"Truly unexpected! To think we would meet again, everyone!"
When the Confessarius saw the five Emperor's Blades being escorted in, he began chatting with these fellows in a tone full of schadenfreude. At this point, he had come to terms with his situation; with his abilities, escaping was absolutely impossible. Even if he could break through this strange barrier, his end would be nothing more than serving as an extra meal for those massive beasts.
Besides, it was merely losing a battle. Although his own tactical errors were part of the reason, the combat strength of this group was indeed somewhat beyond common sense. At the very least, it was so for the Sarkaz... perhaps, one might even need to include the legendary military branch of the Emperor's Blades in that assessment.
Lost in thought, he glanced at those Emperor's Blades who had even lost their masks in the struggle, silently adding them to the list of the defeated in his heart. To be able to capture these fellows alive without suffering any losses—he asked himself honestly, even if he led his own elites, he absolutely could not have achieved such a feat.
If one's skills are inferior, one must surrender, even though the current situation had become disadvantageous to an extreme degree.
In response to his mockery, the Emperor's Blades only gave a cold snort and ignored him. After all, this operation was far too humiliating for them. They were likely the first batch of Emperor's Blades in history to be captured alive, and it wasn't even by the soldiers of another powerful nation, but by a group of Infected with mediocre equipment!
If word of this got out, the five of them would likely never be able to hold their heads up among their colleagues again. They would become the lowest tier among the Emperor's Blades—inferior goods who couldn't even defeat a group of Infected.
They did not know that they weren't actually the first batch of Emperor's Blades to be pinned to the ground and beaten by this group of Infected; it was just that the other group kept their mouths shut. However, having reached this point, they also understood that their prior concerns were correct—this group was indeed very strange!
In contrast to the delicate situation outside, the four people inside the room appeared quite calm, simply sitting there discussing matters peacefully.
"I wonder what the intentions of you all are now? Can you agree to my proposal? In exchange, I will find a way to help you resolve the issue regarding these Emperor's Blades. How does that sound?"
To ensure the success of this cooperation, Kal'tsit had even taken on the burden of dealing with these Emperor's Blades—a group that was very troublesome even for her. From this, one could see how intense Kal'tsit's desire was to obtain these soldiers and these two big figures.
And she did not hide this intense feeling. Kal'tsit's intuition told her that no matter how much she tried to hide it, it would be to no avail. Although she wasn't clear on why she had this baseless feeling, she trusted the intuition she had honed over many years implicitly; sometimes, this feeling was more useful than her own intellect. For example, when she agreed to let the Doctor stay in Babel to hold a key position, her reason had once voiced extremely strong protests against the proposal.
"That point is not an issue, but there is one thing I am concerned about: how can we ensure they won't bring people back here again?"
Talulah asked this question without a second thought. This time, they could rely on cooperation with those nobles to sneak into Ursus, but would it be impossible next time? Even if she wasn't afraid of these troubles, such things happening frequently would be quite annoying. Just like this time, they had prepared for so long! The reason the battle went so smoothly, besides the techniques Jeanne gave them, was that they had received news in advance—what about next time?
And what was Patriot doing at this moment? He sat silently to the side, listening to the conversation of these three without speaking. For him, seeing these two—especially Talulah—deal with Kal'tsit was also a form of training. After all, he had never met anyone with better eloquence than Kal'tsit.
However, even though that was the case, if Talulah were truly led into a pit by Kal'tsit and Jeanne hadn't noticed, he would speak up to remind them. But Patriot felt it wouldn't come to that, because Kal'tsit was not the type of person who would resort to unscrupulous means to harm others for her own goals. At least, not in his view.
"I have indeed pre-emptively considered this matter, so I brought this. It can ensure they no longer harass your lives."
Hearing Talulah's concern, Kal'tsit nodded and pulled a piece of parchment from her robe, covered in dense, ancient Sarkaz script.
Jeanne and the other didn't recognize what it was at all, but looking at it, it seemed to be something quite important within the Sarkaz race, because Patriot's expression became serious. Or rather, his eyes became serious. This old gentleman, wearing that mask of his, made it impossible to see any changes in his facial expression.
Consequently, Jeanne and Talulah turned their gazes toward Patriot, who was sitting there, wanting to know from him what exactly this thing was.
"This thing is called a Court Covenant. Sarkaz who sign this are absolutely forbidden from violating the regulations written upon it."
Before Patriot could explain the origin of this item, Kal'tsit explained its function. Only then did Patriot snap back to his senses, nodding to the two of them to indicate that it was the truth. Even for someone like Patriot, who had experienced great storms, the look of shock when he saw this Court Covenant was written clearly in his eyes.
Although Jeanne didn't understand how Mr. Patriot had managed to convey the extremely turbulent state of his mind to them using only his eyes.
"This... is actually a genuine Court Covenant? You indeed anticipated what was happening here and asked Her Highness for this covenant?"
The Court Covenant was an item designed to prevent Sarkaz from engaging in meaningless internal strife, created to ensure that peace talks between various Sarkaz tribes had the value they ought to have. Those capable of creating such a covenant with compulsory effects—thinking within this race—only the successive Demon Kings could do so, which also guaranteed its fairness to a certain extent.
"To be honest, I truly did not anticipate the current situation. Originally, I thought both sides of you would fight to a stalemate, which is why I specifically asked for this covenant."
Kal'tsit immediately retorted after hearing Patriot's words. She truly had not expected Jeanne and the others' military power to be so fierce that two people could overturn them. In her estimation, even if Jeanne had the ultimate weapon of Holy Water, the confrontation with the Kazdel personal guards wouldn't have been such a one-sided affair.
The current situation could only be said to be a misjudgment on her part—or rather, she had won the bet that "that bastard" had previously made with her.
Kal'tsit then handed the covenant to Patriot, signaling him to check the specific contents and see if there was anything that harmed their relevant interests. Although Patriot trusted this Dame very much, he still looked through it very carefully from beginning to end, not even missing the patterns nearby.
In truth, this was the first Court Covenant he had handled. Previously, the Sarkaz were either falling apart or in constant war for years; there had been no place to use such a thing.
"From what I can see now, there are no issues. After the other party returns, they may not reveal anything regarding our side to others in any form, and our side will release them..."
Patriot looked at the covenant written in ancient Sarkaz and translated it word for word for Talulah and Jeanne before handing it to Talulah. When Talulah took the item, she didn't recognize a single one of the strange characters on it; looking at it made her feel as if her head was starting to ache, so she quickly handed it to a curious Jeanne while she herself continued chatting with Kal'tsit.
Although Jeanne didn't recognize what was written either, she had someone behind her! That miraculous Revelation served as a translation dictionary. However, Jeanne took the item very carefully, mainly because she felt there was indeed some kind of spell on this thing; she was worried she might accidentally ruin it if she wasn't careful.
She could feel how complex the spell on this was; this thing was definitely not something that Theresa could just throw to Kal'tsit after scribbling a few lines. Otherwise, this mediation ambassador wouldn't have had to advance alone and rush so much that she almost missed the timeframe of their battle.
"It seems you indeed have the intention to cooperate, so I will thank you all first. As for the compensation for your losses this time, I wonder what you need me to do?"
Seeing that Talulah and the others clearly expressed their willingness to sign this covenant, Kal'tsit naturally thanked them for being willing to accept her suggestion. After all, the other party had come to invade them; even killing them on the spot would have been nothing. The fact that they were willing to accept was already a very satisfactory answer for Kal'tsit.
Hearing the words "compensation for losses," Jeanne and Talulah looked at each other with complex expressions. Did they even have such a thing as "losses"? Aside from that soldier who was beaten by FrostNova, their greatest loss was the Patriot they had been treating for a long time, plus some Holy Water.
Although the outside world placed immense importance on Holy Water, to them, it really wasn't much of an issue; at any rate, Jeanne didn't care much about it. But when it came to compensation, the current Talulah was no longer the person she was back in Chernobog who knew nothing about the organization called Babel.
She was already clear on what the organization Babel represented—not only the base of one of the twin kings of Kazdel but also Terra's premier medical hub. The Oripathy suppressants produced there were their main source of income; they had even reached this stage of fighting with Theresis, who controlled the major industrial cities of Kazdel, by relying on the export of several types of medicine.
After thinking it over repeatedly, Talulah decided what compensation for losses she should request from Kal'tsit to be considered appropriate.