Another Worldly Summons

Chapter 75: Sums Of All Fear

As the exhibit ended, the delegates were guided to the main meeting room. Upon entering, they were taken aback by the sheer size of the room, with over three thousand seats for just around 70 foreign delegates. Or what the monitors in the room displayed in a constant stream of information, gathering feedback from the murmurs of the delegations.

"Looks like that mage escort from Argathan has quite the curvaceous body," one of the monitor staff remarked jokingly. The staff had been monitoring the situation for several hours since the arrival of the delegations. Most of the talks were about business or trade treaty proposals, and the occasional amusement from the foreign delegates. It was all rather predictable, but the council wanted more.

They wanted to know what was going on with the Eimor and Esperanto-Heiskanen sides. Both sides were rather silent most of the time, only murmuring incomprehensible words. The staff could understand the words, but the conversation seemed predetermined and too cryptic for them to understand. One of the Eimorian delegates had even given an order to "go there, confirm it," before everyone scattered around the booths. The staff were still skeptical, probably spying to confirm that their tech was the only thing of value.

Meanwhile, on the Saffine side, things were rather stiff and restless, much like the Eimorians. Saffine herself was more like a country bumpkin or a kid that had just received permission to go out to the park. She was enthusiastic despite most of her questions and inquiries being self-answered or found in tabloids. The knights and other Esperanto-Heiskanen officials reprimanded her to act like a queen, but she didn't seem to care. The floating drone glinted it's visors towards the officials, silencing them. It seemed to be leaving Saffine to her own camaraderies and act what she pleases. She was one of the priorities so far, more important than Eimor itself, as they posed no threat to ASEAN. Compared to Esperanto-Heiskanen, there was a noticeable power difference. Even though Eimor was a superpower, many were betting that Esperanto-Heiskanen would win a war against them.

The staff turned to the man in the brown military uniform, a Muish security commander contingent for their ambassador to ASEAN. "What's your assessment of their behavior, Mister Special Attache?"

"Central Law is the most modest out of the civilized countries," he replied. "As expected, Altarans will be more reserved as they're sandwiched by the civilized countries. Argathans are straightforward and blunt. I don't know much about this Queen Saffine, but the Eimorians are acting strange."

"Acting strange?" One of the staff asked.

"They look down on mechanical civilization like us, as inferior. They're magic-centric folks in a blunt manner," he said, with a bitter smile. "That's why even if ASEAN defeats Parpaldia, I don't think it will warrant them to personally come to your country and behave in such a strange manner."

The Muish side is quite bewildered in the room. They are one of the few requested by ASEAN to confirm how the people of these countries act to ensure they won't mess things up. As they don't know their cultural and common sense, they asked for allied countries to visit and correct any wrong or possibly offending topics or matters to the delegates.

"I might be wrong," the man continued, "but I guarantee no Eimorian will act in these oblivious manners."

The staff looked at him expectantly. "So what now? Won't they do anything funny, right?"

As the talks continued, the Muish security commander began to elaborate on his observations. "The Eimorian delegates seem to be acting strange as I said earlier, and it's not just their superiority complex towards mechanical civilizations. They've been murmuring about things that we can't quite make out, and their behavior seems rather cryptic."

The monitoring team looked at each other, intrigued by this new information. "Could they be up to something?" one of them asked.

"It's hard to say," the commander replied. "But I wouldn't rule out the possibility. I myself considered them as oddball, I suggest you need to keep a close eye on them."