Chương 7: Asuka Fury Road

We walked for what felt like hours through paths that didn't deserve to be called roads. Between the suffocating humidity and the oppressive heat, my coarse hemp tunic was already utterly drenched in sweat. For a fragile, physically unconditioned future-dweller like me, simply moving through this primitive wilderness was backbreaking labor. Finally, we arrived at the gates of a palace enclosed by a crude wooden palisade.

I call it a "palace," but by 2300 standards, it was barely on the level of a glorified community center. Yet, what awaited us inside was anything but a sanctuary of quiet politics. The air was thick with bizarre fervor and raw, murderous intent. Ear-splitting roars and frantic curses collided in the air.

"Soga swine! You dare steal the rice paddies passed down by my ancestors?!"

"Silence, Mononobe relics! A pathetic remnant who can't even meet their tribute quotas for the Sovereign has no right to speak! You should be grateful we let you breathe!"

"What did you say?! You want a piece of me?!"

"Bring it on! Kill them all!" CLANG! The nauseating, screeching sound of steel slamming against steel reverberated through the courtyard. In the plaza before the palace, dozens of men had split into two factions, aggressively diving into a chaotic skirmish. No—this wasn't a minor scuffle. It was a full-blown turf war between rival syndicates. It was straight out of Mad Max. The civilization level here was so primitive that it looked like nothing more than savages ripping each other apart.

"Hieee...! W-What is this?!" I instinctively dove behind a thick tree trunk, my entire body violently trembling. A stray arrow whistled through the air— THWACK! —and embedded itself deep into the bark mere inches from my face. If it had been ten centimeters to the left, it would have punched a neat hole right through my skull. 『What a complete disaster, 』 Gennai's voice echoed through my neural chip, sounding entirely unimpressed. 『At this point in time, "Japan" doesn't even exist as a unified entity.

These regional clans tear each other's throats out every single day over land, wealth, and petty grudges. Religious wars over whether to adopt Buddhism, territorial disputes, succession infighting... You're looking at the lingering aftershocks of the Great Wa Rebellion. 』 Shaking, I peeked out from behind the tree to gauge the battle. The faction wearing visibly finer garments held the clear advantage, systematically beating down the group clad in tattered rags.

The wealthy ones were almost certainly the Soga clan, the faction currently holding the real reins of power in this era. The atmosphere made one thing blatantly clear: rational dialogue was impossible here. There was no logic. There was no law. There was only the brutal, cruel, animalistic rule of the jungle—the strong survive, the weak perish.

"Hey! You over there, boy!" As my luck would have it, one of the bloodcrazed soldiers spotted us. With bloodshot eyes, he pointed the tip of his rusted, straight-edged blade directly at my throat.

"What are you looking at?! Whose side are you on?! Dressed in those bizarre garments... Are you a Mononobe spy?!" My heart stopped. I'm dead, I thought. He's going to kill me. No questions asked. Terrified, I forcefully threw my hands into the air in a universal sign of surrender.

"N-No! You've got it all wrong! We're just traveling merchants... completely harmless!"

"Merchants? Then what is up with that blinding white outfit on the guy next to you?! What tribe are you from?!"

"Uh, well, that's... it's the absolute latest fashion trend in—" As I stumbled through my pathetic excuse, the air beside me shifted. A silhouette of immaculate, pristine white stepped forward, cutting through the tension. 『Silence. 』 A dignified, absolute-zero voice sliced through the cacophony of the battlefield. It was PRINCE. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

He looked down at the blade pressed against his throat with eyes that treated the soldier like a piece of biological waste. Then, turning his gaze toward the warring clans, he issued a sweeping declaration: 『Inefficient. Utterly, egregiously inefficient. This meaningless expenditure of caloric energy yields zero contribution to the national GDP. Even mountain apes defending their turf exhibit a superior systemic order. 』 The entire courtyard froze. Every single movement ground to a halt.

The brawling clansmen stopped mid-strike, their eyes completely locked onto this bizarre, uninvited anomaly who had utterly ruined the atmosphere. A second of dead silence passed. And then, a colossal wave of pure, unfiltered bloodlust focused entirely on our position.

"Who... the hell... are you...?" The crowd parted. An old man stepped forward from the depths of the ranks. He wore luxurious silk robes and possessed a gray-streaked beard framing a sharp, aquiline nose. His gaze was as piercing as a bird of prey, and his entire being radiated the overwhelming aura of an absolute tyrant. Just by standing there, he made the very air feel heavy. He looked infinitely more vicious, and terrifyingly more human, than any portrait I had ever seen in a history textbook.

Gennai's voice screamed at maximum volume inside my brain. 『Bingo, brother! That's the shadow boss of this entire era—Soga no Umako! 』 Soga no Umako. A dictator of the Asuka period who possessed power eclipsing even the Empress herself, ruthlessly assassinating anyone who dared oppose him to rule this land from the shadows. He was fundamentally different from the politicians of my era. This was a statesman drenched in the scent of actual blood.

Umako scanned PRINCE from head to toe, his eyes narrowing as he evaluated him. Yet, seeing PRINCE's inhumanly perfect features and his faintly luminescent white robes, a flicker of caution crossed the tyrant's face.

"I have never seen such garments. Are you a foreigner from across the sea?... You have immense courage to call my sacred courtyard an ape enclosure. State your name." The murderous intent in the air was suffocating. This is bad, I panicked. If we get cut down here, Project Re-JAPAN ends before it even begins. I frantically tugged at PRINCE's pristine sleeve, whispering at a manic speed.

"PRINCE-san, read the room! This guy is the absolute apex predator of this country! He is extremely dangerous! Just do a standard dogeza, bow your head, and flatter him so we can get out of here!" 『A dogeza? 』 PRINCE looked down at me, his eyes radiating absolute incomprehension. 『Why should an Administrator bow their head to a mere User? 』"He's not a user, he's a warlord—!" Ignoring my frantic warning, PRINCE let out a soft, dismissive snort.

Then, directly in front of the most powerful man in the nation, he snapped his silver-white scepter—the Harmony Rod—forward, pointing it squarely at Umako's chest. 『My name is Umayado. I am the Administrator who has arrived from the future to debug and repair this rotting shipwreck you call Yamato. 』 His majestic voice echoed across the courtyard. His demeanor made it clear that whether he was facing a tyrant or a god, his absolute confidence would remain unshakeable.

"Umayado...? Prince Umayado?!" Umako's brow furrowed. While a Prince Umayado certainly existed in his family tree, to the current Umako, the prince was nothing more than a green, powerless nephew. 『Correct. Umako, and you foolish clansmen—your low-level meeting has encountered a critical error. [System Shutdown] is now authorized. Moving forward, I will personally manage this nation's roadmap. 』"Excuse me...?" A dark, violent vein throbbed on Umako's temple.

The jargon was completely incomprehensible to him, but his primal instincts immediately processed one undeniable fact: he was being looked down upon. The fuse to his pride had been lit.

"Have you lost your mind, boy...? Do you have any idea where you are standing?! You are in the presence of the Grand Minister, Soga no Umako!" Umako threw his hand forward, his voice a roaring thunder.

"Someone slay this blasphemer! Tear him limb from limb and throw his flesh to the dogs!"

"Aaaaah! See?! I told you so!" The soldiers unsheathed their blades in perfect unison, unleashing terrifying war cries as they surged toward us. A tidal wave of pure lethality. I clamped my hands over my head and balled myself up on the muddy ground. It's over. Goodbye, Neo-Tokyo. Goodbye, my unfinished novel sitting in the cloud. I knew it. There was no way a failed, low-sync-rate author like me could ever save the world. And yet. Amidst the swirling chaos, PRINCE didn't even flinch.

He watched the oncoming storm of rusted steel without so much as a single blink, letting out a deep, measured sigh. 『Good grief. This is the problem with legacy operating systems... If dialogue protocols fail to engage, I have no choice. 』 PRINCE gripped the handle of his scepter. HUMMM...! The tip of the Harmony Rod began to vibrate violently, cloaking itself in a piercing, pale-blue hum of high-frequency energy.

The very air crackled with static, unleashing a bizarre, low-pitched frequency that caused the charging soldiers to instinctively falter. 『Gennai, [Access Granted]. Initiating combat protocols. ─ I will now physically debug the anomalies disrupting our Harmony. 』 The immaculate Prince kicked off the muddy earth. And in that split second, the sound of history fracturing echoed through the air.