【Aahn! I’m going to pounce right in front of His Majesty! Twitch, twitch!】
Alright!
Incident report complete.
I submitted the report to the military.
“It’s easy to follow, but aren’t you going to get in trouble for that?”
“It’s their fault for making me do paperwork in the first place!!!”
“Yes, yes. I’ll attach my summary of the incident to the video logs from Kevin’s drones as well.”
Without the Fairy’s help, my writing would have been on par with a trash-tier college report.
This was exactly why I kept insisting I didn't want a promotion—I simply lacked the administrative talent for it.
If this were a workplace where lives weren't on the line, it would be one thing, but this job was a matter of life and death.
Leo just can't handle that kind of responsibility, you know~.
Since then, the residents had returned to their senses.
It was all thanks to Tatiana’s barrier being reinforced.
That said, there was absolutely zero scientific basis for how it worked.
A team of scholars from the Imperial Capital was set to arrive.
Honestly, there was so much work for researchers lately that the Empire was facing a massive talent shortage.
They were already budgeting for and deploying graduate students from every university, even the private ones.
If that wasn't enough, they were planning to throw in every science and engineering graduate student they could find.
After all, even the eldest son of House Kamishiro—my own big brother—had been conscripted as a researcher.
At least they were being paid a decent wage... or rather, the money I’d earned in outer space was being funneled directly into the research budget.
I suppose it was fine since that money circulated and eventually found its way back to the country.
Currently, the Empire was experiencing a massive science and engineering enrollment boom.
Research teams always needed assistants to handle machinery and perform meticulous tasks.
While college students were the obvious choice, they had started recruiting industrial high school students as well, using university scholarships and credits as bait.
They even received better pay than a standard part-time job—about as much as a ship’s crewman, I’d wager.
And when you gave that much money to high schoolers who hadn't even thought about their futures yet, they started having kids left and right.
An unprecedented baby rush had arrived.
Every industry was thriving, leading to a period of unparalleled economic growth.
Even my Wifey was left wondering, “How did it even come to this?!”
In just a single year, the term “declining birthrate” was becoming a dead language.
I didn’t even understand it anymore myself.
Next, I had to write an apology letter.
Apparently, if you dismantle a Small Shrine, you have to restore it properly.
During the restoration, I used some copper wire I’d brought for fixing roof tiles to tie things down, and that was deemed a minor violation.
Personally, I was more shocked that I was allowed to restrain people with cable ties.
It seemed that judgment was based on past precedents, but even Raymond said, “It doesn’t really make sense, does it?”
He told me to just write a formal apology and offer a hollow, insincere 'sorry.'
There were plenty of casualties.
Since the ones who needed actual medical treatment were mostly Yankees or older guys, everyone pretty much looked the other way.
I was fine with the idea that Yankees didn’t have human rights, but I really wanted to build a society that was a little kinder to middle-aged men.
In ten years, I’d be treated as an old guy too.
Boys simply cannot escape the fate of becoming middle-aged men...
How tragic.
As for the residents, they were let off the hook on the condition that they undergo a mandatory medical investigation.
It would have been incredibly inefficient to try and prosecute every single inhabitant of a planet this size.
For now, the incident was officially announced as an act of terrorism by the Zen God Race.
The investigation into the Small Shrine would continue... though as expected, there still weren't enough researchers.
Since the incident, the residents had become remarkably cooperative.
Beyond just letting us buy snacks at the stalls, they started delivering massive amounts of tribute to Melissa’s Lord's Mansion.
Onsen Manju, Oyaki, assorted dried fish... I-I won't be bribed with food, you know! Twitch, twitch! (I was totally bribed).
The pacification of the Tachibana Main House was complete.
It was decided that those tacky statues would be torn down.
“Should we put up a statue of Melissa instead?”
“Absolutely not.”
The shy Melissa flatly rejected the idea of a statue in her likeness.
In the midst of the chaos surrounding the investigation of the shrine, I had them build a new shrine for Zashiki-warashi-chan.
We installed a Torii I’d pre-fabricated from special steel.
I didn’t plan on making the shrine anything too extravagant.
Zashiki-warashi-chan herself said, “A normal house is fine.”
We used a construction method that was quick to build and easy to repair.
Then, a Shinto priest dispatched by the Empire performed some kind of ritual.
I’m sorry... but with my level of knowledge, that’s as much as I can explain.
When I asked Zashiki-warashi-chan about it, she said she could exist in multiple places simultaneously...
How does that even work?
Well, whatever. Some things in this world just aren't meant to be understood.
With this, Melissa’s territory should finally be at peace.
I’m sure she’ll receive a blessing, just like my Wifey’s ship.
Of course, the actual mechanics of the Zashiki-warashi-chan effect remained a mystery.
I figured we should leave the pursuit of truth to the smart people and just focus on reaping the benefits ourselves.
And so, while some emotional friction still lingered between Melissa and her residents, the time came for us to leave.
We were heading to Claire’s territory first, and then on to Isono and Nakajima’s planet.
I was going to attend their wedding along with my Wifey and the rest of the gang.
I had to visit Eddie’s place too.
Man, I was busy.
Claire’s territory was located on Duke Association Land.
She had strongly requested a planet focused on primary industry.
It was a fairly large world.
The spaceport seemed to be almost entirely for cargo ships.
There was an Agricultural Cooperative right in front of the spaceport station.
Cargo trains passed by at a high frequency.
Apparently, there was even a large harbor.
It was a hardcore, dedicated primary industry planet.
“W-Wow...”
Coming from a farming family myself, I was overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all.
Claire pointed toward a recycling facility and fertilizer plant adjacent to the spaceport.
“All food waste is completely recycled. We preserve the environment while turning weeds from the farmland into fertilizer.”
“Huh. Do you use chemical fertilizer?”
“We do. But when you’re trying to nurture soil bacteria, organic fertilizer is essential too.”
Looking out the train window, vast rice paddies stretched as far as the eye could see.
We traveled from the spaceport to the Territorial Capital Station.
“Oh, a lizard.”
A lizard was crawling along the station wall.
It was a landscape rich with nature.
While you could call it the “countryside,” it was being managed as a systematic, large-scale industrial operation.
It felt like primary industry treated as a heavy industry.
The maintenance of the roads and infrastructure was incredibly precise.
If anything, wasn't this more like a city?
Compared to this, my family home—which the trading company just developed whenever they felt like it—felt like the real sticks.
The Lord's Mansion was a grand Western-style building.
“Our fruit orchard is right out back.”
We headed to the fruit orchard first.
Grapes, pears, mandarin oranges...
“Claire... I want to live here forever...”
“Once we’re married, it’ll be yours too, Leo!”
The fruit orchard was crawling with workers.
Agricultural drones were buzzing everywhere.
Sensors were placed all over the fields, measuring the condition and temperature of every single plant.
“Over there, we’re growing grapes for wine.”
It was large-scale agriculture on a staggeringly vast piece of land.
I was completely floored.
Everything was worlds apart from my family home.
There was no way my parents' place could ever compete with this!
Come to think of it, my family home was halfway into farming and halfway into mining and manufacturing.
Even if we stood on our heads, we could never beat a Duke-class planet that was actually serious about production.
And Claire was a prodigy of agricultural distribution.
This was the result of her putting in just a little bit of effort.
This planet had only seen mediocre production numbers until Claire took over as Lord.
My fiancée was simply too amazing...
“Lord Groom... I truly feel it from the bottom of my heart... I am glad we never became Claire’s enemies.”
“Yeah...”
Besides, there was no chance of a rebellion here.
However, it did seem like there wasn't much to do for fun.
I figured we’d use this place as our base of operations for a while.
We were stuck here until Isono’s wedding anyway.
(I fixed a mistake in the previous chapter, so I’ve updated the text.)