Hey! I've got an idea!

"Let's go." After meeting the last general, Xi Yan finally felt completely confident.

Veronica, Ning Zhiyuan, Prigozhin. With three mighty generals at my command, how could my grand undertaking fail?

Three against two. The advantage is mine!

Brilliant insight, Marshal!

He returned to the foot of the Administration Building. His personal guards waited downstairs as usual, while only Yu Shuo, their captain, stayed close to Xi Yan and stood guard outside his office.

Xi Yan gave him a somewhat disdainful look and asked Beta, "Why didn't you assign a pretty female bodyguard to follow me back then?"

"Don't even think about it... creep." Beta's virtual avatar rolled its eyes on his Wristband.

"This is sex discrimination. This is a backward prejudice..." Yu Shuo looked crushed.

Xi Yan took the elevator back to his faithful office, settled comfortably into his chair, and closed his eyes for a nap.

"Marshal, you haven't had lunch yet."

Beta spoke with a sigh.

Alas, an ancient AI like me has to manage the Empire and babysit this goddamn Marshal. What a miserable existence...

It searched its database, dug out something resembling a menu, and sent it to the Marshal's computer.

Xi Yan clicked through it, then dismissed it without interest. "It's all fancy delicacies. Got anything simpler? Oh, right, have our scientists developed any new food?"

Beta was even more speechless.

And now he's being picky!

Then stop hanging around the Central District and go eat skewers at a roadside stall in the residential districts!

Whatever. He's the Marshal, after all. Beta gave a world-weary sigh. "Yes. Our scientists have developed a new synthetic food that can quickly replenish all the nutrients the human body needs."

"Bring me a serving. Let's see it," Xi Yan said with interest.

"All right." Beta fell silent, presumably ordering delivery for him.

Xi Yan no longer felt like sleeping. He tapped rhythmically on the desk as he began to think.

Power in the Interstellar Human Military Junta lay in the hands of five Regent Generals.

The Marshal's authority-the supreme power of the Empire-had been swiftly carved up after the old Marshal, Xi Lie, died.

But as the nominal new Marshal, my position alone should entitle me to supreme authority. That makes taking action against the Assistant Protector Generals entirely justified. At the very least, I'll have an explanation for the public.

I've already easily brought three of the five Assistant Protector Generals under control. Getting them utterly devoted to me is still impossible, but being able to mobilize their resources is enough.

That leaves only these two as threats. Everything depends on how I perform tomorrow night.

Xi Yan kept tapping the desk, not stopping even when his fingertips began to hurt.

Memories of playing Stellaris in his previous life came flooding back.

"Hehehe, I'll find a way to off them. Off them all! Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill! Hahahahahaha! I'm the King of the West of the Sea of Stars!!!"

"You seem to be getting a little too extreme." Beta slipped in a quip. A good AI had to learn to play along with the Marshal's jokes.

Just as a deranged grin spread across his face, Yu Shuo knocked outside. "Marshal, the delivery Beta ordered for you is here."

Xi Yan wiped the crazed expression off his face in a second.

Beta opened the door remotely. Dressed in combat fatigues, Yu Shuo strode inside, tossed a bag onto the desk, then walked straight back out and shut the door, grumbling along the way:

"Ugh, why does the captain of the personal guard have to fetch takeout..."

Xi Yan, however, happily tore open the biodegradable bag, revealing the container inside.

"So this is the new synthetic food our scientists developed?"

He opened the container. Inside sat a beautiful, smooth apple: perfectly round, fist-sized, and a clean shade of green.

"Holy shit, that awakened something in my DNA!"

Looking at the familiar Green Apple, identical to the icon in the game, Xi Yan couldn't help tearing up. He took a fierce bite.

It had exactly the texture of an apple. The synthetic Green Apple's juice was sweet and fragrant, its flesh crisp, and it tasted far better than an ordinary apple. Xi Yan quickly polished it off and nodded in satisfaction.

His growling stomach immediately fell silent. This thing packed a tremendous amount of nutrition. One could replace an entire meal, and it could be digested and absorbed directly without producing excess metabolic waste.

In Stellaris, everything edible was abstracted into the standard food resource, represented by a Green Apple icon. This Green Apple developed by his scientists was supposedly even healthier than normal food.

"That's right. This is what we Stellaris players like to eat. I'm eating Green Apples every day from now on!"

Xi Yan nodded and swept all the packaging to one side of his desk. A maid would naturally come to deal with it.

Beta scheduled the maids' work so they could avoid Xi Yan while he was working.

Xi Yan was deeply indignant.

Who exactly are you guarding against?

Still, now that he'd eaten, it was time to work.

No, a nap first. Work isn't important anyway. Put it off as long as possible.

He enjoyed a lovely nap sprawled over his desk. Although his bedroom was just upstairs, Xi Yan still preferred sleeping at his desk.

The cool desktop reminded him of high school. Only at moments like this could Xi Yan feel a little more at peace.

Partway through, Little Secretary of State Ailiveer came to report on her work. Although she was only a few years older than him, the girl had a keen political nose. She immediately sensed that a major upheaval was coming and came to pledge her loyalty.

But the rigid disposition she'd inherited from the Yan family hadn't changed. Seeing him slacking off, she earnestly tried to persuade him to work.

Naturally, Xi Yan stubbornly refused to listen. Beta woke up and furiously gave him a thorough scolding, prompting Xi Yan to promise, with great reluctance, that he would work hard.

"But seriously, nobody reports a single important thing to me. It all fucking goes to Shoigu. What the fuck am I supposed to work on?"

Full of disdain, Xi Yan opened One-Touch Government Affairs and browsed past matters, trying to piece together the state of the entire nation from the mass of documents.

The Cybrex Alpha colony had been developing for barely more than twenty years.

For most of those twenty-odd years, they had been repairing the Ring World segments without megastructure technology. Even now, only a quarter of the Ring World had been restored to a barely habitable condition.

To encourage economic growth and resource production, Former Marshal Xi Lie's economic policies had nurtured a large number of wealthy merchants. Although this had rapidly boosted the colony's economy, ordinary people lived only middling lives.

Much of society's wealth was concentrated in the hands of capitalists, all gathered in the Central District where he was. The other districts in this Ring World segment were far less developed by comparison.

In the long run, this would inevitably become a scourge.

The thought that his nation still practiced capitalism disgusted Xi Yan to his core.

The memories of his previous life told him that he should turn this world into the one he wanted to see!

But these bourgeois forces were immensely powerful. The wealth they controlled could easily shake the military junta's economy.

How about... offing them? Xi Yan thought maliciously as he stroked his Matter Projection Gun.

The fleet under his command gave him confidence. All he had to do was seal off the Central District, then launch a little special military operation... hehehe!

"No, that would be too wasteful." Xi Yan rubbed his face.

"I might as well send them to the Ring World Beta Segment to clear out trash. Once we develop megastructure technology, they can help repair it too."

"Not bad. That's much easier on the eyes. Spare the capitalists' lives and put them to forced labor. I'm truly the great philanthropist of the Sea of Stars, even kinder than the Father of Nations."

Xi Yan thought smugly.

Of course, to enact reforms, he first had to reclaim all authority.

That was why he was still preparing for the secret gathering with the Shoigu-Gerasimov military bloc the evening after tomorrow.

Xi Yan had sent Beta to conduct a thorough investigation.

The Shoigu-Gerasimov military bloc's power was concentrated at the Starport. The land of the Ring World, by contrast, was Prigozhin's domain.

As for Ning Zhiyuan and Veronica, their... well... numbers looked good on paper.

Their overall strength was clearly inferior to that of Generals Shoigu and Gerasimov.

Their influence permeated the entire naval department, all concentrated within the Starport. Whenever they wished, they could declare independence and use the Starport to threaten the entire Ring World.

They were an enormous threat.

Before long, Beta sent back a report confirming that everyone attending the banquet would be a senior member of their bloc.

Moreover, most members of their faction would remain stationed within the Starport.

Xi Yan narrowed his eyes.

In other words, they'll all be gathered together then, at the banquet venue and the Starport.

All gathered together, all gathered together, all gathered together...

Hmm...

Hey!

The Idea King of Stellaris slapped the desk.

I've got an idea!