REIWA JIGOKUHEN - Chaotic Disturbance of Reiwa Era

Chapter 77 - Full-Auto Turkey Shoot

Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo: Defense Ministry Building

In the early morning, when the world was beginning to lighten thinly, the lamps were still on in the Defense Ministry building. The all-night hours since the occurrence of the time-space cataclysm may be similar for all government agencies. However, the workload is also increasing at an extraordinary rate with millions of new personnel from both the temporary Self-Defense Forces and the auxiliary units. Someone said that there would be more deaths from overwork than deaths in battle, but in fact, it was not a joke at all.

Furthermore, recently, work related to Operation Jimmu has been pressing down on them. The first wave of landings, the five JGSDF-enhanced divisions, the auxiliary corps of engineers, and the new Eight-Eight Fleet—composed of 80 large transports and eight escort vessels, called the "Eight-Eight Fleet"—had been brought in through hard work in time. As a reward for their efforts, they were given the second wave of work.

"Wretched is the lot of a government official," an exhausted young staff member complained lightly in the break room.

He heard that the term originally sounded slightly different, but he thought it was a misuse of the word and that a modern interpretation would be more in line with the current situation. However, when he got a special delivery canned coffee, he felt a lot of fight in his heart.

"I think I should do my best so that I can buy this coffee from a vending machine."

"Because the society has been constituted by the results of working of a lot of strangers."

An elderly staff member, who was having a smoke, quoted a famous catchphrase and laughed.

The two, who knew each other somewhat from work, engaged in casual conversation. The older staff's eldest son had been planning to attend college on the West Coast, but the whole thing had been scrapped because of the fiasco, and the college itself had been destroyed in an air raid at the end of last month. A short time later, around 05:00, NHK's morning news started.

"The Ministry of Defense has just released actual footage of the Self-Defense Forces still fighting off the West Coast of the United States," the announcer on the screen sounded slightly excited.

The decision on whether or not to release the footage was made at the top level of the Ministry, and the two, who had never heard of this before, stared intently at the TV set. The scene of American planes exploding and crashing, or losing control of their plane, was so powerful that it looked as if it had been filmed for a movie.

"Was it last night when the battle started?"

"I'm sure it was a video sent by a defense communications satellite. Yeah... considering the height of the sun, I think it was taken yesterday at 10:00 local time, just about two hours ago."

"I see... then again, VALS, it looks like it could be of use all over the place."

"I heard they actually put them on commandeered ships. I hear they can disable the optical sighting systems of submarines and surface vessels in an instant."

"Interesting."

The young staff nodded with interest, thinking only that the ship would certainly be safer if that were the case. After a while, the news turned to another topic: the per capita food ration quota would be improved to 25 g/day for eggs and 35 g/day for meat, which brought a smile to everyone in the break room.

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Pacific Ocean: 250 km west of San Francisco

"They're monsters..."

Commander Porter went to the battlefield again and saw his squadron being crushed once again. The enemy fleet's rapid-fire cannons reaped the dive bombers, and the torpedo bombers were destroyed before they could unleash their deadly torpedoes. He was unable to calmly witness all the attacks, but from what he could see, there were probably no planes that succeeded in leaving the zone after completing their bombardment, regardless of their affiliation or the size of their plane. And as his men died one after another, he found himself sitting in the sky and watching.