Chapter 351 - Inevitability

Note : Chapter 352 has been written and added to the queue !

Chapter 351

Red Sands Desert, Archduchy of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Command Center

"...One thing at a time." Finally said Alexandra. "For the good general and her proposal, let us...let us be relatively honest with her. We can help, and we will help, but Sunrise is our first priority and we must march on Tivaro afterwards, even if only to prevent further sneak attacks by the UDC." Not to mention moving to attack the dungeon town, even if it was only a feint, would force the isolationists to focus their resources there and might even fracture their internal politics. They'd already hesitated to attack her and offered her a better deal than what their leaderships wished. If she moved in to actually take out a dungeon core, even if non lethally, the shockwaves would be tremendous. Just the threat of that might bring them to the bargaining table, even if only in a bid to buy time. "We can accept right now, but a grand declaration of fealty to Rebirth could cause too many problems, and be too hasty. Let's propose a summit, instead, and have her publicly announce her desire to have the New Republic fold in her the protection and leadership of Rebirth as a sovereign state."

"You're talking about laying the groundwork for an Empire." Simply said Allya, and Alexandra nodded.

"Yes. We all knew this was going to happen, sooner or later." She'd been perfectly open about this much at least. "I just expected it to be...different. Declaring talks means we don't have to send a military force to help immediately, and allows her to still use the specter of our future total support, and she will still get her backup when it is available. And it's not like her backing away from her offer would work out well. If nothing else..." Alexandra shrugged. "If nothing else, if we win we will de facto control the entire Asarian Kingdom. Not directly, but we don't need to. And we'll have by far the most powerful and feared army on the continent. With the world on the verge of shaking itself apart, Jagathan inevitability demands that we unite to stand together as one. Plus, joining us...joining us guarantees the Hegemony's support and the Far Reach won't attack us. It solves two of their largest problems, or at least makes them a lot less challenging. Even from a purely cold blooded, pragmatic standpoint we're literally the best option available."

"Jagha what?" Blurted out Pyn, and Allya chuckled.

"It's a Terran geopolitical postulate. Alexandra described it to me...well, not that long ago, but it feels like an eternity. You could write a novel about what's happened since then."

"Probably." Alexandra shrugged. "But effectively, as the world becomes more chaotic, dangerous and unstable, with rapidly advancing technology on the continent, not to mention the UDC's civil war and everything happening because of that, nations will be looking to consolidate into bigger blocs, like how humanity coalesced into super-nations on Earth, from the European Federation to the Pan-Asian Confederacy in the interplanetary age, as well as during the lead up to and aftermath of the Terran Hegemony War."

"I see." Said the elf. "Though, do you think her people will accept it?"

"That's always the big question, isn't it?" Alexandra shrugged. "Thankfully however, Sunrise sharing the brand has one advantage: they're the second most hated people in the Republic now, after the Senate. If we take them down, our credit with the locals will go up enormously. If we manage to take down the Senate rapidly as well..." The dungeon core winced. "But that's an ideal scenario. Right now we need our forces North, we just cannot send Amelia reinforcements and won't be able to for a few weeks at least. And even once we've crushed Sunrise's army, we'll still have to pacify their conquered and home territories, plus get into the Sapphire Kingdom to neutralize Tivaro. Doing both would already strain us to the limit. Hopefully with our good Brigadier turning his vest we can cause most of Sunrise to do the same, and dump the whole mess of negotiating a surrender on their majesties while we stand in the background menacingly. But truth be told they'll want to talk to us, and rightly consider their majesties to be irrelevant in terms of military power now."

"And how is that a bad thing?" Asked Allya, softly, and Alexandra met her gaze.

"You know why." She replied, equally softly. "Because if we negotiate with them, we'll do the choice of letting some of them escape the scaffold in exchange for the lives of the countless slaves they have under their command or the civilians they would enslave if pressed to. Trade the lives of war criminals and scum for that of innocents. Nobles or not, worried about their dynasties and domains or not, most of them will require some level mercy as a base requirement for a deal. We can apply pressure and they have considerable weaknesses but in this case their self interest works against us. They won't accept a deal that puts them in front of a firing squad."

They held their gazes, and for a few seconds, everyone else held their breaths. Then Allya closed her eyes.

"I know. And push comes to shove, I'll gladly trade throwing a piece of garbage in a prison or some fancy home arrest for the rest of their lives if it means saving ten thousand. But many won't see it that way. Our good friend Rook might not."

"He wouldn't have gotten this far without some level of pragmatism."

Allya let out a short laugh.

"He collapsed the greatest Empire of his time. Whatever you think he's capable of, you're underestimating him. Do you even comprehend what it takes to unleash that level of destruction?"

"More than you ever will."

This time the silence was complete, as the AIs looked studiously neutral and everyone else exchanged worried glances.

"...I will take your word for it." Cautiously answered Allya. "Nevertheless. He is an idealistic crusader with great power, an entire party of similar individuals and a cause that justifies a lot."

"I know. But he isn't gunning for their majesties' heads, which means he isn't interested in just burning everything to the ground. I'd say he has...learned from his previous endeavors." If only because of the fact that he had never repeated that kind of bloodbath despite having the capacity to do so. That told her he had been working on solutions. "If, as we suspect, he is preparing to break the brands, the suspiciously rapid creation of the resistance network may be his way of controlling the subsequent chaos. It's old history, even for me, but when France was liberated at the end of Earth's Second World War, the Resistance provided the backbone for a new government."

"I'm not sure if having Rook rule half the country will be a good idea."

"If he had any intention of doing so, New Raleigh wouldn't be a city state. No, Sunrise has its fair share of political dissidents that have been enslaved, and a great deal of the non noble leadership ran for the hills in the occupied territories." Those people were actually part of the reason why Manson was managing the civilians so well, they were, at least in part, managing themselves. "Even here there are burgmeisters, chancellors, bailiffs and other respected public officials that weren't automatically pulled into the fighting like most nobles were." One of the key issues of such a feudal system was that if you were called upon by your liege, you generally went. At least if you wanted your share of the glory and the spoils. Yeah they had chancellors and other underlings to take care of things back home -who sometimes ran everything even when the noble was home-, but in effect the entirety of the official leadership was in the clashing armies. Which was part of why she was aiming for Sunrise's nobles so much, they were all well placed within their respective houses and killing them would cause a series of succession crisis. There was always a relative that wanted to be count instead of the current holder of the title and their heir after all...

"So they'll just recreate their own government? That will...that'll collapse the entire nobility!"

"I don't know if you realized, but Rook doesn't exactly strike me as someone who's fond of monarchies or other stratified societies." Said Alexandra, her voice dripping with irony.

"No. No he's not." Allya sighed. "Well that's going to be a mess."

"Perhaps, but that depends entirely on whether he comes through or not. And even if it's a mess...it's frankly better than the alternative."

Allya grimaced.

"Can't argue with that. Very well, I suppose I'll tell our good general about the proposal. If nothing else that way we can start working on how such a thing would even work in terms of taxes and administration. Rebirth is rich enough to pay for most of the infrastructure and running costs in Erakis and Darthar, but not the entire Republic, especially not after such a war. Not when we have the parts of the archduchy Sunrise devastated to worry about, reconstruction wise."

"That's another upside." Said Alexandra. "Let's get back to work, then. And watch out for any further fallout."

*****

"The duchess' orders and wishes are non discretionary, I'm afraid." Said the Marquis to his assembly of grim faced officers, all nobly born, but in his tent titles meant less than rank, however intertwined they were. "We must crush this army, immediately."

"But sir, the abominations-" Started a captain, and the Marquis cut her off.

"Can be killed. We know it, we've done it." That was a slight lie, the UDC had, but that's not what they needed to hear right now. Especially since their 'allies' had taken a considerable step back after the cataclysmic loss of their forward squadron. "We can do so again. And every minute that passes, every hour we waste bickering gives her more time to bring horrors forward. So we will prepare to attack."

It wasn't a good idea. He'd argued against it. But he understood that political considerations made it inevitable. He was, however, going to try his damnedest to make it go well and stack the deck in his favor.

"Many of our people will die." Said a colonel. The older man had the looks of an experienced warrior, his face decorated with a super mustache and stern expression. "Including many more of my elite knights." He said as he moved to stand behind the Marquis, leaning against the table of refreshments. He knew what he was doing. So did the Marquis.

The Marquis turned around to face him.

"It must be done. There is no other choice. Not for the duchess."

"My children are among those knights." Said the colonel, softly, pleadingly. It was clear in his eyes that he didn't want to do it, but there was also...resignation that there was no changing course now.

"I know." The Marquis couldn't bear his gaze, and he turned back towards the table, setting his hands down heavily onto the maps strewn upon it, leaning forward as if crushed by the weight of what he was doing. "I'm sorry colonel."

"I know sir." The colonel stepped forward to lay a hand on the Marquis' shoulder. And a mental alarm went off. That was...the wrong hand. The colonel wasn't on his side, he was directly behind him. "So am I."

"Wha-" The Marquis didn't even have the time to turn around, he simply froze and let out an incoherent gurgle as eighty centimeters of steel were punched through his lungs, the hand on his shoulder driving him further onto the sword.

He looked in confusion and horror at the blade protruding from his chest, only vaguely registering the sounds of death and slaughter around him as his guards and officers were cut down, before feeling someone tug on his hair, exposing his throat for a knife...a knife flashing with magic and enchantments.

A single cut, and his entire world went red, before disappearing altogether as he was torn screaming from his body, the soul sealing enchantments closing in around him.

The colonel watched as life drained from the Marquis' eyes, and his blood stopped spurting over the maps, before raising his eyes at the others.

Of the fifteen officers the Marquis had held council with, ten laid dead on the floor, alongside half a dozen of the dead leader's household guards. Even with the advantage of surprise, the conspirators had lost two of their own.

"Heal up." He told his fellows, all of them at least somewhat wounded. "Then let us make haste. We have but minutes."

They all nodded as they fished potions from their pouches, and he turned back towards the Marquis, prying at his hand to grab his signet ring.

Like many nobles the Marquis had partially overridden the safeties meant to prevent it from being used by others to be able to delegate to a few, trusted underlings.

Underlings like the colonel.

Meant as a glorified means of applying a mana signature or not, the ring would issue enough 'authentic' orders in his name to allow for their coup to succeed, even if only through sheer confusion.

So long as the duchess died tonight.

The envelopes and dispatches were already done, written well beforehand. One of his fellows simply grabbed the pouch from one of their fallen comrades and emptied it on a clean corner of the table for him to quickly apply the signature to, as the others recuperated.

Finally, a minute of mecanically applying the signet ring, he looked up.

"Everyone ready?" The other conspirators nodded, one of them finishing packing the last few dispatches back into the pouch, ready to be distributed. "Then let us go."

He stepped outside the tent, not even blinking as he stepped over the bodies outside and his knights saluted him. He gestured for them to follow him, and made directly for the duchess' tent.