The King of Steel (RWBY/ Ozpin SI): Chapter 17

Jacques Schnee sat in the massive conference room along with many other CEO and founders of various industrial giants across Atlas.

The businessman also spotted several men and women from the various military forces on the planet, such as the recently created Vale Armes Forces, the heavily reformed Vacuo Military, and even the Mistralian forces, along with several newly created companies and PMCs from Menagerie.

It made sense to the false Schnee, especially since if his insider information was anything to go by, what was to be revealed today would revolutionize the world.

It would also push his main business to new heights, at least in terms of manufacturing and logistics capacity. However, this new benefit is offset by the fact that one of the three inventions that are to be shown today is targeting the grid-scale energy generation systems and could directly impact the SDC’s income from the power generation contracts and heat generation systems in both Atlas and Mantle.

Unfortunately, the SDC cannot afford to afford this new competition in the usual way it operates due to the person holding the reins behind the scenes.

Nobody who has crossed Ozpin Norman in the past few months has lived to tell the tale. All lawsuits or the animals from that rabid group called the White Fang trying to bring attention to theses strange deaths or disappearances are getting silenced in similar ways and then having their disappearances or their corpses turning up as little more than torn ribbons as ‘Grimm Attacks’ by the police forces and then all information about it being scrubbed off the CCT network and even offline records being removed in several ‘accidents’.

Jacquese is no fool and he is not in a hurry to meet his ancestors just yet, so all he can do is try to see if he can find a way to profit off of this new invention from the strongest Huntsman on the planet and make sure not to get in the way of this now truly monstrous man since it would be very bad for his health.

Soon, the various murmurs across the hall died down as the man in question, Councilor Ozpin, walked into the room with General James Ironwood of the Atlas Armed Forces and Dr. Polendina of the Atlas R&D.

Unlike every other time that the head of the Schnee family had seen the Headmaster of Beacon Academy, Ozpin no longer had that strange hunch and body language that showed that he was getting on in his years and was more of a diplomat than someone looking to truly change things.

No, this time, Ozpin held himself straight, his footfalls full of purpose as his eyes blazed with determination and steel, the likes of which Jacques had only ever seen in General Ironwood and his predecessors in the Atlas Armed Forces.

Gone was the hunch and the general air of someone that could talk but failed when it really came time for action.

Instead, Jacquese felt chills travelling down his spine as the elderly man gazed down the crowd of businessmen and PMC leaders with a cold look. A feeling that everyone else must have also felt as the hall became extremely silent and everyone around Jacquese tensed up as their bodies entered into Fight or Flight situation.

“I thank you all for accepting my invitation and arriving here to witness the beginning of the next chapter in Remnant’s history.”

The Headmaster of Beacon and the new Councilor of Vale spoke through the mike as the businessmen listened with rapt attention as the old man’s voice and tone demanded their full concentration.

“I know that you are all people with a lot of things to do, so I won’t waste time on pleasantries. So, the first item on the agenda, I present to you, Expendable Labor Force, or ELF for short.”

Jacquese felt slightly surprised as Ozpin skipped out on all kinds of pleasantries and pre-presentation speeches that most businessmen or politicians use to push forward their agendas. He had never seen someone so arrogant as to throw all those norms aside and directly reveal their product.

However, what was revealed on the stage the moment Ozpin concluded his words and the details of the device shown on the large screen took his breath away and showed why Ozpin felt so arrogant and confident.

It was no secret that the industries of Atlas despised the Atlas Armed Forces for hoarding the patents for the humanoid robotics of the late Dr. Watts and using them as nothing more than glorified infantry units. Even worse was how much money was being sunk by the Atlas Forces to equip these infantry droids with technology, armor, and weapons of the highest category despite their overall mediocre performance in the field.

There had been many nights where Jacques had dreamed of the day when all of his pesky and annoying workers and miners, which mostly consisted of the Faunus because of the fact that he was one of the only few people willing to employ them despite the risk of his company being infiltrated by terrorists, would be replaced by highly efficient, easily maintained and replaced, humanoid drones that would help his company rake in a huge amount of profit.

To his delight, and probably to the delight of his fellow industrialists, Ozpin’s new ELF drones seem to be just the thing to fulfill those dreams.

Just from looking at it, it was easy for Jacques to see that this ELF drone was based on the new EMF-1, the Expendable Military Force model-1. The drones had recently entered service within the Vale Armed Forces.

“This drone is made from a standard template that can be fed into any standard fabricator. The materials for its armor and systems are extremely cheap, and easy to establish a supply chain for them. Its humanoid hands allow it to use any tool necessary for its job, and thanks to its four arms, you only need one drone to replace a job that needs two people.”

“Its four legs have small amounts of gravity dust in them, allowing it to scale any structure and secure itself for any kind of task.”

“Its photonic computing unit is the only proprietary piece of hardware that will only be sold by Seasons Inc.”

Ozpin stared at the various excited people with a serious but playful look.

“The Template for the main drone will be a one-time purchase, giving the buyer the rights to manufacture the drone’s body as long as they want. Of course, the chassis numbers of every individual unit must be registered with Seasons Inc, which will in turn register them with the councils of the Kingdoms to keep track of them.”

“The PCU (Photonic Computing Unit), on the other hand, is going to be sold individually. Of course, discounts will be given for bulk purchases, and other terms can be negotiated at a later date.”

Jacquese Schnee could not help but applaud the old man on the stage for his absolutely brilliant move.

By selling the template of the body as a one time purchase, he has directly pushed his product as a very profitable and cost-effective replacement for organic workers. Then, by selling the PCUs separately, the brain of the drones and the most important component without which the drones would be nothing more than a hunk of metal, he ensured a continuous and steady income for his company for the foreseeable future.

Jacquese Schnee could not wait for any longer and allow his competition to gain the advantage sooner than him, so he directly called his secretary and informed them to directly buy out Season Inc’s full stock of PCUs as quickly as possible and at any cost that the company asked for.

The main thing that Jacquese needs to do now is to make sure that the competition of SDC gains these drones as slowly as possible while he makes the most of it in the meantime.

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Watching the crowd go ballistic at the reveal of my ELF drones, I could not help but smile.

Now that my enemy has decided to take me seriously after a long time, It won’t do for me to sit on my hands and plan things without executing them promptly.

That is why I decided to branch my company into as many fields as possible so that I would gain enough influence to shape the very world into what I want it to be.

While this is just the first step, it is still something that would have a significant impact on things to come.

I nodded towards my assistants, who rolled out the demo ELF drone from the stage and carted out something else.

While it was just a prototype of what I want, it would still be something that should entice the PMCs present here, along with military contractors.

Long ago, in a world that only I remember, there was a concept.

A concept of using magnetic forces to create a hand-held weapon of such power that it would render standard propellent-based weapons obsolete.

Unfortunately, those plans went nowhere in my world due to the limitations of technology of my time.

But here, on Remnant, I have access to the cheat code known as Dust to bring these ideas into reality. Combined with the scientific and engineering knowledge I gained from Jinn, it was only a matter of trial and error before I was able to bring this dangerous weapon from my home to reality.

As the cloth was removed from the weapon and its data was shown in the screen, I could feel the shock and awe of my audience, much to my pride.

“This is the newest weapon developed by Seasons Inc. The Seasons Inc Long range Kinetic weapon, or SILK weapon for short.”

The name got a few chuckles from my audience, but they were still staring at the screen and the weapon with salivating mouths, so I did not keep them waiting for long.

“This is a coilgun weapon, lined with rings of raw Gravity Dust. The firing chamber is shaped in a way that it can take literally anything as ammo provided it is the right size.”

I played a video where my testing team picked up a pebble from the ground that was just small enough to enter the firing chamber.

The moment the pebble was shot from my Coilgun, it directly penetrated the Borbatusk that was captured for this test, making the Grimm explode from the kinetic energy transferred to its body by the projectile.

“State of the art Dust Batteries provide enough juice to fire three hundred shots before they need to be recharged. This capacity is directly doubled if you use the standard issue Tungsten Bullets from Seasons Inc. instead of random rocks as the ammo. The barrel of the weapon is also lined with Ice dust to keep it cool. The barrels are rated at one thousand rounds of any ammo and two thousand rounds of tungsten ammo before they need to be replaced.”

At my words, the crowd erupted into hushed whispers as they made various calls to their secretaries or representatives. Given the way my Scroll was continuously buzzing with notifications, it is clear that they were scrabbling to secure both of my inventions as soon as possible.

Which is a good thing since I have not even revealed the main star of today’s event yet.

I grinned as I motioned my people to move out the coil gun and roll in another cart.

This one contained a scale model of the structure that would be my best shot at controlling this world’s forces and allowing me to establish a firm foothold for all of Humanity and Faunus kind. A power that my previous incarnation personally destroyed due to how dangerous it was to the people of those times.

It is time for this world to embrace the miracle that is Nuclear Power.