"Alright, stop rambling," At the side, Nacho finally couldn't hold back from interrupting Leon and Rebecca's nonsense.
He crossed his arms in front of his chest, slightly turned his body, and let his gaze pass over Leon to look at the mighty and imposing dragon race behind him.
From their positions and tail colors, it seemed that at least a dozen different clans had come here.
Nacho withdrew his gaze and looked at the "Great Diplomat Between Humans and Dragons" in front of him.
"So now that group of dragons really all listens to you?"
Leon shook his head, "It's not that they listen to me. It's that through the secret meeting with the Dragon King, I've become the representative for negotiations between the dragon race and humans. The attitude of most of the dragon race toward this war will be conveyed to humans through me."
"Oh~ got it," The crazy girl looked thoughtful.
"Mm, as long as you get it."
"You're rare!"
"Who are you calling rare!"
"Martin, make this woman quiet."
"Okay," Martin skillfully picked up Rebecca and stood to the side.
This scene was naturally taken in completely by the group of dragons behind Leon.
The Golden Sand Dragon King, Morgan, narrowed his eyes slightly, "Hiss... looks like the Silver Dragon Prince just gave those humans a show of force."
"What do you mean by that?", another Dragon King asked.
"Didn't you see? That human little girl was forcibly taken aside. This must be because the Silver Dragon Prince is putting pressure on the humans, forcing them into one-on-one negotiations."
The Dragon King suddenly understood, "So that's how it is!"
Clap! Clap!
Morgan clapped his hands, "As expected of the negotiation representative recommended by that old man Odin. High, truly high!"
"If it were me, I probably couldn't pull off the Silver Dragon Prince's kind of negotiation style that commands respect without anger. I believe he can definitely secure enough benefits for our dragon race."
"That's right, and he just now insisted on going to negotiate alone without any guards. To have such courage at such a young age, his future is surely limitless."
"..."
Hearing the group of Dragon Kings shamelessly praising the man, Rossweise couldn't help but silently cover her face.
'Minna-san, that was not a show of force, nor was it some "commands respect without anger" negotiation style.'
'That twin-tailed little girl was taken away because she was making so many snarky comments that Leon was about to lose it!'
'Sigh!', the queen sighed inwardly, thinking, 'This must be the fate of a chosen one. No matter what he does, in others' eyes it automatically gets wrapped in a filter of "Wow, so that's the reason! Amazing!"'
"Little Rose," Isa's voice drifted over from the side.
"What is it, sis?"
Isa slowly turned her head, giving her a mysterious glance as if to say, watch me perform.
"Eh?", Rossweise's face was full of question marks, not knowing what Isa was about to do.
The next moment, Isa raised her hand high and shouted, "Leon Casmodeous! The future light of the dragon race!"
Queen: (ΩДΩ)
"Future light... yes, future light! Leon!"
"Leon!"
"Casmodeous is the future light of the dragon race!"
"..."
One shout led to hundreds of responses.
The dragon race is a species whose emotions are easily stirred.
Besides shouting Leon's name, some dragons even got so excited that they breathed two blasts of dragonfire to celebrate.
Rossweise was surrounded by cheers. She drooped her tail and shoulders, helpless and without any way out.
'If you all knew this "future light" is the same as that man who once wore black armor, you wouldn't be shouting so enthusiastically right now.'
The dragonfire lit up the iron-blue sky, and Nacho instantly became alert.
"What's this? Are they turning hostile?"
But before Leon could answer, slogans like "Leon, my Superman" drifted in on the wind.
General Leon opened his mouth, but in the end didn't explain. He only shrugged, "You get it now."
Nacho sucked in a sharp breath, "Are you the prince of the silver dragons or the prince of the entire dragon race?"
"Hey! Don't make ethical jokes. My wife is only Rossweise Melkvei."
"Who asked you that!"
The cheers gradually faded.
Putting away his playful smile, Leon and Nacho got down to business.
"So, what's the dragon race's stance on this war?"
"If possible, an immediate ceasefire."
"And the conditions?"
"They said that after the ceasefire, they hope to have the territories of those clans who lost their homes due to the empire and the treacherous Dragon King's schemes returned to them. Likewise, the dragon race will also return some resources."
Leon said, "I checked the prepared documents. The land and resource exchange is very reasonable. We can accept the condition; it's not a loss."
Nacho nodded, "No problem."
"Oh, so straightforward. Aren't you going to go back and get approval from your superiors?"
"...Then may I ask, Leader Leon, are you satisfied with the condition you just proposed yourself?"
"Satisfied."
"Alright."
Nacho let out a sigh of relief, "Then, negotiations over?"
"Wait, we can't end yet."
"Why?"
Leon's expression became serious, meeting Nacho's gaze directly.
Nacho also sensed that there might be something more important coming, so he too got serious again and asked in a low voice,
"Is there something you need me to operate on this side of the empire?"
"Oh, no, nothing like that. I just want to say, we'd better keep standing like this for another five minutes."
"Wh-why?"
"Because it will make us look really cool while negotiating."
"...", Nacho rolled his eyes speechlessly.
'Is the empire's former strongest dragon-slaying squad full of people like this from top to bottom?'
'Crazy twin-tailed girl, airheaded support mage, and chuunibyou captain.'
Nacho could only sigh inwardly, 'Thank goodness I wasn't assigned to the dragon-slaying frontlines back then, or I would have turned into one of these lunatics too.'
"Speaking of which, how did you finally deal with Kant?", Leon asked.
"Just as you said, after we interrogated him, we handed Kant over to the public for trial. The verdict: paraded through the streets naked, then beheaded."
"Good. A foolish and incompetent king like that indeed has no reason to remain in this world."
Leon never had any pity for people like King Kant.
"Did you get any valuable information out of him?"
Nacho frowned and shook his head, "No. Even using memory-peeping magic didn't work. It's like there's some kind of barrier in his mind, no magic could probe it."
"Barrier? Was it a safeguard set up by the Royal Mage Corps?"
"That, I don't know. Also... we still haven't found any trace of Elizabeth."
Back during the empire's final battle, King Kant was captured on the spot, but Queen Elizabeth disappeared without a trace.
"At that time we thought the queen had just hidden herself in the chaos. But after such a long, carpet-style search, we still haven't found her."
Pausing, Nacho changed the subject, "However, in the queen's study we did find an interesting letter. We were going to send it to you by letter-dragon, but since you're here today, we'll just give it to you directly."
Saying that, Nacho took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Leon.
Leon opened the envelope. Inside were several thousand words.
It read like lyrical prose, with no key points, even seemingly incoherent.
Of course, Leon's focus was not on the content, but on the very first words of the letter, [To, Lord Shadow.]
———
"What's this? A love letter?", Leon turned the envelope over and over, finding that aside from obscure poetry and awkwardly contrived rhetoric, there was no special information.
"At first, we also thought it was a love letter from the queen to this 'Lord Shadow,' and that Kant had unknowingly been cuckolded by his own queen."
Nacho said, "But the strange thing is, we searched the entire empire, interrogated all sorts of corrupt ministers, even used memory-peeping magic on them, but there was no information whatsoever about 'Shadow.' This guy seems to have appeared out of thin air."
Leon put the mysterious letter away, "But the queen would never write such a letter to someone who appeared out of thin air."
"Exactly. So I think Queen Elizabeth's disappearance is probably related to this person called 'Shadow.' The next investigation will revolve around him."
"Alright, good work. I'll also gather some information about Shadow on the dragon side."
This was the first time Leon had heard the name "Shadow."
No, not a name, who would have just "Shadow" as their sole name?
So Leon guessed it must be some kind of codename.
And since he had deep ties with Queen Elizabeth, he was also highly likely to have been involved in the collusion between the empire and the dragon race.
Just as Leon had expected, even after dealing with Kant and exposing the empire's plot, the crisis would not completely pass.
To secure a foothold in this turbulent world, he could not afford to relax.
Leon and Nacho discussed Shadow a bit more.
But with too little information on hand, they couldn't get anywhere, so the topic quickly returned to this abstract negotiation.
Nacho calculated the time, "About two more minutes of this and you can go back."
Leon chuckled and nodded, "Mm."
Seeing that the captain had finished business, Rebecca came over again, "Right, captain, how are old man and Aunt Charlotte doing?"
"Oh, master and mistress are doing very well, recovering nicely."
A few days ago, after attending the Dragon King's secret meeting in Sky City, Leon had gone along with Claudia to visit the sea dragon race and check on his master and mistress.
The two of them looked very well.
Especially master. Ever since receiving mistress's transplanted heart-protecting dragon scale, his waist no longer ached, his back no longer hurt, and his legs no longer cramped.
But, same as Leon before, because the heart-protecting dragon scale requires magic power nourishment to continue repairing master's body, he currently also cannot use magic.
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