[VRMMO] Dead One

"I'm sorry for calling a sudden meeting like this, but this matter is of grave importance." – said the pope king as he called for a meeting where the highest members of the holy kingdom had gathered.

"It is about that monster empire, yes?" – asked the elderly man with a cane.

"Yes." – replied pope king.

"This is something we need to deal with it."

"We need to deal with that monster empire before they grow even stronger."

"A war? FINALY!" – said the elder paladin.

"Yes. We need to a WAR!" – said the pope king.

"But the problem is that their empire is not something we can easily look down upon."

"Their demon king and the emperor ClownFrog were able to take down the Hell Lord that was called fourth by the second prince, Erun Oin."

"Hell Lords are not your average demons from hell, they are natural disasters."

"And yet he beat it."

"Not only that, but because of the war, the standing of heaven within this continent was damaged."

"The so called "crimes of the heavenly dragon" had damaged the reputation of the heavens."

"The people who believed in the heavenly dragon were now unsure what to believe in…. And they also our own reputation had taken a hit."

"Some people are saying that the church of the heavenly dragons was in cahoots with us and were planning on taking over the empire or some other nasty rumors."

"Yeah…. I think everybody has heard about them by now… But do those idiots not realize that we were hostile with the heavenly dragon church for a long time now?" – said the paladin who had his eyes covered with a bandana.

"Yes…. Nobody should believe in those rumors…. But by the looks of things, people are doubting our words." – said the elderly priest with a cane.

"The situation with the heavenly dragon is way worse than we had thought."

"Not only that, but there are also rumors going around about "church extremist" causing terrorist attacks and people are pointing at us, saying that we could have been the ones behind the attacks."

(Although we were really the ones behind those attacks.) – thought the elderly man.

(Those harassments that were aimed at destabilizing the empire had instead been turned against us.)

(Still, how did they managed to deal so fast with the saboteurs that we had sent? It was way too fast as well.)

"…"

(Were they ready for something like that? That could have been only explanation…. But how?)

(Did they predicted our movement in advance?)

".."

(Or did somebody ratted us out?)

"Excuse me your excellency, but shouldn't we be talking about what to do with the Garog empire?" – asked the middle-aged priest.

"Yes." – said pope king.

"However, as said before, we cannot look down on them or we could end up destroyed."

"On our own, we won't be able to win."

"So, the only way to do it is to form an alliance."

"?"

"You mean like to form an alliance with the neighboring nations to attack the Garog empire?" – asked the elderly paladin.

"Yes…. That would be ideal." – said the pope king.

"However, the problem is that those shameless bastards are trying to become "friends" with the Garog empire."

"They are either scared or they are just greedy."

"We can probably try and recruit some of these people, but we need to be careful, since some of them may "snitch" on us….. And honestly speaking? I really don't want to be in alliance with any of those nations."

"?"

"What do you mean?" – asked the paladin with a bandana.

"What I mean is that I want to conquer this entire continent." – said pope king, shocking and confusing everybody in the room.

"This continent was plagued with non-believers and heretics for far too long!"

"And now they dare to target the true believers!"

"These bastards had crossed the line, and now they will need to deal with their consequences."

"We will aim to conquer this entire continent and bring salvation to everybody!"

"We shall exterminate every single one of those monsters and demons."

"…"

"This does sound like a grand dream…. But- "– said the elderly priest with a cane.

"Do you really think we can do it with our current power?"

"Not only that, but if you want to conquer this whole continent, then we would have no choice but to betray our "allies" …. Our nation is strong, but it was not as strong as the Oin empire, and now the Garog empire is probably the same threat."

"So should we be really aiming to conquer the entire continent now?"

"No."

"We should first try to take down the Garog empire and then focus on getting stronger to the point where we could take down other nations…."

"However, there is a problem."

"When the Garog empire would fall, somebody would try to fill out the void, just like the Oin empire was destroyed and replaced with the Garog empire."'

"Somebody WILL need to fill out that void, or a massive chaos would break out."

"Destroying Garog empire will cause that void to appear, but can we fill out that void in time?

"Other nations will try to take over their position, just like us, and obviously, this will cause conflict."

"This will cause them to try and grow stronger just like us…. And before long, it would cause a massive war to occur between all of us."

"And by massive I mean a war that could envolop the entire continent."

"Kiddo. You are aiming too high right now."

"If we don't do this properly, our entire nation could be destroyed."

"!"

"You dare speak up to the- "

"Stop it." – said Pope King, calming down the middle aged priest.

"Elder Marcus is right…. I was aiming too high with the conquest of the continent…. But this is something we will need to do anyway in the future."

"However…. Elder Marcus is also right about the void that would left behind by the Garog empire's disappearance….. A war could very well occur between all of us."

"Yes, that is the main problem." – said the elder Macrus.

"As much as it annoys me to admit it, but the reason why there would be no wars in the future is all thanks to the Garog empire's presence."

"However, as soon as the empire would be destroyed, everybody would want to go to war, be it cowards or greedy men. Everybody will join."

"And with that in mind, I'm wholly against the idea of going to war."

"You say we recruit allies? Pfffff!"

"Pathetic way of thinking!"

"That would only doom our own kingdom!"

"Then what do YOU think we should do?" – asked the paladin with a bandana.

"Nothing." – said the elderly priest.

"We are abandoning the war."

"!"

"BUT THOSE BASTARDS WILL ATTACK US!" – shouted the middle aged priest.

"Because WE provoked them!" – said the elderly priest.

"However, we can somewhat calm down the relationship."

"These people don't have really anything against us or heaven."

"The only one they have a problem with is the heavenly angel dragon who had committed these atrocities."

"!"

"Wait! You believe in those rumors?!" – asked the elderly paladin.

"Facts speak for themselves. The heavenly angel dragon was really an evil god." – said the elderly priest…. But when he spoke those words, everybody in the room was stunned and instantly started arguing, shouting at the man.

"EVIL GOD OF HEAVENS?! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!"

"IT IS YOU WHO ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND IF YOU CAN'T FUCKING ACCEPT THE TRUTH!" – shouted the elderly man, shutting up everybody in the room.

"The atrocities that the heavenly dragon god had committed had spoken the truth."

"He may be one of the major gods of the heavens, but that does not mean we should follow his words blindly!"

"Those monsters?! Those demons?! It was all the church of the heavenly dragon doing and their god!"

"…"

"So, like I'm saying, their enemy is the heavenly dragon, NOT us…. YET!"

"If you want to destroy the Garog empire, our own kingdom needs to be strong enough to take them on by ourselves AND be also ready to take on other nations."

"But right now? Realistically speaking? We don't stand a chance."

"So, unless anybody comes up with some proper idea how to do anything, then I guess this talk is officially over."

"…"

*Sigh*

"We…. We will end the talk…. Bit earlier than we had planned." – said the pope king with a somewhat annoyed but defeated look.

"The meeting will be held later on, so until then, try to gather your thoughts on the matter."

With the opposition of the elder Marcus, the discussion about the war had been postponed, resulting in everybody who had suddenly gathered to just walk away without accomplishing anything.

"…"

(Greedy fools.) – thought priest Marcus as he walked through the castle.

(Still, I can't see why that brat wants to destroy the Garog empire. They do pose a threat to our people…. But they had also saved many people from the third prince's madness as he went around, turning kidnapped people into monsters.)

(Some of our own people were rescued and they were allowed to come back home safely.)

(This is a sight that these monsters…. No. Those people don't want to fight us.)

(I've even sent some of my own spies into their territory and found out that they treated the people from our kingdom with kindness, as they did with other people.)

(But that idiot…. No, it is not just the pope king. All of them want to destroy the Garog empire without seeing a reason in their actions.)

(Those were not gazes of worry or fear…. Those were gazes of greed.)

"…"

(He was lying through his teeth back then, he only wants power as well as everybody else in that room.)

(But do they realized that we would be the ones getting destroyed if we let greed and pride cloud our judgment?)

"…"

"What do you want?" – asked the elder Marcus as his path in the corridor was blocked by the pope king, who was accompanied by both the paladin with a bandana and the elderly paladin.

"…"

"I want an honest opinion from this…. Do you really think we can't win that war?" – asked the pope king.

"Yes. The odds are against us." – said the priest without hesitation.

"Your way of thinking was too unstable and dangerous."

"Even if we were to make allies and destroy the Garog empire, our own kingdom would also be destroyed in result."

"So like I said before, unless you have some idea on how we can instantly gain more power to conquer the whole continent on our own, then forget it."

"…"

"I see." – said the pope king.

"Then I guess you will get in the heavens way."

"?!"

The elderly priest suddenly fallen on the ground, causing the priest the priest to look behind himself and spot several people who had their heads covered with helmets.

"!?"

(Unseen Duty!?) – thought the elderly priest.

"!"

(I can't speak?!) – thought the elderly priest as he tried to scream, only to not hear his voice at all.

"I'm sorry, old friend."

"But this is the will of the heavens."

"And right now, you overstepped the boundaries and defiled the heavens."

"Farewell."

The assassins all jumped on the elderly priest, stabbing his entire body with knives…. Which resulted in the instant death of the elderly man.

"…"

"Now, we can start our preparations for real this time."