With bloodshot eyes, the men boarded their humanoid fighters.
The looks on their faces were those of true men determined to strike down their mortal enemies.
Everyone was silent.
This was the bond shared by those who had experienced the "Mach Jet" from their backsides.
Words were unnecessary.
There was only rage toward Parcion.
Unlike Lepsitol, Parcion operated on a planned economy. Furthermore, it possessed a large population of factory workers. Unlike Lepsitol’s unbridled, chaotic economy, this system was incredibly resilient against external pressure.
That was exactly why we were invading.
We had left them alone until now, but the time had come to slaughter them.
The humanoid fighters of Chronos descended upon a planet in Ozen-side Parcion.
As high-ranking officials, we were the last to touch down. The air defense system had already been neutralized by our advance forces, allowing us to land on the soil of Parcion without facing any real hardship.
"Where is the Parcion Army?! Get out here!" I bellowed, my anger resurfacing at the memory of my suffering.
"Hyaaaaaaaaah!" Rikochi let out a roar as well.
She began repeatedly kicking the walls of the nearby buildings. A massive hole opened in the side of a structure that had likely served as a military facility.
"Ahahaha! Rikochi, stop taking it out on the scenery!" Melissa, who hadn't experienced the Mach Jet, was laughing her head off.
Tatiana landed next. Her exclusive machine, Lovely Cat, immediately deployed a barrier. Meanwhile, Rikochi’s Usapyon uprooted a nearby telephone pole and started swinging it around like a club.
Oh boy... there goes the power for the whole neighborhood.
"Dieeeeeeeee!" Rikochi hurled the telephone pole at the base. It skewered the building like a giant toothpick.
"Uooooooooh! I'll slaughter you, Parcion!" Isono shouted, swinging his naginata.
"Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!" Nakajima screamed, wielding a great axe this time.
Watching the men and Rikochi go wild, the other girls looked completely appalled. This surge of excitement and "Burning Fire" craze made the battlefield look more like a heavy metal festival.
"Your Majesty. The local government and the regional army have surrendered," a report came in.
"Huh?" I blinked. We hadn't even done anything yet.
"It seems they were terrified by the sight of Lady Riko's rampage."
"Ah... right. Nice going, Rikochi!"
Rikochi was simply venting her frustrations on the infrastructure.
The Taikyoku Nation Army had already seized control of the surrounding space. Thinking about it calmly, this was the natural result. A local government cut off from the center had no real authority.
It would have been a different story if the national army were here, but this was a place that had originally traded with the likes of Ozen and Magellan. They probably figured that if they surrendered quickly and went crying to an influential figure like Magellan, they wouldn't be treated too poorly. In fact, that was exactly the case, so it felt like we were just reading their predictable behavioral patterns.
The Governor, the head of the planetary government, eventually arrived to meet us.
"P-Please, I offer you my head! I beg of you, just spare my men from being handed over to the Taikyoku Nation to be made into eunuchs!"
It was a cry from the heart.
Apparently, in the distant past, the Taikyoku Nation had fought a massive war. They supposedly ran out of civil officials during the conflict and forcibly conscripted eunuchs from their occupied territories. That terror had been passed down through generations, becoming a myth that persisted to this day.
The Governor was shaking like a leaf. It seemed most of the elderly residents reacted this way.
"P-Please! Take my head instead!"
"Uh, Shiyun?" I opened a correspondence course line with her.
"I've told you a thousand times! We abolished the eunuch system ages ago!" Shiyun screamed through the comms.
Previously, she had suppressed her emotions and acted all prim and proper, but lately, living with people her own age had resulted in her developing quite an interesting personality. Between acting as the stopper for One-oh-one and Tatiana, she was really leaning into her role as the trio's "tsukkomi."
"Th-Then... you mean you'll just perform the amputations indiscriminately?! That is too cruel..."
"We won't!" Shiyun snapped.
"R-Really?"
"We won't! In the first place, the occupation policy will be led by His Majesty King Leo Kamishiro Chronos."
Wait... is it me after all?
"For now, Governor, please summarize the actual state of the contamination," I said, getting back to business.
"The thing is..."
"What?"
"Actually, the distributions stopped over six months ago... The central technicians also withdrew. We managed to keep the factories running somehow, but..."
"Ah, yeah. So it's at that level."
This was more serious than I thought. It wasn't just that the recipes were lost; the on-site supervisors were gone too.
"Then, the quality control department..."
"It is not functioning."
So they weren't even inspecting the products. This utterly passive attitude was incomprehensible to those of us from a capitalist system. In our shoes, we would have dug up the recipes, used the same industrial machinery to produce the same quality of goods, and just started selling them on our own because the central government couldn't be relied upon.
But in a centralized totalitarian state where workers only knew their own specific, narrow tasks, this was the inevitable result. It was a society where you were told you didn't have to do anything else. The moment the people maintaining quality disappeared, everything fell apart.
Things usually improved once the center completely stopped functioning and black markets started to form, as a sense of responsibility for the final product would finally emerge. Totalitarianism had its pros and cons, I suppose. In that regard, I thought Latarnia was doing quite well. The Taikyoku Nation had a liberal economy, so the quality of their products remained high. There were various factors involved, like how to manage a vast territory, so every system had its strengths and weaknesses.
This time, Parcion's weaknesses had been laid bare.
"For now, stop all production! Everyone, take a break!"
"Understood!"
I'll have them stop working for now. It would be a nightmare if they kept making tainted goods. I’d have to call in a quality control department from a Chronos company.
Phew. My workload was just piling up.
That said, if I created a massive wave of unemployment, public order would deteriorate. For now, I'd have public relations vehicles announce that "The eunuch system does not exist" and hand out pamphlets. I even used a local factory as the printing company to give them something to do.
The residents, still terrified of the Taikyoku Nation, were refusing to let their young boys go outside. Hey, you guys trade with the Taikyoku Nation too, don't you?! Ah, maybe this was their first time being on the receiving end of an invasion...
Regarding this, Parcion's state-run broadcast somehow released a statement saying they "protest the invaders."
"The protest is fine and all, but why don't they say it to us directly?" I asked.
Saijo-kun, who was quietly infuriated, provided the answer. "Is it not because they fear Your Majesty?"
"No way!"
"Most countries Your Majesty has been involved with have either perished or undergone a change in leadership."
"...O-Oh."
Come to think of it, that Maro from the Galactic Empire was killed too.
Could it be that I'm... a Nation Crusher?