Chapter 379 — The Great President, Nex-t-t-t-t… Now, Let the Bakumatsu Chaos Begin

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Previously:

Secretary NPC Rice Miso possessed the miraculous holy relic known as the Unity Flag, which grants power to those who gather beneath it. Because of that, all sorts of factions were after her. Seeing hope in the self-proclaimed President who came to her rescue, Rice proposed that the President create a new faction with Sunraku Grilled Mackerel as its figurehead…!!

And so, after the two of us traveled together and saved a village on the verge of collapse, Rice and I used it as the foothold for our “United States” and set out again…!

Rice Miso: “President, Top Village to the west says it wishes to join our United.”

Sunraku: “No surprise there. If Elgalen and Vulgante clash, that place is obviously going to get used as a supply route. Best case, they get stripped of food. Worst case, they get stripped of people.”

Rice Miso: “What shall we do?”

[Choice] Accept them, but they had better be ready to work.

[Choice] No. We reject them. The States do not have that kind of spare capacity.

[Choice] Better yet, wipe them out. I do not like their faces.

…Hey. What the hell?

Sunraku: “Of course we will accept them. They will have to be prepared to do a certain amount of work, though.”

Rice Miso: “Understood.”

Lately, Bottom-Left Box-kun keeps offering me a third option that sends me down the overlord route, and it is becoming a problem. I said United States, so why the hell does one of my policy options keep turning into ethnic extermination?

I tried selecting it once just to see what happened. Instant bad ending. Thank God I saved first.

Anyway, back to the everyone-gets-along United route… though, well, this country started with exactly two people, so calling what we have right now “national power” would be generous.

For the time being, I made Kamura Village—a name that sounds like the whole place ought to be in heat—our base. Using the Speech command and the script Bottom-Left Box-kun prepared for me, I refounded it as Kamura, capital of the Dinner United States.

We have been absorbing the surrounding “barely surviving frontier hamlets that technically belong to a country but get no help from it, except when the local lord comes by to squeeze them with crushing taxes for pocket money.” That has just barely expanded us from village scale to something more like a town. I keep thinking an event ought to fire soon, but for now it is another day of city-building.

First, I secured fields for oil-producing plants and grain. Then some officials showed up to collect taxes, so we beat them and their soldiers senseless and took them prisoner. Our jail guarantees three meals a day. Rice’s affection goes up more that way, you see.

I have recently discovered that the higher the secretary NPC’s affection gets, the better the things she brings me while I am working. Even in a game, I would rather get tea than water.

Sunraku: “So… what now?”

Right now, “warring states” is about the most accurate description of the world situation. I know that is simply the premise of the game, but every last national leader is openly declaring “world conquest,” so the place is apocalyptic enough to be funny.

Geographically, the Dinner United States currently has three countries to worry about.

First is the Elgalen Kingdom. Frankly, given its size, distance from our base, and the attitude of its soldiers, it is a tutorial country. It might as well have a sign on it saying PLEASE CONQUER ME FIRST.

Next is the Vulgante Kingdom. Apparently everybody in this game is desperate to call themselves a king. In terms of scale, it is clearly the second country you are meant to deal with. There is apparently a mine nearby, too, so if we want to develop any further, conquering it is basically unavoidable.

And finally, the Ahfrent Holy Kingdom. It fills the standard “holy land” role. What was it again…? Countries that recognize the Palfion Faith as their state religion effectively cannot touch it.

The obvious, conventional route would be to start with Elgalen and work through them in order… but there is something I want to test.

Which means I need to strengthen the base first. I have discovered that, in the extreme, the military side of things can function with literally zero soldiers, so I can devote all my thought to domestic development—

Rice Miso: “President! The Elgalen people are—!”

Sunraku: “…Good grief. They really have nothing better to do.”

Fine. Come and add your rust to my United Tomahawk.

Anyway, the story and UI are decent enough, but I have now found one truly shitty part of this game.

Sunraku: “Hup. Hup. Hup.”

Elgalen Soldier: “Gwaaaaah!?”

There. Gauge full.

Sunraku: “PRESIDEEEENT BEEEEAM!!”

Light blasts from my eyes and sweeps out in a fan, mowing down the soldiers in Elgalen-style armor.

Sunraku: “Hup. Hup. Hup.”

Elgalen Soldier: “Gyaa!?”

There. Gauge full.

Sunraku: “PRESIII… DENT! BEEEEEEEEAAAAAM!!”

It is authority made visible. Anyone pierced by the fundamental human strength of one who truly believes, from the bottom of his heart, that he alone will raise the banner of peace in a chaotic age realizes the gulf in power between himself and the President and loses the will to fight.

Sunraku: “Hup. Hup. Hup.”

Elgalen Soldier: “Gueh.”

There. Gauge fu—oh. That was the last one.

Sunraku: “Nothing is impossible for the President.”

So, yeah. That is basically how this game works. In the extreme, the player can win simply by firing eye-beams over and over.

Sure, if you actually put hundreds or thousands of soldiers on the field and gave every single one of them independent parameters, you would need the sort of absurd technology you only see in SLF. Any game that is not operating at that level has to slim things down technically, no matter how much passion went into it.

Fuuun Prejiden is no exception. Military strength in this game is not processed soldier by soldier. “Soldiers” are handled collectively as one military-strength stat.

There is, however, one exception.

That is right: the President.

Sure, I get it. If the player character were only as capable as a common foot soldier, there would be no sense of exhilaration. But even accounting for that, when the troops next to you are playing a tactics game and you alone are playing a one-man army action game, all that careful balance work dies instantly.

Put simply, instead of spending five minutes fighting a hundred-versus-hundred war, it is faster for the President to personally mow down a hundred enemies in three minutes.

And one more thing: I am pretty sure battles in this game are decided by the ratio of remaining military strength once a certain amount of time has passed. In other words, outside scripted battles, you can win most fights by swinging your weapon around and spamming beams.

Sunraku: “And the enemies do not even move that well, so this is seriously just busywork…”

This is the kind of kusoge that drains your mental stamina. Maybe I should finally get serious and crack open an energy drink?

Then again, if I get too used to this sluggish combat, it might screw me up when I go back to SLF… Oh. Right.

Rice Miso: “Good work, President. What shall we do with the enemy soldiers?”

Sunraku: “Take their weapons and armor, then release them. They have families too, I am sure.”

Rice Miso: “Understood.”

Rice asks what to do with the enemy soldiers—who, thanks to President Power, are somehow not dead—as a substitute for a normal battle-results screen. I answer her while heading for the chair in my office… the save point.

Sunraku: “There is somewhere I can get a thrilling fight…!”

I close my eyes and log out…!

When I log in again, I open my eyes on top of a futon.

In this game, light leaks through the cracks around the sliding door when you log in, which means the idiots trying to spawn-kill me are probably already waiting outside it.

Sunraku: “…An amateur would stand around here… but if it is a real spawn-killer… then probably here.”

Why do I know so much about this?

Fool. Login Divine Retribution is a score-farming technique I invented during the Winter Event.

Sunraku: “Right there!!”

Spawn-Killer: “Gwah!? H-how did you know!?”

Sunraku: “Idiot. Two days into the event, all the newbie spawn-killers have already been wiped out. That means you just aim for the place somebody who has gotten used to anti-spawn-kill retribution would stand. And there you are.”

Spawn-Killer: “Dual-wielded event-only weapons… a Hannya mask… No way. ‘Festival Music’…!?”

Sunraku: “Huh? I finally got a nickname too?”

Spawn-Killer: “Tch. So I pulled the losing ticket…”

A third-rate spawn-killer hides beside the sliding door. A first-rate one stands directly in front of it and exploits the opponent’s login recovery.

The counter-spawn-kill version of Divine Retribution takes a little technique, though, so the fastest solution is simply to kick the sliding door off its track.

Looking down at the player in a Shinsengumi haori, currently pinned beneath the door I kicked onto him, I check left and right for reinforcements.

Sunraku: “Give me some information and I will let you go.”

Spawn-Killer: “Y-you mean it…!?”

Sunraku: “If all you have is cheap information, though, I am making you commit seppuku.”

Spawn-Killer: “What is this, pawnshop haggling…? Fine. I have not survived these two days for nothing.”

I got a bunch of useful information out of him, so I let him go. The instant he stepped outside the lodging house, though, a Helmet Splitter came crashing down from above, split his head open, and erased him.

My condolences.

Namu-san.

PRESIDEEEENT BEEEEEEEEAM!!!!

A hit neutralizes the target’s will to fight with the President’s overwhelming majesty.

What even is a President?

A President is a President.