It took an entire forty five minutes before Darius and Erica ceased their arguing, and another ten minutes for the dwarf to wash all of the puke off of his body.
But now, the two of them were seated at a table in a somewhat cordial environment.
But as usual, Erica was watching the dwarven king ingest hysterical levels of alcohol without stopping to take a breath.
"How... are you still alive?"
*Gulping noises continue*
"..."
"Ah, that hit the spot. Did you say something, lass?"
Erica clenched her pearly teeth so tightly that it was a miracle that they did not crack.
Darius chuckled as he pushed a mug that he'd filled with ale over to the irate woman opposite him.
"Alright missy, to what do I owe the honor of your visit?" He finally asked.
Erica did not even bother to touch the drink that had been handed to her and instead got to the reason she was here.
"I want to know what happened between you and Abaddon. The war supposedly only started a month ago, and yet it is already over with and neither of you are dead."
"Why do you care about something like that?" Darius asked. "Curiosity isn't particularly-"
"Because he declared war on Renanin a few days ago and I want to know why."
Darius seemed a bit surprised by that revelation as he finally put his glass down, and made a troubled expression.
He always considered himself to be a man with a good grasp of the world around him, but when it came to the dragon and his motives, he was completely blind.
"I don't know why he's doing this lass, but you better just give him what he wants." Darius said with a sigh.
Erica knew that the old drunk wasn't one to say things like that lightly, so she only became more curious about what could have happened to make him behave this way.
"What's he done to make you behave this way? Has his blood turned your mind into mush or has he bought your loyalty with whores?"
"Easy now, lass." Darius scolded. "You insult me and those lovely women with your assumptions."
Erica merely rolled her eyes, and Darius realized that he was going have to provide a much more thorough explanation.
He casually stared up at the cracked ceiling above, and gave a recount of his experiences with Abaddon.
"I say what I say out of concern for you and your people. It'll be easier for everyone if you do not fight him on this."
Erica's eyes narrowed, and she finally sat up in her seat. "What do you-"
"I'll start with his armies. Do you know how many soldiers I had in Apeir two months ago?"
"Why would I-"
"Over twenty billion last my attendant told me. Do you know how many soldiers Abaddon showed up with a month ago, on the day the war began?"
"Are you going to let me answer this time or will you just-"
"Four million." Darius said.
Erica growled as she hated to be interrupted, but the dwarf merely smiled as he waived away her irritation.
"Don't worry, don''t worry! I promise I'll give you a chance to answer soon, lass. How many men do you think I lost in the war, and how many do you think he lost?"
This time, Erica didn't actually have an answer and she merely folded her arms as she waited for him to give her one.
"I do not know... tell me."
Darius chuckled as he took another large gulp from his mug. "The count for me was something along the lines of over nineteen billion. But for him? Exactly four thousand five hundred."
"...What?"
Erica was expecting some sort of insane death count seeing as how Abaddon had won the war but... this was unthinkable.
"It's crazy, right?" Darius said with a dry chuckle. "The only reason I have any survivors is because a few submitted to Abaddon when he asked. But his wives on the other hand..."
For the first time, Darius suppressed a shudder.
Abaddon's army that was led by his wives left absolutely no survivors in it's wake.
Anyone who thought to pick up a blade against them was utterly annihilated.
When he reflected on the attitude that men in Apeir had towards women, he could easily imagine that they had refused to surrender and paid the price.
But even then...
It was scary to imagine such beautiful women mowing down men mercilessly as they begged for their lives.
The eight of them were clearly every bit as horrifying as their husband, if not even more so.
"And then that private army of his... My sons still haven't recovered from their fear." Darius muttered dryly.
"But, that is neither here nor there! Let's discuss their tactics, shall we?"
Erica proceeded to listen in great detail as Darius told her about Abaddon's monstrous soldiers.
The more she listened, the more she felt like she was hearing some kind of fable.
Soldiers who follow no agreed upon combat style but their own, yet still fight as one and protect each other flawlessly while possessing a seemingly unending bloodlust.
Her armies were all trained very well but with the picture that Darius was painting... she somehow felt that it was not going to be enough.
"But even without those underneath him, Abaddon himself is the real problem. "
"You have more bad news for me? Wonderful, as if I was not already feeling grim enough."
"I'm being serious now, lass. I fought him my self, both with my golem, and with my body, and he broke things that can't be fixed in both."
Darius didn't mention to Erica the horrifying scene of Abaddon's eye attack because he wanted to push that nastiness as far out of his mind as possible.
But he did tell her the most important thing.
"His power... every time time that I struck him, I was making him more powerful. From beginning to end he had no need to draw a single weapon, his body alone was more than enough."
"D-Don't bullshit me, you drunk! There is no way that he-"
"Erica, this is no falsehood. I felt his body strengthen with every impact, and sensed his aura grow even more prominent. You cannot beat that."
The phoenix queen felt a great range of emotions from Darius' own words that she didn't know how to process.
But even in this state, she could recognize the inferiority that seeped into her mind like a poison.
"What... does a monster like him need our lands for?" She asked weakly.
"Hm? Dunno."
Bang!
"Damnit Darius, can you offer me no sense of peace in this time?" Erica slammed her hand on the table between the two of them and easily split it.
"Hey! My home is already in shambles, can you try not to make it any worse?"
"DARIUS!"
"Erica, calm down. You don't need to panic."
"The hell I don't! A man who you described as a monster wants to subjugate my lands for a reason neither you nor I can comprehend, and I have no way to stop him! Why would I not-"
"Damnit lass, would you just shut up and drink! You don't need to fucking panic!"
This time, Darius shoved the alcohol into Erica's hands without giving her a chance to refuse and waited for her to take a sip before he continued talking.
Though the last thing he expected was for her to gulp the whole thing without pausing for oxygen.
Her inexperience with drinking caused her cheeks to turn as red as her hair, and she accidentally burped out a small gout of rainbow colored flames.
"That's... better?"
"K-Keep talking... and pour me more alcohol."
Darius shrugged his shoulders as he obliged and poured the queen more liquor, although he made sure that she drank it much slower this time.
He enjoyed a drinking contest as much as the next man but he wanted to make sure that she could actually understand their conversation.
Suddenly, Darius reached inside of his robes and pulled out a small scroll of paper and passed it to Erica.
"What is this?"
"His list of 'demands'. Although you can't even really call them that..."
Erica unraveled the paper scroll and tried her best to unfunny her brain so that she could read things over properly.
She briefly considered that she'd already gotten pretty drunk, as the words she was reading didn't make any sense.
There wasn't a list of demands, no mention of any servitude, or any kind of request for that matter.
Well there was one but she did not understand it.
"He wants you to create a... football team? What the hell is that?"
Darius eyes suddenly lit up like a man who'd just been asked about his favorite subject by someone new.
"Actually, it's this intriguing new thing he created! They're called sports and-"
"Never mind, for some reason I cannot bring myself to care all that much."
Darius grumbled and said some unflattering words as Erica finished reading over the document.
The papers truly did nothing but place the entire continent in his name.
"After the war, Abaddon returned thirteen days later with his fourth wife and two of his daughters on his arm. The four of them went out and started patching up craters in the ground from the war.
They also administered his blood to the people, while teleporting from city to city and offering his consolations to the familys of those he'd killed and strangely enough, they accepted."
"Truly?" Erica asked.
"I was alongside them as they did it. I didn't exactly like how many of my people were swayed by his looks, but there was nothing I could really do about it."
Erica finally handed the paper back to Darius as she ran her hands through her hair out of pure exhaustion. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"I tell you all of this to say that... I don't understand Abaddon any more than you do, but I at least know that his intentions for your land and mine are not impure.
If you go to war with him for your homeland, you will waste the lives of your people for nothing. And both you and he will feel sorry for their loss."
Erica bit her lip until blood started to pool within her mouth, and she clenched her fists so hard the mug in her hand shattered.
Her level of pride was extremely high, but she knew full well that if she let something like that get in the way now, then all of her soldiers could end up dying.
But even still... there was something that was holding her back from conceding outright.
Erica shakily got to her feet, and tried to ignore the effects of the strong liquor that she had so carelessly ingested.
"G-Get up you old drunkard. We're going to visit that handsome scaly bastard and figure out what he wants with our lands. Even if we have to beat it out of him."
"You'd have a better chance at beating off his meat than beating him up in a fight."
"Shut up and come on!!"
"You're so bossy..."
In all honesty, Darius was not at all opposed to going to Luxuria.
He had always longed to see the lands where the dragon lay his head at night, and now seemed like more than a perfect opportunity.
"Alright then, little bird. Let's go and pay the lovely Tathamets a visit and get some answers, hm?"
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