To tell the truth, coordinating enough food to feed thirty million people for three years within a three-day window... there were essentially zero organizations on Earth capable of such a feat.
Xia Yu had merely thrown out a random number; the repeated use of the number three made that obvious. In reality, she didn't care exactly how much she obtained. Since it was all free, anything gathered was pure profit.
However, Anti-Entropy and Schicksal both took her requirement completely seriously.
Moreover, they truly possessed the capability.
Anti-Entropy sat atop the North American Great Plains. Despite North America's technological leadership over the years, it remained an undisputed agricultural powerhouse. As the shadow rulers of the Americas, the food resources Anti-Entropy could mobilize were beyond the imagination of the average person.
The only difficulty Xia Yu's request posed for them was time. After all, three days was genuinely not enough for a conventional merchant fleet to depart from North America and reach the Far East.
Fortunately, Anti-Entropy possessed Warships—the kind that could fly, and at no sluggish pace.
They hadn't initially planned to bring the entire family along, pulling every Anti-Entropy Fleet to the Far East to clash with the Third Herrscher. Well, perhaps it wasn't that they hadn't thought of it, but rather that they couldn't. Unlike Otto, who held absolute power over Schicksal, Anti-Entropy was truly a loose heap of sand.
The most loyal faction had already been brought over by Dr. Einstein aboard her Warships, while the remaining groups were still slowly mobilizing in North America.
Now was the perfect time to requisition their ships for grain transport.
As for Anti-Entropy's vanguard Fleet... they turned directly toward Shenzhou and began a massive buying spree.
They had to hurry, as Schicksal's people had arrived as well.
For Schicksal, although old Europe didn't produce as much grain as North America, they had a vast number of territories. After assigning quotas to every Branch and tallying the results, they found that, hey, it was actually quite sufficient.
Notably, apart from the Hyperion of the Far East Branch, the Warships of other Branches had largely remained uncalled for during the crisis. Now, they were being put to use.
Meanwhile, the headquarters Fleet... had already diverted to Shenzhou to make large-scale purchases.
The people of Shenzhou understood the gravity of the situation. Being able to pacify a Herrscher using only food was an excellent deal, not to mention that someone else was footing the bill (Anti-Entropy and Schicksal). There was nothing left to say.
Thus, a task that seemed unattainable was, under the full horsepower of Schicksal and Anti-Entropy, actually becoming a possibility.
"Fu Hua! Fu Hua!" Aboard the Hyperion, Theresa was so angry she was practically jumping. She shouted into the phone, "Go! Wipe out the entire Far East Agricultural Association! Take the Warships! Don't even leave them their Spirit Ashes! Blast them directly with the Naval Guns!"
"Academy Principal, please calm down," Fu Hua replied, holding her forehead with one hand as she advised, "It's just liquidating an interest group. A Valkyrie squad is more than enough; there's really no need for a Warship!"
Indeed, she wasn't advising Theresa to be merciful; she simply felt there was no need to deploy the Hyperion.
Wasn't that like using a cannon to kill a mosquito?
Of course, she understood why Theresa was in such a fit of rage. The people of the JA were truly crossing the line.
Sometimes Fu Hua found it difficult to comprehend. I recall just cleaning out a batch of people yesterday, right? Those uncooperative bureaucrats—logically, after that display of killing the chicken to warn the monkeys, the survivors should have been obedient.
So why did they still dare to resist?
Look at what they did: St. Freya needed to mobilize Far East food reserves to prioritize the so-called Third Herrscher. It had been clearly agreed upon that these supplies would be recorded as a debt, to be replenished in three days when food arrived from around the world.
Then, the JA officials opened their mouths and demanded ten billion.
In US dollars.
Under the guise of a rental fee.
This truly left the people of St. Freya Academy at a loss.
Several field squads had already begun sharpening their blades.
Reasonably speaking, though St. Freya Academy was called an academy, it was a legitimate military organization. Never mind superhumans like the Valkyries; simply moving the Hyperion out would be enough to sweep through the entire Far East.
So where did they get the nerve?
"Honestly, I've racked my brain and still can't understand. Where do they get the courage?" Theresa said, biting her lip and fretfully tugging at her hair. "They dare to ask us for rent? If we hadn't stepped in and the Far East Government had to negotiate with Ms. Acheron themselves, the entire Far East would probably be in the sky by now..."
"Himeko? Himeko! You're a Far East Person. Analyze for me what kind of psychological state these people are in to dare ask us for money?"
They were the ones saving the Far East, yet in the end, they had to pay out of pocket?
There was no such logic in this world!
"...Let me guess," Himeko said, looking a bit troubled. She also couldn't quite grasp the logic of those bureaucrats and could only speculate based on experience.
"Perhaps in their way of thinking, food is their inherent domain of power, while Honkai incidents are, well, our responsibility."
"And now, because the Honkai incident requires a requisition of food, in their eyes, we are the ones begging them. They think a problem occurred within our scope of duty that has caused them trouble," Himeko said, sounding uncertain. "So they dare to demand an exorbitant price?"
"...But even if St. Freya is responsible, we aren't responsible to the Far East?" Theresa truly couldn't wrap her head around it, her tone filled with disbelief. "We are Schicksal personnel; naturally, we are responsible to headquarters!"
And reasonably speaking, the status of Schicksal's Branch in the Far East was equivalent to a garrison. How did those bureaucrats dare... oh, it turned out that Theresa was usually so laid-back that she had almost no presence, which led to this. It wasn't that they didn't understand the concept of Schicksal; they simply saw Theresa's easygoing nature and thought they could take advantage.
"Where does the Far East get the face? They haven't even allocated us any funding; it's all taken from headquarters!"
In truth, while it was called funding, it was essentially a protection fee. As Human Civilization entered the industrial age, the number of Honkai incidents was increasing annually. For an average nation, the efficiency of handling a Honkai incident themselves was far inferior to outsourcing it to a professional organization like Schicksal.
Furthermore, Schicksal's strength was no exaggeration of a global hegemon. Compared to a certain lighthouse, the level of responsibility and civilization of Schicksal's various Branches was significantly better.
Although a certain fee had to be paid every year to support them, sometimes this regular support served as a form of political leverage.
Other Branches were generally maintained half by local donations and half by headquarters' allocations.
But Theresa was different. She was Otto's granddaughter, so she naturally had whatever she wanted. Her allocations over the years had never been lacking, and St. Freya Academy's expenses weren't large compared to other Branches.
They didn't even maintain many Warships. The bulk of daily expenses was salaries. Plus, the Far East was small, and Anti-Entropy's people were also there; usually, when a Honkai incident occurred, both sides handled their own business, so the pressure was low.
Theresa had rarely collected these fees that were called donations but were actually protection money. At most, she had taken a symbolic amount when the Far East proactively offered it at the start.
But with the people of the Far East, if you give an inch, they take a yard. Theresa's laid-back attitude was, in their eyes, weakness. It wasn't obvious normally, but now that trouble had arrived, their true colors were showing.
"I truly can't figure it out..." Theresa was still irritably fiddling with her braids.
On the other side, Fu Hua had already concluded her operation.
"Major Himeko, your analysis was spot on," she said, looking down at the old man before her whose limbs were twisted and who was wailing in pain. "That is indeed how they think."
Well, he had just confessed. To be specific, Fu Hua hadn't asked anything initially; she had simply broken his limbs before letting him speak.
The other party had been quite quick to cooperate.
The primary reason was likely the dozen or so corpses at the door.
Just as she started her work, those people had rushed in shouting things like "How rude!" and "How dare you!", only to be met with a hard strike from the Valkyrie squad.
To be honest, the Valkyries of the action team had been suppressing a belly full of fire these past few days. Yesterday, they were in Nagazora City!
Above their heads was Honkai Energy that would swallow the entire Far East if it exploded. Major Himeko was risking her life (or so they thought) to deal with the Herrscher, while over a million people in Nagazora City waited for them to evacuate.
This wasn't just a million people; it was a million bombs. Once the Honkai Energy overhead exploded, could you imagine what the hundreds and thousands of people you were currently evacuating would turn into?
Yes, most people cannot withstand the erosion of Honkai Energy; they don't even have the qualification to become a Zombie. But out of a million people, even if only one in a thousand transformed, the resulting Zombies would be enough to drown everyone alive.
Not to mention that a Great Honkai is accompanied by the appearance of countless Honkai Beasts.
It could be said that they had appeared in Nagazora City with the complete expectation of dying.
Yet at a time like this, the Far East Government, who should have been teammates, not only failed to cooperate with the evacuation but also made all sorts of excuses.
Initially, they went to local government departments, only to find that the moment he knew a Honkai outbreak had occurred, the mayor of Nagazora City had taken his people and run.
High-level officials from every department followed suit, leaving the Valkyrie squad unable to find a single governing body capable of taking charge.
While these top-level officials who knew about Honkai had fled, the remaining mid-level staff had no idea Honkai even existed. Some even viewed that Erdtree as a divine miracle to be worshiped... well, granted, it did look rather divine...
The helpless Valkyries could only rely on their own strength to evacuate, encountering unimaginable difficulties.
So they had been suppressing their rage for a long time. They had planned to settle accounts later, only to find that Fu Hua had already taken a reserve squad and performed direct decapitations on those who fled.
This meant their fire still hadn't been vented.
But now that they had encountered the people from the JA trying to drag their feet again... could this be endured?
The methods of the Valkyrie action squad were extremely brutal.
Put it this way: originally, they were supposed to have a formal talk with the JA representatives. However, for some reason, the other party set the location at the manor of their most prominent family.
It must be said that this Japanese-style manor was quite atmospheric; the people maintaining it must have put in a lot of effort. These people likely chose this location with the intent of asserting dominance and suppressing the other party.
This was their usual trick. After all, in the semi-feudal society of the Far East, ancient and prestigious families were naturally a cut above other Far East people; this was almost a social consensus there.
In the past, choosing such a place for negotiations was a way to flaunt their status and illustrious lineage to force concessions.
But today, the ones who came were not from the Far East.
Thus, anyone in this manor who dared to pick up a weapon and resist became a corpse.
The Valkyries ultimately spared the women and children. The moral baseline of Schicksal's Valkyrie units was generally quite high; after all, it was a force sustained by a sense of honor.
It was this sense of honor—saving the world, everything for humanity—that led generations of Valkyries onto a path of certain sacrifice.
Well, that only applied to the Valkyries. In certain research departments, and with Otto, it was practically a moral abyss for humanity... how else did the Herrscher of the Void come about?
The elders of Anti-Entropy had also left precisely because they couldn't stand the darkness of Schicksal.
"Academy Principal, I have obtained the list here," Fu Hua asked, looking at the long string of names. "What's next?"
"Follow the list and find them," Theresa's expression was terrifyingly dark. "Kill everyone who doesn't cooperate! Keep going until someone stands up to do the work!"
If it were normal times, the kind-hearted Theresa would have been more subtle.
But what time was it now? Facing a ruthless person who could perform decorative carvings on the Earth, you people still dare to slack off?
Just a moment ago, Schicksal held an online meeting. Every Branch had briskly reported the maximum share they could carry, each one incredibly proactive.
Do you know how much my heart ached as I stood alone at the end, seeing the passionate eyes of my colleagues and my grandfather's expectant expression?
As the site of the incident, St. Freya, which should have been the first to start working, still doesn't even know how much local grain is stored or how much can be gathered... Theresa felt so ashamed...
Strike hard, we must strike hard!
She usually viewed the Far East's state of occupying positions without doing any work as a joke, but when the moment came and she herself became the joke, how could Theresa endure it?
No matter how much she slacked off normally, she was a Valkyrie who had come from the battlefield. She retired because she was disillusioned, not because she couldn't lift Judah anymore!
"Himeko, go and bring the current Prime Minister of the Far East here," Theresa said through gritted teeth. "Hang him from the ME Corp building! Let those officials see!"
"Uh, that might be a bit difficult..." Himeko spread her hands. "I'm not speaking up for him, but mainly, the execution squad went to coordinate with him yesterday. He kept pushing back and making excuses, which made the execution squad snap. They punched the old man right into the hospital; he's still in the ICU."
"I have already punished the execution squad and sent them back to St. Freya to reflect behind closed doors."
What a laugh. How was that a punishment? That was giving them a vacation.
Himeko had something to say too; the squad members were all her students. The reason they snapped was entirely because they thought she was still risking her life dealing with a Herrscher while those bureaucrats were still bickering...
Tell me, if you were Himeko, would you have the heart to punish them?
"If it weren't for the fact that killing a national Prime Minister would have too large an impact..." Theresa slammed her fist onto the table in front of her.
"Theresa Senpai, you are still far too merciful," Rita appeared silently from the shadows.
"The execution squad of St. Freya Academy is the same; too merciful. Why show mercy to those who colluded with Cocolia, that traitor to humanity?"
Rita said with a smile, "The Immortal Blades have already executed the Prime Minister of the Far East on charges of crimes against humanity."