After around about another day or so of procrastinating and goofing off, today is finally the day all the Generals finally come together to discuss our first plan of action. Seated around a circle in the General's Quarters' living room, with Jorgen being assigned the role of Leading General, everyone else awaited his instructions eagerly.

"Really, I think we should just throw in the towel." He shrugged as he sat back down.

"What the hell kind of instructions are those!" Cecily protested, "What ever happened to us winning the war and taking revenge on the Royal Family?!"

"Yeah, there's just no feasible way we can perform all that." He put his hands behind his head as if giving up, "I mean we can try, that is, if you just want all of us to die like a bunch of mice."

"Surely there's gotta be SOME way we can do this..." I tried wracking my brain for a while.

"I'm sure if we wait for reinforcements, things will be different." Meil agreed with me.

"Wait for reinforcements? Meil, how many times have you been in a war?" Jorgen started interrogating.

"Not once. I'm just saying..."

"There, not once." He went to reprimand him, "You may not know this, since you're somehow a General without even participating in a war previously, but enemy forces tend to occupy the territory they want to get their hands on. Thus, it wouldn't be such a stretch to assume they'll also intercept said reinforcements from all sides. If we are to do this, our only option is to go in alone."

"Brother, you're talking super high and mighty for someone who's never been in a real war himself." Pierre tossed back.

"What was that, brother?"

"I'm saying that just giving up before we even try isn't the way we do things!" He elaborated on his prior statement, "Real soldiers fight until the fat lady sings! None of that "Tactical Retreat" bullshit! These kids are right, either we try our best in these trying times or we die trying!"

Pierre, how nice of you to stick up for us! Well, even though we're old enough to not really be called kids. Although, maybe to them, who are a bit older than us, we look just like a bunch of kids? Nah, who cares about that now, what's important is that he has our back.

"Do as you... No, do not do as you wish. I just can't allow you to be reckless anymore, brother." Jorgen took a deep breath, "You guys have seen what happens when one gets too optimistic. This time, our goal is to live."

Too optimistic? Is he alluding to Grim? That asshole, poking fun at a dead person...! Well I won't allow it! Grim wouldn't stand for this, and neither should...!

"Yeah, you're right." Cecily sighed, "Lune and I were too optimistic in thinking we could just settle the dispute here overnight or something. He died because he was too trusting."

"Huh? Cecily?" We all collectively turned to her.

"Hmph. Now you're starting to sound like you did before, at least." Jorgen took a sip of his tea.

"Except his issue wasn't that!" Meil hit the table, making Jorgen spill his drink, "He didn't die because he was too trusting! He died because he wanted to run away, just like you're doing right now!"

"...Please, enlighten me further." Jorgen slowly took out a napkin from his breast pocket to wipe himself off.

"Back then, while they were still talking it over, I could see from his expression that he was smiling from ear to ear. I'm a White Iro, so I could see the Curve rise to unprecedented levels, as if millions of lives were about to be saved that day. But in the very next moment..."

Mimicking the Curve he was talking about with his hand, he quickly slammed down on the table once more, indicating that "The Curve had fallen immensely". Still, I'm not quite sure what he's getting at. Is he saying Grim was tricked into thinking they accepted a peace treaty?

"Basically, they purposefully let his guard fall, luring him in with the idea of peace. He was about ready to give up on the whole war, intending to avoid as much bloodshed as any human would in his scenario. That's where they got him, the bastards..."

Hearing this, we all immediately turned to a weeping Cecily. In truth, she was the one that wasn't supposed to hear this the most, regardless of whether or not it was true. Meil, he's not that tactful, but I'm sure deep down she needed to hear this as well. Truthfully, if you had asked me before how I would imagine Grim dying, I would also imagine a scenario where he gets backstabbed the moment he wishes to give up. He's like a mountain climber in that regard, and I would imagine that luring him down is the only way you could ever have any chances of beating him.

"So what?" Jorgen crossed his arms, "You're saying we fight until everyone's completely wasted?"

"I'm saying we give it our all." Meil looked him in the Eyes, "At least that's better than just giving up. Even if we do, I know what kind of person the King is, given our prior conversation. I know for a fact that he will not let up if we give in, nor will he spare us if we run away with our tails tucked between our legs. Running means death, Jorgen."

"...Hmph! Whatever." He stood up, "Do as you please. But if I see things are getting too dicey, I'll be taking my brother with me and leaving."

"No the hell you won't!" Pierre shouted, but Jorgen had already slammed the door shut by that point.

Well, it looks like he'll at least continue to train our troops, so that's good. On the other hand, our current plan to ask as many allies to help us still remains kind of unreachable at this point in time. Hmm...

***

"Wait, what are we thinking?" I suddenly turned to Cecily, "You and Grim have met Auros, right?"

"Yeah?" She wiped away her tears as she replied.

"Then just ask him to come over here and help us!"

Looking at me with their eyebrows raised high into the sky, the others quickly glanced over to Cecily with a "Wait, could you actually do that?" kind of look.

"What are you guys looking at me like that for?" She sighed, "The Fighting God is a... difficult guy to get along with. A knucklehead, first and foremost, the type only Lune could learn to outmaneuver."

"Somehow, I don't doubt that." I replied.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Right? He kept insisting on giving and taking solids from Auros, until he made the Fighting God stop all wars on the continent."

Heh, that's our Grim. Ever the trickster, but I'm honestly surprised he managed to outsmart a literal God in that regard. An immortal and omnipotent being such as Auros to be tricked by a literal twenty year old cheating husband? What has the world come to?

"Looking back, could that have been the reason the King had begun his attack on Trivis Numerica in the first place?" Pierre offhandedly reasoned, "We stopped all wars taking place in Sulfury, so now that the King couldn't fight on someone else's land, he tried taking over some more of his continent, or something like that."

Looking at him with a deer in the headlights look, Cecily quickly facepalmed after realizing the mistake Grim had caused for not only himself, but for countless other people. This sudden revelation led to all of us feeling bad for Grim on the outside, but it was all too easy to tell how much we were cussing him out on the inside. That idiot, he's really fucked the world over with his childish ideas!

"Sigh, well, even still it's not like I can just call Auros over from Sulfury." Cecily shook her head, "The best I can do is go help Ed out with asking the Gryses for their army."

"Hey, even that's something." Aaron remarked, "And Max and I will look into bringing some more of our troops from Great Hiana. It's not much, but any amount of capable manpower could be the deciding factor in a war."

"I'll call up those two-err, my own guys." Meil looked away after almost outing his two supposed super-troopers.

"I feel bad." Pierre slouched, "All of you have someone who you can call over in these desperate times, but I can't even call my full army to help because of the deal Lune made with Auros."

A deal, eh? Really, everyone's talked about that deal, but I didn't really understand it. Maybe I would know more if I had personally witnessed it, but from an outsider's perspective, the only thing I know about that is that some traveler and his family suddenly showed up in Sulfury, somehow summoned the Fighting God Auros, then next thing everyone knew, waging wars was banned in Sulfury. Knowing Grim, he might've set up a deal that seemed simple on the outside, but had a hidden loophole in it?

"Remind me again what the specifics of the deal were?" I asked both Cecily and Pierre.

"The solid, you mean?" She tilted her head, "Well, if memory serves, I believe it was to create a new country and have the other two only be able to dispatch their army in order to defend it if someone attacks it."

"Basically, no country could fight in a war." Pierre added, "And even in self-defense, the only armies that are to be dispatched are the other two, not the country getting attacked. He said it was to build trust between the three countries."

Alright, a loophole, a loophole... Think, Ed, there's gotta be some stupid way to somehow get these guys' armies to come here that only Grim would think of. Maybe... no. It couldn't be something like that, right? Hmm... Hold on, I think I got it!

"What if we temporarily annex Trivis Numerica to Sulfury's tri-country system!" I proudly suggested my idea.

Looking at me with complicated expressions, everyone probably thought I had finally gone crazy from all this. Heck, Pierre even fell from his chair, although that was probably his fault for rocking on it. Still, I know what I'm saying, and I genuinely think this is the way!

"Ed, what the hell do you mean "annex Trivis Numerica"?" Meil tilted his head.

"Exactly what I said!" I repeated, "See, Grim made it so the only way for these countries' armies to be dispatched is to have one of their sibling countries attacked, so technically, if we attach Trivis Numerica to the territory of Sulfury...!"

"...Then we can have all three countries' armies come help us!" Cecily smiled, "Good going, Ed! That's an amazing plan!"

The first one to critique the plan I had whipped up right now surprisingly wasn't anyone present in the room, but rather the raspy voice of the General that had just stormed off a minute ago that came from behind the door he had just slammed shut.

"It's a good idea." Jorgen voiced his opinion from the other side of the door, "But such a thing as annexing a country isn't something a lowly rebel camp can do."

"Before you continue your critique, please re-enter the room. We can't hear you clearly otherwise." I chuckled.

"Ugh, do I have to?" He slowly opened the door with a sheepish tone, "Look, if you want to go through with that plan, you'll need to find the Three Presidents of Trivis Numerica."

The Three Presidents, are they even still alive? Since Trivis Numerica consists of three sub-countries, it's obvious that it'd have three presidents as well, one for each sub-country. The only way for an important decision to be made for the country is if all three of the presidents are in agreement, otherwise the decision gets discarded. Obviously, this led to all of them constantly bickering over all sorts of plans that always seem to have that one president say no to, but since this is an extremely dangerous situation, I'm sure they'll set their differences aside for us. But how would we even begin searching for three very specific people in the middle of a war?

"I heard Karson ran away from the country." Jorgen started naming off all he knew of the Three Presidents' current whereabouts, "From what I remember, Jetson would always blindly follow his lead like a dog, so find one guy and the other is definitely near. Larson on the other hand..."

"Even I know about that guy." I added, "Larson was always the most "patriotic" of the three, stating that he'll never leave the country if a war were to happen. So I guess we'll have the best chances if we try and find him."

"Who knows?" Max shrugged, "If it were to happen that one or more of them died or something, then we can just appoint ourselves the new Presidents and do as we please."

"Right." Aaron agreed, "Our goal right now is to find them, dead or alive. In our case, if they don't agree to our plans, we might even have to kill 'em to force the matter of us becoming Presidents."

Geez, since when did the situation devolve into this? Killing the Three Presidents? Talk about terroristic intent... Well, not that I care, though. As long as we get to our goal of killing the King and Vivia, I don't care what needs to be done until then. Alright, meeting adjourned!