REIWA JIGOKUHEN - Chaotic Disturbance of Reiwa Era

Chapter 125 - Gateway to Tomorrow

Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture: Ryotei Restaurant

Since his days as a fledgling politician, former Prime Minister Muto had been familiar with the private room there, where he enjoyed sake and dishes.

Even with the technological innovations that have extended healthy lifespans in recent years, it's natural for one's appetite to decrease considerably once they reach their eighties. Nevertheless, as he chewed on the sushi and simmered dishes that have preserved the taste since the early Meiji era, gratitude overflowed within him.

"This is truly something to be grateful for."

Iida, the former Economic Affairs Division chief who once wielded a heavy hand in the National Security Bureau, also advanced his chopsticks with relish. He left bureaucracy a few years after the war and entered politics a short time later, once serving as a minister. He was now, like Muto, a retired politician.

"I'm truly grateful that you didn't fold your shop during those chaotic times..."

"We were the ones who were asking too much of the restaurant owners," Muto smiled with a slightly shadowed expression and said, "Well, in any case, it's been almost 40 years since then."

With those words as a starting point, reminiscing began.

It was during a flight that they suddenly witnessed the air raid. They faced an extraordinary situation of a national-scale time travel, and worked tirelessly to establish a disaster response headquarters and emergency measures related to economic control. Various events took place from the resource issue-driven "Occupation of America" plan to Operation Jimmu, which was carried out to completion. Compared to the time when they were cramped in the Prime Minister's office, everything that happened afterward, including the period when they held even higher positions, seems like a bonus life.

Additionally, it may be valid in practical terms as well. This is because, around the time when victory in the war seemed certain, the heated debates within the disaster response headquarters led to a decisive solidification of the direction of this world. The strategy formulated by the country's top minds, after giving full consideration to the utilization of the generation gap, was so robust that it did not require any fundamental revisions. As a result, particularly international political issues were minimized to an extreme degree, and even the Prime Minister had become nothing more than a figurehead who merely followed the predetermined path — there are even those who say such things.

"However, there were a few unexpected developments, weren't there?"

"Yes, there were."

"Right. One of them could be said to have been tied to my legacy as Prime Minister."

Muto smiled nostalgically and looked off into the distance.

Nuclear pulse propulsion, which greatly accelerated space development, had actually been decided on quite early on, and the timing of the launch of the Takamagahara was just about to come during his tenure. However, it was ultimately his decision to divert some of the successor models to manned flights to the outer edge of the solar system, even delaying the construction of some moon bases, that led to this outcome. As a result, the sister ships Yamato and Musashi of the outer space observation vessels have already safely reached 140 astronomical units away and are trying to capture gravitational waves caused by space-time disasters using a huge number of instruments.

"The whole world is eagerly awaiting the observation results, and now it's like a festival everywhere, but if the calculations of Dr. Makino and Dr. Oktay are proven correct, it seems that our way of facing the world will change in various ways."