It really is a case of the tables turning...
Shu mused silently, reaching behind his back and pulling out another cup of milk tea. He set it down on the desk in front of Otto.
Otto glanced sideways at the pristine cup of milk tea, then cast a deeply suspicious look at Shu.
If his memory served him correctly, when Shu walked through that door, he only had the single cup of milk tea in his own hand. There was absolutely no way he had been hiding a second one.
His gaze slowly drifted back to the new, mysteriously materialized cup.
So, Shu just spontaneously manifested this milk tea using [Wish]?
"Is this even drinkable?" Otto half-stood from his chair, a look of sheer disdain on his face. Yet, his hands moved with lightning speed, snatching the cup and grabbing the straw, fully prepared to take a sip.
However, when he noticed the silhouette of Kallen printed on the plastic film, Otto froze for a second. With a helpless, fond smile, he found a blank spot and pierced the seal.
"I have no idea," Shu replied, looking deeply hurt by Otto's lack of faith. "Ever since I got this Authority, I've only manifested food a handful of times. But Kiana ate it and was totally fine, so you should be..."
"Are you seriously comparing my constitution to a Kaslana's?" Otto took a massive gulp. The double-sugar content hit his system, and the exhausted European aristocrat found it incredibly satisfying. He couldn't help but let out a long, contented sigh.
This level of sweetness definitely wasn't the standard recipe from the shop. The milk tea Shu had manifested didn't just perfectly match his taste; it even catered to his aesthetic preferences.
Given how much thought Shu had clearly put into it, Otto didn't doubt for a second whether it was drinkable. At most, he suspected Shu might have 'accidentally' added something extra.
And indeed, he had: an extra shot of sugar.
"Does this whole scene feel a bit familiar to you?" With sugar coursing through his veins, Otto finally relaxed a fraction.
He slumped back into his office chair lazily, his eyes still dull and devoid of life.
Shu offered a small nod. He didn't say much; he was just waiting for Otto to start complaining.
And Otto desperately needed to complain.
Kallen was frequently out on field missions, and honestly, she wasn't the best person to vent to. If Otto complained to Kallen, all she would glean from it was that he was exhausted and stressed. It wouldn't actually help him solve any of the logistical nightmares he was facing.
Worse yet, from an emotional support standpoint, complaining to Kallen might even backfire, causing Otto to put even more pressure on himself to protect her from his burdens.
What good would venting to Kallen do? Aside from making her feel awful, would it solve anything?
Or was he just the kind of twisted person who wanted someone else to suffer alongside him?
No. Otto hadn't sunk that low yet.
Shu, however, was a different story.
"At the end of the day, you and I are fundamentally different..." Otto sighed, rubbing his thumb against the side of the plastic cup. "In the past, you were exhausted and suffering because you set your own standards impossibly high.
"You forced yourself to do more, to handle absolutely everything. You backed yourself into a corner. To fix it, all you had to do was give yourself a break, and you could finally breathe."
Shu nodded solemnly in agreement.
"But what about me, my friend?" Otto asked, letting out a bitter chuckle. "What about me? I can't just 'give myself a break.'
"The machinery in the water purification plant in the Southern District is severely damaged. The sheer number of replacement parts required is astronomical, and we currently lack the industrial capacity to mass-produce them. So what do we do? Our only option is to scavenge the ruins of neighboring cities for compatible parts.
"I posted commissions on the Spark network. The registered Urban Exploration Teams have been breaking their backs trying to collect these components. Even the Snowwolf Squad has made several trips to secure critical hardware.
"But those other cities aren't like Arc City. They didn't have a Herrscher occupying them and actively protecting the city's remains.
"The other cities are either swarming with Honkai Beasts that have demolished the infrastructure, or they're saturated with Honkai Energy that has thoroughly corrupted any usable parts. After several expeditions, the amount of salvageable material we've recovered is pitifully low.
"Furthermore, not every exploration team has the combat capability of the Snowwolf Squad. A single Honkai Beast, a mutated zombie, or even a basic infected hidden in a blind spot could wipe out an entire team.
"To guarantee their safety, I have to deploy Fire Moth's military forces to establish forward bases in those ruins and clear out the hostiles.
"On top of that, there's the logistics of securing transport routes, confirming the exact specifications of the required parts, establishing rest areas once the routes are cleared, and implementing emergency measures to tide us over until those routes are cleared..."
"Phew..." Otto rattled off the mountain of logistical nightmares like a machine gun, listing out everything he had to manage. Just listening to him made Shu break out in a cold sweat.
And all of that... was just for a single water purification plant... Just to solve the issue of basic water usage.
As anyone with common sense knew, "water usage" was divided into multiple categories: drinking water, domestic water, industrial and agricultural water, as well as the broader issues of water circulation and wastewater treatment.
That purification plant only covered the domestic water problem. This meant that, regarding water alone, Otto had to handle four other projects of equal complexity.
But humans needed more than just water.
Even focusing solely on immediate necessities, there were still the massive hurdles of food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. Food collection, allocation, rationing... establishing individual quotas based on necessity. Otto even had to meticulously calculate the optics of his policies to ensure the populace accepted the rationing system without revolting...
If a small minority caused a fuss, that was just a few bad apples in the crowd.
If the majority grew dissatisfied, the Fire Moth would face an internal collapse.
Therefore, to guarantee food security, Otto had to oversee the revival of agriculture. He had to scout locations, assign personnel, scavenge for farming equipment... Then, based on those hard limitations, he had to select which crops to prioritize, determine the planting ratios, and map out the agricultural zones...
And going full circle, agriculture required irrigation, which brought him right back to the water problem. This meant solving the water crisis wasn't just a necessity—it was the absolute prerequisite for everything else.
Oh, and he also had to figure out what the population was supposed to eat before the first harvest was ready. So, add another dozen commissions to the Spark network.
Oh, right. And let's not forget the pampered palates of modern citizens, especially the people of Shenzhou, who took their cuisine very seriously.
This wasn't America. The vast majority of the population lacked the ironclad fortitude of a US Marine to survive on two rancid boot soles and a mystery white paste.
By the Homu, if I feed my people that garbage, they'll mutiny!
Fruit wasn't an absolute necessity, but meat definitely was. And they needed eggs and dairy, too.
So now the livestock industry had to be factored in?
Even in these difficult times, Otto had to ensure that people could at least buy a piece of meat from the market every now and then to keep morale up.
...Wait? Did you just say "market"?
Well then, we need to have a serious discussion about market supply, demand, circulation, price regulation, the underlying economic system required to sustain that market, and the employment allocation required to sustain that economy.
How do we handle employment? Do we encourage private entrepreneurship?
Sure, we could do that. After all, the ultimate physical manifestation of military force is currently sitting right across from me, drinking milk tea. Transitioning to capitalism and treating the capitalists like personal ATMs isn't entirely off the table.
...Hah. Employing a system of self-division and class conflict like capitalism in the face of the Honkai?
Honestly, reverting to feudalism might be more effective.