N-A-A Chapter 267 – Stupid Danger.
Chapter 267 – Stupid Danger.
[1 and half month later after the contract signing.]
[Location: Empire capital – Empiric Castle]
"An alliance with a dungeon!? Are you crazy your majesty?! You are really considering going with this deal?" – asked confused dwarven noble with brown long beard.
"Your majesty. We already talked about this, but this deal does not sounds beneficial at all." – said the dwarven noble with glasses.
"I get a potential of getting a free army of golems over time, but handing over an entire territory to the dungeon in return?"
"The Mevon territory by itself doesn’t pose much value, but it is still territory located right in the middle of the empire."
"Look. I know that it sounds stupid." – replied the emperor.
"However, at the same time, I saw the potential and current power of that dungeon."
"Not only that, but we can also that dungeon to freely gather materials."
"A free mine on top of being able to produce monsters for our empire?"
"..."
"True... It does sounds nice." – said the elderly human nobleman.
"The dungeon that is working for us willingly should be way better than enslaved dungeon."
"The production value should increase."
"The benefit is extremely good."
"However, losing a territory, be it a useless one, is still something big."
"We will be losing it to the monster, which we don’t know if we can trust."
"That is the main problem to me."
"The benefit is extremely good if I say so."
"But the problem is loss of the territory."
"Don’t worry about this." – replied the emperor.
"I have already measure to deal with this, which the dungeon master agreed to take."
"The bound contract."
"!"
"The bound contract?" – asked the vampire nobleman with blond hair.
"You have one?"
"Yes. And the peace talk had already been set with conditions that would benefit both sides." – said the emperor.
"However, before you ask anything, that bastard is smart."
"So before you even think about suggesting to change something, it needs to be detailed and made sure that this guy won’t get scammed."
"And I don’t mean it like I’m worried about him... No. He is asking for too many questions as well as details."
"If you are wondering about the contract, it is here." – said the emperor as he pulled out the contract.
"This one is a copy and not bound contract. It is here only for the details." – said the emperor as he handed over the copy of the contract to the nobles that began reading it.
"..."
"..."
"Hm.... Can we change this part?" – asked the elderly human nobleman.
"It would be nice if we had some ’eyes’ at least there.’
"No. He won’t let it be and he will make sure that it stays that way, unless we give him something of equal value." – replied the emperor.
"What about this part? We can definitely trick the dungeon master and gave-"
"Tried to. He noticed instantly." – replied the emperor as the vampire nobleman was speaking.
"Hm.... Then it will be really tricky." – said the vampire nobleman as the nobles gathered in the room alongside emperor continued discussing the content of the contract for few hours.
"..."
"Your majesty. I think it would be for better if we come back to it sometime later." – said the blond-haired vampire nobleman.
"I agree. We need to gather up our thoughts about this." – replied the female dwarven noblewoman.
"This is matter we cannot end on this meeting... I’m sorry. But even when you told us before about it, we still need more time to think... Since as you can see, everybody have different views on this situation."
"..."
"I fully understand." – replied the emperor.
"But at the same time, I had the entire territory on somewhat lockdown, forbiting anybody from approaching the golem forest."
"The war with the golem dungeon has came to the stop, but it is for the best if we make the deal soon in order to avoid anything... Weird per say."
"Not only that, as I mentioned before, there is good chance that our enemies may end up trying to sabotage this deal."
"..."
"So we need to sign the contract as soon as possible in order to not get played?" – asked duke Arthur.
"Pretty much... It is just matter of time before our enemies finds out about the dungeon."
"And if they find out about its value... The TRUE value, then we may really end up extremely annoying ass situation." – said the emperor as upon giving his warning, the meeting came to the end and all gathered nobles went their separate ways.
"..."
"Leave us." – said the emperor to his two royal knight who were guarding the entrance of the meeting room... With only one fallowing the order and leaving the room, leaving the single body guard and emperor alone in the room.
"..."
"I’ve told you it will be hard." – said the emperor.
"Miss Ariava."
"You don’t say." – said the royal knight, who was non other than Ariava in her shapeshifted state.
"Honestly, no wonder that they were part of this council."
"They are loyal and they can use their brains."
"They can be greedy somewhat, which should be necessary in some situations."
"But... The fact that they are so competent makes things annoying now."
"Will you be able to convince them in time? Or will you sing the ’official’ contract without their support?"
"..."
"I will try to gain their support...." – replied the emperor.
"But again, at the things are going, we may end up being forced to reveal your existence to them far earlier than we had expected."
(Honestly, I wanted to reveal it now during the meeting... But the atmosphere right now was more than chaotic right now.... The next talk may end up being more chaotic... But by the looks of things, I somewhat screwed up by not revealing Ariava today.... I will have no choice but to reveal her existence in the next talk, no matter if I like it or not.) – thought worried and exhausted emperor.
"..."
"Em.... About-"
"I found them." – replied Ariava before the emperor Gustav could finish speaking.
"And exterminated some of them."
"You were right about those terrorists."
"They were fake."
"But not exactly at the same time."
"I’ve managed to find one of the tops of those organization and found out that the leader of apparently the ’revolution’ army is non other than some dwarf related to the royal family that once ruled the Gorijy empire."
"!"
"Wait, what?!" – said the emperor.
"Didn’t expected these parasitic traitors of your own nations to be alive?" – asked Ariava.
"..."
"We did suspected that the leaders of the revolution were the old nobles that betrayed the Gorijy empire once, with the old royal family, alongside the remains of the elven kingdom also being present within the terrorist organization." – said the emperor.
"But I would never suspected that the blood of that fifth is still alive."
"And from what I found out, it seems that their leader is the real deal. Like it not some sort of fake just using their name, nope." – replied Ariava.
"Apparently, he is the real ’REAL’ deal."
"But.... No. I’m not going to ask now how they survived the purge." – said the emperor Gustav.
"Don’t worry about it. I know how things are going to be if that corrupted name were to pop up, so I think it would be better if I were to quietly get rid of them before they can use it for anything." – said Ariava.
"..."
"Yeah... Please do." – said the emperor.
(It was over a month after the contract was signed.... And she already proven her value.) – thought the bit nervous emperor.
(The terrorist.)
(And the traitors.)
(She was able to identify them hunt them down.)
(Not only that, she already took one of the bigger bases of operations that these fake terrorists were using?)
(....And there is also the fact what she said about the royal family.... Shit...)
(The previous royal family were nothing more than traitors to their own people, but the presence of their name could still cause problems.)
(If she didn’t discovered it in time... We could had end up in annoying situation.)
"By the way, did you confirmed who was supporting them?" – asked the emperor.
"Well, as you suspected, they are receiving a direct help from outside the empire." – replied Ariava.
"However, it seems you also underestimated your opponents."
"They are playing it smart."
"Making sure that the information spread is kept to minimum."
"Don’t get cocky in worst moment, since they may see it and use it against you."
"Not only that, those bastards are somewhat unhinged too, so they may really end up something destructive at the moment notice."
"I will focus my entire attention as of today on exterminating these terrorist."
"Will this do?"
"Yes. Please go ahead." – said the emperor as in the next moment, Ariava left the room.
"..."
(She is dangerous.) – thought the emperor.
(She only started working with us recently, yet she already destroyed one of the main bases used by the terrorists?!)
(Isn’t this way too fast?)
(No matter how I look at it, she is working way to fast.)
(...There is only one explanation for it.)
(She was preparing for it beforehand.)
(Fucking monster.)
(It would make some sense for that monster to maybe take like what? 3 months to do all of these things?)
(Locate and identity traitors and some of the hiding terrorists?)
(But what she has done? This is WAY too fast no matter how you look at it!)
(SINGLE MONTH IS NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH TIME TO DO IT ALL!)
(To the point it is straight up impossible.... And the only way that would make sense would be if she was already tracking the terrorists and the traitors.)
(But how much did she prepared through?)
(How long was she in the empire before we encountered her?)
(That worries me the most.)
(Nobody even realized that one of my knights was even fake too.)
(Heck. Even back then when she just walked in, I couldn’t tell that she was fake until she dropped the act.)
(I wouldn’t be even surprised if she already knew from the start who the leader of the fake terrorists were or maybe even where they were right now.)
(...)
(No... Don’t think about it.)
(Even if she is playing with us, she has already done way too much for us.)
(And that is the problem.)
(I mean... COMMON!)
(IT IS WAY TOO EASY TO THE POINT IT IS SCARY!) – thought the emperor as he grabbed his head.
"..."
*Sigh*
(We still don’t know her "real" goal as well... It has been over a month, but we still couldn’t obtain any clues yet.)
(That guy Korwan told me that it may even take us several months before we understand her goal and that for now, we should just play it along.)
"..."
"Still... There is another part that worries me." – said the emperor as he took out the small note.
(The amount of weapons that one of those main terrorist bases had, including both regular AND magic cannons were too high.) – thought the emperor as he read the note given to him by Ariava before the meeting.
(These crazy bastards... Honestly, I’m now glad that we got Ariava’s support... If it wasn’t for her, it may end up it some kind of massive disaster.)
(But still! This is way too much!)
(Even if some of these weapons were stolen by the traitors, there is no fucking way they could had stolen THAT amount of weapons.)
(Not only that.... There would be also hard time illegally transporting these weapons across the boarders... SINCE THERE IS JUST SO MANY!)
(And that was one base!)
(Are there are other bases like these ones?)
"This honestly is stupid...."
(I mean WHO would do that?!)
(The amount of weapons and people alone... Things are not adding up no matter how I look at this.)
(Is Ariava lying to me?)
(Was her report fake?)
"..."
(No.)
(The contract is already in effect and she NEEDS to bring the peace to the empire.)
(That means that this must be real....)
(But still...)
(What in the actually hell is going on?) – thought both the emperor, and Ariava who were still walking through the corridors of the castle, while using her disguised form.
(I mean, I knew that things were chaotic, but damn!) – thought Ariava.
(THESE GUYS ARE REALLY GOING ALL OUT WITHOUT REST?!)
(I mean... I did made some minions infiltrate some of these corrupted nobles’ gatherings as well as find me that terrorist base... It did took sometime... But.)
(Again! But! Those fucking weapons.... There was just too many of them.)
(And if one of those higher ups of the so called "revolution force" who I’ve had turned into my puppet told the truth... Then these guys have even more weapons.) – thought Ariava as she left the castle grounds, before then shortly after leaving through the main gate and entering the streets.
After making some distance from the castle, Ariava instantly disappeared from the streets without anybody noticing... Before then reimaging from back alley in her new form – A middle aged man with mustache.
(I can probably prevent the terroirs from causing too much damage, which it turn would prevent the war from happening.)
(This could maybe buy the empire several months or even years of peace.)
(I should be able to make sure that the "peace" and "quiet" would stay for some time.)
(.... But then again...)
(Hm....)
(Yeah.)
(Those fucking weapons are bothering me way too much. Their numbers are way too stupid....)
*Sigh*
(I guess I will have to do some deep investigation in that area.)
(I knew that I would have shit ton of job after accepting the contract, but pretty much I’m stuck doing stuff 24/7 because how much work there is.... And the surprising part is that the empire is lazing off either! They are doing their job! Like what the fuck?)
(And the rate things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if I were stay doing work like that for several months in order to make sure that the war wouldn’t break out or some random crap would straight up cripple the whole empire... Fantastic.)
(And again, all of this because of those FUCKING idiots.)
(....Well....I’ve bought at least some time with the destruction of that main base of those fake terrorists.... But by the looks of things, those bastards are already eager to start off the war as soon as possible. Both the fake terrorist and the neighboring nations.)
(I haven’t told the emperor about it since I couldn’t secure the confirmation.... But there is no doubt about it.)
(The moment these terrorist would go on the rampage; the neighbors would instantly declare their wars on the empire.)
(For fuck’s sake.... Those idiots really want to start off the war as soon as possible, eh? And they are so fucking stupid that they don’t even realize or even wait and consider WHAT IT WILL DO???)
"Fucking idiots.... No. They are just fucking retards at this point." – said Ariava to herself.
"And that is even more confusing if you think about it... Since if those fucking retards are in charge of those fucking nations, then how in bloody hell they haven’t killed themselves yet?!" – said Ariava to herself in pure annoyance and anger as people watched at her, confused.
(I’ve seen a lot of idiots in my life time.... But wow.)
(Several nations that are ruled each by RETARDS? All at once? During the same era?)
(This is.... Something new? I mean, I did saw once nation run by the retards that straight up stabbed themselves and then acted like victims.... You know? Those idiots really kind of still beat the idiot list even to this day, if I think about it.)
(Honestly, I wanted to deal with some chaos, before then spending some time with Thauma.)
(But if I want to prevent the Stupid War from happening about now, I would probably have to go to the neighboring nations and somewhat do stuff there.)
"Ahh.... This is annoying."
(Forget calling Mevon territory cursed, this entire part of the continent could be cursed at this point.)
(...)
(...I will deal with the problems... Most of the annoying ones and let the empire deal with some other problems... It will take time, maybe months, but it will keep the empire at peace and prevent the war from erupting..... But Thauma kind of also need bit of hand right now when it comes to growth.)
(I really wanted to have him get support from me.... But by the looks of things, it may be impossible for quiet long amount of time.)
"..."
(Welp.)
(Let’s just ask Porai.)
(I think she would be more than willing to work with Thauma.)
(It would make the alliance bit too quickly public.... But still.)
(It will be worth it.)
(Well, although she may end up being annoyed, since we were meant to make a freaking schedule between us 3.... Oh well, I think she will understand, considering what sort of retards are on the loose.)
With the support of Ariava Brywa, the empire managed to surprises somewhat the false terrorist organization running throughout the empire.
Obviously, the fact that the extremely dangerous terrorist group was preparing to commit mass genocide was kept hidden from public in order to keep the "peace" in place.
Not only that, but thanks to Ariava’s support, the empire were able to catch several traitors of the empire and deal with them properly.
Even though the contract was only signed recently, the empire already benefited greatly from the support that Ariava provided.
With was both terrifying.... And glorious at the same time.
Realizing how much support Ariava is showing and how extremely effective was, both the vampire leader and the emperor pushed forward with the "official" contract signing with the dungeon.
There was still some opposition left, both from the empire higher up and the vampire higher ups... But in the end, the emperor and the vampire leader forced the contract signing to still take place.
And so, 1 month later, the "officially" signing took place between the empire and the golem dungeon, which finalized the deal.
Obviously, this contract that was signed was a fake and the real one was already signed before.
But still, people thought that this was official contract AND they were not aware at the time about Ariava’s involvement.
Her existence would be later on revealed to the most trusted people of the empire, meaning her existence would no longer be kept to the vampire leader and the emperor alone.
There was really no way of hiding her existence from them in the first place, since Ariava was working non stop and her actions that she has taken were making noticeable changes for the better.
However, not everything was going "great" per say.
Specifically, the public somewhat didn’t liked the news about the "alliance" with the dungeon.
A dungeon that committed genocided and slaughtered countless number of innocent people.
Farmers.
Merchants.
Just random travelers that were just traversing the territory at the wrong time.
People who never ever picked a bone with the dungeon were exterminated without any discrimination.
Innocent people.
They were slaughtered like animals by that dungeon who the empire is currently trying to establish "peace" with.
Obviously, even though the alliance was extremely beneficial to the empire AND there would be a "peace", making the dungeon no longer dangerous, people obviously still had an outrage, demanding the dungeon to be exterminated after all the slaughter it had caused.
Especially the people of the Mevon territory, whose territory were "sold" right in front of their eyes.
Obviously, the people living in that territory were compensated by the empire itself, provided with new houses and what not.
But still, the fact remains that the dungeon that made them suffer had now "stole" their houses right in front of them.
But again.... The empire did not fallowed their demands.
Even when they begged or screamed, the people were straight up deported out of the dungeon’s "TERRITORY".
This entire process obviously not only caused problem for the residences of that territory, but also the territories next to that "monster" territory.
However, even when they started begging the emperor to do something about this, they just still continued with their plan.
And so, as the months would go by, every single person that was once living in the Mevon territory were removed from that place... Be it with peaceful or forceful method.
With it, the territory of the Mevon had finally became property of the golem dungeon.
And the first step towards the "real" alliance has been taken.
...
But obviously, many unwanted people instantly saw this "first step".
Which in turn ended up gathering way too many uninvited gazes.
And one of those gazes.... Well, it couldn’t be really surprising."
If one of those gazes were to possibly aim to destroy the peace that the dungeon just obtained as soon as possible.
For their very own benefits.