The news he received was that the rumors spread by his agents had begun to spread widely.
It is excellent news because the people in those countries are also connected to links on Five Star's side. Spreading on one side means there is a possibility that the news will spread on the other side, too.
If it goes like this, there would be a good chance of success.
...
Five years later.
UISEC country has been in existence for ten years.
They have held another presidential election since; of course, President Robert Stevenson won without opposition.
Well, it's not that he doesn't have opposition; it's just that they couldn't run against him.
The internet infrastructure is ready, too.
Lately, Rob has been worried.
Now, he is 38 years old, and the median lifespan of a person in this world is 80.
This means he will likely live another 40 years or so.
Of course, he knows Alex is thinking of a way to achieve immortality.
Rob doesn't want to die. Therefore, he asked Alex III to spread rumors about him, too.
Alex III hasn't been able to hide his immortality plan from Rob.
The dream switches every hour, and Rob gets all memories of Alex III.
Sure, he wouldn't know what Alex III is thinking, but it's easy to guess if one sees all of Alex III's actions.
After Rob's request, Alex III accepted it.
But he said a vampire wouldn't work, so he suggested a Zombie.
A Zombie is also a famous fantasy creature with an unlimited lifespan; it must eat human brains to stay sane, but it is immortal.
Rob, however, had some grave problems with this plan; he didn't want to become a zombie.
After some back and forth, they settled on a Ghost.
In the myths of both Alex's kingdom and the Five-Star world, Ghosts are depicted as vengeful and cruel. However, they are sane and immortal.
If Rob had the choice, he would have chosen a vampire.
But the vampire has already been taken by Alex III.
If they spread myths of two vampires, the combined intensity of belief might not be enough for either to become one.
The chance would only slightly decrease if two different rumors spread about different creatures.
But if they spread two similar rumors, the chances of people truly believing either would decrease significantly.
The human mind is complicated.
Two very similar situations would lead people to think of two things: 1) vampires are common, or 2) both are lying.
Alex III doesn't want people to think vampires are common.
That could cause vampires to become common, which would be a disaster.
With the internet back online in UISEC and the countries around, Rob started spreading rumors about himself being a ghost on social media.
The whole dream switch made people more susceptible to believing in the supernatural.
But people on Five Star's side especially still hold a skeptical eye toward anything supernatural.
The problem is that at least 80% have to believe for it to work. So even if 50% are open to it, it's not enough.
Skeptical people would only believe when they see it with their own eyes. Some won't even believe it when they see it with their own eyes.
Rob has far less time than Alex, so he quickly plans a way.
But something unexpected happened.
The Five Star country, which remained silent for ten years, declared war!
...
After UISEC succeeded, Five Star didn't attack because of the risk of considerable casualties.
Now, after ten years, UISEC is a much more prosperous country.
The people of Five Star saw this and blamed their misfortune on UISEC.
"They stole all our country's natural treasures; that's why we are in this situation." Many thought this.
Hate against UISEC grew more and more.
Politicians, who didn't want to be blamed for the problem, also put all the fault on the cruel UISEC.
Just last year, the Unify party won 45 percent of the votes.
For a system of proportional representation, 45% is astonishingly high.
The Unify party stands for military action to become unified again. Since the last election, the Unify party's poll numbers have only increased.
Some other parties saw this, and out of fear of losing in the next election and giving the Unify party a majority, they joined the Unify party and formed a government.
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This new government was in favor of war.
They prepared, and this year, they declared war.
...
The Five Star Kingdom presidential palace housed the president of the country, who was not from the Unify coalition.
She disagreed with the war.
However, when the parliament voted to declare war, the president couldn't do anything to stop it.
In Five Star country, the president doesn't have veto power.
She still has some influence on the budget, laws, and how they would be enforced, but if a majority of the parliament is adamant on something, the president can't prevent it.
As a result, even though she was unwilling, she could only go along with it.
The prime minister, minister of military affairs, minister of government administration, etc., were all in this meeting.
Interestingly enough, even after this long, the positions of minister of interior and minister of defense still haven't been filled. Rob is still the minister of the interior of the Five Star country; they haven't removed him.
Still, those positions are powerless, so nobody cares.
The prime minister, a man with short hair, a suit, and brown eyes, started, "Military strategy should be discussed among the minister of military affairs and generals. This meeting is only about how we should handle internal affairs and foreign relations."
The minister of foreign relations started saying, "Countries around are against a war; we couldn't expect any help from neighbors."
All nodded. They, of course, knew.
Without help, winning would be hard.
But nobody said this.
This group of people were all elected because they favored war. Even more, they had already declared war. There is no turning back.
The president, a woman with blue eyes and short black hair also in a suit, said, "The aim of this war should be recovering the border city of Grassland."
The City of Grassland is tiny, right at the border.
The prime minister smiled and said, "All this for taking over a tiny city? We aim to unify the country as it was before the dream switch disaster, not a single city."
The president sighed and said, "You know as well as I do that we are weaker than them; trying to unify the country is a noble goal, but at this moment, it's impossible."
The prime minister said calmly with the same smile, "Madam president, the people can choose whether you are right or we are right. They voted for us. The people wanted to unify the country."
The president sighed.
The prime minister was right.
The Unify party has always advocated for immediate war with UISEC, and the people still voted for them.
The people want war, so how could she prevent it? That's what democracy means.
"But taking the border city of Grassland is just the first step; we can expand later when we get stronger. Listen, I'm not arguing against war; I'm just saying we should be realistic," she said.
The prime minister responded, "The people voted for immediate war to unify the country."
Then, he changed the subject, "Now, we should increase taxes on the wealthy to increase revenue. The war would cost a lot, and we are not in a situation to be able to borrow. Interest rates are already terribly high, and borrowing any more money would take us into hyperinflation because to pay it back, we might have no choice but to print money. We need to increase the revenue."
The finance minister objected, "Taxes on the wealthy are already very high! If we increase it further, they might leave the country and go to UISEC, where taxes are much lower."
The prime minister said, "Then, how should we provide the money for the war?"
The finance minister suggested, "We can increase the tax for the middle-income people by 16.5 percent."
The prime minister remarked, "That would make the whole tax burden of the middle class 52.5 percent, right? Do you expect the middle class to pay the government more than half their income?"
The minister of finance and economy has traditionally been given to the opposition; that's why the Unify party's tax policy is inconsistent with the minister of finance.
The finance minister retorted, "Taxes on the wealthy are already 55%, so 52.5 tax on the middle class would make the taxes more equal across the board."
The prime minister responded, "But the wealthy have no problem with their food, their child's education, their rent, etc. So, increasing the tax would only cause them to have less spare money. But, increasing the tax on the middle class would have serious consequences."
The Minister of Finance said, "What you suggest would penalize success! Why should one want to become wealthy if it means paying +70% of their income to the government?"
The prime minister sighed and said, "We can't agree on this matter; it will be put on the parliament to vote on whether to increase the middle-class tax by 16.5% or the wealthy's tax by 21.8 %."
Then, he moved on, "Now, the matter about our gold reserves."
The treasury minister said, "Our gold reserves have not been able to keep up with inflation, but we are mining the West Gold Mine at a high speed."
Gold mines are under the minister of treasury.
Economic matters are complicated.
What determines the price of something?
Two things: how rare it is and how many people want it.
Gold is rare, and everyone wants it, so even though it has few practical uses for ordinary people, it's precious.
How to buy things?
There are two ways: with a medium and without a medium.
Without medium: someone who fishes and wants grain buys grain by giving fish to the farmer.
With medium: people agree on something considered valuable by all and use it to trade—for example, gold.
The medium of transaction is called currency.
In the past, currency was valuable itself.
But, as time passed, Five Star's central bank invented gold notes.
Gold notes are a guarantee.
The bank guarantees they have the exact gold the gold notes guarantee and can pay it out anytime.
As time went on, however, the bank issued far more gold notes than it had gold in its treasury.
So, it ditched gold notes.
It created its 'Star money'.
Star money is what the government pays its workers with.
Taxes should be paid with star money; government fees and fines are paid with star money; all government companies pay their employees with star money.
One difference between star money and gold notes is that star money is based on nothing.
It has value because the government says it has value.
However, it's really not that different from gold notes.
Why does gold itself have value? It's because everyone thinks it has value. Why does star money have value? Again, because everyone believes it has value.
The most significant difference between star money and gold notes is that the government can print as much as it wants.
With gold, they were at least partially limited by the gold in their treasury.
With star money, however, they limit themselves to the 'size of the economy.'
It is a balance.
If there is too much star money and too few goods, everything would get more expensive: inflation.
The government must restrain itself from printing because it can make the entire currency valueless if it prints too much.
It must print as much as there is demand for it.
That's why it's so beneficial if other countries want another country's currency.
Usually, demand for a country's currency comes only from the people of the country, or people wishing to trade with that country.
If other countries want Star currency as a reserve, it would artificially increase demand for Star currency and permit them to print more. Because there is a demand for it, it wouldn't increase inflation.
With all that money, the country then spends to improve its infrastructure, standard of living, etc.
Five Star Country printed a lot of money to recover from the Dream Switch disaster, but as no one wanted their currency as reserves, the money in the country became too much, and inflation went up.
To bring down inflation, they increased the interest rate to +30%!
A higher interest rate would bring down inflation because it encourages people to buy government debt, helping the government provide funds and cool down the economy. Alternatively, depending on their preference, they could put their money in banks.
In any case, a higher interest rate = less money circulating around.
But, this way has downsides.
The government would be required to pay back all the debts with +30% interest.
How can they do it? By borrowing more!
They have to borrow more and more or find a way out: printing money.
If they print money, they can quickly pay out everyone, right?
No!
Printing money would eliminate people's confidence in the government, so they wouldn't even buy government debt.
Countries that print excessive money meet a terrible ending.
Five Star printed money and the economic disaster is now a result.
The prime minister wants to avoid printing money at all costs, so what to do?
They must tax people more; as for who to tax, that is an ideological question people can't agree on.
The ministers continued to debate, and after the whole day, they left.