Author Notes:
Writing this RM mini-arc makes me thing that, for once, this is just someone having a valid crashout.
Oh, don't forget to enjoy the mess and don't forget that the Monthly Recruitment Drive is nearing its end~!
Peace and a happy weekend to all!
https://www.patre-on.com/Heartbreak117
https://ko-fi.com/heartbreak117/goal?g=0
Income goal 775/880 USD (UmU)
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I plop myself down on the comfortable cushion of my simply ornate office chair.
"I don't have much time before Mama and Mom come and drag me on a date, Agent." I say as I readjust the collar of my long-sleeve shirt, which is part of my slightly less than formal wear for a family outing. Yes, I am currently wearing pants, and I wear them whenever I can. "This best be something that warrants me taking a detour."
My dutiful maid nods primly before putting down her tablet on my desk, and without prompting, multiple holographic projections spring up from the device. From a quick scan, these are the up-to-date intelligence reports about the shimmering volcano that is the Erusea Kingdom.
"Master, Adeline, and Aline have unveiled the mystery about the faction behind the collapse of Paris' Royal Castle." Agent says, and with a couple of gestures, highlights the important parts on the sprawling display of gathered information. "It's now confirmed that they're the same party that faked the death of Queen Bonaparte's brother's younger brother. However, documents about these two developments are scarce, with most of the confirmed participants either perishing or not having the full picture, except for the faction's ringleader."
"Hoh?" I lean in, viewing the assorted information carefully presented in either the few written formats or hypnotized testimonies. "You have my interest now, Agent."
The maid bows before unfolding a live video feed, showing one of the two Einherjar who did the heavy lifting for this crucial intel. I smile, greeting the Einheri who is predominantly and fashionably black.
"Adeline, I see that you and the rest of Section Zero have been hard at work."
The tall girl mirrors Agent's bow earlier, before smiling brightly. "Everything is for Master's dream. May I give you the full report, Master?"
"By all means, my dear Einheri." I nod, giving her the go-ahead.
Adeline nods from her position in a quaint little hideout. "Long story short, Master, it all starts with a certain Royal affair..."
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In the pre-Great War period, the Erusean Royal Family sired a particular female child. She grew up sickly and frail, yet possesses unusual charisma and intellect for someone so sheltered in Buckingham Palace. It's a tumultuous time back then for the Erusean Royal Family, where the struggle for the throne remained rampant behind a veneer of civility. While her royal siblings fought each other tooth and nail, for a time, the particular princess was the precious family member that were doted on due to her ailing health and bright mind.
However, being a vase was clearly not in the princess' itinerary. Perhaps out of boredom or a sense of duty, or it's just because she could, this particular princess pitched the idea of reinventing the Erusea Kingdom's military intelligence aspect. Seeing his daughter bring retroactive and thinking it would be a good workout for her, the reigning king at the time agreed to her desire. The reasoning behind these developments remains elusive to us, yet it doesn't change the fact that, for the rest of her life, this particular princess was made the Director of Military Intelligence of the Erusean Kingdom, and she founded the nation's premier intelligence agencies, the Military Intelligence Sections. Most prominent among them are Military Intelligence Sections 5 and 6; nonetheless, even they have been made largely vulnerable due to our ONI's infiltration nowadays.
For the Erusean king to give the princess the particular job posting, however, she was made to agree to some conditions. One of them was the permanently assigned aide who was loyal to the current king. The other was that she would be married off to the Count of Farbanti, an upstart with a particular lucrative coastal city. The aide existed to ensure the Directorate of Military Intelligence wouldn't be run into a ditch, while marrying the Count meant the princess would be staying far away from the courtly fight. In a way, this maneuver was the Erusean king's effort to keep the princess out of trouble. What he didn't expect, though, was the princess to take to her job as a Director of Military Intelligence seriously, and she did great... Too great even, especially in the internal side of things. Ragnarok happened, and the subsequently increasingly tumultuous geopolitical scene allowed this Erusean princess to garner a lot of shadowy power, enough to graduate her from a harmless royal sibling to a dangerous wildcard.
While the king's aide managed MI6 and its overseas network of intelligence, the princess managed MI5, and with that, she gleaned into even the dirtiest secrets that the courtly people wouldn't want to see the light of day. Even her father started to be worried about her unseen hands when she confronted him that the aide he gave her was nothing more than a bastard son he had with a palace maid. As more and more of the court were subjected to the sickly princess' subtle oppressiveness, a new race appeared as nobles and royal heirs vied for her olive branch. Nominally, the sick princess made no attempt at seizing the Erusean crown, emphasizing her distaste for such a game. Yet, for a period of time, she was the de facto underground leader in Erusea.
To control the princess' rise, the Erusean king encouraged her husband, the Count of Farbanti, to simmer down his betrothed. However, the Count was secretly impotent and a man of nothing but business acumen and city management. He was incapable of leashing the sick princess, and he did not attempt to do so when there were much more important things to accomplish, like ensuring the livelihood of citizens in his territory. Ironically enough, and unknown to most, if not all of the Erusean court, it's the aide, the Erusean king's bastard son, that the frail, yet paradoxically powerful princess fell in love with. Like something out of a tale, this incestuous relationship between a master and servant was carried out in the darkness of night. Understandably, the aide had his allegiance changed from the king of Erusea to his new liege, the sick princess.
But all interesting things must come to an end, and this story ended with a twist that bordered on sorrowful.
When the Great War happened, when the Belkan Reich raised our banner and proclamation of divine inheritance, the frail princess came off as pregnant with a child. The notion surprised the Erusean court and herself, but news about this was drowned out by the ongoing, costly war. Of course, the child couldn't come from the Count of Farbanti as he was impotent. When the Count subtly confronted the princess and her aide about the truth, the man shockingly accepted it with poise, provided that he could gain access to favorable economic intelligence and secrets. This gesture of goodwill earned the Count an invitation into the princess' circle of subterfuge. Together, the trio racked up even more influence in the war as the collective network of MI5 and MI6 spearheaded them into courtly prominence. Had the princess not been frail and had she expressed interest in the crown, the Erusean king would have no choice but to make her the crown princess due to her absurd reach. This notion alone had frightened many of the heirs to the throne. So, a traitorous few concocted a treacherous plan.
In the late months of the sick princess' pregnancy, the Erusean king's would regularly visit her with a private retinue. As a caring father, he would try to visit his pregnant daughter whenever he could, even when there's a war on the other side of the Erusean Channel. With each visit, he would come and personally feed the princess nourishment. All it took was a private meeting, a few loyal sacrificial pawns, a switching of the pregnancy gift, and an unwitting Erusean king... Voila! The frail, pregnant princess was poisoned by the king himself! Truly a cruel maneuver, but the effectiveness was undeniable, as not even the spy master, who was the frail princess, expected her father to be the one to poison her, unknowingly or not. It was a fatal gap in security, and even with the timely aid of her father and the Count of Farbanti, the princess was put on her deathbed due to the poison and her pregnancy. To live, she would have to get rid of the baby in her belly, and that was a decision too hard for any mother to bear.
With the aide, the father of her child, still conducting operations in Ustio and thus unavailable on a timely basis, the poisoned princess made the decision to give birth early. This was a decision that would go on to cost her very life, yet the granddaughter of the Erusean king was born. To the sorrow of the Erusean king and the Count of Farbanti, the princess passed away before she could even hold or name her child. The cries of the baby back then were said to drown out the sob of the Erusean king himself. After leaving his granddaughter and his now deceased child in the care of the Count, the Erusean king went at length to pursue the treacherous people behind the princess' assassination. When the devastating news reached the aide, he returned from mainland Europe to help his former master exact revenge on the evildoers. And while they managed to enact capital punishment behind closed doors on a pair of guilty royal heiresses, they weren't all of the participants. Falling grievously ill midway into the hunt, the Erusean king passed away in rage and helplessness, leaving behind only a hastily appointed successor, who was, ironically, the chief executor behind the princess' assassination. That was, however, a fact that would only be uncovered later on.
The new Erusean king, titled Edward, pushed for the cessation of the manhunt, citing that the immediate focus must be on the ongoing Great War and after it. The masterless aide was pushed back to Ustio for tasking while the Directorate of Military Intelligence was purged of the princess' competent staff and replaced with those loyal to the current regime. MI5 and MI6, in particular, were put under immense scrutiny that limited their efficiency in exchange for absolute loyalty to the Erusean crown. Something that continues to this day, but the effect is dismissible as the supervision committee cares more about searching for the princess' supporters than actively rooting out our Belkan spies. Moving on, King Edward went as far as scrubbing off the influence of the deceased princess in any way he could. The chaos of the war made it so that it was an easy matter for King Edward to leverage his power and eliminate the lingering presence of the unfortunate princess in the Erusean court and beyond.
This does bring us to the present. Would the deceased princess' supporters stop when justice wasn't properly dealt and her legacy was being made void unrighteously so? The answer is a resounding no. King Edward's reign was cut short in the post-Great War era when he supposedly died from smoking-related issues. However, Alina and I uncovered that he was poisoned daily in minute dosages. It's quite a nefarious way of saying 'Revenge is a dish best served cold'. Things would have ended right there if we hadn't encountered the collapse of the palace in Paris and the faux death of the young and former Ustian King. With further digging, we gained the insight that, undoubtedly, the aide and lover of the deceased Erusean princess was none other than the reportedly death Ustian Loyalist Prime Minister. He's a spy master through and through to stay under the radar for so long, and apparently, his revenge is still an ongoing one.
Somewhere down the line, the aide who has long discarded his original name, going as far as erasing his past life as a bastard son, chose to go on a war path that seeks the total erasure of the Erusean crown. We were wrong to assume that he was a potential ally or a maniac who sought their mutual assured destruction of Ustio, Erusea, and Belka. In actuality, everything he did and strived for was to string Erusea alone on a path of death by us Belkans. He used the Reich as a borrowed knife to kill an entire multi-continent dynasty. For what it's worth, I must compliment the guy for his balls of steel. Crude words, I know, Master, but it's the only ones that fit.
This avenger is still going strong, somewhere in Erusea and amidst all of the protests and revolts against the current Erusean royal family. The Einherjar is unfortunately unable to pinpoint his whereabouts, however. We apologize for the tardiness, Master. Nonetheless, we can ascertain that the recent movement of the Count of Farbanti can be linked to this personage. It will only be a matter of time before we can trace this elusive person.
As for the explanation behind the man's burning hatred, it all comes down to yet another unfortunate passing. His daughter, the only keepsake he has left with his deceased liege, passed away at a young age due to a critical health trauma. It's a direct and unfortunate consequence of her being born too early to a mother who was crippled with lethal poison. Suffice to say, this is enough of a motive for a man to burn down the entire world, much less a kingdom. Since the child perished under the care of the Count of Farbanti, this can explain why the Count is possibly acting under the behest of the spy master. However, the prior relationship the trio shares and the thirst for revenge can be more than enough of a reason already.
This goes to show that, truly, the Erusean Kingdom is diseased, rotten to the core, as even now, its royal family is ruled by false superiority and stupidity. If not us, the Reich, then the spy master would have figured out a different way to bring the Kingdom of Erusea to its knees. If not the spymaster, then someone else would have done the deed just the same. Erusea is running on a ticking time bomb, as its culture remains remarkably stagnant and inflexible when compared to the rest of Europe, which constantly shifts and struggles for growth and dominance.
So, Master, do you like my story?
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I maintain my look on Adeline's projection, my bemusement is kept hidden as I see the Einheri tries to maintain a calm, professional facade despite her eagerness for praise. When I see a bead of cold sweat form on her forehead, wondering whether or not she just wasted my time, I chuckle aloud, expressing clearly that I am just teasing her after her enthusiastic storytelling.
"Don't worry your pretty head, Adeline, I enjoyed the story very much. It beats sitting in one place and gives all of the reports a good read when I am remarkably short of time, as is. So, for such a job well done, and to show my gratitude for spicing up my day, why don't you name something you and your sister, Alina, would like to have?"
Adeline, bless her loyalty in accomplishing everything I asked of her all this time, perks up.
"Oh! Oh! Can we come over to experience another holiday with you, Master? The stuff you made is to die for!" More than anything, I see adoration and sincerity in her uncovered eye.
Idly, I can't help but think the visor that is worn over her left eye is quite cool to have. When my wardrobe is forcefully updated by my Mama and Mom, I must see if I can incorporate a visor like it.
Before I can grant my acceptance in amusement and fondness, however, the gleaming blade of a silver scythe rests on Adeline's right shoulder. A voice can be heard coming from behind Adeline's projection as the Einheri stands ramrod straight with a blade so close to her neck. "Apologies for my sister's lack of curriculum, Master. As you can see, Adeline can be quite uncontrollable with her mouth. Please allow me a moment alone with her for... Reeducation purposes."
Without further ado, the blade is pulled against Adeline's neck as the Einheri panicked, and fearing the total loss of her head to the sharp blade, she is forced to step backward out of sight of the video call device. "W-Wait, Alina, dear sister! We can talk about this! We can talk about this!"
"B-Be careful with that massive thing, woman! That's my neck! That's my neck you're resting it on! Architect! Help!"
And then the device is promptly shut off on the other end. It takes a conscious effort from my end not to burst out laughing at the shenanigans I just witnessed from the few staffs that keeps ONI Section Zero running.
"I apologize for their... Usual uniqueness, Master." Agent says, closing her eyes and bowing at me apologetically. She is the nominal commander of the Einherjar, after all, so seeing her subordinates like that was a bit much for her usual prim and proper self.
I smile casually, gesturing my hand for her to return to her prior posture. "Don't hold it over their heads, Agent. The girls deserve some fun now that they can be said to be on a break. When the family has a get-together again, have all of the Einherjar come for downtime as well."
"Understood, Master, I will make sure to have them all available when the time arrives." Agent replies seriously.
I nod, standing up. "Now, would you mind escorting your dear Master to her date? I believe we only have a few minutes to spare."
Agent nods dutifully before gathering the tablet on my desk. Stepping closer to my side, my dear maid says softly.
"Master, allow me." Agent rests a hand on my hip, her touch gentle and comforting, before we both disappear from my office in the blink of an eye.