Chapter 293
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 293
Chapter Title: We Need a Plan.
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At the very moment Rose in London received a letter from the United States and summoned the Blue Dragon Corps...
In the palace of Jerusalem, a white-haired girl
was muttering to herself.
"We're screwed."
With her usual expressionless face.
But more despondent than ever, her shoulders slumped as she murmured blankly with hollow eyes.
"I'm dead. Dead before I can even lay eggs."
"Princess, take a deep breath and calm down first."
"I'm calm. As stable as an iceberg floating in the Mediterranean."
"First off, there are no icebergs in the Mediterranean. Second, you saying that while shaking like that isn't convincing at all."
Her expressionless face notwithstanding, Tata spoke seriously as she watched Ainsha's trembling hands clutching the letter.
Whether the point hit home or not,
Ainsha finally stopped her shaking hands.
And turned her expressionless face toward Tata.
"Tata, I want to know what we should do now."
"Well..."
Tata trailed off.
Even she, hailed by all as the greatest mind of the White Dragon Clan, felt at a loss in this situation.
But that hesitation lasted only a moment.
The instant she saw Ainsha fretting with her expressionless face,
she spoke with her usual dignified confidence, as if she'd never wavered.
"Just trust in Tata! I've prepared countermeasures for a time like this."
"...I want to know if that's true."
"Of course it is. Why would Tata ever lie to you, Princess?"
Who was it that said
you shouldn't trust a liar who only speaks the truth more than anyone?
Yet Tata was a woman who could be more ruthless than the Black Dragon Clan itself for her revered princess.
"As expected of Tata. Sometimes you seem smarter than even Li Chingwei."
Unaware of the truth, Ainsha praised her with her expressionless face.
Her eyes were so pure.
Tata, whose conscience prickled,
brushed off the gaze with impudence rivaling the Black Dragon Clan and subtly probed.
"By the way, Princess, what did your precognition show?"
If she knew the future, the countermeasures could be more perfect.
Even as she hinted at it, Tata was ready to hastily craft plans fitting Ainsha's visions.
Which was why, right after,
Tata could only blink in surprise.
"I don't know either."
"...You don't know?"
"The futures are changing too much. At least dozens of branches already. And it's increasing, with completely different outcomes."
"Is that even possible...?"
Tata asked blankly.
Ainsha was the greatest prophet of the era.
She only saw 'futures that could come true,' so witnessing so many was something that shouldn't happen.
"It's because of Rimon."
The problem was singular.
Rimon, at the center of it all.
He could slice through futures and alter fate with his own will alone.
In other words, no matter which precognition Ainsha chose, Rimon's actions could make the results entirely different.
Even when she foresaw Brazil's downfall, she could only see Maia’s death as fixed by Li Chingwei's choices.
What Rimon would do.
How he'd save Maia—she couldn't foresee that.
And from now on, Rimon's choices would matter more than ever.
So precognition was meaningless.
Ainsha stated flatly.
"Now, tell me the plan. If it's one you've prepared, I'll trust and follow it."
"..."
Looking at Ainsha, who gazed at her with utter trust in her expressionless face, as if Tata were the only one to rely on, Tata couldn't help but break into a cold sweat.
"Hmph, so she made her move like this after all."
Brazil, São Paulo.
The frail green-haired woman still propped up in her sickbed
tossed the letter into the trash.
It wasn't particularly surprising.
From the moment the Gold Dragon Clan learned of the Amazon incident, Charlotte acting was only a matter of time.
Even accounting for that, it was a shockingly swift and ruthless method.
'Is this a warning?'
Ainsha, who performed alongside Rimon.
Rose, who endured the London incident.
And herself.
What was the intent behind sending such letters even to those who had noticed Rimon's dragon psyonic but kept silent?
After pondering briefly, Maia sneered coldly.
'Still so arrogant.'
Threatening another clan's princess.
It was the kind of outrageous act only Charlotte could pull off.
But she couldn't ignore it.
After all, she possessed the power and ability to back it up—the Gold Dragon Princess, proud strongest of the Seven Dragon Society.
'Rose and Ainsha will have to make choices.'
She wasn't particularly curious about their decisions.
No matter how the White and Blue Dragon Clans moved, Maia's own choice was already set.
The real issue was elsewhere.
Those unaware of this fact.
Those who thus had no need to choose.
Yet even so, recalling those whose actions she couldn't predict, Maia unwittingly spoke.
"If it were just Charlotte, we might have had a chance..."
Just as Charlotte was the Seven Dragon Society's strongest,
Li Chingwei was its worst princess.
Skilled in schemes and sparing no means to achieve her goals, she could find a way out of this pinch.
...If she only had to face Charlotte alone.
That was why Charlotte chose this method.
Recalling the content of the letter that would corner Li Chingwei...
No, more precisely, the number of letters she must have sent, Maia wore a cold smirk.
"Li Chingwei, even you can't withstand the wrath of three princesses, can you?"
To Rose.
To Ainsha.
And to Maia.
The letters sent one to each weren't the end of it.
There were letters sent to a continent far removed from them as well.
However, those took a bit longer to arrive compared to the others.
Not for any grand reason.
The destinations were simply too remote.
Under a scorching sun, amid the half-melted wreckage of tanks and ashes that were once human, rolling across the desert.
Atop a sand dune overlooking that scene stood a lone woman.
Sun-tanned brown skin.
A form-fitting worn military uniform.
A military cap tilted askew.
And a cigarette dangling from her lips.
Like it was routine, she stood silently gazing at the wreckage, hands shoved into the pockets of her military coat—a taciturn beauty.
What broke her silence was a sigh from behind.
"Ugh, you did it again."
In an oversized military uniform for her small frame, with spears, swords, bazookas, and such poking out from the backpack on her back.
Charitably, a boy soldier.
Frankly, she looked like a thief who'd stolen the uniform and weapons.
Nadia made a sour face.
And muttered in a listless voice.
"Why doesn't the princess know moderation? This all costs money—how am I supposed to sell it if you smash everything...?"
She ignored Nadia's grumbling.
She merely kept her silence.
Feeling the wordless pressure from her stoic demeanor,
Nadia flinched, pulled out a notepad to check something, and nodded.
"W-Well, these guys had bounties on them, so we probably broke even this time."
Was she relieved?
Or regretting it?
After murmuring ambiguously for a moment,
Nadia suddenly brought up a new topic, as if it had just occurred to her.
"By the way, Princess, when are you going to take a consort? The elders keep nagging me to bring photos of handsome guys."
"I don't need weaklings like that."
"Ah, right. You said you have no interest unless he's stronger than you..."
The woman finally spoke.
Only after hearing that husky voice did Nadia mutter as if recalling, then sighed again.
"You're too much. You even called the Summon Lord a weakling and rejected him—where am I supposed to find someone stronger?"
"Easy."
"It's not a problem solved by a single word...!"
Nadia slumped her shoulders.
She wasn't just anyone common.
Finding a man stronger than her, a transcendent class superhuman? Near impossible.
Yet they couldn't leave their eggless princess single forever.
Nadia could only sigh deeply enough to cave the earth.
"If only a spare Sword Master popped up out of nowhere..."
With the Sword Tower gone, new Sword Masters were practically impossible.
Nadia, wallowing in vain hopes, and the beauty ignoring her aide's mutterings while staring at the desert.
Right then, a shrill cry echoed above their heads.
Screee!
"Huh...? What's Horus doing here?"
Nadia tilted her head at the sharp cry and the massive hawk appearing from the distant sky.
She, however, didn't panic.
She simply extended one arm.
As if understanding the signal,
the hawk stopped circling and dove sharply, landing straight on her arm.
Gripping her bare skin with its talons, no protective gear.
For a normal person, her arm would be shredded instantly, but she was unscathed.
She merely shivered slightly the moment the talons touched.
She stroked the hawk's head.
Then opened the pouch tied to its body.
She glanced at the seal on the letter inside, fell silent briefly, then tore it open and read.
"Pafnrir's seal? A letter from the Gold Dragon Princess?"
"..."
"And the elders used Horus to deliver it, so it must be personal. That's unusual."
"..."
"What's it say? The Gold Dragon Princess wouldn't send a personal letter for nothing."
"..."
"...Princess?"
Whoosh!
Nadia flinched.
Not just because the letter suddenly burst into flames.
A tremendous psyonic storm erupted around her.
The backlash heated the air scorching hot, and flames began whirling like a vortex, making Nadia recoil in terror.
"W-Wait, Princess! Calm down! I'll die!"
Perhaps her scream worked.
Just before engulfing Nadia, the flames swirling around her gradually subsided.
But Nadia was the lucky one.
Perched on her arm, the hawk was instantly consumed by the flames, turning to ash without a cry.
"Ugh, Horus No. 17 gone like this too..."
After lamenting the loss of a bloodline hawk worth billions,
Nadia gauged her mood.
She couldn't guess what the letter said to make her freak out like this.
But she ignored Nadia's gaze and the hawk she'd incinerated.
She spat out her ashen cigarette.
And after a long silence, spoke in her husky voice.
"Prepare the Flame Dragon Corps."
"W-Why the Flame Dragon Corps?"
The owner of Apophis, the megacorp dominating the world's grain markets and energy sector, also the top private military company.
Simultaneously, the one who ruled Africa's warlord-infested chaos with absolute power and destruction, where regimes rose and fell daily.
Not the strongest of the Seven Dragon Society, but leader of its fiercest warriors—the red-haired beauty.
Hasneti III.
Called Africa's Tyrant.
Or the Red Dragon Princess.
She gazed east with ruby eyes like blood droplets and declared.
"I'm going to kill the Black Dragon Princess."
As if ready to charge east immediately.
After blinking once at her murderous reply,
Nadia hesitantly pointed out.
"...Um, Princess. Just to be sure, but that's not east—it's west, isn't it?"
"..."