Cent. Calendar 11/06/1639, Ragna, Gra Valkas Empire, 10:30

“Disappointing.”

In unison with a heart-stinging remark from a middle-aged man was the sound of papers and documents hitting the hardwood surface of the table at breakneck speed. The utter disappointment of the man reflected not only in the pruny creases of his unimpressed face but also on the similarly dismayed faces of four other men sitting next to him. Their formal suits were as sharp as their displeased gazes and were a testament to their positions in power. These men were part of the Imperial Council, the highest body of power in the Gra Valkas Empire. Not only did they occupy the most coveted seats in the government, but they were also the heads of the titanic corporations that made up the egregiously massive military-industrial complex of Gra Valkas. Further still than either of these intimidating positions, they were part of the masterminds of the reignition of militarization in the empire–the pro-martial conspirators.

Standing before them were the chiefs of staff, also part of the conspiracy. Just months prior, they were tasked with one simple objective: a display of national power by means of subjugating a nearby recognized power. This culminated in the mobilization of tens of thousands of men and resources, which were to be the main dish that followed the appetizer that was the Pagandan diplomatic crisis. Dubbed Donnerschlag, the chiefs of staff envisioned it to be the grandiose spectacle that showed Asherah what the pinnacle of Gra Valkan power looks like by crushing and conquering Leifor in one day. With the blessing of the rest of the conspirators came high expectations, and when Donnerschlag under-delivered...

“You Spasti! You promised Leifor would fall in a single day!”

“But it did–”

“No! The federal government in Leiforia did! The other regions didn’t heed the federal government’s surrender!”

There was little breathing room. The chiefs of staff looked at one another as they sweated bullets in front of their enraged co-conspirators. They, too, understood the horrible position that their forces were currently in. With only a single mechanized division entrenched in the capital, the bulk of Leifor’s armed forces scattered across the massive country, a force in the hundreds of thousands which, while temporarily paralyzed due to the loss of their chain of command, was still mostly intact. Given the opportunity, they can easily push the meager 14,150-strong force of the 47. Panzergrenadier-Division back into the ocean. Due to the relatively small amount of manpower that they could muster in the months leading to yesterday, the primary objective of Donnerschlag was to force a nationwide capitulation by means of deception–giving the Leiforians the impression that an overwhelmingly powerful Gra Valkan invasion was underway and that there was no point in resistance. Unfortunately, while the operation succeeded in forcing the federal government to capitulate, the planners have failed to take into account that Leifor is a federal state, wherein the regions possess a strong sense of individuality and enjoy a high degree of autonomy. As such, it was reasonable for them to refuse to recognize the surrender when they were hardly touched by the Gra Valkan war machine. Everyone in the room knows what that entails for their comparatively weak hold on the Leiforian occupation.

The Army Chief of Staff stepped forward, hoping to defuse the heat that was starting to come to a boiling point. Fortunately for them, the Army had prepared a contingency in the event that Donnerschlag failed to achieve satisfying results.

“With all due respect, I think it’s too early to conclude failure.”

The councilmen looked at him with dubious eyes, their glares ever piercing and unyielding. However, their faces relaxed a bit as hints of hope for success surfaced.

“As we speak, elements of the Panzerarmee Leiforia are unloading at the ports of Leiforia and at makeshift ones our engineers had built. While the carrier task forces from both Paganda and Irnetia have moved in after securing the surrender of their respective nations, the bulk of the Army Air Service is also en route to Leiforia.”

The councilmen were still unimpressed, and one of them leaned in with a skeptical look.

“So? What does more men and resources on the Mu continent entail?”

Unfazed, the Army Chief of Staff turned his back on the councilmen and walked towards the slide projector behind him. When it turned on, a light came out from the objective lens of the slide projector, casting an enlarged image of the first slide that was inserted in the slide tray onto the white wall facing the chiefs of staff and the councilmen. What was cast was a map of Leifor’s remaining unsurrendered regions, known surviving Leifor Army units colored in red, and then Imperial Gra Valkan Army and Navy units colored in blue. With the attention of the councilmen firmly hooked towards the projection, the Army Chief of Staff turned to face them once more.

“I have here a plan to systematically subjugate the unsurrendered regions of Leifor by means of intelligence gathering, posturing, diplomatic pressure, and lastly, combat maneuvers. This is to wedge a rift in between the regional governments, sowing discord, using strongman tactics to force them to surrender, and using overwhelming airpower coupled with superior intelligence to search and destroy Leiforian forces. A complete subjugation of the entirety of Leifor can be expected in as little as a month, two if faced with drawbacks.”

The councilmen were impressed and enticed. Striking their beards as they looked at one another with raised eyebrows and fulfilling expressions, they couldn't help but listen more to what the Army Chief of Staff had to say.

“Go on...”

“Meine Herren, I present to you, Unternehmen Doppelschlag.”

Cent. Calendar 12/06/1639, Tokyo, Japan, 6:30

With the swift conquest and subjugation of the Kingdom of Paganda and Irnetia, coupled with the decapitation of Leiforian leadership, the entirety of the Mu continent was in turmoil, reeling from the shock of the Gra Valkan attack and subsequent victories. What once was a mysterious nation to the west that warranted little attention due to its obscurity became the center of attention overnight. The extremely quick defeat of Leifor, a nation whose power is known and recognized all throughout the known world, rang alarm bells in places as far as the Holy Mirishial Empire. The violence of Gra Valkas’ rise to prominence overshadowed similar developments occurring in the far east, where the exploits of a nascent nation by the name of Japan were about to earn the ire of the local power, the Parpaldian Empire.

Physically far from the scenes of chaos that continue to erupt in the Rodenius continent, following the obliteration of Lourian administrative and military cohesion by Japan’s Operation Zanzibar, the Japanese capital was by no means far removed from the consequences of such a daring move. The administration was under extreme heat and pressure from the rest of the government and the people for its actions in the Lourian theater. Following decades of obstinate adherence to a policy of strict peace and non-belligerence, Prime Minister Takamori single-handedly dismantled Japan’s pacifist reputation in a single day with the greenlighting of a bombing of the Lourian sovereign. While the legality of the strike remains to be debated hotly throughout the nation, the resounding consensus agreed that it was a blatant belligerent action by Takamori–a step that was too far out of line.

Compounding the still pervading economic crash, food crisis, widespread blackouts, and so on was renewed anger by the populace against what they perceived was a warmonger leading Japan back to open militarization. On top of already routine unrest in the capital due to homelessness, food shortages, unemployment, and so on were protests centered on government buildings in Kasumigaseki in the heart of Tokyo. The worst of these protests was occurring at the Ministry of Defense, where an angry mob was trying to storm through the main gate, only to be pushed back by countless cans of tear gas and jets of cold, pressurized water from metropolitan police water cannons. Having sneaked into the compound via a designated path for government employees, Matsumoto Akira was beholden to a view of the mob repeatedly pushing against the stressed reinforced steel of the main gate, like a relentless tsunami repeatedly crashing on a dike. From where he was in the building, he could hear the resounding, rhythmic chants of protestors crying out in disenchanted unison.

“OKADA, RESIGN! OKADA, RESIGN!”

A chill ran down Matsumoto’s broad back.

Never before was he a witness to a protest so violent. Then again, they all had never been witness to a modern Japan bombing and killing the rulers of another sovereign nation before.

As much as he shared the sentiments of the protestors, his job urged him to look away, and his heart beckoned him to ignore their cries. Past the spine-chilling cries of protestors being silenced by the gushing of pressurized water, he could feel the warmth of the cup of coffee he held in his hand. He looked down on it; the plastic and cardboard that held the caffeinated drink was a sight he missed, for coffee had been strictly rationed the past two months. Only after coffee successfully (and miraculously) grew in Qua-Toynian plantations in sufficiently large quantities did they lift the rationing on coffee just last week–a sign that their efforts were boring fruit. Finally, Matsumoto thought, as the smell of caffeine tickling his nose teased him to indulge in the drink. However, this cup of 473ml of aromatic, brewed coffee was not meant for him, for written on top of the plastic cover in black marker ink were the characters for “Okada.”

Putting down his belongings on the desk that denoted him as secretary, he brought with him only the cup of coffee as he walked towards the room of his superior, Okada Masako, the Minister of Defense. As he stood in front of the door, poised to knock and then enter her office, he heard the loud sound of countless blunt objects hitting the floor from beyond the wooden door. Matsumoto’s fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, sidelining the established custom of knocking on the door first before entering, fearing for the safety of his superior.

“Minister?!”

Swinging the door open with his free left hand, Matsumoto entered the office. The simple, elegant atmosphere of the room was even more pronounced during the morning when the rays of sunlight coming from the rising sun would give the room its somber, yellow color. Disturbing the tidiness of the office was an array of books, documents, and their respective boxes scattered about one corner. In the middle of it all was the figure of a woman sitting on the floor as if she had tripped, her modestly short stature exuding an aura of weakness, compounded by the fact that she was in a pose that emanated frailty. To anyone looking, it looks as if she had tried to reach for something from the topmost shelf of the tall bookcase, the contents of which were now scattered all across the floor. To Matsumoto, the mess had to wait, for the woman was his primary concern.

“Minister! Are you alright?”

As Matsumoto kneeled down to try and ascertain if she had any injuries, he heard a faint sniff from her direction. Following this alarming sniff, the minister tried to clear her throat and answered her secretary’s concerns while turning away.

“I-I’m fine...”

Okada turned down Matsumoto’s concerns. Despite this dismissal, it was obvious to anyone that she was anything but fine, and Matsumoto refused to budge.

“With all due respect, Minister, I don’t believe that you are–”

Interrupting him mid-sentence was the loud hicc of the minister. Then, like a dam that was pushed beyond its breaking point beginning to collapse under itself, Okada’s emotional floodgates failed altogether, and out came a flood of tears and wails. Her cries, although soft, were sharp enough to pierce through the hearts of anyone that heard them. She hunched over, bringing her head down to the ground in search of something solid to cry on. Utterly shocked to silence by the raw cries of his minister, whom he viewed as a strong, no-nonsense woman, Matsumoto couldn’t help but feel disappointed in himself for failing to find the words to console his superior. He placed the still-warm cup of coffee down on the floor and crawled over to wrap his arms around the shoulders of the weeping Okada, bridging the gap between their age and position on the work hierarchy.

For this brief moment, he was not her secretary, nor was she his superior–they were people, and as a person himself, he was giving his fellow human being what love he could muster.

Boldened by this heartwarming show of support by her junior, in the midst of her crying, she sat back upright. Wiping the sea of tears that had gushed out of her now reddened eyes, Okada, in turn, mustered what strength she had to talk to Matsumoto.

“I’m sorry you had to see this, Matsumoto-kun...”

Matsumoto silently nodded in understanding. Knowing deep within her that he was capable of empathy, Okada did not wait for a verbal cue from him before continuing.

“I... I wanted to resign...”

There was a slight pause. In place of the silence that they expected to come were the distant, yet loud chorus of human voices cheering in unison outside: the protesters outside the ministry’s gates demanding for Minister Okada’s resignation.

“B-But... We were given notice by the Prime Minister not to...”

“Why?”

Wiping the tears and snot from her nose with a napkin to facilitate the flow of air through her nostrils, Okada answered.

“He said it would be a sign of weakness... That we would be giving in to the crowd when we were right in the first place...”

Okada’s whimpers changed drastically to statements filled with frustration.

“And he has a point! We are in the right! There is a legal basis for the decapitation strike on Louria! It’s justified!”

Matsumoto tightened his firm grip on Okada’s shoulders to get her to relax on herself.

“But that baka of a Prime Minister! Can’t he be more delicate in his fucking words?! What did he think was going to happen when he downright declared, in front of the Diet, that he is inviting everyone to come at him?! We are dealing with a population that’s used to peace! It doesn’t matter that we’re in a new world, our people, customs, traditions, beliefs–they are all still the same! An abrupt change like the transfer will not get all of them to change in a snap!”

Okada covered her face as if ashamed by her straightforward comments on the Prime Minister.

“I accepted my appointment as the minister just as China was ramping up its excursions in Senkaku and our ADIZ. I thought that an incident there or in a botched interception of an airspace intrusion was the most exciting thing I would get in this career...”

Okada sank her face deeper into her hands as emotions swirling in her heart threatened to restart the flow of tears from her still reddened eyes.

Unable to come up with words that may help alleviate the pain from her, Matsumoto could only bend his head down on Okada’s small back. The warmth of Matsumoto’s presence behind her was magnified by the wrapping embrace of his arms on Okada’s entire body. Feeling the physical envelopment of her secretary’s bigger arms, she was touched by the emotional impact of Matsumoto’s concern for her. This heartwarming gesture added volatility to the feelings in her heart, aggravating her tendency to cry once more.

However, she simply shed a single tear in gratitude for his consoling presence, and she placed her slender hands on Matsumoto’s to show her appreciation for his efforts.

“Thank you, Matsumoto-kun.”

Even as the sound of water cannons gushing through the screams and chants of protesters calling for Okada’s resignation echoed throughout the room, the two simply sat there, cherishing the warmth the other provided, as time and space seemingly came to a halt.

Port of Myhark, Qua-Toyne, 10:00

Detached from the chaos happening elsewhere across the world, the citizens of Qua-Toyne, Fenn, Quila, and other periphery countries move about conducting their businesses in the port city of Myhark. Despite their cultural differences and the general friction between the different races, they all agreed that money makes the world go round, as noted in their nonchalant intermingling with one another, as if the racial barriers and inevitable misunderstandings that had doomed their respective nations to a status quo of indifference had never been present. The smells of freshly mined metals and magic gems, along with the aromatic varnished wood of weapons and furniture, the putrid odors of freshly caught seafood, and the nose-tingling smell of salty air dominated the bustling port of the Qua-Toynian city.

Then, as if to interject in the chaos of scents, there was a particular whiff of something captivating and curious. Its pungency had never grazed the noses of the humans, elves, dwarves, and beastmen of the port, who were sensitive to any smell that stood out, for it could mean an entirely new product that they could haggle for. This smell, an addictive punch that utterly dominates one’s olfactory senses, was that of gasoline. When the people of the port turned their heads at the mere whiff of this alien smell, they were treated to the sounds of something rumbling, a symphony of clanking iron. There, they saw a peculiar carriage of sandy beige, one without a neighing horse pulling it from its helm, treading the sandy limestone with which the port of Myhark was built. The black, rubber wheels with which it used to move squealed as the carriage negotiated the ups and downs of the road, crushing whatever feeble stone was unfortunate enough to be in its path.

However, the people of the port were already used to the comings and goings of such alien vehicles. Around a month ago, the people of a newly emerged nation called Japan had started deploying their techno-gizmos to this quaint, seaside city in an effort to help Qua-Toyne against the megalomaniac Lourian king. Even after they had literally crushed the Lourian menace in its path in a single day, the Japanese have made it clear that they were here to stay. While the curious sight of the horseless carriages initially attracted their attention and gazes, they were no longer fazed by their rampant patrols across the city, having since become one of the normal, day-to-day happenings in Myhark.

Turning their heads back to what they were previously doing, the people of the port had resumed their businesses, ignoring the presence of the horseless carriage with which they have no relation.

Then, a loud pop.

The resounding screech of the brief pop tickled the eardrums of the people across the vicinity, unanimously pulling their gazes towards it. At the other end of the curious eyes of the Asheran onlookers was the horseless carriage coming to an abrupt stop in an almost pitiful state. One of its front wheels had seemingly collapsed on itself as if exhausted from its obligation of supporting such a clunky, heavy iron box. Then, the carriage’s doors opened, and out came a handful of human men dressed in clothes that match the color of their vehicle as if to blend in with it.

“Motherfucker!”

One of them cried out in an alien language. While the people of the port had never heard such words before, they were accustomed to the general unfamiliarity of the languages across the “barbarian” periphery since the lingua franca with which everyone used to converse with one another was Asheran common.

“Goddamned squinties and their shitass 80s crap! We may not be on fucking Earth anymore, but their fucking shit is worse than fucking China! My Made in China backscratcher has seen more abuse than this fucking heap of shit, and yet it has lasted longer!”

“No need to keep secrets from us, Evan. Backscratcher = five incher buttplug, right?”

“With all due respect, Sergeant, I have concluded, based on the damages I’ve seen here, that your heavy, plump buttocks are what has caused this failure. I recommend a thorough ass-whooping to prevent this from happening again.”

The people turned their gazes away, uninterested in the fruitless bickering of the Japanese soldiers. Unbeknownst to them, these soldiers were not from the land of the rising sun as they thought, as evidenced by the star-spangled banner of red, blue, and white on their chests.

These four men, marines under the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion of the United States Marine Corps stationed in Camp Schwab, have been deployed, together with the rest of their battalion, to Qua-Toyne as part of a gradual lessening of Japan Self Defense Force personnel deployed overseas following the controversial Operation Zanzibar. Faced with personal shame on allowing the use of force in a seemingly blatant, belligerent manner, the National Diet of Japan was keener on letting US troops do the majority of force projection rather than their own, and are currently debating on whether the deployment of Japanese troops into Qua-Toyne is still necessary. However, they were also not eager to renege on earlier commitments to their allies, so in conjunction with withdrawing much of their own, they’ve allowed the US to fill in the massive gaps, much to their dismay.

The Sergeant, Simon Williams, walked towards the rear of their recently recommissioned, just-back-from-storage Humvee to procure the spare tire fitted in its trunk. Opening the creaky cover of the trunk, a sign of its age and decrepit state, Sgt. Williams beckoned over to another one of his men.

“Hey Doc! Give me a hand!”

Hearing his name being called by his superior, Navy Corpsman Justin Clancy swung his black, dusted standard-issue M4 carbine over his back by its strap and ran over to the rear of the Humvee. Williams squeezed his gloved hands into one side of the spare tire while Clancy mirrored him on the other side.

“Three, two, one...!!!”

At the end of Williams’s timing, both men lifted the spare tire out of its snug fit in the trunk without much effort, although their soft grunting begged to differ. The spare tire was finally free, and by William’s guiding hands, it was placed upright on the sandy, limestone ground of the Myhark port.

With a single waving gesture from his hand, Williams ordered Clancy to bring the tire over to Corporal Evan Carson, the one that had examined the blown tire. As Clancy bent over to gather the necessary force to roll the heavy, girthy rubber spare tire, Williams turned to reach for the trunk’s cover to close it.

After gleefully rolling the tire over towards Carson, Clancy raised his lowered helmet, revealing a Caucasian face with his red hair riddled with sweat, which was from either from the blazing heat of the Qua-Toynian summer or from the brief workout he had just gone through. Carson, who had just finished loosening the last lug nut from the wheel with his stainless steel wrench, placed the tool aside as he wiped the endless drops of sweat flowing towards his brow with his dusty gloves. He turned his head towards the left and shouted.

“Yo, Sergeant! Where’s the jack at?”

Turning across the corner of the Humvee’s rear after having closed the trunk, Williams responded to him, his face riddled with an expression of exasperation and disappointment.

“We ain’t got no jack.”

Carson, who is about to blurt out profanity due to an endless string of bad luck, looked at Williams wearing a face of disbelief.

“What the fuck do you mean we ain’t got no jack?”

“I checked the trunk, under the seats, everywhere. We ain’t got no jack, and that’s that.”

Carson covered his face with his sand-colored gloves in exhaustion, fed up with the cards that life has dealt them.

“Motherfucker...”

Similarly exasperated yet still brimming with cheer, Clancy patted his fellow Marine on the shoulder in the hope of raising his spirits.

“Shit happens, Evan. Let’s try and–”

“Shut the fuck up with that bullshit, Doc. Can’t you see God is shitting on us? First the transfer, then this half-assed deployment on orders of those squinties. Even fucking President Woods himself championed this idea, saying, “ah well shit, y’all, we have to do our part in this trying time because fuck you!”, well fuck him! Punchable motherfucker probably sucking on the microscopic dicks of the squinties–wait, no, they’re pussies! Fuck me, I might as we–”

Before Carson could run his mouth any longer, Williams walked up to him, squatted down next to him, and placed his arm over his man’s shoulders. He then squeezed tight on Carson in an effort to physically remind him of their camaraderie as brothers, especially stronger now in this trying time. Carson stopped his ramblings, perhaps touched by his superior’s show of companionship.

“Shit happens, Evan. I hate it too, but you know what, this is exactly why we are Marines. You remember our old Platoon Commander?”

“That guy, Mr. Competent?”

“Yeah.”

“The blonde fag that got medically-discharged from the Marines after he got shot to shit by RPGs yet still called in the fire-mission and saved our asses in Afghanistan? Unlike the mentally retarded commander of Hitman-3, Mr. Superman.”

“Yeah, that guy. Come on, buddy, if our old Lieutenant Danny Walker can do that shit, then we sure as hell could too. This shit is just a blown-up tire, not some sort of fucking ambush with RPGs and shit from braindead farmers who fuck sheep.”

The three men laughed, fondly remembering the time they spent together in the heated intensity of combat over the years. Spurred on by his comrades’ encouragement, Carson wiped off every semblance of emotional fatigue in his spirit as he stood back up.

“‘Kay then. We lifting this piece of crap or what?”

Williams and Clancy looked towards the Humvee in response to Carson’s question, finding points on the vehicle’s structure where it might be possible for them to lift it. The three men silently eyed one another, mentally assigning each other which part of the vehicle they’d lift. Williams and Clancy ran over to the front of the Humvee, each of them taking position on both corners of the steel structure protruding from the center. The plan was that while Carson changed the tire, the two of them would be lifting the vehicle. Williams looked over to Clancy, who was already looking back at him and nodded as a sign that they were about to start. At this signal, the two men spread their legs outwards as they bent over to grab the structure.

“Three, two, one...!!!”

At the end of Williams’s count, the two men promptly flexed their back muscles as they attempted to raise the Humvee’s front. Still, despite their impressive effort in trying to raise the vehicle, they could only raise it by a meager three centimeters, and after five straight seconds of grueling, extreme weightlifting, the two men simultaneously let go of the Humvee. Exhausted and their muscles strained, the two men looked down in dejection as they tried to catch their breath.

“Shit’s too heavy, huh?”

Carson commented, to which Williams and Clancy responded with tired nods. He then looked back towards the Humvee and looked up at its Mk19 automatic grenade launcher. There, behind the black silhouette of the weapon, was another Marine, who looked out off into the distance from behind his dark, shaded combat goggles, unfazed by what had been happening in the past few minutes.

“Yo Manato! Get yo’ fat-ass down here, you lazy fucking twat!”

In silence, devoid of any grunt or groan, Corporal Kirigaya Manato swiveled his legs up from inside the Humvee and placed them on its roof before eventually sliding onto the ground. Picking up his strapped M249 SAW machine gun and swinging its light body towards his back, Kirigaya instantly recovered from his perfect landing and joined his squadmates in front of the Humvee.

“Alright, you go towards the front and help the others with the lifting.”

Carson ordered Kirigaya, who simply stared at him in silence from behind his tinted combat goggles and mottled balaclava. Without uttering a word, Kirigaya responded by raising his finger, pointing it off towards Carson’s left side.

“Whaddya pointing at fo–”

When Carson turned to his left after following Kirigaya’s finger, he found the figure of a tall person standing a meter away from him. The tall statue of the person was imposing and evoked a sense of awe from the Marines, who had to look up to see the person’s face. Equally, awe-evoking was the person’s features: gray, sometimes black strands of fur were growing out from all over his face, and his exposed arms, neck, and shoulders were completely covered in it. The man’s face still somewhat resembled that of a human, but his eyes were a departure from the familiar features of a humanoid eye and instead resembled more of a wolf’s. Whenever the man’s jaw parted ways, they saw two rows of sharp, canine teeth lining the innards of his mouth. According to the briefing the Marines had on this new world, Asherah, the features of this man meant he belonged to a race of humanoid individuals known as beastmen.

While the Marines stared at the tall, bulky figure of the beastman standing before them, the beastman opened his mouth and started talking, much to the surprise of the four.

“I see you Japanese are in a pinch. Even though the stories of your exploits against Louria tell of a powerful nation, it turns out that you are but mere humans yourselves. Humbling, isn’t it? I may be of help to your predicament.”

The wolfman spoke in Asheran common, which the Marines heard as pure gibberish. While they were told to generally avoid mingling with the natives, if approached, they were ordered to be on their best behavior. However, this barrier in communication meant that they could not ascertain what the wolfman’s intentions for approaching them were, and so the Marines kept their hands close to their M4 carbines in anticipation for the worst while they maintained an amicable expression on their faces. Not knowing what to do, Carson waved his hand at the wolfman.

“Hi! How do you do?”

...as he said to the wolfman in English.

Williams and Clancy struggled to hold their laughter at Carson’s hilarious attempt at cross-species communication. Kirigaya, meanwhile, stood next to them in silence, still seemingly unaffected by what was happening. Feeling insulted by his comrades’ lack of support, he turned back to them.

“Whaddya want me to say? “I come in peace”?! Wait a goddamn minute, we could radio in an interpreter, right?! Fuck! Fuck you, you gay-ass faggots!”

Thoroughly consumed by laughter, the two men continued giggling for a few seconds before slowly coming to a stop. Williams recovered first and replied to Carson.

“No need. Look.”

William pointed back to the wolfman.

When the others turned back, they saw the wolfman performing gestures, probably having realized that the Marines did not understand Asheran common. With the Marines now looking at him, the wolfman pointed towards the Humvee before pointing back to himself, and then he interlocked his fingers together and spread his legs out. He then raised his interlocked hands upwards, as if to show that he was lifting something. Seeing the gestures of the wolfman, the Marines simultaneously came to the conclusion that the wolfman wanted to lift the Humvee.

“Ahh! I get it, I get it!”

Carson then stepped aside, pointing gently towards the Humvee as he looked at the wolfman with an expression that said that he was welcome to do so. The wolfman nodded in response, acknowledging the message behind Carson’s gestures, and walked towards the front of the vehicle. The towering figure of the beastman loomed over the sandy brown vehicle. Without waiting for any cues, the beastman grabbed the Humvee’s front bumper with his right hand, and seemingly without effort, he raised the vehicle upwards. The four men looked on, their eyes and mouths wide open from awe, as the beastman nonchalantly raised the front of a nearly 5-ton vehicle with a single hand. However, they assumed that he couldn’t do this forever, and so they proceeded with changing the tire.

After Carson had taken the lug nuts out, he and Williams pulled the blown-out tire. After they pulled it aside, Clancy rolled in the spare tire, which Williams and Carson then pushed in, fitting it through the exposed lug bolts. As Williams and Clancy held the tire in place, Carson reattached the lug nuts in place by hand, tightening them as much as he could. Once he was done, Kirigaya gestured to the beastman, who was still unaffected in his lifting the Humvee, with a bow and his hands linked together in a sign of gratitude. Assuming that it means that their work was finished, the beastmen gently lowered the vehicle before letting go of its front bumper. Carson then tightened the lug nuts with his steel wrench, finishing the tire replacement as he made sure that the lug nuts were firmly in place. Clancy and Williams then carried the blown out tire back to the trunk of the Humvee.

Their work accomplished, the Marines then looked back at the beastman with smiling faces, exhilarated from seeing a fantastical beast up close.

“Goddamn... What a literal beast!”

“You mean a furry?”

“God, no! This one’s the real deal!”

“Yeah. I think we should thank the beastman for his help.”

Carson searched his person as he thought of something to give to the kind wolfman. His gloved hands then happened on the brown paper wrapper of an M&Ms packet on one of his pockets. Satisfied with himself that he found something to give as thanks, he immediately pulled the packet of chocolate candy out and handed it over to the beastman.

“Uh-ree-gah-toh! Just as they say in Japanese!”

Carson said as he waved the brown packet up towards the beastman.

Once more, assuming that this was the “Japanese” being grateful for his help, the beastman bowed as he reached out for the small yet curious knick-knack that the man was giving to him.

“I humbly accept your gesture of gratitude, Japanese soldier.”

Just as the wolfman took the M&Ms packet, Clancy’s eyes widened in shock as he realized what Carson was giving.

“Hey, HEY! This may be a different world, but chocolates are fucking poisonous to wolves!!! You fucking missed your biology and science classes or what? You fucking inbred, buck-toothed, zit-exploding hick!”

Hearing Clancy’s alarming remark, Williams immediately turned to Carson. Even if things were different in this world, he was not willing to risk a potential incident of them poisoning a native.

“Shit! Evan! Take it back!”

Instantly realizing his fuck up, Carson speedily turned to snatch the M&Ms packet from the hands of the beastman, who was already in the process of sniffing it. Confused by the soldier’s action, the beastman’s smile flipped, his face turning into an obvious sign of hostility. Carson started sweating, fearing to be on the receiving end of a powerful attack from the muscular wolfman towering over him. Just as he fumbled around his person searching for an alternative object to give to the beastman as thanks, Williams’ radio headset crackled to life.

“...Hitman-2 to Hitman 2-1 Actual. Do you read? Over.”

Hearing his superior, 1st Lieutenant Frederick Mistral’s voice over the radio, Williams promptly responded.

“This is Hitman 2-1 Actual. Send traffic, over.”

“...Requesting you and your team to head over to the market to help the squinties there–Hitman 2-2 and 2-3 are too far away, over.”

“Roger that Hitman-2, Hitman 2-1 Actual, out.”

Turning his focus back to the situation around him, Williams called out to the rest of his men as a new task awaited them.

“Alright! Mount up! We’re moving out!”

Just as Clancy, Williams, and Kirigaya ran over to enter the Humvee, Carson finally found something to hand over to the kind beastman.

“Fuck it! Guess I’m not having lunch! Here! Sorry for that!”

Producing it from his pocket, Carson handed over his beef ravioli MRE that was strapped onto his FLC vest to the beastman. Just as the wolfman took the plastic packet of the ready-to-eat meal with a curious expression, Carson darted towards the door to the driver’s seat.

Myhark City Hall, that same time

“Care to explain this?”

The powerful, piercing voice of Princess Llanfair, sovereign of the Principality of Qua-Toyne, echoed throughout the plastered, stone walls of the room. Her long, slender fingers, tipped with sharp, blue-tinted nails, were pushing down on the clean sheet of paper placed on top of the dark, wooden surface of a crisp, shiny office table imported from Japan. Sitting across the table from Llanfair on a comfortable, cushioned office chair, also imported from Japan, was a dwarven man, looking down in shame, as Her Majesty barked down on him. He was one of the members of the High Council of Qua-Toyne, the supreme ruling body empowered by the sovereign to deal with stately matters.

Afraid of meeting Llanfair’s inherently razor-sharp gaze, the dwarven man continued to look down as he whimpered in response to Her Majesty’s question.

“E-Explain w-w-what...?”

Llanfair bent over, her face seething with the hot aura of raw annoyance, kept in check by her own patience.

“This document...”

“Y-Y-Yes...?”

“Why did you sign this?”

On the clean piece of paper was a list of terms written in Asheran common with a scribble of curves inked by pen on top of an empty, horizontal line below the terms.

“W-W-Why not?”

Bam!

“Eeek!”

The dwarven man screamed as, for a split second, Llanfair’s patience failed, momentarily releasing her pent-up fury, which manifested in her hand slamming the office table.

“This document! It’s riddled with... with... heinous terms! Are you seriously giving the Japanese tax exemptions?! FULL rights to the structures they’ve built, along with the land they’re built on?! And what’s this: NO tariffs on incoming Japanese products?! What in Astarte’s name are you thinking?!”

Llanfair’s barking permeated throughout the entirety of the room, presumably even past the thick walls that give them what little privacy to conduct their discussion. The dwarven man sank further into his cushioned seat as he cowered in front of his monarch.

“B-B-But...!!! This is the least we could do for what they did! They’ve also been kind in letting us get a cut from the sales they’re making from their businesses here–”

“How much...?”

Cutting in on the dwarven man’s excuses, Llanfair then stared at him with her ever-lording eyes, her hands already swirling with wind magic from the sheer rage building up in her. The dwarven man hesitated to answer her.

“T...”

“What?!”

“Twenty percent...”

BAM!

“Eeek!”

No longer capable of holding her anger, Llanfair raised her left hand upwards, and using her powerful wind magic, blew open a massive, gaping hole on the wall to her left. The powerful gust of wind flew out from the palm of her left hand, pulverizing the stone and plaster on the wall that stood in its path, blowing their smithereens out into the city on the other side. Unsatisfied with this subconscious show of fury, Llanfair then grabbed the dwarven man by the collars on his cotton office shirt, also imported from Japan.

“YOU SOLD YOUR PEOPLE AND LAND OUT FOR A TWENTY PERCENT CUT?!”

Fearing his ruler’s powerful wind magic being directed at him, the dwarven man tried to defend himself.

“T-T-That twenty percent is still more than what we could make on our own! It’s no doubt that they also have the power to back their terms!”

“They’re extraordinarily cautious! They will not lift a finger in such cases!”

“That doesn’t matter! Everyone has seen what they did to Louria! For the sake of preserving their interests, they literally toppled one of the more powerful nations in the region! In less than a day with only a handful of men, mind you! No one wants to go against them! Ask the other council members who signed this!”

Llanfair’s grip on the dwarven man’s collar loosened as she once again realized how powerful the Japanese were. Despite seeing their timidness firsthand, they were undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with once they lifted their self-restraint. Furthermore, everyone has seen the results of what they had done to Louria. The long, proud dynasty of the Lourian kings was forever shattered, and what was once a formidable kingdom of 15 million was now reduced to countless independent but weak territories. In spite of their expectations that the territories would devolve into endless fighting, most of them refrained from warring with another and endured each others’ existence, kept in line by the watchful eye of Japan, whose intimidating presence in Jin-Hark, now a neutral territory, made sure that no one rocked the boat. She felt the futility of fighting back and then soon, regret; regret from ever calling the Japanese to their side.

Before long, Llanfair let go of the dwarven man’s collar, as her rage was steadily replaced by despair. She could not hope to stand out alone against the mammoth that was Japan, looming over their heads with its undeniably powerful economic and military arms, ready to punish those that dare oppose it. However, she wasn’t one to stand by and ignore her people as they are perverted by the terms written on the document.

The idea of protesting the document to her ‘confidant’, Ambassador Kuribayashi, came to mind. She immediately entertained it in her desperation to fight the aggressive moves of their “ally” and stormed out of the room with the document in hand.

Murikabushi Telescope, Ishigakijima Astronomical Observatory, Okinawa, Japan, 18:30

After the sun had dipped below the long horizon to the west on an eventful day, an observatory located on the island of Ishigaki in Okinawa prefecture opened the shutters on its rotating dome, revealing the Murikabushi optical telescope inside. The rotating dome then began moving along the azimuth towards the south as the main telescope itself swiveled, arriving at a low altitude just above the horizon. Its 105cm optical mirror pointed to a curious bright-line spanning the length of the horizon and positioned just above it.

One of the astronomers working at the observatory was manning one of the computers, waiting for the telescope to finish capturing images of the long, bright-line spanning the entirety of the low, southern sky. As the raw images from the telescope finished loading, his eyes widened at what he saw.

“No way...”

He moved closer to the screen, adjusting his posture and moving his office chair towards the computer. Examining the images further, what he saw was no longer the single, homogenous white line he saw with his naked eye. Reflected in the images, contrasting behind the dark evening sky, were countless rocks of varying sizes, brightness, colors, and shapes. He and his colleagues, along with the rest of the astronomical community, already knew what to expect, but this direct observation was still surprising, for it was evidence of what they had hypothesized.

“This world, Asherah... has a ring!”

The astronomer said out loud in a euphoric tone as if he had stumbled on his eureka moment. He continued to take pictures as he examined the ring in greater detail, gathering more data on the ring and its structure, composition, and other particulars.

Cent. Calendar 13/06/1639, Esthirant, Parpaldian Empire, 2:15

“Dear gods...”

The horrified mumble of Kaios silently dispersed into the hot air that filled his office. It was already past midnight, and he was still at his workplace in the Third Foreign Affairs Department. Fortunately, he was now finished with his report on the attack on Jin-Hark that had dismantled the Lourian regime, which he would then present to His Highness, Emperor Ludius, and the others. However, there remained the problem of explaining the contents of his report, which contained information he himself found difficult to digest. Still, the information he collected, which he scrutinized with painful detail and cross-referenced with whatever data he could parse from eyewitness statements, military reports, and documents from the intelligence bureau, pointed to a conclusion he found unsavory.

It wasn’t palatable to either him or his superiors, but it nevertheless had to be reported. They had to know, for the empire had found itself a new competitor for regional dominance.

“Damn it... What’s going on with this world...”

As he clutched his head, which was aching from sleepless nights on end, he felt the warm, tickly touch of his companion’s furry body rubbing against his arm. His cat, Yvonne, was gently rubbing itself on Kaios, presumably because it was hungry. Kaios looked over to Yvonne, and a grin erupted on his face as if his troubles had never existed.

“Aw... Come here.”

Standing up from his cushioned, wooden stylized chair, he gently picked Yvonne up and allowed the feline to purr as it continued to rub against his cotton clothing.

“Let’s get you something to eat.”