| Author: Starving Wind | Original Source: Joara | Word Count: 3602 characters |
| Translator: Anonymouss | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 2335 words |
| Editor(s): Silva | ||
I logged out of the game for a moment and sent the video file I received from the guild member to the law firm that the household owns through the butler. Since it’s going through the support of my household, I realized that not only the legal circles but the political circles would see this one as a huge incident that they definitely need to involve themselves in.
But first, we decided to carry out this incident through the support of our law firm, and in order to finish off the things I needed to do in Blue Sky, I logged back into the game. The enemy forces crumbled apart way more easily than I thought, and it seems like the enemies didn’t even realize that the city of Newport had been conquered yet.
Cardiff, the base of operations for the enemy forces, was extremely close to Newport. Considering that we’ve secured Newport completely, we’ll use this place as an advanced base and bring our allied forces here as well.
[Esther.][Ah, yes? What is it?]
[Do the enemies know that we have conquered Newport yet?]
[Huh? You’ve already taken over? It’s extremely quiet right now though. It doesn’t seem like the media know anything about that either.]
I realized that I didn’t need to worry about the situation at all.
[If that’s the case, are the rear elite troops that were left behind able to move to Newport right now?][Hmm… it seems possible… How many of them do you need?]
[I think 5,000 should be enough. I don’t think the enemy base has that many troops stationed there anyways.]
[Understood. I’ll personally guide them and set off right away. We’ll be there in about 10 minutes.]
[All right, transfer the right to command over to Lucas when you’re here.]
[Okay!]
At this point, it was best to conduct a night raid right away and when morning comes, not only they will have to deal with losing their base but put a tremendous effort into dealing with the drug incident as well.
[Mr. Lucas.][Yes, my lord.]
[Once Esther comes and transfers the elite troops over to you, gather all of your troops right away and advance towards Montgomery.]
[In the middle of the night?]
Since your range of vision will be impaired at night, both the attacking side and defending side would be disadvantaged equally. Therefore if we were going to fight anyways, it was better to fight at midnight.
But this situation was so unique that it was probably fine to even just ignore that factor.
[I understand that it wouldn’t be a very effective battle, but by tomorrow it would be difficult for the enemy forces to even gather up their troops properly again. If they were to try and conserve their troops as much as possible by making it a war of attrition, make sure to push deep into them so that they can’t lengthen the battle.][So you’re saying we should conduct a blitzkrieg?]
Lucas understood right away what I meant and at that moment I thought that bringing him into the guild definitely had been the right choice.
[That’s right. I don’t think you’ll need to worry about the injured in the battle as well.][Seems like you have a card up your sleeve. Since you have not displayed any mistake or problem up to now, I will believe in you and carry out your orders.]
[Thank you.]
What he said meant that Lucas was also going to persuade the rest of the commanders of the troops, so I was thankful.
“How did it go?”
Katalina’s complexion became much better now as she came and asked me in her usual tone of voice.
“It went well. I decided to let Mr. Lucas take care of the enemy base, with Esther coming here herself with around 5,000 of the rear elite troops.”
“So you’re thinking of attracting their attention to Lucas with a feint, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Though it was definitely a feint attack tactic, it wasn’t like the usual ones. Not only was the number of troops too high to call it a bait, but the objective that the bait had was also way too clear as well.
It was a tactic that was possible thanks to the fact that Katalina and I show overwhelming power even in a very small space. The enemy will have to decide whether to use all of their forces to block the forces that are trying to break through their defenses or to send troops over to the base to stop it from being taken over from within.
If they were to make the poor decision in pulling out troops that were on standby to defend the attacking forces, it would be the worst decision they could make. Of course, I hoped that the enemy would decide to take the second option instead.
“The enemy forces can’t win no matter what they do, so why do we need to do this anyway?”
Katalina asked me in a tone of voice as if saying that we’re just wasting time and strength by doing it this way. Of course, what she was saying was also right. I was sure that even if I were to leave them alone and let them be investigated for the incident that occurred, they would be proven to be heavily immoral and end up destroying themselves from within anyways.
But what I wanted was the absolute defeat of the enemy forces. To let them destroy themselves from within would take some time, and they would still be able to stand on some kind of a foothold after it’s all done. But whatever happens, they still haven’t decisively lost the battle against us in the end. I didn’t want them to be left with the smallest foothold after we’re done with them.
On top of that, in this current situation where the whole world was focused on what was happening in the England server of Blue Sky, to finish off the battle in a disappointing and empty fashion wouldn’t look good for us. In whichever way the enemy forces finally got destroyed, we needed to make sure that we were the ones who caused it.
“What if the people doing the investigations on the enemy forces decide that they will investigate us too?”
Though that couldn’t happen, the enemy forces would definitely not let this pass easily. It was obvious that they will try whatever they could to make sure that they could relate the incident to us in any way, shape, or form and drag us down with it.
If we were to end up being investigated together with them, we could end up in a situation where all the troops of the guild could be unable to participate in the war. I made sure to calculate the risk of such a thing happening as well.
“Yeah… I guess you could say that you not being satisfied until all possibility of a bad outcome for us is erased is your strong point, Ellie.”
Only then Katalina nodded her head as if she understood my intentions.
[My lord. We’ve confirmed a big number of troops moving through the teleportation gate just now.]An allied soldier who was keeping an eye on the teleportation gate sent me a whisper message in a hurried tone.
[It could be the reinforcements that Miss Eva is bringing together with her, so until you can discern which faction they belong to, make sure you do not initiate an attack ahead of time. Report this situation to the commander located at the military training grounds as well.][Yes, my lord.]
Speaking of which, it seemed like 10 minutes had already passed. I felt the need to quickly leave this hallway as soon as possible. The target now was Cardiff city.
“Sis, why are your expressions so stiff and glum?”
With 5,000 reserve troops in tow as Esther joined our army, she carefully asked the question as she saw that our expression was quite serious.
Though Cardiff city was the closest place to reach from Newport, it still took 30 minutes in total to get there so it must have seemed strange to her that we didn’t say anything to each other for that long
“It’s because something happened back in Newport.”
It was Katalina who answered and not me.
“Something?”
“The enemy commanders connected into the game after taking illegal substances.”
Katalina must have judged that describing everything about the scene would be not good for Esther who’s still underaged, and left out a part of the whole incident.
“Wha?”
Esther reacted as if she found it unbelievable. But then I started wondering what her reaction would have been if she were to have seen the scene herself. Even though she wouldn’t be able to commit s̲e̲x̲u̲a̲l̲ acts since she’s an underaged user, it was still possible for her to see it.
Of course, even though there are still fierce debates raging about if that should be allowed, even in Korea where laws are very conservative, such things are still allowed to happen. I don’t know just how Blue Sky was able to influence the politics enough to allow it, but since the law had passed in such a way, the public just has to accept that there was no problem in underaged people seeing it.
“Ugh, I knew they’d be like that!”
Seeing Esther react completely differently than what we expected, we stopped in our tracks to turn our focus on Esther.
“Esther, did you perhaps know about that situation as well?”
Yet again, Katalina asked Esther ahead of me.
“I had a hunch somewhat. It’s because I heard a call that Sister Stella was having in her room in the past…”
Esther’s voice became quieter with Katalina’s questioning. I gave the signal with my eyes to the guild officers that were following behind us.
Understanding that we were going to have a personal conversation, they willingly stepped back to give us some private space. Once a certain space was secured, Katalina activated a magic spell.
[Absolute Shield]An ultimate defense magic of the 8th circle tier, which defends against every single attack, was activated just so that no sound would escape from where we were.
“Could you tell me in more detail?”
This time I asked Esther instead of Katalina. I felt that since Katalina was asking in a tone of voice as if she was interrogating Esther, it may make her feel too uncomfortable to continue talking.
“I wasn’t able to hear it clearly since it was just leaking through the gap of the door, but I heard them talking about bribing and drugs. Of course, I thought I could have just misinterpreted her words and disregarded it, but hearing what you saw at Newport, I realized that what I heard wasn’t just my imagination.”
“That means there’s a possibility Stella could be related to this incident.”
“That’s right…”
Even if they hate each other’s guts, they’re still related by blood and a family. Of course, Esther’s expression wouldn’t be bright as she was telling this.
“First of all, thank you very much for telling us something that was difficult to tell.”
“No, it was something I should have definitely told you about.”
Realizing that this incident will be huge even if I wasn’t putting the support of the household on it, I was completely stunned. If this incident was related to Stella who’s a high-ranked officer in the Tempest guild, it meant that a large number of officers within the guild are related to this as well.
Why would those people who have all the luxuries they could want in their life get involved in illegal substance abuse? A question that I couldn’t understand, nor want to understand came into my mind.
“I guess we’ll have to make sure that this incident doesn’t cause trouble for Esther’s family as well then.”
I nodded my head hearing Katalina’s comment. But to do that was going to be a real headache. If the officers of the guilds related to this incident are found out one after another through relation, there’s no guarantee that it won’t end up with someone mentioning Stella who’s an accomplice. In the end, the best thing to do was just bury the incident and not let it go public, or just let Esther’s family get involved with the investigation.
“Sis… thank you for all your considerations, but I think that this incident is something that our family has to deal with. In the end, it was only Sister Stella that involved herself with such things after all. It may be a cold-blooded decision to make, but we just need to deal with it ourselves. I’m just worried about how shocked my parents would be as they see the family household’s honor hit rock bottom. But things may get worse if we were to bury and hide away this incident as well. I cannot just let you all carry the risk of what could happen if we did so.”
“But…”
Though we couldn’t say it ourselves, the answer that Esther gave to us was something we both secretly wanted inside our minds. But I still felt a pang of sympathy towards her knowing that even though she was completely unrelated to the incident, she will still end up getting into trouble because of Stella.
“It’s really fine. Let’s focus on how we should conquer Cardiff for now.”
Esther tried her best to look brave about this situation, but under the cold gaze of the blue crescent moon, my heart winced in pain even more in sympathy.
I looked up to the crescent moon and promised myself that no matter what happens, I will do my absolute best to make sure that no harm came to Esther.
