After three, long days, the war with Oso is finally over! Once I get the news, I spend five whole minutes laughing maniacally, rolling on the ground. Davis stares, unimpressed, though too tired to protest.
“…You make it seem like we declared war on Oso on purpose,” he comments after my laughing episode ends.
“But three days! I’m sure our people haven’t started protesting the war yet, right?”
“Not in any meaningful quantities. But can you get off the floor?” Oh, right. I peel myself off of the slightly dusty wooden floor and crash on my bed. Davis blankly stares at me, then my computer displaying the Craftmine death screen.
“…Anyways, the royal family wants to have the treaty signing in five days.”
“Make it two. I have the meeting with Alseni in five days and Govenor Brown trial in three. Definitely don’t want to have three major events in a row, so two’s perfect. Though maybe tomorrow is better…”
“…No one will be ready to discuss a treaty. Congress needs to vote on some things and it’s two in the morning.”
That late? “Oh, so technically we’re signing the treaty in one day.”
Davis rolls his eyes. “Sure. I’ll tell Ravi about the date.”
So two days later, we’re in the Tensoso family royal castle. It’s made of sandstone, with metal-lined windows filled with slightly foggy glass and a metal drawbridge. No moat, because in a desert water is precious. Instead, there’s a ring of fire, requiring fire mages to part the fire wall in order to access the castle. There’s no protection above, significantly reducing the royals’ faith in the castle to defend against our planes. I don’t think it would have helped though.
The king and his wife sit at the other side of the rectangle table in the throne room. It’s probably just been moved for this meeting.
“Welcome, President John the Second of the United States of America.” They get up and start to bow, so I quickly correct them
“No need to bow. And it’s just John. And it’s a pleasure to meet your Highnesses King Cantesa and Queen Ra’ten.” I take a seat along with Davis. My security detail stands behind me, looking pretty menacing in their sunglasses and black kevlar.
To my relief, the couple sits back down. “Please do not punish Oso too harshly; according to what Prince Aleu'ie reports, it was a simple misunderstanding.” King Cantesa seems worried about that. Probably what kept him up all night, looking at his deep eye bags.
“Don’t worry,” I reassure him. “America didn’t want to be dragged into this war either. We don’t want to take anything away from Oso to punish them, we just need resources.” I pull out some policies Congress and I came up with yesterday from my briefcase.
“So…from aerial reports your kingdom has many factories for producing tanks, right?”
King Cantesa blinks. “Tanks?”
Why did I hit a cultural roadblock already?! I’ve said one sentence! “Uh, the armored vehicles.”
“Ah, mage capsules. Yes, we have hundreds.”
Progress! At least now losses in parts manufacturing can be mitigated. Oso doesn’t need those…mage capsules, right? And we can help them build more factories in exchange. Which is part of the treaty that I then show the king and queen.
The treaty stipulates that the US will not take any land or demand reparations. I doubt they have enough money to solve—even partially—our deficit. We will help them build infrastructure in exchange for use of the factories for five years. At that point, Oso can still lend us the factories but aren’t required to. We should be stable enough. Plus status as a protectorate. And, a constitution for a transition to a constitutional monarchy. Okay, maybe it’s a little far on the punishment side, but if we won the war and can pursue it for an unconditional surrender—Oso currently surrendered with the condition of preserving their status—then why wouldn’t we?
After reading, both look surprised. King Cantesa looks more relieved while Queen Ra’ten doesn’t hide her skeptism. “Why such a lenient treaty?”
“America doesn’t have a desire to conquer and,” I was going to say exploit, but that’s kinda false. “Punish nations. In fact, after war we usually stick arou—stay to help rebuild the country.”
The two royals look at each other briefly before turning back to me. You know, I’ve been wondering if telepathy exists in this world.
“We need to talk privately about this.” I give them the green light. They get up and discuss the treaty behind the giant, orange gem encrusted, gold throne. I’m not sure when kings would sit on their thrones. Medieval stuff isn’t something I’m very knowledgeable about.
I wait for a while. They seem to come to a conclusion after many hushed and slightly panicked something whispers from the queens end. They return to the table with Queen Ra’ten looking very pissed. She just barely avoids glaring at me.
“I hope you bring good news?” The answer to my question is probably yes, from the queen’s reaction.
As expected, King Cantesa nods. The details get ironed out, and, after a few hours, the king and I sign the treaty. I guess the Queen was overruled because she didn’t have as much power as her husband.
Davis nudges me as I’m about to leave. Oh right! Oso has many minerals we can trade for.
“Before we leave, I would like to discuss a trade deal. About the minerals in Oso.”
The king seems puzzled. “You could include mining rights in the treaty.”
“Yes, but that would be exploitation. And we also want to build up Oso as a strong ally.”
“We could just give them salt,” Davis chimes in. Right! Salt was called white gold at some point, so it should be valuable to medieval kingdoms.
And it looks like my guess is right, because the two royals’ eyes widen in disbelief.
“Salt? How much?”
I tell them the amount per pound for different resources. King Cantesa is about to faint from an unidentifiable emotion, but Queen Ra’ten narrows her eyes suspiciously. They end up having to talk in the back again, but eventually agree.
I leave the castle when the sun has already set. Davis follows next to me, pleased at the results of the meeting. “We’re finally recovering from the transfer.”
I’m also relieved. The war was something I worried would set back progress, but it all worked out. Luckily, Oso had decently advanced technology and little magic use. Plus, in the desert, our tanks were perfect for operations. I don’t know why there’s a desert next to an ocean though. The geography of this world is weird. What’s up with that weird, perfectly straight slash through part of the world?
And the climate is weird too. It’s literally snowing right now. It’s winter in Oso, but spring in DC. I’ll have to ask Alseni about it.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The next day, I decide to take a break. No writing up economic policies, no press releases, not even any streaming. Though I really should get around to that; I haven’t updated since the transportation. It’s the longest I’ve gone without going live.
But I do play a bunch of games. I build a fleet of spaceships in the buggy Sun Civilian. They’re all black because paint doesn’t exist in that universe, and triangle-shaped because…the budget ran out or something. On a poor, primitive planet that I control, I build a massive stone castle that looks suspiciously like the one I was in yesterday. Then, for a reason completely different from venting out anger and stress on midgets that don’t all have beards, I send the fleet of ships to burn the damn castle to the ground. And, for no particularly negative reason, I spin around in my swivel chair smiling in glee while the red-haired people in the castle scream as they burn.
I swear that I’m not a psychopath. It’s a game that has no correlation to real life. Really.
After an wonderfully spent day torturing various digital redheads—and one blue dragon in a white toga—in a multitude of games, I have to then talk to the white toga-wearing, potentially WW2 Germany-like, dragon.
But for some reason, when Alseni arrives at our meeting spot outside the White House, he’s in all black.
“…I see that your fashion sense is still terrible.” Wait, I think I said that out loud again. Welp, he didn’t take offense last time.
He pauses as he floats down towards the now cushioned chair and looks down at his clothes.
“I thought you greatly preferred black over white as it’s all you and the SS are wearing.”
“DON’T. Abbreviate. Secret Service. Like that.” His innocent comment led the tanks still set up around us to drive a little closer.
“Why?” Alseni tilts his head slightly.
“…Our history.”
He takes a seat as he apologizes. You know, I really want to think the best of Alseni, but he keeps triggering evil Germany flags. And those are worse than red flags.
I’m already seated and the table’s set with a roasted chicken. The translator box is sitting on the left corner of the table closest to me. Also, the plastic folding table has been replaced with a white marble one.
Alseni stares at the chicken. I’m not sure what he wants, so I just point at it and say, “This is a roasted chicken. You can eat it.” I hand him a plate and a knife.
His purple eyes seem to light up and he cleaves the chicken in half, straight through bone. I peel a leg off and take a bite. Maybe I shouldn’t be eating with my hands while Alseni chops the chicken into tiny—really tiny—cubes of bone and meat. He then picks the pieces up with the fork that’s bigger than them. I didn’t expect him to be a slow eater…
I finish my chicken leg then watch in slightly horrified interest as Alseni slowly chews through bones like they don’t exist. Next time, I must bring a boneless chicken. Chicken tenders.
With nothing else to do while Alseni’s eating, I say, “Thanks for the translator, by the way. With it, we’ve sent letters to all nations on Central.” By airdrop. There’s no time to waste on delivering the letters by horse or whatever. America needs trade now.
I wait for him to finish chewing the piece in his mouth. “You’re welcome. Do you want more of them?”
Ooh, magical technology research would be great! Maybe after I know America will survive though. Right now, it’s a little iffy.
“Yes, though it would be better if you could provide the blueprints for it.” I hope he doesn’t ask for too much in exchange.
“…” Alseni takes a while to respond. “You want to know how to make it?”
“Yes,” I answer, nodding. “Is it too expensive?”
In response, he abruptly gets up, hands me the satellite image I gave him before with updated borders, and says, “Wait one moment.” He then teleports away. I hope he’s getting the blueprints and not an army.
While he’s away, I stare at his still full plate. It looks like he didn’t eat anything…
Davis finds the courage to speak now that the dragon in the…outside is gone.
“Should we really be dealing with Venerai? Public opinion of them is low and personally, I don’t like or trust it.”
“It’s been a month. America is on the road to the greatest recession since the Great Depression, maybe even worse. Venerai is a great power. Plus, their leader could probably smash us into dust. Since Alseni’s open to democratization and equality, maybe we can reform the nation. Isn’t it a great thing if we can turn one of the most oppressive, unequal nations into a liberal democracy?” And I doubt that other nations are much better, hearing reports from the ambassador in Yuinae. Even our only trading partner is a great representative of medieval times. Which isn’t great at all. Oh, we’ve got Oso too. But we just stomped them in a war and are forcing democratization, so they aren’t indicative of this world.
Davis seems mildly convinced. “Just push for the necessary trade and open talks of transition into a democracy. We also need more information on Venerai’s god. Are they supportive of Alseni’s decision? What about Venerai’s policies? We need that information.”
“Okay, got it,” I affirm. That and the info we’ll get once the CIA sends a team to Venerai will hopefully bring us the full picture.
It takes a pretty long time for Alseni to return, leading me to open the map and discuss it with Davis. When he does return, he brings back a roll of paper.
“Here,” he slides it to me as he sits back down.
He actually gave us the blueprint? “…What do you want for this?” I don’t touch it yet, in case the price is too high.
An awkward silence descends. “Alseni, what’s the price for the blueprint?” He looks at the sky briefly.
“…KFC,” he finally answers.
“Uh…as in, the chicken restaurant?” He nods. “You want the restaurant to open stores in Venerai?” Again, he nods.
There doesn’t seem to be anything else…so I take the blueprint and send it to R&D. Maybe we can discuss opening Venerai to American businesses? That’d be good for the economy.
“I’ll have to ask KFC first,” I gauge his reaction, which is a nod, then continue. “Are you interested in having other companies expand into Venerai also?”
“…Companies? Like chain restaurants?” Damn it, I forgot this world doesn’t know about companies for some reason! So now I spend hours explaining how companies work. Luckily, things like merchant guilds and mercenary guilds exist, but it seems like the government still has direct control over them. The concept of a freely independent money-making entity that can still contribute to the economy is alien to this world.
The explanation leads me into talking about the stock market and how the economy works, which includes the different between fiat and flat currencies. Ugh, I’m regretting taking economics as a major in college. Then I could’ve just delegated this to someone else.
When the explanation is done, Alseni is throughly confused and probably didn’t understand half of it. But I achieved my goal; he excitedly—I think he’s excited—agrees to allowing companies to open branches in Venerai. Great. Now we have to talk about trade.
“Now that we’re done with that, let’s talk about trade…and also units of measurement for the blueprint.” Almost forgot about that.
“Oh, right. The units are most likely different. I’ll bring some measuring tools.” He disappears again. Teleportation is convienient.
He returns with a bunch of rulers and scales. We compare them to our system of measurement and work out the conversions.
Okay, now we’re done! Now it’s time for trade!
Alseni’s brought a bunch of drawings of animals and plants, plus descriptions of minerals. Most of their animals are different from Earth’s except for dragons, but they don’t even exist on Earth. A lot of the plants are the same, though. So the animals shouldn’t be poisonous to us…wait, why am I thinking about eating them? We should research how magic affects them. Damn it, talking about food for hours has taken its toll.
The minerals are interesting. Some are similar to Earth ones, but there’s a bunch of magical stuff like firite, with has ancient fire magic from the Era of Magic. Which leads Alseni to talk about the different ages, but I interrupt him because time for today is running out and these trade deals need to be secured. The history lesson can wait.
There’s also what’s considered the best metal, divine ore. It’s super rare because it’s from dead gods. Probably why it’s the best. There’s also the fragment version, which is significantly weaker, but more common. There’s a lot of shards from ancient, dead gods around. Well, relatively speaking; they’re still really rare.
When talking about divine ore, Alseni suddenly gets an idea and decides to give us a whole block of divine ore. This is obviously suspicious, so I say no thanks. He doesn’t seem to have given up though. In any case, I don’t know if divine ore is radioactive or something. Magic needs to be researched more.
After some trade deals are secured—turns out salt is still rare even in a great power of this world—there’s some time left to talk about magic. But instead, I bring up oil.
“So, there’s a resource that we use for energy called oil. It’s a black liquid, prone to explosions or spreading fire. America can’t produce enough to sustain itself, so it’d be helpful if you knew about anything like that.” Though there’s plenty of oil in America, it’s hard to get and expensive to drill. I’m sure that a fantasy world with fallen gods and no need for oil has plenty of shallow ones. Unfortunately, Yuinae and Oso didn’t seem to have anything substantial.
Even though Oso had tanks, apparently they still run on magic. Like magic crystals or whatever.
Luckily, Alseni has something that fits the description.
“Near the Rilet Canal, there’s an area that continuously spouts black liquid. It easily catches on fire and doesn’t seem to ever go out. We call it the Cursed Spring.”
Maybe it’s actually just a cursed spring, but it definitely sounds close enough! “Can we send surveyors to see if it is oil? And can we send people to drill it if it’s oil? We’ll give you something for it.”
He waves a hand. “No need for compensation. Getting rid of the black liquid that’s hindering passage through the canal is sufficient.”
In true American fashion, the rest of the time is not spent on magic or history of this world but oil drilling. What can I say, given the choice between magic or oil, America will choose oil.