Self-sufficient prepper

Machiko scowled as she rubbed her eyes and stared down at a report before her on her desk. 

"What's wrong? You look troubled," Ikebukuro frowned as she leaned over Machiko's shoulder. 

"I'm tired. Ever since we came to this world, my sense of time has been thrown off. More accurately I should say I'm just now experiencing the effects of it all, and I'm not alone. Reports are coming in of businesses not opening on time, employees being late for work, even a train's schedule was off. And we seemingly have 24 hours of sunlight before we get just 12 hours of night. It's going to be tough to adapt to this." 

"I take it there were never day cycles like this in your world?" 

"There actually were some places where there was 6 months of sun and 6 months of dark, but most of us lived in places where it was about 12 hours each of sunlight and darkness. The constant sunlight is probably throwing everyone off." 

"But the sun keeps the goblins away. Not to mention some of the more vicious nocturnal creatures like the wombatbat." 

"Nothing beats walking in the sunshine, but there is also a nightlife to be had, and places that only open at night. But with the 72-hour sunlight cycle, many of these places have no idea what do do now. And that's why I gotta think up a solution before I drift off to sleep." 

"Are these businesses based in the art of goblin defense?"

"Not at all. Never had a goblin in our world. Most the places are restaurants, bars, night clubs. There's also some places that light up the fauna and put on light and fireworks shows, but with no night, these places are in a bind." 

"And even when the night comes, the goblins will viciously attack."

Machiko smirked as she propped her feet up on the desk and leaned back in her chair. "Call it human confidence or arrogance, but destruction only happened last time because we were caught with our pants down. This time, I've got a plan to wipe those little shits out in the first minute." 

"Bisento might return to our tribe's base, so factoring her in-" 

"I'd love it if she would save our town once more, but if she's got matters to attend to, it can't be helped. We gotta be self-sufficient ourselves, otherwise we'll be deemed leeches by our new peers in this world, which could foster negative resentment. This is why I pushed for so many self-sufficient policies in my long stint as mayor. You remember the sushi I treated you and Bisento to at the mansion?" 

"The sliced fish on the grains you call rice? It was quite delicious." 

"It's a national delicacy, but if I didn't push for a prized fish farm, it'd be a limited-stock staple, and once gone, might not be replaceable by anything here."

"There are fish in this world." 

"They might not taste the same or even be edible for humans. But with these farms, we can have sushi without worry of it ever going away. Same goes for everything else we grow." 

"What if all that was destroyed by the goblins?"

"We'd be fucked... short-term. You might not be familiar with the concept, but we've got bunkers deep underground with emergency supplies and rations. If the farm went out, we'd resort to things there, limiting the amount of food we could output, until the farms would be back up and running." 

"You've thought that far ahead?" 

"I've always had a prepper's soul deep down, and it clearly paid off. Really is funny, it's like I'm playing a farming sim where you first build the town then plop it down in a fantasy world to see how it does." 

"'Farming sim'?" 

"Farming simulation. Like a video game." 

"But don't you hate video games? You're always saying that they ruined Mu."

A somber smile spread on Machiko's face as she pulled a two-screened portable game console out of her pocket. "Truth is, I'm just blaming my own sins on games because I'm too stupid to admit them myself. I've always loved playing stuff that has you build a town, also like reading and watching things based around the concept too. I actually still play this game called Farm crisscrossing to this day. But when it comes to Mu, I'm just too stupid to admit that it's my fault she devolved into such a misanthropic and rude young woman. I didn't read how bad things were between her and her ex-maid, and as a result, Mu was nearly killed and forever warped. At the start, I felt I had no right to raise my voice against her outbursts, that time was what was needed to heal her. But when she got worse, I got frustrated and started blaming her personality shift on the violent and vulgar games she plays. Now I know I said I play games, but those types of games I truly am not into. Nonetheless, blaming them for Mu's attitude is just a blame shift. My decision to let her ex-maid take her out that fateful day was what ruined her life." 

"What exactly happened?" 

Machiko took a deep breath before pulling up an image of a young Monika on her phone. "This is Monika Kuita. Her family has long served ours as servants. She's 5 years older than Mu, and was assigned to be her personal maid following her birth. In the beginning, nothing was amiss, but as time went on, Mu became more spoiled and haughty, another fault of mine. It wasn't like she was an insufferable snob, but her spoiled nature did take it's toll on Monika who often faced the worst of it. This ultimately led to her developing a nasty personality and hatred for both Mu and the family as a whole." 

"If she hated you, then why keep her on?" 

"That was because I only saw how bad things were too late..."