Meeting - First day

Seth changed into a set of proper clothes and joined the two kings, Icas and Theodor, and Icas’s advisers, heading for the city hall where the meeting was supposed to be held.

On the way towards the meeting hall, Theodor and Icas chatted casually while Theodor kept peeking behind, looking towards Seth. Seth would smile back every time, making Theodor quickly turn to look forward.

Icas was too busy to notice it. He constantly complained to Theodor about the brothel’s top employees being indisposed and having to manage with low-quality goods.

Once they reached the town hall, the other kings were already there, accompanied by their advisers as they waited for the King of Hope to invite them inside.

It took about half an hour for the doors to the meeting room to open, and a knight dressed in bright white armor walked out.

He bowed towards the other kings and announced loudly: “His majesty, King Ronald of Hope, would like to invite you all honorable guests to step inside the meeting hall.”

The kings looked relieved to finally start the meeting and started walking inside one after another. Since their late arrival, Icas and Theodor were the last to enter.

The inside of the meeting room was only comprised of a large round table with six beautifully decorated seats placed around it.

Right opposite the entrance sat a kind-looking old man. He was the King of Hope Kingdom and the host of the meeting, King Ronald, and behind him stood the knight who invited everyone inside the meeting room.

There were servers holding drinks around the table, ready to serve the meeting members.

Ronald stood up and laughed heartily once everyone was inside, opening his arms wide as he said: “Come, come, old and new friends. Take a seat.”

The kings nodded, and each sat on one of the chairs around the table. Their advisers and other followers stood behind their king’s chair, but none seemed too bothered by that. It was customary in meetings of this sort that only the kings were allowed to sit down while everyone else was forced to stand.

Seth carefully observed the King of Hope as he happily made casual conversation with each and every king there, even singing some words of praise for Icas, a newly crowned king.

‘This guy might even be able to fool me into taking him as a kind old man…’ thought Seth.

After his small talk with each king, Ronald cleared his throat and addressed everyone: “I know some of you had to spend months traveling to reach here and can’t wait to return to your kingdoms, so I won’t continue wasting everyone’s time. It’s time to declare the beginning of the meeting.”

The cheerful atmosphere from before disappeared with Ronald’s words, a stiff silence encompassing the entire room. Even the kind look on Ronald’s face disappeared, replaced by a more solemn one.

“There are two things we must discuss today, equally important for both the future of our kingdoms and the wellbeing of our people.”

Ronald paused briefly, “Those blood fiends that have been giving us restless nights and other matters regarding the Oath Kingdom.”

Turning towards Icas, Ronald said: “Before we start debating on how to deal with both issues, Icas, my boy, you said you have some things that you must announce at the meeting that are of crucial importance. We’re all listening.”

With all eyes on him, Icas strengthened his back, this being the first time he was in the presence of so many kings.

The Wrath Kingdom was strong, even more powerful than The Loss Kingdom, but compared to kingdoms like Curse and Hope, it still had a long way to go, so he felt under a certain amount of pressure.

Clearing his throat, Icas nodded towards Ronald and said: “Thank you, King Ronald, for allowing me to speak, but I feel that everyone will understand better if the one who delivered this news were to speak personally.”

Turning towards Seth, he nodded and said: “This is Infiltrator Otis Knor, one of my kingdom’s best spies, which has been assigned with reporting news from The Blood Kingdom, our neighbors in the south.”

The other kings had strange looks on their faces, wondering what any kingdom’s best spy would be doing watching over the trash dump that was The Blood Kingdom, but none of them called Icas on it as they fixed their eyes on Seth as well.

Seth bowed respectfully and took a step forward.

“Your Majesties. I will then start delivering my report.”

Seth told everyone at the meeting about the changes that came upon The Blood Kingdom, the removal of the criminals, the rebuilding of the city, and so on.

He ignored the confusion of some of the kings, being the first time they had heard about it, and continued explaining how the king of the newly renamed Kingdom of Endora was also the one who banished the blood race from The Kingdom of Blood.

“Are you saying the plague invading our lands originates from The Blood Kingdom?” asked a scary-looking middle-aged man. He was the King of the Curse Kingdom and looked more like a butcher than a king.

His eyes were cold, devoid of any emotion, and his attire choice was strange, to say the least. He was dressed entirely in animal pelts, having a bear head on his shoulder and a wolf’s one at his waist, complete with their lifeless eyes and fierce-looking teeth.

Seth bowed towards the barbarian and said: “Yes, Your Majesty King Adalwolf. Undoubtedly, the blood race originated from The Blood Kingdom.”

Adalwolf slammed his fist on the table, startling some of the other kings as he said in a cold and bloodthirsty tone: “Then what is there to speak about? We should all assemble our armies and march on that Blood Kingdom. I want to feed the bones of that king to my pets.”

His advisers were busy trying to stop the king from making impulsive calls like that, but King Adalwolf ignored them completely. He behaved nothing like a noble king would but more like a rabid dog.

“That’s enough, Adalwolf. Let the boy finish, and we’ll all decide our course of action after.” said Ronald.

Adalwolf scoffed in displeasure, but he still shut up and turned to look back at Seth.

Seth bowed once more towards Ronald and continued telling everyone all the information he supposedly got from the Blood Kingdom’s population about the blood race, complete with their usual behavior, weaknesses, and so on.

Once he told them everything except the details about the Council, which Icas asked him to keep secret, Seth took a step back to let everyone know he was done.

“Thoughts?” asked Ronald after nodding once towards Seth.

“We march on Blood and kill that king before taking over the land. We can decide how to split it between our kingdoms after.” Said Adalwolf immediately.

“We could do that, but it won’t solve our issues. The blood race won’t stop because we destroyed their former home.” Another voice added, belonging to the king of Noth, a calm-looking old man.

“Old Iwan is right.” Added the King of Sorrow Kingdom. “There’s also the question about that king’s origin and capabilities. To be able to fix that worthless kingdom is not something an ordinary person is capable of. Otis, any information on that king’s capabilities or origin?”

Seth shook his head. “I apologize, but I have no information about the king’s origin. As far as I’m aware, he has never shown himself to his people and only relayed his orders through a proxy.”

“What about that proxy?” asked King Lorin of Sorrow.

“She’s a woman.” replied Seth. “But she never introduced herself as anything but the king’s representative.

“What does she look like?” asked Lorin next.

Seth looked hesitant, even making his cheeks turn slightly red, as he added: “She has huge… breasts.”

The kings all chuckled at Seth’s innocent answer, and Lorin asked with a smile: “Do you know if she has any ascended abilities?”

At Lorin’s question, some of the other kings finally understood what he was implying and looked at Seth curiously.

“I’m not sure, Your Highness, but I’ve never seen her use any ascended abilities or heard about her having any.” said Seth, his face still bright red.

“Lorin, are you thinking Oath was behind The Blood Kingdom’s takeover?” asked Ronald.

Lorin nodded and said: “it makes sense. The sudden changes going on in Blood are almost impossible without the aid of ascended, and it would also explain why the blood race had started making trouble through every kingdom except Oath. They must be working for that bastard Lian.”

“I thought that woman might be Iris, but maybe not...”

The others also nodded, finding his words making sense, and Iwan added: “It would also explain why our spies in both Oath and Blood had disappeared at almost the same time.”

As everyone seemed to find all this quite reasonable, Ronald turned towards Theodor and asked: “Theodor, what do you think?”

Theodor was caught off guard, and his eyes darted toward Seth on instinct before looking back at Ronald and saying: “Ronald, I don’t have anything to add.”

“Weird, you used to be more… opinionated... In the past. Did the blood plague hit your Loss Kingdom that badly?”

Theodor clenched his fist under the table and shook his head: “No, but there’s nothing for me to say. I’ve also reached the same conclusion as the others.”

Ronald nodded with a thoughtful look and said: “I guess everyone is of the same opinion that The Oath Kingdom is behind the takeover of the Blood Kingdom as well as the blood plague.”

“These movements from the always passive Oath Kingdom are quite worrisome. Has any of your spies discovered the reason behind everything that happened?”

Everyone shook their head while looking around when, from behind King Adalwolf, one of his advisers hesitantly raised his hand.

“Speak.” Said Ronald, all the eyes turning on the nervous adviser.

“Reporting to Your Majesties.” The adviser bowed low before continuing: “A few years back, there was a report some of our spies sent. It spoke about a rumor that The Academy had a teacher specializing in destruction energy.”

Everyone looked surprised at the news, and even Seth frowned slightly.

‘What is this? How come I didn’t know someone was already informed about it?’

<This had happened at the beginning when host’s plans were completely different, and we were not that focused on preventing news from leaving the kingdom.>

‘This is bad. You should have informed me that news got out anyway.’

<The information never reached any of the kings here since it was only reported in Adalwolf. The advisers there deemed the King had no use for the information and had decided to keep it for themselves.>

<The chances of that information surfacing here were under ten percent, so I didn’t inform host about it.>

Seth didn’t say anything else, realizing that the system was right. It was his fault for not clearing spies from the beginning, mainly relying on the king to do it for him.

*Slap* a loud slapping noise resounded through the meeting room, and everyone stared wide-eyed at King Adalwolf, who had slapped his adviser so hard blood was starting to leak from his nose and mouth.

“You worthless trash. Why haven’t you informed me of this before?”

The adviser tried to speak, but all the blood in his mouth made his words indecipherable. Getting even more annoyed, Adalwolf was about to hit him again when Ronald stopped him.

“That’s enough. I won’t tell you how to manage your people, but he might have information we need. You can kill him after the meeting.”

“If the Oath Kingdom has gotten their hands on destruction knowledge, we might need to move much faster.” Said Iwan, the king of Noth, right after Ronald.

“True.” Added Lorin. “With destruction knowledge in their hands and the aggressive moves they’ve been making, we can’t afford to remain passive.”

Everyone slowly agreed that they must move against Oath as soon as possible.

After more deliberations, Ronald said: “It’s already late today, so we’ll continue the discussion tomorrow. I want everyone to prepare a report on the funds they can afford to donate towards hiring ascended from the Death Kingdom.”

“I declare the first day of the meeting over.”