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Chapter 357: Scripted
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Draco raised a hand to touch where the finger had pressed and looked at the faces of the other Council Members. Even Jules, his ally, could only bow her head at the anger of the Council Head.
The Council Head stood straight, his back to the rest of the Council Members, and spoke with a voice of anger, “Your short-sighted pursuit and greed for power is what caused all of this mess. I and everyone in the council know the law that a Council Member must follow: we must not favour any one of the factions in the country, to preserve and maintain our degree of control, to uphold the decree of the King in the Alliance!”
He glared at Draco minaciously, “And yet, in lieu of all your contributions and efforts for the betterment of the country back then, with the fact that you defeated the invasion of that Dragon in Misty Peaks, we overlooked the fact that you are a part of one of the factions, and even put you in the chair you are seated right now!”
“But to actually favor a King Candidate that became the very root cause of all these mess; adding to that the fact that you also gave him an entire battalion force for his personal use in exchange for his cooperation; and then you even plotted against an Envoy using his own subordinate… tell me then, Draco, with your blunders and even pardoning the series of violations to the rules of the Council you have committed in succession, why must we listen to your suggestion right now?” Words of anger, of admonishment, of contempt, of a superior to an incompetent junior.
The Council Head went in front of Draco and only now did he realize that the old bones behind that brown-colored wizard robe of the Council were still that frightening existence that covered the sky of Jeremiah for the past 60 years.
“Tell me then, Draco, should we really stake the safety of the nation just so you could vent your anger whose root cause is your very own selfish and greed-ingrained mistakes? Tell me! Convince me, Draco! Why must we plan our hands against the Circle of Magi?”
Everyone inside the Warehouse heard this angry roar of the Council Head.
In the country, they are the prestigious Council of Elders; the rulers of Jeremiah; the King’s trusted advisers, the country’s pillars; and the frightening shadows behind the light that is the factions of the kingdom.
Before, these knights could only hear their names and look at their shadows from afar whenever the Factions’ leaders were called into a meeting. Now, however, because of these events, they can see them all in a new light —they were also people and not the mighty beings they were told about.
People… are susceptible to committing blunders.
What more, they could also hear and see them all in flesh rebuking and scolding a Grand Knight like a child on his trousers.
They didn’t even see Draco as a member of the Council of Elders; they could only see him as one of the subordinates of The Council, a lowly fellow of one of the Factions of Jeremiah that the Elders can yell at any time.
And yet, there were those who were here at the gates last night who connected the dots with that coercion that Zelga attempted.
There were over 40 of them.
Good thing they were inside the warehouse so the commotion wasn’t heard outside. The Council Head was so furious, in fact, that he didn’t even chose to vent his anger in a more suitable place.
“So it wasn’t just Zelga…”
“It’s because Elder Draco gave him the right to act as he pleased.”
“Bastard…”
“The two of them are bastards.”
“Jeremiah will fall because of them.”
Of course, these ‘knights’ —or more accurately, gatekeepers— didn’t voice out their displeasure.
Still, those murmurs and the dagger-like feeling of their gazes that stabbed Draco’s back were all on his perception range. He could feel it with a very clear intensity.
‘Just wait until I finish this, you fuckers. I will be the Grand Ruler of Jeremiah, and you will all bow your heads to me!’
Draco could only accede to the Council Head’s for now since the plan he’s been slowly building for the past two decades was yet to ripen.
‘Just a bit more…’
Draco gritted his teeth.
‘That god damned Zelga! If he spoils my plan, I will make sure that he lives over and over again as I torture him. He’ll regret ever being an Immortal if he affects my plans…’
While he gritted his teeth in fury and did his best to suppress his rage, he could only bow down his head to the situation he did create.
“I was wrong. Please forgive me.”
It wasn’t a knight’s posture but a man’s stance as a sinner and a delinquent officer.
The Council Head glared at him as he heaved his chest up and down, trying to control his own set of surging emotions.
Eventually, he raised his head to face the ceiling and then heaved a long sigh.
“What’s done is done. When that King Candidate comes back, make sure he gets punished for all the things he created.
“Yes sir.”
The Council Head faced the rest of the members and eyed the 40+ gatekeepers who saw all of the unbecoming scenes earlier.
“You all……… just do your jobs right.” He says in a low, weak voice, “In the level of countries, we’re indeed the strongest nation because the legacy of the Council of Elders dates back as old as the Flowerion Empire in the west. But that does not mean that we are invincible.”
He gazed outside the huge open doors of the warehouse, towards the trees beyond the streets of the compound, beyond the fences 100m away, to the crowd who wanted to have a scoop of what was happening in their location…
……while thinking and reflecting about what had happened with the same furious heart as Draco.
After he felt he had calmed down, “Jules.”
“Sir.”
Elder Jules, the 60+ year old-looking woman of the Council of Elders, took a step forward behind him and slightly bowed.
“As the Manager of the Intelligence Division, how are the results of your investigations about this so called [Kingsley]?”
Jules, with a placidly stiff face that hid her anger at everything that had happened, reported, “My deepest apologies sir. Because he appeared out of nowhere and that because of Lady Eleanor’s influence, the Quad Tower Hotel had refused to cooperate with us.”
“That’s understandable. The Quad Tower Hotel is still a Privately-owned Establishment although it’s management and operations are entrusted to the faction it belonged to.” He then eyed Draco, “And what about that contact from The Mansion?”
Draco, recalling Lord Malory’s pratfall, fumed in his heart when he answered: “Unfortunately, sir, he was caught by the White Knight.”
“God da—grrrrrhhhmmmmm… it’s as if he knew we will check up on him so he left no trail to even track. If this is so, then I can only suggest that we grit our teeth in this case. Lady Eleanor is one of the biggest proofs that he is a higher of the Circle of Magi. The Alliance had already intervened so I order you all to forget about this and do your best to NEVER REPEAT THIS MISTAKE AGAIN. Am I making myself clear?”
The Council Elders replied with a unified accord.
He then looked at Draco, “You have your order.”
“Yes sir.” during all this, Draco never lifted his gaze from the floor and reflexively only clenched his fists that made the Council Head squint his eyes on him.
“Let’s go. The Official Start of the King Test is already tomorrow. We have to prepare… as usual and as discreet as we can.” He led the way out but only Draco was left in the warehouse.
A limousine parked through the curve before the warehouse. Before getting into the car, he spoke without looking at the other Elders: “Heed this command. From this day forth, anyone who wears a mask of any kind shall be imprisoned and interrogated without pardons. This way, we can differentiate who is the White Knight or not within the citizens and the crowd of Immortals. And this will be effective today.”
Jules bowed dutifully, “Yes sir.”
*****
The gatekeepers, since there was nothing to even clean or recover in the place, made their way out as fast as possible.
When Draco was left alone, he stomped his foot to the floor and made a hole with his feet along with a tremble and a loud bang.
“God damn it. Circle of Magi…. shit… shit! Don’t you guys ever think that being a Hegemon in The Alliance will make you invincible! Someday, I will make you pay with this humiliation.”
With that, Draco, with a flip of his hand to brush off his cape, went out of the empty warehouse.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Coincidentally, the sol was already setting and the shadow he made through the warehouse doors looked menacing in that empty space.
*****
When Siva and the company appeared, they were in a metal-walled large hall.
In a quick glance, it looked nothing like a place in Terroa for it looked more like the real world’s own designs of a lobby of a corporate building.
There was a reception and the ‘symbol’ of the company was behind the receptionist’s head: the symbol of two planets joined together… it was the emblem of the Terran-Human Alliance.
Gaspar and the other two were surprised and their shoulders, jolted when they saw where they were currently located.
“Captain Morris.” The male receptionist greeted the group with a warm, professional smile. “The Assembly is waiting for you inside.”
Siva’s ears were piqued. “So you planned on this to happen?”
Gaspar shook his head, “No. To be honest, this is actually surprising. We were only supposed to be meeting the President and the Staffs.”
Siva looked at the receptionist and remembered what he said, “So what is this assembly?”
The receptionist felt the battle intent and although the pressure broke his warm professional smile, he still did his job and effortfully suppressed the urge to shrink from fear.
"The Assembly, sir, is the assembly of the people that can represent our side in the Alliance. They are The Ambassadors.”
Typical of the human society, they call their inter-continental envoys Ambassadors.
“Why are they waiting for me?”
Siva shot Gaspar a glance that shook his head.
“I actually have no idea as well.”
At this awkward pause, the receptionist spoke, “I am not authorized to speak of such matters but the Assembly had requested for Sir Knight, Your Excellency the Archmage, and Gaspar, to attend the conference.”
Siva paused to think then turned to Gaspar. “You have our promise. Please disseminate the rules to the ones in the scope of your promise. And don’t worry about my own as you can be assured that I will make sure to keep my end of the deal.”
“…”
Gaspar couldn’t help it. If he hadn’t taken that oath, he would have been stuck their like a prisoner and The Alliance would have made an enemy of someone who can intimidate even the greatest and country in Terroa, Jeremiah.
Besides, the “scope of promise” Siva sworn an oath to in the contract is that he wouldn’t speak of these events to anyone and that he wouldn’t tell anyone of the things and even the location of The Humans to anyone in Terroa, or he and the entire Magic Knight Corps he control will be disbanded by Heavenly Lightning.
When Gaspar sworn his own side of the oath, the oath that the White Knight had sworn had become effective right then and there.
After a few moments, he agreed to Siva’s appeal.
Siva then turned to his escorts and then looked at the side of the large reception hall, towards the area meant for escorts such as them to wait in.
He snapped his fingers and a clacking noise rung in the hall.
Everyone was awed at the sight of Siva’s white armor detaching itself from his body without him even moving so.
Floating parts flew off from Siva’s body and then reformed itself into a standing armor display with a new head —a faceless mask.
Gaspar commented. “The size of that armor and the volume that you wore doesn’t match.”
Siva only shrugged and didn’t reply.
That was his secret. How could he tell them that the rest of that armor came from his inventory?
As the Inventory Plus Ultra didn’t require sync from the Inventory Function, there was no flash of light and only the fluctuation of space. And yet as well could only be felt by really powerful Mages with stats as high as his.
‘Well then, to finish it…’
As the standing unmoving heavy armor was only 15m away from them, Siva gave it a thought and “charged” the armor from within using a single spark grenade.
The solid-looking armor set lighted up with lines and details, giving the impression of a robot that just got its power source.
It didn’t move in place and only did that much but Siva was satisfied as he faced the receptionist.
“One hour. That’s it.”
By now, Siva was only wearing pure white cothes; white slacks, white shoes, white long sleeve polo with a burning fire-like design on the left sleeve.
The male receptionist understood his words and led the way, Scarlet and the rest of the squad could only chase them with their eyes as they made their positions around that piece of armor.
*****
It was a dark room.
Nine figures —eight are Rea@D holograms— sat on a long table desk… a reminiscent of corporate board meeting.
On the very front, or top that is, sat Higginson Bollard, a stout man on his mid-forties with a large build and a pair of sharp eyes.
He alone was the sole person in this conference room that is not made up Real@D hologram.
And while he do sat there in the middle like the CEO of a company, his eyes stared intently at the man who had just become the infamously acknowledged to be someone who can threaten a country with just his power.
The greetings were already over since earlier but the reason why there was this silence in the room right now along with a hostile atmosphere are all because of the words Siva had just said.
“You……. want to know who the members of The Alliance are, how we design our Battle-AIs, how the Panel Options works, how the T-Devices works, and how we managed to combine our own technology with magic…”
“That’s it.” Siva said with a confident and carefree tone. “Don’t worry. I will make it worth your time.”
After he spoke, he glanced over Gaspar who also wore an incredulous expression.
“That’s ab——surd!”
“Ridiculous!”
“Outrageous bastard!”
“Who do you think you are?!”
Of course, these reactions are all expected. All of the Humans in this room only viewed him as one of the Terrans nothing more.
Siva… behind his mask was frowning; the reason being that all of this right now wasn’t part of his plan at all.
“Cortana…”
[I have already analyzed their reactions and their personalities through their reactions, sir. I have analyzed over 800 million materials from the Net and devised 340 possible reactions from your first statement. Their reactions were normal. But I suggest paying attention to the third man from our left and the blonde woman second to the last from our right.]
The two people Cortana mentioned were cool and calm in contrast to Higginson Bollard and the rest of the people in this Assembly.
“I will trust you then.”
[I will provide you your script sir.]
Siva eyes dragged from that direction. The two people mentioned were all around their late twenties and were all quite young considering the position they have in the Assembly.
In Jeremiah, the Ambassador, and as well as the President of the entire Human Sect of the entire Alliance, was Higginson Bollard.
Naturally the folded Gaspar beside Siva was that man’s subordinate.
He was young in age for his position but when it was considering the fact that the entire Human Race in this world was already an endangered species, politics was the last of their concerns as the entire Human Race focused only on the very survival and propagation of their kind itself.
This is probably the reason why the location of their ‘civilization’ was a secret that is tightly guarded no matter what —even as much as to be worth the lives of all of the Ambassadors outside of their sanctuary themselves.
Siva could at least understand that much and also understood the reason why these guys were all fuming in rage right now.
Higginson heaved a long sigh, “Master Knight, I am very sorry. Honestly, I can tell you now that the [Panel Options Technology] and as well as over half of the technology that the T-Devices have in them is not ours… it was provided to us by that mysterious benefactor who called himself ‘The Teacher’ decades ago. No, to be exact, he had merely given us the task of managing it. Us, the people you call Naturals, along with the entire Terran-Alliance as a whole, were nothing more than caretakers of that man’s technologies.”
—meaning; two of the things Siva demanded from the Humans were all “highly classified” information, and yet, all inhabitants of Terroa had the right to know of this given that they have the right authority to.
Siva, having reached the level where he can be a threat to the rulers of a country, definitely is a personage who earned the right to know of it.
After all, such information concerned the very planet they call their home.
The Humans, being outsiders and mere refugees, were just what Higginson Bollard implied them to be: Caretakers.
‘I should have known.’
[Well, at least we cleared a few of the things that have been bothering you, Boss.]
‘Right. Your script did work at least.’
[Your welcome, sir.]
“Nyaaaaa….”
“…”
Siva glanced over Cortana who was seated on a stool near the wall behind the Ambassadors on his left side.
The sight of her petting the cat that had this face (||_||) even when it yawned was slowly crawling its way into his consciousness.
‘I’m getting used to it, damn it.’
Siva marked the ‘personage’ that Higginson had spoken about, The Teacher.
“I think I understand now.” He said and this made all the angry people in the room stop their loud exclaims and waited for him to finish his words.
Siva nodded, “I happen to know of this Teacher through the Magus of the Magus Archive.”
The Ambassadors of other countries became a bit flustered —flabbergasted— in fact, that their eyes widened and their expressions all became silly.
“You’ve met…”
“Did you mean that elusive figure?”
“That legend…”
“Is it true? You met the Magus?”
Even Higginson Ballard couldn’t hold his surprise.
Although he had surmised that in this exchange, the one with the top “identity” to consider would be the one to dictate the flow of the exchange; he still didn’t expect that the White Knight would blurt this thing out of the blue.
“How can we be sure that you’ve met him? We did not even know if you’re telling the truth.”
“T-That’s right. You might be lying.”
“What reason is there for us to believe you?”
“Cough… cough…”
The antagonistic ones and the neutral ones all had their own view of the ‘thing’ Siva just said.
To meet a legendary Hegemon of the planet is an honor worth a life time of glorious bragging. It should remembered that there exists only three so called “Overlords” that can deter every country in Terroa…..
First is the Circle of Magi, the protector of Terroa that existed since the start of time; Neutral in the overall power balance in the planet and also is the one rumoured to be the founders of the institute that is the Enchantment Temple.
Second was the Terran-Human Alliance by which is the established Hegemon of the planet; with every country as the body and representative, and had the voice to speak their thoughts —although it is also globally recognized by each of the Rulers of countries that only those with real great powers are the ones to have the right to call the shots on which direction the current society of Terrans should be taking... and in which regard the Flowerion Empire and the Council of Elders are only two of the other still hidden major voices in this alliance.
And then the third… that mysterious entity that had only shown himself once and even at that time he is veiled in a shadow… the Magus who’d proclaimed himself to be a neutral major power, a Hegemon, that the Circle of Magi recognized to be on the same level as them.
But then… the Alliance Chiefs, with Higginson Bollard being a major voice in that congress, in The Alliance, have all been informed by the Circle of Magi and the Magus that there exists one sole supreme being in the planet.
The Teacher….
He was an existence that those two feared and also respected with veneration.
50+ years ago, when The Alliance first came into being, the Circle of Magi delivered that object to them and was told that it was a task that they had been entrusted with to take care of by The Teacher himself.
Having been briefed by The Teacher’s identity, The Alliance chiefs did not tarry and implemented the instructions given to them.
And the one to stress the importance of this task is none other than The Magus.
He was just like the Hegemonic Image he was as the Circle of Magi had described him to be; one with a very short temper and a straight forward attitude.
The result…
Everyone in The Alliance came to fear and respect The Magus of the Magus Archive.
Through him…… by synching with the object that ‘The Teacher’ had entrusted to The Alliance, the T-Device Technology came to be.
As such, as Ambassadors of the Human Society in every country as part of The Alliance, every soul in this conference room were aware of just who The Magus was.
And yet now… Siva had just said he met him?
Everyone will, of course, be surprised. Shocked, even, that they became silent and their faces all had a silly look of bewilderment and repulsion on the fact that someone was able to meet him.
“Why should we believe you?” it was a question with no offensive tone and purely out of curiosity in itself.
When the other Ambassadors spoke of this, they all sounded as if Siva was a liar, but when it was Higginson Bollard who spoke that question, it was now an honest inquiry of pure curiosity.
Siva naturally understood about it, “You don’t have to believe me. But I did meet the grumpy guy twice already. In fact, both times, he stated that he hates me with all of his heart but because I am someone entrusted of a mission by The Teacher, he couldn’t even touch a single strand of my hair.”
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Cortana’s script made this possible…
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Next Chapter: The root of all happenings.
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