Post-War Processing (2)

Fortunately enough, not a single sporadic clash broke out along the borders throughout the peace negotiations.

Of course, that conveniently ignored the minor detail that the other side no longer possessed any forces capable of even sporadic fighting against the Prosnark.

“I’m surprised the Prosnark never tried to pick a fight.”

At my muttered remark, Riel tilted her head and gave her antennae a puzzled little shake.

“Isn’t that obvious? If they opened fire on the negotiation team and the League peacekeeping forces sent to prevent incidents, they’d be picking a fight with the entire Galactic League.”

“True enough.”

I answered her, then turned my gaze to the antique clock hanging on the office wall.

A grand old pendulum clock, utterly out of place in a science-fiction world of star-seas and starships—elegant, yet unmistakably aged.

Watching the second hand tick steadily onward, I spoke again.

“So the results should be coming in any moment now, right?”

As if answering me, a cheerful alarm chimed from the terminal and a large hologram sprang into the air.

“It’s the peace treaty signing document! That was fast, wasn’t it?!”

Riel’s voice was so bright and eager that I found myself wanting to read it immediately as well.

The damned event window, however, popped up the instant the hologram appeared and completely blocked my view.

A string of curses nearly clawed its way up my throat—

…I’ll let it slide. Just this once.

The rewards were so much sweeter than expected that I decided not to complain any further.

“Mmm, everything’s turned out just like you predicted, Minister.”

“Hmm.”

And the contents of the signed treaty itself were exactly as Riel said.

Being an official treaty, it was padded with all sorts of legal boilerplate… but every important clause had proceeded exactly as I expected.

And at the very end, the duration of the peace agreement was clearly stated.

Oh. In the game, wars also ended with a ten-year truce.

Finding something identical to the game in an unexpected place brought a strange little surge of fondness.

And once I saw that…

No major problems should crop up for a while.

The thought settled comfortably in my mind: from here on, life would be relatively smooth sailing.

One month later.

I was handling my usual work while casually watching the live feed of the peace treaty signing ceremony when a sudden realization struck me.

I hadn’t opened the Nation Window in quite some time.

That’s the problem with this becoming reality.

In the game, the third-person view and the strategy-game UI neatly showed me everything I might have overlooked. Reality, unfortunately, refused to plaster every UI element and notification across my field of vision.

My eyes had limited real estate. How was I supposed to cram every window into that narrow space? Before I knew it my sight would be completely blocked, and I’d walk straight into a wall—or worse—and cause a catastrophe.

For that reason I had simply been too busy and had completely forgotten about the Nation Window. So I opened it now…

Finally back to normal… no.

The Empire had climbed an entire rank. I silently cheered three times over in pure joy.

Hell yeah, that’s more like it.

And of course I couldn’t just sit there staring. Since I had already opened it, I decided to check the reason for the rise as well.

Strangely, the reason window looked different from usual.

The final portion of the text was garbled, as if it had been censored.

What the hell is this? In ten years I’ve never seen anything like it.

Wondering if it was some kind of bug, I closed the reason window and reopened it. I even shut down the entire status system and brought it back up. I went so far as to sleep on it overnight and check again the next morning. Nothing worked.

The reason window remained stubbornly broken. All I could do was heave a long sigh.

So what am I supposed to do about this?

The one silver lining was that only that single string of characters was garbled like censored text.

Suspicious as hell, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now.

The moment I accepted that fretting would get me nowhere, every worry that had been crowding my mind vanished in a rush of pure, refreshing relief.

If my past self had seen me making such a fuss over something so minor, he would have delivered a scathing—if not particularly sharp—rebuke…

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Wait a second. Does that mean I’ve finished all my work?

Once that bizarre little worry disappeared, I realized there was nothing left for me to stress over—at least for the foreseeable future.

“…I’m free!”

No more drowning in overwork. I could finally take things slow and steady again, just like the old days, and leisurely march toward game victory (?).

“Pardon?”

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“No… not quite yet, I suppose.”

“…???”

Of course, I was still covering for the Foreign Ministry, and there was still the occasional noise coming from the Janus cleanup, among other things. The Executive Ministry still had work to do…

But that’s all there is.

Everything left could be handled at the Executive Ministry’s own level. How wonderful was that?

At least for a while there would be no more squabbling with other departments and provincial ministers the way I had for the past year or two. No more trips to distant foreign nations. No more getting tangled up with fleet admirals. No more galaxy-spanning mega-events that dragged the entire Empire—and half a dozen alien powers—into the fray.

Just thinking about it made energy I didn’t know I still had start regenerating.

Tonight I’m sleeping like a rock for the first time in ages.

Even while work was still ongoing, I had enough spare mental bandwidth for idle thoughts like that.

And another month after that.

“Minister!!! Did you hear about that?!”

For nearly a full month, peaceful days had continued without a single major incident.

Freed from overwork just like me, Riel had apparently decided to embrace an even freer spirit and had vanished on a long vacation.

That same Riel now came bursting through the door without so much as a knock—wearing an outfit that was both extremely improper and extremely dangerous—and started talking to me in a frantic rush without even changing first.

Faced with that bizarre spectacle, the me of a month ago would have immediately ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cracked her over the head with the Etiquette Injection Rod and ordered her to go change…

“What’s wrong, Riel?”

But a month of recovery (of sorts) had left me thoroughly mellowed out as well.

Thanks to that, Riel managed to avoid acquiring a brand-new decorative lump on her skull.

“It’s a disaster! A real disaster!”

“…?”

I still had no idea what she was calling a disaster.

As far as I knew, nothing major had happened outside for the past month.

But the words that followed from Riel snapped every loose nerve in my body taut again.

“During this reorganization season, Her Majesty is planning to merge the Executive Ministry and the Foreign Ministry!”

At the news that the two most overworked ministries in the Empire were about to be fused into one, the pen slipped right out of my hand.