March 1, 1929. St. Petersburg, Ruthenia Empire. Winter Palace.

At Alexander’s office, Alexander was sitting behind the desk and performing his duties as usual.

A knock on the door interrupted him.

“Come in,” Alexander called.

“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” a voice belonging to Sevastian sounded behind the door.

He strode across his office, clutching thick files over his chest, and sat in the chair in front of Alexander’s desk.

“Your Majesty, I have compiled the intelligence the Foreign Intelligence Services has gathered from each great power. I have sifted through the file to ease you of the burden of reading them all. That said, I have a report to make.”

“Good, I have been waiting for so long to know what’s happening in the great powers while we are focusing on improving ourselves from all aspects,” Alexander leaned back to his chair, his hands behind his head.

Yesterday, just as Sevastian was about to leave his office to carry out his duties placed by Alexander, Alexander stopped him and added another.

“Reach out to the Foreign Intelligence Services and find out the development happening on each great power.”

Those were the words spoken by Alexander yesterday before Sevastian took his leave. As a National Security Advisor, he complied with the order and made his way to the headquarters of the Foreign Intelligence Services, and worked all night to summarize the reports.

And now he is prepared to report his findings.

“Your Majesty, it’s going to be long so please bear with me,” Sevastian said.

“I’m used to hearing long reports, so there’s nothing for you to worry about. Begin when you are ready,” Alexander said.

“Then, I will proceed, Your Majesty,” Sevastian opened the file and started speaking.

Five years ago, the Ruthenia Empire was once a backtracked and underdeveloped nation under the autocratic rule of the Romanoff Family. Despite its huge swathes of land, it was considered poor among the Europan nations who are thriving unprecedentedly through industrialization.

But all of that changed when Thomas Harrier, a man from another world, woke up in the body of the crown prince of the Ruthenia Empire, and from that, he started changing everything from technology to bureaucracy. Transforming the Ruthenia Empire into a major power that the existing one respects.

However, the great powers in Europa and across the Atlantic won’t stand idly at the prospect of the Ruthenia Empire becoming the sole global superpower. The reason it’s starting to dethrone the top empires in the world is due to the ingenious inventions of civilians and military technology that greatly increased its economy by leaps and bounds.

To counter that, all great powers, starting from Alexander crowned as the Emperor of Ruthenia invested in their own research by reverse engineering Ruthenia technology and observing the weapons of war they are using against the Yamato Empire.

From their research alone, they found out that the Ruthenia Empire industry is ahead of time and that they have no infrastructure to catch up with them. They even tried to send spies to Ruthenia to gather crucial intelligence but all efforts were thwarted by the Ministry of Interior of the Ruthenia Empire.

Having no chance to steal the blueprint of their precious technology, they opted on observing how the technology works, especially the ones made for the military. Ruthenia is strict when it comes to exporting military technology to other countries, making them only sell technology that they deemed inferior to their current ones. Of course, the inferior military technology was deemed state-of-the-art by the great powers as it implemented new designs that outmatched their current ones.

This is the point where they realized they are really behind in military technology but an opportunity arises when the Rutho-Yamato War happened. New military vehicles, aircraft, and warships were used in the efforts of winning the war. Allowing military correspondents of each great power to study and observe how it fairs in real battle. The war was a treasure trove for military intelligence where even the Ruthenians loftily displayed their war machines in public.

Thanks to this, a scientist from great powers started working on their own prototype, the Deutschland Empire successfully managed to create a working jet engine aircraft, the United States started manufacturing assault rifles and deviating from the mainstream bolt-action rifle, and the Britannia Empire saw the importance of the Aircraft Carrier and started copying the concept of angled-deck of the Aircraft Carrier Petropavlovsk.

The race to build large aircraft erupted among the great powers after seeing the largest aircraft the Ruthenia Empire displayed in the Far East, the Tugarin.

This radical and progressive shift is what allows the great powers to stay in the race against Ruthenian domination, and there seems to be no sign of them stopping any time soon.

“That’s all, Your Majesty,” Sevastian concluded his one-hour report.

Alexander didn’t even lose track of his reports as he deemed it important knowledge for the head of state to know.

“Just as I expected, the world is not going to watch behind the scenes. They’ll spring into action as well. Even if that were the case, we are still ahead of them in terms of infrastructure. But we can’t be too complacent, we have to stay ahead in all aspects. Fortunately, they didn’t know about our secret weapon.”

“Are you perhaps talking about an atomic bomb, Your Majesty?” Sevastian asked.

“Yes, it can be our trump card or be a tool for a pre-emptive strike. As long as we are the only ones with an atomic bomb, our position at the top is guaranteed,” Alexander said.

“So, Your Majesty, what is your plan now after knowing this information? Just as you said, we can’t be too complacent about the things happening around us. We have to do something about them making progress,” Sevastian advised.

“Well, first thing first. Let’s send them all a reminder that they are not closer to overtaking us,” Alexander stood and buttoned up his suit jacket. “Let’s start by sharing with the public our greatest accomplishment and achievement.”

“Hmm…what could it be?” Sevastian hummed, his heart pounding in anticipation. There are lots to be publicized. His eyes widened in realization.

“Don’t tell me, we are going to publicize the explosion of an atomic weapon?”

“No!” Alexander dismissed his thoughts right away. “I’m planning on publicizing our rocket launches,” he revealed.

“Ah…that,” Sevastian hummed understandingly.

“The world must be wondering why they are hearing the beeping sound in their radios. I think it’s time for us to let them know that our satellite above is causing it. Not only that, I’m going to announce to the world that a man will go to space.”

“Your Majesty…this is a wonderful idea! The world will be in for a shock. A man going to space is unheard of.”

“So, Sevastian set up everything. Call the media and the press, I’ll be the one making the announcement myself.”

“I will do it right away, Your Majesty!” Sevastian sprung up and exited Alexander’s office with excitement. He couldn’t wait to see the reactions of the world to this information.