The door to my office slams open. “Mr. President-”

“FUCK!” I jump so high that I accidentally throw my phone into the stack of files in front of me. The papers flee from their folders and scatter like the protesters yesterday. Unfortunately for me, my phone ends up right below my chief of staff’s—Davis—feet, displaying the evidence of my slacking.

“…Why are you playing PugG Mobile?”

I awkwardly laugh. “Erm, I’ve been working nonstop for weeks now; look I did all of that,” I point at a stack two thirds of the size of the files on my desk. “All that today. I’m almost done and it’s, what, nine pm? I deserve a break.”

Davis fumes. “A break?! What about the economy! The bank runs, insubordinate officers, and here!” He slams down the stack of new files he was carrying onto my desk. “Governor Brown has declared that the state of Alabama will not cooperate with a nation who, ‘Is opening our borders to barbarians and monsters seeking to steal our technology to enslave our people.’ This is essentially secession!”

“But it’s just dwarves! It’s not like we’re trading with demihumans, or beastpedals as they are apparently called here. They’re just shorter humans! And we're trading with human kingdoms too.” I miserably watch as I lose the match on my phone. Best I can do is clean up the fallen papers…and reorganize them…damn it Davis.

Speaking of which, he’s infuriated at my seemingly unpanicked response. “That’s where the barbarian part comes in! But look, we need to deal with the secession or other states will follow. Now.”

I sigh. “Damn it, Brown. Well, he’s never going to listen to me. We’re from the same party, but he hates me. Most of my party does actually…I should’ve run Democrat. Now they all hate me too because I’m not from their party. So now I can’t convince anyone to do anything.”

“How did you pass the Emergency Nationalization Act?”

Well, that was a special case.

“And Transportation Relief.”

I literally just told the people that I wanted to pass this bill so they could, you know, have money. If Congress didn’t pass it they’d lose credibility from the populace.

“What about Immediate Defense Funds?”

“Okay, that one was just an executive order. And fine, I can find a way around party lines. But I don’t have the brainpower to think of anything right now…”

Davis rolls his eyes. “And I assume you’ll have some after playing PugG Mobile?” I nod. He picks up my phone and tosses it to me. “I’ll clean up the files. You need to solve this more pressing issue.”

“Yes sir, yes sir!” I crawl under my desk and play one round—which I win—before returning to Paperland, Secession Edition.

After the call with Governor Brown ends in incoherent screaming from his end, I immediately arrange a press conference. Not gonna talk to any Senators or Representatives. My strategy for getting around party lines is to literally go around the parties. The people are what matter, not some old geezers who shut themselves in the Capitol all day.

…Yes, I shut myself in the White House all day, but I’m not old, so you shut up.

As soon as I take the podium, reporters clamor for attention and attempt to blind me. I ignore them—not like I can make out what they’re saying anyway—and begin my speech, “Hey children, there’s only one daddy and only one person who can answer your questions. So maybe be quiet for a bit.” Shocked into silence due to being compared to children, the room goes silent. But only for a moment. And that’s all I need.

“Governor Brown wants to secede from the Union. To him, I say, ‘Good luck.’ Have fun Governor Brown, alone in a fantasy world. There will be no federal funding, no federal troops, no federal services. Since you’re not willing to trade with a nation in this world, you better have a genius plan to save your economy. Because I can’t think of one. If other states want to secede, have fun. I doubt that you’ll be able to work together and I doubt that it would be very long before you came back crying.

“So if you want to secede, go ahead. But be warned that once the United States recovers from the sudden transportation, all federal assets, including military assets will need to be protected. Additionally, due to the dangerous nature of a medieval fantasy world, military intervention will be deemed necessary and you will not withstand the combined might of the US federal military and whatever allies we make. And after subduing all seceded states, your status as a state will be stripped and demoted to territory, where you will need to reapply for statehood. So have fun on this little incursion you’ve got planned. Governor Brown, if you do secede, the next time we meet will be on opposite sides of the battlefield.”

At that, I quickly flee the stage before the children wake up. I know this was a forceful approach, but when the economy is about to collapse and Congress hates you, drastic measures must be taken. Fight fire with fire. Or in this case, fight secession with a hailstorm of artillery. Besides, secession is a stupid thing to do unless multiple large states like New York, California or Texas combine together. But the big states will never work together. And New York has no reason to secede. If Alabama does secede, most likely they will only have the support of a few other southern states. This is doomed to end in failure and the seceded states running back, begging to re-enter the US. I doubt it will come to military force.

In this way, since the state came back on their own there’s no worries about secession again. Maybe the only negatives are the fact that I need to push back some economic plans involving Alabama and maybe my approval rating goes down. Meh, it’s high enough and I’m only two years into my first term. Though, isn’t this common knowledge? Would Governor Brown really be this stupid? Some people would be, but Brown is…anyway, I have a nation to fix.

The Speaker of the House, Jennifer Collins, catches me in the hallway. She’s one of the only Congress people to support me.

“That will do it. Governor Brown is finished.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Huh? That's not the admonishment of my promise of excessive force that I expected. “Finished? If anything, isn’t my standing in Congress finished?”

Jennifer is an old brunette with blue eyes, but at that moment all the extra aging she's done within the past few weeks not only reverses, but ends up with Jennifer looking younger than she is.

“Don’t you know?” I shake my head in confusion. Governor Brown is pretty popular in Alabama for his housing strategies…

“The third largest amount of soldiers live in Alabama.”

Wait…”By soldiers, you mean my sub army?”

She nods. Oh, I see now. Governor Brown has underestimated the power of my sub army it seems…Midterms are soon. He’s indeed finished.

“I should really check the demographics of my subscribers more often. I literally could’ve just said, ‘Hey Brown, you bastard. Remember who’s supporters live in your state.’”

“Housing has nothing on Craftmine reverse speedruns,” Jennifer jokingly adds.

“Ahem, well, it’s nice to see that angry architecture bastard get destroyed. But I have an economy to fix and trade deals to oversee.”

She smiles and waves me goodbye. “And loot boxes to open.”

I cough. Shit, she was online. I never should’ve friended her. “And that. But mostly economy fixing.”

“Right. I’ll leave you to it. I need to prepare myself for Congress in general.”

I salute half-heartedly. “Good luck, soldier, with the babies.”

She salutes badly back. “You too, with the paper mountain.”

“Paper mountains.”

With the midterms coming up, no state dared to secede. After Governor Brown had to deal with protesters from my sub army, no state wanted to underestimate the power of subscribers again. So that problem’s solved. Now I can trade with these cool dwarves without worry!

The letter from Triskyu arrives first a few days later. They’ve rejected our offers of trade unfortunately. Their ally Ikuanir follows suit the next day. But Yuinae, a small tropical kingdom, allowed us to send an envoy to discuss trade. They even brought up a potential alliance. This is an absolute win. Satellites have seen multiple mines over the region, so maybe they have at least some of the precious metals and minerals we require? Plus, different types of food.

I send the foreign ambassador formerly in charge of Indonesia, as linguists have stated that the national language of Yuinae, alsas’han, is most similar to Indonesian. The ambassador learned this language quickly due to that. Translation is still a little shaky, but it will suffice.

By the way, all American citizens and assets have ended up in a circle surrounding the continental US. Lucky, or else they’d be all over this planet and a pain to retrieve. Though, all foreign nationals were booted out of the country.

When the ambassador reaches Yuinae via helicopter, he discovered two things immediately. For one, Yuinae is a mixed race nation, primarily elves but with some dwarves from the neighboring nation of Oso. Apparently most nations are single race only.

The second thing was that learning the language was almost useless because everyone uses the translation blessing from the minor god of language. The nation he rules over is lucky, because if anyone invades them, all other nations would dogpile upon the invader to protect the translation magic. Unfortunately, this orc nation is on a distant continent, so we haven’t contacted them yet.

Also, more alarmingly, apparently we don’t have any magic. I told the ambassador to tell them that our patron deity just had a specialty in concealment to hide that fact when the king pointed it out. Since we don’t have any innate magic, we can’t use any blessings, even publicly available ones. And since everyone uses the translation blessing, there are no translation guides. Even worse because America hasn’t sent a letter to Oso yet since we haven’t translated their language. Luckily this world—or most of it, apparently—uses the Latin alphabet with some minor changes, otherwise we’d be fucked.

The good news is that we get to send surveyors to check the plants and ore. When reports come back a week later, some of the required minerals were found, along with new plants and ore. Yuinae allowed us to take samples to research. In the meantime, we’ve secured a trade agreement for some plants and minerals in exchange for our own foodstuffs. Plus, Yuinae’s king, king Esar’ien ae Chalae, told the ambassador some basic knowledge about this world, called Echarit. We’re even discussing an alliance.

“Alright, tell Ambassador Ryan to ask Yuinae for a translator,” I tell Davis, back in the White House. “By translator I mean random person who can use magic. But say that they will observe our foreign policy, so that, uh, they can tell us about differences in culture. You know, wouldn’t want to accidentally offend someone because they hate shoes or something.”

“But they still need to translate…”

“Uh…we can’t use the blessing because…our patron deity accidentally blocks it. Yeah.”

Davis stops writing in his brown notebook. “Is it really a good idea to pretend to have a patron deity? I mean, when the lockdown ends and either tourists or immigrants arrive, it will be obvious that we lied.”

“Uh…pretend it’s an amalgamation of all religions mentioned in the US.”

“…Well…okay. It’s not like there’s a better explanation. Um, so people are uneasy about being in this fantasy world, saying it’s not their world. Especially because things like magic and other species exist. Most right now just want to return to Earth, especially since some have family there. And personally, I’m worried about our allies back home. According to Yuinae, in the far north, there’s the deity of portals. Their nation can summon people from another world, though it seems to just be the same world. But perhaps they could—”

General Reiner bursts into the room, literally almost knocking the poor door off its hinges. Usually his dark mop of hair is neatly combed into his hat, and his uniform pressed cleanly, but now his hat is nowhere to be seen. And wrinkles appear everywhere. All is explained when the general opens his mouth to distressedly shout, “Governor Brown has launched an airstrike on Oso! The military was unable to stop it due to leaks and unknown operatives! So Oso declared war!”

…Every single sentence made zero sense. Governor Brown directly attacked Oso?! I know he hates other races, but ambushing them would lead to political suicide! The military couldn’t stop it?! Leaks? No, I knew Governor Brown wasn’t so stupid to try to secede. I’ve overlooked it because I also forgot, but there’s no way Governor Brown wouldn’t have known that many of his enemy’s supporters can vote in his state. It must be a terrorist organization. But all foreign nationals are gone, including illegals. So this organization has many citizens as operatives? And is powerful enough to plant a state govenor?!

“Davis, tell the CIA to investigate Brown ASAP! Check if any known terrorist organizations or even suspicious people have met with him recently, or at all! Wait, General, where’s Governor Brown?”

“Arrested! In the max security available within a short period of time. But what about the declaration of war?”

I pull out my phone to call the linguist team. “I assume that since you can decipher Oso’s declaration of war, their language should be decoded enough to communicate?”

The team leader replies positively. “Good. Send over someone who knows the language the best.” I grab the landline on the wall. “Hello? Foreign Affairs? Coordinate with the translation team to ask Oso to open communications. We need to explain ourselves.”

I then address the general. “And General Reiner, prepare the military just in case. Especially Ramstein base, they’re the closest, right?” He nods. “If Oso doesn’t accept our explanation, be ready to call a military operations meeting. And get satellite images of Oso.”

Everyone scatters. As soon as they leave, I collapse onto the floor, the phones clattering as they land. Fuck. America will not support a war, especially one in which we are technically the aggressor. If it comes to war, hopefully it will be brief and with little casualties. Oh, who am I kidding?! This is a fucking fantasy world! Every nation has a fucking god! If Oso starts to lose, can’t their god just come down and smite everyone?! Actually, it may not even get to that point, because we're fighting dwarves, a whole new species, with magic! That meeting with Yuinae wasn’t enough to know everything on Oso. Which reminds me, I need to call the ambassador to ask Yuinae for information.

No information, no popular war support, no god to protect us from being smited. Shit. I think we're fucked.