Lord Of Puppets

"Wait! Stop!" – said Korwan.

"Y-you do realize what are you talking about?"

"Yes, I do." – replied Ariava as her voice came out of the communication device.

"But do you?"

"You are fully aware how fucked up the current situation is, don’t you?"

"Yes! I do! But killing these with assassinations may only end up causing more problems!" – replied panicking Korwan.

"If we were to assassinate them now, it could give excuses for the other nations to move or it may end up even harming our name."

"Getting rid of these bastards will solve one problem, but in turn it will end up creating several more problems."

"It would be one if the people of their own nation despised them from the bottoms of their hearts, allowing us to just blame assassination on them and say it was doing of rebellion."

"But the situation isn’t at this stage just yet, is it?"

"..."

"Nope. It is not." – said Ariava.

"I caused the conflict here and there and let it be, allowing it to grow as the rift between commoners and nobles expanded."

"The strategy I did is working, but I can’t still properly strike yet."

"Pretty much, if I were to do the attack now, it would only result in what you just said."

"..."

"If you know that, then why are you even proposing such idea?" – asked alarmed Korwan as he instantly knew that Ariava was planning something.

"..."

"I will rebuild the royal faction within the Warmur kingdom." – said Ariava.

"?"

"...What the hell are you talking about?" – asked alarmed Korwan.

"The royal faction of the Warmur kingdom?!"

"They are nothing more than dogs of the noble faction."

"Yeah, I know." – replied Ariava.

"These guys are useless pathetic excuses of a royalties."

"They got manipulated and conquered without a war, before then being turned into a slaves and not even daring to fight back, deciding to just live a life of a cowards out of their own free will."

"Honestly speaking, there is no physical way to restore that faction."

"..."

"But want to hear something interesting?"

"We got lucky."

"?"

"What do you mean?" – asked confused Korwan.

"There is a bastard child of the king." – said Ariava while holding several documents in her hand.

"Apparently the stupid king got some lady pregnant, a maid working in the castle."

"From what I’ve found out, she resigned from her post and ran away, fearing the noble faction... But few years ago, they found about the run away maid and her child, resulting in them getting exterminated."

"They didn’t wanted to have any annoyance be running around and possible wrecking their plans."

"However, I found out something interesting."

"The son that had died wasn’t really the only bastard son."

"There was two."

"They were twins."

"From what these guys gathered, it seems they had found out that the maid realized that there was no way they could survive if they sticked together, so the split up the two siblings in order to increase their survival chance."

"One stayed with mother, another stayed at orphanage."

"..."

"How do you that kind of information?" – asked Korwan who was somewhat distrustful towards Ariava right now.

"How the hell do you think I’ve managed to get you so much hot info in short span of time, didn’t that thought rushed through your head?" – asked Ariava.

"?"

"..."

"!?"

"Wait! You already attacked the noble council!?" – asked alarmed vampire.

"Didn’t killed anybody... Just a little... Playing." – said Ariava as in another room there was a naked man who was tied up the bed.

"I’ve managed to track down and attack one of the guys that are responsible for the information gathering."

"Margrave Gudon Gowu."

"Honestly speaking, the reason why I haven’t you contracted you for so long was because I was sabotaging their information network by taking control over several people."

"And making sure that nobody would realize that they have brainwashed bastards in their army isn’t exactly freaking easy task."

"..."

"Just say it." – said Korwan as he put down his bottle of a wine.

"What are you planning?"

"..."

"Honestly, I wasn’t expecting that there would be a bastard child out there that carries a royal blood."

"My only goal was to sabotage the enemy information network and weaken the noble faction, while also gathering information."

"I was also considering an option of having the noble faction members fight against each other."

"But... As I’ve said."

"We got lucky."

"I’ve managed to secure that bastard son and I can use him."

"To eliminate both the noble faction and the royal faction, creating a brand-new faction."

"...You want to replace them?" – asked worried Korwan.

"Yeb. I know the side effects, like people saying that the empire did it and what not... But I can make it look like they the Warmur kingdom did it all on its own."

"The plan has around 80% chance at working."

"It will prevent the war."

"..."

"But I guess there is a downside, isn’t there?" – asked Korwan as he already knew that this kind of plan could not be possible completely perfect.

"Yeah, there is a problem." – replied Ariava.

"If I were to do that plan, then I will be stuck in the Warmur kingdom."

"I won’t be able to move at all."

"And I will be stuck there for long time."

"..."

"..."

(Can she do it?) – thought Korwan as he was sweating nonstop.

(No! She can do it! She is fucking Ariava Byrawa! A monster of lust!)

(She wouldn’t suggest that kind of plan if she wasn’t sure, it could solve our problems!)

"..."

(But... Fuck!)

(THE COST!)

(Ariava Byrawa is a freaking monster.)

(True, she maybe only acting behind the scenes, not showing her full power... But again, thanks to her we managed to not only stop the enemy from declaring a war on us already, but she also helped us with dealing terrorist as well as the fallen corrupted royal family of the Garmfon kingdom!)

(SHE IS WAY TOO USEFUL AND IMPORTANT!)

It wasn’t something that could be easily decided.

Korwan knew that if he were to agree to Ariava’s proposal, the war which the empire needed to avoid would indeed be avoided.

But the cost is heavy.

Ariava is a freaking monster that can destroy nations all by herself.

He knew it.

Her ability to shapeshift and control people were top notch.

Even without testing it out, the vampire knew that if Ariava wanted to, she could possibly hypnotize a person to the point where they could be acting somewhat normal, making it extremely hard to tell who was mind controlled or not.

A monster that can destroy nation either with her strength alone or with conspiracies.

Obviously Ariava is holding her destructive power because she doesn’t want to stand out... And that is also good for the empire, since if they were the ones who would command Ariava to do that... Then they may really end up only creating far bigger mess for themselves.

"..."

"I can’t make this decision alone... I will talk with emperor about this as soon as possible." – said Korwan.

"Good, but make haste, since that decision need to be made at least until next day." – said Ariava as she ended the call.

"!?"

"NEXT DAY!?" – shouted Korwan in panic.

(She is giving us only a single fucking day!?)

(Is that fucking woman crazy!?)

(FUCK! SHIT! FUCK!)

(Dammit! Is she really dead set on having us go with her plan?!) – thought the panicking vampire as without hesitation he instantly started his attempts to try and contact the emperor as soon as possible.

However, at the same time, Ariava contacted Porai and Thauma in order to explain the entire current situation to the duo, allowing them learn about the war possibly happening soon... But also explained her plan on how to prevent the war from happening.

"And without a doubt, both of these bastards will agree to my deal." – said Ariava through the communication device that was located in the dungeon.

"Sheesh... It is far worse than I’ve had imagined." – said worried Porai.

"...Still, are you sure about this?"

"Yeb. I’m." – replied Ariava without hesitation.

"And it isn’t just about Warmur kingdom either."

"I can use the puppet nation in order to keep other nations in check, giving more time for the empire to stabilize or maybe even possible help out the empire in case of the war breaking out."

"However, I will be obviously be stuck in Warmur kingdom for possible few years... These shitty nobles and useless royalty really made way too big of a mess here."

"..."

{"So does that mean we won’t be seeing each other for even longer time?"} – written Thauma on the piece of paper that it then shown to the orb, allowing Ariava to read the message.

"Unfortunately, yes." – replied annoyed Ariava.

"I mean, you were attacked by somebody who was beyond you recently, weren’t you?"

"True, you had Porai by yourself and she is powerful... But she was alone."

"She ain’t wrong." – said Porai.

"We don’t know what sort of things enemy had still stored."

"They summoned 3 demons... But how do we even know that it was their upper limit? Maybe they had more?"

"Honestly speaking, this is annoying... But we only won because the enemy lacked information on us."

"If they knew about the poison and realized what it was, then they could had made preparations and easily countered it."

"There is a good chance that the next time we will have to deal with the enemy attack, they will find out about the poison... Which would mean that this trick would no longer work, unless we began production of the higher tier poison gas."

"However, again, obtaining materials for that kind of thing will be hard."

"Welp, your job there is to make sure that Thauma doesn’t die." – said Ariava.

"Again, I’m sorry Thauma, but by the looks of things it will really take me a while before we can finally reunite."

"..."

(Honestly, I’m still shaken up after the recent incident.) – thought Thauma.

(These so called "Brutes"... Do other kingdoms have "cleaners" as well?)

(And since I’m the "weapon of empire", will they target me again and again?)

(Honestly... I’m both scared and pissed off about that situation.)

(I’ve lived with this peace for over a year... And I can say this.)

(I like it.)

(I really do like peace.)

"..."

(But this?)

(At this rate I will be forced against my will again and again into the war?)

(What kind of bullshit is this?) – thought Thauma as it was boiling with rage, straight up screaming in anger against possible future inside of its own head.

"..."

{"Question."}

{"How high are the chances that the war could happened anyway?"}

"Well... I can deal with Warmur kingdom... But there will be no telling about other kingdoms." – replied Ariava.

"However, if I don’t do this now, then the war which could cause a massive pain in the ass chain reaction could happened."

"..."

"You know what to do, don’t you Thauma?"

{"Yes."}

{"I do mother."}

(Get stronger.) – thought Thauma.

(I don’t have a real freedom of choice in this matter.)

(Since I’m both a monster and a dungeon master.)

(The only way a being like me can survive is simple.)

(Get stronger.)

(And be the one that devours the enemy.)