Chapter 151
Chapter 151
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 151
Chapter Title: In the Palm of Juras
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The meeting had truly begun in earnest.
Each nation was gauging the scale of this diplomatic battle.
First, they concluded that Crossing was out of the picture for this stage.
Crossing was a bunch of fools who had tripped over their own petty schemes. Wade's Als Ilrain was a figure worth watching, but they determined he held no influence in this diplomatic clash.
In reality, Als was sitting quietly, observing the situation without a word.
That was the end of it for Crossing. With that conclusion, the meeting moved on to the next topic.
How to handle Ballast.
This pitted Svenner and the West against Albad.
The Svenner side was understandably rattled by Prince Eldric's betrayal, but they had a card up their sleeve.
Namely, Cassius's hidden identity as one of the Three Great Generals.
Even Prince Eldric was unaware of this.
Eldric had first met Cassius when he visited the West to build his own faction. Taken by the clever-looking boy, he brought Cassius into his fold. Cassius had been twelve at the time.
In other words, no one knew what Cassius had been up to before age twelve.
And so, Svenner made their proposal.
“I would like to ask Cassius Lloyd, proxy for the King. What direction does Ballast intend to take from here on?”
It was a demand to choose: Albad or Svenner and the West.
Prince Eldric's face hardened at the bold proposal. Only then did he intuit that Cassius might have ties he knew nothing about.
“W-Wait a moment!”
“Vulran, stay out of this!”
Prince Eldric was, after all, a Vulran man. Cassius had officially broken from Vulran, and his status there wasn't particularly high, so it hadn't been an issue—but Eldric was different.
Vulran's involvement in the coup was public knowledge, but officially, they were uninvolved, so they had no right to speak.
‘No way, no way Cassius...?’
If that was the case, granting Cassius full authority had been a fatal mistake. Prince Eldric paled as he realized his error.
“Cassius Lloyd! Speak! What choice will Ballast make?”
“...”
Cassius scanned the room with sunken eyes.
He looked at the Svenner side, then fixed his gaze on Prince Eldric.
He spoke.
“Before that, there is one promise I would like to receive.”
“Promise?”
“If we make any declaration here, the opposing faction will likely come after us.”
That went without saying. Siding with Svenner meant facing attacks from Albad and the Central Alliance.
Siding with Albad meant attacks from Svenner and the West.
“So, I ask for a promise here and now. For the next five years, no nation will invade Ballast!”
It was similar to the non-aggression pact Vulran had signed.
Ballast was demanding time to stabilize its internal affairs.
This was a gamble for both Svenner and Albad. If Cassius sided with the other, Ballast would be lost without a fight.
The conference hall buzzed.
Svenner and Albad fell deep into thought.
Albad was especially shaken.
The possibility of Cassius's betrayal had emerged.
Prince Eldric's expression changed abruptly as well.
“Cassius! No, Arios! I don't know what secret deals you've made with those people, but trust me! Trust the time we've spent together! With us, we can build a better nation! Didn't we always say it? Let's create a new country! A powerhouse to stabilize the continent!”
The Svenner side bristled at this.
“Vulran, shut your mouth!”
“Urk!”
Prince Eldric judged that he had no choice but to convince Cassius.
He dropped a bombshell.
“I declare here and now: I, Eldric Schwarzer, renounce all authority and position in Vulran! I am now a free wanderer!”
He would abandon everything. It was an extreme measure to sway Cassius.
“Cassius! I'll come to you. Together, there's nothing to fear! Not the West, not Svenner!”
Even Cassius's expression wavered at this.
The Svenner side shouted in panic.
“Cassius Lloyd! Remember who you are!”
A warning not to forget his role as one of the Three Great Generals.
Cassius clenched his fist, clearly struggling with the choice.
“Please... conclude the treaty. The treaty not to invade Ballast...! Once it's signed, I'll speak.”
The diplomats exchanged glances.
This was essentially a high-stakes gamble.
The continent's balance would shift based on Cassius's choice.
Of course, dragging it out could introduce variables.
Ballast was currently in near-anarchy. Prolonged uncertainty could lead to who-knows-what.
But no one wanted that outcome.
Not Svenner, not Albad. They didn't want to miss this chance to swallow Ballast whole.
Moreover, each had confidence. Prince Eldric believed Cassius wouldn't betray him.
Svenner and the West believed Cassius would fulfill his role as one of the Three Great Generals.
So, trusting their hands, they went all-in.
“Very well. We will sign the treaty.”
“We as well.”
As Svenner and Albad signed the Ballast non-aggression pact, the other nations followed suit.
*
*
*
I had been watching silently, but the persistent sense of wrongness was giving me a throbbing headache.
The situation was crystal clear. The winner would be decided by Cassius's choice.
Svenner and the West were leveraging his hidden identity, while Eldric appealed to their shared history to sway him.
‘The odds... are about fifty-fifty.’
Even I couldn't predict the outcome.
“Please sign here.”
It was the Ballast non-aggression pact. With my signature and Duke Helian's, Caliper assented as well.
And finally, Crossing.
“You expect me to acknowledge this nonsense?!”
Juras raged and refused, but with a majority already in favor, he eventually sighed and signed.
With all nations' signatures complete, the treaty was declared concluded.
Ballast now had non-aggression pacts with every nation, just like Vulran.
All that remained was which nation Ballast would ally with.
An alliance in name, but essentially subordination.
Cassius let out a heavy sigh.
With this, the Ballast affair was over. It would end in victory for either Svenner or Albad.
Or so it should have.
I felt an unshakable wrongness about the whole setup.
It was too perfectly scripted.
‘Like...’
A play.
In that instant, the fragments lingering in my mind lit up.
— The incident seventeen years ago.
— King Gares's investigation.
— Gallean Quinter's suicide.
— Crossing's awareness of the West since the Three Lions War.
— The protagonist's ties to the West.
— The spy Dalmore Sting clinging to Prince Eldric and Cassius.
— Estelle's strange sensation around the protagonist.
— The game event where Ymir attempted to assassinate the protagonist.
I pieced together the fragments that surfaced.
First: the “incident seventeen years ago,” “King Gares's investigation,” and “Gallean Quinter's suicide.”
The incident seventeen years ago was, needless to say, Crossing's massacre of the Pensilon revival forces.
There had been at least three survivors.
Me and Ymir. Cassius Lloyd and one other.
Of course. Cassius was only three then. A child that age couldn't survive as a wanderer alone. Someone must have helped him escape.
But consider King Gares's investigation.
In his probe into my whereabouts, there was a report of a boy spotted alongside a beastkin woman carrying a baby.
Common sense dictated it couldn't be Prince Arios.
No three-year-old, no matter how advanced, would be called a boy.
And finally, Gallean Quinter—Anton's father—suicide.
Gallean had taken his own life under Juras's threat to wipe out the last Pensilon imperial bloodline.
But a question arises.
If escapees existed, could Gallean, the commander, have been unaware?
He might not have known about my and Ymir's survival, which Juras had deliberately hidden. My mother was pregnant, and I was born that very dawn, so my existence was plausible he didn't know.
But not Prince Arios Almain.
As a key target, if the prince had fled, Gallean would have known.
Assuming the prince escaped, once the dust settled and Gallean realized he'd killed not bandits but imperial forces, he would have moved heaven and earth to rescue the escaped prince.
When Juras threatened to eliminate the last imperial bloodline, if he'd known Arios survived, he wouldn't have suicided—he'd have fought to protect him.
Yet he didn't. Why?
‘Prince Arios was already dead by then...? And Gallean knew it!’
Then who the hell is Cassius Lloyd?
The next fragment provides the clue.
Juras had been aware of the West since the Three Lions War—or even earlier.
He'd said himself he'd been plotting Vulran's fall for over a decade, so the same likely applied to the West.
Given Juras's nature, he surely would have sent spies.
‘What if that was Cassius Lloyd...?’
Everything fits.
Juras, knowing the intel on Prince Arios, used it to create a spy.
Something only Juras could pull off.
It explains Estelle's sensation around the protagonist too.
Her goodwill toward me, the subtle hints. Because he's a Crossing spy.
To Cassius, I'm essentially a superior from the same organization.
It explains how Dalmore Sting got close to Cassius and Prince Eldric. With a spy already on Eldric, slipping in Dalmore was child's play.
Finally, Ymir's assassination attempt on the protagonist.
‘So that's it. Ymir wasn't acting on Crossing's orders.’
She'd simply talked to him, realized he was a fake—and by fake, a lackey of the force that massacred the Pensilon revivalists. Our sworn enemy. It was only natural for Ymir to go after Cassius.
“No way...”
I was overwhelmed.
By the man named Juras Pamillion.
By the trap he'd laid.
He was huffing and puffing in rage, but that had been off from the start.
I knew he wasn't the type to show emotion like that.
It was all part of the act. Pretending to lose composure to lull the enemy.
Now, the enemy would pay the price for that lapse.
Cassius declared:
“We will not follow the West or Svenner! The West carried out massacres in Ballast territory just as they did in Vulran! Joining forces with them is out of the question—unthinkable!”
The Albad side's faces lit up.
Victory belonged to Albad.
They were certain of it.
Eldric even shed tears of emotion. Cassius was everything to him—subordinate, friend, like a son. Someone he'd abandon all for to stand with.
But at Cassius's next words, Eldric's face froze.
“Albad is no different! Albad has long coveted Ballast! We cannot trust them!”
An uproar erupted.
Cassius shouted over it.
“There is only one nation Ballast can trust besides them! From now on, Ballast will stand with Crossing!”
The end of the play.
Everything had been in Juras's palm.