THE LORD IS TOO OVERBEARING

"Will you two immediately go home after this?"

"No. Is that some kind of an implicit way to tell we are not welcome to stay?"

"Anthony contacted me, so I want to resume our talk tonight."

Upon hearing Basil's words, Blake immediately nodded his head with a smile. He hadn't forgotten that Basil was the undisputed Supreme Genius of Braxtein, whom the King held dearly, so there was no reason for him to hold Basil back.

"That old man really knows when to disturb our time, doesn't he?" Iliana frowned as Basil stood up.

"It won't be long, I promise," Basil replied before kissing her.

Turning to Ione, Basil nodded his head lightly as his way to tell her he was entrusting Iliana to her. She nodded her head back, and that was the cue for him to leave.

Snap!

He disappeared in a flash, leaving the people wondering what news would come out after the discussion he had with Anthony. They had an inkling that something big would happen soon.

...

Due to security reasons, Basil was only allowed to set a [Checkpoint] in the garden of the palace. He, of course, had set an undetectable [Checkpoint] in the inner part of the palace, but he never teleported himself there whenever he was called to the palace.

The reason was simple. He didn't have any intention to betray the Kingdom yet—he wasn't strong enough.

"Welcome, Master Pacifer."

Despite teleporting himself in the garden, Basil was still greeted by the guards as if he came from the gate. They already knew Basil's habit, so they always came there whenever they heard he was coming.

Anthony didn't necessarily tell them to—Basil even preferred not being greeted at all whenever he visited the palace—but they still came there to see Basil, whose brilliance shook the entire Kingdom.

"That was quick. I thought I was interrupting your time with your sweetheart."

Upon stepping into the stunning gazebo they always had their talked in, Anthony greeted Basil with a knowing smile. Basil didn't show much reaction; he merely sat himself down.

"She was pretty pissed about that." Basil nodded his head lightly. "She said she might consider beating another Commander from the Royal Escort."

"Please, tell her to be more tamed. Last time, she beat up a Legion Commander simply because said Legion Commander accidentally sneezed beside her," Anthony replied with a wry smile. "Very few soldiers now dare to even look at her."

"Don't worry, that is just how she expresses her love."

"My arse tells more sense than that statement, and it can't even speak," Anthony retorted dryly.

Silence abruptly filled the space between the two as soon as the tea was ready. Both of them were avid tea connoisseurs, so they really took their time in enjoying their tea.

Half a minute passed—after they had appreciated the tea enough, they put their teacup down. Looking at each other silently for a couple of seconds, both of them nodded their head at the same time.

"That was shite," Basil remarked.

"It was shite indeed." Anthony agreed as he clicked his tongue. "For it to be sold for a hundred gold per gram is simply a disgrace."

In this world, a hundred gold could already feed a family of six for ten months. It was an enormous amount of money, and Nobles would even bulge their eyes out if they heard it was spent on a mere gram of tea.

Obviously, as a King, Anthony wouldn't buy tea for a gram; he bought more than a kilogram of it, which means he had spent more than a hundred thousand gold on it. It was a very expensive tea, which was one of the reasons why it was good.

Despite so, the two connoisseurs still dared to trash talk the tea. The high price didn't affect their palates—they had enough money to buy tons of it—so they were quite honest in their opinion.

"Kuhum! That aside, let's talk about business."

"I don't get paid enough to be your business partner," Basil retorted dryly.

"My support is priceless," Anthony stated surely, prompting Basil to shake his head faintly. Taking that as a cue to Basil's readiness to have the talk, he said, "The summit will be held in a month."

"It is postponed?"

"Yes. We have thought about it, and we decided to be a bit bolder about it."

Basil hummed to himself as he looked at Anthony. The idea of forming the alliance army was his; he suggested it when he was having a casual chat with Anthony over a tea half a year ago.

That was the reason why he wasn't really surprised when the discussion was brought up sooner than it should. Despite so, he didn't expect that his suggestion would immediately be realized after half a year.

"In this summit, who do we want to convince?" Just in case, Basil asked.

"The other four races," Anthony answered simply.

In his past life, the alliance army was first suggested by Arthean Empire—the Human Empire. A summit was conducted between the Five Emperors of the Five Races, and the alliance army was formed a week after it.

The alliance army was formed to counter the Outbreak and conquer the Obelisks that had the potential to have an Outbreak. The command was held by the Human Emperor by vote, and it went very well until the Great Pontiff held some authority over it.

"This is not what we initially planned."

This time, Basil suggested that the alliance army should be formed between the Five Kingdoms of Arthean Empire to avoid the Great Pontiff meddling in the affair.

Braxtein Kingdom, as the pioneer, should be able to hold the biggest command over the alliance army, but now that the other races had been involved too, the command would fall into the hands of the Empire sooner or later.

In other words, by the end of the day, the Great Pontiff—the Church would take full control of it just like how it had been in his past life.

"This is a very bad decision on your side. I am disappointed." Basil shook his head.

"I knew you were going to say that. As I expected, we really have many things in common," Anthony remarked with a smile. "Hear me out—let me explain myself. What we are aiming is not all of the races, but those who are willing to be our allies."

"Please, don't torture me with the suspense. Explain in details."

"Rather than an intra-imperial relation, what we are going to cultivate is an intra-royal relation. The Empire has no right to meddle in our business as long as it concerns the affair between one Kingdom to another Kingdom."

"You do know that the terms 'Kingdom' only exists in the Human Empire, don't you? Other than ours, none of the remaining four Empires have Kingdoms under them," Basil reminded. "It won't work."

Smiling gleefully, Anthony remarked, "Very keen indeed. Very keen." Clearing his throat, he explained, "Although the remaining four Empires don't have Kingdoms under them, they have many tribes under them. We are going to establish a cooperation with them."

Basil already got where the talk was going, but he still couldn't help shaking his head. Anthony was too naive to think a tribe would be able to help them a lot.

A tribe had a population that was less than the people inhabiting a Viscountcy. No matter how powerful their physique was or how good they were in Magic, it wouldn't affect the overall power of the army as long as they didn't have a powerhouse.

"I know what you are thinking, and I have thought about it too," Anthony assured. "One of the most prestigious Elven tribes is having a little bit of a problem. As long as we can help them, we will be able to rope the other tribes and powerhouses in."

"Hoh? That is interesting." Basil quirked his eyebrow. He never heard anything about this 'problem.'

"You see, the eldest daughter of the head tribe is feeling lonely. She needs someone to accompany her, so I want you to—I was joking! I was joking."

Anthony stopped joking around when Basil stood up. He knew Basil would really nope out of the project if he kept pushing his buttons, so he immediately got serious ... Of course, not after chuckling a bit more.

"There was a little misunderstanding between a certain tribe of Light Elves and a certain tribe of Dark Elves. The misunderstanding has quickly escalated, and the Light Elf's side reached out to us to ask for our help."

"They need our skills in negotiation?"

"Huh? How did you know?" Anthony blinked his eyes in surprise.

"That is very predictable. Elves are very bad at expressing themselves."

A blatant lie had just been told. Basil knew about it not because the Elf's nature, but because this event had happened in his past life before.

The Elven Race had been known as the third most peaceful race after the Fairies and Spirits. They rarely had a conflict with each other; so in his past life, the world was quite shocked to hear them having a conflict.

None had dared to meddle but the humans. They immediately visited the Great Forest of Yitoupheo like a Knight in a shining white armour to salvage the situation.

After spending a week there, however, they immediately retreated because they had figured out the real reason of the 'conflict.' They didn't dare to proceed anymore after losing so many people.

"I will go," Basil said simply. "Let me bring Iliana and her Legion with me."

Sipping his tea with a small smile, Anthony asked, "Are you sure you only want to bring a Legion with you? This conflict may result in a disappearance of either of the two sides—I can provide you with ten Legions."

"Don't worry. I don't need them to fight in a war." Basil smirked faintly. "I just need them to make sure no pest approaches me when I am busy with my things."

Anthony didn't understand quite well what Basil was talking about, but he nodded his head nonetheless. He knew Basil had another brilliant idea, and he trusted him enough to let him do what he deemed fit.

'It wasn't clear what Mythical Beast it was, but there is a possibility they fought a Dragon back then,' Basil thought to himself with a smile. 'What matters is, it was said it had lost its Core. If nothing changed... The current me should be able to take it down.'