The door slammed open as Natsumi walked in with a big smile on his face.
"We got an easy job!"
Chizuru who was playing cards just now looked behind him before yelling.
"What does that mean?"
"We finally have a diplomacy assignment!"
Natsumi was shaking with excitement from relief.
"We're going to help deal with negotiations with a planet the Future Kings planning on taking over. Wait..."
Natsumi held an expression of deep thought for a second.
"Damn it this must be some kind of flag! We're all gonna die!"
Meanwhile Chizuru was playing 5d chess with multiverse time travel with Jannet.
"check"
"I send my king back in time to the first move."
"you know this game will take forever if you keep on making timelines like this. Can't you play chess like a normal person."
"Sorry I just really noticed that you are trying to turn this into a basic game of chess, embrace the timelines."
"You made 30..."
"..."
"Anyways," Chizuru stood up from the table cutting the game short, "tell me more about this diplomacy assignment?"
Natsumi who was panicking over their inevitable future confrontations quickly gathered himself before clearing his throat.
"Our planet is a big super industrialized world that has a god tree planted on it. Thanks to specific circumstances the people of that world have obtained chakra through the smoke of burning the tree. And we are trying to get them to connect with the Future Kings large system of planets that he has authority over. So that in the future we can use what they've learned to fight god trees."
"They obtained chakra without a chakra fruit?"
"So they've unknowingly saved their planet, or at least bought it time from the god tree. They underwent a chakra based industrial revolution that involved a lot of wood because they've managed to reverse engineer the trees conversion process from natural energy to chakra and do it themselves using the wood by burning it. They've been doing this for centuries and the Future king thinks they are the perfect god tree parasites he needs. So our negotiations are offering advanced spacefaring technology while we get to have enough control over them to throw them at whatever god tree needs undoing."
Chizuru who was silently listening had already begun simulating countless possible scenarios. His authority of simulation allowed him to easily work with this much information on a planet he had never been to for simulations.
"But I bet there's an Otsutsuki there. And it's definitely gonna be a strong one. Uuuuuuuugggggghhhhhhh."
"Natsumi, I have to tell you this. But that's really obvious. Why else would they send people like us as mere diplomatic envoys when you are usually just directly teleported to battle like in all of your stories."
"No! You're jinxing it! It's going to be so bad."
Chizuru walked away from the perpetually paranoid human being that had begun kneeling in despair.
'Leaving tommorow. Hm, Mikitaka can imbue my environment with information I need that I can sense with my powers. I got the full conceptual information package right in the middle of Natsumi's explanation/despair. I suppose blocking my powers wasn't just because of his sheer processing power.'
Chizuru muttered to himself, "What kind of brain does he have."
"I heard that!"
Natsumi had heard and assumed that Chizuru just insulted his brain.
"I wasn't talking about you."
Chizuru deflected casually before walking away at speed.
~
"What do you think they will be like?"
"I don't know, but I'm sure they will be terrifyingly powerful."
Grey Roster and the Queen of the Avenus Kingdom Lacra Kea stood outside waiting for where the envoys of the Future King would arrive. 5 years ago the Avenus Kingdom had fully transformed into a magical industrial nation because their magicians had discovered how to burn the wood of the World Tree into pure mana and applied that to power rune automata. They had entered an age of prosperity after successfully defeating the elves who guarded the tree in war.
But then 'it' came. He called himself the Future King. He claimed he wanted to cooperate with the Avenus Kingdom and provide a "path to the future" as long as we share the magicians methods for transforming the world tree into pure mana. The noble families who had not adapted to the new era were still paranoid of power and domination over them and led a private war against the Future King. But despite four 7th stage knights and twenty Oceanic magicians along with an expansive army of knights and magicians. They were annihilated.
The stories told by the survivors are still fresh in the worlds mind.
The wings that were large enough to cover entire continents appeared from the Future Kings back before instantly shrinking to merely a size that could put even the largest dragons to shame. The magicians under the nobles attacked with spells that could level mountains, but they simply bounced off or completely dissipated upon contact with the Future King. The knights and warriors were instantly suppressed with some kind of gravitational spell that not even the 7th stagers could overcome. And then a deep bright red laser was cast that annihilated everything.
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Eventually the Demon King himself showed up seeking to take down the threat of the Future King. The demon king was considered undefeatable because of their power of prophecy. Winning countless wars with foresight, only stopped by the hero party, saving Avenus from the fate of countless other kingdoms. It was said that the demon king tried to prophesize the future of the Future King and then began crying and attempted suicide before mentally regressing to a useless state. He's taken care of by his subordinate demons in the demon lands to this day.
"Have you heard the news about the Demon king recently?"
Grey looked at Queen Lacra with curiosity.
"No, what happened?"
"He finally got married. My spies informed me of a huge wedding ceremony that's being prepared at the Demon Kings castle. Apparently true love restored his sanity."
"Really?"
"Demons are much more honest than humans are within high society, it can be taken at face value."
Lacra gave a thoughtful expression as if deep in thought about something. Grey noticed and asked.
"What are you thinking of your majesty?"
Lacra gave the side eye, she didn't enjoy being called majesty in a casual conversation.
"The Demon King talked about what he saw when he used the power of prophecy upon the Future King... He said that the Future King is first and foremost, very old"
"Old? You mean like elves or dragons who live for thousands of years?"
"He said that the Future King lives and I quote 'millennia of millennia upon millennia.'"
"So he's older than even the most ancient elves and dragons?"
"Indeed, though it appears he can't say much else without breaking down and having to go back to his wife."
"That's really sad."
"You're seriously pitying the demon king of all things?"
Grey shrugged.
"A luxury that exists because of the Future King I suppose."
Suddenly the sky turned dark. A black vessel with huge black wings appeared in the sky announcing the arrival of the Future Kings envoys. A sudden burst of cold wind from the sky came down. The absurdly fast arrival of the black sky ship had pushed down air from high in the sky to the ground in a sudden burst.
Image
"They're here."
Lacra began approaching the clearing prepared solely to meet these envoys with Grey following close behind. She looked up at the black airship with not fear but determination. She would ensure her kingdoms future and refused to fully yield to any tyranny that the Future King might bring upon her even if she couldn't refuse.