suit dragged behind him.

Kyle sighed as he sat back next to Yona, flipping through the papers provided by the company. A detailed breakdown of the design, manufacturing, and testing costs were listed within, along with a timeline. He could already tell that the timeline suggested was far too ambitious for this complicated mechanism.

“You said these companies were supposed to match the need – how is this a match? They are hardly competent. They don’t even know who their customers are or who they are selling to.”

“To be fair, you don’t even have the design of the standardized exosuit yet. These companies are working in the dark, so it is pretty impressive that they managed to get this far. If you want Desham to diversify, you’re going to have to stop thinking in terms of ADCON. Maybe instead of the rations contract, that company… what was its name again? It could do other things.”

Kyle pondered for a moment. “You’re right. Get them on the business development program. They seem adequate enough to create a feeding system for the mineral ants. Have them scale up to be able to feed more than two thousand mineral ants in the long run.”

“Sir, they are a food production company, not a mineral conveyor belt manufacturer.”

“Food is food.”

Yona groaned but made a note regardless. The following company entered, their presenter slightly more confident than the other. Interestingly enough, the model they used was the old Versian diving suit as well.

“Do people go diving very often?” Kyle asked Yona.

“Near to Proco, yes. Plenty of artifacts and ruins to hunt.”

Kyle already had plans to go to Proco, making a mental note about being able to dive there. He squinted into the helmet displayed in front of him, seemingly having a straw.

“Good morning, we have invented a novel delivery system of liquefied food that can keep ADCON soldiers well-fed on the battlefield for up to a week on a single load. The load is stored on the back, between the shoulder blades, and the user provides the suction force up through the provided tubes.”

“How hard is it to draw the food up the tube?”

“It’s…manageable. In the event that the user has difficulty doing so, we can design an arctech air pump to assist in the suction process. The tube is external, attachable to the user’s helmet through a designated feed port.”

Kyle was far more intrigued than he was before, standing up to inspect the diving suit. He could see they had welded the tube along the helmet, preventing enemies from grabbing onto it, etc. But this also meant it was not detachable at all.

The liquified food was stored in the back, the storage container currently made of glass for demonstration purposes. It was a sickly mix of grey and green, Kyle trying to repress his own disgust at the sight. He had eaten worse nutri-paste before, but even a crime lord has standards.

“Demonstrate the suction process to me.”

“Sorry?” The presenter was caught off guard.

“You said it was manageable. Show it to me.”

“Uh… yes, of course.”

The presenter gingerly puckered his lips around the end of the tube, before inhaling as hard as he could through his mouth. The liquefied food moved slowly up the tube, the presenter’s face getting redder as time went on. Eventually, the food entered his mouth, and the presenter gagged at the taste.

Kyle used his finger to get a single drop, tasting it before he nearly retched on instinct. “What the fuck is this?”

“This… urk… this is our proprietary formula for a nutrient-rich diet. All the essential nutrients a human needs.”

“Give me the breakdown.”

“We have doses of mercury, sodium, phosphate, and…”

Kyle’s ears were already shut at that point. Why did I even trust this era’s companies to know anything about nutrition? “Thank you, thank you, that’s enough. You may leave now, you will be notified of the outcome in a week.”

Staggering back to his chair and wiping his mouth a few times, he glared at Yona, his eyes telling everything.

“I think this is one of the better ones.” Yona shrugged. “Their delivery system is quite well done, though it may require additional pressure due to the weight of the liquefied food.”

Kyle knew that system well – it was what the Ancient Earth’s earliest astronauts used for their water supply when performing extravehicular missions. In fact, Kyle’s experience with spaceborne exosuits has already clued him into the best delivery design for combat rations over long periods of time, though he did not want to get ahead of himself just yet, lest he exposed his technology level too far ahead.

One downside to the liquid delivery system was that liquid was still taking up more volume than a solid would. Kyle knew how important weight was to designing an exosuit system able to survive any harsh environment, so he did not rush right into selecting the second company just yet.

Furthermore, the proprietary liquefied food formula acted as an additional cost that Kyle would have to consider, especially when he was outfitting so many soldiers.

“This is the last company.” Yona motioned to the new presenter coming, again with an old diving suit, but this time, there was no bulky equipment on the diving suit whatsoever.

“Hello, we are MicroFoods, and we specialize in the delivery of nutrients in pill form. With two alchemists working with us, we are able to design multiple pills with varying effects.”

Kyle raised his eyebrows. This would be the first time he heard about anyone doing tablets. Pill pressing was not particularly difficult, but it still required a technological leap. While he had cocaine circulating around Raktor now, he had yet to move into other drugs that were better known in their tablet form.

“Our first patented tablet is able to provide a minor healing effect, on a much smaller scale than a regular Health Potion would. However, by layering the healing effect into food, we can reduce the cost of making both rations and potions separately.”

The presenter showed off the tablet, which was larger than Kyle expected. It was half of the size of his palm, more like a cookie rather than something to be swallowed. I guess they have different ideas of what a tablet is.

“Other tablets are currently in the works, but we are working on a strength tablet to boost instantaneous power for combat scenarios.”

“What’s the delivery system like?” Kyle asked with a tinge of enthusiasm in his voice.

The presenter’s prior confidence suddenly plummeted, scratching his neck in shame. “We uhh, we don’t have a delivery system. But we have designed the storage system to be flat packed along the lower back of the user’s armor suit. Each storage ‘tile’ is disjointed from the others, allowing for a modular storage system of the tablets that is both resistant and flexible.”

Kyle examined the said modular system, noticing that it was effectively armor plates joined together, except the plates held the cookies internally. He was more than impressed at the unique aspect that this company strived for, yet it was clearly lacking in its delivery system.

Even its storage system did not fall under the requirements of being able to be consumed in harsh environments. If the soldiers were trapped in a poisonous environment, exposing the cookies/tablets to open air would be disastrous. Maybe an airlock system…

The presenter handed both Kyle and Yona a tablet each, each of them taking a small bite. It wasn’t gourmet food, but was leagues better, especially when compared with the gross liquefied food of the second company.

“Thank you, I am very impressed with your demonstration. You may leave now, and you shall be notified of the outcome in a week.”

Kyle quickly poured over the papers provided by all three companies, contemplating the solution moving forward. The second company doesn’t have good food, but a working delivery system that is easy to maintain. The third company has good food, but no working delivery system…

“We’ll combine the two companies.”

“Combine? What do you mean?”

“Get them to create a joint venture for this contract. I believe both companies have mutually beneficial traits and expertise that can create the exact food rationing system that I am looking for. The system needs to be able to last a soldier more than a week out in the field, and the substance must be able to be consumed without ever exposing it to air if necessary.”

“Understood, I’ll get on it right away.” Yona didn’t question Kyle, though she had some lingering doubts, especially as to why Kyle was playing it so safe for the dungeon.

Kyle knew that the Wardens or at least some military force of the Wardens might very well be embedded in the dungeon. Furthermore, there would be more trials to clear as well, each of which would, of course, come with ever-increasing danger. If he wanted to retain as much combat power as possible while obtaining the largest benefit from the dungeon, he needed his soldiers to stay in fighting condition.