Elara dismissed Natasha and Mary to finalize the settlements with the victims while she turned her steps toward the makeshift room where the general and her adjutant were detained. Hopefully, her subordinates had shown them some good gesture before the 'trial' started.
The weight of guilt she carried for her subordinates had lightened somewhat—seeing the women accept her terms, hearing their reluctant but genuine assent. She couldn't erase their scars, but her words had been sincere, her promises unshaken.
She had ordered her people to watch over them, to ensure their safety going forward—though whether they chose to flee their pasts or face them head-on was their burden to bear. She couldn't handhold every soul through their trauma.
Still, she had done what she could.
And perhaps—just perhaps—her uncanny golden eyes had played the main part, in addition to the candy and cane method she resorted.
Those eerie, luminous pupils unnerved her the first time she caught her reflection; she could only imagine their effect on the women. There was something otherworldly divine about them, something that made people feel laid bare, as if no lie could survive their gaze.
The women had yielded more easily than expected, not just to her words or her gold, but to the unsettling certainty that those eyes saw everything.
An old lesson echoed in her mind: Stress festers when problems are ignored. But if you act what you can and when it should, if you tilt the odds in your favor, survival becomes less a matter of luck, and more a matter of will.
She had done all she could.
Now, it was time to face the real test—the high-ranking captives whose fate could unravel everything. The universe had a way of rewarding effort, but it also had a cruel sense of humor.
Of course, Elara had discussed with Gaia and Lily of various options and answers to every possible scenario.
As Elara made her way toward the room, Gaia's voice filled her mind, delivering a concise yet sweeping overview of the world's nations, continents, and the tangled web of geopolitics that bound them.
A virtual map materialized before her eyes, rotating like a lantern, shifting focus each time Gaia highlighted a new region or sovereign state. Elara absorbed the broad strokes, though her attention remained distant.
Why bother with distant lands? she thought bitterly. Come on, please! War and a zombie crisis are coming in months—how can I care about other nations when the ground beneath my own feet is crumbling?
Yet Gaia's detailed comparisons to her past world caught her interest. Though borders were unrecognizable and names foreign, the essence of many places felt hauntingly familiar. She drew parallels and adapted quickly, her mind piecing together the puzzle of this new reality.
The United Nations remained the same—as ineffective as ever, derided as the Useless Negotiators or the Unable Nation in cynical circles.
Yet, despite its glaring flaws, it still functioned as a fragile bulwark against total chaos, addressing global crises even as it struggled with insurmountable geopolitical divides. Its existence, however flawed, was better than nothing at all.
But Gaia's earlier prophecies had already etched the future into Elara's mind. Even without the zombie apocalypse, the world would struggle for decades to restore order. Once ignited, flames were not easily smothered. And the epicenter of this coming storm? Her own homeland.
Crownland of Aurelia—once simply the Kingdom of Aurelia—was a constitutional monarchy in name, where the royal family still wielded real influence, even in an era where democracy, freedom, and elections dominated global discourse.
A young nation, born from an exiled aristocratic clan who had sailed across oceans in the early 19th century, it had flourished through trade, transforming a remote, untamed wilderness into a burgeoning power.
The clan had negotiated with native tribes, shared knowledge, and—against daunting natural obstacles—forged alliances, eventually convincing the local populations to join their cause.
The birth of a new nation had not been welcomed. Neighbors had eyed the land with hostility, and the isolation of the navigation era had made survival precarious. Had it not been for the natural fortifications—dense forests and treacherous terrain—Aurelia might have fallen before it could stand.
Yet the aristocrats or the royal family had committed everything, a gamble that would pay dividends in time. There was no turning back. Their expertise in trade and commerce, coupled with the discovery of rare, valuable resources, had secured their future.
But prosperity came with peril. A small population spread across vast lands invited danger. To remedy this, the royal family had offered enticing incentives, spreading word through merchants and old networks, drawing immigrants from every corner of the world. Some came willingly, others by force, and some—like Elara—slipped in unseen in the past.
Gradually, the Crownland survived its first weak stage successfully and stabilized its fragile foundation. Even if Elara disliked royalties because of numerous past examples in her previous life where ordinary commoners were exploited to the extent of near death, she deeply respected and acknowledged Aurelia Royal family's deeds and their endeavor.
No concentration of power, nor weakening itself to the new rise strong families. They managed to strike a balance in controlling the people's love and respect by giving away small power. The hidden punches by other families seeking moralkidnapping were like hitting a soft cotton pad.
Capitalism was the nation's basic ideology but not to the point that those with money could sway the government. It was the existent of royal family check and balancing to ensure the state apparatus functioned as the founder intended to be.
This was a land of opportunity, a multicultural paradise where hard work could elevate anyone. Surely, multicultural settlement had hidden dangers—only a small fire was needed to brainwash the population to spiral into riots.
Beneath the veneer of unity, the embers of prejudice still smoldered—faint in some, fierce in others, but always concealed beneath the mask of civility. For instance, racism and other evil conservative ideologies existed in spite of boundaries and rulings.
Ambition simmered in the shadows, where factions whispered, where religion and ethnicity became tools for manipulation. The founders had foreseen this, and so the constitution stood as an unyielding bulwark—its articles explicit, its enforcement unforgiving.
Yes, every soul had the right to their culture, their faith—but never at the expense of the law. The royal family guarded these principles with iron resolve. If any foreign doctrine threatened the foundation of the land, the tribunal would strike it down without hesitation. Dissatisfaction was irrelevant. Obedience was the price of belonging.
The core must be protected at all costs—not because it denied essential freedoms, but because it preserved them. The royal decree was clear: If you cannot abide by these rules, you are free to leave.
Assimilation was not surrender—it was survival. The constitution was not just law; it was the soul of Crownland, the legacy of its people. And though dissent flickered—small uprisings, clashes of ideology—they were crushed without mercy.
Harsher for the barbaric cultures under the guise of religions. Most people, weary of extremism, stood with the crown. Even God Himself would not dictate the future of this land where modern beliefs flourished.
After all, to the royalty, the people were not the enemy—nor were diverse philosophies. The true threat lay in sectarianism, in the creeping poison of division left unchecked. And the most insidious of these threats? Religion.
Divinity had always been the rival of royalty. History had carved its lesson in blood—what horrors unfolded when faith was allowed to run wild, even for a moment. The crown remembered. And it would not repeat the past.
Yet beneath its shining surface, darkness festered. Elara had glimpsed it firsthand—the underbelly of ambition, the cost of survival.
The previous Elara had believed she understood betrayal, that she had seen the worst of human nature. But the current Elara knew better. Human evil was not just predictable—it was boundless.
And she had only scratched the surface—corruption, something even the founding members were helpless. Loopholes always popped up and patching them to remedy the situation didn't help much.
Elara's respect for the founding royal family—especially its architect—deepened.
What stunned her most? Arranged marriage had been outlawed from the very beginning.
In her past world, the practice had persisted like a stubborn stain, but here? Eradicated. And not just that—political alliances through marriage were nearly impossible, the scourge of inbreeding banned outright under the guise of health and genetic diversity.
It was too calculated, too far-sighted.
A suspicion gnawed at her: Was the founder a transmigrator like her? Someone who had witnessed history's horrors and acted to prevent them? It would explain the ferocious resistance to cultural invasion.
The constitution didn't ban foreign traditions—it assimilated them, ensuring they bent to the crown's will rather than undermining it.
And the founder had been right.
Elara had seen what unchecked multiculturalism could become—a weapon in the hands of the cunning, a slow rot eating nations from within, generation after generation. Here, the system allowed diversity, but demanded loyalty.
Brilliant. Ruthless. Necessary.
These thoughts flashed through Elara's mind in an instant. Since her transmigration, her mind had sharpened to a razor's edge—a dozen seconds was all it took to dissect every detail of Gaia's introduction while her body moved on autopilot.
Now, her focus snapped back to the immediate crisis: Crownland of Aurelia's geopolitical predicament.
The nation's size was comparable to Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia combined—the closest parallel her limited knowledge of her past world could offer. Heh. Beyond her own homeland and a few political anecdotes, her grasp of global affairs had always been hazy. But she knew geography, and she could draw the lines.
Crownland was like Hong Kong—wealthy from trade, strategically vital, and pressured by a looming giant to the north: the Zhanghua Dominion. A mirror of communist China, but in this world. And to the east? An island nation, severed after a lost civil war—the Haixia Republic.
Aka Taiwan.
The pieces clicked into place.
Elara dismissed the rest of the world from her thoughts despite carrying resemblance from her past life. The tangled webs of global politics held no interest for her—not when her new home demanded her focus. As for the historical lessons and disputes, Elara shook them away.
The Crownland of Aurelia—this was where her predecessor had fought, endured, and built a life. Where she had given birth to a daughter, a legacy Elara now inherited. She had made her decision: this land was hers to protect. Maybe she hadn't spent even a day in this new world but she deeply admired her own country.
With a final nod to the two guards outside the door, she stepped inside. The two saluted back.
Knock. Knock.
Alas, the most difficult deal, she had to prepare.
The room was a private hotel suite, furnished with every luxury—a deliberate choice. Natasha and Mary had spared no effort to ensure a favorable first impression, provided the waiting women didn't dwell on the prior days of enduring playful humiliation.
Inside, two women waited.
One sat composed at the table, her posture rigid with discipline and elegance. The other paced restlessly, halting only when the door opened.
Elara recognized them instantly—both from Natasha's report and Gaia's descriptions. Both facial contour featured Asian descendants compared to her past life yet their eyes and brows shone brightness of power and strength.
The seated woman was the military general, her calculated stillness betraying a mind weighing every possible outcome. Long black hair tied neatly to a bun, she wore a plain jade emerald shirt and long black skirt with flowery edges.
The other, short silver hair cut to the neck, simple yellow tan T-shirt and jeans—Choi Ji Yoon, her adjutant—was all fire and impatience, her frustration boiling over.
"What now?" Choi Ji Yoon snapped, her voice sharp with accusation. "I thought you wanted to negotiate sincerely? Why make us wait? We haven't even discussed why your men imprisoned us! And…and…Do that to us…Where's that scoundrel?"
Elara didn't rise to the bait. Instead, she smiled—not with amusement, but with quiet respect. Choi Ji Yoon's defiance was refreshing, her unfiltered honesty a rare trait in a world of schemes and silences. The directness was what she fonded after.
From what Gaia had dug up, Choi Ji Yoon's past was shrouded in obscurity—a special unit operative who had dug too deep, framed by her superiors, and forced to flee. The general had taken her in, recognizing her skill and loyalty.
Plus, Choi Ji Yoon, somehow, obtained the rank of major in the army working under the general. An outright soldier whom Elara deeply shared her silent camaraderie.
A major in her mid twenties with solid backing and experienced records.
Now, both women studied her—Major Choi with open hostility, the general with cold, measuring eyes with gentle smile, assessing her every move for future leverage.
Elara knew the stakes.
She had to apologize—but she also had to control the narrative. The problem? She wasn't a schemer. She lacked the polished eloquence of elite diplomats, the subtle manipulation of seasoned politicians.
The general was a master of such games.
Elara exhaled inwardly, steeling herself. She had studied, made mental checklists, prepared for initial failures—but she would adapt.
Not to mention, her advisors—Gaia and Lily—promised to help though she had huge doubts about their expertise after knowing them well and their cute childishness.
With a respectful nod to the general, she took her seat. "General."
That changed their expressions. Elara's demeanor sparked uncanny surprises. Something about the air around Elara lit their eyes. The shift in Elara's bearing caught them off guard.
There was something in the way she carried herself—a subtle current of authority that only those tempered in the same fires would recognize. They felt a good impression of the young woman before them. Yet their anger remained, unshaken by the unexpected poise before them.
Elara broke the silence with a calm, measured tone, her gaze locked onto the general's.
"Don't worry," she said, "that scoundrel is dead." A pause. "I apologize—you won't get the chance to kill him yourselves though. Too bad he died too swiftly."
Choi Ji Yoon barked a laugh, her voice dripping with skepticism. "Hah! You expect us to believe that? He was your boss! Don't think we're stupid enough to fall for your lies!"
"Ji Yoon." The general's voice was low, a warning. She barely raised a brow, her disapproval conveyed in a single, controlled shake of her head.
Choi exhaled sharply, clicking her tongue in frustration. She knew the limits of her defiance—reckless as she was, she understood one crucial truth: they were alive. Untouched. Clothed. Fed.
At first, they had feared the worst—starvation, humiliation, violation—all at the hands of a man who believed himself untouchable—the arrogant idiot who didn't think clearly. But now? The sudden shift in treatment spoke volumes. Someone new was in charge. Someone who knew the rules of the game.
This was no longer about survival.
It was about who would blink first.
"So?" The general's voice was cool, deliberate, her lips parting just enough to let the word slip out like a blade. "Are you the new leader? I wish to seek justice for ourselves and the others who go through the same treatment."
A pair of golden eyes locked gaze with the general, without the loss in momentum. "General Li, as much as I condemn those vile acts, and sympathize, I hope to garner your understanding of us through our conversation."
The air between them thrummed, charged with the unspoken challenge. The general studied her, searching for cracks, for deception, for weakness.
The method of compensation to placate the crisis would never work in front of the duo like before. They weren't naive women, nor were their status ordinary and powerless against her group. And, Elara had requests she'd make to achieve a win-win.