Chapter 669: Thorny

“We must deal with the Chaos Faction’s enmity from the outside, and the Order Faction’s hostility and even some within our own Mist Alliance who want to secede on the inside. We’re facing threats from both outside and within, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Could this situation get any worse… No, I can’t say something like that. According to my experience, every time I say a similar phrase, fate truly can give me something worse.”

Although there was much I wanted to complain about, I simply complained a little out of habit. According to my memories, this “ship filled with holes” that was barely managing to proceed forward while people on the ship engaged in infighting against each other was simply the norm.

Situations where everyone was shouting “let’s all be united,” “let’s courageously face the future,” and so on, where people wouldn’t consider personal gains and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the future, were situations that only existed in stories and myths. If such a situation truly occurred to me, my first reaction would be to pinch myself to see if I had unknowingly been struck with an enemy’s hallucination magic.

Reality as I remembered it had always been everyone having their own little schemes even as we fought against outside enemies. Everyone would always scheme against their own superiors as well as subordinates, complaining that they had too little money and too much work while barely managing to proceed forward due to shared interests.

That was how things were back at Sulfur Mountain City. We had personally conquered all that territory, and the foundation there was quite solid now. It could now be called a rare paradise in the Underground. However, the internal politics was still quite messed up. The councilors faction and judges faction were hostile to each other, and whenever we came under attack by another Underground Lord… large numbers of citizens and government officials would betray us to join the enemy, and many of the councilors would even betray us as well as they only cared about personal benefits… Forget it, I should stop talking about such things. I much preferred knights and the military, and approved of how just and loyal knights were. One of the main reasons for this was because knights were far simpler. At the very least, they had to be simple in order to face this cruel generation.

The moon elves were no idiots. However, they were used to treating other species as if the latter were idiots. They were stirring up trouble for us at such a time because they had seen the overall situation. They knew that with the upcoming establishment of the Northlands Elven Empire, doing anything hostile to the moon elves would greatly shake the morale of the other elven species, which would be a tremendous negative influence. Thus, the moon elves used this opportunity to make numerous unreasonable requests, hoping that they could win on the negotiation table what they would be unable to win in war.

But if we really fulfilled all their requests, there would no longer be any Northlands Elven Empire. There would only be a new Moon Elf Empire. Not to mention, that empire would be an independent parasite within the Mist Alliance. The now deceased Elven Empress Afina of the previous Moon Elf Empire would probably faint from combined laughter and crying if she saw her dream realized so easily after her death.

Of course, I doubted that even the most optimistic of moon elf elders would think that their unreasonable requests would all be agreed to. They were simply starting off with a sky-high price as a haggling method. As long as they could obtain something on the negotiation table, it would only bring benefits to them—even if only one of their unreasonable demands was fulfilled.

They were confident that the Mist Alliance wouldn’t use military force against any internal elements at this time, so they wanted to take advantage of this timing to gain any political benefits they could. This was quite calculating and extraordinarily greedy of them. But, they never considered that the Mist Alliance had previously tolerated the elves’ independence games because the Holy War had yet to start back then, and that a steady foundation had been still needed for the newly established Mist Alliance. Plus, the people in charge were Reyne and Glina, who were both relatively moderate. Reyne and Glina also had far too much to deal with, such as developing the potential of magical engineering, undead, and beastmen, which was why they didn’t care too much about the distant elf kingdoms within the Mist Alliance.

But right now, the elves were dealing with me, who had previously organized the major bloodbath of Sulfur Mountain City, along with Gold Elf Harloys, who hated moon elves more than any other elf species. Obviously, neither of us would likely be considered a moderate…

Tactically speaking, it would indeed be correct to first have your own faction be stable before dealing with outside enemies. When the outside threat was tremendous, your own faction being unstable would cause problems quite easily. When the “inside problem” was like a part of your body that had already melded with your organs, clearing it out would be the equivalent of undergoing a major surgery which would require serious recovery efforts afterwards. Naturally, this meant that using military force would be a poor idea. But right now, since the moon elves were still completely outside of the Mist Alliance’s system, they counted at most as a pus sore on the Mist Alliance’s arm. Of course I would be willing to cut off such a pus sore.

“Harloys, I’m going to prepare for Suana’s revival for some time. You personally deal with the moon elves, and have the dark elves do all the necessary dirty work. It’s fine to do everything in my name. I’m already a professional at taking the blame, anyways. We need to clean our house before the elven caravan arrives so that we can welcome them properly.”

A century ago, I had already gained nicknames such as “Butcher of Elves”, “Annihilator of Elves”, and so on. It might not even be that bad to gain some new anti-elf nicknames.

I was too lazy to waste any more time with the moon elves. Since they still couldn’t see the overall situation and our determination clearly, then it was time for them to be abandoned by the current generation. I would simply have all the current moon elf leaders killed, perhaps reviving some of my reputation from my time as Yongye, and replace them with new moon elf leaders. I would then give the new leaders some candy. I was quite confident that Suana, who had extraordinarily high popularity with ordinary moon elves, would be an excellent choice.

Before, I was still worried that killing off the moon elf leaders would negatively impact the Mist Alliance’s reputation, and maybe cause the elves to be frightened of us humans. But now, I would be taking all the blame, and other elves would be doing the killing. There was no longer any need to hesitate.

Although rivers of blood would be spilled, why should I care?

“…Please wait. Many innocents will be harmed otherwise.”

While the moon elf leaders remained silent, Suana stood up. Her banshee body was covered in a faint white light that kept scattering everywhere, a good indication that her emotions were in extreme inner turmoil.

I chuckled when I saw this. She wouldn’t have been the peace-loving Princess Suana that I knew if she hadn’t stood up here.

“Okay, Harloys won’t take action against the moon elf leaders, then. Suana, you personally decide who should die. You’ve been the mediator between the elves and the Mist Alliance for all these years. You should know which moon elf leaders can be allowed to live and which are too toxic to be allowed to survive.”

Suana paused in surprise. She didn’t expect that I would agree so readily, but her body soon began to tremble violently. She knew that although she had supposedly saved her moon elf species, it would mean her personally acting as a butcher of moon elves.

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“…I need to tell you beforehand that you can’t show mercy. If I need to cleanse the moon elves afterwards, I’m not going to let a single one go even if innocents are killed.”

I left those words behind as I directly left. I didn’t even glance at the moon elf leaders who were all standing still, stupefied. Suana’s light kept flickering as her heart was in utter chaos.

It was enough for me to say this much. The rest would be up to Suana and the moon elves. If the end result of cleansing the moon elf leaders didn’t satisfy me, and they still continued to be a burden, not only would I kill every single moon elf leader, I was even willing to keep only the land but not the species… Of course, I wasn’t extreme enough to indiscriminately slaughter the entire moon elf species. What I actually meant was, if things really developed to such an extent, I would scatter all the moon elves and force them to live together with humans just like the Tassel Kingdom’s grayblood elves. All moon elf kingdoms would thus become nothing more than history.

“…Did you really need to go to such an extent? I really do like that Suana girl. Did you have to force her so much?” Harloys commented.

“It’s precisely because she’s so nice that I’m going to help her get rid of her naivety and softness… Ha, I bet she’ll hate me.”

“Of course she will! You’re forcing her to stain her own hands with blood. Not only that, the blood will be from her own people, yet you’re simultaneously forcing her to become the leader of all moon elves. This is no different from tying her on a stake and throwing her into a volcano. All Suana wants is to have peace, but she probably won’t have a single good day after this anymore.”

“Hmph, peace? Is there a single peaceful place in this world? Ever since she was born among the royalty, she’s enjoyed an excellent quality of life for all these years. She doesn’t have the right to say such a foolish thing. Besides, isn’t all of this for your sake? Suana can no longer turn back now. She’ll probably become closer to Elven Empress Harloys from this.”

Have Suana successfully kill all the moon elf leaders that needed to be gotten rid of? That would be impossible unless she was willing to start a major slaughter. Hidden problems would definitely remain. Besides, Suana wasn’t the type of leader who could be cold-blooded and decisive. In fact, rather than a slaughter, it was far more likely that the moon elf leaders would all be imprisoned. But, as long as the moon elf leaders weren’t killed, there would definitely be problems afterwards. However, it would be Suana’s problem to deal with then as she would become the leader of all moon elves.

As for Elven Empress Harloys, she would be most afraid of a Superior Elf species being highly unified. Right now, the moon elves and dark elves were the two most powerful Superior Elf species in the new Elven Empire. It was highly unlikely for the dark elves to become highly unified, but the moon elves were actually fairly good at working together. Things would become difficult for us if all moon elves rebelled together. Thus, my true goal here was to create a permanent fracture among the moon elves by creating a Suana faction and anti-Suana faction.

This was no joke by me. It would be quite good for Harloys for there to be constant friction and trouble among the moon elves.

Suana’s position as the leader of all moon elves would be unstable. She wouldn’t be able to command all of the moon elves. Thus, she would naturally draw closer to Elven Empress Harloys. This was our way of dealing with a deeply rooted foundational problem.

“Hmph, I’d be an idiot to believe you. You’ve definitely had more than enough of the moon elves, and will be absolutely willing to kill them all. It’s good to be a skilled schemer, but if you do nothing but scheme all day every day, you’ll never be satisfied and always want more. That will always lead to more trouble.”

I shrugged without denying anything. The moon elves were far too troublesome. I was already tired of playing schemes with them. Dealing with them in one go would be far easier.

“…You really did go overboard with Suana. She’s the only other of our kind. It’s so rare to see someone as pure as her,” Harloys remarked.

Naïve? Pure? Those adjectives would be a praise in an era of peace. However, since Suana was going to be the leader of her people, naivety equaled foolishness, and purity equaled inexperience. None of this would be good.

“Of our kind? Oh, you mean how we’re all natural undead?”

I supposed that natural undead were indeed extraordinarily rare in the mortal plane. Any natural undead would be a vicious and sly bastard. It was almost inconceivable for Suana to be so pure.

However, I laughed out loud.

“…Previously, it would have been correct of you to say that Suana was the only other of our kind. But now, that’s no longer the case…”

I gazed southwards. I had already learned that two of the five Undead Emperors in Bardi were also natural undead. Whether judging by experience or danger level, they were far more powerful than myself and Harloys, especially the Undead Emperor who had instantly cast a forbidden spell. He had instantly reached the top 10 of the Calamity Rankings. Meanwhile, how he managed to instantly cast a forbidden spell was currently the hottest topic of the Mage Country.

I actually knew how he had accomplished such a feat thanks to the large amounts of information I’d obtained from Conservation and Aso. Yet, this information only made me find the Undead Emperors even more inconceivable.

“The south will be truly troublesome to deal with. I really don’t want to meet those Undead Emperors on the battlefield. But, I’m afraid some things will be unavoidable…”