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In Cardiff city where the base of the Tempest guild is located, the guild leaders of the alliance against Camelot all gathered together and sat with stern expressions on their faces.

It was understandable since they had just suffered a massive defeat, and the fact that some of the guild leaders who usually sat with them were no longer present at the meeting. In the tense mood of the room, someone asked a question.

“What do you all think is the probability that we would be able to win in a head-to-head battle now?”

“Less than 25%.”

They had already predicted it, but hearing the abysmally low numbers, some of the guild leaders sighed. It appeared one of them didn’t like how low their chances were since they opened their mouths again.

“Then how about we initiate guerrilla warfare by using ambush tactics?”

“Since each of the territories had been lost, the probability of winning reduces further to below 15% instead. Right now because of the great losses experienced in the battles located at Liverpool, Birmingham and Bath, we have lost one third of the total army but we honestly lost over half.”

The one sitting at the top seat looked even more glum hearing their replies.

“What if ‘Artoria’ were to be out of the equation?”

Senas, who had been quietly watching the situation, threw the question of what would happen if Artoria wasn’t there. Even though everyone knew that it was only a ‘what if’ situation, they all looked at Senas with hope in their eyes.

“… The probability of victory would be over 50%. The Camelot alliance, without Artoria, would definitely collapse.”

“Ooh!”

“Ohh…”

Everyone who had been feeling glum about the situation all looked excited once they heard that the probability of winning was over 50%. However, their excitement was honestly useless. Who would be able to achieve a feat of making Artoria disappear from the war?

There was a person who asked that very question.

“But, how would we be able to put Artoria out of the war? Are we going to send in an assassin team? Or just send a crack team of elites to just directly attack her when she’s alone?”

Hearing Majesty’s question, everyone sat there unable to answer. Artoria was not lacking in any area, whether it was for money or power.

Even now the sponsors that supported them were hesitant to keep doing so. They could easily assume what was causing that problem. Though Artoria’s company had not laid their hands on the sponsors of the Tempest guild yet, they couldn’t forget what happened in the past when the Shining guild which had gone against Camelot had all it’s sponsor companies taken over in a hostile manner, which ruined them.

Though who was responsible wasn’t revealed directly and was vaguely passed by in the news, it was a very obvious question.

“How about we just surrender instead?”

This time it was Nonsense, the guild leader of the Zenon guild, who voiced his opinion. As one of the guilds who had suffered the most damage in this war, he had recently decided that it would be hard to keep the boat afloat. On top of that, they had lost quite a lot of important troops including the vice-guild leader Sense, which resulted in losing their will to continue fighting.

In addition, several guild leaders all nodded and seemed to think that could be the right thing to do. But Stella, who had changed into Senas, could never accept that.

“That is utter nonsense!”

Even though she was well known for being calm and modest, she suddenly yelled out with fervour. Everyone became curious after seeing her reaction.

She admitted to herself that she made a mistake by yelling since she was too excited right now, but more than anything she needed to change the mood of this situation right now before it was too late.

“Do you have any great ideas by chance then, Miss Senas?”

The person sitting on the top seat of the table, ‘Newton’, the guild leader of Tempest guild, asked her.

“There’s no way we could ever surrender. Even if we did surrender, putting aside the Zenon guild, the Tempest guild and Majesty guild had a long history of hatred for the Volcano guild which is under the umbrella of the Camelot alliance. Do you really think the Volcano guild will easily just accept us into their group without any problem when given that? It would be better to just fight. We need to keep fighting, continuing to build up damage against them so that they themselves will guarantee that we shall have our right of autonomy in the end.”

“I believe what you are saying means that we Zenon guild also need to join in on this spiral of destruction you’re all falling into.”

“Have you not realized that the moment you joined the alliance, you have accepted to share the same fate with all of us?”

“Stop!”

As the two of them started to have an argument, Newton was the one to stop the commotion. He judged that to have internal strife in this already terrible state they were in would only worsen the situation.

“Guild master of Zenon, you’ve overstepped the line a bit with what you said. Are we not all in the same boat together like Miss Senas had said? On top of that we received information that Tiara had joined the Camelot guild as well, so how could you say such a thing?”

“Well that’s… I do apologize. However, don’t you know that in this situation where we still have preserved most of the forces, we should try to negotiate with them instead? Are you honestly going to bet everything that we have on that tiny chance? On top of that, it’s not just us. We have the rights of at least ten thousand guild members tied to our fate as well.”

But it appeared Newton’s way of thinking was a bit different from Nonsense’s own.

“Do you really think that they would guarantee all the rights for us if we were to negotiate? We’re in an absolute disadvantageous state, the only thing we need is a guarantee for our own safety.”

“By that you mean…?”

“Just as Miss Senas said, we’ll keep up a war of attrition as long as we can to cut down the willpower of the enemies. We’ll then have a negotiation with them, to ask them to guarantee our rights. Honestly speaking, don’t you think it’s perfectly fine just to receive the rights only for the people present here? On top of that, we can always negotiate for better terms later on considering how it will be after the unification of the server. Of course, it wouldn’t work to confront Artoria herself. She is a calamity incarnated after all.”

“Hmm… so you are saying we should bow down to them now for a chance later on?”

“That’s correct, Mr Majesty. In return, we should do everything that the enemy wishes for us to do that’s within our limits as well.”

Watching Newton who glanced at her even though it was only for a split second, Senas felt the bottom of her stomach drop.

In the end, her fate was sealed no matter what she did. Even if Artoria were to accept their surrender, what if Artoria told them to hand her over to the Camelot alliance as one of the conditions?

‘I swear that I shall take revenge for this in the future, Esteemed daughter Stella.’

Suddenly remembering the warning she received at Harrods in the past, Stella felt a cold wind blow in her heart.