The ‘arguments’ between the diplomats of Red Dusk and the Empress of Blue Dawn were going as usual when the door suddenly opened without warning.
Emilia grinned when she saw the serious look on Noelle’s face. “Are they finally here?”
The gray-haired girl nodded. “It should take them less than twenty minutes to get to the second chamber.”
Naturally, the confused murmurs of ‘what’s going on’ were pointedly ignored by everyone in the know.
The crimson-haired girl sighed in relief. She almost thought it might never happen. “Proceed as planned, then.”
And then, under the dumbfounded gaze of the two diplomats, Dixie and Noelle knocked out their four bodyguards before they even had the time to realize that something was wrong, and easily flung them into the arms of the waiting Blue Dawn soldiers. “Put two of them in front of the door of the second chamber, and keep the other two… just in case we need spares.”
”…???”
Although they were too shocked to speak, the expressions of the diplomats from Red Dusk made what they were wondering more than clear. ‘Since when did our bodyguards come equipped with the additional feature of being a spare tire?’
Emilia grinned as she tapped her chin playfully. “I’m guessing the two of you are confused, huh? I suggest you remain quiet and peaceful, since my little girlfriend is quite heavy-handed when she gets the chance to hit people… especially ones she doesn’t like.”
The two diplomats took one look at Dixie, recalled how quickly she had knocked out two men more than twice her weight in a second, and nodded obediently. This girl clearly didn’t like either of them, though it was likely due to very different reasons.
The crimson-haired girl gave them a ‘kind’ smile. “Don’t worry, your confusion will be resolved very soon. Just watch.”
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After so many days of grueling overwork, taking in the fresh above-ground air once more instantly filled the already excited soldiers with renewed energy.
Of course, knowing how crucial and dangerous their mission was, none of them were stupid enough to jump or shout in excitement as they wanted.
Carefully scouting ahead while communicating with hand signals, they quickly made their way through the deserted corridor.
The sound of fierce discussion could be faintly heard even from such distance, with the sweet voice of the empress being especially distinct in the ears of the soldiers.
”Huh? You want to help me build schools and colleges in our empire? Do you mean to imply that my people look uneducated? Hmph!”
Naturally, this was just an old recording, but the soldiers had no way of knowing that.
Recalling the few videos they had seen of her, the voice perfectly coincided with the gorgeous face of a young girl acting both haughty and petulant, and some of them couldn’t help but grin in excitement.
If this girl didn’t immediately die in their ambush, they would be having plenty of ‘fun’ with her later. Well, even if she died, some of them may not really mind.
The team didn’t pay much attention to the two unconscious men in front of the closed door, though one of them did swiftly stab through both their necks using a military dagger, just to make sure.
Jerking mildly while choking on their own blood, the unconscious duo soon turned completely dead, never even realizing what had happened.
Unfortunately, neither the soldiers nor their captain Tom recognized these two as the bodyguards sent alongside their own diplomats, and only thought they must be soldiers of the empire.
After all, since they were supposed to kill everyone inside the room anyway, there was no need for them to be aware of their ‘allied forces’ in the first place, or so went the reasoning of the government of Red Dusk.
Without waiting for a signal from their leader, the soldiers quickly readied their weapons and got into position to strike.
Tom just grit his teeth and hurriedly gave them the ‘go’ in a futile attempt at preserving his dignity, but his ‘subordinates’ had already burst through the door without giving him another glance.
Both enraged and helpless, he could only follow after them with his gun blazing, barely resisting the urge to gun down his own companions.
Since they already knew of the rough positions of everyone around, and were also aware that there would be certain ‘dangerous elements’ inside, the soldiers immediately started raining down bullets the moment they burst in without a second’s delay.
Thousands of rounds were emptied within a minute, and the ravaging of high-caliber bullets left not a single corner of the room untouched. Even with their in-ear hearing protection, most of them felt like they might have gone completely deaf.
Blood and debris flew all around in the chaos as the soldiers raining fire slaughtered the occupants of the room without mercy, regardless of their affiliation.
Of course, the intensity of their fire was much lower at the center-most position where Emilia was supposed to be, but it was still quite unlikely for her to survive unscathed.
The lack of mournful and despairing screams soon made it clear, however, that something was very, very wrong.
Before they could even see the situation clearly through the dust and smoke, though, the sound of leaking gas passed through their ears like the final whisper of a devil, and their consciousness soon plunged into darkness.
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Although the two diplomats were shocked to see a bunch of ruffians with big guns burst into a room completely identical to their own and start raining hell, what terrified them even more was the fact that they could hear the sound of heavy gunfire not far from their location.
Even if more than half their brains were frozen from fear, it was impossible for them not to realize that the real target of those ‘terrorists’ definitely couldn’t be those dummies with blood bags and speakers.
As for who they were really after… it definitely had to be the empress, right?
Even if the security at Blue Dawn was much more lackluster compared to what their commonwealth would have had, it still couldn’t have been easy to sneak into such a location with guns, let alone do it at this kind of scale.
Considering their identity and the impact of their deaths, they didn’t think anyone else would be ‘worth the effort’ in this room other than her.
But even if they already had a faint guess that the ‘childish’ empress had already known something like this would happen from the start, they still found her calm smile to be extremely disorienting in light of the situation.
”Any guesses on their identity?”
Linda quickly shook her head in denial. “Believe me, this had nothing to do with us!”
”Oh?”
While Emilia tilted her head curiously, Noelle and Dixie gave the woman a derisive smile.
”Do you think your words still hold any weight after something like this?”
”Even if you knew, would you tell us?”
Linda naturally couldn’t care less about her dignity as an older woman at the moment, and quickly bowed in front of her ‘idol’. “Y-You must believe me! If I really knew about it in advance, I would never let anyone endanger you for any reason!”
As if worried no one would believe her anyway, she coughed. “A-Anyway, if something really happened to you with me around, wouldn’t my daughter hound me to death later?”
The male diplomat almost coughed out blood in anger, wondering just how fragile the ‘admirable’ loyalty of this woman had really been all along. But when he thought about the current situation, he realized that his colleague might just have had a rare moment of genius.
With the temperament of this kiddy empress, wasn’t appealing to her pride the best way to convince her of the truth?
Thinking about it that way, he also nodded hurriedly. “Everyone can see that those people shot without a care for who they were going to kill. It must definitely be someone who hates both the Blue Dawn and the Red Dusk! No, maybe it might even be someone who wants to sow discord between us!”
If not for Emilia’s request to let her film a little bit of their’ live reactions’ to possibly use later, not to mention Dixie, maybe even Noelle would have just knocked the man out and stuffed him in a dark cell by now.
As it was, though, Dixie still almost failed to resist the urge to beat him to death. “Do you think we’re stupid—!”
Emilia giggled as she patted the dark-haired girl’s hand to calm the girl down. “No need to argue so much. Why not take a closer look at the screen?”
The two diplomats could only do as they were told, though the confusion was apparent on their faces at a glance.
Surprisingly, multiple people in full Hazmat suits had entered the room where the ‘terrorists’ were lying unconscious, and started removing the black masks on their faces.
The two diplomats were still a little confused at first, but when Tom’s face came into view, they almost couldn’t believe their eyes.
How could the chief of their intelligence division be among this bunch of terrorists?!
Of course, their expressions also easily gave away the fact that they recognized the man, but it was already too late by the time they realized it.
Emilia grinned. “The two of you know him, right?”
The male diplomat’s face turned pale, but futile as he knew it was, he still tried his best to pretend to be calm. “T-That is, uh, h-he does have a face very similar to someone we know, b-but that only goes to show how well prepared our enemy was in their attempt to sow discord!”
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