“MN combined forces continue to pummel through the territories held by the Kusari Reclamation Government. The Empress of Kusari has already declared that the Reclamation Government will pay for collaborating with invading nations, vowing to execute its top officials and leaders. On the ground, CFN reinforcements are continuously arriving in Kusari, supporting the remnants of the units assigned to the earlier CFN offensive and the remaining formations of the Reclamation Government, slowly stiffening resistance in desperate defense lines being established. Unfortunately, the MN is estimated to have captured at least forty to fifty thousand square meters of territory, including multiple cities, and thousands of towns and villages.”

  - Midori Imperial Herald

  +++

  Pozneki Republic

  Braslau City

  February 3, 2026

  Agent Wictor Polit, a member of the Office of Preventative Measures, never liked how the current Pozneki revolutionary movement turned out. Indeed, before he defected to the Orlish side, before being hired by the shady OPM due to his connections and expertise in Pozneki, Wictor had been a low-level military official here.

  Now, he was side-by-side with members of Rose Team, a group of elite operatives from the RIU, and right in front of him, was his dead uncle, whom he had just executed with his pistol.

  He rushed around the room to check in on his uncle’s personal computer, lines of data and information appearing in front of him, as one of Rose Team’s operatives calmly but rapidly searched the desks, her face icy and cold.

  “Agent Meyer,” Wictor called out, as he fished out his USB drive. “I’m going to just retrieve everything I can take from here, but I don’t think any concrete evidence about the Duchess’ new location is out here.”

  “That’s fine,” Agent Florena Meyer replied, as she closed a cabinet that she was checking. “Take your time, don’t miss anything.”

  “Aye, Miss.”

  Wictor focused his attention on gathering the data from his uncle’s computer. The man continued to bleed from the bullet left on his noggin on the desk, somewhat causing Wictor to feel bad. While he was on the enemy’s side now as an intelligence officer, he was still family.

  They soon heard footsteps and commotion outside. The RIU agent turned to Wictor with a grim expression, urging him to speed up.

  “Are you done?” Florena asked.

  “Close,” Wictor replied.

  With a groan, Florena suddenly pulled out her blade. It glowed with a golden light in the darkened room—she didn’t seem to intend to play around. Soon, the respondents from the Pozneki side appeared in the hallways, and Florena zoomed out of the room. Wictor continued tapping on the mouse, moving file after file to his hard drive.

  Suddenly, one of the enemy soldiers managed to appear at the door. Pulling out a pistol, Wictor double-tapped the surprised bastard, one hitting him on the neck and another on the shoulder. He emptied his magazine, but the soldier still managed to raise his rifle.

  Before Wictor could duck in response, the enemy soldier’s body was sliced in half. Blood spurted out on the walls, as both parts collapsed like nothing on the floor. With a soft frown, Florena gave a tiny ‘hmph’ sound as she sheathed her sword.

  “Are you finally done?” she asked, a bit annoyed.

  “It’s not my fault that loading all this takes time, you know,” Wictor said, as he finished, pulling out his USB and hiding it. “Let’s go now.”

  “Apologies, it’s just that I hate having to kill people due to delays.”

  Wictor stopped as he managed to get out into the hallway. Bodies were left strewn on the floor, as the lights on the facility flickered, the alarms intensifying. He turned briefly to Florena, who seemed to have nothing but a resigned stare at her handwork.

  “You RIU girls are damned monsters,” was all Wictor could say.

  “Everyone tells us that,” Florena replied. The two soon rushed out of the facility, fighting side-by-side as they exfiltrated it. Leaving a few more bodies in their wake, they soon disappeared into the dark streets of Braslau, right as reinforcements from the army and police entered the building they had raided.

  They ran and ran through the silent night, the empty lanes and streets somewhat worrying Wictor. There weren't a lot of people running around due to the curfew in place, and whenever a civilian from their homes noticed the two running, they would turn off their lights.

  Soon, they managed to completely hide in one alley, stopping. Wictor breathed in and out heavily, while Florena tried to communicate with the rest of the Rose Team’s members. Their assignment of rescuing the Duchess was turning more and more of a delicate and extended mission.

  It was already days after all since they were deployed here as part of Operation Red Dahlia, yet nothing.

  Wictor finally raised himself after regaining air in his lungs, briefly looking at a poster beside a turned-off lamp post that said ‘Join the Pozneki Army’, then to Florena.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Hey, what’s our next plan?” Wictor asked.

  “We’re fleeing into our hideout for now,” Florena said, sighing. “Tomorrow, I’m coming with you again too to continue gathering intel. The authorities will probably tighten their security tomorrow, so that’ll be an extra risky task.”

  “Hah…and I need to scan all this data,” Wictor said. “This deployment is ass.”

  “I’m not sure what you expected from this,” Florena laughed a bit. “Anyhow, let’s just go. I feel like shit too.”

  “You did expend a lot of mana with that.”

  “Right.”

  The two continued walking until they were finally completely out of sight.

  +++

  West Orland

  November Palace

  Amelie grimly waited for the current results of Operation Red Dahlia from Marie and William, both of them in her room.

  They discussed how the entire operation had gone since it started, and it wasn’t looking good. Progress was slow, hampered by the constant disruptions from Pozneki authorities, and the Red Ducal Legion seemed to also be suffering from constant losses, that it was starting to become a real possibility that the organization would be uprooted and forced into temporary disappearance.

  Amelie read one of the files as Marie discussed the results of one of Lotus Team’s raids deep in Poznek, which managed to hit and destroy a group of restorationists attempting to figure out the locations of the Red Ducal Legion’s facilities.

  “Is that so?” Amelie asked, her voice low. “Damn…this is truly concerning.”

  “My agents are still analyzing the intel they recovered from today’s raids,” William tried to reassure. “But, yeah…it’s not exactly going swimmingly well. At the very least though, we are suffering extremely minimal casualties. Only two OPM agents died, and not a single casualty occurred in the RIU’s teams.”

  “Yeah,” Marie proudly smiled. “Even the attack on the restorationists didn’t net any casualty for us. I’m happy with the results at least.”

  “Still, we haven’t retrieved the Duchess,” Amelie said. “I may not agree with her on a lot of things, but…I can’t let her die in their captivity. That will look very bad on our allies, especially now that we know that she’s still alive.”

  “Indeed, that’ll certainly cause a loss in our reputation,” William said, sighing to himself. “Hence why we’re trying to finish this. Hopefully, by next week, we’ll be able to organize a full operation to raid whatever detention facility she is held inside, then get her out of there.”

  “The other part of the plan is trickier though,” Marie said. “It is quite likely that the information about the Red Ducal Legion is already widely disseminated to the Pozneki government because of the restorationists. The legion’s members are already relocating luckily, as they know that they’re compromised, but…”

  “Their effectiveness will go down,” Amelie crossed her arms, leaning back on her seat. “Well…I guess, I get one good news, I get another bad news. Didn’t you guys tell me that the legion would be useful to disrupt the Pozneki government once we launch our offensive against them?”

  “Yeah, they would be. They have a lot of members in their ranks, ready to target logistics, communications, and supply hubs that the CFN uses inside of Poznek,” William explained. “They will certainly be a useful factor, if…not for this. Hopefully, this doesn’t damage them too much, but that’s only a ‘hopefully’ thing.”

  “I understand,” Amelie said. “Oh well…at least progress in Kusari is going nicely.”

  “We got lucky with that one,” William pointed out. “The plan about diverting CFN forces to Hebei before punching in Kusari certainly worked. Though, mostly, not out of surprise for the CFN leadership.”

  “So they expected it,” Amelie said.

  “Yes,” Marie answered. “We have been monitoring their communication channels since this started. They were gravely worried that shifting their expeditionary forces from Kusari to Hebei would result in this.”

  “Then why did they do it anyway?” Amelie curiously asked. “I mean, now, we’re watching the ‘Reclamation Government’ they created a collapse in real-time. Quite the blunder, don’t you think.”

  “It’s a question of limited resources,” William said. “They had a choice. To save North Hebei, or to keep their gains in Kusari. It turns out that for the CFN decision-makers, North Hebei is a more valuable thing to defend.”

  “It makes sense I suppose,” Amelie placed her hand on her chin, thinking deeply. “North Hebei is a properly organized government with a standing army that can go toe-to-toe with South Hebei. Not to mention they have a better industry, economy, and technology.”

  “That, and North Hebei is the start of this entire fiasco, don’t you remember?” William asked.

  Amelie looked back. Indeed…she remembered those days when the coup occurred in Hebei. The first of its kind, and the first time that men regained political power in a significant manner after centuries of humiliation.

  “North Hebei is the symbolic center of the revolution, where it all began,” William said. “To let it fall is unimaginable for the CFN. No matter what happens, Larissa, Poznek, Lombardia, and even President Rimpler in Wuringen will be deciding to protect North Hebei first over Kusari. They won’t let us snatch a symbolic victory so easily.”

  “In that case, all the better for us,” Amelie grinned. “We’ve pushed far and wide into Kusari, so no matter what their reasoning is, we outplayed them.”

  “It’s their fault for overextending too much,” Marie said. “That, and based on the intel we’ve been gathering from these revolutionaries, they truly took a lot of wounds in their early offensives. Their best formations were mauled in the offensives, now, while they’re licking their wounds, they are vulnerable.”

  “Then I’d like to hopefully expand Operation Red Dahlia,” Amelie said. “I also want the two of you to start gathering further intelligence to assess the feasibility of launching an offensive into Poznek.”

  “Poznek?” William raised his eyebrows, skeptical. “Wait, as much as that is a decent idea considering the current situation, we should not discount that the DMZ is heavily fortified at the moment. Conditions similar to the Great War’s trench stalemate have already developed in the Gallian–Poznek border.”

  “Yes, but it shouldn’t be too solid yet,” Amelie countered. “If…if we can strike on Poznek right while the CFN is scrambling to protect Kusari and Hebei, we might eke out a win from that place. Imagine…if we retrieve the Duchess, mobilize the Red Ducal Legion for an internal revolt, while sending Army Group Gallia on an offensive…then we might cause a complete collapse for them.”

  “And then it might be us that risk overextension,” Marie said. “I’ll try to assess this plan’s feasibility, but…I advise caution. We’re only winning slightly right now because they overplayed their hand during the opening of this world war. We risk doing the same now while we’re drunk in our victories.”

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