Chapter 924: Someone Just Had To

Chapter 924: Someone Just Had To

”So, you’re clear on your role, right?” Miranda asked Jake who had three women stare him down with expectant looks.

“Keep quiet and look menacing?” Jake asked a bit nervously. “At least for the most part...”

“You can speak up; just do so with forethought,” Vesperia added.

“I would recommend you to only speak up if you deem it absolutely necessary,” Miranda kind of disagreed. “Outside of your small opening speech, of course.”

“Do I really need to do a speech? Can’t you just do it?” Jake tried to worm his way out of it.

“No, as the World Leader, it needs to be you. Plus, it allows you to avoid actively participating in the following discussions if you don’t want to, as you’ve already made your position in the matter clear right from the get-go. Finally, we should at least show a basic level of courtesy by you directly addressing our visitors and all the leaders who are taking part in this World Congress,” Miranda continued to explain.

“There’s no need to worry; just memorize the speech as best as you can. Or, at the very least, the spirit and central message of it. You can make the words and the delivery your own,” Lillian also chimed in.

“Adding some personality would be best,” Vesperia agreed with a nod. “And allow them all to bask in your aura meanwhile. Do not actively push it to suppress them, but don’t restain it either. Let them know you are indeed the most dangerous being in the room, and make it clear that declaring you an enemy is not in their interest.”

“Indeed,” Miranda concurred too. “While the chances of individuals wishing you, I, or any of the other leaders of Earth harm are low, and we have yet to catch anyone with such thoughts, it’s still better to be safe than sorry. If you let your aura remain unconstrained, perhaps it can even help sniff out a few of those who are still dissatisfied with you. Make mental notes of these people.”

Jake slowly nodded as he tried to remember everything, as he looked at the paper on the table with the speech written on it. At the bottom, they had even included all the key points he had to go over in a concise fashion.

This meeting in Jake’s lodge was the final preparations for the World Congress, where the three women wanted to coach Jake and make sure he was ready. While this was definitely way lower stakes than stuff such as the Chosen Ceremony, Miranda still took it very seriously, and Vesperia definitely added a layer of complexity as she would also be participating. This would be her first time openly showing herself to the leaders of Earth, and first impressions were always important.

There were some potential issues they had gone over but didn’t really have the ability to prepare or safeguard against. The biggest one was who would take part in this meeting, more importantly, how damn different those participating would be, and what kind of conflicts that could give rise to.

To summarize, there would be a Unique Lifeform leading a group of monsters, vampires from the Noboru Clan, the Sky Whale representing a horde of beasts, Casper and the Risen, Jacob and the Holy Church, assassins from the Court of Shadows, Valhal, Jake himself, Arthur and “normal” humans who were still struggling with adapting to the system, former slaves of different races... and now they even had a True Royal ectognamorph in there, another very unpopular race.

It was, to put it nicely, a clusterfuck of factions where a good chunk of them were openly in conflict, with a few very unpopular races mixed in just for good measure. It felt almost inevitable that something would happen, but they hoped to suppress anyone daring to cause a scene by Jake being a scary guy, making it clear he would come down on anyone who acted like trouble-makers.

Quite the responsibility, but Jake would just have to deal with it.

“I believe that’s everything we meant to cover,” Lillian said after a brief pause. “Do also remember that the format of this World Congress is a bit different than usual.”

“True, I forgot to mention that,” Miranda nodded. “It was good you gave me permission to schedule and plan the congress. There are quite a few options for customization, and it took longer than I anticipated, especially sorting out who to invite and issuing these invites to all those who arrived on the planet after the event was planned. Not to mention planning the actual congress and its setup.”

Jake could only agree as he kept checking his paper with the speech on. They discussed a few more minor things before finally, the event arrived. Jake received his invite and quickly accepted it as he felt himself being moved elsewhere. This wasn’t just moving his soul either, but his entire physical body was teleported to the recognizable World Congress hall.

Things had changed since the last time Jake was there, though. Before, he always assumed it was in some weird system-created space that didn’t really exist anywhere, but now he knew... they were deep beneath the ground. As deep as one could possibly get, as Jake was confident:

This space existed within the Planetary Pylon.

He didn’t really have time to share this discovery as he stood on the usual platform, though it had been raised to an even higher position than before, making him stand the furthest up by far. Alongside him, Miranda, Lillian, Vesperia, Arnold, Holstred, and two more people Jake didn’t really know appeared.Điscover new chapters at novelhall.com

Across the hall, others also began to arrive, as Jake spotted all the expected participants. He didn’t know how often this many in-conflict factions and races could be gathered in one space like this, but this had to be a pretty damn rare sight, right?

“I don’t believe I have to introduce anyone here, so let me just get started and not drag this out more than necessary,” Miranda began as she summoned a huge projection in the middle of the circular conference hall, showing the entire planet. “Let us begin with the current state of preparations that have already been made...”

The next part was painful for Jake to sit through. Not only was it all information Jake had already heard before, but he even had to deal with people asking questions for clarification throughout, as Miranda did a long presentation on Earth’s current status.

After some time, the Sky Whale and Fallen King also joined, with Arthur jumping in as well. Jake threw a glance toward the Sky Whale’s platform and found a sleeping green hawk on one of the chairs. He very much wanted to mimic her, but alas, he had to stand there menacingly.

Carmen, at the Valhal podium, also looked openly bored. Other people he knew who didn’t seem overly interested in politics, such as Eron, had far more neutral expressions. The guy was always pretty impossible to read, honestly.

Now, Arnold, that dude knew what was up. He was wearing glasses, and while it was hard to see, they definitely had screens on the inside. Huge respect to him for reading or watching videoes and stuff during an important meeting... really gave Jake flashbacks to work before the system.

Looking over at the other person at his old company who was the most likely to also watch videos on the internet during important work meetings, Casper managed to somehow not look bored. Perhaps he had been through a baptism of politics himself, being one of the top figures of the Risen, as he was definitely holding up well.

All in all, Jake would say things were going pretty well, even if he was bored as fuck, and soon, they were done getting everyone on the same page about where Earth was with their current Prima Guardian defense efforts. Vesperia and Arnold didn’t talk, but Miranda did make their contributions clear, and no one seemed to be side-eyeing Vesperia much, which was a huge relief to Jake. He had been afraid several factions or humans on Earth would be very against her.

Then again, she did look very humanoid, so that was probably why most didn’t have a problem.

Moving on with the meeting, the next topic was what the newcomers would be doing. Seeing as there was still a bit of time before the Prima Guardian arrived, they would definitely be put to work.

“Before we know exactly where on Earth the Prima Guardian will originate, we will designate different teams across the planet. Space mages have been working on means to quickly establish a teleportation circle so we can get everyone there quickly, but we still need powerful enough groups to handle the regular Primas that will come alongside the Guardian,” Miranda explained, everything sounding reasonable to Jake so far.

But... just when the meeting was going so damn well, everything was ruined. While Miranda was briefly touching upon some of the current plans of who would go where someone just had to do it. And, of course, it had to be someone affiliated with the damn Holy Church. It wasn’t someone who had arrived with Jacob and company, but one of the city leaders who had been left behind when they left, who used to belong to the Church and clearly still subscribed to the religion.

Perhaps he felt empowered from standing next to Jacob, or perhaps he was just an idiot... but he just had to go and do it:

“If you want anyone from my city to go anywhere near there, you need to get rid of those damn abominations first,” the man said, staring at the people – vampires - standing with the Sword Saint. “Having an enemy both in front of us and at our sides will certainly spell doom.”

Miranda had given the man the room to speak when he lifted his hand... but her eyes narrowed at what he said. That is when Jake spoke up.

“Read the rules. You get only one strike.”

The man looked perplexed at Jake and completely ignored Jacob, who was staring daggers at him. “I apologize, Lord Thayne...”

For a moment, Jake had hope.

“... but those abominations simply do not belong on-“

And just like that, he’d spoken his final words.

A brief glance, two glowing eyes, a single crumbled soul.

Everyone stood there, shocked, while the lifeless man fell forward, slamming into the ground with a thud as the whole room became silent enough to hear a pin – or, in this case, a corpse – drop.