Chapter 135: Basic Supply and Demand, The Newest Invention
_Well, let's see how they will react._
I thought so as I watched them through the eyes of my undeads leave the capital, well even though I have done something so invasive, it's not like I wanted to have a third just after marrying my first and second, it's just that I knew how much I am worth as an ally in the eyes of Mayari, after all, in this world, a hero is the rarest of all commodities and not all people who were considered geniuses of their crafts can become one, if so, then the world would have been destroyed because of armies upon armies of them.
That is why all the world's nations are always eyeballing all the heroes as if they were lusting for them and will do anything to coax, ally, or even subordinate them. That is the main reason why Gjallarhorn is letting Urduja do anything she wants almost, if not without restraints at all.
And I just so happen to be one of those rare commodities (though, I am officially recognized as the Queen of the Undead and not the Fallen Hero anymore), so it's understandable that I won't be satisfied with a mere business deal that involves me buying weapons inferior to what can we currently produce and some woman who can't even punch a table without whimpering in pain.
Well, I can make them an investor in the medicine and make it so that they will pay more than their shares and at the same time make them buy it at a little bit of a discounted price, but that would implicate me in their everlasting war against Apolaki because even though spies in Kamatayan does not exist, I am sure that there are a lot of them in Mayari, this will give Apolaki a reason to attack me as someone who interferes in their war and became a waterfront ally, I'm sure the emperor of Apolaki will be shameless enough to not admit that they do have other allies and is not relying entirely on themselves, that is a bad situation because even excluding Apolaki, there are already 4 nations that are eyeing us with hostility.
That is some basic supply and demand with a sprinkle of continental politics, so I'm sure that the emperor will not get mad about my heightened demands.
"Now then, I still have a meeting with Urduja."
[3rd Person POV]
The carriage of the entourage transversed the whole of Kamatayan at a moderate speed, that is because of the speed of the horse, but if one is to see the atmosphere inside it, one will think that the reason for their moderation is because the oxygen inside the car was turned into lead, such is the description of how heavy the atmosphere within the circle of the entourage team led by the princess named after Urduja, all of them were speechless up until now, one of the reasons is because their weapons whom they are so proud of and viewed as second only to that of Gjallarhorn was snapped into two both literally and metaphorically by Sophia.
Even though they knew that their spies somehow could not enter even the outermost city in the first layer or the somehow neglected municipalities of the 4th layer, they did not think that they needed it as they had the "perfect" tool to coax Sophia to their side, that is why they did not know that the reservoir of magic metal inside the Kamatayan Territory is virtually infinite and Sophia exploited them all by creating weapons and other things out of them, of course just like the coins, only Sophia can benefit from them.
The other reason is the fact that Sophia acted oblivious to the hidden "agreement" that is to make Urduja her mistress or even her official third wife if she wanted, all of their contingencies were in the premise that one of those two points were rejected and are anchored by the other one that is accepted or treated with interest, they did not expect that all their planning will go down the drain because they were inferior in quality.
Urduja, who is leading the entourage particularly is gloomy, as the one responsible for these negotiations, she feels like she is the one also responsible for its failure.
_Heroes are hard to deal with, they are either too prideful, too smart, or both... but still, to think that our weapons will be inferior compared to them and I, of all people, is considered not worthy of the attention of Lady Sophia, I am still inexperienced, all of my negotiations came from different continents with leaders who are inferior to my father, I have never negotiated with a hero before._
Urduja can be considered unlucky in her first-time negotiation with a person of the same status as her father, not only is her first time smarter, way smarter than her, but Sophia is also prideful and will not let herself be allied with people whom she deems inferior to her and what is more dreadful is that she is not as carefree as she has portrayed herself in Gjallarhorn when she casually talked and had dinner with the person whom she will con at that time.
_Still, I did expect that Lady Sophia knew what her true value in those negotiations was and did talk with my other sisters to get ready to offer themselves for the sake of the empire, that means she is interested in us... but she most definitely is not satisfied with the taste of princesses, she is a queen after all... shall I recommend the 1st princess? But she is wielding the most potent weapon familiar in all of Mayari and Apolaki combined, even though I failed today, I am sure that Lady Sophia will not be able to refuse that offer, and seeing the laboratories in their industrial district that they did not even bother to conceal and Lady Sophia's nigh unmatchable brilliance, there is a chance that she can reverse engineer even the system given weapon of my older sister._
Urduja stopped thinking for a moment, and soon, her frown deepened.
_Besides, with her illusory ability, it will be dangerous to give anyone to her as she can brainwash them easily and make our strongest soldier our mortal enemy, I already chose myself as a sacrifice, but my weak self is not worth her full consideration..._
Urduja cannot help but lament, her only saving grace is that Sophia has never said no and even directly expressed her interest in cooperation.
She can only cheer herself up with that consideration because unlike her, the person whom her name was derived from doesn't need to rely on an extensive strategy to be useful, the swing of her hand alone can cause fear to anyone who wants to face her the second time.
_If only I had a portion of that power, then I wouldn't need to worry my father about this alliance._
The princess named after Urduja did not think anymore as she continued to stay silent as he transversed the Gjallarhornian territory back to her homeland to report the failure of the mission to her father, the emperor.
_______
In the royal capital of Valentine, Eris city, a messenger is kneeling in front of a man sitting on a thrown with a gargoyle-like design as its backrest, in the man's hand is a letter folded neatly, Loki Darkbringer, the other leader of Valentine is reading it's content, not minding the audible drips of sweat coming from the messenger, of course, it is normal to feel such nervousness, after all, he was just a newbie messenger and was chosen as the "honored one" to deliver the letter to one if not the most influential man of the world's history.
Though of course he knew the truth that he was just chosen as he doesn't know a lot of Apolaki's secret, and he doesn't have any choice but to pray that either he survives this ordeal of a lifetime or for him to die a quick death.
Even Loki who appears nonchalant is lamenting this.
_Is my reputation that bad? He's praying even though I haven't done anything yet..._
Loki sighed and then smiled whilst looking at the pitiful messenger.
"I see, so your King wanted to help in a revenge? Where did he hear that?"
The moment he heard that the pitiful messenger flinched, tears started to flow out of his eyes and he prayed to all the gods in the world of Pentateuch to accept him to their heavenly kingdom.
"Erm... Lord Loki... Erm, the council speculated that because Queen Sophia almost killed your wife, you will be taking revenge, that letter is a notice of willingness to help you in this conquest and is not in any way a mockery of your great power."
Loki's eyes squinted, something that luckily did not catch the eyes of the messenger, who knows what would happen if he did?
_Did that Habanero just indirectly tell me that he wanted to use Valentine as a blade to vent his anger?_
As one of the strongest individuals and also what can be considered one of the oldest, older even than Urduja, Loki has set up an intricate information network that did not lose to the spiders of Sophia (though both networks cannot pierce through the information security measures of their counterparts), it is even superior as some people who are very close to nobles king, etc. are his loyal subordinates, of course, he knew what is this speculation is all about and even praised the emperor he calls a Habanero for being able to deduce what he will do in the future, however, being used is something that someone as powerful as himself cannot stand.
"Well, unfortunately, revenge is not something on my mind right now, I am just here enjoying the days of what I can call my second life, so I have to disappoint your emperor, you can go and bring to him my apology."
Loki immediately denied what his true motives are, well, with how lousy his excuse is, he is sure that no one will believe his bullshit, but of course, it's not like someone has the guts to point that out to him.
The messenger was stunned, but because of fear, he did not say anything just like how Loki had predicted, and exited the throne room of the King of Devils. As the messenger left, a black torrent appeared beside him, and a tall lady, taller than Arachne in her spider form materialized.
"Why did you reject it? Aren't you, no, we are planning on invading Kamatayan a long time ago?"
Loki smiled at such a question from his sister.
"Don't worry about that, I'm sure they will be willing to ally with us anytime, their emperor is just like that, he may look impatient and rash, but he is very patient if it's to release his anger."
Loki paused for a full second and then suddenly smiled.
"Besides, it's not time for us to do anything yet, remember, there is still a war that is looming all over the head of Kamatayan."
[Sophia's POV]
Back to me, it was already a week after that horrible failure of negotiation on the side of Mayari and my very successful partnership with mother-in-law Urduja.
As I expected, there is still yet to be a reply, which is fine as that means I caught them off guard, I can only take pleasure in imagining how the faces of their council would have looked like when they received my reply.
Right now, I am here in one of my labs inside the royal capital, staring at a 10-meter structure in front of me, it has a diamond shape with two blades attached with a 1/4th of a meter gap between each other, and there is also a bunch of bearing balls at the bottom as the structure will spin once it was used, inside it was a smaller version of the said structure that will spin in the opposite side as the outer layer.
Finally in the body of the structure were a lot of scribblings meant to segregate the mana it will absorb in the atmosphere to make it a non-volatile energy safe for what I am planning to do with them, this actually is a copycat of the arc reactor, but I realize that I am not Tony Stark, and also, this is something I already designed in my previous life so I had several small versions of them, one of which will be used as the pink bat queen's new heart.
All of the scientists besides me were gulping in nervousness and excitement as they watched several of my mages seal the structure for transport, of course testing this thing needed to be done outside, because if my estimates are correct, then this thing is more powerful than a nuclear bomb, I will use this to the final design of the rifles and also for the power source of the Queendom, and like nuclear energy, this will be used as a weapon of mass destruction if it is necessary to do so.
Though the last bits of my humanity wish for that instance to never happen, but my virtue will of course make me lob this up to any Kingdoms who needed some genocide to calm their asses down, I just have to hope that they will start doing anime after the first one.
I was amusing myself as such before I looked at my scientists as I said.
"Are you all ready?"