Worthless Skill Escape (WN)

Chapter 216

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TL: ALT

Chapter 216 – Counting of Votes

After quickly conquering the Umihotaru Dungeon, I went to Kawasaki in the evening and took the train back to Shinjuku.

As I entered the guild room,

“Welcome back, Yuto.”

“Welcome back, Kurashiki-san.”

I was greeted by Serika and Haitani-san.

This is kind of embarrassing.

On the long table in the guild room was a pizza and drinks they had ordered from a delivery app.

Haitani-san was still staring at her laptop, but she was also holding a pizza in one hand.

It looked like Serika was also watching a special election program on TV while eating pizza.

“You can eat it too, Yuto.”

“Thanks, I just got hungry.”

I also took a slightly cold slice of pizza and brought it to my mouth so that the cheese wouldn’t spill out.

“The vote count… well, it’s just as I expected.”

When the lid was lifted, Seiji’s own party won landslide victories in the simultaneous elections for the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors.

As predicted, Seiji Tozaki lost his seat in the single-seat constituency but was able to win a seat in the House of Representatives through the proportional representation system.

Despite his party’s big win in the election, Prime Minister Orimura announced his resignation.

He announced that the election of the party leader would be held soon.

As usual, this system makes you want to shake your head in amazement, as the Prime Minister is actually decided in the party leadership election within the party, not in a national election.

However, at 10 p.m., while the election’s afterglow was still fresh, the party announced that it would hold an emergency press conference.

The content of the announcement was that the candidates for the party’s presidential election would be presented.

This time, due to scheduling problems, the presidential election could not be held before the election, but the preparations for the presidential election itself were carried out in parallel with the election.

The media crowded into the venue of the press conference even though they were confused by the sudden announcement.

The person who appeared at the press conference venue was a person who was in the middle of the current hot topic.

Seiji Tozaki.

The journalists at the press conference couldn’t believe their eyes when they heard that he was going to be introduced as a presidential candidate, and they exchanged whispers with the journalists nearby.

“What… why? Could it be that Seiji Tozaki is a presidential candidate?”

I muttered to myself in front of the TV.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming at this late hour. I am Seiji Tozaki, who has been unofficially elected as the next president of the Liberal Political Friends Party.”

Tozaki’s words brought a hush to the press conference room―and then it exploded.

* * *

“I am ready to solve all the problems of this country.”

Tozaki began to speak.

Strangely enough, the journalists in the press conference room sat quietly and listened to Tozaki’s words.

At first, the journalists wondered what it meant that Tozaki had been “unofficially” appointed president of the ruling party.

“The biggest problem facing this country is the declining birth rate and aging population. Even junior high school students know this. But this country has never taken any real action to deal with this problem.”

“That in itself is a problem, but there are other issues that have been overlooked. The relationship between the dungeons and the declining birthrate.”

“Even before the appearance of the dungeons, the declining birthrate and the aging population were problems that cast a dark shadow over the future of this country. But they were merely economic problems, such as intergenerational injustice, where a small number of young workers had to support a large number of elderly people, and the negative impact on the economy of the declining disposable income of the working generation. These were certainly vexing problems. If they were left unattended, this country would decline. But even then, it could be said that it would only decline. It might become poor, but that was all.”

“However, the appearance of the dungeon has caused another problem. Do you know what it is?”

“It’s a problem with the number of explorers. More than a third of our country’s power supply already depends on the mana coins that the explorers bring back from the dungeon. Also, the market for trade items dropped by dungeon monsters is growing at an alarming rate, doubling in size in just six months. And of course, designated strategic items such as elixirs are important drop items that are also related to our country’s national security. From now on, an even larger part of the economy will be related to dungeons, and the demand for explorers will increase without limit.”

“However, there is one restriction. Explorers must be human. They cannot be replaced by machines. Therefore, the economic growth rate of this country will depend greatly on increasing the number and quality of explorers.”

“It is not only economic power that depends on the number and quality of explorers. Explorers are also a military force. A military force, that is, military power. Explorers with high levels or powerful unique skills won’t die from a bullet. Even a tank shell can’t kill a level 10,000 explorer in a single blow. Even an ICBM with a nuclear warhead was destroyed without a trace by a dragon tamed by a summoner known as the Black Tengu.”

A video then appears on the conference room screen.

In space above the atmosphere, a dragon that looks like a summoner beast from a role-playing game breathes out a crimson breath and destroys what looks like a missile without leaving a trace.

Of course, this is footage of Kudave intercepting the missile from the north.

“Explorers are a military force. Using such an easily understood term as ‘military force’ would lead to misunderstanding. Therefore, I will boldly say that top-class explorers are living strategic weapons.”

“In other words, increasing the number and quality of explorers is a matter directly related to the security of this country. However, in our country, the birth rate is decreasing and the absolute number of people is decreasing. If this continues, if the major powers begin to systematically train explorers, the military balance in the Far East could change dramatically.”

“When you hear the term ‘great power,’ the first thing that probably comes to mind is China. Of course, with a population of over 1.4 billion, it is undoubtedly the leading candidate for a threat. However, in terms of military power in the form of explorers, there is a country that cannot be underestimated that exists right next to Japan.”

“North Korea. This country is certainly far inferior to ours in terms of national power. Outdated equipment, an economy not even as strong as a local government in Japan, citizens impoverished by economic sanctions… According to conventional wisdom, apart from its missiles, this country was never going to be a threat to Japan.”

“But if we talk in terms of numbers, the North Korean army alone has over a million soldiers. If we include reservists, the number is probably more than ten times that. Kim Jong-il has almost all of his army soldiers hidden in dungeons and has them leveling up as explorers. There are also unconfirmed reports that a group of North Korean Special Forces members have completed the Paektusan Dungeon, an S-rank dungeon in North Korea. If this is true, it means that there are people in the North who have completed an S-rank dungeon that is said to be officially unfinished in the world.”

“At the same time, North Korea has purchased a large number of landing craft, submarines, semi-submersibles, transport ships, transport aircraft, troop carriers and civilian buses, passenger planes and large ships from China, Russia, Iran and other countries. Most of these are old and decrepit, having been built during the Cold War, but they should be more than adequate for transporting people. If there are high-level explorers, they will be fully capable of dealing with small arms, machine guns, rockets, tank guns, and naval gunfire.”

“They are also used for infiltration operations by special forces and agents, not only in the North but also in Japan and South Korea. There is a very high possibility that high-level explorer agents have secretly infiltrated both Japan and South Korea.”

I could hear the buzz of reporters on the TV.

“What about our country? The Self-Defense Forces are still doing the same old training, focusing on fighting with modern weapons, and only a handful of personnel have experience as explorers. If a large number of explorers were to infiltrate Japan and attempt sabotage, there would be no force in this country to stop them.”

“In this crazy modern age, population is the biggest and only problem. The more people there are, the more explorers there will be. And the number of explorers is what determines the new military balance in this crazy modern age-and thus the balance of power between nations.”

“In this crazy modern age”―what?

That’s strange. Because that’s just in my head…

“I can’t understand why people and politicians neglect this issue. No matter how advanced the AI becomes, it’s impossible for the AI to explore dungeons. The Voice of Heaven does not recognize AI as explorers. The explorer must be a human. Therefore, the absolute number of explorers is directly related to a country’s national power, economic power, and even military power. If the number of people decreases, that country will be finished. Why was such a simple thing overlooked?”

When Tozaki finished saying this, he drank the water in the glass by his side in one gulp as if to tease the audience waiting for the rest of the story.

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