Presidential Office, Arlette.
2:40 PM
“Not enough…” President Irwin groaned as he buried his face in his hand after taking a look at the economic report.
Looking at the report again, he analyzed the state of the economy. Without oil imports from Al-Anwar, energy prices are climbing higher which necessitates rationing of home energy consumption in many less important districts. Company heads have already sent him numerous messages, clamoring about the lack of resources to work with and loss of overseas assets. People have been panicking, unable to contact their relatives in other countries, with some spreading false rumors about how they haven’t been teleported to another world at all.
How did this happen? Why did this happen? Surely whatever power did this also has the ability to teleport at least a few more countries from our world, right? At least there was something to be happy about: the first encounter between the transferred Elysians and the denizens of this planet bore no ill circumstances. This was a peculiar surprise that no such transference of disease occurred between the natives and the people sent to greet them. New humanoid species were discovered, with reports coming from Ambassador Anderson that they met many animal-human hybrids, or just straight up humanoid animals with intelligence far surpassing their animalistic ancestors.
President Irwin’s contemplations were cut short as someone lightly kicked on the slightly open door. “Mister President?” His assistant came through, holding a heavy box of documents in both his arms.
“Oh, Loyd.” He stood up. “Tell me that the stimulus bill went through.”
His assistant put down the document box on the guest table. “It just passed. Your approval ratings have gone up 3%, but this is still lower than your peak before the transfer.”
“I see. Dear god, how are we supposed to fix the economy? Lucius must’ve been some sort of psychic, after that stunt he pulled a few years ago…”
“Mister President, I assure you that your predecessor was no psychic. Even with the housing crisis he solved with his radical housing plan and the manufacturing jobs he brought, it still won’t be enough to satisfy the shortages of goods, primarily electronic components.”
“Please tell me we’ve got good news from the survey…”
“That, we do have Mister President.”
Irwin immediately shot up from his seat. “Continue,” he said, leaning forward anxiously.
“The new equipment we sent to Anzuri, Azuria’s capital city, has helped tremendously in the survey. The Kingdom of Azuria has remarkably fertile land, capable of producing any type of food we need. We’re still figuring out how their soil could be so fertile as they said the land has always been like this. The coffee seeds we gave them to plant grew perfectly healthy in just hours with the help of their mages. If we can get them on our side, I expect no shortages in exotic foodstuffs and even traditional crops like wheat. Furthermore, we anticipate growth in our culinary sector due to the appearances of new types of food, although they’d have to be approved by the Department of Agriculture first.”
President Irwin nodded. “That’s very good. Is there more?”
“Yes. The Principality of Lior, south of Azuria, has a lot of barren fields filled with what the locals have deemed as ‘burning water’ or ‘black water’.” Loyd gave out a light smirk to the President. “You know what this means, don’t you sir?”
“Oil… that’s… excellent news for the economy!” Irwin sat down on his chair, clapping as he gave out a loud laugh, barely containing his excitement. “Finally! We can stop using the emergency reserves that were meant for another war with the Socialists!”
Loyd interrupts him. “However Mister President, it seems like we’re not the only ones who might be interested in those lands.”
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“What?” Irwin turns his head around.
“There’s another entity we might have to worry about.” Loyd put down a stack of pictures pulled from the document box. “To their north is the Yarian Empire. Our attempt to communicate with them has failed as they do not accept outsiders. From information that I can gather from both Ambassador Anderson and Ambassador Reiker, assigned to the Kingdom of Azuria and the Principality of Lior respectively, the people living in those countries feared living under the Yarians as they are known to treat those under them with extreme prejudice. Their human population is relatively low however, they mostly use what the Azurians described as “goblins” to attack in waves to devour the men and use their women to repopulate after conquest. A few neighboring kingdoms have already fallen just a few years prior according to the Azurian, I fear that Azuria may be next.”
“I have more photos of evidence from reconnaissance flights, Mister President.” Loyd held out a folder in his hand, but he pulled it back. “However, I’m not sure if you’d want to see that kind of stuff. The pilots who took those pictures have to have a few days off in therapy after spending hours taking these detailed pictures and films.”
“I see…” Irwin sunk into his seat, contemplating his next course of actions.
If these Yarian barbarians get their way then all hope of an economic recovery would be lost, not to mention the millions of lives that would be lost and/or placed in a situation worse than Hell. Knowing what needs to be done, President Irwin lifted his face up. “What can we do?”
“Luckily, the Seventh Fleet is already near Azuria and a company of Marines is already in Anzuri itself. We can send the rest of the 5th Marine Mechanized Infantry Brigade as they are already ready for emergency deployment as they are one of the high-readiness brigades, thanks to the Socialists for that. The Seventh can provide covering fire while the rest of the brigade arrives.”
“Prepare them for deployment, I want assets on the ground by next week.”
“We’re still not done, Mister President. We’ve detected traces of chemical pollutants from some of the landmass far west. In particular, there are two landmasses to the west which produce a lot of chemical and light pollution, as identified by our satellites with a small land gap connecting them.” Loyd puts down a picture of a naval fleet. “Further investigation by our secret digital spy satellites discovered the presence of warships similar to the Imperial era, around 60 years ago. This is only one of the continents, however. We’re still trying to scout out the other landmass to the North, it looked quite a good bit larger.”
“That is… interesting. Have our satellites take a closer look next time they pass by that area and keep on scouting. How is our relation with the Principality of Lior and Kingdom of Azuria?”
“The Principality of Lior is already ready to grant full mining rights to their oil fields in exchange for infrastructural development and protection, seeing how their economy revolves around mining and exporting ores as well as magic gems to Azuria for food and to other places for goods. The Azurians acted as a buffer between them and the Yarians so the Liori didn’t have a standing army compared to Azuria which focused their military presence primarily on their northern border.”
“Magic gems?” Irwin asked, intrigued about the mentioning of unknown materials.
“Yes, Mister President. We have discovered several new types of ores, especially magical gems.” Loyd explained. “Apparently, these gems have the capability to store and discharge energy much like the lithium ion batteries that we produced. What makes them different however is that they have different properties depending on what type of gems they are, some produce fire while others produce water when applied with small amounts of energy from the outside. The Azurians and Lioris use these gems as an energy source for daily activities and needs.”
“We might want to investigate that, tell the Department of Energy to look into ways to utilize the magical gems, perhaps we can use them for ourselves to stop having to import so much oil for energy.”
“I already did so, sir.”
“Anything else I need to know, Loyd?”
“The Azurian delegation will be arriving in 15 minutes, you may want to freshen up for the meeting.” Loyd gives out a farewell nod and exits the office.