PART 2/2
“Do you think I would lose to you in a fight?” Asmo asked Keiki.
“Yes,” she responded.
“Why?”
“My weapon has been fitted with higher-quality Enchantments, and I have a slight Level advantage above you. These two pieces of information give me the upper hand, and in addition to that, I believe I have more fighting experience, I am more tactically-minded and could outmaneuver you in the battlefield, and my Dexterity-based build counters yours as an Archer, as I can dodge and deflect attacks with my sword. These compounding factors would lead to me having overwhelming dominance in a combat encounter.”
“Well analyzed,” Asmo nodded. “Now prove it.”
Carison scooted his chair back, clearly anticipating a fight to break out. He was Unclassed, so Asmo understood his concern of collateral damage, but he was incorrect in thinking Keiki would attack.
She stared at Asmo. “I cannot. Killing or even harming you would surely lead to my arrest and execution by the Demons.”
“So if we were to fight, you would die?”
“...Yes, in short.”“So I would not lose. At worst, we would draw.”
“That is hardly a fair scenario. In a true battle—”
“A true battle is one that happens in reality, yes? Not in some imaginary realm? In a true battle, Demons would rush into this room the moment they heard something wrong, seize you, and kill you before you could scratch me. If your build counters mine, my position counters your build.”
“Having guards is hardly an impressive feat.”
“And yet I do, and you do not. As I said before, you have a specialized set of skills. That specialization is in fair strength. It is appreciable. However, what I lack to you in fair strength, I have in unfair strength. I scheme, and plot, and take over. And us schemers need you fair fighters. And you fair fighters need us schemers. We work together, each making up for the other’s weaknesses. Like two soldiers fighting back to back. Can you respect that?”
Keiki tilted her head to the side, considering Asmo’s question, before finally saying, “I suppose so.”
“Good.” Asmo turned to the healer. “Jon.”
“I suppose you have a question for me?” Jon said in a patient voice. “You want me to tell you something about yourself?”
“No. For you, I want you to tell me something about you.”
He raised his eyebrows. “A pleasant surprise. I was beginning to think you were self-centered. What do you want to know?”
“Why do you do what you do?”
He looked at Asmo, now clearly amused. “That’s quite the broad question.”
“Let me narrow it down, then. Why are you a healer?”
“Ah. Well, I wanted to save lives.”
“So then, why do you work with a force of Demons? Sounds rather hypocritical to me.”
He laughed. “Isn’t it hypocritical of you to criticize me for doing what you’re doing?”
“No. I never claimed to want to save lives.”
He pursed his lips. “Well then. I suppose I consider it to save more lives in the long run if we get rid of this one person to save the many. To put things frankly, it is essentially a numbers game. Same way I viewed my own life. I sacrificed my money, time, and quality of life to help many others get their own money, time, and quality of life back by healing them for free, donating to the needy, and doing unpaid labor. And that was a good thing, because I’m only making one person suffer—myself—in order to help so many others. So to kill a single person to save so many more? I feel that this is simply the righteous thing to do. If I were in this fugitive’s position, I’d slit my own throat in an instant. As would I slit a child’s, a mother’s, anyone who needs to be killed to save the people as a whole.”
“I see,” Asmo nodded. “But I suppose you do not particularly like the Demons? They are the ones forcing you to choose between killing one and killing many.”
“I suppose I don’t.”
“Do you consider their happiness, however? If the fugitive dies, that is only one death. But it makes countless Demons happy.”
“I do not see why I would ever consider the happiness of non-Humans.”
“So then, ousting the Demons would be your ideal scenario?”
“But to do so is foolishness. There would be a significant chance—nay, an inescapable eventuality—that ousting the Demons from the Overworld would end in fighting, conflict, war, and only more Human deaths. This is the path that most likely ends in the most happiness for Humanity.”
“So what do you think about working for me, then?”
“It’s an unfortunate, but necessary, circumstance.”
“And that is where I disagree. In fact, I see no connection between what you have established about your feelings on the Demons, and what you think of me.”
He frowned. “To work for you is to work for the Demons. As I said, while I think it is the best option to ensure the good of Humanity, I would still rather the Demons not—”
“But who ever established that to work for me is to work for the Demons?”
Jon stared at Asmo suspiciously.
“I work alongside the Demons currently. But I do not share their goals. My goals are those of a Human being. Working for me is not like working for Xhag’duul, or Quinmorada, or the fake king. It is only similar to working for, and alongside, your fellow man. I understand your numbers game. I can work with you on it. They will not.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” Jon said. “But I’m not sure I fully follow. What do you plan to do that doesn’t align with the Demons?”
“I am very glad you brought me to that.” Asmo turned around to face the illuboard she’d set up in the beginning of the meeting. The kingdom stared back at her. “You see, you may want to work with me because I have a breadth of knowledge, or a respectable work ethic, or a strategic mind, or simply because I am a Human being. But there is one reason that I believe can unify us all.”
She used the Enchanted stick to draw a circle on the floor plan of the palace, around the war room. The room they were currently in.
“This circle represents our circle of influence. It is the place we own. As a team of five, we currently control this room, and this room only. Our place, that we can use, where we have the resources, where we give the orders, where we make the decisions. This is our territory.”
She then drew circles around a few of the outer cities she’d drawn. Tapinsouth, Fronttown, and Carth.
“How long until this is the case? How long until these cities are also under our control?”
Keiki spoke up first. “To oust the Demons and enact a full military takeover would be…costly. We would need armies, which would mean we would need resources. Weapons, manpower, Classers to fight off the Demons, who would obviously want to take back their own captured territory…perhaps three years.”
“A fair estimate,” Asmo said. “Any other guesses?”
“I would say it wouldn’t take so long,” Carison said. “Asmo never said anything about a military takeover. This would simply be a location where we control what decisions are made more prominently than the Demons do. If we could seize the production lines for each of these cities, the monopoly we could gain would effectively do just that. Personally, I don’t think it would take much longer than six months, if we made the right decisions and formed the right connections.”
Asmo nodded. “Anyone else have any better ideas?”
Nobody spoke up.
“Two weeks.”
Everyone looked at her, intrigued.
“By my estimate, it would take two weeks to own these three cities,” Asmo repeated. Then she turned back to the illuboard and drew a circle around the palace itself—not just the war room, but the entire building. “How about how long it would take for this to happen? Or,” she drew a circle around the entire capital city of Kingstown. “This?”
Jon leaned forward. “Are you suggesting a coup?”
“I am not suggesting one, I am already planning it. How long?”
Nobody answered her question.
“Four weeks.”
They all seemed completely on the hook at this point.
“And how about,” Asmo turned and drew a circle around the entire kingdom of Koinkar. “This?”
“...”
“That is a question whose answer depends entirely on your performance,” Asmo said. “But I do believe that it, like the answers to the questions before, will be shorter than you anticipate.”
“One does not simply take over a kingdom,” Winic said. “You would need…Do you even understand the artifacts this country has to back up its power? Do you understand what it can do when threatened?”
“And where do we come into all of this?” Carison asked.
“I do not believe you would be able to seize control of the kingdom at all, much less in such a short time,” Keiki challenged.
“We can,” Asmo said, looking at all of them. “Would you like to know how?”