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I was losing touch with my common sense. That was the only conclusion I could draw from my interaction with von Richtoffer. This was a serious matter. Ever since I had been elected Chancellor, I had been insulated from the day to day lives of ordinary people. In my heart, as a salaryman, I still identified with them, but that would lose any meaning if I didn't understand what they wanted and needed. I could read the reports prepared by my staff, but there was no substitute for first hand knowledge.

Which was why, one week after returning from the magic academy, I found myself standing in front of a mirror, studying my disguise. It was the last Saturday in August, summer still stubbornly refusing to give way to fall. The perfect time for a trip to the market. Of course, if everyone could tell at a glance that I was the country's Chancellor, the point of the outing would be lost.

I was aiming to change my appearance enough that I wouldn't be recognized, but not so much that it was obvious I was in disguise. I had begun by pulling my hair up into twin ponytails. A pair of ribbons held my hair in place and disguised the extensions that lengthened the ponytails to fall past my shoulders and end around the middle of my back. A simple sundress in laurel green was a departure from my usual wardrobe and added to the youthful impression that was my goal. The finishing touches were magical: a simple illusion spell switched my eye color from blue to a less distinctive hazel, while also adding some baby fat to my cheeks.

I nodded, satisfied. All I needed was a dense childhood friend and I'd be ready to co-lead an animated series.

A quiet knock on the door drew me out of my self-admiration. I glanced down the hall to where Visha was still sleeping. It was almost impossible to wake her up early on a weekend morning. She was also eye catching in her own right. That was why I had drafted Neumann into being my partner for the day's mission.

I threw open the door that led from our apartment to the rest of the Chancellor's Residence. As expected, Neumann was waiting on the other side.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"Gah!" he said, taking a step back, before catching himself and patting his chest a few times. "Oh, it is you. That's terrifying."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I said, taking a moment to look him up and down. With Neumann's stocky build, once he was taken out of a soldier's uniform and put on baggy, if nice, civilian clothing, he looked like nothing more than a burgher's son, almost ready to strike out on his own. "All right, you look fine. You remember our cover story?"

"You're my younger sister Tina. Our father owns a bakery on the outskirts of town. You're visiting the market, escorted by your big brother," he said, grimacing. "This feels silly."

"It's either this or you pretend to be my fiance," I said.

He paled slightly, glancing at the hallway that led to my and Visha's bedrooms. I held in a chuckle at the blatant display of his fear of commitment.

"No, no, this is fine."

"Good," I said. The two of us had been fortunate to age gracefully. By making a bit of an effort with our clothing and demeanor, we should be able to pass for almost a decade younger than our true ages. I nodded, satisfied, then pushed past him to lead the way out to the street.

We had to be a little careful on our way outside. I could just order anybody we saw to stand aside, of course, but it would defeat the purpose of an incognito trip if I were seen on the way out the door. Not to mention the embarrassment if my current appearance were broadly linked to my real identity. Fortunately, we were both veteran magical commandos, so it wasn't too challenging to reach the street without being seen. Once we were outside, we were quickly swallowed up by the bustling crowd.

I was surprised to see so many people out and about so early in the morning. Perhaps I could take it as evidence supporting the reports I'd been given touting the strength of our economy. On the other hand, maybe it was just that in this era people organized their lives around the sun, rather than their clocks.

We reached a big market square and paused for a moment to take in the cacophony of capitalism. Small stores lined the outside of the square. They seemed to be doing good business, but the most eye-catching action was was out in the square itself. Stalls stood out as islands in the sea of pedestrians, peddling all manner of wares. I found the food stall that had the longest line and dragged Neumann over to buy breakfast pastries.

As we waited in line, I decided to draw Neumann out of his shell. He had been quiet and distracted since we hit the streets.

"What did you think of the Unified States?" I asked.

He seemed surprised that I had broken the silence. He glanced around for eavesdroppers, confirming my own observation that nobody was paying us any particular attention. After a moment, he shrugged.

"It's big," he said. "You take a train ride from one side of the continent to the other, and it's all the same country."

I hadn't realized that he had seen that much of America. Some further discussion revealed that he had traveled quite a bit in search of the ideal training environment. The Unified States was large enough that he had enjoyed his pick of mountains, deserts, or deserted plains.

"Do you understand now why it's so important to be on good terms with them?" I asked. I knew there were some who thought that the Empire's defeat at the hands of the Unified States was some sort of fluke, and that there was no need to be overly solicitous towards the newest great power. Neumann had never seemed to follow that crowd, exactly, but I hoped that his trip had given him a new appreciation for the latent power of the world's sleeping giant.

"I guess," he said. "They don't seem to care much about what goes on outside of America."

We had to put the conversation on hold as we reached the front of the line. As I'd expected, it was worth the wait. Fresh baked pastry in the morning always put a smile on my face. As we ate, we began ambling aimlessly through the market square.

"They don't care at all, until suddenly they care very much," I said, pausing halfway through my apple strudel. "At the very least, I want to make sure that next time, they point their anger at somebody other than us."

He shrugged again and mumbled something that I chose to interpret as agreement. Fortunately, I didn't need Neumann to pull off any diplomatic coups in the future. It was fine as long as he understood that there were some countries we couldn't afford to offend.

Once we had breakfast under our belt, it was time to take a more serious approach to the market. It was crowded, but in a happy, productive sort of way. Like the crowds waiting in line for a Pokemon release, rather than a crowd waiting in a bread line. As we worked our way along, I kept an eye out for anything of interest.

I picked up a scarf for Visha from a boutique advertising the latest fashions from Londinium. I found a cute little wood carving of an owl, tucked away in a pile of little wooden girls, that I bought to use as a paperweight. A few other tchotchkes caught my eye and found their way into the bags Neumann was carrying as he trailed along behind me. I made sure with every purchase to make small talk with the seller, doing my best to get a picture of how their lives were going.

On the surface, it was all smiles. Anybody listening to what I was hearing would know that business was booming. Germania was back on its feet. Of course, if you looked past the surface, you could start to see the warning signs and caveats that should be mentioned along with those conclusions. Home appliances like dishwashers and washing machines were exorbitantly expensive. Even something as simple as a vacuum cleaner was beyond the means of most people. Some peddlers moved their goods by truck, some resorted to using the People's Car, but many still used horse drawn carts to bring their wares to market. Consumers, by and large, were stuck using mass transit and their own legs to get around.

Walking the streets for myself let me take in the details that were left out of staff reports. It also let me indulge my own curiosity and play the role of tourist from the future. Frivolous, perhaps, but even I couldn't focus on serious matters all the time.

I ducked inside of a toy store, wondering what I would find. The unfortunate circumstances of my second life had prevented me from familiarizing myself with contemporary toys in the usual way. From the looks of it, I hadn't missed much. Primitive dolls, primitive model cars... I saw some things that would make for interesting antiques, but not much that I thought would really catch a child's interest. Though there was one plaything that could stand up to its modern counterparts.

I plucked a stuffed animal from the shelf and turned to show it to Neumann. The fluffy dog had been styled after a Husky or Malamute and it would have been more than half my height if it could stand up on its own.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"Aren't you a little old for that?"

Perfect. My disguise could use a little more accessorizing.

"Probably," I replied, before holding the toy out at arm's length. "Buy it for me."

"What a bratty little sister."

"Call it what you will," I said, smiling sweetly, "as long as I get what I want."

He shuddered, before taking the dog from me and walking up to the counter. The money he used for the purchase came from my own savings, drawn out to fund this operation. It would be annoyingly conspicuous for a young girl to throw around too much money in public, after all. It was far more reasonable for her to be wheedling it out of her long-suffering older brother.

He returned from making the purchase and handed me the stuffed animal. This presented a dilemma, as the dog was too big for me to easily carry it under my arm. Neumann was watching with some amusement, obviously waiting for me to ask for help. Instead, I was able to solve the problem by slinging the toy into a piggyback carry, resting its head on top of mine and holding the paws in place after draping them over my shoulder.

The increase in the level of fussing-over that I received from little old ladies once we were outside was immediate and substantial. I counted the improvement in my disguise as a success, even if I did have to suffer for my genius.

Neumann still seemed to have his mind on other matters. If anything, he'd gotten worse since I talked to him about the Unified States. I even caught him staring off at nothing in particular and sighing a couple times. I waited until we'd reached a relatively empty stretch of road before I confronted him about it.

I turned around and stopped right in front of him, forcing him to stop and jolting him out of his thoughts. He looked up at the dog's face, then down at me, confused.

"So, did you fall in love with an American girl," I asked, "or did you just knock one up?"

"Such a vicious tongue!" he said, taking a step back. "Even when you look like that."

I just cocked my head and gave him an impatient look. "Well?"

It was love.

My question had opened the floodgates. Neumann must have been aching to share his feelings. It didn't take long for me to get the gist of what had happened.

One of the American trainees had caught his eye with her fluency in our language. As it turned out, she had been born in the Empire, in the area now belonging to Legadonia, and had fled along with her family to America in the early stages of the war. To hear Neumann tell it, she was a talented mage, blessed with a beautiful face, a wonderful sense of humor, and a musical laugh. There were more details, but it all started to run together in my mind as he went on. A fact that did stand out to me was that he had extended his time in America for an extra month after getting the first mage up to the treaty standard just to make sure that she would meet the standard as well.

I didn't think Neumann would have admitted that last bit if he weren't so smitten as to forget he was talking to me. I didn't mind, though. Any effort to get into the Americans' good graces was time well spent in my mind, whatever the motive.

On the other hand, I wasn't as eager to learn about this girl as Neumann was to talk about her. Even when I turned around and started walking, he just fell in beside me and continued to sing her praises. Salvation came in the form of a restaurant advertising "cuisine française." I made the executive decision that it was time for lunch and dragged Neumann to the door. The need to interact with the host and our waiter would shut him up, at least for a little while.

Besides needing a few moments of silence, I was also looking forward to the food. I had been too poor to go to fancy restaurants before I jumped into politics, and once I became well known I had of necessity stuck to a patriotic diet. This was a golden opportunity to sneak in a meal prepared by somebody who was familiar with seasonings other than salt.

The restaurant was doing good business, as far as I could tell. We were able to get a seat right away, but as the host led us to our booth I didn't see many other empty spots. Surprising, considering the political state of the country. I also couldn't help but raise my eyebrows when I noticed the enormous Germanian flag that had pride of place on the back wall, just above a banner bearing the logo of the Germanian Workers' Party. I wondered whether the owner was a genuine fan of our party, or if it was a form of self-defense. Well, it wasn't my problem. I just wanted a good meal.

I settled my stuffed dog on the bench beside me and studied the menu. Everything looked good.

"So many choices. Did you get all of these recipes from the Francois Republic?"

The waiter winced. Before I could think of anything to say to smooth things over, an old man had stormed up to our table.

"These are family recipes!" he said, pointing at me and leaning into my personal space. I was quite proud of myself for remembering to shrink back. "Nobody needs to cross the Rhine to learn how to cook!"

"Is your family from there?" I asked. I was confused that a mention of the Francois Republic could spark such anger in a restaurant that was serving the food of the Francois Republic.

The old man's eyes just about popped out of his head. He looked ready to launch into a proper tirade. I had to kick Neumann under the table a few times to remind him to come to my rescue.

"Ah, Tina's a little over excited. We've heard so may good things about your restaurant," Neumann said. "She pestered father until he made me take her to town just to eat here. I think she's just curious about your family history."

I thought it was ridiculous for him to put the blame on me for this old man's anti-social personality. I forgot where I was for a moment and sent Neumann a glare that promised suffering in his future. Fortunately, the effect of my outfit held up and the old-timer decided that I was too adorable for any further chewing out. He seemed mollified by Neumann's intervention, and all too happy to share his story with us.

It turned out that his grandfather had participated in the invasion of the previous Francois Republic during the Franco-Preussian War. There, he and a local girl had fallen in love. She had followed him back to Berun and convinced him to give up his career in carpentry in order to start a restaurant. Her recipes were the basis for the restaurant's initial success and continued existence.

The only dark cloud over this storybook romance was her maiden family. They wholeheartedly disapproved of her marriage, and refused all of her attempts to reconcile. Though the owner didn't go into detail, it was obvious from the emotion in his voice that the bitter feud between branches of the family was still alive in the present. Factor in the behavior of the Francois Republic during the Great War, and you were left with a specialist in a particular cuisine who hated its country of origin.

He even threw in some unprompted praise for Chancellor Degurechaff for putting the Francois in their place. And, of course, for the general economic upswing that had saved his restaurant after the hyperinflation crisis had nearly destroyed his livelihood. His one quibble with the current government was that it hadn't burned Parisee to the ground, but he was holding out hope that it would happen soon. As I had always suspected, you couldn't swing a dead cat in Germania without hitting a fervent warmonger.

Eventually, the conversation drew to a close and our food arrived. I dug into my beef ragout with relish, while Neumann picked at his dish. I paused halfway through my meal to look him over.

"You really are hung up on this girl," I said. "I listened to all that talk, and I noticed... did you even try to woo her while you were in America?"

He sighed. "It wouldn't have been right. I was her teacher."

"To be honest," I said, spearing another bite of meat, "I have a hard time believing you would hold yourself back over something like that."

"You don't understand," he said, sighing, "she isn't like the other girls."

"What sad news for Karla, Hilda, Marlena, Dorothea, Hanna, Petra, Teresa, and Sophia," I replied, before nibbling at my food.

Neumann wasn't the most conventionally attractive soldier in the 203rd. Somehow, though, the combination of his approachable demeanor and the cachet of being an aerial mage was like catnip for a certain sort of woman. I had always kept an eye on his exploits in case he did something that endangered the unit, but otherwise there was no point in stepping in. I had been his commanding officer, not his priest.

He paled. "You knew?"

"There's more to leading a unit than just making sure you all point your rifles in the right direction," I said. "You should know that, if you're going to be teaching the rookies."

He looked at me like a kicked puppy. I sighed. I could let the subject lie while we finished our lunch. The food was good enough to deserve my full attention, anyway.

When we were done eating, the mood had changed. I didn't feel like needling Neumann any more. Actually, after such an active morning and a big lunch, I felt like taking a nap. I fought through it, slinging my stuffed animal back over my back and skipping on ahead of Neumann as he trudged on down the street.

It took a couple of blocks, but I started feeling more alert as I got my blood flowing. I wasn't looking for anything in particular in the stores that we passed. I'd already bought what I wanted to buy, and Neumann could only carry so much. I came to an almost involuntary stop, though, when I saw a signboard displaying a word that I recognized only thanks to my previous life.

"What's this?"

I could puzzle out the meaning of the word "television," and of course I knew what a "parlor" was. Putting them together, though, struck me as strange.

"This, young lady, is the future!" the man standing by the door said. He looked well-fed, and happy to have a potential customer. "Inside is a device that can display images from hundreds of miles away! A football game being played in far off Leipsic can be watched from inside this very building."

I hadn't been paying much attention to the development of television. I knew that it was possible to transmit low-quality video over the air, but that television sets were prohibitively expensive. The mass medium of choice was radio, and had I been trying to win in the last elections it would have been radio ads that were worth buying. As far as I knew, Germania didn't even have regular television broadcasts.

The idea that people would pay to sit in a room and watch television had never occurred to me. I was face to face with a pioneering entrepreneur. A man trying to make a living on the cutting edge of technology.

I looked at Neumann as he caught up with me. He took one look at the expression on my face, sighed, and paid for an admission for two to the television parlor.

Inside I found one of the most surreal sights I had witnessed since my reincarnation. Around twenty chairs were arranged stadium style, each row carefully elevated above the row before it. The focal point of the room, the star of the show, was a massive cabinet placed against the back wall. A glass screen took up a minuscule fraction of the cabinet's surface area. It couldn't have been more than twelve inches to a side. The flickering display barely allowed me to make out figures that were probably football players.

The room was almost full. Neumann and I slid into the last two seats in the back row. Most of the people in the room were staring at the screen in rapt attention, but the man next to me glanced over and offered a friendly smile as I took a seat. He was old enough to be my father and was wearing a threadbare scarf proclaiming his allegiance to Beruner SV.

Our location in the back row meant that nobody would complain over the positioning of my stuffed dog. It also meant that it was hard to make out what was being displayed on the screen. It didn't help that I had only a vague understanding of the structure of competitive football in Germania. Fortunately, the man seated next to me seemed to regard me as his cute little niece. He was happy to explain what was going on.

I'll admit, I didn't believe him at first when he told me that Germania didn't have a professional football league. I knew football was popular. Just the fact that somebody was willing to go to the expense of televising a game spoke volumes. Despite that, my guide insisted that all of the private football clubs in Germania were in amateur leagues, organized by geography. The only national competition was a single elimination tournament that took in the top finishers in each district and crowned a Germanian champion.

Most of the people in the room were supporters of Berun's top team. Beruner SV wasn't playing in today's game, but the two teams that were playing, VfB Leipsic and Dresdner SC, were the top threats to our spot in the national tournament. The only threats, to hear my neighbor tell it.

That prompted the man sitting in front of me to turn around. "That's only until the Railwaymen come back, of course."

"Who?" I asked.

"The team out of Posen," he replied. "Say what you want about the Pules, those boys can play."

I looked at my neighbor for clarification.

"Pullska is part of our league's territory," he said, "and their best teams are good enough to compete for a spot in the tournament."

"But Pullska is a separate country?" I said, not sure why I was putting it in the form of a question.

That prompted a round of laughter from everybody nearby.

"Now that the Chancellor has brought Osterry back into the fold," my neighbor explained, "regaining Pullska is just a matter of time."

As usual, the common man had no feel whatsoever for diplomacy. Although, to be fair, he could just be taking his cues from the Empire's wartime leadership. I still wasn't sure why so many people were surprised that conquering our neighbors had made the rest of the world upset.

Unfortunately, I couldn't offer my own opinion unless I wanted to break character. I braced myself internally. I'd already resigned myself to playing the cute little girl, but now I was going to lean into the role harder than I'd had to since that first trip to Dacia.

I took a deep breath. "Papa said the Francois Republic might invade if Germania expands any more."

He responded by reaching out and ruffling my hair. "Let them come! Argent Silver will give them another hiding!"

Everywhere I went in this city, it seemed, people wanted a war with the Francois Republic. The country had really dodged a bullet by putting a reasonable person like me in charge.

I glanced around the room. A full house of paying customers just to watch a tiny black and white television screen. Brand new People's Cars parked outside, no doubt their owner's pride and joy. It was an important reminder that, while Germania was richer than it had been four years ago, it still wasn't particularly well off in an absolute sense. Compared to the countries I knew from my past life, this was still a poor place, full of warlike people. I'd do well to keep that in mind in the future.

Once everyone finished expressing their enthusiasm for another war, the conversation fell into a lull. I did my best to put my misgivings on the back burner and follow what was happening on the screen. There was a flurry of action, and the crowd around me reacted before I realized the ball had hit the back of the net.

"Schneider! That's why he's going to Ildoa!" the man next to me said, slapping the chair ahead of him for emphasis.

"He's leaving the country?" I asked.

I could certainly understand why he would want to leave if he couldn't get paid to play in Germania. The spirit of amateurism was no substitute for a steady paycheck.

"What?" he asked. "No, no, he's on the team that will play for the world championship."

Of course. The World Cup. It had slipped my mind. The first World Cup had been held around the time that I first became Chancellor. With everything else going on, I hadn't paid it much attention. Germania was still an international pariah back then, so we hadn't even been invited to participate.

We had thrown out a token bid to host the next World Cup, but hadn't gotten very far with it. The organization running the tournament was based out of the Francois Republic, so we never really had a chance. The good news was that our team had at least been invited to participate as a token of goodwill. They had a chance to do well, especially if you believed the chatter from the men around me. With less than a year to go before the tournament began, I'd see the truth for myself soon enough.

I watched the rest of the game in contemplative silence. I had never been a big sports fan in my previous life, but I had spent plenty of time on obligatory socialization with my coworkers, which often involved watching football games together in bars. Enough to make me feel a little nostalgic, although the lack of refreshments detracted from the overall experience. I asked the proprietor during halftime, and he told me that what with the uncertainty surrounding the technology of the television, it wasn't worth the expense to obtain a liquor or food license.

In the grand tradition of football, the game ended with a 1-0 score. After saying farewell to our newfound friends, I dragged Neumann over to a food stall. I picked up another strudel, while he bought a pretzel roll for himself.

It occurred to me as I polished off my snack that in this world, there were opportunities for international sporting events that didn't exist back in my first life. If I made the effort, I could probably get the Unified States to agree to help put on a demonstration game of aerial lacrosse. We might even be able to perform in front of the crowd at the World Cup. Anything that helped solidify our international ties was worth doing in my book. And, as long as I was reaching out to the Unified States, I might as well do a favor for my lovesick underling.

"I've made a decision," I announced. "In the interest of international cooperation, I'm going to invite a few mages from the Unified States to observe the operation of our magic academy."

In theory, hiding our aerial mage training from the Unified States could give us an edge in a war. In practice, I intended to surrender immediately if we somehow wound up at war with the Americans. Besides, they struck me as too prideful to steal our training program outright. I also ought to be able to earn some brownie points in exchange for my openness, although I knew that ultimately sentiment didn't count for much in the world of great power politics.

"You mean..." Neumann began, before trailing off, eyeing me warily. It always seemed unfair to me how after you wake somebody up with an artillery spell one time, they act paranoid around you for the rest of their life.

"I can't tell them who to send," I said, "but I imagine they would want their observer to be a skilled mage, somebody familiar with our language and comfortable living here."

He responded by staring off into space, no doubt visualizing his reunion with his lost love.

"I assume that schtupping a fellow member of the school's staff won't offend your delicate sensibilities."

Neumann coughed, then gave me a wounded look. I might have been moved if I hadn't known the man for more than a decade.

"Also, just to be clear," I said, dropping the playful tone, "you are seducing her to abandon her country. Not the other way around."

"You don't have to make it sound like a mission objective," he grumbled.

"If it helps," I replied, "just think of it as added spice in the bedroom."

He had just ventured to take a bite from his pretzel when he processed what I had said. I had to give him credit. Even as it took a good few hacking coughs to clear the half-chewed chunk of bread from his throat, he didn't once reach for his computation orb. He was really sticking to his role. If he could bring that same can-do attitude to his future romantic pursuits, he'd be all right.