Chapter 899: Three Options

Eisen tapped his finger on the table in front of him. He was annoyed. Oh so, so annoyed. Who the h.e.l.l did the envoys from the holy empire think they were? Trying to summon something from another world to cause chaos here? The fact that they would go that far was just nothing but complete insanity.

Not only that, but the fact that they even knew about this meant that they either found some kind of notes from Xenia from when she researched these sorts of magic circles, or they were given that information directly through someone like Samuel.

"Annoying b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," the old man stood up from his seat, starting to pace around the room. The others looked at him with concerned expressions.

"Are you alright? Whenever you get this worked up you end up doing somethin" rash," Brody pointed out, and Jyuuk quickly added onto that.

"While the irony of him saying so is clear, I certainly do agree. Please, do what you have told us; do not make any decisions that you will regret once you"ve cooled down. I"m sure that you plan on facing the Holy Empire"s envoys, but what would that bring you?" Jyuuk asked, and Eisen slowly glanced over toward them.

Before he could answer, the door opened, and Evalia finally reached the s.p.a.ce. She seemed to be relieved to see that everyone was fine and that nothing major had happened, but her eyes also quickly moved over to the man contained in a crystal cube.

"Uhm... What"s happening?" she asked, and Xenia quickly filled her in while Eisen continued pacing around the room in thought. Confused and not sure if she understood correctly, Evalia then stood in front of the crystal cube, taking a closer look at the Filth.

"Seriously? Like, there"s even more worlds out there? Ooh, are there like alternate versions of us? Like a multiverse thing?" Evalia asked excitedly, and both Jyuuk and Brody quickly looked over toward the high elf sitting with them, but Xenia immediately shook her head.

"No, it"s not that sort of thing. They"re just other worlds with different rules from the very moment they came into existence. They"re not different timelines or branching worlds or anything like that," Xenia explained, and the disappointment of the three was quickly obvious.

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"Awe, man... well, either way, this guy doesn"t look all that different to us, right? So why are you saying he"s terrifying? Is he super strong or something?"

"No, he"s not," Eisen replied immediately, waving that very idea off, and the Filth hesitantly spoke.

"We are not entirely sure, but we feel like that should be insulting... Pride is certainly a new emotion to us," the Filth pointed out, and Evalia raised her brows, taken aback.

"Oh, wow, they sound... weird. No offense, obviously," Evalia said bluntly, and Eisen quickly elaborated on what he meant.

"The Filth is basically an amalgamation of hands that sort of melded together into that form. Come on, take those gla.s.ses off," Eisen said, and the Filth soon did as told. When they took their gla.s.ses off, dozens of small fingertips were wriggling inside of their hollow eye sockets, as if excited to be beheld. Evalia pulled back for a moment.

"Oh... that... huh," Evalia let out, slightly grimacing, "So... are they... Sorry, what"s happening now?" she asked confused.

Eisen stopped pacing, and placed his hands onto his hip, "I don"t know. We"ve got a few options for now. One, we act like nothing happened, move on, and hope the rest of the treaty meeting goes well without any major incident."

"Which probably isn"t the best idea. They might just think something failed or that the two people in charge of this ran away and then try again. I doubt they didn"t have more than one team prepared," Xenia pointed out, and Eisen nodded.

"I agree. I feel like that"s the most optimistic, or rather, gullible option. But it"s an option, anyway. And then there"s the second thing we can do. We go to the holy empire"s envoys right this second, threaten them with war.

War not with the giants, but with us, which will most likely mean that they"ll have to face the wrath of some other countries of the central continent too, which I doubt they"d want. Plus, that would derail the draconic war arc that Samuel wants, so he would work against that happening as well," the old man suggested.

Frankly, this was the one that he felt like going for the most right now, though it still probably wasn"t the best option.

Brody thought for a few moments, "And we"re sure that it was them?"

"I believe so, yes. The perpetrators were part of his entourage, they were carrying symbols only people from the holy empire use, and Van Horgh was extremely suspicious right when everything was happening," Eisen replied, though he hesitated for a few moments after he did, "... Though, I guess we don"t know for 100% certain yet. Jyuuk, you questioned the corpse of one of them, right?"

"Right," the beastman nodded, "It"s usually a spell that forces a body to divulge any and all information truthfully. It does make the body break down extremely fast, but it"s worth it most of the time. But in this case, the corpse just did whatever it wanted and completely ignore my questions after the first one. I was going to ask about who made them do this, but I wasn"t able to."

Eisen crossed his arms, "We could just ask Van Horgh. It"s not like anyone here can lie to me and get away with it," he pointed out.

"That would work, but if we"re doing that, wouldn"t it be better to take a different approach in the first place? In case it"s not them, we need a way to figure out who it was anyway, right?" Xenia asked, and Eisen slowly nodded.

"Mhm. And that"s the third option we have. At the start of the meeting tomorrow, we talk about today"s events in a way that is only apparent to the person in question.

We then observe anyone that reacts in any way, watch their conversations and whispers with their servants, and keep trying to figure out what"s going on, and then question whoever is most suspicious in a more direct way," Eisen suggested, and the others seemed to be quite happy with that idea for now.

"But what about the Filth? We can"t just leave them outside of the meeting room, right? What if Samuel makes contact?" Brody asked, and Eisen raised a brow, looking at the crystal cube.

"That"s a good point. I don"t trust them enough to just let them walk around outside of the cube, either," Eisen pointed out, and Evalia smiled and turned toward her friends as though she had an idea.

"What about this... Tomorrow morning, we present the Filth to everyone, but not in this human form, but in their bunch-of-hands form. And instead of doing so while saying "one of you summoned them", we say that it was our own mistake and that we want to apologize, but that they are safe since we have tamed the "creature" that appeared, though we are keeping it locked up just in case.

And then, they turn back into this form, show they"re "peaceful", and that"s that," Evalia suggested, clapping her hands together with a grin. Eisen ran his fingers through his beard in thought.

"That could work. Trying to act like we"re being transparent about our own mistake, as long as we present it in the right way, would only improve our standing... Evalia, do you mind doing that? Your charisma is still stronger than mine, particularly when it comes to positive influences.

I"m good at scaring people, but the other direction is still quite rough for me," the old man admitted, and Evalia quickly nodded as if it were obvious.

"Leave it to me!"

"Is everyone else alright with this approach?" Eisen asked, looking at the other originals. They also seemed a bit hesitant, but in the end, it seemed like a good enough option to root out the perpetrator.

Considering that teh concept of other worlds wasn"t something to be just played with so easily, it was worth the risk as long as they could figure out who it was that really tried to summon the Filth, whether it turns out to have been the Holy Empire, or someone else entirely.