Chapter 571: Trading Blame

Iker Hech and Yesenia Fasse were both incensed at how flippantly Celestina seemed to be treating this serious situation, but with Gino Tabor and Talia Darr both nodding, they had no choice but to hold their tongues.

Once the relevant parties were seated, Celestina finally addressed the opening rant which her counterpart from Gateway City had raised, "About our recent incursion into the Darr Kingdom. My actions were only taken under the auspices of the agreement our two nations signed to jointly tackle the attacks which have been plaguing our outlying villages up and down the Lorren."

Talia, the one who had proposed the joint military exercise in the first place, was about to reply, when General Hech slammed his fists on the table and shouted, "Bullshit! It’s obvious you used that damned agreement to attack one of our vital military strongholds! We should never have made a deal with you Rockwell Dogs!"

Having not only been interrupted, but also implicitly insulted, Talia’s expression remained surprisingly calm as she sat back and decided to let this scenario play out.

While the Darr Kingdom’s Crown Princess was upset about Iker Hech denigrating the deal she had made, she was more upset about the losses her kingdom had suffered, so she was willing to let the General stir up a little trouble if it meant being able to extract some additional concessions from Celestina.

That said, Talia didn’t have high hopes that the hot-headed General sitting next to her would be able to outwit the dangerous woman across the negotiating table from them.

Sure enough, after letting General Hech vent for a minute or two, Celestina replied in a calm, composed tone, "I’m sure you’ve all had a chance to interview the survivors and witnesses from that night’s incident, including Prince Landon, Commanders Anders, Commander Gibbs, and Viscount Dunne."

"We have," General Tabor nodded before turning to his kingdom’s Minister of Law, the one who had been responsible for overseeing this incident.

Though she seemed reluctant to, Yesenia Fesse nodded, "The testimonies and evidence all point to the attack primarily being the fault of the unknown organization which has been plaguing our western border."

"Then..." Celestina tried to capitalize on this admission, but was cut off.

"However!" Yesenia continued, "That does not mean we believe your actions were justified, Marquess Balfour. Instead of immediately informing our side of the issue, as the agreement our Crown Princess signed with you demands, you took unilateral action on our kingdom’s soil with an extremely large and dangerous force."

Narrowing her eyes slightly, Minister Fesse prodded, "It is... difficult for our side to believe you had no malicious intentions at all given the scope and scale of damage our kingdom suffered, while your side escaped with only minimal losses."

There were plenty of ways Celestina could have responded to this rather straightforward implication, most of which would lead to further tension developing between the Rockwell and Darr Kingdoms, and it was indeed a tempting idea.

General Hech and Minster Fesse were clearly more interested in provoking her than getting to the truth of this matter, which annoyed Celestina to no end. She had always been of the mindset that if you were willing to act respectfully and reasonably, she would reciprocate in kind.

That said, Celestina wasn’t a child who didn’t understand how politics worked; she also knew what her priorities here were. She may not have liked having to navigate the complicated and oftentimes inane noble circles, but that didn’t mean she was incapable of doing so.

Insisting that her side did nothing wrong and pinning all the blame on the Darr Kingdom’s side, no matter how true that view might be, would only exacerbate the situation further, so Celestina decided to compromise, "I admit that our response was somewhat... excessive; however, at the time, I judged it to be the most appropriate course of action."

"Why?" General Tabor asked bluntly.

Turning to the old man who she had fought life-and-death battles against more than once, Celestina replied in an equally flat tone, "Because of the traitor amongst your forces."

When this point was brought up, the faces of every member of the Darr Kingdom delegation cramped. Even the usually stone-faced Gino Tabor couldn’t help furrowing his brow ever so slightly.

This was the biggest and most glaring issue on their side, one that was undeniable and irrefutable.

Lani Jess may not have held a particularly high position in their military, but she was still a Captain who had served in the army for over a decade.

An enemy agent in such a position would undoubtedly have had access to enormous amounts of information and been able to carry out incredible amounts of harm, and it had all happened without any of them suspecting a thing.

In fact, up until Lani had revealed herself to be a spy that night, not one person from the Darr Kingdom had even filed a complaint against her. As far as anyone could tell, she had been a model soldier who always followed orders and even helped clean up several of the messes her superiors caused.

This also gave the Rockwell Kingdom the perfect justification for stretching the terms of the agreement they had signed.

Why didn’t they inform the Darr Kingdom’s higher-ups immediately upon discovering there was a potential plot unfolding in Sabre Point?

Simply, the enemy they had identified was a member of the Darr Kingdom’s armed forces! How were they supposed to know if anyone they informed wasn’t in league with this traitor?

For that matter, how were they supposed to know if this wasn’t all just one big ruse perpetrated by the Darr Kingdom?

Sure, it was much more plausible that someone from the Darr Kingdom had simply been careless with their screening many years ago and allowed a lone spy to infiltrate the ranks of their army, but the chances of it all being a convoluted plot by an enemy nation hoping to lure in and assassinate important members of the Rockwell Kingdom weren’t zero.

Under such circumstances, while Celestina’s admission that their response had been excessive still held true, her actions also weren’t impossible to justify.

The first pre-requisite to carry out any successful operation was to bring enough force to deal with any potential threats, and if that threat was a possible ambush from the Darr Kingdom’s military...