China
China
Upon receiving the Chinese ambassador to Korea's report, China finally found the certainty of war it had been so carefully denying.
"The Koreans burned down the embassy while clamoring for war."
"What the hell happened?"
At Chairman Mao's words, every high-ranking cadre of the Communist Party who wielded absolute power in China fell silent.
That terrifying stillness was shattered in an instant by the Chairman's rage.
"Well? I'm asking what happened. You lot told me it wouldn't come to war."
"The Emperor has taken a hostile stance."
An ashtray came flying in answer to the man who had spoken so carefully.
Thud!
Even as he staggered from the direct hit to his forehead, the man did not let out so much as a whimper. Blood ran down his cheek, yet he held his posture rigid. The situation was that grave.
"I put you in the lofty post of Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office so you would fix that!"
How was anyone supposed to steer a nation's entire direction when a single command from one Emperor could reverse it overnight? Especially when that Emperor already despised China so thoroughly.
Even thinking that, Wang Zhichen, the director in charge of diplomacy, offered no excuse whatsoever.
"I apologize. The failure is mine. I have nothing to say."
Useless excuses would threaten not only his own life, but his family's as well.
"At least you know enough to be sorry, you incompetent bastard!"
After pouring out naked abuse for a long while, the Chairman at last settled and spoke again.
"Can we request mediation from another country?"
"Germany is too far removed from us, and the United States and the Soviet Union appear to have settled on a friendly neutrality toward Korea."
The Chairman's face, which had barely calmed, twisted once more.
"...Then what exactly is it that you do? You can't stop a war, you can't request mediation. Do you even know what diplomacy is?"
"I have nothing to say."
The Chairman fixed him with a cold stare, then turned his head and put the question to the silent party cadres.
"What do you think we should do?"
"We must prepare for war."
The Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission answered with a face set hard as stone. In his view, any attempt at a conciliatory approach was impossible.
"Can we win?"
"In every measure of force except shell stockpiles and superhumans, we hold the advantage."
"That's the most important part! That's exactly why we've had to sit here with our mouths shut in the face of that tiny country's tyranny!"
The Chairman exploded, shouting. Those goddamn Gaoli bangzi bastards provoked them day after day—why else would China have stayed quiet?
To show the world and their own people the magnanimity of a great power, the way they always claimed?
Not even close. He hated to admit it, but it was because they were stronger than China.
"People are not machines. If we grind them down through attrition with sufficient mass of troops and repeated bombardment, then commit our superhuman forces once the enemy is exhausted, we have a chance of victory."
"They have more shells than we do right now, don't they?"
The Chairman eyed the Vice Chairman with open suspicion. Those repulsive bangzi bastards flaunted the world's largest shell reserves as if to prove their malice. Lunatics, the lot of them.
"Which is why I request an immediate transition to a wartime footing."
At those words the Chairman staggered, sank into his chair, covered his eyes with one hand, and fell silent.
Do that, and the bangzi would start screaming accusations at once and threaten war...
Was there no way to slide past this somehow?
The Chairman could almost see the vision of Beijing in flames. After a long hesitation, he finally made his decision.
"...From this moment we enter a wartime system and begin mobilizing the reserves. Increase the forces along the border with those bangzi bastards."
"Yes, sir!"
After the military party members answered in a ringing chorus, someone else shouted out.
"We should burn down the bangzi embassy too!"
Every head in the room whipped toward that one man so fast it almost made a sound.
"..."
The man who had thrust his chin up and shouted so boldly finally read the room and ducked his head. Far too late.
"Come here."
"...Yes."
Sweating like a waterfall, he stepped forward at the Chairman's summons—and was immediately rewarded with a kick.
Thud!
The Chairman's toe drove into his solar plexus, and the man rolled across the floor.
"Ghk!"
A belated groan echoed, but no one moved to help. They only watched with rigid faces.
Jaw clenched shut, the Chairman kept kicking the fallen man.
Thud! Crack!
Only after a stretch of time so long no one could count the kicks did the Chairman's mouth open again.
"Are you out of your mind? Do you even know where that embassy is?"
At the hatred in the Chairman's voice, the man finally remembered it stood in the capital, Beijing—and only then grasped the situation.
Ah. The Korean ambassador to China was a superhuman. Unlike ordinary nations that never sent superhumans abroad for fear of persuasion or assassination, Korea was different.
"If that superhuman goes berserk and self-destructs, how much damage do you think Beijing takes? Are you proposing we gamble on a surprise attack against a superhuman? Do you have any idea what abilities they might have?"
"I—I'm sorry."
"You think Beijing is one of your mahjong tiles? Drag this bastard out of here!"
Central Guard Bureau agents who had come running at the Chairman's voice hauled the man away.
"S-spare me! Please! I only meant it out of loyalty—"
Bang!
The distant pleading vanished with a gunshot.
"No one else here was thinking the same thing as that idiot, I trust?"
The Chairman swept the room with a freezing gaze. They said motivated incompetence was the most dangerous kind—and that fool just now had been a perfect specimen. If they hadn't caught him, the capital might have been reduced to rubble.
"Yes, sir!"
"Of course not!"
At the robust answers, the Chairman's eyes softened.
"Good. If they have any sense, they won't throw their ambassador into the war either."
By any ordinary logic, that was true.
Korea 3's idea of common sense was different.
"We've already issued destruction orders to the ambassador in China covering the major buildings."
I set down the hamburger I'd been eating at the Head Maid's casually delivered report. She said it as offhandedly as if she were listing the lunch menu, but the content was anything but ordinary.
That sounded an awful lot like the ambassador was going to commit bomb terrorism.
Apparently the plan, once war broke out, was for him to hide among the population like a guerrilla, destroy targets, vanish, and repeat.
"...Shouldn't we not be doing that?"
"! If Your Majesty so commands, I will cancel it at once."
Why the startled face? Did I say something strange?
"First of all, I'm curious why you were going to do something like that."
Sure, if a country were about to fall, maybe you'd stop at nothing—but Korea 3 ought to be more than capable of beating China in a straight fight. Was there any need for actions that would trash their international reputation and leave them diplomatically isolated?
Hmm. I wasn't an expert, and this was Earth 3, so maybe things worked differently here.
"I believed Your Majesty wished the enemy brought down as quickly as possible."
"And?"
"? That is all."
The Head Maid's expression of pure puzzlement filled me with puzzlement of my own.
"Look, uh—if the ambassador goes around doing bomb-terrorist-type things, doesn't that create diplomatic problems? Or tank the international reputation, or something?"
"Trivial concerns next to Your Majesty's wishes."
The matter-of-fact tone and serene face left me appalled.
...I almost screwed this up badly. Leaving everything to the experts and sitting still had been insane. These people did not care about means or methods in the slightest. Probably the maxed-out loyalty talking.
"From now on, bring war plans to me for approval."
"Yes. As you command."
The perfectly respectful answer without a shred of doubt made an ominous thought surface. Still—it couldn't be that bad, right?
"Hypothetically—say we take a preemptive strike. What do you do?"
"We stand by until we receive Your Majesty's orders."
That astonishing reply sent a full-body shudder through me. The worst-case scenario was exactly the case. These people were not right in the head.
"For emergencies, act first and report later. Move fundamentally for the nation's victory, but morally... you don't have to be too moral, but if possible..."
If I phrased it like that, they'd try so hard to stay moral they'd probably lose.
"Just—when you've got enough room to spare, keep morality in mind."
"It shall be done."
Winning came first. Right now I wasn't a president—I was an emperor. And the entire nation moved according to my word.
Which meant that if we lost, I was either dead, locked away, or reduced to a puppet. Having some device jacked into my skull or getting hit with a brainwashing ability wouldn't even be surprising. I'd end up in a state where death would be preferable.
The moment I pictured that entirely plausible future, a chill ran down my spine. Morality, hell—just go ahead and bomb-terrorize...
No, no, not that far.
We could still win cleanly enough as things stood.
...On pure data, sure—but reality was different, wasn't it? One unlucky catastrophic defeat and things could become irreversible.
"Victory comes before morality."
"Yes."
Right. My life came first. For anything that wasn't an emergency, they'd check with me, so there shouldn't be major problems.
"Really? Then take the biological weapons out."
Having received the Emperor's intentions through the Head Maid, the wolf girl tilted her head and began revising the operational plan.
"That's what I said from the start, wasn't it?"
Grumbling, the wolf-eared girls pulled the virus-loaded bombs from their armament and puffed out their cheeks.
"What if it spreads to our side?"
"Our immune systems are far stronger than the Chinese, so it's fine. We can handle contingencies too."
Originally the plan had been to infiltrate China's major cities and detonate those bombs.
"That's not the point—this is inhumane."
"But I thought His Majesty wanted it finished quickly."
The unit members looked at their captain, ears drooping, with open exasperation.
"You should ask about things like that beforehand."
"What? How could I possibly dare... Hearing it secondhand from the Head Maid is the best I can manage."
She muttered it under her breath with a reddening face, but the unit members' superior hearing caught every word clearly.
"Ugh. There she goes again."
The girl's face flushed bright crimson as she pictured His Majesty the Emperor's visage in her mind.
Korea 3 had no brakes whatsoever. For the Emperor's victory, these people were prepared to do anything.
Koreans felt a considerable distance from other humans—enough that the sense of being the same species had grown thin. And that was not a mistaken impression.
In truth, they were not the same species at all. There was not a single human in Korea 3.
Not one.
The powerful superhumans knew that perfectly well.