by Simon Archer
“My first day upon this earth was deep in the heart of the land,” the man spoke to his claim once more, evoking such poetic language. “I was put here to reclaim what had been stolen, and I’ve spent every day since then moving heaven and earth to reclaim this land. It is mine. And I have displaced no nativeborns, even those of Numanian decent. All the soldiers you see here are natives to this land from their first day. They still have their homes and their lives as they were before. They have only agreed that I am the rightful ruler of this sovereign.”
“You committed sedition, circumventing the entire legal process of our sovereign nation,” Gregory tried to reclaim his position of authority, “and yet you think you have the right, the gall, even, to tell me and these reasonable people here that Numania’s in the wrong here? If these people wanted to leave Numania, then they should have gone through the proper channels! There are systems in place for something like this, and you spit in all of our faces by ignoring them!”
“I only ask for these wrongs to be made right.” The man rebuked the ambassador’s claims. “My people were given no chances to make their claims with a gathering of nations like this. They gave us no choice in the matter. Now I have come to give those people a voice again. I demand my land be recognized as the sovereign nation it should always have been, protected by the laws of the Aggregation of Countries as the rest of your lands are privileged to be. We demand peace for all peoples through justice, power through recompense, equality through acknowledgment! We Gyumin will not be--!”
Before anyone knew what was happening, a cacophony of booms blew out from the inner meeting hall, which had all but disappeared in one fell swoop of infernos and shockwaves. The explosions were deafening as they were completely surprising. The foundations of the rest of the hall began to collapse along with it, and suddenly I found myself thankful that we were all in the lobby, easily accessing the many doors to the outside.
Every ambassador poured out of those doors, half of us nearly being carried in the waves of bodies of the rest. With surprising efficiency, we were all brought out into the courtyard, organized by the armored soldiers around us. The mysterious man had taken charge already, shouting to his men to protect the ambassadors at all costs, including his Numanian debate rival. With a host of guards protecting each and every one of us along with our own bodyguards, I felt surprisingly safe in light of the circumstances.
As we looked out towards the fiery explosion, seeing the beautiful building become consumed in plumed smoke. However, more awe-inducing than the billowing flames was the silhouette of a plane floating above the wreckage of the hall. It had the striking resemblance of an eagle made of metal, and that could only have meant heroes from the Egalitarian League had come. Their arrival to the danger, though, was completely unprecedented, however. How could they have come so soon in response to danger? Were they perhaps patrolling nearby at the time? The convenience of it all couldn’t have been more fortunate.
“Where is the Gyumin?” A loudspeaker spoke from the plane. “Reveal yourself and make it easier for everyone. We will not ask twice.”
Why were they chasing the Gyumin? It couldn’t have been because of the explosions. The Gyumin man had been with us this whole time, and this is on his sovereign ground. What reason would he have to attack his own hall? Unless…
Did the heroes… were they the ones that attacked us just now? This was going to take some explaining to understand properly.
22
That’s what I liked to see. Everything was coming together, just like how I wanted it to. At first, I thought that running into that Numanian ambassador before I even got onto the platform to speak might have screwed me over, but I had made enough of an impression on everyone for them to give me their attention, anyway. He actually provided me with the perfect opportunity to humiliate him in a much more effective way. All the other ambassadors were making a huge deal out of my claim to land ownership, even now with the recent developments.
According to the game lore, the Gyumins had been practically erased as a people by Numanian settlers way back during their colonial era, and that gave me an idea. The land I had been claiming was already a part of their old territory, so I took the rest of it, including those last two cities, and decided to make my own country out of them. Bringing up the past like it was a war crime was a surefire way to get everyone to agree with my claim, and I could get all the protections that came with being part of the Aggregation of Countries, especially the diplomatic immunity.
As a peculiar function of the game that usually only applied to government NPCs from any nation, and definitely one that wasn’t supposed to belong to any player, diplomatic immunity had a lot of options that were horribly busted. It wasn’t created with the real concept of diplomatic immunity in mind, and I was going to abuse the hell out of the new definition as much as I could, but more on that later.
The only hiccup to my genius plan was the fact that I wasn’t actually from the Gyumin tribe at all. As a player character, I really didn’t have a part in the game lore. That was where Yomura’s falsified documents came in. If I could have inscrutable proof of my authentic lineage snuck in with several documents claimed by the colonials of several nations that had been in the land at the time, then they would have to assume that I was legitimate. But he would have needed a significant distraction so the infiltration teams could sneak up to each of the ambassadors to plant the bugs on them. Explosives seemed to do the work.
But no one could have just blown up a meeting of nations without some investigation going into it. If they really looked into it, they might have noticed that there was some sabotage, or worse, that it was self-sabotage, and it could have led right to me. So, I needed a scapegoat. Pinning it on another nation would have caused a war between us, and I didn’t know if I had the ability to stand up to national militias, especially Numania. I needed a neutral party that could be the likely culprit as well as benefit me from having the world hate them.
Who better than a bunch of famous heroes from a big guild?
They couldn’t resist the bait I laid out for them. My ability to create quests for heroes to complete came with real rewards, and no hero could possibly pass those up. For the promises of loot and experience for levels, they would do nearly anything that I wanted, including implicating themselves by looking for the ‘Gyumin’ to eliminate. With some proper timing coordinated by my team keeping an eye out for them, it was a piece of cake to make them out to be the terrorists behind this phony attack.
Not only could I manipulate the heroes into looking tyrannical and destructive, but I could also essentially weaponize the entire world against them for being tyrannical and destructive. Given that hero players were already like that, to begin with, I figured that it wouldn’t have been that hard of a sell. Given the reaction from the crowd around me looking up at the menacing Eagle League plane above the ruins of the Hall of Unity, I had a feeling that the people saw them in a less flattering light right about now. They were cowering behind my soldiers to protect themselves from the airplane that had come to stop me, per my unseen orders. Everyone was dancing around on my little puppet strings.
“Gyumin!” The plane’s loudspeaker shouted again. “Where are you? Goddamnit, why didn’t they put a quest marker on this guy or something? You’re worth a whole lot of experience, so we aren’t leaving until we find you and kill you. We’ll give you five minutes, and then we’re just gonna open fire on these assholes.”
“Won’t that kill a lot of people?” Another voice, higher-pitched, came over the speaker. “You’ll tank our hero rep, bro!”
“The experience we’re getting from this quest more than covers any rep we’ll lose from killing a few civilians.” The first voice replied to the second. “I’m not gonna waste my day searching through a bunch of guys when they’ll probably just come to us if they’re scared enough. They should have just put a marker on him, so we didn’t have to go through all of this anyway. Buggy ass game is just kil
ling me these days. What the hell is that noise? Oh, shit, the button’s still pressed, isn’t it? Ah, whatever. You heard me. Fuck all of you. Like it matters.”
The rumors spreading around the ambassadors huddled together were already electric and wild, the government officials coming up with an explanation that would help alleviate their terrified hearts. I might have found it pathetic if I wasn’t so happy to capitalize on their fears so soon. While just giving them a reason for all the chaos, I knew it was better if they came up with something themselves. Now just to hear their options.
“Why are they here for the Gyumin gentleman?” One ambassador asked another. “What worth could he have to them? Why would they attack us?”
“Numania really is trying to silence the Gyumin,” another answered. “And they’re willing to hire Egalitarian League heroes to do it! To use such dirty measures is deplorable! That might essentially prove that the man truly is a Gyumin with legitimacy to his claim!”
Eh, I didn’t like the idea of Numania being the bad guy if it meant I had to fight them any sooner than I was prepared for. I was keeping that in the back pocket just in case no other ideas came up.
“What? No! That’s ridiculous!” The Numanian ambassador, overhearing these rumors, tried to put a stop to it immediately. “Numania won’t resort to terrorism to get what it wants. I have no idea why these heroes are here! Perhaps they’re responding to the terrorist attack! Perhaps it’s the people of the land rising up against their oppressors!”
Nope, can’t have the heros look like good guys. Perhaps I should have intervened…
“Do you see any terrorists here besides the heroes?” The first ambassador shouted from across the courtyard. “They arrived here much too quickly for it to be an accident! They’re clearly the ones who caused this destruction!”
Nevermind.
“Well, whatever they want, Numania certainly has nothing to do with it!” The representative’s hands shook as he tried to compose himself. “Gyumin, if you really want to have this chunk of dirt yourself, why don’t you try protecting it?”
“Don’t worry, Sir Ambassador,” I called out to the man who had been arguing with me just moments before all of this, “we’re all sure that you’re not the ones behind this attack. They’re clearly here for me, though. What could they want? Why would they want to kill me just before I pleaded my case?”
“They’re trying to start a civil war in Numania!” an ambassador shouted from the opposite side of the courtyard. “Without the Gyumin native, the people will rebel when Numania tries to take back the land! It’ll be chaos!”
“Why would the heroes want chaos?” a second ambassador from that side asked. “They’ve always helped reduce the crime in our cities around the world! They’re the good guys!”
“Good guys with no more work after they disposed of the Ghoul!” yet another ambassador pointed out. “They must have grown tired of our peaceful times in the world. With the chaos they’re creating, they’ll have more hero work than ever!”
“Yeah, they’re always complaining about wanting more work for some reason!” another shouted from another corner of the huddle. “Who knew that they’d have become so desperate that they’d have resorted to attacking innocent people to make it happen! And they thought that they could simply rely on their reputation to get out of any repercussions for their actions. They’ve truly gotten bold.”
“How could the heroes have fallen so low?” the second ambassador cried out to heaven. “Were they not once champions of peace and justice? Why would they do this to us?”
“They were never on our side!” the ambassador beside him rebutted. “iI’s clear now that they’ve always been helping us like it was some kind of outlet for their terrifying powers.”
“If they want something to do, now they can deal with the wrath of every nation of the world.” The Numanian ambassador cracked his knuckles. “Gyumin man, as much as I know the president of Numania won’t want to give up this land, they want a civil war even less. As long as you’re alive, you might convince the people here to give up without a fight.”
I… wow. That really worked itself out, didn’t it? I thought I’d have to at least coax this kind of cooperation out of them a bit, maybe frame a few of the events myself so they would think about these things in my favor. But, here they were, coming up with the story and the motivation all by themselves, without a single leading input from myself. Some good RNG right there.
“I won’t let them die,” I assured him, “but I can’t promise you that they’ll give up their home without a fight.”
“Against my better judgment, I’ll offer you a deal.” The ambassador rolled his eyes, avoiding looking into mine. “You really want a place at the big kid’s table, then you can show you can pull your own weight by fighting against these hero terrorists. Our military can’t get here for another ten minutes, so that’s how long you have to make it happen.”
“That’ll be simple.” I took a stand. “They won’t kill me so easily, now that I’m back home where I belong.”
“That set of iron balls might do you good in a room full of politicians, but this is a battlefield.” The Numanian man walked over to where my girls and I were. “We should get you and your girls out of here before the heroes run out that timer of theirs. If we’re honest, your men will probably just be cannon fodder until ours show up.”
“I won’t abandon the fight just because of a threat.” I popped my neck. “I’ll have my men escort you and the others somewhere safe while I coordinate my men here. If I’m going to prove that I deserve a country, I should be able to handle it in wartime.”
“You’re gonna be a continual pain in my ass, aren’t you?” The Numanian rolled his eyes again. “Maybe I can convince the president to just give up on this place.”
“You can think about it after you’re somewhere safe.” I nudged him along as one of my soldiers put his hand on him, directing him towards a transport vehicle. “I hope that our countries can put the past behind us and look to the future someday soon!”
With the witnesses all being escorted somewhere far away, I prepared myself for what was sure to be an asskicking like those heroes were never going to recover from. My girls beside me also got themselves ready to roll, stretching themselves as the last of the ambassadors quickly rushed into the last transport vehicle to be zoomed away from the danger zone. All the while, the plane simply floated in the air, hovering on jets underneath it pointing down.
“Yomura?” I spoke over the commlink. “You finished?”
“Not quite,” he answered, “but if you’re curious about the plane, I’ve got people already working on their onboard computers. It’s tough security, but they’ve already made some headway in their systems.”
“You’re the best.” I stepped forward. “C’mon, girls. Let’s kick some ass.”
“See, look at that!” The first voice of the loudspeaker shouted. “I knew he’d show up with a little violence thrown around. I’m not playing HunterKiller’s bullshit today. Bad enough they made the stupid kids immortal. You’re the Gyumin guy, right? From the quest?”
“Who are you people?” I still played the part of the noble leader of the small nation while everyone was out in the open. “Why have you attacked this Aggregation meeting?”
“Look, we don’t fucking know what the fire’s about,” the voice said as a pair of guns appeared out of the bottom of the eagle plane’s mouth. “We’re just here to shoot you dead, so just stand still while we end your life real quick.”
“Hey, wait, look at them ladies!” a heavily synthesized third voice came onto the speaker. “Damn, look at them girls. Look at them titties! See if you can charm them or some shit! We can keep them around the lair in Bajang! Love me some trophy bitches!”
Natasha shuddered at the thought. I shared the sentiment. However, that man’s uninhibited horniness might just make this a thousand times easier for all of us. Not that I felt I needed it, but it was always
good to have. I had stacked the deck in my favor for this fight, brawling in my own territory to keep all the boosts the stats of my people and all of my raid bosses. I didn’t expect to lose. But it never hurt to prey on people’s weaknesses on top of other advantages.
“Fuck off, man!” The first voice shouted, “you can’t be serious! Couldn’t you have rubbed one out before you logged in today! God, why is it so hot on this plane?”
“Yeah! Hot ladies!” The man speaking through a computer filter kept up his awkward horniness. “Look at them! Look. At. Them. Ladies. You can’t tell me those bitches ain’t hot as fuck! Can’t we just take one? Just one! Get the one in the armor!”
“Let’s just get this shit over with so we can log the fuck out!” Another voice joined in the conversation, gruff and agitated. “I can’t believe we’re still talking about it instead of fucking firing the gun! Who cares about cyberbitches?”
“Bros! Let’s all chillax!” Yet another voice, as chill as a bro, came into the conversation. “How about I play a little song for all of you?”
“Do it, and I break your fingers.” The first voice threatened the fifth. “Everyone, get your shit together before we lose the guy.”
“Sorry, P0ww0w.” The second, third, and fifth voice said simultaneously.
“Fuck, I’ll do it!” The fourth voice broke rank.
As the arguing and playing commenced, the plane danced from side to side, twisting and turning in the air as it hovered on its special jets. I quietly wondered if their infighting was going to deal with them quicker than I could by just fighting them. After a while of watching the heroes in the plane struggle to get along, it finally settled down, and a suspicious lack of activity filled the air.
“Hey, why isn’t this stupid thing firing?” The fourth voice called out. “Why does this game have to bug out right when we’re trying to do something! Can’t you save it for when we’re not in the middle of a mission!”
