Chapter 77: The Meeting.

The dark elf, in his despairing eyes, was healed back to full capacity and was dragged by Saru and Bakunawa, leaving with nothing but the void in his heart, as for probably the first time in his life as a subordinate, he failed on a mission, however because of his immeasurable disappointment towards himself, he did not notice the cork that slowly floated towards his pouch, of course my subordinates saw it and all of them almost exclaimed, but ultimately stopped themselves from doing so.

After a while of waiting for the dark elf to leave the premises of my city, I put on another cork, I then spoke:

"All of you shall assume your positions right at this moment, and all of the unassigned individuals will be temporarily housed in the capital, may all of you forever be righteous and not be blinded by the power I have given, for surely I have to throw hands if that is to happen. Disperse."

All of them, with a last bow, left the area after what I said, except for Eleanor and Arachne who seemed to be interested in the cork that I just sneaked in the pockets of the dark elf, I mean they are not really my soldiers that have to take their hands away from the matters I am not willing to say, so it is understandable.

"And now, we wait."

[3rd Person POV]

At the border between the Eastern Kamatayan Territory and Indio, two scouts are waiting anxiously, just this night their leader went on a mission alone to seek help from the queen of the great forest, they are anxious about their leader's return, anxious because at this moment their people are fighting a seemingly fruitless struggle against the humans and elven armies that the Stardust Kingdom have magically acquired and finally, they are anxious because the "offer" they made is either a very pleasant or a very disrespectful gift for a monarch.

But what can a state that doesn't even have a government type nor a proper chain of production can offer other than their everlasting beauty as well as their expertise in weaponry? That was their only hope, the hope that Sophia, the prodigious daughter of the god of the undead who was so strong that she was allowed by her father to become a monarch of his lands even after betraying him to have a weakness in women or a discrepancy of knowledge in terms of weaponry.

Obviously, Luna is the one who will give those two aspects to Sophia.

Unfortunately, it seemed like all of their hopes will be crushed today, for just as the two of them were gulping to ease up their dried-up throats, they heard the rustles of leaves, it was hurried yet calm, but they did not speculated a successful mission from their leader for what they heard is not a single, but several foot trampling on the dried up leaves splattered on the ground.

_Don't tell me...!_

Both of them felt a bad feeling brood in their hearts, they immediately loaded their crossbows and then pointed them in the direction of the steps, With every rustle, their heart felt like being stabbed by pikes as they saw the dark elf with empty eyes being dragged by two gorgeous ladies, their mind went blank, they forgot who the two ladies are and immediately positioned the tip of their arrows in the head of Saru and Bakunawa.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?"

Nowhere is the anxiousness and doubts earlier in their voice and only the anger of their leader being held captive can be heard, the two ladies squinted their eyes as Saru spoke.

"What have YOU done, insulting our queen for thinking that she will move out herself just because you offered her a woman with a shapely body, you should feel thankful for our lady's benevolence of not destroying your pride by invading your land all by herself."

As Saru said those words, Bakunawa hurled the leader named Moreno to the two of them, Saru looked at her, she could not help but sigh.

_Or they are more lucky that Bakunawa started to mellow out because of her daily interaction with people who are not afraid of her, or else forget about invasion, Indio's climate will turn from humid into freezing cold for all eternity._

Saru silently shook her head, Bakunawa did not notice such actions, as she was looking at the two people in front of her with her ever-sharp eyes.

"Repent for your sin by being enslaved."

Bakunawa seemed to understand what she said all too well, as her eyes flashed a dispirited light for a moment that fortunately did not notice the despairing scouts, after a while the two ladies grew tired of the blanked state of the two scouts thus the two of them, without any words turned around and left the vicinity of the three dark elves.

An oppressive silence befell the trio who had the same blank look, it was as if they were being hunted by a sound-sensitive monster, and only after an hour did Moreno mutter.

"...ailed..."

The two sub-scouts looked at their leader trying to make out what he just said, however, they could not even react when Moreno suddenly grabbed his dagger and shouted: "I HAVE FAILED YOU, MY LADY!"

... And stabbed his throat.

"Wha..."

That was the mutter of the two flabbergasted scouts as their eyes trailed the slumping figure of their stemmed leader and only when the leader's head kissed the ground did they shout at the top of their lungs.

"LEADER!!"

The two of them immediately stood up and then both grabbed the shoulders of their leader and dragged Moreno's corpse as fast as possible, in their eyes is the seemingly dying desperation of a countryman desperately trying to rebel against the faith of their land.

______

Luna was anxious, as they started to face defeat after defeat in just a few days because the white elves found a human army seemingly out of nowhere that would block the physical aspect of wars and give them security while hurling their magic attacks, such a simple arrangement already cost them 5 military bases, she still can see the helplessness of the survivors as they retreated to the main camp, and what is worse is that the main camp got assaulted countless of times already and the only thing holding it together is Luna herself, even her prime minister Patiño seemingly started to lose all of his hope.

_Will she agree? I hope she will._

She looked at the mirror, as the one who was sacrificed to Sophia, she observed her scar-filled yet curvaceous body, her breast, though not as great as the ladies of the white elves are still ample enough, her hips wide and her butt perky. Surely, Sophia will not be able to resist such an enticing body.

Patiño was looking at her but Luna seem to not mind, or rather she doesn't even look at this friend of hers as a possible candidate to be her spouse, they are fighting a war for centuries already, how can she think of such ridiculous bullshit, right?

"MY LADY! MY LADY!"

However, her self-assurance was suddenly interrupted by two sharp, anxious, and somehow desperate voices, the call for Luna's presence did not halt which only caused her to stop looking at her mirror as anxiousness also filled her heart.

_Did Moreno fail?_

She strode out of her tent and what she saw were the two scouts who accompanied her scout leader dragging Moreno's body had a dagger stabbed into his throat, Luna's anxious face was replaced with anger, but she could not even voice out her raging hearts as the two sub scouts shouted.

"MY LADY! MORENO TRIED TO END HIS LIFE BECAUSE HE THOUGHT HE HAVE FAILED YOU! BUT CLEARLY, HE CAN STILL BE SAVED! ORDER THE MEDIC, MY LADY! ORDER THEM!"

Luna was shocked, he looked at Moreno who had a flood-tier of blood flowing out of his throat, devoid of any breathing signs he was already dead, Luna then looked at the two scouts that lost all of their hope and then started to escape reality, she did not think that her people were this weak, thus Luna slapped the two scouts with all her might and as the strongest warrior of whole Indio, her slap caused teeth from the two to fall out of their mouth as they were flung in the air and slumped hard to the ground.

Without the two scouts knowing, a faintly glowing cork was softly stomped on by Luna as she shouted.

"WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE WE'RE ABOUT TO GET SIEGED!?"

She looked at the scouts and then closed the still-open eyes of Luna's corpse and also sneakily picking up the cork, she then breathed a huge sigh as  Luna strode back to her tent, whilst she was walking, she ordered.

"He is already dead, give him a proper Burial."

After that, she finally re-entered her tent without any other words except an: "Get out." order to Patiño, as she put the cork on her ear.

"Soundcheck, hey."

A voice in her mind was heard which Luna replied also with the voice of her head, she is not so stupid to not be able to know that spell imbued in the cork.

"I can hear you."

Luna replied, an undeniable anger can be heard in her tone.

"Woah, why are you angry, Lady of the Elves?"

A certain tone that was misunderstood as "flirty" of Luna because of her wrong perception of Sophia enticed more burning rage in her heart, she exclaimed, in her mind of course.

"YOU MADE MORENO COMMIT SUICIDE!"

On the other side, Sophia squinted her eyes a little.

[Pride of old farts.] her unique skill said on her brain that Luna failed to hear, Sophia then replied.

"And that's my fault?"

"If it's not you, who else should be blamed!?"

Sophia went quiet for a second, a moment after she scoffed, she had encountered a lot of people who got slapped by reality when they were competing against her in her previous life, however, a handful were the ones who got depressed by their mediocrity, those people are what Sophia detested the most.

"Wait, so you're telling me that HE who did not expect failure to befell him in every mission is innocent? HE who thinks too highly of himself just because he is older than me by hundreds of years is not to be blamed? I am sorry, but as far as I know, old people should be wise enough to know that failure can lead to knowledge that cannot be answered by numerous victories, if he is so stupid as not to know such an elementary thing, I think everyone but himself is innocent."

Luna was stunned, surely, she wanted to refute, but as an old person herself, she knew that all of Sophia's words were true, she thinks too highly of herself and immediately puts herself above the younger ones, she tried to muster a reply, but cannot find one for she finds herself too guilty and in the wrong side this time, thus the conversation went into an awkward halt, thankfully, Sophia changed the topic immediately.

"Ahem, anyway, what you offered is rather enticing, however, I don't need you as of now."

Sophia paused, waiting for Luna to get out of her stupor, it was proven to be effective as Luna immediately replied.

"Then what do you want?  I cannot give you money nor a part of our territory, we want freedom from centuries of long oppression, not a new colonial power that will work us to death."

Sophia was surprised, her evaluation of Luna rose up for a bit, surely being shameless is one of the leader's traits, and by saying their stance even if Luna was facing a person who could make all hell break loose on their land, it was a very evident check mark on her book.

"I see... Well, I am quite fond of rebellions you see, so I will  make it reasonable, first I want an open and free land in the future for my soldiers to rush towards Stardust and occupy it, after that we will build a road that will connect the new territory to the mainland, of course, that road will also be used for Indio and Kamatayan's official partnership."

Luna listened carefully, but after hearing that, she squinted her eyes, even without the "Brain of the Revolution" Patiño, she knew that such demand was too little to help a revolution, after all, Luna knew that the Kingdom besides the disputed land is the one responsible for the human army, Sophia in short will incur the anger of two Nations, Luna will not believe that Sophia did not think that far even if she herself can do so.

The structure of their unofficial state has her as the head of the military and Patiño as the head of politics, and because of her upbringing, all she can look at is the military perspective of things, in that regard Luna has foresight, but it was not far enough to realize the plans by her counterpart, but to be fair, there is only a handful of people who can think as far as Sophia.

"Hey, don't overthink it, like I said, I am quite fond of revolutions, as long as it's not happening in my domain, thus you can rest assured that I do not have any ulterior motives."

Sophia chortled, but it did not ease up Luna's doubt, however, she could not do anything because an olive branch was finally offered by someone, she just had to get ready, for the hand that offered the branch was most certainly a predator with its mouth ready to munch on her motherland, thus she answered.

"Before, I agree, what help can you give this small nation of ours?"

Luna did not know that Sophia had a big grin on her mouth when she heard her reply, she just stated the thing that Kamatayan excels the most.

"Information."