Author Notes: I have skipped the background story (Record: WORLD OF 2138) since I wanted to get right to the core action-packed story. Will definitely work on the 2 previous records retrospectively & add new chapters to it.
Chapter 1: To Rule
Two children sat down inside a luxuriously decorated living room, with marbled ebony floor tiles, an Arabic rug, and a modern TV set in front of them. Behind them, past the reclining sofas and the pillars where in between an empty space lent itself to another room, the scent of Shisha wafted across the hallway. An Englishman sat at the table amidst a group of men dressed in the traditional middle eastern clothing. The megacorporation magnate was striking a business conversation with the men representing the house of Saad.
Meanwhile, the camera zooms into another room, where several women gathered, welcoming a foreign looking lady from the Far East. She lifted a beautiful dress from a giftbox, to the host's amazement. Women who were related by marriage, not birth, huddled together, exchanging gifts and words of courtesy towards their most welcomed guest.
Outside, the sweltering heat of the sun arrogantly looked down upon the vast estate, painting a picture of wealth and abundance. Located amidst a barren desert of dunes and sand. An oasis. Pan out even further, and a city could be seen on the horizon. Multiple skyscrapers dotted the city's landscape. This was the holy city of the Muslim World. Some call it the city of gold. Others, the El Dorado of the 22nd century. It was rumoured that the house of Saad was the wealthiest family in the world, with their hands inside hundreds of megacorporations worldwide. Only when one visited the middle east, did people realise the extent of their wealth and influence.
Whilst the world was spinning its gears at a laborious rate, the two children were preoccupied with their silly little war simulation.
"Why do you always play as America in Empires V? They're quite underpowered and to be honest, not that great." A young boy in a white Arabic suit inquired to a young blonde girl. "If you had chosen other nations, perhaps you would have been Top 1."
"It's a matter of personal taste, Sharif." Alice, the girl replied, smiling as she savoured her victory. "They're quite weak in the early game, but once you reach the late game, with their unique units and skills, America completely dominates the field. We all have our own playstyles. Mine is early game expansionism, middle game economy, and late game conquest."
"You backstabbed me, I thought we were allies." Sharif retorted.
"In the world stage, there is no such thing as permanent allies. Plus, it was your own fault you neglected your army." Alice grinned.
"I did not, I was consistently in war with other countries. You just swooped in from behind and declared war on me."
"Well, sooner or later, if you succeed with your conquest, it's going to just be you and I, and it's certain you will win. I can't let the game progress to that stage. So, I did what I could to eliminate a potential future stalemate." Alice shrugged.
"I'm so done with this, let's play another game." Sharif complained. "How about Guns Blazing?"
"That fast paced game? Nah, I think l'll pass. Although now that you mention FPS games, I'm down for Fleet Battles." Sharif and Alice both turned on the video game and it appeared on the screen.
[Flashback Ends]
[AOG] USSR Guild Seat of Power, The Kremlin
I teleported back to my guild base — the Kremlin. It was a sight to behold. The walls are designed with material stronger than adamantite. Homunculus servants bowed as I entered the landing grounds — the red square, "Our Glorious Tsaritsa", a title bestowed upon the leader of the USSR, an honorary position in reality. The real person responsible for managing the Guild Base — the Kremlin — is the NPC General Secretary Natasha.
The young girl bowed as I walked down the steps of the hill with the statue of the Mamayev Kurgan, towards the red square. At least ten battalion of Red Army Automatons saluted with their rifles held straight and their heads held up high, "for the people!"
The USSR was not such a bad place to imagine when compared to 22nd Century Japan. A place with abundance of nature and equal opportunities for everyone. It would be a miracle to live in such a place. That was the narrative Alice came up with when she created the guild. Many players disillusioned with the world were attracted to this concept and played along with Alice, joining the ranks of the USSR guild in Yggdrasil, where they role played as bolsheviks fighting for the cause of human rights and better life. One could only wonder why the sh*tty devs never issued a warning to Alice or banned the guild altogether. Perhaps it's because the guild had a simple rule — never bring in-game topics or beliefs to real life. It was one thing to live out as a freedom and equality loving communist in-game and another thing to be a hardcore terrorist in the real world. People falling in the latter category was not tolerated in the guild and immediately kicked out. Ironically, despite preaching freedom, Alice had assigned several people to be the internal moderators of the guild, with the responsibility of reporting to her and culling guild members who were, to say it nicely, disobedient to 'the state'. Again, who can say that a police state who values talent and human lives is worse than the indifference shown by megacorporations towards the lives of the people?
"It's great to see you back here my lady," Natasha, who wore a highly decorated olive-green military attire, smiled with sincerity.
"Likewise," Alice looked down towards the young girl who was called Natasha, who was just over 5 feet tall, and spoke with a stern tone, "There has been a situation." To which Natasha nodded. As both of them continued to walk towards the Grand Palace through the red square, they conversed.
"It appears to be the fact that the Kremlin and its inhabitants have been transported out from our original location to an unknown location. I want to know where exactly we are." Alice spoke in a way that could only be interpreted as a direct order.
"I understand my lady, I will relay this information to the Military High Command, with the order to scout out our surroundings." Natasha repeated the orders, interpreting it as a matter of fact. It took a second before the message got out to Military High Command, who begun to work out the intricacies of the vague message.
The message funnily got across to the subordinates in a rather round-about way as, "Platoon 32 is to undertake a reconnaissance mission in increasing distance of 1km radius increments and directly send a copy to the nearest intelligence officer and high command separately. If you encounter any living creatures contact high command first before acting. Under no circumstances are you to initiate any actions." One could only wonder how eerily accurate automatons are in replicating the tireless bureaucracy of the original Soviet Union. Alice could only frown at this thought, as she could somehow feel the thought processes of her subordinates through an invisible thread.
"Get me the General of the Army Zhukov," Alice proclaimed towards a servant, who bowed and ran out to the Barracks to fetch him.
"And Head of Intelligence Secretariat Mr Bond," Alice said.
Alice finally reached her office chambers and sat down, grabbing a pen and wrote down "Ainz Ooal Gown, Momonga", along with the other guild members who she just encountered.
Though she would have loathed to encounter any players during her first day in this new world, the 9 other players who had shown their faces during the meeting in Eryuentiu meant that she needed contingency plan in case of an invasion on her guild base.
"Get me information on these people," Alice handed the scrap paper towards Natasha, who nodded and proceeded to head towards the general archive. At that same time, the door slammed open, where a rough muscularly built man strode into the room.
"Tsaritsa," he bowed.
"General Zhukov, come have a sit," Alice pointed towards the chair, "As you will soon be aware, we are no longer in YGGDRASIL. The outside world may very well be hostile." She let the words sink in the NPC, trying to gauge a reaction from him. Very well. Unless I order him to speak, he is politely remaining silent.
"I would like all of the Kremlin's defences to be raised to the maximum level and nuclear warheads to be primed. Anti-air defences should be prioritised," Alice continued, "we are potentially facing other guilds in this new world. Moreover, it is suggested that we might encounter native inhabitants whose technological capabilities and magical strength is unknown. I would like you to tell me how you would approach this situation."
"Reconnaissance should be prioritised first as you had mentioned earlier my lady. In addition to ground forces, if possible, I would advise on launching our U2 spy planes to facilitate accurate cartography of the surrounding area."
Alice nodded. That is a sound plan. "I would like a general status update of the overall forces that the Kremlin possess as well as know whether military manufacturing capabilities are still up and running, the surplus army we have, and everything I have wrote in this paper." Alice stopped writing and handed the bunch of papers over. In turn, Zhukov ordered a subordinate to return with the documents and handed over a summary version of the report to Alice, and both sifted through the documents quietly.
Alice previewed the paper that Zhukov handed over: "Military High Command — Classified". 50 Battle-Ready IS-3s, 30 Sukhoi Jets, 2 Katyusha Type II Mobile Rocket Platforms, 10000 Battle Ready Infantry, 60 commandos, 10 Supersoldiers… along with their levels. Other pages outlined the military tactics and division structures, and ammunitions used for each unit.
As Alice reached the end of the document, she was frustrated by the fact that most of the Kremlin troops were of low level and mumbled, "maybe I shouldn't have taken this role play too seriously." Other guilds relied on dungeon spawns and Level 100 NPCs to guard their base, while the USSR tried to role-play to the best and utilised mostly stationary defence systems, aka traps, that were high tier, and focused on mimicking the real USSR by creating lots and lots of NPCs that were low levelled. SERIOUSLY, EVEN GENERAL ZHUKOV IS LEVEL 1. WHAT KIND OF ORGANISATION HAS LEADERS WEAKER THAN THEIR SUBORDINATES? Alice felt like she had an aneurysm by thinking of it. 'Also, most of these NPCs are humans, meaning I have to feed them and house them, what a headache.' Anarchy. Chaos. She pictured her USSR and the Kremlin falling to ruins in a day from enemy attack. If that didn't happen, then an uprising by her people.
She held the other document which Natasha had written on the table on the civilian census — 1013 civilians, 15 puppies, 47 dogs. Employment: chef, scientist… and unemployed," where the list got worse, "beggar, thief, and 1 serial killer." She swore inside to find the serial killer and bring justice by the end of the day. What sort of guild member had the audacity to seriously create a serial killer bio? Also, 1013 civilians? She remembered distinctly that she only created 1000 civilians! Maybe some people gave birth to children when she was away? Thinking about this made her have a berry aneurysm.
"Excuse me madam, are you okay?" Alice recognised the voice as that of Natasha, who had just returned from the central archives and appeared to be worried for her boss. Behind her was a man in a formal attire, with usual signs of a British gentleman — overwhelming baldness but overall tidy and nice too look at.
"Sigh, yes I'm fine," Alice sighed and massaged her head, "at least she is level 100."
"Can I find you a drink madam?" The British gentleman, Mr Bond, politely bowed and smiled. 'Agent Bond is supposed to be leagues better than the original template of Beria, but what's with the subtle flirting!' Alice simply smiled, "no worries, I'll ask the royal maids to get us some snack."
"Now that we are all assembled, I would like to inform everyone to remain professional." Alice spoke with a stern voice, which shut everyone up. "Agent Bond, I assume that you have prepared the preliminary reports of our reconnaissance mission?"
"Yes Tsaritsa," Bond replied with professionalism, without any hint of flattery in his voice this time, as the scrying spell played out very well in the cathode ray tube TV screen in front of them.
The footage shows a group of 4 jeeps advancing through flat plains covered in dense snow. The vegetation appears sparse and of the conifer group of plants. No signs of sentient life can be seen anywhere so far. "Colonel Marsh reporting for duty sir!" He saluted the camera, or rather, the face of one of his colleagues whose eyes we are using. He rubbed his hands together then fastened his bear-skin cap "The weather is cold, at -8 degrees celsius. We are headed West according to the compass, and we are roughly 10 kilometres away from HQ."
"Look over there," another soldier pointed towards a small dot in the horizon. The camera zoomed in, and Alice could vaguely see several horse-driven carriages making their way towards us, "orders sir?"
Everyone turned to Alice, who calmly replied, "Have the soldiers to initiate first contact diplomatically. Under no circumstances are they to reveal our location or origins." Alice sternly instructed the soldiers, "if things turn sour, I will send help." She watched as the Colonel Marsh repeated her orders towards the rest of the group and raced forwards to meet the first living inhabitant in this new world. She was hopeful that these NPCs knew what they were doing.
Princess Madeline was thrown forwards when the carriage abruptly came to a halt. She noticed how the knights outside meant to guard her were unusually quiet. Curious, she reached out to draw the curtains. Outside, past the knights, she was able to discern horseless sleighs that spewed out smoke closing in on her. Inside were what seemed to be humans wearing strange outfits without armour. That was odd, she had never seen humans around this area of the kingdom. Sure, there were humans located far west of the continent, but it was rare to see humans here in the central plains, where wilderness thrived, and the weather was harsh. She was bored after several days of travel in this small, cramped space, so might as well enjoy this show.
The group of outsiders stopped at least 30 metres from the carriage, slinging some sort of rifle around their shoulders and getting out of the carriage. She could now confirm that they are truly indeed humans.
"Everyone, load your rifles" the knight in purple armour waved towards his colleagues.
"Wait, we come in peace!" Colonel Marsh raised his voice and waved at the air.
Princess Madeline stuck out her head, "What's going on out there Sir Crawford? "
"Bloody bandits," Sir Crawford stated as matter of fact, "Aim, fire!"
"Move out of the way!" Colonel Marsh ducked behind the jeep and winced as a rain of bullets rained down, one of them striking a private in the leg. "Stop! We're a diplomatic attache." Colonel Marsh pointed towards the USSR flag.
Sir Crawford motioned the others to stop firing and listen to what this person had to say, "we have come a long way from a country far away from here. Our leader are looking to establish trade and commerce, but we got lost in the middle of the journey."
"Apologies, we assumed you were bandits, they're awfully common in this area." Sir Crawford sheathed his weapon and signalled the carriage to continue moving, leaving behind only a couple of entourage with him, "if you're looking to negotiate, we're happy to help. However, as you can see I have my hands quite full at the moment." He reached out a hand towards the stranger.
"My name is Sir Crawford, a royal knight serving the Kingdom of Athisia," the knight in purple armour took off his helmet, revealing a lion-like humanoid face with a mane.
"My name is Colonel Marsh, a soldier and currently diplomatic attache to my country, nice to meet you," he winced at the incredible strength of the handshake.
"Which country are you from?" Sir Crawford inquired.
"You may not be familiar with the name, but we call it Россия." The Colonel replied.
"Yes, I have indeed never heard of this Ruh'ssia. Is it a human nation?" Sir Crawford wanted to know what humans were doing in the central plains and whether they would be a threat.
"Yes, our population is mostly human, but we do have people of various races as well," The Colonel added.
"Ah, if that is the case you must have travelled a long distance. I hope you will have a safe journey. Sir Bolton, please take care of our guests. He will be able to escort all of you to the nearest city." Sir Crawford saluted them off and rode off with the other knights, leaving the strangers with a trusted subordinate. He detected little mana from these strangers and they were physically weak, they wouldn't be a threat even if they did turn against Sir Bolton. A while later, he rejoined the royal convoy.
"So how did it go?" the princess once more poked out her head and spoke to Sir Crawford, who explained the situation.
"It's really rare to encounter humans in the central plains. I can't believe they are finally migrating northwards from that backwater region they call home," the princess commented, "they seemed to be more civilised than the previous humans we encountered."
Sir Crawford nodded, "I suspect that something big is going on in the South that could lead the southern people to journey up north."
"Say Sir Crawford, the previous delegate of the Beastman Commonwealth did mention that there was a war going on between the radical Beastman nation against the Dragon Kingdom. Perhaps the humans have really become desperate seeking for outside help." Princess Madeline chuckled at the thought, "these humans are finally accepting their place in the food chain."
"My lady, I wouldn't go so far as to say they are inferior to us, please keep in mind that your father won't agree," Sir Crawford was rather uncomfortable with this side of Princess Madeline, since her words if heard by other members of the Kingdom could spark public outrage. However, Madeline went on.
"Do you remember during our visit to Argland there was that prick from the Slane Theocracy who insulted me and spouted about human supremacy and all that nonsense?"
"Of course princess, it wasn't the most constructive day. Speaking of which, we are less than a day away from Vannensberg. There is already great talk about your highness' visit amongst the nobility," Sir Crawford tried to change the topic towards a more acceptable one, "there are also rumours that the eldest son of Duke Yvander will be attending the attending, surely your highness must find him to your liking?"
"Pffft…" Alice spit out her coffee when she heard the phrase 'they have guns too'. They were more like arquebuses but nonetheless, they were still classified as firearms. She reassured the colonel that diffusing the situation was for the best, and decided that a bit of bending over might work better in the long run. She realised she screwed up this interaction big time. Intercepting a royal carriage in the middle of the road puts her subordinates in a rather awkward position. She was certain this scenario would have worked out, just like how vintage sci-fi films described 'first contact', "…but still, it worked out better than I imagined,"
"Moving on to the next agenda, the civilian population. First of all, what the heck is this?" She pointed towards the words 'serial killer, thief, etc', "how are these people not arrested already?"
"Uh, we were never told to arrest them, only to regularly survey the population, so that was what we did," Agent Bond replied.
"Agent Bond, you are the head of intelligence here, isn't national security your responsibility?" she tried to prod his head open a bit to see whether there was any knowledge there.
"Yes Ma'am," he replied.
"so if these people commit crimes, you are also to blame, am I right?"
"Yes that's true Ma'am," he replied.
"Can you think of any solution to this mess?" She asked him once more.
"Get rid of them," he replied.
"Well, that is one way, but I do not intend to run a police state. We should send them to trial first then press charges equivalent to the severity of their crimes. That way, we would also be getting the public's support," Alice reasoned.
"I do not think I have sufficient knowledge to-" Agent Bond tried to interrupt.
"Then delegate tasks to people who are suitable," Alice firmly replied, "we can make use of the courtroom in Metro-2."
"Excuse me Tsaritsa, it seems that we are kind of lost right now," Zhukov asked, "I presume nobody here in this room but your excellency knows about this place called Metro-2."
"Then how did you conduct the population survey Agent Bond?"
"Well, I had my field agents do the work for me," he blinked as if to say it's obvious right?
"General Zhukov, are you aware of where the military hardware such as the U2 spy plane are being kept?"
"Eh, not really, I just think that they just magically appear with my order," Zhukov looked away in embarrassment, "the pen is mightier than the sword, so they say", he pointed towards his fountain pen.
"And Natasha, as the General Secretary, are you able to answer the questions I have just asked both of them?"
Natasha just quietly shook her head side-to-side.
"What a disaster," Alice just realised a brutal fact. Excluding herself, her chain of command is terribly incompetent at their work. Starting with the fact that nobody said anything when Alice suggested that awkward plan to make first contact. She was in complete shock at their inability to run a country without her. In her defence, the Tsaritsa, her position, was supposed to be a symbolic figure representing the country but holding no actual state power or whatsoever, and here she was, being a one-man-army in the government running the country.
"For God's Sake, alright, I will discuss this tomorrow. I expect everyone to be present at the main atrium at the Winter Palace tomorrow for a in-depth briefing on this topic and more."
Alice focused back on the room once more and she noticed how deathly quiet the room had became, "oh is everyone alright?" Both Agent Bond and General Zhukov were sweating and did not dare to match her eye-to-eye. Secretary General Natasha meanwhile was just nodding in the corner as if to say "none of my business". She looked down at her desk, part of it had an obvious dent on it. She just shrugged. "This table seems broken, please replace it with a new one," to be met with the homunculus maid who appeared traumatised, whilst completely oblivious to the fact that she still had her killing intent aura on, and her poor subordinates were at the receiving end of it.
"General Zhukov, I would like you to forward this notice to all the other officers in Military High Command. Let them know that absences or tardiness will not be tolerated. Oh, and also tell them bring some food and drinks tomorrow, we might need it."
"Agent Bond, coordinate with Zhukov and follow that carriage. I want better intelligence next time. There'd better be a map of this continent by the end of tomorrow. Do not disappoint me." With that, Alice slammed the door and left the room with Natasha in tow.
A brief silence engulfed the room as both Generals waited for an unexpected move like the KGB entering the room and arresting them. It never came.
"Her temper is just like comrade Stalin, we might get to experience the Gulag one day, how wonderful," General Zhukov spoke first. He laughed and pat Agent Bond in the back, who looked like he had just died and came back to life, "Soviet humour my friend."
"You should pay comrade Stalin a visit today, I am sure he will have some good words to say about this situation." With that, Zhukov brought Bond to see the spirit of the deceased Stalin in the Mausoleum of Revolutionaries, who is rumoured to be wandering the halls of the mausoleum as a grumpy spectre.