—To critique the present, why must one borrow from the past?
In the eastern district of Worldly Affairs City, Vega’s takeover personnel were bustling with activity, a flurry of preparations underway. This ‘takeover,’ however, was not merely a matter of the previous occupants departing and new ones stepping in; it entailed countless tasks that had to be meticulously addressed, one by one.
The construction department was tasked with reassessing and replanning the local infrastructure and housing. The military was to assume control of crucial military installations. Public services, meanwhile, were to take over vital public facilities, including schools and hospitals. As for the police, their duties were even more extensive: the Household Registration Department would conduct a door-to-door census and analysis, the Vehicle Department would traverse every street and alley to inventory all vehicles, and the Archives Department would integrate records evacuated from Worldly Affairs City during the war to establish a new archival database for the region. The propaganda department, driving small promotional vehicles through the streets, would inform residents of Vega’s renewed control and outline its current policies. Lastly, the intelligence department was responsible for rooting out any informants left behind by Xuanji Star—for Xuanji Star would assuredly leave informants; it wouldn’t be them otherwise.
“Let me reiterate: to prevent any unnecessary conflicts, everyone’s weapons must have their magazines removed. If a weapon has no magazine, then the chamber must be cleared. Within the newly assumed areas, the ‘Vega Police Force Regulations’ must be strictly adhered to, and for close-combat weapons, the principle of ‘never drawing a blade in public’ must be observed.”
Under the Starry Sky, the diminutive leader of the armed response unit, was once again emphasizing regulations to her team. Sakakibara Ai had always felt that her leader, despite not appearing old, had already entered a ‘senior’ phase of life—’surely, even the most crucial matters didn’t need to be reiterated every half hour!’ she mused. ‘If this were the military, such things would never be droned on about like an endless bind—though, of course, the military wouldn’t be taking over urban areas anyway.’ According to Vega’s regulations, armed forces were prohibited from entering urban zones without explicit orders, confined instead to military installations. From cities to villages, security was typically handled by the police force, which meant Vega’s military authority was highly constrained. This was precisely why the Vega Police Force had grown to an immense size, a rarity even within the entire Celestial Sphere Academy. Cradling her Vega sniper rifle, its barrel firmly wedged between her ample breasts, Sakakibara Ai truly wished she didn’t have to listen to Under the Starry Sky’s incessant nagging any longer. Fortunately, while Under the Starry Sky’s repetitions were frequent, the content of each speech was brief, concluding within a few minutes. Sakakibara Ai felt a wave of relief wash over her.
She tilted her head towards Harukaze Shizuku, winking as she asked,
“Shizuku, are we dismissed now?”
“Yes, but you cannot leave the immediate vicinity. We are to reassemble five minutes before reaching the C-2 evacuation zone of Xuanji Star.”
“Yay!” Sakakibara Ai cheered, her exclamation betraying the fact that she had barely listened a moment ago.
“You weren’t paying attention again,” Harukaze Shizuku stated, her serious gaze making Sakakibara Ai flinch.
“Because it’s just so repetitive; I could recite it by heart!” ‘A ‘robot soldier’ like Harukaze Shizuku, who becomes meticulously focused once a mission begins, could never understand my thoughts,’ Ai mused. ‘After all, ‘obedience’ has replaced her ‘every desire’; her eyes see nothing but the ‘mission,’ and she would diligently listen even to a pile of nonsense.’ Harukaze Shizuku saw Sakakibara Ai’s wide, blinking eyes and knew she was trying to charm her way out of trouble. She merely sighed softly—she wasn’t Sakakibara Ai’s direct superior and wouldn’t report such a minor infraction. Watching Sakakibara Ai dash off to chat with the detectives by a distant police armored vehicle, Shizuku wondered why Ai was always so fond of talking, and what exactly they found so much to discuss. The detectives didn’t seem to mind her presence, even offering her a seat, but Sakakibara Ai politely declined. Instead, she stood leaning on her rifle, its butt resting on the ground, the barrel propped against her chin, then tucked into her chest, almost completely clamped. ‘Setting aside the improper handling of firearms outside of combat, such a personality is actually ill-suited for a sniper. Her physique also plays a role—being shorter than her rifle and having an overly ample chest means she’d experience severe friction with the ground when prone.’ Unable to experience it herself, Harukaze Shizuku lacked understanding of the pain caused by such friction, but seeing Sakakibara Ai grimace during training was enough to know it couldn’t be pleasant. Yet, neither her personality nor her physique had ever deterred Sakakibara Ai. To this day, she remained the best shot in Shell City’s Armed Division and ranked among the top three since the founding of the ‘Rosso Strada’ Police Academy. When she first joined ‘Rosso Strada,’ she was a clumsy marksman who trembled holding a gun and nearly hit her instructor with her first shot. ‘Since I wasn’t there to witness it, I still can’t fathom how she almost shot the instructor standing behind her with a gun.’ The effort she must have put in to achieve such results was immense; it seemed there was a compelling reason for her to become a sniper. However, Harukaze Shizuku had never inquired about it in detail. She wasn’t like the detectives, who would meticulously identify the breed of every dog they encountered; she simply lacked the curiosity to get to the bottom of things.
****
“Shizuku, have you heard about Ke Yiyi?”
“Hm?” Harukaze Shizuku turned to see Gudang Weixiao, clad in a ‘Medical Department’ uniform. Gudang Weixiao always wore a knowing smile; though married, she somehow didn’t look like a wife at all—she appeared exactly as she had before marriage.
“What is it?”
“I just ran into Ichijō Hi, the detective chief from Window City, the one we met together.”
“I remember her. What about her?”
“She told me that Ke Yiyi is here too.”
“Really? I haven’t seen anyone from her class!”
“She was transferred before. Now she’s an observer for the Independent Observation Group.”
Although Gudang Weixiao spoke as if surprised by this news, Harukaze Shizuku remained unfazed—her nature was always thus, accustomed to facing everything with a calm demeanor.
“And what of it?”
“Ichijō Hi said a Vega observer came here earlier to retrieve immigration documents. Apparently, Ke Yiyi rescued an abused child from Xuanji Star.”
“Wouldn’t that cause a diplomatic incident?”
“I don’t know, but probably not. Ke Yiyi is incredibly bold! I never imagined she’d do something like that after becoming an observer; you’d never guess it from her usual self!”
“You’ve known her longer than I have; you should understand her better. Her character has always been this way, always taking on others’ burdens as her own.”
“Even so, after knowing her for so long, I still didn’t expect her to defy Xuanji Star in such a situation! They say Xuanji Star’s people tried to stop her from leaving, but she still didn’t abandon that child. That child was clearly a Xuanji Star citizen, yet she couldn’t stand by. I could never do that myself!”
“Xuanji Star…” Harukaze Shizuku gazed across the street, where Xuanji Star sentries stood in neat formation. Once they withdrew from that area, her own unit would move in to take over. She loathed Xuanji Star’s ‘Blaze Clan Supremacy’; these people had murdered countless Vega lives and then sought to justify their actions. Their every move filled Harukaze Shizuku with disgust. Yet, fate could be so ironic. Harukaze Shizuku herself had been born in a village where the Blaze Clan and the Oceanwind Clan had intermarried for generations. Though players had no parents and no true bloodline, being born in such a village meant Harukaze Shizuku was perceived from the outset as having ties to both the Blaze Clan and the Oceanwind Clan. Players, lacking a past and born as ‘adults,’ missed out on the experiences of growth, often attempting to integrate into local environments to find a sense of belonging. With the rise of nationalism, a belief gradually emerged among players: ‘You are of the ethnicity of the community you were born into.’ Sometimes, this belief even extended to individual villages, or determined one’s ethnicity based on their player name. Harukaze Shizuku detested these notions. A person’s ethnicity was utterly unimportant. Nationalism, in her view, was merely an absurd concept introduced by the Academy of Sciences after the ‘Spark Revolution’ to maintain control, creating the idea of a ‘National Academy of Sciences’ to strengthen cohesion and internal stability. Early Vega Star had also implemented this ridiculous ideology, leading to mutual discrimination and bloodshed among the so-called ‘local-born,’ ‘Eastern Continent-born,’ and ‘Western Continent-born.’ Even more ludicrously, the ‘local-born’ had to be further subdivided into ‘Morning Cloud-born,’ ‘Oceanwind-born,’ and so on. Despite ‘Morning Cloud-born’ and ‘Oceanwind-born’ having no physical differences, only slight variations in customs and language, they still had to be clearly separated. Whenever she read about that period of history, she felt rage at the ignorant actions of people in the past, but what had already happened could not be changed, leaving her helpless. Just as the various ethnic groups of Vega Star had begun to live in harmony, their cultures blending, religious traditions accepted, languages no longer barriers to communication, and interethnic marriages no longer criticized, they were struck by the cursed great Blaze Clan chauvinism of Xuanji Star. The world war had not only devastated Vega Star’s economy but had also severely damaged its demographic structure and ethnic distribution, effectively tearing apart the multi-ethnic harmonious society Vega Star had painstakingly built over a long time. All of this was merely to prove the supremacy of their Blaze Clan. For such a reason, millions of Vega Star’s people could be branded ‘aliens’ and brutally slaughtered. As a player, she might indeed possess Blaze Clan blood, but she hated Xuanji Star’s Blaze Clan to her very core. It was Xuanji Star’s Blaze Clan that initiated that inhumane, epochal war, and it was Xuanji Star’s Blaze Clan that massacred other ethnic groups during that war—including members of Vega Star’s Blaze Clan. In that war, the fault was never with the Blaze Clan itself, but with Xuanji Star’s Blaze Clan. ‘This was what she had always believed in her heart.’