A Bomb for the North

Since ancient times, the North had been a land of warriors.

It was a place where endless waves of monsters came surging in—and a land of great heroes who conquered those waves with nothing but their bare bodies and a single axe.

In the age of myths, their ancestors conquered the vast northern snowfields with nothing but willpower and sturdy bodies.

Even as the times changed and the black clouds of the Industrial Revolution filled the sky, that spirit remained unchanged.

There was no such thing as surrender in the lives of Northerners.

Because monsters were not beings that accepted surrender.

Life or death.

Such an extreme environment had turned the North into a truly extreme place.

A nation for the army. The traces of militarism ran deep, all the way down to the lowest educational institutions.

At regular schools attended by children in their teens, teachers in military uniforms with swords at their sides had become a common sight.

As soon as they entered regular school, young students received weapons training, and the first class of every day began with a salute to the national flag and an oath of allegiance.

Graduating from school did not bring that stifling life to an end. Every child who failed to distinguish themselves in martial arts or academics was sent to a factory.

But did that make a factory a good place to work? Not at all.

It was cheaper and faster to replace fallen workers than to run heating equipment. Everything in Northern factories was geared toward ruthless cost efficiency and increased output.

Protective equipment and ventilation systems existed only in the barest minimum, and the production lines never stopped, even while machinery was being repaired.

Losing a finger merely meant being transferred to another process. Workers could not quit the factory until they contracted lung disease or suffered poisoning—but then the rations provided to their families were reduced.

Only deaths caused by machinery failures could be dressed up as “the sacrifice of a heroic industrial warrior.”

Even if someone survived the factory in one piece, life did not become any easier.

Working twelve to sixteen hours a day was the bare minimum.

"Soldiers at the front do not sleep. Neither do workers in the rear."

"Every swing of your hammer becomes one bullet at the front."

Under slogans like those, factory workers were forced into labor that was nearly unpaid. The thin soup given to them after their unpaid labor was the greatest luxury they could enjoy.

It was much like the Southern factories before Kyle Leopold appeared.

Even so, the reason this extreme militaristic system had survived until now was simple.

"Even at this very moment, the monsters are surging toward us."

The thousand-year history of war against the monsters.

People had somehow endured, driven by the single thought that those who fell behind would die.

However, after Siegfried von Schwerk, the Twenty-First Northern Grand Duke, took office, the situation began to change.

After firearms were introduced, the situation on the northern front improved significantly. The number of monsters charging in decreased, and casualties also fell noticeably.

"Our thousand-year struggle is coming to an end! Squeeze out your last reserves of strength and bring this long war to an end!"

Siegfried incited them in that manner while driving the army harder and harder.

The factory workers also worked as one at times like that. They were sustained by the hope that, if they endured just a little longer, they could end this stifling, futureless life.

And so, at last.

The number of clashes between the northern defensive line and the monsters, which had averaged more than 100 a year, fell to fewer than 10 in the 1020s by Imperial reckoning.

The annual casualty count, which had exceeded 100,000, also fell to one-twentieth of its former level.

Peace had come to the North.

The signs of that peace were most clearly visible in the large-scale funerals held like an annual event.

The names and numbers of the fallen that had once filled the memorial stones had vanished, leaving them desolately bare.

It was a striking change from the North of only a few decades ago, when it had been forced to twist itself inside out while crying out for “the total sacrifice of all thirty million.”

The workers, too, were filled with hope.

"When the war ends, do you think our working hours will be reduced too?"

"Ha-ha, probably, right? Once the monster war ends, there's nowhere to use all these weapons anyway, is there?"

"Phew, we'll finally be able to get some rest too, won't we?"

They worked twelve to sixteen hours a day and received nothing but thin soup in rations. Even saving an entire month's wages only gave them enough to keep body and soul together.

As they began to see the end of lives spent as factory parts, the workers' expressions naturally began to brighten as well.

However, the rest they had been hoping for never came.

Even though the attacks were visibly decreasing, the higher-ups continued to make them work.

It was around then that unease began to settle in the hearts of the factory workers.

"Wait, weren't we supposed to be able to rest once our war was over?"

"The war is over! They said the number of attacks has fallen to an average of ten! Then what are we producing all these weapons for?"

The factory workers' discontent appeared in the form of complaints to the press and declining work performance. With the justification of the northern monsters' invasion gone, the workers could no longer find a reason to work as they had before.

The Northern Grand Ducal Household's response was simple.

"It seems there are many who fail to understand the glory of becoming part of the great North."

"How should we deal with them?"

"Deal with them the Northern way."

A sweeping newspaper censorship campaign began. To weed out those deliberately slowing down, collective responsibility for production shortfalls was imposed on entire factories.

"We in the North do not tolerate the weak willpower of workers."

"While the soldiers on the front lines risk their lives fighting monsters, you were enjoying an easy life in comfortable rear-area factories. Why are you rebelling now?"

Soldiers were stationed in the munitions factories. They monitored the workers' pace, identified those who complained, and sent them to penal facilities.

The official name was the General Directorate of Corrective Detention and Labor Camps of the Political Security Department.

But the name the workers used was different.

The Black Shaft.

The endless, pitch-black mine was a monster that swallowed people whole.

Many went in, but few came out. No one knew what happened down there, where even corpses failed to emerge.

Where the justification of war against the monsters had disappeared, a reign of terror filled the void.

But human beings were creatures that resisted all the more when they were pressed down.

Under such coercive rule, something began circulating secretly among the workers.

Kyle Leopold's [ Labor Standards Act ].

- Mandatory one day off per week

- Ban on child labor for children aged 12 and under

- Payment of medical expenses and compensation in the event of an industrial accident

- Prohibition of unpaid wages

- Mandatory installation of safety equipment in factories

- Prohibition of night work for pregnant women and minors

- Prohibition of forced labor and physical abuse

Not one of the provisions that Southerners considered basic even by the most basic standards was being observed in the North.

It was human nature to make comparisons when there was something to compare against. No matter how much they tried to look away, the treatment Southerners received in the same factories was on an entirely different level from that of the North.

Naturally, the factory workers who made up the majority of the Northern population began taking an interest in Kyle Leopold's ideas.

"I heard the South was the first place in the world to introduce labor standards like these?"

"As expected, Lord Kyle Leopold must truly be a superhuman who sees ahead of his time."

"I wish they would guarantee these basic rights in our North too..."

In that situation, people also began escaping the North under cover of darkness, one by one.

"I'd rather go to the South and live like a human being—or get caught and die like one—than stay here and live and die worse than a beast!"

The Northern Grand Ducal Household did not look kindly on this situation. Anyone caught making such a nighttime escape was immediately sentenced to death by firing squad.

In these circumstances, the North once again began operating its factories to increase production.

To manufacture early rifled guns and 15-round bolt-action rifles in support of the Center.

And there were people in suits who heard the news.

***

It was still difficult for the Southern Intelligence Bureau to exert influence in the North, but it was more than capable of bringing back information from there.

The current state of the North, as I heard it, was utterly deplorable.

It was worse than the South had been before I took power. How should I put it? It was as if all the flaws of the Japanese Empire, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and so on had been combined.

Well... considering the North's harsh environment, the situation was not entirely incomprehensible. They had done nothing but fight for a thousand years, so it was only natural that fighting was all they knew.

"Still, it would certainly be troublesome if the two of them joined forces."

There was nothing good about letting a war drag on. The North and Center had a combined population of more than seventy million, so even we would find that somewhat burdensome.

The best way was to throw the North into chaos.

And as luck would have it, our South possessed one nuclear bomb capable of throwing the North into chaos.

"Lucilla."

"Yes, Your Grace."

"Let's visit the Forbidden Library for the first time in a while."

The 'Forbidden Library' was not actually a place where forbidden black magic and the like were locked away.

Though things resembling that were sleeping there.

For example, subversive books that had been circulating since before I came to the South, more than ten years ago.

In other words, things like Das Kapital.