Ch.215215. Yamato Alliance (1)

As the flames of the First Phoenix Revolution flickered across France, on the opposite side of the world in East Asia, a short but lengthy war was coming to an end.

“We’ve recaptured Kyushu!”

The grand Kyushu reclamation operation, ambitiously prepared by Fukuoka’s mayor Takashima Shiro, had ended in victory for Fukuoka. Now, Fukuoka could proudly make its presence known on the international stage, not just as Fukuoka alone, but with the entire Kyushu region as its foundation.

Above all, the most important thing gained from this victory was:

“We are not losers!”

Confidence.

If one were to name the greatest spoil of war that Takashima Shiro had obtained, it was instilling confidence in the Japanese people.

Until now, what had troubled Fukuoka was the claim that Jin A-yeon was Fukuoka’s only hero, and that without her, Fukuoka could not overcome the apocalypse.

Certainly, until the Kyushu conquest, Fukuoka’s military strength had been underestimated to the point where this was accepted as fact, and since there were no superhumans in Fukuoka before the war, it wasn’t an incorrect assessment.

“Yes, we are not losers!”

“Long live Mayor Takashima Shiro!”

“We’ve finally won!”

But now things were different.

With this victory, Fukuoka… no, Kyushu had become not a loser but a victor, filling people with hope that they could overcome the apocalypse with Kyushu’s strength.

It was proof that Japan had not been defeated and would survive the apocalypse.

“From now on, we will no longer be called the Fukuoka regime. We will be the Yamato Alliance!”

Following Seorabeol’s path, Fukuoka also created a regime that succeeded Japan as Yamato.

Though they didn’t claim to have founded a new country like Seorabeol, a closer look at the internal processes revealed policies that meticulously copied Seorabeol’s founding process, evidence that Shiro was greatly interested in Seorabeol’s policies.

‘And since claiming a solo victory would make me feel somewhat guilty, I’ll borrow the name of Yamato, known to have had exchanges with Baekje and Gaya, to strengthen relations with Seorabeol… though historically speaking, since Baekje’s enemy was Silla, cooperation with a cult calling itself Seorabeol is a somewhat strange arrangement.’

“Long live the Yamato Alliance! Long live Seorabeol! Long live the Korea-Japan Alliance!”

This victory wasn’t solely the Yamato Alliance’s; there had been assistance from their ally Seorabeol, though Seorabeol had only played a supporting role.

Now what remained was to use the recaptured Kyushu to grow into Japan’s representative power and show the Yamato Alliance’s presence to the international community.

There were many tasks ahead: establishing themselves as Seorabeol’s equal ally, developing industries for Kyushu’s survival, and forming exchanges with other foreign powers.

However, considering the reclaimed territory, the current size of the Yamato Alliance’s territory exceeded that of Seorabeol, so one could loudly proclaim that hard work had led to happiness, but life doesn’t always go as planned.

“It was good up to that point. Yes, up to that point.”

Behind the birth of the Yamato regime and its brilliant victory lay nothing but a bitter bill.

Because they had won, even this bill was welcome, but had they lost, it would have appeared as a monstrosity that would have crushed Shiro’s spirit.

The bill Shiro saw listed everything from materials used in the war to the distribution of spoils and all the troops Fukuoka itself had expended.

“The troop losses are greater than expected. The surviving forces have been successfully made elite, but whether I should be happy about that…”

The Kyushu reclamation had resulted in greater troop losses than anticipated.

Considering the size of the army Shiro had raised, it was difficult to say they had suffered major losses, but given that half of Fukuoka’s population had been wiped out by the apocalypse, each and every soldier was an incredibly precious human resource.

These precious human resources had lost their lives futilely in the war, but in exchange, the surviving soldiers had begun to become elite.

Given the nature of the Awakened, it was inevitable that they would grow stronger each time they survived battle, and those Awakened who continued to grow stronger would eventually reach the level of superhumans.

“To have such sacrifices despite having a mutual defense alliance with Seorabeol… damn it.”

But these soldiers weren’t supposed to die like this.

The reason Shiro had formed a mutual defense alliance with Seorabeol, even bowing his head, was a desperate attempt to minimize Fukuoka’s losses, and that attempt had ended successfully, with fewer soldiers having to be sacrificed than originally expected.

But the fact that many casualties still occurred despite these efforts naturally suggested the existence of variables, and the variable that had arisen in Fukuoka was:

“The Cult of Immortality, known to have taken control of Ulsan… I never imagined they would expand their influence beyond Busan to Japan…”

It was the Cult of Immortality.

After the Battle of Ulsan, this mysterious cult, which had fallen into a de facto tacit ceasefire, was expanding its influence.

Its presence had already been detected in Seoul, and with control over Ulsan and Busan, it had the conditions to exert sufficient influence on Japan.

‘They probably aimed to expand their influence to Japan by targeting the time when Seorabeol was being established by the Balhut Cult. The timing was quite exquisite.’

Seorabeol, which had been carrying out reforms for its establishment, had invested all its remaining energy in internal matters except for important external activities. When this giant called Seorabeol fell silent, the Cult of Immortality seized the opportunity to greatly expand its influence.

Japan had actually faced the same apocalypse as the Korean Peninsula, but from the Cult of Immortality’s perspective, the streets were filled with means to cultivate power.

Having absorbed the wild undead in Japan, the Cult of Immortality had set its sights on Japanese territory and clashed with Shiro, who had declared the reclamation of Kyushu.

There could be various reasons for targeting Japan, but:

“It’s a decisive battle with Seorabeol. I was lucky. I secured their internal documents and communication network.”

Shiro, who had just won the Kyushu reclamation war, had obtained access to the internal network built by the Cult of Immortality as part of the spoils of war.

Of course, the Cult of Immortality quickly blocked access, making the spoils useless in less than a day, but the information Shiro obtained during that brief time would be worth its weight in gold if sold to Seorabeol.

Alternatively, he could use this information to pressure Seorabeol or seek cooperation with the Cult of Immortality.

And the path Shiro chose was:

“The Cult of Immortality is a dangerous organization. It can hardly be called a normal government. We have no choice but to strengthen our ties with Seorabeol.”

Realizing that the Cult of Immortality was a more threatening opponent than expected, he strengthened ties with Seorabeol.

There are no eternal alliances in international society, and the current relationship between Fukuoka and Seorabeol was maintained at the level of an alliance formed through cooperation, considering their pre-apocalyptic relationship. However, the existence of the Cult of Immortality was forcing Shiro to choose to strengthen ties with Seorabeol.

If it had been moderately dangerous, he would have continued to maintain an ambiguous relationship, but unfortunately, the Cult of Immortality was a crazy group that commanded the undead, known as the culprits of the apocalypse.

“Let’s face the Cult of Immortality together.”

“Haha. The Cult of Immortality is the enemy of the Balhut Cult. Supporting the Yamato Alliance, which has declared its opposition to the Cult of Immortality, is Seorabeol’s natural duty.”

From the perspective of Seorabeol… no, the Balhut Cult, which had been at war with the Cult of Immortality, they could only greatly welcome Kyushu’s participation.

Now that Kyushu had designated the Cult of Immortality as an enemy, the Cult of Immortality’s front had expanded, and this expanded front would reduce the burden on Seorabeol.

From Seorabeol’s standpoint, they greatly welcomed Kyushu’s participation and began providing material support for post-war reconstruction. Kyushu would use these materials to rebuild the civilization destroyed by the apocalypse, so it wouldn’t be strange to say this was a mutually beneficial deal.

Rather, the problem facing them was:

“Of all things, the Cult of Immortality has contaminated Kyushu’s land.”

“This makes all productive activities using the land impossible. It seems the Cult of Immortality has used magic to contaminate it. Despite the recent rainy season, the land contamination isn’t being washed away; rather, it’s trying to contaminate the groundwater and rivers.”

“That’s the problem! We recaptured Kyushu, but it’s as if we’ve only recaptured half of it!”

The issue was the land itself.

When territory is recaptured, one naturally looks for ways to use that land, and the simplest method is to utilize the soil.

Whether harvesting timber, farming the land to produce food, or using it for pasture, the uses of land are truly diverse. However, the land recaptured in the Kyushu operation was all contaminated with the poor-quality magical energy and poison of the undead.

According to the advice of magicians affiliated with the Yamato Alliance, this contaminated land was strengthening the power of the undead in Kyushu. Indeed, poison was still rising from the ground where the undead were, the soil reeked of rotting corpses, and even when it rained, rather than being purified, the rainwater itself became contaminated and affected water quality. On such land, it was impossible to rebuild various productive activities such as farming or grazing.

At least the urban areas weren’t contaminated, but at this rate, it was as if only half of Kyushu had been recaptured.

“I guess… I have no choice?”

“Are you making a decision?”

“Yes. With the land contaminated, there’s only one path I can choose. I need to obtain Seorabeol’s technology to purify the land contamination.”

Fortunately, research on purification was actively being conducted in Seorabeol.

At first, he had wondered why they were focusing on pollution purification research rather than war weapons, and upon hearing it was Bahamut’s order, he vaguely thought that the dragon god was implementing misguided policies.

But as time passed, pollution purification became the most important technology in the war against the Cult of Immortality, and he realized that the technology that could save Kyushu was the pollution purification technology being researched by the Seorabeol Mage’s Association. So the action that Takashima Shiro, who was responsible for Kyushu, had to take was:

“I, Takashima Shiro, will abandon my current religion and convert to the Balhut Cult.”

He chose conversion.

Takashima Shiro thought that converting to the Balhut Cult was the quickest way to establish close cooperation with Seorabeol.

While some in modern times evaluate conversion itself as a meaningless act, surprisingly, in contemporary Arab countries, a sudden declaration of conversion by a national leader had enormous ripple effects.

Naturally, news of Shiro’s conversion quickly reached the Seorabeol cabinet, and the cabinet’s assessment of the conversion declaration was as follows:

“This is troublesome.”

It was truly troublesome beyond compare.

While some members sincerely admired his quick decisiveness and sense of responsibility despite his young age, conversely, that decisiveness was not good from the Seorabeol cabinet’s perspective.

“If he’s converted to the Balhut Cult, that place is now under the cult’s influence… and since the cult’s influence is Seorabeol’s influence, it’s difficult for us to ignore this declaration of conversion.”

“Then let’s support Kyushu, no, the Yamato Alliance! Kyushu is now completely under our influence! This means Kyushu’s interests have become ours!”

“Ho! Is that an easy matter? We must consider the resistance of local residents. The leader of the Yamato Alliance is not an easy person. Surely the conversion declaration was a desperate move made after careful consideration!”

Since the Seorabeol cabinet itself was formed with the help of the Balhut Cult, and since the Balhut Cult’s influence was Seorabeol’s influence, now that Shiro had converted to the Balhut Cult, that place had also come under Seorabeol’s influence.

Thus, in the cabinet, there were members who advocated supporting the Yamato Alliance, others who expressed doubt about Shiro’s conversion, and so on—it was nothing short of chaos.

But in the midst of this noisy cabinet…

“One of the requests from the Yamato Alliance is for magicians capable of purifying contaminated land. How about extending the scope of the Seorabeol Magic Association’s purification project to include the Yamato Alliance?”

A young cabinet member raised his hand, proposing to use the purification project as a support policy.

“You want to divert those madm… I mean, those scholars’ rampage to Japan?”

“Yes.”

The cabinet members, seeing a golden opportunity to utilize these magic-crazed scholars…

“That’s a good idea!”

“If those damned eccentrics disappear, Lady Yuna would be greatly pleased.”

“Finally, those weirdos will leave Seorabeol! Long live the Seorabeol-Yamato Alliance!”

…immediately began to cheer.

And faster than anyone else, all members, regardless of party affiliation, unanimously agreed to the plan to throw these hanbok-wearing magic-crazed eccentrics across the sea. Thus, the dispatch of the Seorabeol Mage’s Association—not madmen—to the Yamato Alliance was scheduled.