Chapter 266: Chapter 266 – The Peace.
<<I FINALY FUCKING HAVE IT!>>
<<THE CONTRACT!>>
<<IT IS FINALY MINE!>>
<<The war is finally over!>>
<<I’M FREE!>>
<<I WAS FREE AT LEAST!>>
<<I’VE WAITED FOR YEARS FOR SOMETHING LIKE THAT!>>
<<AND IT WAS FINALY IN MY HANDS!>>
<<...>>
<<I now have a chance to live properly.>>
<<To survive and grow strong enough!>>
<<I now have the REAL chance!>>
<<...>>
<<Still, I’m fully aware that it is not perfect.>>
<<But still.>>
<<Now I have a "possibility".>>
<<After the contract has been signed, the emperor alongside the vampire leader had both instantly left the dungeon, alongside that small army of body guards and their families.>>
<<According to Ariava, her existence is supposed to be hidden as much as possible and this forest is still considered "dangerous", so for the empire family and the vampire to get here... It is apparently quiet annoying problem for them as well as dangerous in some specific ways, even though my dungeon or Ariava wouldn’t hurt them... I’ve asked Ariava about it and she said that it is about not making things go too chaotic from the get go, as well as to not make annoying situations where the two leaders may end up finding themselves in trouble.>>
<<Ariava told me that it is bit complicated since the current situation is already extremely chaotic and sudden because how fast things were going, but didn’t really told me in details what it was, since it would apparently take too long to explain.>>
<<Well, there is also a thing regaining the first phase of the contract.>>
<<To even START the contract the phase of the contract, the empire needs to do a lot of stuff beforehand.>>
<<And there is also the thing regarding the hand over of the territory.>>
<<Apparently they can’t just take every single person in the territory and instantly move them away.>>
<<They need to make preparations before they can even do that and there is also the whole moving process.>>
<<The entire thing may last months... But Ariava told me not to worry.>>
<<Since she herself will be now also watching the situation.>>
<<As for Porai? She was no longer the "prisoner", so we temporarily parted ways.>>
<<She will stay away from the dungeon for some time, until the "partnership" is established, which the empire would be aware of.>>
"So for the time being, we are slowly preparing things on our end, before we can officially start things off." – said Ariava as she changed her cloths from the beautiful seductive dress, to the simple casual cloths and just took out a bean bag, which she instantly fell on top.
"..."
"Anyway, how are the things with you?" – asked Ariava as she looked towards Thauma who was still in its humanoid mannequin form.
"You finally survived and obtained a chance to grow further."
"The empire won’t exterminate you any longer."
"Aren’t you happy?"
"..."
{"I’m."} – replied Thauma by writing its answer on paper.
{"But still. It is a lot to take in."}
{"It honestly feels.... Weak."}
"?"
"Weak?"
"!"
"Oh... I get it."
"It was too easy and it feels way too off for you, right?"
"..."
{"I think so?"}
"Make sense... I mean, just recently you were at the war and almost enslaved by the empire."
"And yet, in the very next moment, the empire is forced to give up and sign the peace treaty no matter if they liked it or not."
"The situation did made a whole 180 and stuff."
(I mean, I was literally at the war just now.) – thought Thauma.
(But you somehow forced the EMPIRE to straight up obey you?)
(Porai said that if she wishes to, she could had easily exterminated the empire.)
(But the only reason why she isn’t doing that is because the moment the empire would disappear, the chaos would start up once again.)
(But this time, the scale of chaos would be beyond anything before, leaving only the destruction behind and true winners.)
"..."
{"I need to ask something."}
"Hm? What is it?"
{"If you can make the empire obey you, make them so terrified of you because they know you can destroy them."}
{"Why not just do the same with the other kingdoms?"}
{"The ones that want to start off the STUPID WAR?"}
{"If I understand it correctly, you have ability to take control of people minds or just exterminate them with power."}
{"So are you planning on doing that?"}
"..."
"Nope." – replied Ariava with a smile.
"To be more exact, you are not wrong." – said Ariava as her body was undergoing transformation, before moments later she looked exactly like Porai, while also changing her voice to be like hers as well.
"My shapeshifting talent is top notch." – said Ariava as she stood up and quickly transformed in matter of seconds once again, this time taking on the form of the emperor.
"I can take on any form that I want at the moment notice." – said Ariava as she then take on the form of Thauma humanoid mannequin form, before then twisting and mutating that form, giving it mouth filled with claws and countless human eyes appeared all over the surface of the false golem’s face.
"I can pretend to be anybody and anything." – said Ariava as she then turned back to her real form.
"Not only that, my mind controlling is far superior to anything you can image."
"Normally the beings tamed by the charm act somewhat brainless."
"But I can make them... Far more obedient while also not making them into mindless puppets."
"Or I can just make the armies into nothing more than savage beasts that will murder in my name."
"There are many ways to take a hold of somebodies mind."
"And I’m also a succubus in nature. I can also seduce somebody."
"But I didn’t do that with emperor, even though I could had just killed him and replaced him."
"Or just brainwash him into making him my zealot."
"Nope. I didn’t do that."
"Obviously some people would realize if the emperor were to act somewhat completely different, like there was a massive change going on."
"Honestly, it would had been just a big bother and I won’t be here all the time making calls and what not."
"It was just better to make this deal instead of brainwashing the emperor."
"And as for your question."
"You are not wrong."
"I can destroy these kingdoms."
"I can just brainwash their leaders and have their kingdoms murder each other."
"I could have them start off that Stupid War, without having the empire ending up involved one bit in it."
"I could had done that."
"..."
"But I chose to not do that."
"Why?"
"Because it would just only leave even bigger mess."
"I’m going to say this straight, this part of the continent is beyond fucked."
"Like, they are just killing themselves even right now."
"What? I destroy them and have the empire devour what remains?""
"Buddy! They are at the brink of destruction because of how they created their empire way too quickly!"
"If they were to try and take over the territories of the these fallen nation, the empire would just go."
"Pop!"
"And now you are probably wondering, why not just leave them?"
"That could just cause even bigger mess."
"What if others nations that weren’t really into that Idiot War suddenly greedy to obtain that free territory? Or what about the idiots who once ruled the destroyed nations?"
"Simply put, I can’t destroy them."
"I have ability to."
"But if I were to do it now, it would just way more destruction and chaos later on."
"Having power is all nice and stuff."
"But if you don’t know to use it, you could even end up killing yourself like an idiot."
"I saw that crap happening to several people already in my lifetime, so trust me on this."
"The best move now is to be tame about it."
"If we destroy our enemies way too fast now, the ones that will truly be suffering would us."
"That is why in contract I’m to stabilize the nation before anything else."
"I can help them out in getting stronger, but only if the situation calls for it."
"..."
"Not only that, I still don’t know if this empire is a good thing."
"?"
{"But don’t you want to protect it?"}
"..."
"Let me rephrase that."
"Right now the empire is needed."
"But what about the future?"
"There maybe even end up a time where you two would end up as enemies.... But I made sure that there would be loop hole for you to exploit just in case."
{"So there was one?"}
"Several, to be precise."
"Detailed contract doesn’t mean that it is always means that it is truly safe." – said Ariava as she took out her copy of the contract from the pocket space.
[Conflict and battles are allowed, but the declaration of the war is completely forbitten. This also includes the conquest of the territories – stealing territories from other parties are completely not allowed.]
"This part here is related to the other part, about the territory invasion."
"In the contract, neither side are allowed to be without permission to be in each other territory, which gives the territory owner to kick out the invaders or even have rights in specific situations to kill them."
"Meaning that if your golems are illegally on the empire grounds, the empire can beat them up and just throw them right into your territory."
"Or just hunt them down like animals, without being held responsible one bit."
"And there is also another thing."
[The peace will forbit either of the mentioned sides from declaring official war at each other.]
[The lesser conflicts or accidental battles caused by misunderstanding will not be considered as a breach of contract.]
[Conflict and battles are allowed, but the declaration of the war is completely forbitten. This also includes the conquest of the territories – stealing territories from other parties are completely not allowed.]
"Neither side is allowed to declare war, nor they are even allowed to steal each other territory."
"Unless the territory itself was sold between parties."
"However, here is a loop hole."
"Can you spot it?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
{"No."}
"Well then, let me explain."
"You can attack and murder the people of the empire without suffering any consequences."
"These idiots didn’t realized that in that part I did not mentioned ANYTHING about big conflicts and possible punishments."
"The lesser conflicts refers to the situations where either side are illegally on the other territory, while the accidental battles would be just... Well, accidental."
"There won’t be any special problems."
"But there was no mention about large scale battles."
"There are only 2 main restrictions."
"The declaration of war."
"And the conquest."
"I did not written anything about killing people, did I?"
"..."
{"If I understand it correct. That means I can right now, kill the people of the empire, and suffer no consequences. As long as I don’t declare a war?"}
"Pretty much that is it."
"A big motherfucking scam."
"When making these kind of bounding contracts, the main concern shouldn’t be anything about like a sneaky little hard to notice stuff.... But instead a lack of something instead."
"If you were to attack the empire at the full power, you wouldn’t suffer any consequences."
"But if they were to declare war on you in turn, they would be the ones breaching the contract."
"This is the nightmare of the bounding contracts."
"If you don’t know what you are doing."
"You may end up as nothing more than the slave of the other party without even realizing this."
"..."
{"You added this loophole in order to give me a chance to fight the empire?"}
"I don’t know." – replied Ariava as she lied down on her bean bag.
"I can speculate, but I don’t have ability to see directly into the future."
"This part of the continent doesn’t need a hero."
"No."
"It needs a nation."
"That is the truth of the situation."
"But.... Again... Who knows how the empire will turn out in like what? 10 years? 20 years? Maybe just after 5 years this entire nation will become beyond corrupted?"
"You don’t need to have any special ability or even a skill that will allow you to see into the future."
"Foresight, imagination, speculation, calculation, vision and what not. You can use them to somewhat at least predict the future."
"But again, there is a limit what you can predict."
"..."
(So that means I wasn’t thinking right.... I wasn’t thinking properly about the "future"?) – thought Thauma as it was analyzing Ariava’s words.
(...If what she is saying is correct.... Then if she truly had destroyed the hostile nations now of all the times, it would just cause even larger chaos to appear.)
(I guess I was really shortsighted here.)
"..."
(But still... Is this chaos ever going to end?)
(The empire as of right now is no longer my enemy, but instead my ally... Or more exactly we are on the "friendly" terms.)
(But from now on, there could be brand new enemies coming my way.)
(The nations that are hostile to the empire may aim to destroy me.)
(Or, something that I would never expect truly happened.)
"..."
(The peace is finally here... But at the same time, it isn’t here if you look at it logically....)
"..."
(But now I have time.)
(I don’t know if it will be enough time, but now I’m free.)
(All the restrictions that were binding me.)
(They all are gone!)
(There is nothing right now that is preventing my growth!)
(No war or anything right now either!)
(I don’t need to hide or restrain myself anymore.)
(No.)
(I can now create as many monster as I want, produce as much miasma I want.)
(Not only that, but thanks to the contract, I can make trade deals with empire!)
(Materials.)
(Books.)
(Weapons.)
(I can obtain them.)
(And I can use them to develop myself in new ways possible.)
(I don’t know when the chaos will arise once again, but I this time I won’t be cornered.)
(I may end up truly in the situation where I could somebody possible as strong as Porai.)
(And there could be a good chance that Ariava would not be around at the time.)
(That means I would really end up in the situation-)
"Ah."
"Right! I almost forgotten about this." – said Ariava as she stood up.
"I didn’t wanted to do that before the contract was signed."
"But I think it is fine now."
"Hey Thauma."
"How do you feel about getting a new name?"
{<End Of Volume 3>}
