by Fuse
“What nonsense is this, commoner?! It is not your place to question the actions of our nation! If you are on speaking terms with Rimuru, that is all we require. It is a champion’s duty to intervene for us. You must do something!”
Lord Carlos was acting as haughty as ever, totally ignoring Yohm’s pleadings. Yohm had trouble hiding his disgust. I swear, these nobles, he thought, taking pains to look undisturbed as he continued.
“Look, can you just listen to me for one moment? From the way I heard it, you didn’t send any envoys, you didn’t declare war or anything; you just took some otherworlders and let ’em go to town, huh? I went out to mediate with you guys, but when I heard all that, lemme tell ya, I was shocked. But look, I’m a Farmus man. Born and raised. I don’t wanna see my homeland get wrecked, so I tried finding a way to calm Rimuru down. Razen over there asked me to.”
If the nobility continued to act as despotic as they were, it was no exaggeration to say Farmus’s days were numbered. Sensing Diablo behind him, Yohm could physically feel the doom over them all.
Catching sight of Diablo taught Yohm all about what true evil was. It made him realize what a bunch of small-time bandits he and his group really were. Real evil doesn’t bother to try buttering up the men in charge. They bow down to no one, staying constantly true to their will.
Diablo was on good behavior right now only because he was faithfully following Rimuru’s orders. Him acting up right now would have adverse effects on Yohm’s future as the new king. Overly punishing the nobles would leave the real problem unaddressed, and if he simply killed them all to shut them up, it’d tarnish the new government’s reputation. The most ideal way to handle them was to wait until some of the more rebellious ones made their presences known. That was why Diablo stayed silent, keenly observing them all.
If, on the other hand, the nobility decided to incur his wrath, all that flew out the window. If Diablo decided none of them were worth keeping alive, that would be the end for them, right there. Mjurran and Gruecith, serving as advisers to Diablo, were in agreement on that. Only a very few high-level magic-born could hope to corral someone as powerful as Razen. Diablo was one of them, and if Diablo wanted to take action, Farmus in its current weakened state could do nothing to resist him.
This was much of the reason why Yohm’s party was far more nervous about how this meeting in the throne room would go than any of the nobles were.
Razen felt just the same way as Yohm. It was clear that Diablo thought little of human life, and he had none of the hang-ups about noble titles and commoners the rest of them had. They were all equally worthless to him—his treatment of King Edmaris made that blindingly obvious.
If they started flinging insults at Rimuru, master of the monsters, they had no idea how Diablo might react. Lord Carlos, hopefully, would be the only target of his rage. If he wasn’t, then all intelligent life might be banished from Farmus entirely.
Razen knew that, and that knowledge made him frantic. Assuaging the panic running inside his head, he tried his best to back up Yohm.
“Lord Carlos, that is quite enough from you!”
“What? You take the side of this scruffy commoner, Sir Razen?!”
“I said, that is quite enough!” he found himself shouting. “I will not have you intrude until you understand the situation!”
It was rare for Razen to raise his voice in court. It cowed the nobility into silence, waiting to see what would happen next.
“Listen to me, all of you,” he said, mentally recalling the script he was given. “Sir Yohm is telling us the truth. Shogo and his otherworlder compatriots were defeated by the monster army’s generals. When our forces tried to overrun our enemies, the Storm Dragon blocked us, sealing our fates. The survivors consist of Sir Reyhiem, His Majesty, and me—us three only. We were held captive, and it was the good word of Sir Yohm that earned us our release.”
He continued with the tale, and no one else dared to cast doubt upon it. Soon Reyhiem and Yohm were contributing information, supported by Muller and the Earl of Hellman. Together, they all pleaded their case before the biggest and brightest figures of Farmus politics.
“…So you say that His Majesty was subjected to a curse on the battlefield that put him in his present state?”
“Our lord has offered peace…and the master of the monsters is willing to listen…?”
“Are you saying Farmus, our homeland, has yielded to monsters?”
“Have we any other choice? Surely you don’t intend to suggest we continue the battle. We would have the Storm Dragon to answer to.”
“No, I…”
The otherworlders, their aces in the hole, had been dispatched by Rimuru’s top officials. Veldora was on the move. The Jura-Tempest Federation, an organization they once derided as a rabble of slavering beasts, was—from a military perspective, at least—leaps and bounds ahead of Farmus. Attempting to stage a frontal attack against this foe would be the height of folly. Everyone in the chamber had the same thought—in admitting defeat, the king made the only decision available to him.
Soon, the group had come to a consensus.
“Well, if we have an offer being made to us, why not accept it, everyone?”
The majority nodded their agreement to Muller’s suggestion. There were some contrarians among them, no doubt, but none of them voiced their concerns. Nobody seemed to contest the fact that this war could no longer continue.
It was now settled. The Kingdom of Farmus would enter negotiations with Tempest. And with that decided, Diablo finally took his cue.
“Heh-heh-heh-heh… A wise decision,” he said as he began to saunter toward the center. “In that case, as promised, I will release your king back to you.”
“Who are you?!”
“Pardon me,” Diablo proudly stated. “My name is Diablo, faithful servant to my leader, the great and powerful Rimuru.”
The assembled nobility had little idea how to address this man. Diablo seemed so natural among them that they had trouble speaking up. Only Razen demonstrated any fear of him, for only Razen knew what that name meant. The mere fact the name existed at all; that struck terror into him. Some things, he thought as he enviously looked at the audience and sighed, are better off not being known at all.
Others, however, regarded Diablo with suspicion. These were the king’s own royal guard, stationed by their lord’s side and keeping an eye on this interloper’s every move. Finally, when he was just about to reach the throne, they stepped in his way—only to be completely ignored, as Diablo continued tracing a path to the gruesome box atop the seat.
The guard was now visibly angered but nonetheless frozen in place. Even if they wanted to speak, none of them could. By the Free Guild’s reckoning, each knight in this guard rated an A-minus—not quite a full A but certainly above a B. One could even call them the strongest of Farmus’s remaining force, left behind in the castle to keep the rest of the administration well guarded. They numbered a hundred strong, there in the chamber, and none of them could move an inch.
It wasn’t anything Diablo actively did to them. It was simple terror. Their well-honed survival instincts told every one of them how much of a danger Diablo was.
“Very good,” he said as he greeted the sight with a smile. “No need for anyone to die needlessly, am I right?”
So he continued until he stopped at the box that contained what was left of King Edmaris. Calmly, he took a Full Potion out of a pocket and poured it straight into the container—and without anyone noticing, he simultaneously undid the binding curse placed by Shion on its contents. The resulting transformation was dramatic. The moment medicine made contact with flesh, the king was back, in the robust shape everyone recalled. Diablo’s scheme was a roaring success. This king, whose malady had been thought of as incurable by the men assembled, was back to normal in an instant. The attending doctors and sorcerers all yelped in surprise.
“What, what is that potion…?”
“It is a Full Pot
ion,” he gently replied. “A specially refined creation of my homeland, the most potent of all restorative treatments. We export it only to nations on friendly terms with us.”
This introduction was a key part of the plan. The potion, after all, was Tempest’s main economic weapon.
Full Potions were only rarely found worldwide, usually dug up from the ruins of ancient magical empires. One sip could perform miracles up to, and including, the regeneration of missing limbs. Only a Revival Elixir—an agent that provided nothing short of resurrection—could outclass it. The recipe for it had been lost over time, although rumor had it the dwarves were frantically trying to re-create it. If it was being actively manufactured, people the world over would seek it.
Diablo had previously heard, from Gabil and others, about how eager Rimuru was to advertise this wonder drug. Unlike Shion, he was an enthusiastic pupil, learning everything there was to know about Tempest in short order. Thus, despite the grimness of the situation, he didn’t waste the opportunity to show off a little. That attention to detail made him stand out among Rimuru’s staff. It was, in a way, a rather extreme example of Diablo’s refusal to compromise on anything he did—one reason why antagonizing him was extremely ill-advised.
Razen and Reyhiem, he knew, were scared that he might massacre everyone in the castle. But nothing could be further from his mind. Doing that would wipe out Rimuru’s trust in him. He had been tasked with making Yohm king of this realm, and Diablo wasn’t stupid enough to risk that. In his mind, he had a cunning plan—the classic carrot and stick. Careful applications of both would allow him to manipulate the minds of the ministers and noblemen gathered here. He would make them consider it wiser to acquiesce than defy him. And if any one of them was foolish enough to make the wrong decision, he would cleanse the kingdom of their presence. That was the gist of it.
The king was back in human form, much to the astonishment of his slack-jawed audience. To the casual observer, it looked every bit like the Full Potion alone had healed him.
“How do you feel?” Diablo asked.
Edmaris, a tad pale in the face but otherwise none the worse for wear, nodded back.
“Ah… Y-yes… Thank you. You saved me.”
This weak reply was half honest feelings, half scripted act. Edmaris was doing Diablo’s bidding. Tempter, Diablo’s unique skill, was in the same family as Rimuru’s own Merciless, allowing him complete control over anyone whose spirit he had sufficiently broken. Under its influence, if King Edmaris ever attempted to defy Diablo’s will, Diablo would immediately be informed of it.
As the king put on the clothing hurriedly provided by an attendant and breathed a sigh of relief, Diablo motioned at him with his eyes. He nodded back.
“Now, my liege, I have a message from Sir Rimuru, my own lord,” said Diablo.
“I will be glad to hear it, messenger from the monster realm.”
This was the first time the king of Farmus acknowledged Tempest as a sovereign nation. It was also a signal to everyone in the room. From this point forward, as far as King Edmaris was concerned, Tempest would be recognized as an orderly negotiating partner—which in turn meant Diablo was the official representative of the other side of the war.
It was as significant a gesture as Edmaris could muster, in an effort not to get on Diablo’s wrong side, and thanks to that, any noblemen fostering ideas of revolt were silenced for good. Of course, nobody had any will to continue the war at this point. This declaration was less for Diablo’s sake and more in hopes of protecting the king’s own countrymen.
“Allow me to give you his statement. One week from now, my lord wishes to hold peace talks between the representatives of both nations here, in this land. Before we sign the peace treaty, you are asked to agree to the following conditions provided by us…”
Diablo took out several pieces of parchment paper.
“You have the right to make your choices about these stipulations…”
After an ominous opening, the document laid out its terms—ostensibly written by Rimuru, but in reality, written by Diablo. Its contents were, to be frank, revolting.
The first article provided was for the king to abdicate and the nation to pay war reparations. The second was for the nation to surrender to Tempest and become a vassal state. The third wasn’t even a choice—it simply stated that, if the first two choices were not replied to in the affirmative, the war would continue.
These conditions may not have seemed like they altered the current situation very much. But they did. With Tempest now recognized as a state, Farmus’s footing after starting a war without so much as a formal declaration was shaky at best. None of its neighbors would want any part of it, and the Western Holy Church would doubtlessly have their hands full with Veldora. Nobody in the room imagined that any local power would go out of their way to help Farmus.
It was, in other words, blackmail. A threat to raze the land, avoidable only by swallowing a litany of intolerable rules.
Diablo read all the conditions out loud, his haughty voice reaching every corner of the room, the glee evident on his face as he enjoyed the nobility’s reactions. When he was finished, he could hear one of the ministers whisper “Ridiculous” in a half wail. This he ignored as he turned toward King Edmaris and bowed.
“…That is all. Please have a response ready for us in a week’s time.”
“W-wait a moment! That is far too little time for us to work with! At least provide us a month to—”
“Silence. I have a short temper.”
“But—but, sir, this is not a matter we can decide upon in the royal parliament. We must summon the regional barons and stage a vote with the entire assembly—”
“I said ‘Silence.’ Your logistical issues matter little to me. And I will also suggest not to attempt any juvenile tricks with us. These deadline-extending excuses shall not be tolerated. If there is no reply after a week, we will take that to mean you wish to continue hostilities. I ask you to provide your full consideration of this matter.”
And with that one-sided caution, Diablo turned his back on the king and his court. He could hear someone loudly calling him a tyrant, but it didn’t bother him. He simply left Yohm and his men behind and walked out alone, his work apparently done for the day.
After he was gone, King Edmaris officially called for a session of the royal parliament, with all nobility required to be present. This was set for three days from now—just barely enough time to bring them all together even with the aid of magic, but such were the stakes. If Diablo’s deadline was one week, the nation had to take action. Time was of the essence. The appeal had to be made to them all.
At once, the king’s attendants sprang into action. The room echoed with the clamor of activity as they began to prepare for the meeting as Edmaris watched, exhausted.
“Do all of you understand the situation?” he asked his closest ministers feebly. “Before the nobles arrive, we will need to decide on a direction. I will offer my views tomorrow, at another location, and I would like to hear from all of you as well.”
There was no doubt that Farmus was hurtling headlong toward its doom. Now was no time for infighting within the bureaucracy. The parliament was going to be a wild, confused meeting, that much was certain—which made it all the more important that everyone was on the same page beforehand.
That, the king thought as he silently firmed up his resolve, and so we can keep the casualties as low as possible.
The next day, the king and his group reconvened in another meeting room. These were all trusted confidants, the only exceptions being the Marquis of Muller, most powerful among the court’s neutral elements, and his associate, the Earl of Hellman.
Edmaris began by summarizing the events that led here once more, his audience silently listening on. Razen and Reyhiem had already covered this territory, but the horrifying truth of it all still crashed upon the ministers like a tidal wave.
“My liege,” Muller asked, “is all of this true? I
mean, about Veldora being revived?”
The king nodded. “It is just the way Razen and Reyhiem put it yesterday. But the sole problem I face right now is which conditions must be accepted, out of the three offered. That, and I also wish to deliberate over how to handle future events.”
As he implied, nothing should be left on the table in this discussion, and soon, opinions were flying in all directions.
“The Forest of Jura that Veldora protects is a forbidden land. Not even the Eastern Empire has tried to lay hands upon it. It would be a fool’s errand to tackle it on our own.”
“Too true, too true! There is no path to victory for us. Any further belligerent activity would spell the end of our nation!”
“Indeed. The question, then, is how to approach conditions one and two…”
“I refuse to let us be colonized! How could we let the monsters rule over us when our own positions haven’t even been guaranteed?”
“That’s not necessarily true. I doubt we will see any further wars, for one.”
“Ridiculous! The landholding barons of the kingdom will hardly allow such nonsense.”
“It will mean civil war!”
“Which, I suppose, is what the monsters want to see.”
“And what of the king abdicating? And the reparations? Have you seen what they are asking for? It will collapse our finances.”
“Ten thousand stellars… The equivalent of one million gold coins. A good fifth of our annual tax revenue.”
“Outlandish…”
“But think about it. Is that not preferable to the end of our kingdom?”
“That it is. They are honorable enough, at least, not to demand every coin in our coffers.”
“So there is nothing to be done but accept their terms…?”
“I see no other way out, no.”
King Edmaris listened on in silence as his ministers and nobles deliberated, keeping his thoughts to himself.