Chapter 129: The Civil War of a Thousand Years Ago
While mulling over a plan to bring them to the surface, I also had my own errands to take care of, so I asked about the schedule.
The delegation members would apparently see the state of the Belfast Royal Capital tomorrow, be entertained in the evening, and then return the day after tomorrow or the day after that.
In that case, first, the three of us cleared out the Abyss. Then, we headed to Silence to inform George-san and the others of the cancellation. Finally, I took Ignat back to his village.
Honestly, I wanted Ignat to accompany me, but he had the role of bringing the Empire’s citizens, so I couldn’t rely on him any further.
To the third group, who wouldn’t stop their barrage of questions and kept up a machine-gun talk when I showed them the new technology blueprints, I gave them the Abyss Boss. “If you can completely figure out this material, I’ll teach you various things,” I said, tossing it to them like I was getting rid of a nuisance.
The three of them fell silent upon seeing its size, as expected, but they each brought their work tools and slowly began their analysis.
Next, I had to return the Prime Minister and his entourage to Neo-Tokyo.
I needed them to go back and quickly consolidate their internal opinions.
There was a chance the bottom floor Boss could respawn soon, after all.
Well, I wanted to believe it wouldn’t appear with the same frequency as a weak mob, though.
And so, Yuri and I headed back to Belfast once more, buying up Slime Jelly along the way.
If we were going to make a hole, we’d need a large amount to prevent respawning, so we bought as much as we possibly could while returning to the castle.
Then, I took the delegation to the Abyss.
Since the floors below the Ape’s floor had been cleared out, we arrived at Neo-Tokyo quickly.
It was a hassle, so I flew them to the National Diet Building, and quite a number of people had gathered there.
People were filing inside one after another.
When I asked a member of the delegation, they said a briefing session was going to be held.
The Prime Minister, relieved to have made it in time, quickly went inside.
“But I was surprised.
It was written that he had a good relationship with Fon-kun until the very end, but I never imagined they would show us that much gratitude…”
She, Defense Minister Takagi, had accepted my request to interact casually, and we were now able to converse in a relaxed manner.
“Was our first king really born here?”
“Yes. There was only one. A Japanese man who was able to have a child with a local woman.”
Normally, it seems they would die from Sclerosis before birth, regardless of gender.
However, whether it was because the woman was suitable or the man was, amidst tens of thousands of death reports, there was one who uniquely managed to reach birth.
That first child was apparently King Fondale, the founder of Belfast.
“It’s truly a relief that the person who made it this far was from Belfast.
It seems he had a bad relationship with Berk-kun and Mild-kun.”
Berk and Mild?
That sounds just like Berkurd and Mildrad…
“But to think all five of them became kings, huh,” she said cheerfully, looking a little excited.
Seriously? It was serious.
What an incredible bloodline.
No, there’s also the possibility they were propped up because their Japanese technological prowess was noticed.
When I asked her, “Did Pops talk about that…”, it seems they got excited talking about it during dinner the other day.
When I asked her to tell me too, she readily shared the story.
She said their ancestors traveled through space from Earth over a very long time, landed on this planet, and built a country.
At that time, there were no Dungeons, and it was a world where vicious Monsters roamed freely everywhere.
However, back then, the Japanese side also had ways to resist.
The mothership of their spacecraft was loaded with super high-powered weapons, and they could generate unlimited energy on the ground.
I heard that these high-powered weapons could originally produce enough power to destroy even a star.
But that was for ordinary stars.
On this planet, protected by Magical Power, they couldn’t even produce one ten-thousandth of that power, and creating a crater several hundred meters in scale was the best they could do, or so I heard.
Even so, they could annihilate most of the Monsters on the surface, and by annihilating everything in the vicinity, they secured their right to survive on the ground.
However, the surface was a world where Monsters constantly spawned.
It was not a land where people could live safely.
So, they apparently built a city in the sky.
She said that was likely the Garden of the Gods, which remains in records to this day.
Eh… they could keep it floating indefinitely?
While I was astonished by this, the story continued.
After that, the existence of Mana Essence became clear, and the Earthlings, who wanted to extend their reach to the surface, searched for land with low Mana Essence, continued to move with the Garden of the Gods, crossed seas, and crossed continents.
And then, they finally reached this land.
There, they found humans for the first time.
Although there was the difference of them possessing Magical Power, externally, it was only about the difference in hair color.
However, they were people living extremely primitive lives, whose civilization was still undeveloped.
They somehow managed to build friendly relations with them and gave them language and minimal technology.
Of course, it wasn’t free service. The cooperation of the locals was indispensable for understanding things like Mana Essence and Magical Power.
After that, they created a Dungeon in that land, creating a state where almost no Monsters appeared on the surface, and they finally landed the city they had been keeping afloat and set foot on the ground.
It’s said that friendly relations continued for several hundred years.
However, over many years, the fact that their basic physical abilities were low and didn’t improve became known, and eventually, the locals who had gained power attacked them.
To seize Earth’s technological power.
However, there was no way they could match the Earthlings, who possessed enough power to annihilate the Monsters on the surface, and it ended in a crushing victory for the Earthlings.
It was to the extent that it could be ended without casualties on either side.
Therefore, they forced various reasons and ended it amicably, saying, “Let’s start our relationship over.”
They had underestimated the locals, who could only mount overly clumsy attacks.
The locals, realizing they couldn’t win by force, resorted to a strategy of sending in women to infiltrate and seduce the men.
They already knew they couldn’t have children, but they thought it would be fine if they could create a faction on their side.
And so, the women who succeeded called in their families, infiltrated, and continued their subversive activities of establishing roots.
Naturally, the Japanese government was furious about these subversive activities.
However, because they had been outwardly friendly, many people defended the locals, and it didn’t reach the point of exclusion.
Such a distorted relationship continued, and gradually the country began to split.
The situation accelerated when the people who had been won over started clamoring for freedom of employment and voting rights for the locals who had infiltrated and established roots.
And so, finally, even the military was infiltrated, and a war between Japanese and Japanese broke out.
Due to that battle, the mothership, which had been their greatest lifeline, was lost.
And yet, the war that had started did not end.
Our first-generation founders were born in the midst of that war.
The first generation, born with solid Magical Power, became a subject of contention among the Japanese.
As the next generation of Japanese adapted to this world.
If they were around, war would no longer be necessary.
While saying that, the situation of fighting and snatching continued.
“Our ancestors, that is, the Neo-Tokyo faction that lived in the land of Belfast and raised Fon-kun, thought such a war was foolish and quickly evacuated underground.”
Hmm?
In that case, couldn’t they have come out when things settled down?
I thought so, but there was more to the story.
They retreated underground with the young King Fondale, waiting for the right time while monitoring the surface with drones.
Then, the Osaka faction won the war and tried to build a country in the vast land of Berkurd.
However, by that time, too many locals had infiltrated, and a coup d’état occurred with Berk-kun at its head, resulting in them being taken over, or so I heard.
The Tokyo faction, wanting to at least protect their high-tech facilities, launched attacks from underground using drones and apparently managed to defend almost all of their technology.
The Osaka Prefecture faction had also blown up most of their data and facilities before withdrawing, so it was mostly just cleanup, apparently.
“By the way, what about Lestall?”
“Ah, Lesta-kun. He was said to be brilliant.
It seems he was acting like a double agent, connected to the Japanese government, trying to unite the locals and end the war.”
Mild-kun was apparently a lustful, gang-leader type, who did whatever he pleased everywhere and then ran off.
So I thought Berk-kun would be the same, but he was unexpectedly a good kid, apparently.
Although easily swayed, he was said to be obedient and intelligent.
However, for some reason, he was on bad terms with Fon-kun, like cats and dogs, and as a result, he also held negative feelings towards the Tokyo faction.
Perhaps because she saw I was curious, she showed me footage from that time.
Indeed, he was smiling and trying to appear likable.
Conversely, Mild-kun looked ill-natured at a glance. It seemed like he started everything with intimidation.
Lesta-kun was probably brilliant, but he looked a little scary. It seemed like he was already using a poker face.
Our first king… seemed normal.
He had good features, but his face looked slightly goofy.
“He looks a little like Rui, doesn’t he?”
“Huh? You’re kidding, right!? No way, that’s not it.”
I brushed off Yuri’s teasing and focused on the video.
After watching it to the end, Berg-kun still didn’t look like a bad guy.
A far cry from the emperors of my previous world. Well, not that I actually know any.
Still, anyone who’d say something like “let me play with a dying woman” is definitely a scumbag.
“Huh, but if that’s the case, wouldn’t they have been even more able to return to the surface?”
They’d be hostile towards Berkhardt, so it would be dangerous, but if they had disposed of their weapons, wouldn’t the place where the first generation was building their country have been safe? I thought.
“Ah… yeah. That’s true, but…
Our ancestors, on the other hand, kind of messed things up…”
She made a slightly bitter face.
Apparently, they had argued, or rather, fought over when to return to the surface.
Despite being exhausted from constant wars, they were trapped in a confined underground space, and their frustrations had apparently built up considerably.
There was the faction that wanted to return to the surface as soon as possible.
The cautious faction, who argued they should at least fully confirm that the high-tech weapons were gone.
And the faction, weary of conflict, who thought they had everything they needed and that staying there was fine. They split into these groups.
Fortunately, there were no large-scale battles, but apparently, the people who wanted to return to the surface stole one of the spaceship’s auxiliary crafts.
And unfortunately, their attempt to reach the surface failed.
They were reportedly attacked and wiped out by a giant that was right outside where they emerged.
They said it was a space that had always been empty before, so they must have let their guard down.
That thing apparently withstood even the small ship’s full-power attack with ease.
Oh, that thing.
Yeah. If it were alive, it’d probably be even tougher, and it certainly seems like it could withstand that easily.
But it’s definitely true that it won’t respawn for a while.
After that, the remaining people of Neo-Tokyo managed to recover the small ship using drones.
It had sustained considerable damage, but the black box was intact, and its auto-repair function was working, so it was quickly repaired.
The technology for the black box itself had been lost, so they couldn’t fix it if it broke, which was a silver lining in a bad situation.
However, the situation took a drastic turn because those who had aimed for the surface had locked the Master Authority.
There were several methods to unlock it, but all of them were currently impossible.
Transferring authority via the Grand Master, a Master, or all Sub-Masters.
Operation from the main ship or another small ship.
Directly inputting a special program into the black box.
Apparently, there were other methods besides those, but all of them were utterly impossible.
If that was the case, highly efficient energy generation using cutting-edge technology would eventually become impossible.
The forty units of equipment they had at the time, including spares, were operated with restricted numbers, but over many years, they deteriorated and broke down, finally forcing them into a situation where they had to rely on primitive bio-energy.
“During that time, various attempts were made to somehow reach the surface.
Theoretically, if we gave up all luxuries and devoted all available energy to digging, we estimated we could reach it in less than a century.
But, you know, even if we managed to get out, without the Master Authority, we wouldn’t even have the means to defend ourselves, right?
On this planet, a lot of things are impossible without the Ark.
If only the Master Authority was still active, it would have been a simple matter…”
Apparently, there’s a huge gap between the technology they can currently use and the spaceship’s technology.
It seems a considerable amount of technology was lost during the overly long space journey and the civil strife in this place.
“Hmm, if they had technology on par with a 3D printer, self-defense would seem possible, but what went wrong…?”
“Ah, that. The spaceship automatically generates all the machinery. It’s one of the lost technologies now.
If it’s classified as something civilians are allowed to handle, it wouldn’t be locked, you see.”
Ah, so the super high-tech spaceship automatically creates even the machines themselves. No wonder their skills deteriorated.
And when it came to something like energy generation facilities, it naturally required Master authentication, leading to a dead end, huh.
“We could have tried if we had the Blueprints, but our ancestors were a civilian organization, so it seems they couldn’t get their hands on highly classified data.
Well, even if we had the data, we wouldn’t have the materials to build the necessary equipment anyway.”
As we continued our idle chat, the Prime Minister’s speech had apparently ended at some point, and people were trickling out of the assembly hall, each quickly departing.
As I watched them, I heard a voice from behind me.