Chapter 34 — Negotiation

When her name was suddenly called, Rebecca's first reaction was a violent flinch. For this small heir of a fallen house, the scene before her and the ring of great personages around her were things she had never even dreamed of; not even as a child, when she had run into the woods to wrestle a wolf and been knocked senseless with a single swipe of its paw, had she hallucinated anything on this scale. Watching her ancient ancestor chatting and laughing easily with the mighty, she even forgot that she herself was one of the important participants in this meeting.

But what was good about Rebecca was her stubborn, hard-headed grit. Though somewhat dazed, she calmed herself by sheer force of nerve—nerves tough to the point of near necrosis—and after sorting out her words a little, this petty lord from the southern countryside began to tell the king of the nightmare that had befallen the Cecil territory.

Everyone listened with rapt attention. Even though none of them had expected this slip of a girl to be the one speaking, the catastrophe itself was enough to seal every mouth in the hall.

About the events on the southern border, everyone present knew at least a little. The affair was fermenting throughout the whole southern region, and rumors of every description filled the air. This was not entirely to Gao Song's credit—what Gao Yang had sent men to spread was chiefly the matter of his own "resurrection"; he had not made a point of playing up the disaster itself. But disaster is by nature the finest catalyst for rumor, and after two months of brewing and spreading, it was already common knowledge across the south.

Commoners might lack the means to investigate the truth, but nobles did not. Through various channels, those present had each come to understand the course of events to some degree; Francis II even held secret reports from many southern nobles. Yet no report, however detailed, could be as accurate and reliable as the firsthand experience of those who had been there.

In Rebecca's increasingly fluent account, the catastrophe was slowly pieced together whole and linked to the Dark Tide of seven hundred years ago, while the appearance of a dragon draped the entire affair in a final layer of bewildering mystery.

Looking at the king and the nobles with their brows tightly knit, Gao Yun gave a soft sigh.

A moment ago these people had all been fixated on the founding grand duke risen from the dead, and on whether the Cecil family would demand restitution from the crown. They had probably clean forgotten that the Cecil family's chief purpose in coming to the capital was to report those monsters. But they could hardly be blamed—who could help it if Gao Song simply loomed larger in their minds?

And that presence was entirely of his own making...

"...Most of the Cecil territory has now been reduced to scorched earth. Dragonfire carries magical force; wherever it has burned, no crops will grow for years. My people have no choice but to live under Viscount Grumman's protection." Rebecca had risen to her feet, fists clenched, her earlier timidity and nerves gone. "Your Majesty, and my lords, the Cecil territory is small, but this catastrophe is a signal. The dragon's purpose may be unknown, but the monsters are a catastrophe in the most literal sense. Those monsters appeared seven hundred years ago as well—they brought about the destruction of the Gondor Empire, and my ancestor lived through it all in person."

Francis II began to converse in low tones with his First Minister and the Grand Duchess of the North, and several others bowed their heads in discussion as well. It was plain they were not treating Rebecca's tidings as empty air. For this they had to thank the ceaselessly circulating rumors, the secret letters from the south, and the very existence of Gao Yang Cecil. Without these, a decayed southern country noble running before the king to say her family's territory had been destroyed by monsters and a dragon would have earned nothing but mockery; far from provoking discussion, it might well have brought punishment down on her head.

But just how seriously they would take it, and how much they would actually do in response—that was hard to say.

After all, the world had been at peace for seven hundred years.

"Duke Cecil," said a tall, lean man seated several places to Gao Yang's left. He was Bai Yu Franklin, Grand Duke of the West, a refined and scholarly gentleman to look at. "I do not doubt your descendant's honesty in this matter, but the thing is truly beyond belief. Forgive me for speaking out of turn—are those monsters really the... same creatures as those of the Dark Tide seven hundred years ago?"

"I dealt with them for twenty years, right up until I died. I'd know them even in ashes," Gao Yang said gravely. "And I have crossed blades with them once more, so I can confirm those monsters are the very things that poured out of the Dark Tide. Unfortunately, they disintegrate swiftly once killed, so no corpse specimen can be preserved; and the dragon afterward burned the whole territory, so there is no way now to send men to the Cecil lands to inspect the situation."

Bai Yu Franklin exchanged a glance with Silas Loren, Grand Duke of the East, at his side. Seeing this, Gao Yang said, "If you believe the Cecil family is deliberately exaggerating the truth to win sympathy and seize this chance to return to the center of power, then say so plainly."

"No, no, we would never think such a thing," Grand Duke Bai Yu said hurriedly. "We merely need... to verify these matters. After all, it concerns the Dark Tide of seven hundred years ago, and the magnitude of this affair... exceeds even what any single human kingdom could face alone..."

"But they have already struck at our gates!" Rebecca rose, unable to contain herself. "I saw them with my own eyes!"

"Easy now, calm yourself," Gao Yang said, pressing her shoulder and easing her back into her seat. He turned to Francis II. "I understand your caution is justified—entering a state of war exacts a great price. I have also brought evidence: weapons and equipment our warriors used in the southern border. Though the monsters' corpses cannot be preserved, gear used in fighting them is inevitably tainted by the elements, and the lingering aura of corrosion on those pieces should give you some reference. I am confident that even the most accomplished royal scholar could not find anything in the real world that matches those traces of corrosion."

Two sturdy attendants carried up a large chest. When it was opened, several battered swords and blades along with fragments of warped, deformed armor were laid out before everyone.

The things looked as though they had been soaked in strong acid. The once-smooth metal surfaces were pitted and mottled, bearing a foul discoloration; the metal most severely eroded by elemental force had even taken on a texture like rotten wood—rub it lightly with your fingers and great flakes of debris came away.

"They are harmless now, safe to touch directly. But until half a month ago, this steel was still ceaselessly crumbling away," Gao Cen explained from the side as he watched the king and nobles inspect the samples. "If the historians of these seven hundred years have not been utterly slack, there must be records of this in the chronicles."

"There are, there are..." Francis II said, nodding.

"Beyond that, by chance we found the notes of a wild mage. His notes mention the eruption of sunspots and signs of magical force surging upward..."

Gao Yang laid out one by one all the intelligence he could offer, but it was clear that the material from the wild mage's notes did not draw much attention.

To most present, those things were even less persuasive than the debris flaking off the sword and armor fragments on the table.