The Martial Unity



"Did you experience any difficulty or troubles during the evacuation?" Rui found himself sitting before Alice, Julian and others of his generation in the Quarrier Orphanage.

Although he sought to treat everybody the same, he naturally was more attached to those members of the orphanage he had grown up with. The Quarrier Orphanage had grown so much in the past decade that he didn't know most of the new kids and the young adolescents personally.

Regardless, he treated them with love and affection.

It was his way of respecting his mother, who had done the same for him.

She was no longer here. Thus, he felt a sense of duty in ensuring that he did for others what she had done for him.

"No, we did not experience too many difficulties," Alice explained, drawing his attention. "The evacuation into the bunkers was executed quite smoothly, and we were safe and without any worries."

Rui heaved a soft sigh of relief. "Sounds like it was planned well enough."

He wasn't surprised, considering that it was his father who headed the project as a failsafe in case the war was lost and the enemies went too crazy in Kandrian territory.

"I heard we achieved an overwhelming victory." Julian smiled knowingly. "And that you played an outsized role in achieving this result."

The others looked at Rui in surprise, not having had access to the same intelligence sources that Julian did.

"Hahaha, as expected of our Rui, they never stood a chance."

"To think that you bring the Kandrian Empire war against another powerful nation..."

"...Have you recovered from your wounds, Rui?" Alice asked with concern. "Julian told us that you were under excellent care, but it must have been something serious for you to be in medical care for nearly a month."

Rui smiled. "Just time-consuming, not serious. I'm doing just fine, I promise."

He was probably underselling his condition had been, but it was more or less accurate.

"...Hm, if we won, does that mean the war is over then?" Farion wondered with a strange expression.

Rui shook his head with a soft sigh. "We won a battle. We didn't win the war. The war is still ongoing. But rest assured, we are in capable hands."

The more Rui learned of Emperor Rael's grand plan, the more he realized that he had underestimated his father's genius.

In the first place, the hurdles that they had to overcome were so great that if Rui had been emperor, he wouldn't have had the confidence that he would have been able to overcome them. It was difficult to parse a scenario where three nations were defeated by a single nation when all three were of roughly equal power.

Yet, as more of the grand plan of the Emperor of Harmony unfurled, plan after plan and strategy after strategy collectively painted the vision of the future where the Kandrian Empire could not only emerge victorious but also do so without being reduced to the brink of death in a horrific pyrrhic victory.

By exploiting the deep sense of self-preservation of the gerontocracy that occupied the Republic of Gorteau, he could manipulate them with longevity potions and cripple the nation with its own separation of powers and decentralization. By correctly deducing the Esoterist's hidden ambitions and agendas, he harnessed the Esocline Federation as a powerful ally to keep the Sekigahara Confederate in check.

At the very least, Rui didn't think he was capable of conceiving such an extraordinary tapestry of victory woven together by a myriad of threads of political, economic, and military strategy. It wasn't just a matter of raw cognition; Rael was gifted in many other areas that were important for leadership. In addition, three centuries of experience allowed him to reach a realm of political acumen that Rui could only wonder if anybody could actually rival.

It gave him a much greater sense of confidence that they could win this war without grave sacrifices.

"Why are we even in a war in the first place?" Farion grumbled. "Those Sekigaharans bastards just attacked us out of nowhere. We didn't even do anything to them!"

The others snorted in agreement, remarking about the bastards that the Sekigahara Confederate was.

"Those assholes don't even need any reason; they just attack without just cause!"

"Still, we beat them black and blue. The Royal announcements said that we killed almost all the Masters. That must mean that our Martial Artists are ten times stronger than theirs." "Tsk tsk, imagine being so weak and still attacking us. Little assholes need to know their place."

Rui listened on with amusement as the armchair politicians that the men began offering their expert insights into the war. It also gave him perspective on how little awareness the average person had of politics.

The attack did not just come out of nowhere as it seemed to them; it was a result of them learning of the extent of the Kandrian Empire's treasures that served as the trigger into sparking a conflict that had been brewing in the Kandrian Empire for seven years ever since the Silas Clan, the first treasure, joined the Kandrian Empire.

The Silas Clan's prophecy was so precious that the entire world had hunted them for their power. So much so that even after gaining a Sage in the form of Matriarch Nephi, they still weren't strong enough to protect themselves.

Them joining Kandria and settling there had sent a shock across East Panama, marking the beginning of the beginning.

In other words, this had been coming for a long time.

However, unless one had this geopolitical context, one would only conclude that the attack came out of nowhere.

"Not only did it come from nowhere, it isn't just those savages from the Sekigahara Confederate. Didn't Gorteau declare war on us as well? Why us? What did we do?"

Rui suddenly found his tea to be quite interesting as he averted any eye contact.

Of course, Julian saw right through him, giving him a knowing smile.

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