When It Rains, It Pours

With events suddenly taking this turn, the spectators watching the livestream were just as shocked as Itō Hidetaka.

[You can actually play it like that? God Ye's setup is truly ingenious.]

[Terrifying! With so many sanctions weighing him down, there's no way he can complete the mission.]

[That's the power of a world hegemon. Even without military weapons, it can suppress you in every way.]

[That feeling is truly suffocating.]

[But on second thought, it actually makes perfect sense. The countries in this dungeon are equivalent to settlements in reality, and no settlement leader could manage their people by exploiting them the way Itō Hidetaka did...]

[The person above is right. So it's only natural for those people to be sanctioned by Eagle Sauce.]

[Serves them right! I've been sick of the Great He Clan for a long time!]

Without experiencing it firsthand in the dungeon, the spectators couldn't feel the despair Itō Hidetaka felt at that moment.

For them, it was still a spectacle, and the bigger the commotion, the better.

In a conference room at the Great Xia people's First Instance Research Institute.

The entire room fell silent as everyone saw the sanctions listed one after another on the big screen.

Those so-called "sanctions" had left the researchers dumbfounded.

Nothing like them had ever existed in Azure Star's thousands of years of history!

"What exactly are all these things...?"

"It feels like everything Lin Ye came up with in this non-combat dungeon is something we've never seen before!"

"How can one settlement be so overbearing and bully another like this? Does something like this really fit the dungeon's logic?"

"Director Ding, could you explain it to us?"

Ding Chang's eyes were also full of shock.

Even he, having lived on land controlled by this Firmament, couldn't fully understand what Eagle Sauce Country's status and those sanctions in Raging Waves represented.

Only after a long while did Ding Chang slowly speak.

"Don't try to understand this dungeon according to Azure Star's rules."

"There's no Firmament in this dungeon. The settlements all develop freely."

"Imagine what would happen if our world had no Firmament either, and every settlement could manufacture military weapons as it pleased."

Everyone looked at one another, unsure how to answer. In the end, Zhao Jianyu spoke up.

"Teacher, I think wars in the true sense would definitely break out between the settlements. Everything in the dungeon would play out in reality."

"Everyone would fight their own battles. Weak settlements would be occupied by powerful ones, and some weak settlements might join forces to form a large settlement!"

Ding Chang nodded in satisfaction and continued, "That's right!"

"Jianyu, what you described is exactly what's happening in the Earth Online Lin Ye created."

"Eagle Sauce Country in there may have become the world hegemon step by step, just as you said!"

"And its position as hegemon means it can monopolize many things."

Seeing that the researchers filling the room still looked bewildered, Ding Chang had no choice but to explain in greater detail.

"Imagine again: if all the food in our world weren't controlled by the Firmament, but by a single settlement instead, what would happen?"

"In that case, the settlement could use food as leverage to bully the other settlements whenever it wanted," a researcher answered.

"Exactly. That is a sanction! To a certain extent, this kind of sanction is actually more frightening than military warfare."

"Viewed from this angle, the sanctions in Raging Waves are perfectly reasonable."

Once again, the conference room fell silent.

Everyone pondered it carefully, and the more they thought about it, the more frightening it seemed.

These things were simply too complicated. Unlike tangible things such as military weapons, they were tiny details spread throughout the world.

Azure Star focused solely on military research, so no one had ever paid attention to the rules governing the various other industries.

But the politics, trade, and public opinion displayed in Raging Waves were actually no less complex than military research!

How powerful did one's logic have to be to create all those hard-to-pin-down details in a dungeon?!

Lin Ye was creating an entirely new world!

He had considered every little detail in this world.

That was just too outrageous!

"Let's keep watching and see whether these so-called sanctions in the dungeon really exist," Ding Chang said slowly, having steadied his emotions.

"If they do... then the word 'genius' can't begin to describe Lin Ye..."

Inside the command room, Itō Hidetaka was sitting on pins and needles.

"Fake! It has to be an illusion!"

"This must be an illusion Lin Ye deliberately created to deceive me!"

"There's no way these so-called sanctions can exist. How powerful would a country have to be to wield such enormous influence?!"

Itō Hidetaka began muttering to himself frantically, forcing himself to take some comfort.

"For a faction to reach that level in a dungeon, the Dungeon Designer would need to establish sound logic across every industry, creating the foundation for that faction to become the planet's hegemon."

"For this dungeon, that would be an unimaginable amount of work."

"Even if Lin Ye is a genius, he's only a genius in military technology. He can't be a genius in economics, energy, and politics too!"

Impossible! That's absolutely impossible!

Creak!

Just as Itō Hidetaka was fuming over the sanctions from Eagle Sauce, the command room door was pushed open once again.

It was Deputy Commander Shancheng Kojirō.

Whenever Shancheng Kojirō had come in to report before, he had always knocked politely first, but not this time.

This time, he pushed the door straight open.

He looked extremely anxious, his face flushed red, and he held something resembling a display screen in his hand.

"Itō... Mr. Itō!"

"Something terrible has happened!"

"Every industry and department on Eastern Ocean Island has protested against our previous management, and the international community is condemning us from every direction too!"

Itō Hidetaka frowned, and an ominous premonition surged into his heart.

Could the 'sanctions' mentioned earlier all be real?!

He hurriedly took the screen and looked at it.

The first news report was playing on it.

[International bulletin: Eastern Ocean Island has violated international conventions by discharging wastewater into the ocean and has now received strong condemnation from the entire world...]

[Dragon Country has announced that it will cancel all bilateral trade with Eastern Ocean Island!]

[Bang Country has announced that it will withdraw all its foreign-invested enterprises from Eastern Ocean Island!]

Seeing this report, Itō Hidetaka's fingers couldn't help trembling.

Wasn't this exactly the [trade sanctions] the Firmament had just warned him about?!

A great many countries had severed ties with Eastern Ocean Island. Without trade, the impact on its economy would be utterly devastating.

He swiped his finger and continued to the next reports.

[Dongying Daily's first report today: due to widespread whaling and the disruption of marine biodiversity, revenue from marine products has fallen sharply, and fishermen are voicing their grievances everywhere.]

[Dongying Daily's second report today: a large number of Fengtian Motors vehicles, Dongying's flagship brand, have spontaneously caught fire and exploded. Tests by the relevant authorities have revealed clear evidence of inferior materials being passed off as quality ones in their construction!]

[Dongying Daily's third report today: due to a flood of adult action films into the youth market, Eastern Ocean Island's young people have become a ruined generation... incidents of groping on trains occur frequently.]

[...]

"Why?!"

"It's bad enough that the international community is mocking us, but why are Eastern Ocean Island's own local media outlets smearing us too?!"

"Don't they know this will cause enormous damage to their own country?! This dungeon's setup is utterly absurd!"

The more news Itō Hidetaka read, the angrier he became, until he nearly smashed the screen.

"Mr. Itō, there are some things I only just learned myself," Shancheng Kojirō said, also sounding aggrieved. "The truth is, the whole of Eastern Ocean Island has always been Eagle Sauce Country's running dog!"

"What?" Itō Hidetaka looked astonished.

"Many of Eastern Ocean Island's businesses, factories, media outlets, and newspapers are actually controlled by Eagle Sauce Country's financial conglomerates."

"And our people have a natural inclination to obey Eagle Sauce Country. They place great trust in the information it puts out."

Itō Hidetaka's head was spinning. After all this, there was another layer to the setting.

He swiped frantically through the screen, hoping to find a little good news to comfort himself.

But he couldn't find a single report that was favorable to him.

Negative news about Eastern Ocean Island covered the sky and blanketed the earth. Any one of those reports was bad enough to hinder economic development!

Nothing but bad news played on the screen.

By the time he reached the last report, Itō Hidetaka completely lost it.

[Flower Street Daily: due to the international community's boycott of Eastern Ocean Island, many countries have redirected their foreign trade from Eastern Ocean Island to Eagle Sauce Country. Estimates suggest that Eagle Sauce Country's financial results could rise by 20 percentage points this quarter!]

Bang!

Itō Hidetaka slammed his fist hard into the command room wall.

"Bastard!"

"Bakayarō!"

"Lin Ye, you've gone too far!"

He could no longer control his emotions.

Disgusting! This is utterly disgusting.

After all he had done to forcibly suppress Eastern Ocean Island's labor force, not only had his own faction's economy failed to surge forward, he had instead accelerated Eagle Sauce Country's economy.

Wasn't that just sewing a wedding dress for someone else?

At this rate, the chances of overtaking it economically within three days would only grow slimmer.

Seeing Itō Hidetaka's breakdown, Shancheng Kojirō trembled with fright, not daring to say a word.

Only when Itō Hidetaka had calmed down somewhat did he step forward again and speak in a low voice:

"Mr. Itō, aside from these news reports, there's an even more important matter that requires your decision..."

"Many people on Eastern Ocean Island have taken to the streets in protest, accusing us of having no human rights and violating everyone's democratic rights..."

"The National Diet has already put forward a resolution to impeach us. If we don't make changes soon, we may very well be impeached outright."

"Impeachment? What's that?" Itō Hidetaka was completely baffled.

It was indeed rather difficult for him, since many terms in the dungeon didn't exist on Azure Star.

"Mr. Itō, as I understand it, impeachment means removal from office..." Shancheng Kojirō explained slowly.

"In this dungeon, it roughly means that we would lose control of Eastern Ocean Island."