Chapter 425: Setting One Force Against Another

After Ambrose sent off the charts, he received two replies within half an hour. The two so-called battle plans together barely filled five and a half sheets of parchment, and the handwriting was enormous.

Even someone as unaccustomed to warfare as Ambrose could see at a single glance that both plans were perfunctory to the point of contempt.

Aige looked them over and frowned. "Your friends don't seem very eager to help."

Ambrose gave a dry laugh. "I figured as much."

Neither Lyon nor the elves harbored any great fondness for him. Being suddenly handed data and asked to produce a battle plan was not exactly a welcome assignment.

Without any need for coordination, both kingdoms had independently arrived at the same response: scribble down something vaguely plan-shaped, make sure it said nothing of substance, and send it back.

Ambrose's next move was straightforward. He activated his magic mirror and connected to the tiflings in the chaos realm.

The tifling on the other end appeared to be in his forties, and had a name of extraordinary length, comprising so many syllables that all Ambrose could remember was that it ended with Demorov. His appearance was distinctive: the two horns on his head crossed each other, a feature so rare among tiflings it would have stood out even among humans, like someone born with two eyebrows that grew into an X.

This was not their first meeting. Demorov was one of the tiflings who had met with Mr. Misfortune in the final stages before the banishment. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

In the lead-up to the plan, to ensure the tifling kingdom's stability during the transition, Mr. Misfortune had met with many of the tifling elite. The man across the mirror was one such.

Mr. Misfortune had engineered the most flawless transition plan he could manage for the tiflings, handing them smoothly over to Gary Watts and minimizing the kingdom's losses as much as possible.

Demorov had been assigned to one particular magic mirror, and his primary function was to maintain contact with Ambrose at any hour.

To many, the role of a glorified messenger would be a thankless job, but Demorov took it seriously. Whenever Ambrose reached out, he was there instantly.

Ambrose greeted him with a smile. "Your side hasn't finished the battle plan yet, I assume?"

"My sincerest apologies, Master Megaman," Demorov said, deferential. "A battle plan for an entire kingdom's forces, comprising hundreds of thousands of combatants, cannot possibly be completed in half an hour. Please allow us at least a few days."

Now that was the right attitude. These tiflings understood what was expected of them.

Though it probably helped that Ambrose was the only channel they had to the outside world.

For anyone in the chaos realm who wanted to communicate with the world they'd left behind, Ambrose was the singular option. Offending him was simply not viable. Beyond that, he had provided invaluable assistance to save the Unholy Kingdom. On both pragmatic and moral grounds, he deserved more than ordinary respect.

Ambrose returned the courtesy.

"No need to be anxious. I'm not here to rush you. I have a battle plan I'd like your experts to look at. Set everything else aside for the moment and tear it apart. I want a thorough and merciless critique. It shouldn't take long."

Demorov blinked. "I'm not sure I follow, Master Megaman."

"What I mean is this," Ambrose said pleasantly. "This is a battle plan produced by the people of Lyon, and I need you to tell those insufferable, pig-headed, overbearing Lyon bastards that their plan is absolute garbage. Do you understand me?"

Demorov understood perfectly. He reached up and touched his horns—a small unconscious gesture he made when excited—and looked at Ambrose with the utmost gravity. "You have my word, Master Megaman. We will not let you down. If we fail, may our souls be damned to hell for eternity."

From people who had endured what these tiflings had, that was no light oath.

Ambrose sent the Lyon plan across, then terminated the connection.

Aige watched with a puzzled expression. "What was the point of that?"

"Human nature is petty," Ambrose said. "People work hard only when suitable pressure is applied. Just wait and see. I'm going to teach Lyon and the elves a small lesson about what happens when they think my requests are beneath them."

Aige still didn't quite follow. How would having the tiflings annotate a Lyon plan accomplish anything? Wasn't that just the tiflings doing work for Lyon?

Less than a day later, a thick sheaf of documents arrived from the tifling side.

Ambrose didn't look at it. He turned straight to Demorov. "Well done. Continue working on your own plan—though there's no rush anymore, since the Lyon people are going to need to start over."

Demorov could barely contain himself. "Does it meet your expectations, Master Megaman?"

Ambrose leafed through a couple of pages. "The language is more civil than I expected. Everything else is fine."

Demorov stared. Too civil? They had used every insult they knew to flay those Lyon people as thoroughly as possible.

Then again, the ones who had done the critiquing were all aristocrats. Perhaps vulgarity was a skill that required cultivation.

Ambrose closed the connection with considerable satisfaction. Aige immediately pressed, "And now for Lyon?"

Ambrose nodded. As Aige watched on in anticipation, he made a call to James Watson.

The former High Inquisitor appeared immediately, looking thoroughly aggrieved.

"It's the middle of the night. Do you have any idea how difficult it is for old men to sleep?" James Watson fumed.

"You consider that old? You're not even a hundred yet," Ambrose said without hesitation. "I'm older than your grandfather by several centuries. Besides, why sleep long before death, when death is a sleep from which you'll never wake? You'd be better off cutting your throat right now and letting me solve your insomnia permanently."

James Watson looked ready to have an aneurysm. "Just what do you want at this hour?"

"Something serious has come up," Ambrose said. "Word is the orcs have noticed Lyon is stretched thin internally. Now that the Leonine General is gone, you have no one capable of commanding an army, and they're planning to move on you."

James Watson went rigid. "How is that possible? Where did you hear this?"

Ambrose transmitted the tiflings' annotated critique and said, "See that plan you sent me? An eight-year-old could have written something more useful. What does that tell you about who's left in Lyon that can actually run an army?"

"Rubbish!" James Watson's mustache was trembling with fury. "What does that battle plan prove? That plan is—"

Ambrose waited. James Watson opened and closed his mouth several times and got no further.

It was, of course, a plan James Watson had commissioned someone to dash off carelessly. But the old man couldn't bring himself to say so out loud. He changed course. "You're not an idiot. What exactly are you trying to say?"

"Nothing complicated," Ambrose said calmly. "I simply had a few friends look at this so-called plan. Their assessment is that it is, without qualification, a complete and utter disaster. I'd encourage you to read their commentary in full."

James Watson turned to the pages. Within moments, his eyes had gone red. The old man came very close to physically tearing the document in half.

Ambrose allowed himself a small smile. "James, we both know exactly what I was asking when I requested that battle plan. I was asking you to work for me. But do you really think this amounts to unpaid labor?"

"What else would you call it?" James Watson demanded. "The devil never draws up a losing contract, and you never touch a deal that doesn't return your investment tenfold. You know what kind of work goes into planning a full campaign. Why should we do it for you?"

"Because," Ambrose said, "this territory sits precisely where the Unholy Kingdom used to be, which means it shares a coastline with Lyon. James. If I don't secure this sea, what do you suppose might happen to Lyon's shoreline? You don't really believe that ocean races have to remain in the ocean, do you?

"Not a single Lyon soldier deployed, not a coin spent—I'll be doing all the work. I'll be stabilizing the stretch of the ocean that meets your borders, and all you have to do is help me out with your military expertise. Is that really such an unreasonable imposition?"

James Watson fell silent. He hadn't thought of it from that angle. He had assumed Ambrose was simply manipulating him into free labor.

Looking at it again, this genuinely needed to be taken seriously.

"I understand," James Watson said at last, with a sigh. "I'll find the right people and have them draft a proper plan. It will take time, though."

"Of course," Ambrose said. "I never expected it done overnight."

That should have been a natural place to end the conversation, but James Watson couldn't help himself. "What you said about the orcs, was that true?"

Ambrose replied firmly, "If you lot don't give me something worth reading, I will personally tell the orcs and encourage them to attack."

"You're shameless!" James Watson could feel his chest hurting from pent-up rage.

"And?" Ambrose said. "I'm not a paladin. If mere shamelessness is the worst you can say about me, I'm practically a saint by undead standards."

James Watson cut the connection without so much as a goodbye. Another moment and Ambrose would have genuinely given him a cardiac arrest.

Ambrose chuckled to himself. He was quite certain James Watson wouldn't treat him dismissively again, because the threat was real. Lyon was not without capable commanders; the problem was that internal fractures had left the empire unable to spare anyone for external threats. If the orcs moved in, the dwarves would pile on, and Lyon would face serious trouble even if it won.

Aige had watched the entire exchange in silence. She shook her head slowly. A lich capable of casually pulling strings in two different kingdoms, and one of them devoted to the Lord of Dawn at that. His audacity was almost admirable.

"What about the elves?" she asked, almost gleefully. "Are you going to use Lyon as leverage against them?"

Ambrose shook his head. "It's not that simple. James Watson is an old man with no direct power of his own. He has nothing but connections and a straightforward sense of honor left. He's easy to handle. The elves are a different matter. There's a sharp mind sitting on their throne. External pressure won't move the Court of the Silver Moon, but there are other methods."

He made a call through the mirror again. This time, it rang for quite a while before the connection went through. The face that appeared was that of a tall, strikingly handsome elf, wrapped in loose silk sleepwear, visibly just dragged from sleep.