Chapter Seven: Opened Hostilities
Altar-Dryfe Border, Peace Conference Hall
The moment Claudiah pressed the button, the situation changed drastically.
It was as though she had flipped a switch that turned the scene before her into chaos.
Leviathan was the first to act. She’d put down Behemot and jumped towards Altimia with a small blade in hand.
It wasn’t a large weapon and didn’t seem that threatening on its own, but its edge was covered in some sort of liquid.
She then threw the dripping blade towards Altimia.
“Gh!” However, Altimia noticed the poisoned dagger flying towards her and drew her sword — The Primeval Blade, Altar — deflecting it with ease.
But the moment she swung her sword, Leviathan was already right next to her. “You’re mine!”
“Kodachi.” Before Leviathan could even touch Altimia, Shu launched a high kick towards her. He was already clad in his Ursine Godcloth, Kim-un-Kamuy, and could use its first strike-limited optical camouflage and presence block effects. His unseen attack hit home, striking Leviathan in the back of the neck.
Shu hadn’t been on-edge about the Dryfean Masters’ movements for nothing. His attack went exactly as he’d planned, striking for maximum damage.
“Hh...!” The kick that had once instantly eliminated a Legendary monster was so strong that not even Leviathan could withstand it. It blew her away with the force of a cannonball, opening up a hole in the wall she crashed into.
However, her spine wasn’t even strained, let alone broken, so she had no problem simply standing back up again. Marie followed up Shu’s attack with piercing-homing bullets, but Leviathan turned them to dust with a mere swing of her arms.
Not even five seconds had passed since this battle had begun.
Many of the bodyguards present were clearly perplexed.
The Dryfean bodyguards actually seemed more shocked than the Altarian ones. The fact that Leviathan had just tried to assault the chief representative of the other country left them completely flabbergasted. Based on that, Shu assumed that only Behemot and Leviathan had been informed of this part of the plan.
Besides Claudiah — the representative — and King of Beasts — the imperator’s ultimate confidant — no Dryfean present knew the full scope of the plot here.
“I knew this would not succeed,” Claudiah said upon witnessing the failure of the assault she herself had ordered.
“It’s only because my focus is split. I wouldn’t have failed if I just had to kill her,” said Leviathan.
“Everyone else can die, but Altimia must be captured alive. You must accomplish this at any cost.”
“...I’m not suited for that kind of thing. Behemot should be the one to do this.”
“kk” Despite the tense air, their talk was extremely relaxed, casually revealing that they were planning to kidnap Altimia — the acting ruler of Altar.
“Claudiah! What are you planning...?! What was that switch...?!”
“Basically, the peace talks are over,” Claudiah said, as if this was nothing. “This young man here... ‘Ray,’ was it? He unraveled our plan. After being so thoroughly exposed, these negotiations have fallen apart, and any hope of future peace has vanished.”
It was now obvious that no matter how favorable the peace treaty seemed at first glance, Dryfe would still hide traps within it. Now, Altar would be more wary at any future talks, making such traps impossible.
“However, it is true that Dryfe does not want war. We will only accept it as a last resort. Therefore, we will simply destroy Altar before that happens,” Claudiah said, without any enthusiasm.
“...How?” Ray asked.
“First, we will either capture or kill the second and third princesses, as well as secure Altimia herself.”
“Huh?!”
“The switch I had just activated should have signaled that person you mentioned — King of Thieves, Zeta — to assault Altea along with her own collaborators.” Her shocking words shook up almost everyone who heard her. The officials tried to contact the capital using comms magic, while Marie was poised to run outside.
Ray had also almost looked at the direction of Altea...
“Don’t move.”
...But Shu stopped him.
With those words, he was implying that here and now, they were dealing with something that was as important as whatever was happening at Altea... or was even more dangerous than that.
King of Beasts was here — a foe who could kill you the moment you so much as looked away.
King of Destruction was already prepared for battle, and his body was as tense as it could be.
“...Do you really believe the kingdom will fall if we disappear?” Altimia asked Claudiah. She was worried about the capital and her sisters, but as the one who carried the country on her shoulders, she stood firmly against the threat in front of her.
“Of course I do,” said Claudiah, pointing at Altimia. “After all, Altar is only Altar because it has you, the descendants of the founding king... the royal family. The country is only in one piece because it has you. If you believe I am wrong, then tell me... is there a single noble you’d trust to hold your country together?”
“Ah...!”
“The most influential of the nobility, the Lunnings family, was extinguished by Gloria. The previous war also took the lives of many illustrious citizens, did it not? The most prominent noble still alive is Marquis Findle, but he is more of a behind-the-scenes type, not suited to lead the country. Who else is there? Count Gideon? He’s far too young. With him in charge, there would only be more chaos. Without a proper leader, a country is unable to make Covenants, activate War Boundaries... it would be barred from things that can only be done by heads of state. It would be unable to even function as an independent nation.”
Claudiah took a breath before continuing.
“Even if someone tried to seize power to quell the chaos, someone else would rise to stop them. That much is obvious, given the existence of nobles like Marquis Borozel, who tried to gain authority even if it meant assassinating a princess. And I am aware of many of your elite who would swear allegiance to us the moment the royal family was gone. Even the lords who would not join us might just choose some other country to pledge themselves to instead. Marquis Nissa at Altar’s southwest is on good terms with Legendaria, for one, so he might desire to be annexed by them. On that topic, Count Keyora in the seaside region to the west has connections to Granvaloa’s trading fleet. Granvaloa wants more land of their own, so they would gladly take him... Well, the point is that without the pillars, such things would happen all over, and Altar would disintegrate into warring states once again.”
Claudiah declared that the royal family was all that was keeping from Altar from crumbling into many smaller nations. That was how the country had been before the founding king united it, so it wasn’t out of the question that it could one day return to that state.
However, it was obvious that Claudiah knew far too much about Altar’s state of affairs. Some of what she’d said was unknown not only to Altimia, but even DIN.
Dryfe had been given all of this information by none other than King of Thieves, Zeta.
She was part of Illegal Frontier. The clan’s leader, Sechs, knew far more about Altar than most could even imagine, and he had distributed this info to all of its members. Zeta had also gathered a great deal of information herself, and by now I.F.’s database had become extremely vast.
Besides the act of terror at the capital, Dryfe had also requested that Zeta sell them everything they knew about Altar’s internal affairs.
The imperium wanted to eliminate the royal family in order to incapacitate the country and split it apart with the influence of other countries. This plan was based on the assumption that the nobles with ties to other countries would act exactly as Dryfe was expecting, but...
...Well, actually, I guess that is a viable plan, Shu thought. For all he knew, the nobles in question might’ve already talked things out with Granvaloa and Legendaria. The two countries wouldn’t participate in the war between Altar and Dryfe, but they would come to take the kingdom’s territory in the event that the government collapsed. Legendaria and Granvaloa had nothing to lose from making such agreements.
Dryfe would benefit from this, as well.
If Altar collapsed, they would lose a potential force against the biggest threat, Caldina, but since a splintered kingdom would have very few factions willing or able to stand up to Dryfe, they could easily absorb what was left of the kingdom, along with the other nations opposed to Caldina.
That was their plan here.
...The marriage-based alliance between Altar and Huang He would also fall apart if the second princess was gone. Even if Huang He wanted to retaliate against Dryfe for this, they still have Caldina between them, making invasion impossible. In fact, if that’s how things went, Dryfe might even appreciate the damage that Huang He would do to Caldina.
Crossing the Harshwinter Mountains to the north was another way to reach Dryfe, but Shu knew that that was a more dangerous path than Caldina’s deserts — it was fair to call it impossible, actually. There had been a Superior who had tried that way, only to have the floating fortress he was so proud of shot down by the local ruler of the skies — Divine Comet Bird, Tunguska. Shu himself had been caught up in that incident.
Dryfe’s plan seemed to account for all the tians involved, Altarian or otherwise.
“...Maybe that’s how things would go with tians,” Shu said as he looked at his little brother. “But what about us Masters? Even if Altar’s gone, there’d be many who’d bare their fangs at Dryfe.” Even if the country crumbled, there would surely be ex-Altarian Masters who would stand against the imperium. It would be especially hard to prevent VIP assassinations by the likes of Marie or Eishiro.
“Exactly,” said Tsukuyo. “Even with the threat of the wanted list, you’d still leave yourself open to a retaliatory strike or two.”
“Would you come to Dryfe if the reward was good enough?” Claudiah asked her.
“Don’t think that we would change sides that easily.”
“We would not mind making The Lunar Society into the state religion,” Claudiah said.
“...D-Don’t think that we would... Hold on, let me think a bit...” The fact that Dryfe would so easily do what the kingdom had so ardently refused to actually made Tsukuyo falter.
“...Don’t think that all of us can be bought as easily as Miss Eldritch here,” Ray snapped at Claudiah, his opinion of Tsukuyo dropping even lower than he thought possible.
“Oh, I’m certain of that. I know that there are many Masters like yourself. In fact, I am sure that almost all Masters who stayed in the kingdom after their loss in the recent war would be such individuals.”
Masters who only cared about themselves would have already switched to other countries, or they were like the people that Franklin had hired during Franklin’s Game. Many of those that were left were either close to Altarian tians or merely liked the kingdom and wanted to protect it.
“That is why,” Claudiah continued. “I hope you do not believe that we’re doing something so extreme without some kind of measure in place to deal with such Masters.”
“And that ‘measure’ is...?”
“I cannot say it. We are still only in the first stage, after all,” she said, before turning to face Altimia. “We will deal with the princesses at Altea and capture Altimia here. Our anti-Master measure comes after that.”
Those words didn’t trigger anyone’s Truth Discernment. That meant that they actually had thought of a way to deal with Altarian Masters who would attack Dryfe once the kingdom fell.
The fact that they’re not worried about assassinations makes it pretty clear that they’ve come up with something really extreme. That means that the most important thing here is...
Their primary goal here had to be protecting the Altarian princesses from Dryfe’s attack. If the kingdom ceased to exist, things would go exactly according to Dryfe’s plan.
Hell, we can’t let them mess with Theresia... If worst comes to worst... It’ll all be over.
As one of the few who knew what really made Theresia special, Shu began to sweat — and not just because of the King of Beasts. He decided it would be best if they returned to protect Altea as soon as possible.
Between the Masters Chrono had killed and the ones on bodyguard duty here, the capital had been rendered more or less completely defenseless. If the attackers were powerful enough, it would all be over.
There was one major problem with this, however — their enemies here would not let them return to Altea so easily. While fighting King of Beasts the Physical Apex, a retreating battle was a foolish idea.
They’ll probably aim for AGI builds like Superior Killer and Tsukikage first. Even if he hid in the shadows, they’d just destroy the entire zone to get to him. And even if they somehow managed to escape, we would be too slow to retreat from the King of Beasts, who’s almost certainly faster than either of them. There’s no point in trying to run away when they can catch up so easily. It’s better to stay and fight them here. With Claudiah around, they can’t just destroy everything indiscriminately.
And even if King of Beasts hadn’t been here, there was no guarantee that anyone except those who could move at supersonic speeds would even make it to Altea in time.
But staying here and fighting would still take up valuable time that could be used to hurry to Altea. Is it better for us to protect Altimia all costs or force our way out...?
As Shu considered the situation...
“I will ask one thing, Claudiah.”
...Altimia, who had been quiet for a while now, spoke up again.
“I will hear it.”
“Are you able to stop the terrorism at the capital?”
“Yes. If I press the bottom button on the switch, it would immediately be c—”
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