AYKRR Chapter 14

Trouble in Europa Town

31st August 1942,

White House, Washington DC,

In the Oval Office, President Roosevelt sat with some of the most powerful men in America.

"Degurechaff's response was much more subdued than anyone expected. She merely asked for a public apology from De Lugo and the resignation of the Director of the ACRD. Both of which the Francois readily gave without complaint." The Secretary of State, Cordell Hull said.

Roosenvelt spoke in a measured voice. "Perhaps she's less willing to have another war so soon after the Second Great War. She emerged from the attempt on her life without a scratch, so perhaps she's not that furious. Merely causing De Lugo and the ACRD to lose credibility was enough for her."

"Oh please," The Secretary of War, Henry. L. Stimson scoffed. "The day the Devil grows a sense of mercy is the day my mother-in-law likes me. She's clearly faking it. It's the calm before the storm. You must all remember that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. She's likely devising some scheme to make TATO beg for mercy later. Me and my boys are already speculating on how an invasion of TATO by OZEV would go."

"You think they would invade?" Roosenvelt asked in alarm. He didn't think that Degurechaff would go that far, not when she just demobilised her army.

"No, but it is always good to be prepared for any possibility. Our simulations suggests that a total war would end in the capitulation of the Francois Republic and Ispagnia in less than a year, but an invasion of the Albish Isles would be impossible or extremely costly due the Royal Navy's much higher ship count and overall tonnage, which is over eight times that of the OZEV combined navy. Of course, we know that Germania's navy can punch above their weight, but the presence of the Royal Mage Force and Royal Air Force should also deter amphibious landings. We don't think that OZEV would invade Kanata, given the distance and the fact that it would leave them exposed to an Albish counterattack." Stimson commented.

Roosenvelt turned to his Secretary of Commerce, Jesse. H. Jones. "How do their economies stack up to each other?"

The other man answered, holding a clipboard of charts in his arm. "OZEV's economy is thirty percent larger than that of TATO's, with Germania making up sixty percent of OZEV's economy. Similarly, the Allied Kingdom accounts for fifty-five percent of TATO's economy. If we consider OZEV and TATO to be two economic entities, they would be the second and third largest economies in the world respectively."

"And the economic forecast?" He asked.

"TATO's economy is forecasted to grow at a rapid rate by my financial experts. This is mainly due to the post-war economic recovery of Ispagnia and the Francois Republic. As for OZEV, their economic growth is nearly as high, coming victorious in the war. They're actually projected to surpass our economy in ten years." Jones reported in a troubled voice.

The Unified States was still mired by the Great Depression. Sure, the grain sales to Germania had helped prop up farmers, but Germania has been buying less American grain lately to favour Kievan grains. Roosenvelt started to regret not joining the war along with OZEV. It would have allowed the US to kickstart the economy and gain access to several Europan markets.

"I see." Roosenvelt said, thinking for a second. "The way I see it, gentlemen, the Unified States currently has two options. One, we stay isolationist as we are now, watching the major events of the world from the perspective of a bystander. If we do this, we will eventually lose our spot as the number one economy to OZEV." He paused dramatically to let that fact sink in.

"The second option is to stop watching and become a player on the board."

"We're joining one of the two alliances?" Hull asked.

"No. Our weight would offset the scale too much. Both sides want us to join them, TATO especially. I expect both the Allied Kingdom and Kanata to leverage their 'special relationship' with us soon. We will play both sides at the same time. Ask both alliances what they can offer us. What trade deals will they sign? What tariffs can they waive? What technology can they share? All while we benefit from both sides. It's like two suitors presenting their best gifts to the prettiest girl in the city." Roosenvelt chuckled.

"I see." Hull nodded sagely. "We're using both alliances to get us out of the Great Depression and secure our place firmly as the largest economy in the world."

"Indeed. But don't expect that we're the only country in the world being courted by TATO and OZEV. Lothiern is likely under great pressure as well." Roosenvelt said.

"Me and the boys in the War Department have been thinking that OZEV and TATO could potentially turn global." Stimson interjected. This caused everyone in the Oval Office to stare at him.

Stimson continued. "It would benefit them strategically to have allies in Asia and the Pacific. That's where the communist threat is growing. TATO will likely be seeking members in South Bharat, Australia and Aotearoa, as they are former colonies. OZEV will surely seek to form an alliance with Akitsushima, who is basically a de-facto member already."

"Then if TATO and OZEV ever get into a war, it will be a global one. A war where the sun never sets." Roosenvelt mumbled ominously.

1st September 1942,

Reich Chancellor's Office, Berun,

I leaned back in my chair, stretching my stiff back. I had been running myself ragged the past few days, executing countermeasures for TATO. Two days ago, I had convened with the generals and admirals of OZEV to hold simulations over two possibilities: if TATO stages a surprise war on OZEV and vice versa.

For the first scenario, it was quickly determined that the Francois Republic would not be able to cross our Western borders into the Rhine or Po Valley. We had effectively defanged their military and navy during the Second Great War; even Lothiern could pose a challenge for them. The Ispagnian military was even worse, because although they have a great number of veterans, these veterans were not formally trained. They were more familiar with urban warfare consisting of infantry and very little armoured vehicles. It would take months for them to be retrained to be effective in combined warfare.

Kanata's army was somewhat of a threat, but that would require them to be able to conduct a large amphibious assault, requiring the help of the Albish military, the true juggernaut in TATO.

To defend OZEV's northern coastline, our admirals judged that our best strategy to deal with the mighty Royal Navy was to actually station our ships near the coast and engage in battle there, while we rely on our bombers and mages to disable and sink their capital ships. Even then, our navy was still heavily outnumbered, and our aircraft carriers would not be very useful in a naval battlefield as small as the North Sea, where airplanes could easily be launched from land. Heavy casualties were expected from both sides.

Then the Albish could attack us from one of two fronts: north or south.

If they choose north, our naval experts judged that the Albish would most likely aim to sail their ships up the Elbe River to destroy Hamburg's shipyard, OZEV's most productive shipbuilding city. Most scenarios predicted that they would succeed in destroying the shipyard, which would severely reduce our ability to build our most advanced ships like our new destroyers and aircraft carriers. Nevertheless, the Royal Navy would suffer heavy losses from Germania's mages, who are experts at boarding and destroying large capital ships. The heavy losses inflicted would likely render them unable to launch an amphibious assault, foiling a D-Day style TATO invasion. In short, TATO would lose much of its navy but would cripple Germania's shipbuilding capacity. Fortunately, Germania did not plan on building any large ships after the construction of our second aircraft carrier was completed last month. Furthermore, OZEV had other shipyards in Legadonia and Ildoa, while we were also in the process of reconstructing another shipyard in Kieva. An invasion from the north would be an utter strategic failure for TATO.

Zettour, who had barged into the war meeting despite no longer being in the military, actually predicted that instead of invading OZEV from the north and trying to knock Germania out of the war, TATO would likely try an invasion from the south through Ildoa. It made sense too, the Allies had tried a similar strategy in World War II. Ildoa had much weaker coastal defences than Germania, and OZEV would be hard pressed to reinforce Ildoa navally due to TATO's North Sea naval presence and its control of the Strait of Gibraltar. The only naval ally Ildoa would have in the Mediterranean would be Croatia's tiny navy of one light cruiser and one destroyer.

We expected that Southern Ildoa would be quickly overrun, and OZEV forces would have to retreat to Po Valley. Nevertheless, reinforcements from the rest of OZEV would quickly arrive, and the invasion force would be driven out in a year's time, ending in victory for OZEV.

But that would be the situation in Europa. In the Southern Continent, we expected our forces in Libya, Eritrea, Somalia and Malagasy to be quickly overwhelmed and we would lose those colonies. I wouldn't cry over Malagasy, but Ildoa certainly would over its colonies. Needless to say, in the event of a war between TATO and OZEV, Ildoa stood to lose the most.

For the second scenario, which Lehrgen was shivering in excitement when he was explaining to me, was much more optimistic for OZEV.

It was predicted that we would summarily roll over the Francois Republic and Ispagnia within half a year. If any ships were to try and escape like the Francois forces did at Brest, then we would pursue and sink them.

Afterwards, we would turn our full attention to the Allied Kingdom. Instead of launching a hasty amphibious assault or a naval battle, we would launch bombing night air raids across the Albish Channel with our bombers and mages to destroy the Allied Kingdom's industrial capacity. Similar night attacks would be performed on the Royal Navy's docked ships and Royal Air Force airfields. Any aid and supplies from Kanata across the Atlantic were to be intercepted by our submarines and destroyers to starve the Albish Isles. Within two years, the Albish economy and defensive capability would be thoroughly crushed, and we would offer them a surrender.

If they surrendered, it would be to both sides' benefits. But if they didn't take it, then we would be left with two possibilities.

For the first option, once the Albish navy has been thoroughly demolished, we would launch an invasion of the entire Albish Isles. Knowing the pride of the Albish and Churbull's attitude of 'never surrender', the invasion was expected to face heavy resistance and would suffer high casualties. Optimistic estimates place military casualties of our own personnel alone at half a million. It would be much higher for Albish military and civilian casualties. Millions, likely. This was the worst-case scenario. An utter meaningless waste of human resources for pride.

Only my Germanian generals and admirals knew of the second method we could use. The second approach would avoid a full invasion and save many lives but would open a Pandora's box. We could drop a nuke on one of their cities to force a surrender; we currently had six nuclear bombs in our arsenal. Our first bomb produced, and the weakest, the Fritz X, was a 30kt yield nuclear warhead. It was estimated by our scientists that if dropped on Sunderland, the Albish's top shipbuilding city, the total number of deaths within one day would be around 40,000 to 60,000. Within a year, that figure would likely double from radiation poisoning.

Since I didn't want Lehrgen to be too enthusiastic with using the bomb, I had lied and told him only half of the true figure. He had started shaking then, likely in rage at the fact that we spent so much money on making bombs that couldn't even kill a hundred thousand each. I had to assuage his anger by telling him with a smile on my face that the cost of research had been the most expensive part, and now we could easily build many dozens more bombs. His face became as hard as stone and he had leveled me with an unblinking stare while breathing heavily, likely to express his impatience, before excusing himself out of the room for a moment. When he came back, there was a red welt on his head. I didn't bring up the fact that I heard what sounded like a blunt object hitting a wall repeatedly down the hallway with my magic-enhanced senses. Everyone had their own way of relieving stress.

Anyways, when I was presented with the choice of dropping a nuclear bomb, I suddenly realised that this was the choice the Americans were facing when Japan was near defeat in World War II. How ironic that I, a former Japanese man, would be facing that choice if we chose to invade TATO.

Like the Americans, I would also choose to drop the Fritz X on the Albish. It was a rational choice. Kill a hundred thousand to save millions. The sight of one of their cities being wiped off the map by a single bomb would likely demolish morale and swiftly bring an end to the war. It was hard to keep a stiff upper lip in the face of nuclear annihilation after all. But unlike the Americans which nuked a second city, if the AK still refused to surrender, I would drop a second nuke just off its coast, just to prove that we had more and had enough that we were willing to waste them as a display of force. The reason I would choose to drop the first nuke on a city instead of the sea was to wipe any doubt from the Albish mind that the explosion caused by the Fritz X could be an illusion made by mages.

There was also the option to lure the Royal Navy into a naval battle, then drop a nuclear bomb on them, but that wasn't a preferable option. Ships could be spaced far apart enough that the bomb would not be able to disable as much of the navy as we would like. Additionally, the bomber carrying the warhead could be shot down by anti-air weapons. The psychological factor of seeing a city wiped off the map would also be missing. Not to mention that we would contaminate the surrounding water in the North Sea, where there is heavy commerce activity in shipping and fishing.

Nevertheless, I'd like to hold off from revealing the nuclear bomb to the world for as long as possible while Germania develops its nuclear technology. Even other OZEV countries were unaware of Germania's nuclear arsenal. And in Germania, only the highest-ranking generals and government officials knew of its existence. Revealing it now would terrify every country in the world. It would surely kickstart a nuclear arms race. I should build a decently sized nuclear arsenal first, nothing to the scale of the thousands that the Americans and Soviets built, but enough to be a deterrent against any threat while telling the world that we didn't want to destroy everyone. Around four to five hundred sounded low enough. After a decade or two, or until Germania develops the hydrogen bomb, we could reveal our nuclear arsenal, which should convince the world of Germania's self-control and make me look like a saint, since I had weapons of mass destruction yet refrained from abusing them. That should surely disabuse people of my reputation as the Devil of the Rhine.

If I didn't reveal Germania's nuclear arsenal in the future, I expected that the next nation to develop nuclear weapons would likely be the Unified States, followed by the Allied Kingdom. However, it would be years down the line compared to my world. There was no urgency in the form of an ongoing war. I could expect Germania to be the sole possessor of nuclear weaponry for at least this decade. I wasn't worried about the communists developing nuclear weapons yet, not only were all of them engaged in some sort of conflict, but I had also ensured a massive brain drain of the Russy Federation.

Recently, after I saw the P-1 computation orb, I thought about whether it was possible to over engineer a purely defensive computation orb that could potentially shield an entire city from a nuclear warhead. My world never managed to develop a countermeasure to nuclear weapons aside from mutually assured destruction. But since this world has magic, who knows how far techno-magic could eventually go in the future. It would be nice to both have ultimate offense and ultimate defense.

Regardless, I personally didn't think that TATO and OZEV would ever start a hot war with each other. Right now, TATO wants time for its economies to recover, so a war in Europa was the last thing on its mind. OZEV wanted a war even less, after just emerging from the Second Great War. The simulations were just there for our generals and admirals to flex their war knowledge a bit as a fun activity. It certainly seemed to invigorate Zettour, the old former general seemed ten years younger when he proposed how to encircle the TATO invasion force in Ildoa.

Recently, I have realised that I needed to change my mindset from a decade ago, when Germania was still a vulnerable country. Right now, Germania was amongst the three most powerful nations in the world, with a flourishing economy and the sole possessor of nuclear weapons. I have become more aware of the influence that I wielded and how other world powers have grown wary of me. I don't have much to fear from other nations anymore. I could afford to be more proactive and throw my weight around.

My new goal if I wanted to retire should no longer be to make Germania strong again, that has already been accomplished. My new goal should be to prop up Germania as the next world superpower. That meant dominating economically, militarily, scientifically and culturally. Only by ensuring Germanian dominance lasting until at least the next century could I retire in peace.

Therefore, I should start working on proactively dismantling TATO. I desired total free trade across Europa, where tariffs are waived across the continent to encourage free trade, competition and widespread prosperity. I could not do that if there was another large bloc right next to OZEV, with its own tariffs set against OZEV goods. As such, TATO has to go for good. Its economic, military and agricultural potential was just too enormous for me to allow it to exist as a capitalist rival to OZEV. Not to mention that if I retire in the future without getting rid of TATO, some idiot successor of mine in the future might just kickstart a disastrous war, causing people to pull me out of retirement to fix the damn mess.

TATO's biggest flaw lies in its formation; the alliance was formed prematurely. If it was formed five years from now with recovered economies and stabilised colonies, it would be an even larger threat. While I didn't know the exact details, I could infer what happened that led to the alliance being announced so soon instead of waiting for a few more years, at least from the Albish perspective.

The Allied Kingdom was formerly the strongest power in Europa, perhaps even the world. Now, Germania, which it thought it had thoroughly crippled in the First Great War, was quickly growing to become the continental hegemony that it always feared. And fear led to irrational choices. This likely wasn't helped by the fact that the Germanian navy had thoroughly demolished the much larger Francois navy, a sign of the Allied Kingdom's waning era of dominance.

If it was true that the Albish had been planning for TATO for some time, they surely would have preferred to recruit more members and stabilise their economy first. However, the Francois Republic approaching OZEV for membership a couple months earlier likely spooked them into action. So, when the ACRD got hold of intel that Ho Chi Minh was coming to Germania, the Albish likely couldn't help but interfere to push the Francois Republic away from OZEV. Therefore, I needed to exploit TATO's flaws, which would disappear if I dawdled.

The first step was to target a major source of TATO's power - its colonies. For that, I made a call to Annam, directly to Ho Chi Minh's office. When the man picked up, I offered him a discount of twenty percent for the first three shipments of weapons and vehicles that he would be willing to buy from us as an apology for the whole debacle in Wien. To say that the man was ecstatic would be an underestimation.

It was no skin off my back to offer him a generous discount; we would still be making a profit. I simply wanted the Francois to lose Annam as soon as possible, even if it meant fighting a proxy war. Losing Annam would quickly cause the Francois Republic to lose Indochina as well, leading to a weakened perception of the Republic by its Southern Continent colonies, leading to a higher rate of insurrection. All of this would cost the Francois Republic and TATO dearly in trying to suppress colonial dissent. Not to mention that a strong Annam with a mixed economy might deter Laos and Kampuchea from becoming communist in the future.

Even then, I still wanted plausible deniability so that TATO couldn't point fingers at me and start a hot war. When Ho Chi Minh first made his desire for a visit clear, I already went and established a private arms-dealing corporation called Eleventh Goddess Ltd. On paper, it was owned by one Hilda Adelburg, who was a false identity that agents of the BND could take turns assuming. Eleventh Goddess would go and purchase arms and vehicles from OZEV, then resell it to its clients. In this way, OZEV could say that whomever a private corporation sells its goods to was none of its business.

As for Bharat, it was still within my interest for the Albish to defeat the communists in the north for me. As such, the flow of weapons and supplies would still continue. However, that did not mean that it would flow cheaply. I immediately ordered a twenty percent price increase in all weapons and supplies shipments to the Allied Kingdom and told ambassador Llyod that if the Allied Kingdom chose not to pay the extra price, I would halt all shipments and divert them to the Russy Tsardom. The Albish had likely expected at least this much in retaliation and budgeted for it, because they agreed rather quickly.

Then, I moved my attention to the Southern Continent. Yesterday, I called Elya over to discuss what would likely be the BND's most ambitious mission yet. She was to discreetly send her best agents down to TATO's colonial holdings and start recruiting native young women there to join the BND. Preferably they would be mages. I understood that the mage tests in the Southern Continent colonies often ignored women, deeming them as unsuitable for military services.

Once trained, our new recruits would start fomenting unrest in the colonies of TATO, aiding revolutionary leaders, gunrunning, spying on colonial administrators, etc. As natives, they would be less conspicuous than our Germanian operatives and more motivated to complete these missions. The main goal was to encourage resistance movements all across TATO's colonies, which TATO would have to suppress by increasing their military presence, which would be a big drain on their budget. It would not be too long until it becomes unsustainable for TATO to maintain its colonies and be forced to grant them independence, lest suffer an economic collapse.

Since the Allied Kingdom was my biggest threat, I was paying special attention to them. Aside from Bharat and the Southern Continent, I was also eyeing Eireland, the problem child of the Albish Isles. The Eirish held the same animosity towards the Albish as the Irish towards the British in my world. The way Albish history had played out was very similar to my world's history. The only difference was that the Albish had cracked down on Eirish independence even harder, and Eireland was still entirely under the Albish thumb. I was aiming to change that.

I would be employing a similar tactic to what I planned to do in the Southern Continent, but this time my BND agents would also be able to directly participate in fomenting the Eirish revolution. This would be a massive headache for the Albish, having a revolution right in their backyard.

I could also aim to destabilise the Middle East, where many of the Allied Kingdom's protectorates and mandates are located. A lot of oil was located there too, as well as the Suez Canal. However, I feared kicking up that hornet's nest and causing unintended consequences. Not to mention that we didn't have enough BND personnel for that anyways.

All of this destabilisation of colonies was aimed towards causing a massive budget deficit for the Allied Kingdom, the main pillar of TATO. As of right now, they have three major debtors. Their war bond buyers, Germania and the Unified States.

The Albish government started selling war bonds in 1941, and the bonds would mature in 1951. This was their least urgent debt.

As for America, the majority of the debt they owed was already paid off. The Allied Kingdom likely only had to pay to the Americans for another two to three years to clear their debt. I didn't intend to give them that long.

The debt that they held towards Germania, they would have to pay off for the next forty years. However, they had the option to defer payments, at the cost of allowing the convertibility of pounds into marks. They would likely try to prevent this from happening at all costs. The last thing they needed was for the mark to become the world reserve currency.

Many of my anti-TATO countermeasures were aimed to delay the Allied Kingdom's economic recovery, with the aim of making them either pull away from their colonies or defer on the debt they owe me to save on their budget. Either case was a win for me. If they pulled away from their colonies, that would trigger a domino effect across all TATO colonies and cause the empires of TATO to collapse within a few decades. If they deferred or even defaulted on the debt to Germania, that would cause a devaluation of the pound while setting up the mark as the new world reserve currency. Both cases would wound the Allied Kingdom's economy.

Of course, I should not just focus on weakening TATO, I should also focus on preventing them from strengthening themselves.

The quickest way for TATO to gain more strength is by admitting more members. The two obvious options were Lothiern and the US. I actually didn't know much about the politics in Lothiern, despite it bordering Germania. The country was known for being peaceful and had remained neutral in the Second Great War. Any military strength it had was pretty negligible. I hadn't even bothered sending any BND agents into Lothiern since I didn't think it would become politically significant any time soon. Nevertheless, I should prevent TATO from uniting the rest of Western Europa against OZEV.

Surprisingly, I didn't have to do anything about Lothiern personally. Ludwig had eagerly volunteered for the job of convincing Lothiern into joining OZEV or at least remaining neutral. He claimed his family still had great connections within Lothiern and that his grandfather, the former Kaiser, had been holding talks with the Lothiern Prime Minister as of late. Knowing that I should start delegating more and get Ludwig some experience with international politics, I let him handle Lothiern.

That meant I had to deal with the Unified States. Knowing them, they were definitely watching the events happening across the pond with keen interest. Both Europan alliances offered waived tariffs for its members, which the Unified States was surely interested in to pull itself out of the Great Depression. While both alliances had members who shared special trade or cultural relationships with the Unified States, at the end of the day, America's best friend was money. They would be analysing the pros and cons of joining either alliances or staying isolationist as they have been. Both TATO and OZEV will have to woo America with trade deals, technology deals and political concessions.

TATO was actually a very attractive choice for the US, despite OZEV having the larger economy. Not only was TATO's Europan countries closer to the US than OZEV countries, the US also shared a land border with Kanata, where goods can be directly shipped by trucks and trains, instead of having to be ferried thousands of kilometres across an ocean. TATO's economy will also be rapidly growing, although that's mainly because it would be hard for the Francois and Ispagnian economy to shrink at this point.

However, if they chose to join TATO, the US would be obliged to send some forces to help occupy TATO's colonial holdings. I knew for a fact that many in the US were against Europan Imperialism and advocated for principles of self-determination and democracy. This was reflected in the fact that the Filippines, which was equivalent to the Philippines in my world, was already declared an autonomous commonwealth, and will likely be granted independence in a few years.

On the other hand, OZEV had no such imperialist obligations. Sure, both Germania and Ildoa held colonies, but we didn't require our allies to occupy them for us. Furthermore, OZEV's economy was the second largest in the world, and was projected to grow steadily. There were also several political concessions I could offer and tariffs on American agricultural products that I could reduce or waive entirely. If it ever seemed like TATO was close to convincing the US, Germania could reveal our trump cards by offering to sell either our Type 99 or our nuclear reactor technology, likely only the former, as the latter could be disastrous if it fell into the wrong hands.

Having signed all the paperwork to execute my orders, I breathed out in exhaustion. Now that I have finally taken care of everything, I could finally relax for the next few days. The effects of my countermeasures will not be fully apparent until a few months, but they will make TATO start sweating when they do.

2 hours later,

Tanya and Visha's apartment, Berun,

"Yes, harder Visha~" I moaned lightly.

"You mean right here?" Visha asked, as she applied the pressure.

"Hmmmm, a bit to the left."

Getting a massage from an attractive woman who knew her way around your body really was heavenly. I was laying on the bed with my shirt and bra off, while Visha was loosening all of my tightly knotted back muscles from this week's work. Although, she was using a bit too much force.

"Are you mad at something?" I asked Visha as she massaged my shoulders.

"I just don't like the fact that Churbull thought he could try to have you assassinated like that." Visha said, her voice displeased.

"He likely didn't intend for me to be killed in the first place. He knew I could escape." I mumbled as Visha's hands moved to massage the back of my neck.

Not hearing a response from Visha, I started to fear she might be angry enough to order Elya to do something drastic. I kept forgetting that beneath that beautiful face was a battle-hardened veteran, especially when she always acted so lovey-dovey and gentle around me. "Don't order a hit on him. We don't want that type of escalation. The last thing we need is to have world leaders dropping like flies. Also, if the Albish decide to hit back after we have Churbull assassinated, they could easily target you. Just because the BND is hypercompetent doesn't mean that the SIS are chumps. They did manage to subvert the ACRD after all." I said.

Visha huffed cutely. "Still, we should do something to warn him that such actions have consequences. No one gets to touch you without my permission." She kissed me on the cheek and her hands started working on the small of my back.

"Leave it be, Visha. We're at peace right now, the last thing I want is a war in Europa." I said. All I want right now is a little bit of relaxation after the past few days. After ten minutes of massaging, I heard the sound of frantic running towards our apartment door.

Not wanting to be seen in a compromising position, I got dressed and went to open the door. I was met with the sight of a dishevelled, huffing Anna, Elya's second-hand woman.

"What is it? It better be urgent." I inquired in a slightly annoyed voice. Me and Visha were about to move on to something more fun later.

"The Moskva faction has launched a full-scale invasion of the Russy Tsardom! Legadonia has called for an emergency OZEV meeting!"

I sighed.

Damn you Being X!