Chapter 84 - What Now..?

"Haaahahahaha"

"This is so satisfying"

"This will teach them a lesson! Hahaha."

"They thought it would be easy to bully our kingdom, that's what they deserve!"

Laughter, shouting, and manly embraces... all shook the hall, even Sage Albert had a big smile on his old face. 

This was the best news he had heard in many years, no matter what happened next, this short war would be enough for the citizens of the Black Sun Kingdom to brag about for the next few hundred years.

Sage Albert nodded toward the messenger then spoke, "Thank you, Nicholas, for your detailed report, you may join us now.." 

then he continued, "First of all and before doing anything else, this news must be spread in every corner of our kingdom and even and even making sure it spread to all the other kingdoms, everyone must know the greatness of the kingdom of the Black Sun! does anyone has any objection to this." ?"

"No, sir, that's exactly the right thing."

"I strongly support this suggestion"

Everyone quickly agreed, raising the morale of the citizens means greater affiliation, increased production, and an increase in the number of those who wish to join the army.

the news can also crush the Dolivarian citizens and make the war easier, and make the other kingdoms fearful and respectable when they deal with the Black Sun in the future

"Good, secondly, according to the report, our army their no longer has any more talisman and their numbers have decreased to less than 50 thousand, any further attack on them will only mean their death.. 

We must do something to preserve the safety of these heroes, for this, I formally ask the three border duchies to gather their entire army.

I repeat... ALL of your armies! and put them on the border at full speed!

When a battalion is completed then send them the frontier as soon as possible, within a week I want at least 400,000 soldiers there, do the three duchies have a problem with this?"

Duke George Stanley stood up, "I'll start the arrangements at once."

Duke Raymond Alton followed him, "I have already begun sending my troops since your honor's last instructions, but I will increase the pace of the dispatch today."

"I will send my whole army and declare general mobilization as well!" The one who received this decision with joy was none other than Duke Donald Evren,

as he is the middle duchy between the three and if Dolivar as a whole decided to keep up with their original plan to make a true royal war, they will cross through his land first, so gathering such an army on his land was in his interest.

"Good, now for the third object for today.." At this point, the sage looked in the direction of Earl Brian and Duke Galan who were sitting next to each other, and spoke "You two contact this genius who invented the talismans and asked him to make other patches, and tell him that the royal family was willing to purchase the technique for making fire runes for fifty million gold coins, the price is negotiable."

Galan frowned for a moment before quickly regaining his condition and nodded with a slight smile, he sent his elites and lost thousands of them, including about a hundred knights and two Saints, 

He took a huge risk and a gamble on the future of his family in this war... if he didn't win or lose most of his elites then he would have been finished! the royal family would make an example of him to avoid the full-out war with Dolivar... and all of this was for the method of making fire talismans...

But after he heard the number Sage Albert said, Only then did he realize that what he paid was really too cheap a price for it.

However, even with this realization, he was still angry... he hopped that Robin would reject the offer, he certainly does not want the method of making the fire talismans to fall into the hands of anyone else!

As for Earl Brian, he didn't even nod... but remained stunned by the number, fifty million gold coins.

The entire Burton family earned about a million coins per year. 

When salaries, living expenses, and army supplies are deducted,

there would be less than 100,000 gold coins left as net profit.

Of course, there are always other ways for the family to gain coins, like selling lands and making a bargain in some business, but that is a one-time thing and not a direct source of income

So technically... it would take about 400 ~ 500 years to be able to save those 50 million gold coins.

Sage Albert understood the reason behind Earl Brian's idiotic look and didn't try to pressure him for an answer, but went back to addressing everyone, "The council is suspended for today, every one of you should go now to do his task, and who doesn't have a task focuses on spreading the news!"

===================

A similar and different scene takes place at the same time inside the Imperial Palace in Dolivar

Similar in that also all the leaders of the kingdom are gathered to decide what they would do in the future.. and different because they were sitting as if they were in Funeral.

Frowed eyebrows and ugly faces... some of them seem as if they wish the earth would open up and swallow them up.

insult... absolute insult.

There were no side discussions, no screaming, no arguments, just silence.

Until the person seated on the chief chair spoke, Sage Crowned Prince Louis finally broke the silence, saying, "Has there been a new message from the allies?"

"y.. yes, Your Highness, even after trying to negotiate further, their decision has not changed…" a middle-leveled Saint replied with fear

"They refused to support us again, huh...? For decades, we have been looking for an opportunity like this to start a total royal war without the intervention of empires... and when the opportunity comes... they back down?!" Sage Louis' words rose until he finally roared, terrifying everyone present

"They... they say that everything has changed...these *talismans* are so powerful they cannot join us until they know how much the Black Sun has a stock of them, how fast they can be produced, ways to counter them, and even ways to steal their design."

The face of Sage Louis twisted in anger, "AND WHAT DO WE DO NOW?! They made us stand in front of the cannon while they were relaxing from afar and watching?! Because of them, we had to provoke the Black Sun Kingdom, and they now they have the audacity to speak like we are begging for undeserving help?!

Reports say that there are approximately 200,000 soldiers standing on the black sun border with us, preparing to enter at any time, and their number is still increasing!! If that army is also armed with those talismans, there may not be anything called Dolivar after this war ends!"

"Your Highness, this might not be the case, perhaps all of their talismans already ran out in the last battle." One of the saints quickly replied optimistically

The sage looked wide at him, "Aren't you the one who said earlier that the weapon with Caesar and his two brothers was just a sample to frighten us and that it was impossible for them to have quantities of it?"

"This…. That's right, Your Highness, but I was jus- what are you doing… no… NOOOO…"

The saint fell to the ground with his eyes wide open... He died.

"If one of you speaks again, he must be responsible for what he says." Sage Louis spoke slowly, he was still sitting still, he did not move.

Silence fell over the place again, before they had nothing to say, and now whoever has something to say is too afraid to speak...

When the sage saw this, he continued, "In the process of assassinating Caesar, it is said that he used level 16 fire weapons, we can assume now that it was those Talismans... Does this mean that they possessed quantities of Fire Runes of all levels between 6 and 16?!"

So far, they are messing with us and attacking with these *weak*  talismans, but they have already tied their hands and our feet with its presence, what would happen if the higher level talisman comes up? 

...We are the ones who brought this on ourselves. Now we know what they are capable of, and we know that our damn *allies* have abandoned us in the first real test... What do we do? give me your opinions"

After a few seconds the Duke replied, "Your Highness.. we are without an ally, and if we try to declare all-out war we will provoke the Black Sun Kingdom further, I see that we have two only solutions... 

The first is that we already declared that it's a personal problem of the Tinleys.... we can let the Duchy of Tinley handle the situation on their own and distance ourselves from what is happening there as if we see nothing"