PoV Unknown
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS REPORT!" The Grand Elder roared. His voice was shaking the very den where we were having a meeting. Everyone in the room flinched and turned away. The Grand Elder had been getting angrier and angrier by the day for over six months now. His anger was starting to show in mana form at this point, with a wild dragon mana form soundlessly roaring behind him.
"Grand Elder," Elder Yellowtooth said, his voice dark, "We have been making headway on our reputation. Please, cool yourself down; yelling at us will not change the situation we are currently facing."
The Grand Elder turned and glared at the yellow-scaled Draonic man. His expression was thundering, and I wanted to curse.
None of this would have happened if we had just opened up the Dragon Hoard early and funded the war with the Empire. He wanted to hold onto the gold, which was uselessly sitting there, instead of doing that, though, and now the population looks at the Dragonic people as cowards.
Well, not all of them, only those who remained behind. If there were soldiers coming back from the front, then things would lighten up. The Problem was that the only soldiers they seemed to see moving back and forth from the fronts were the Logistics Army, which made it look like no Dragonics were in the army.
The problem was that they were not in the Supreme Commander's new armies. They were under the Warcheif's command. So now, because of that, we were looking even more like cowards despite the Dragonics' honorable contribution to the war effort. We just did not spend our gold, which we could not even offer to the Bunny-kin. They preferred us to look bad in front of the other tribes.
Worse, now, the damn bunny-kin got a massive payout from capturing the Crown Princess of the Empire and returning her. Now they could afford everything they did. They might even have made a small profit, since we did not hear how much they paid for everything to feed the Army.
No one expected the war to finish this fucking fast.
My thoughts came to a halt as the Grand Elder stopped glaring at Elder Yellowtooth and took a deep breath. "You're right," He said, much to all our surprise, "My anger will not assist us." The Grand Elder took another deep breath before taking another, and then his eyes narrowed. "Alright, tell me again, because I struggled to believe this report of what happened."
"Grand Elder," I said, jumping in, "It seems that Chelsea Loveknot, the Supreme Commander of the Logistics and Elite Army, somehow got a secret meeting with the Empire's Top General, Duchess Beverly Greenwald, and convinced her to defect to the Beast-kin nation." I read the summary report, hardly believing it myself.
Although the Empire had allowed A-rankers to defect in the past, for them to become later agents who betrayed the nation, they would never send someone like the Duchess Greenwald. She was too important of a General. She was the one running their military for decades at a minimum. She had trained many of their other Generals, and her defection could have led the populace to lose faith in their Military. Especially after that faith just took a beating from our nation, it would be extremely imprudent for them to do so.
The downsides of using an A-ranker like the Duchess Greenwald to do something like that would be so disastrous for them before it would be for us. She would never get a position in our tribes to get information to act on that would allow for sufficient damage to our nation that it would be worth the problem.
"How?"
"HOW!?" The Grand Elder demanded, "HOW DID SHE DO IT!?"
"It had to be that month in the tent," I replied after a minute, "Otherwise, I-I just do not know."
"We just started to get back a bit of reputation by opening up the Dragons' Hoard, and you are saying we lost all progress from that?" The Grand Elder snapped.
"No, we lost nothing, Grand Elder," I said slowly and winced as mana seemed to coagulate around me. It thickened so much that I wanted to cough on the air around me, and his glare intensified. I pushed through, "Grand Elder, we have lost nothing because this is a win for the Bunny-kin, but we can also put a question in the Defectors' loyalty," I said, and the mana thinned, and I felt a weight lift from me.
"What is your plan?" The Grand Elder asked. The cold tone sent shivers up my spine, and I took a deep breath, which was much easier now. I could see the other Elders looking at me with a mix of curiosity and intrigue, but there was also a tinge of pity.
"I mean something simple, Grand Elder," I began, trying to get my thoughts in order, "The Defector is someone who already betrayed their nation. Why would they have a problem with betraying ours?"
The question hung in the air, and we all knew the reasons why it was bullshit. It was something we all understood, and anyone with an educated brain or someone who understood national-level politics and warfighting would understand it was bullshit.
But the populace would not understand those things. Most were not even educated, and so, it would bring people back to our stores. It would give us something to point to in the future when we went on the offensive for other things.
Honestly, we all needed something to latch onto to hold our ground in the tribs gathering, and this was a magnificent godsend if we just poisoned the populace a little. I could even see this affecting the Bunny-kin's position in the future if we played the role right.
The Grand Elder could see that too as he visibly got happier, "NOW THAT IS A GREAT IDEA!" The Grand Elder exclaimed, "We shall do so; we have to be strategic about this. I also want to add that Bunny-kin is taking the entire ransom into question. Send out some rumors on why it was not shared with other tribes who were contributing." The Grand Elder added in, and everyone winced because that might backfire, but we all bowed instead.
The Grand Elder was the strongest in the Nation, and we had to listen as he got up, "Give me three plans to implement within a week. We need to get out ahead before this Duchess gets back and give them a first impression."
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