For the residents of Yokosuka City, this was an extraordinarily difficult night.
Countless people who had been asleep were jolted awake by the sudden sounds of gunfire and artillery.
At first, they complained, assuming it was the Lighthouse Nation military conducting nighttime drills or training.
But then the phones stopped connecting, and the internet went down.
Meanwhile, explosions, machine-gun fire, and the sounds of police cars outside their windows grew increasingly intense.
Only then did people gradually realize that something seemed very wrong.
The men told the women and children to stay home while they cautiously stepped outside, asking neighbors and nearby residents what was happening.
But who could possibly know? Everyone was just making wild guesses.
Some jokingly speculated that the Lighthouse Nation forces at the port had suffered an internal conflict, or perhaps Japan's Self-Defense Force had started fighting them.
As for an invasion by foreign enemies, no one even considered that possibility.
After all, this was Japan, the developed nation ranked second in the world by GDP!
Of course, more people still believed it was merely a drill, perhaps just one on a larger scale than usual.
Surely things would quiet down soon enough.
Yet things did not go as they wished.
Time passed bit by bit. Half an hour went by, then an hour, then two.
All kinds of modern weapons continued roaring in the distance.
The atmosphere throughout the city became increasingly strange.
The ease had vanished from people's faces, replaced by growing tension and panic in their eyes.
It didn't seem like a drill.
This also had much to do with the phones and internet being unusable.
Modern people were accustomed to using them to look up information, but now they could not even call the police to ask what was going on.
That