A Young Woman's Political Record 36 (Patreon)

AN: Springing forward always screws up my sleep schedule. I posted this late at night and forgot to replicate it on Patreon. Sorry about that!

ooOoo

September 3, 1940

The next morning did not start off on a high note. The Francois ambassador continued to do nothing but parrot the party line that the Francois Republic was acting to restore the legitimate ruler of Ildoa to power after the rebels committed atrocities on Francois soil. The Albish ambassador, likewise, seemed not to have gotten any useful instructions from the home office. Or any instructions to be useful, at least.

"I'm afraid that we simply cannot answer hypothetical questions," Mr. Lloyd said. "As new events arise, the Allied Kingdom will evaluate the overall situation before preparing an appropriate response."

He had been in my office for some time now, using a great many words to say very little. It was clear that I wasn't going to get any sort of concrete commitment out of him. Not today.

In a way, I could understand where they were coming from. Waiting for a problem to go away was a highly energy efficient method of problem solving. They weren't the ones who would be stuck with Muzzioli as a neighbor. Even if he did try to give them trouble, the Albish fleet could cripple the Ildoan economy pretty much at will.

Ildoa was dependent on maritime trade just to keep its people fed, let alone fuel what passed for their industry. The Francois Republic was similar, if less obviously so. This little bit of adventurism wouldn't change the fact that the Allied Kingdom had the whip hand in their relationship.

It didn't seem like a great idea to me to allow this kind of aggressive military action to be rewarded, but the Allied Kingdom was entitled to make their own calculations. Of course, so was I.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Lloyd," I said, standing to show him out. "I'll await your sternly worded letter with bated breath."

Elya had watched the entire conversation with an amused look on her face. Once I had seen Mr. Lloyd off and returned to my desk, I huffed in frustration and spun around once in my chair before giving her a look.

"How's everything on your end?"

"We can take over a radio station at any time," she said, before flipping open her notebook. "However, fabricating evidence of the longstanding existence of the Carinthian People's Front will be tricky."

"Just do your best," I said. In the end, people who wanted to believe would believe, and people who didn't want to believe wouldn't believe. Our evidence only needed to be a little bit plausible. "We should kick off the uprising as soon as possible. Waiting won't do us any good."

"All right," she said, nodding cheerfully before turning to walk out the door.

I watched her go with mixed feelings. On one hand, it was nice to have such a capable subordinate. On the other hand, I wasn't sure if it was such a great idea to have her practice forming a terrorist group. Well, it was a fake terrorist group. And in the end, it was for the good of Germania. It probably wouldn't be a problem.

ooOoo

For once, everything went according to plan. Late in the evening, I had a spring in my step as I swept into the conference room where my cabinet was waiting. While the situation was still, objectively speaking, worse than it had been a mere two days ago, at least I had a plan. Everything was better when you had a plan.

"Gentlemen. And Visha. Thank you for coming," I said, approaching the large table that dominated the room. I took a roll of paper from under my arm and flipped my wrist, laying out an oversized map of Northern Ildoa for everybody to see. "The Allied Kingdom seems content to dither over the situation from afar. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that their hesitation would end as soon as we got into a scrap with the Francois."

Right now, the Francois were obviously the bad guys. They had sent troops to invade their neighbor, and had done so in violation of their own promise and the Albish ultimatum. Not to mention the sternly worded letter.

The minute I sent troops into Ildoa, though, I would be descending from the moral high ground. The new situation would be just like any old war between two powers over their neighbor's land. The question of who started it would fall by the wayside in favor of the far more important question of which side it would be in the Allied Kingdom's interest to support.

It would be even worse if we were to go straight after Parisee. Absurd as it sounded, the Allied Kingdom might even make me out to be some kind of warmonger. Even I had to admit that such an act would echo the Empire's decision to launch a full scale invasion of Legadonia following a single border violation.

In either case, I doubted the Allied Kingdom would jump into the war right away. However, I was fairly confident that they wouldn't let us win. Mr. Lloyd had never even hinted at the idea that the Allied Kingdom would be amenable to having us enforce their ultimatum on their behalf.

"And, of course, if we get bogged down in a long, destructive war, we have to worry about the commies stabbing us in the back," I continued. "Fortunately, there's good news. Mr. Zettour, if you would?"

He cleared his throat. "Early this afternoon, a group calling itself the Carinthian People's Front announced that they are leading a popular uprising to establish an independent Carinthia. They invite anybody who will oppose Muzzioli and the Francois to join them in their struggle for freedom. The announcement was repeated several times on major radio stations."

Most of the cabinet just stared blankly at him. General Lergen at least seemed to be thinking through the possibilities.

"Well, I don't think anybody loves freedom more than the good people of Germania," I said, before drawing a red felt tipped pen from my pocket. I drew on the map in front of us, following the rough outlines of disputed Ildoa from my memory. Once I was done, I labeled the new area 'Carinthia.' "General Lergen, I'll be troubling you to send our southern expeditionary force to secure Carinthia against any possible invasion."

He looked at the map, frowning in thought. As expected, he wasn't happy taking half a loaf. "Chancellor, this..."

"It is a small portion of Ildoa, I'll admit. However, Albion is just too likely to stick its nose in if we fight for the whole thing," I said. "If we limit ourselves to operations in an independent Carinthia, though, that gives them the excuse they need to stay on the sidelines."

"Very well. At least it's good defensive terrain," he said, sounding resigned. Well, he could enjoy himself drawing up invasion plans for the rest of Ildoa once things settled down.

"Good. Make sure to build up stout fortifications that the locals can use. We won't be there forever," I said, before turning to Zettour. "That reminds me. We should tell our Ildoan friends and our volunteer forces to begin withdrawing to Carinthia."

"Pulling back our volunteers won't be a problem," he said. "I'm not sure how the Ildoans will feel about the situation."

Ildoans did have a certain romantic bent to them at times. I shouldn't have been surprised that some of them would balk at the idea of retreat. Well, if they wanted to kill some Francois soldiers in a doomed last stand, it was no skin off my nose.

"Tell them that we respect their choice and admire the sacrifices they've made for their cause," I said, "but if they want the protection of Germanian arms and the support of Germanian logistics, it awaits them in Carinthia."

He nodded. I looked around the room, making sure that everybody was paying attention.

"Once the army is in place and Carinthia is de facto independent," I said, "the real test will begin. Or, I suppose, you could consider it a practice assignment."

Everybody looked a bit confused at that. It seemed the situation called for some showmanship. I flung out a hand dramatically.

"The communists are still out there, gentlemen," I said. "We're never going to beat them if we can't cut the Russy Federation down to size. As with anything else, practice makes perfect."

Just because I didn't want to spark a second Great War right now didn't mean that I intended to stay at peace with the Russy Federation forever. Even setting aside my own intentions, the commies didn't seem likely to let me enjoy a peaceful life for much longer.

I leaned forward and tapped my finger on the Carinthian nation that I had drawn on the map.

"We won't be able to bully them with our army. Not in the long term," I said. The Albish would shut anything like that down all too quickly. "But Carinthia is a small country, carved out of a poor country. Our aim should be to shape their economy, culture, and politics so that they behave how we want."

The cabinet members looked at each other for a moment. It seemed they weren't quite sure where I was going with this.

"We could offer generous loans," Mr. Klohse eventually suggested, "then threaten to cut off the money if they step out of line."

That was about the level of suggestion I had been expecting. The Empire, after all, had thought that "soft power" meant offering an ultimatum instead of jumping right to an invasion.

"Honestly, I might give that a passing grade, but only barely," I replied. "Ideally they should come to believe that what's good for us is good for them, so that doing what we want feels like their own idea."

Keeping a nation in line by threatening them with bankruptcy was less disastrous than keeping them in line with the threat of invasion, but not by much. It created nearly as much resentment, and it stopped working if the country you were threatening ever grew prosperous. Or if another nation came along to pick up the tab.

"Direct investment certainly will play a role. Technical advisors. Military advisors. But it goes beyond that," I said. "Newspapers, radio, movies, television. If we try to force them to become Germanian, they will rebel. If we make it seem like fun, they'll do it themselves."

I'd been pleasantly surprised to discover that Germania had a reasonably successful domestic movie industry. Unfortunately, the dominant styles weren't really to my taste, but the movie studios seemed to do well enough. It helped that these days the oceans provided at least a little bit of protection from Hollywood.

Eventually, the Americans would wash all of our cultural efforts away in a tide of blue jeans and rock and roll. Still, we could benefit in the meantime from exerting ourselves. Especially when our competition was in the form of petty tyrants and communists.

"An interesting idea," Zettour said.

"While the overall initiative will be directed by a team in Minister Zettour's office, I want everybody to pitch in on this," I said. "At the very least, submit ideas, but I would like to see some cross-departmental staffing as well."

The meritocratic legacy of the Empire was usually a positive, but it could sometimes lead to overspecialization and an aversion to risk taking. I was hoping I could shake things up a bit and promote the development of some new ideas. I'd make sure to check in on them from time to time in order to make sure they didn't go too crazy.

"This will be a challenge, but I'm confident we will succeed," I said. "After all, if we can't bend Carinthia to our will, we'll never be able to do anything with Kieva."

ooOoo

September 13, 1940

The army was able to move down into Carinthia without much fuss. The Northern Ildoans saw us as their allies, after all. There was a bit of confusion when our troops said they were there to safeguard a free Carinthia, but once they explained that they were there to fight against the Francois army, the locals were happy to get out of the way and let them get on with it.

The locals did not seem to be particularly gung ho for Carinthian independence. Elya did report a steady trickle of recruits, helpful in making the Carinthian People's Front at least look like a real organization when viewed from afar, but overall the people in the area seemed to prefer a sort of wait and see attitude. That started to change as the Francois smashed their way down the Po Valley. An army that's five hundred miles away could be ignored. An army that covered half that distance in less than a week tended to focus the mind.

The performance of the Francois army was impressive. No two ways about it. Although the main army of the free Ildoans was fighting in the south, they did have some reserves back in the north. It was their home territory, after all. They also had some fortifications from the early days of the civil war that they were able to use to anchor quickly-built defensive lines facing west. None of it mattered.

Several hundred tanks were front and center as the armored spearhead leading the charge for the Francois. They rolled right over many of the improvised barriers, barely slowing down. When they were faced with a more formidable obstacle, it would soon be swarmed under by a massive wave of Francois mages. The infantry was largely relegated to clean up duty.

The rapid advance meant that the Francois captured a lot of Ildoan rolling stock and was able to use it over relatively intact train tracks. This in turn let them keep the pace up even as they moved deeper into Ildoan territory. It was the living embodiment of General Lergen's theory of a lightning war. He must have been terribly frustrated to see somebody else get the credit for using the idea first.

Whether motivated by General Lergen's ire or the usual sense of professionalism, the Germanian army worked quickly as well. Our army corps of engineers had learned from the construction efforts at the World Cup, and kept a decent quantity of useful precast concrete on hand. Naturally, they could also supply molds to the concrete factories, so that those initial stocks were supplemented by a steady flow of new material rolling south to meet our army on the new border. Dragon's teeth, barbed wire, mines, and easy-build pillboxes soon guarded every conceivable road that a tank could use to drive into Carinthia.

The border guard force was equipped with a disproportionate amount of anti tank and anti air guns. They also had four of our seven mage battalions. Honestly, it was a little nerve-wracking. With our other three mage battalions tasked to the border with the Francois Republic, our heartland was nearly bereft of magical forces. Not that any enemy mages should have a chance to reach us without passing through the areas protected by our mages, but it still felt very uncomfortable.

We also shifted aircraft into Carinthia as we were able to rig up provisional air bases for them. The Francois hard largely left their airplanes at home, most likely to simplify their logistical issues, so to be useful our aircraft would have to get relatively low and attack their ground units. Not an easy mission in the face of their great mass of mages, but it would be better to have the option and not need to use it than to need it and not have it.

The last of the first round of border defenses were up within a week of our arrival in the country. That was more or less when the free Ildoan army began to trickle into Carinthia. In the long run, we would have to integrate them into the border defenses. For now, though, we just made sure to provide temporary barracks so they would have a place to stay. With all the fighting they'd been doing, most of them were happy to take a break.

The first Francois units reached the border two days later. It was actually that first contact that had brought Elya to my office with a report.

"News from the front," she said, waving an envelope triumphantly. "A Francois mage battalion tried conducting a reconnaissance in force. The Second Aerial Mage Battalion wiped them out."

"Wiped them out?" I echoed, surprised, as I took the envelope from her.

I expected our mages to be better, one on one, than the Francois forces. They had better orbs and better training. Still, it was rare for an aerial battle to end in a complete wipeout. Mages were too tough, and too mobile. Especially in a battle that started at numerical parity. The Francois mages must have gotten overconfident after two weeks of easy advances and done something stupid.

I pulled out the report and gave it a quick read. As I did, I could feel my eyebrows climbing higher and higher at the sheer waste of human resources.

It seemed the Francois battalion had been integrated, racially, though this was hardly a sign of social progress. Instead of being organized into platoons and companies, it seemed that each Francois mage had been given command of between three and eight African mages. The Francois mages had performed largely as expected: they showed notable improvement since the last war, but still fell well short of our standard. The Africans, though, had turned in a dire performance. They were barely able to break a hundred miles per hour, struggled to maneuver at all, and seemed to be pushed to their limit just to hold up a shield and fly at the same time.

The Francois mages used their African companions something like ablative armor. They would fire from behind their subordinates' shields and didn't hesitate to send the Africans forward to buy time while they escaped. Such tricks were useless before well trained mages wielding the Type 99, of course. In the end, our forty mages were up against six mediocre opponents and thirty practice targets.

"Elya,” I asked, “how much mathematical education do the Francois give to their colonial subjects in Africa?"

She laughed, until she realized I was serious. "Counting, addition and subtraction. Perhaps multiplication, if the teacher really takes a shine to them."

I shook my head and passed the report back over to her. "Take a look at this."

Magical combat demanded a fairly solid background in mathematics. One of the reasons I had never run into another pre-teen soldier was that it was rare for somebody so young to master the math needed to fly and fight. The Empire didn't draft mages until they were old enough that such mathematical proficiency could be presumed. The choice I had faced was to enlist as soon as possible in order to obtain a posting at the rear or to wait and hope the war was over before I was old enough to be drafted. I still thought I had made the right choice, if not for Being X's meddling.

Anyways, if you took somebody with A or B class potential but no mathematical knowledge whatsoever and put him through a crash course on magical combat, the result would look a lot like what was described in that report. It seemed the Francois had resorted to desperate measures in order to bulk out their magical forces. It had a certain logic to it. Even a poorly trained mage was essentially a super soldier when it came to storming fortifications, especially when you brought a big group of them together.

Still, the long term cost was staggering. A well trained aerial mage was not the most destructive component of a nation's military force, but it was probably the most valuable. Almost anything the army wanted to do was easier with aerial mages along. To throw that future potential away in pursuit of a temporary advantage was short-sighted in the extreme.

"Hmm," Elya said. "Suddenly, fighting a thousand mages doesn't seem so bad."

"We probably ought to take out as many of them as we can now, so the Francois don't have time to train them to a higher standard," I said. "I'm not sure we can, though, not without invading Ildoa."

Taking out hundreds of half-baked mages now would mean that we didn't have to face hundreds of front line mages in the future. I felt a little bad about it, but I wasn't the one who had decided to throw unprepared soldiers onto the battlefield. The tricky part would be doing it while maintaining the moral high ground from the Albish perspective.

"Well, we might not have to worry about them getting too much training," Elya replied. "After all, the Francois want to keep the whip hand over their colonies when all is said and done."

I would have liked to find comfort in Elya's reasoning, but her theory would only hold true as long as the Francois thought they could have their cake and eat it, too. In a war of survival they would be willing to give up on their colonies and do everything they could to kill our soldiers. Well, I could shove this problem off on somebody else for the moment.

"Let's see what General Lergen thinks," I said. "I have to tug on his leash sometimes to hold him back, but I don't intend to meddle while troops are in the field."

"All right," she said, taking a note. "There was one other thing."

"Oh?"

"It's about the recruiting for the Carinthian People's Front," she said, sounding slightly sheepish.

"I thought you already had enough people?"

As far as I had known, we already had an organization that would withstand casual scrutiny from foreign intelligence agencies. It wouldn't withstand serious scrutiny, but that was never the goal.

"The problem is the other way around," she said. "Way too many people want to join. We can only fit so many people in a covert army. I had a few ideas for you to consider."

"Is one a new political party?" I asked. She replied with a nod. "That should be the way to go. They need to get organized politically, anyway. Send the normal people to the political party and keep the crazies occupied with busywork for their covert army."

It was a time honored tradition for this kind of people's movement to have a public face and a covert arm. The political party would, of course, deny all ties to the violent extremists of the Carinthian People's Front, but everybody would pretty much know the score. It would be good to have a safe place for the well-adjusted patriots to go to in order to express their support for a free Carinthia without forcing them to rub elbows with the nutjobs who wanted to participate in politics by shooting people.

The strategy wasn't that different from my initial plan for the Germanian Workers' Party in terms of trying to isolate the crazy people. This time I was pretty sure it would work out, since the lunatics would be sequestered into an actual terrorist group instead of a real political party.

"All right," Elya said. She took a few notes and headed back to her desk.

Less than an hour later, Elya came running back into my office.

"The Francois want to talk!" she said. "They've asked for a peace conference with the Allied Kingdom acting as a mediator."

They'd grabbed everything they could and now they wanted peace. It was a cheap trick. Unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to call them out on it. Looked like we wouldn't get the chance to whittle down their mages after all.

I was heartened by the fact that the Albish would be mediating. The Francois probably wanted to put the fix in by having their buddies in the role of an ostensibly neutral third party, but I was happy for anything that put distance between the Francois Republic and the Allied Kingdom. I was still irritated that Ildoa had been snatched right out from under my nose, but if the end result was to move the Allied Kingdom into an alliance with us, or even genuine neutrality, that would be quite a consolation prize.

ooOoo

September 20, 1940

The peace conference would be held in Londinium. Unlike the last conference on the fate of Ildoa, this time the attendees would be diplomats rather than political leaders. We were quite close to all out war, after all, so for me or de Lugo to leave our countries would be unthinkable. Accordingly, I sent Foreign Minister Zettour over with a strict set of instructions. Our bottom line was our bottom line, but otherwise he was to be generous in trading away our negotiating points. The important thing was to look like the most reasonable person in the room.

I had faith that he would do a good job. He had always been a calm, rational man, even as the Great War became increasingly desperate. He would be a fine representative of our country on the international stage.

Diplomacy took time to work itself out, though, especially in major matters like this. In the meantime, I had work of my own to do. The first big project was to ramp up our military production. We couldn't order a full mobilization, as that was tantamount to a declaration of war. However, I had a strong feeling that the Francois Republic wasn't looking for a lasting peace, but for more of a cease fire while it consolidated its gains. Therefore, it behooved us to do as much as we could to prepare for war to come within a year or so.

We were in a decent spot to ramp up production. The latest production fighter, the Funke-Wuertz 190, had finally had the kinks worked out and had started rolling off the assembly lines last month. According to General von Richtoffer, it was an excellent fighter aircraft that could also be kitted out as a decent dive bomber or ground attack plane. He was optimistic that it could remain the mainstay of our air force until we reached the jet era.

On the army side of things, the fifty ton tank was also starting to enter service. It only accounted for five percent of our tank fleet at the moment, but the army was confident that it was better than any tank our enemies would have in service for the next year or so and would at least remain a viable platform for another two years after that.

General Lergen had also settled on a standard truck design two years ago, so our motor park was down to about twenty different models of truck in active use. All the new ones were the same, at least. As far as I was concerned, we’d always be able to find a use for more trucks. Moving people, moving anti-aircraft guns, moving whatever needed moving. We weren’t particularly close to a horseless army, but I wanted to keep moving in that direction.

With two cutting edge designs recently entering production, our assembly lines were of course running flat out. With the looming war, though, I had no compunction about signing off on the creation of several brand new assembly lines. I also made sure to introduce Anton Ehrlich to the army's logistics department. The man had been going a bit stir crazy once the People's Car assembly line had reached a steady, efficient state, and I thought he could provide some insight on the mass production of military equipment.

One general did suggest that we stop producing the People's Car in order to focus on military production, but I shut that idea down. As long as we could buy steel on the world market, we'd just be hurting ourselves by cutting production of the People's Car. We made a profit on every unit, after all. We'd also seen a major increase in orders from the Unified States since the World Cup. This would be a terrible time to cut production. We needed to make as much money as possible before the fad finally faded away.

The other major preparatory move came in the form of recruitment. Most notably of pilots, but more generally the military would start hiring anybody who showed any interest in a specialization that required a heavy training commitment. When war came we'd have to expand our army from four hundred thousand men to four million. Basic infantry could be trained up quickly, but there were a lot of little things that needed doing that could only be done by somebody with real training. Having those people in place ahead of time would help the army expansion go much more smoothly.

A more minor matter, but near and dear to my heart, was the formation of the Magical Civil Defense Corps. Made up of Great War veterans and any A or B class mages who were unable or unwilling to go through the Academy, it was an all volunteer force that would bolster our magical defenses. They went through a basic two week introductory training and monthly weekend refreshers, and were issued whatever orb they were most comfortable using. They'd never be used to capture any enemy positions, but in the case of war they'd give us the depth of magical defense that had been sorely lacking during the Ildoan crisis.

The last personal project came to me one afternoon in the form of a courier from the Foreign Ministry. Elya had taken a few days off to go down to Carinthia and sort out her projects down there, so I was handling my own mail. I took the envelope the courier was offering, giving him a questioning look in return.

"This is the plan for the food shipments to the Akitsushima Empire," he said. "As well as a sample of the propaganda that will be included."

I opened it up and took a look. Only years of political experience kept me from giving a visible wince. In fairness, it wasn't the worst translation that I'd ever seen. If we'd had the Internet, though, it definitely would have become a meme.

Also, the whole thing was one big block of text. They'd at least included a picture of the Germanian flag at the top, but the average Akinese citizen was only going to give this thing a quick glance before they threw it away.

"Ah, I actually know somebody who should look this over," I said. "They might have some suggestions."

"We had a leading scholar at the University of Berun draft the message," he replied. Apparently he wasn't just a messenger boy.

"Even so, the Chancellor's office does have access to some special resources," I said.

That seemed to remind him of the status difference between us, as he snapped almost to attention. "As you say, Chancellor."

With that, he left the room. I took another look at the propaganda leaflet and sighed. Then I took a look at the food loadout. That... was a lot of wheat flour. That was probably the cheapest and easiest to transport form of calories available. Still, I wasn't completely sure that the average Akinese citizen would know what to do with it. I certainly wouldn't.

I stood and walked over to the door leading to Visha's office. Peeking inside revealed that she was buried in paperwork. She had taken on the task of managing most of the political fallout from recent events. She had done a good job, but it looked like it was taking a toll on her, judging by the bags under her eyes. I just watched her work for a moment, wondering if I should interrupt. The choice was taken from me when she looked up and realized I was there.

"Ah," she said, surprised. "Chancellor. Can I help you?"

"I wanted to get a copy of the recipe for those dumplings you made last night," I said, "but I don't want to impose."

"No, no," she said. "I could use the break. Yesterday was semmelknödel, so the recipe is easy."

With that, she pulled out a blank sheet of paper and started to write. I had expected her to pull out a cookbook to give to me, but it seemed she had the recipe memorized. I might have been making her cook too often. Really, though, specialization of labor was a basic tenet of a capitalist society. She cooked, I washed the dishes, and we both enjoyed a more efficient evening together.

She didn't take long to finish. I took the recipe from her and looked it over, only to stop on the first ingredient: bread crumbs. "Ah, could I get a recipe for bread as well?"

"Oh, are you cooking tonight?" she asked, sounding slightly alarmed.

I crossed my arms over my chest. "What if I am?"

She let the question linger and focused on writing out the recipe. Once again, it didn't take long for her to finish. She cleared her throat as she handed it over.

"Um, I just remembered," she said, "I'm having dinner with Weiss to talk about some changes to the training program, so I might be home a little late."

Rather than dignify that with a response, I looked over the recipes I had in hand. Seeing ingredients that would either be in the food delivery or should be readily available locally, I nodded, satisfied. Looking up, I saw that Visha still had an apologetic expression on her face. I just clicked my tongue, shook my head, and left the room.

Honestly, I had lived alone as a bachelor for years. I was perfectly capable of preparing delicious food. It wasn't my fault that this stupid world didn't have cup noodles yet.

I packed up and let the girl at the front desk know that I would be out for the rest of the day. That done, I headed outside and walked around for a while in downtown Berun before finding a secluded area and applying a magical disguise. I then had to be a little bit sneaky to make it back to the Chancellor's residence. That ought to be enough to establish that the Chancellor had gone out to visit her mysterious Akinese contact.

Eventually, I made it to my room and sat in front of a small table. Laid out before me was a blank sheet of paper and some tools that I hadn't had cause to use in some time. Pencils, a ruler, an eraser, and a fine tip pen. Hopefully this would be like riding a bike.

Like most Japanese boys, I had gone through a phase when I thought I would grow up to become a mangaka. Like almost all of those japanese boys, it had only taken me a few months to realize that such a dream was extremely unlikely to come true, and I had turned my efforts towards more fruitful pursuits. The only real evidence of that whimsical phase back in my old world was in the quality of my doodling during long meetings.

Fortunately, the 4-koma format was basically foolproof, and any idiot could make chibi characters look all right. I used the ruler to draw four boxes down the right hand side and then tapped on the table for a moment while I thought. On the one hand, this was still a battle hardened empire that had lost a war, but was by no means ready to give up on earning respect in the world through military might. On the other hand, we were about three generations away from anime body pillows becoming a big seller among their descendants.

Obviously, I would have to meet the Akinese halfway. Still, I was confident that the appeal of cuteness was universal.

First panel, a young man in a yukata wearing a conveniently labeled headband—I almost forgot to go with aki and tsu on either side of the sun, which would have been embarrassing—was menaced by a group of shadowy figures. The thugs were all wearing stereotypical fur hats and were also decorated with a hammer and sickle. Despite being surrounded, the young man obviously has no intention to back down.

Second panel, the young man was in a hospital bed. I could admit that my drawing of the cast and bandages was a little muddled, but I thought I did a good job with the rig holding his leg off the bed. He was looking up towards the window in alarm, as a sound effect indicated that somebody was breaking in.

Third panel, his childhood friend took a pratfall into the room and hopped to her feet. Why was his childhood friend obviously Caucasian? Why was she wearing a Germanian military uniform, complete with a flag patch on her arm? I would have to answer that question the same way that a professional mangaka would: it doesn't matter as long as she's cute.

In the fourth panel, she was serving him a home cooked meal. She apologized for not bringing more food, but reassured him that he's strong and will be back on his feet soon, feeling better than ever.

Once I finished with the pencils, I looked it over with a critical eye. Honestly, it was a bunch of broad cliches brought together, but that was probably for the best. Certainly, even somebody who was only picking out one word in four would be able to get the gist of the message. I tried to clean up the lines a little bit as I inked over it.

With the right half of the page full, most of the work was done. Translating Visha's recipes was straightforward, and they easily fit on the left half of the page. I did get to exercise a bit of creativity in decorating the recipes with doodles of Germania-chan. At the beginning, in a lecture pose. Later on, mixing ingredients. Finally, presenting the finished product, so they'd have some idea what it should look like.

Did Germania-chan have a visible canine tooth? Please, as if I would leave any visual cliche unexplored.

Admittedly, the whole thing was far from an inspired work. But at least it wouldn't be a complete embarrassment.

ooOoo