Tales Of The Mighty Dragonair

"An urgent summon signal?!" Arthur was speechless for a moment there, "Is there an army attacking the capital city?"

'Ding! I don't sense any aura of an army there,' the system said, 'Ding! But the emergency portal had Amanda there trying to come here and she looked quite distressed.'

"Alright, send her in," Arthur simply said while waiting for the answer to his puzzle.

In less than a minute, Amanda appeared in front of him. Before she could speak he instantly noticed how distressed and unsettled she was.

"What happened?" he asked first, "is there a disaster befalling us or something?"

"They sent an envoy to our capital minutes ago," she hurriedly said and her words only made him more puzzled.

"An army you mean?"

"No, it's a diplomatic envoy," she stressed, "and he is waiting for you in the central palace."

"Then… Why do you look this pale?" he couldn't tell the reason behind all her distress and anxiety.

"He came to speak about terms to retrieve that silver dragonair," she said before hurriedly adding, "they are putting Cesile and Iman in return for her."

Arthur's eyes widened instantly realizing the reason behind her intense reaction. He hurriedly turned to glance at a certain direction, the direction of the prison.

"So she knew," he softly muttered.

"What?" Amanda asked before shaking her head, "forget it, we need to hurry back and accept their terms."

"Why?" Arthur glanced at her and his answer made her stiffen.

"You… you can't risk our sisters for that bitch!!" she shouted in extreme rage but he remained as calm and collected as ever.

"I can retrieve them," he simply said, "I didn't join this contest and take all this trouble for just building some cities. I did it for you, for all of you."

"And now there is a chance to retrieve them without the need to fight!"

"I doubt this would end well for us," he took a deep breath and tried to reason with her, "the only reason they didn't attack us is her. If we lose our most valuable asset then what prevents them from destroying us?"

"We faced them more than once already," she tried to make him change his mind, "and in the end we won. We paid a hefty price for that, and risked our entire annihilation during that but in the end we won. We won once, twice, and we can keep winning!"

"That's… not guaranteed," he sighed, "listen, why not leave here and gather everyone? Let's hear others' opinions about this."

"I only care about you," she had a shocked expression on her face, "how can you let this chance slip off your hands like this?"

"I believe we should hear others' opinions," he firmly said, "such a decision isn't only related to the two of us, but to everyone. We need to put that into consideration."

"…"

She didn't speak yet her eyes told him how angry and shocked she was from his stance. He could only ask for the system to take them out towards his capital city, and then he headed to the central palace while sending bird's wings to all.

During this Amanda kept her silence and didn't speak at all. Arthur also refrained from speaking again, after all he made up his mind.

Why would he sacrifice his biggest protection for some gains he was quite sure to obtain oneday?

In the next half an hour, many appeared in the palace. Arthur waited inside a side hall, while leaving that envoy rotting inside the main throne hall.

Everyone seemed to get wind of what happened already, as all came with such serious looks over their faces. Arthur waited for another half an hour before the entire leaders of his empire were present in front of him.

His old guard, all the friends whom he knew before going to the academy were together under the lead of Amelia and Ron. The team of his garden people were led by Agnus, Doom, and Dor. The group from the castle of the sky led strangely by the scorpion queen.

As for Sara and Tina, both stood alone while three groups were there from the higher realms led by Doaf, Amera, and the crow in order. As for his werewolf, he stood silently beside his small throne while everyone was glancing fixedly towards him.

"You know why I gathered you all now," he said before pointing to the direction of the main throne hall, "there our enemies sent an envoy asking for their leader to be released."

"In exchange for what?" Amera asked while no one else dared to speak.

"Two kidnapped masters from my academy," Arthur said.

"Two girls of his own," yet Amanda interfered and spoke in a nervous way, and he only gave her a side glance before nodding.

"And they are two girls of mine."

"Only the two of them?" the crow asked, "are you sure there is no more to that?"

Amanda was the one who received the envoy, yet her face told them that she didn't know the proper answer to that.

"Even if they offered only these two," Doaf said, "we should aim for more."

"Like what?" Amelia asked.

"Like asking them to go the fuck out of here and leave this world decided by the hands of their own people," Doaf said and his words were warmly received by many.

Yet Arthur could tell from the faces of his old guard that they weren't happy with such a suggestion.

"We should accept the offer," Ron suddenly said, "after all we raged this war to retrieve them all."

He glanced at his master, his friend, at Arthur in a meaningful way. "I won't accept something that is already in my hand," Arthur stated his opinion out loud to them, "I raged this war and came all the way here to retrieve them."

"Then we should accept this offer," Madly said, "after all this would end our war with them, at least we will emerge winning in the end achieving our goals."