Back to a World in Chaos
Coming back to a world in complete chaos.
“Riel, what the hell did I just hear?”
“I already explained everything, and now you’re asking again?”
One day after finally escaping Artraia’s clutches.
The moment I clawed my way out of near-death exhaustion, I was suddenly seized by the wild urge to crawl right back into her grip.
Of course, the current mess was only wearing me down psychologically.
Those three days—no, precisely two—spent with Artraia had been a genuine life-or-death ordeal.
Yeah… no. Absolutely not.
I shook my head hard, telling myself that idea was pure insanity.
And yet, even after living through it, the thought of going back still rose unbidden…
Because the situation waiting for me was so thoroughly screwed that “complete mess” didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Haaah… Look, I was only gone for two days at most. How the hell does this much work pile up in that time?”
Riel just shrugged at my complaint.
“Minister, like I said earlier… what you’re looking at is already the reduced workload.”
But contrary to her words…
—Thud.
“That’s a lot.”
My desk had been transformed into a skyline of report towers, stacked high with paperwork that had flown in from every corner of the galaxy.
If that were all, I could eventually grind through it given enough time.
The real problem was exactly what I’d just told Riel: the situation had spun so far out of control that I couldn’t even begin to guess how it had gotten this bad.
A flood of event messages was blotting out my vision.
Even after filtering out the meaningless ones…
The Prosnark Coalition has declared war on the Zeltech Corporate Alliance.
The Coalition, which remained silent even during the Warlord crisis, has finally moved. The eyes of the entire galaxy are now fixed on this conflict.
A large-scale purge of spies and agents conducted by the Prosnark Coalition has severely damaged the spy network you established.
Worse still, some of the subordinates you trusted with that network betrayed you, embezzling funds and sabotaging recovery efforts. Full restoration in time now seems unlikely.
Under the Prosnark Coalition’s lightning offensive, the Zeltech Corporate Alliance could do nothing but retreat without rest.
Judging that they could never defeat Prosnark alone, Zeltech sent desperate requests for aid to neighboring nations…
Unfortunately, those neighbors either lacked the means to help or simply had no intention of doing so.
The worst blow of all came from the very nation that had once stood with them against Prosnark as an ally: the Fuxviet Union, successor to the Mekt-Fux Corporate Federation. Burning with territorial ambition, they invaded Zeltech space from the opposite direction.
Can the Zeltech Corporate Alliance possibly survive this war?
With the fall of the Zeltech Corporate Alliance looming, countless citizens and corporations fled for their lives.
But not everyone ran.
The Zeltech leadership and the hardline resistance faction turned their capital world into the most tempting bait imaginable, buying time so the refugees could safely cross the border.
Their unyielding will to fight to the very end is truly moving! (Favorability of all nations toward the Zeltech Corporate Alliance +10%)
Once ranked among the wealthiest nations in the galaxy, the Zeltech Corporate Alliance has been driven to ruin by disastrous diplomacy, the betrayal of an old ally, and an enemy offensive it could never hope to withstand.
Yet those who made their final stand in the capital refused to let it fall. They detonated the entire planet, taking countless enemy fleets that had poured into the capital system with them into oblivion—and in doing so, carved their defiance into galactic history.
Meanwhile, the countless corporations that formed Zeltech’s foundation escaped across the borders, preserving their technology and key facilities, and began spreading throughout the galaxy.
A nation may fall… but Zeltech’s technology and capital will never disappear.
What?
I was already speechless that I’d never even heard about Prosnark’s massive fleet movements. And now Fuxviet stabbed Zeltech in the back?
So Zeltech got annihilated… and then blew up their own capital world, taking Prosnark and Fuxviet fleets with it?
I’ve never heard of an event like that.
Granted, my memories from the game days had grown pretty fuzzy by now…
But no matter how fuzzy they were, I had never seen a normal nation detonate its capital planet and wipe out fleets in the process.
As I kept turning it over, one conclusion finally clicked into place.
Could it be a mod? Did one of those mods I installed without thinking contain this kind of event?
For some reason, every time this game got an update, most of the mods I’d carefully installed would break. I’d reinstall, reinstall, reinstall… until eventually I couldn’t even remember what I’d put in anymore.
Thinking of it that way, an event I didn’t recognize wasn’t all that surprising.
Fine. I’ll accept that much for now…
Besides, there were far more irritating problems than a capital-planet suicide event. I couldn’t afford to obsess over just one of them forever.
With that thought, I checked the next event message.
After the fall of the Zeltech Corporate Alliance, the refugees who barely escaped were repeatedly denied entry or settlement by every nation they approached.
After months of traveling through gates and hyperspace lanes, the refugee caravan has finally reached your empire.
Exhausted from the long voyage, they now plead for the Holy Sevelian Empire to take them in.
Choice 1: We do not turn away refugees! (Zeltech populations with the Refugee trait randomly spawn on imperial planets. Favorability with Zeltech Children across the galaxy increases.)
Choice 2: We are already at our limit. (Refugees refused. Favorability with Zeltech Children decreases.)
A refugee event?
I stared at the absurd notification and felt my sanity slip another notch.
Sure, refugees appearing during a war was common enough. But what kind of mod turned a nation’s collapse into a galactic road-trip event where the survivors circled the entire galaxy?
In the actual game I would have kicked them out without a second thought—just to keep the species tab clean and avoid stability hits.
What the hell had I been thinking when I installed that mod…?
But that was only true for the game.
In this reality I’d been dropped into, population was national power. That truth had been driven home more than once.
Choice 1: We do not turn away refugees!
(Zeltech populations with the Refugee trait randomly spawn on imperial planets. Favorability with Zeltech Children across the galaxy increases.)
I selected the first option without a moment’s hesitation and decided to accept the Zeltech refugees.
Then I turned to Riel, who was still standing in front of me.
“Riel, where are the Zeltech refugees right now?”
“I figured you’d ask, so I dumped them all on an uninhabited planet in the border zone!”
“Hmm.”
Thankfully, signs of Riel’s frantic efforts to hold things together while I was gone were everywhere.
“Good. Then screen them properly, hand them some barren planet, and make a nice show of generosity.”
“Got it. I’ll get that rolling right away.”
I left the refugees’ disposition entirely in Riel’s hands.
Goddammit, when am I supposed to finish all this?
I shoved aside the mountain of new intelligence reports that had poured in the moment the spy network came back online, dug out only the critical files, and prepared to dive straight into work.
But the instant I did—
A brand-new event window bloomed in front of my eyes.
As usual, the nanomachines were minding their own business, goofing off at the shipyard.
Then, out of nowhere, they muttered, “Where is this? I have to go,” and simply vanished.
What on earth could have made Ash—who even received a countship—suddenly decide to return to her homeland without a word?
Choice 1: Leaving without a word is unacceptable! Find her! (Linked event proceeds)
Choice 2: She’ll come back when the time is right. Ignore it for now. (Event ends; additional events proceed)
How should I put this…
It was the kind of event that already had the “correct” answer locked in, yet still pretended to offer me a choice out of sheer generosity.
I felt irritation surge up from deep inside.