At the age of 25, in February, after your wedding night with Kokomi, you placed her under house arrest.
"Ah… am I really so ruthless?"
Yilan, who had already exited the motion-sensing mode, felt a little embarrassed looking at the text displayed on the simulator.
He felt very sorry for Kokomi. He had been extremely rude at that time, but she had been so gentle and tolerant.
However, in order for his plan to proceed smoothly, he had no choice but to imprison her, the only person who knew the full truth.
[Under your command, the army quickly assembled. Your forces were largely made up of radicals from Watatsumi Island—or to be more precise, they should be called a "rabble."]
[After all, you had already secretly eliminated most of the excessively radical former Watatsumi Island forces, and those who could still be saved had been reassigned by you to the conservative camp.]
["The Mob," as they came to be known, was the unit you had founded at the beginning of your uprising. They had experienced the most brutal battles, climbing over mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Now, they were the most ferocious, bloodthirsty, destructive, and also the most unstable unit in all of Inazuma.]
[And now, they would march into hell alongside you.]
[Total war had begun. Because you had assassinated the heads of the Tenryou Commission and the Kanjo Commission at the start, their chain of command had fallen into disarray. At the same time, having once been the largest grain merchant in Inazuma, you cut off the shogunate's military rations before the war even began, leaving their forces undersupplied.]
[Originally, Kujou Sara would have been a formidable enemy, but you had obtained insider information: following the death of the Kujou Clan's head, the Takatsukasa Clan, a subordinate branch, launched a rebellion, attempting to seize control of the Tenryou Commission. As a result, Kujou Sara became entangled in domestic strife and could not fully focus on the battlefield.]
"The Takatsukasa Clan… that's the one that tried to seize power from the Kujou in the first chapter of the Raiden Shogun's story quest, right?"
Yilan rested his chin thoughtfully. "The Kujou are already embroiled in internal conflict because of the death of their head, and now they face pressure from Watatsumi Island. Looks like I've picked a good moment."
"But haven't the Takatsukasa ever considered how they would handle the army from Watatsumi even if they seized power?"
"Perhaps they're simply relying on the idea that, as long as the Raiden Shogun exists, all external threats are meaningless."
Yilan couldn't help but chuckle and shake his head. "With idiots like this around, it's hard not to win."
[Because you had long known that the Tenryou Commission and the Kanjo Commission harbored ulterior motives, you had already planted spies within both families even before the Vision Hunt Decree began.]
[Now, those insiders finally played their role. They fed false intelligence to the shogunate army, and the shogunate forces marched straight into your trap.]
[But something unexpected occurred. With the deaths of the Commission heads, a bitter power struggle erupted between the Tenryou and Kanjo Commissions. Each faction's senior officers, armed with the "reliable intelligence" you supplied, saw this war as a chance to wipe out the Watatsumi forces and thereby bolster their own bids for leadership.]
[Thus, they each led their own forces straight into your ambush—and were wiped out completely.]
"Ah, this…"
Yilan was momentarily speechless as he looked at the simulation text.
"I thought the fools in Mondstadt were bad enough, but it seems Inazuma has even more hopeless cases."
"But I suppose it's not a bad thing. If more fools like them die, maybe more good people will survive."
[In this war, although Watatsumi Island's forces were outnumbered overall, the "rabble" you led fought with savage ferocity. They were bloodthirsty, skilled, and, thanks to your meticulous planning, devastatingly effective. Meanwhile, the shogunate's high command was in chaos, with many opportunists scrambling for advantage, and their rank-and-file soldiers starving and demoralized.]
[Your army grew stronger with each victory, while the shogunate forces suffered defeat after defeat. Before long, you pushed the frontline from Yashiori Island to the outskirts of Kannazuka, reaching the gates of Kujou Encampment.]
[Kujou Encampment was the shogunate army's final stronghold on the frontlines. Capturing it would allow you to march directly onto Narukami Island.]
[As you led your forces forward in triumph, you quietly slipped away while passing by Yashiori Island and the corpse of Orobashi. You ordered your trusted aides to continue leading the army, while you set out alone on another path.]
[You traveled to the serpent's head. Since that area had been spared from destruction, its people remained untouched by lingering resentment.]
[You visited Higi Village. Thanks to the strict discipline you enforced and the benefits you promised your soldiers, your army had not harassed civilians along the way.]
[In Higi Village, the village chief, Juuzen, recognized you as the instigator of this war. He ordered the villagers to flee and bravely stood before you, sword drawn. You merely smiled, shook your head, and left.]
[Next, you visited the serpent's skull, where you found Choji's family. His father was still mining in the serpent's bones with other workers, and his mother was alive and well, being treated by a traveling doctor.]
[You visited many places—the untouched Mikage Furnace, Fort Fujitou—but Teppei was no longer there. He was likely back on Watatsumi Island, cursing your name alongside other disillusioned soldiers, lamenting that he had not been "properly recognized."]
["That's good."]
[You told yourself this in your heart. That night, you returned to the army camp and, using your planted insiders, launched a surprise attack on the shogunate's grain stores.]
[All their food and fodder were destroyed. Deprived of supplies, the shogunate forces were forced to abandon Kujou Encampment. You pursued them relentlessly, all the way to Narukami Island.]
[Upon landing at Ritou, you encountered the fiercest resistance yet. At the same time, Kokomi managed to escape house arrest through her own clever tactics. Yet understanding your resolve, she did not attempt to stop you—instead, she coordinated with you to make the final act of your "drama" even more convincing.]
[She allied with the shogunate army against you. In this critical moment, the warriors of Watatsumi and the remnants of the shogunate set aside their hatred and fought together against a common enemy. You saw Gorou, Itto, Kujou Sara, Thoma, and… Kamisato Ayaka among their ranks.]
[If a bloody battle had broken out here, it might have damaged Inazuma's foundations irreparably. But it didn't matter—you were prepared.]
[You once again combined the powers of three elements and suppressed the battlefield with overwhelming force.]
[Executing a decapitation strategy, you personally captured Gorou, Kamisato Ayaka, Kujou Sara, and the others. With their leadership defeated and your display of overwhelming strength, the remaining shogunate soldiers had no choice but to surrender.]
[You secured final victory with minimal loss. Now, only the final step remained…]
"Is it finally coming to an end?"
Seeing that the simulation was about to conclude, Yilan finally breathed a sigh of relief.
However, unlike before, he did not plan to enter motion-sensing mode to personally end things.
This time, he had cleared every obstacle, prepared every contingency.
All that was left was to proceed step-by-step and bring the simulation to a close.
Next, he would go to Tenshukaku under the gazes of countless defeated foes and demand that the Shogun appoint him as the Minister of General Affairs—taking charge of Inazuma's administrative affairs and helping to bring the Vision Hunt Decree to a close.
Of course, what awaited him was a blow from the Raiden Shogun herself.
He had already arranged with Yae Miko to stabilize the Shogun's temper while he "offered peace" to Inazuma.
He believed that, after witnessing the devastation caused by the war, Ei would finally realize that conflict would forever stain Eternity—and thus, she would end the Vision Hunt Decree.
—That was how it was supposed to go.
Yet when the next line appeared on the simulator, even Yilan, usually so calm, couldn't help but open his mouth and murmur in a stunned, hollow voice:
"How could this happen?!"