An hour later, in the Grand Kremlin Palace, Alexander walked back and forth inside his office after hearing the total number of casualties from the exploding televisions.

“Thousands? Thousands? Are you kidding me?”

“And it’s rising as we speak, Your Majesty,” Sergei said and continued. “And we are being pressured by both sides and they are demanding an explanation since you are the CEO of Imperial Dynamic Systems.”

“I know, Sergei. Surely we must acknowledge the tragedy but my question is how did those televisions we exported to those countries explode?”

“That is still an ongoing investigation Your Majesty but they are kind of hoping you would have an answer for that. Your Majesty, both ambassadors are furious and are demanding answers.”

“I know, Sergei. But let us confirm all the information we had. So only in the Deutschland and Austrean Empire did the incident occur right? Has something similar happened to Ruthenia?”

“None, sir,” another man stepped in, it was the director of the Imperial Dynamic Systems Electronics Division, Philip Ainsworth. “But we’ve transmitted an emergency broadcast notifying the users to get away from the television for their safety until an appropriate official arrives.”

“But we are talking about hundreds of owners here, Your Majesty. Scattered throughout the Empire. The Ruthenia Empire simply doesn’t have sufficient resources to check every television in a short amount of time.” Sergei added. “But you need to ensure the people, sir. What happened in Deutschland and Austrean is not an isolated case, so it’s only a matter of time until panic sets in.”-.

“I know, Sergei. You don’t have to remind me,” Alexander said and sighed. “It seems like I just have to find out what exactly caused this incident and then I can deal with whatever is on the news tomorrow morning. Even if it happened outside our borders, Ruthenia could get implicated in this,” he ran a hand over his face. “Shit…this could cause another major conflict,”

‘Damn it! Damn it! This is just great. Just fucking fantastic,’ he cursed inwardly and glanced at Dmitri.

“Dmitri, where are we on your terrorist attack theory?”

Alexander’s gaze snapped to him, and he shook his head. “We are still investigating the exact nature of the terrorist attack but no reports of other attacks have been released to the public, so it looks like it was some sort of coordinated attack. If one were to think logically about it, why is only the television outside Ruthenia rigged? Doesn’t make sense, right?”“Sadly, that’s not how the two countries see it, they believe that it was some sort of pre-emptive attack of the Ruthenia Empire and they are taking this matter seriously,” Sergei chimed in. “Your Majesty, it’s best that you call the Joint Chief of Staff and start drawing up plans for a possible war against them,”

“Hold down your horses, Sergei,” Alexander turned around to face him again and waved his hands in a placating gesture. “We are not doing this yet okay? Let’s resolve this incident diplomatically.

“Then I suggest that you prepare yourself, Your Majesty. Because you are going to be stuck all day speaking with the ambassador of the Deutschland and Austrean Empire,” Sergei said with a firm nod of agreement.

Alexander looked at him, his expression unreadable then flickered his gaze to Philip.

“Philip, release an official statement and halt the production of the television until further notice,”

“Understood, Your Majesty.”

Alexander strides out to the room to meet the ambassadors of the two affected countries.

What Alexander does not know is that soon Yamato, Norway, Sweden, and other border countries are also coming to have some words with him too.

As they also have bombing victims who bought the television since the broadcasts entered their borders and some close to Ruthenia has bought television to watch Ruthenian TV.action

***

Meanwhile, in the street of Berlin, many people took to the street, marching towards the store that sells television, throwing stones and wooden objects as they cursed loudly.

Though many stores that sell televisions were destroyed by the explosion, it’s the only store that wasn’t affected.

Inside, two men and women were hiding under the reception table, their hands shaking in fear as the rollup door clang loudly upon the impact of various objects.

“Shit…shit…shit, we are going to die!” the woman cried when she heard glass shattering.

She held onto the man next to her, who tried to calm her down but failed miserably.The man pulled her tighter into himself when suddenly a loud bang came from the door, followed by a few broken glasses. He didn’t even realize that the two of them were shivering uncontrollably until he heard a loud thud outside the door.

“Drag the terrorist out of here!” someone shouted.

The men hurried towards the broken entrance while shouting orders to others. As they approached the reception desk, three people could be seen with a horrified expressions plastered on their faces.

“Damn you Ruthenian scums! You only know how to blow things up eh?!” One person grabbed the woman by the arm.

“No…please! Please! I have a family!” the women pleaded.

“Family eh? You killed my family!” The man growled angrily as he raised his hand and backhanded her across the face. The force of the blow threw the girl against the television stand, and her cheek blazed with pain.

“Hey! Don’t hurt her!” One of her colleagues stood up.

“Fuck you!” The man who stood up was suddenly ganged up on by several other men and was slammed to the floor and kicked mercilessly by the others.

“Don’t forget that man too,” the man ordered the guy hiding. He was dragged and shared fate with the first.

“Please stop it…!” The girl whimpered. She couldn’t help but tremble even more despite her. “Don’t hurt them, we have nothing to do with the explosions!”

“Nothing to do? Because of this stupid television!” The man kicked one of the television sets, destroying it. “My daughter was killed. She was excited to watch it…but…but…Let’s drag them out!”

The men obeyed and dragged the three Ruthenian citizens out of the store. The men’s faces were battered up, blood trickling down from their mouths and nose.

“They should pay with death!” He barked. “All they deserve is death! Let’s kill these bastards!”

The man grabbed a baseball bat and hit one of the hostages on the head and fell to the ground. His body was convulsing and twitching as he lay unconscious and bleeding on the floor.

The people that watched the public execution cheered loudly. They screamed their hatred for the terrorists that killed innocents.

“We’re gonna die…” the man muttered weakly under his ragged breath. He was the next victim. He was reeled by two men who forced him to get on his knee as one of the men who hit his colleague to the head prepared his bat.

“Momma! Momma! Save me!” The man uttered his last word as the metal bat swung down on him. Blood splattered on the woman’s face.

Meanwhile, just twenty meters from the scene, a hooded figure watched with a devilish smile on his face. “It’s working perfectly.”

And it gets even worse in the next few days.