Daneel had received the message because he had asked the system to remotely monitor all important communication trinkets, whose physical copies were placed in his chambers. So, he decided to go there to reply.
"Faxul, find a discrete location, underground, somewhere. It doesn"t matter if it"s in your Kingdom or mine. Finalize it, and begin construction. Make sure none of the others find out. Maybe steal away workers and pay them handsomely. I have a way to change their memories, so don"t worry about that."
Nodding resolutely, Faxul waited for Daneel to lift the anti-teleportation barrier around him, which let him teleport away discreetly, removing the chance that someone could have seen him on his way out.
Next, Daneel reached his chambers before heading to the table in the corner of the room. On it, there were two trinkets flas.h.i.+ng: the first was Axelor"s, which was still waiting for his reply on the matter of the War Games. The second…was from Arafell.
Touching it, Daneel spoke in a neutral voice.
"What do you want?"
"King Daneel! I…"
At first, it was the innocent voice which had sent the message that spoke. She seemed hurt because he had been rude on purpose, but that voice cut away after a moment when the Queen, apparently, took over.
"No pleasantries, eh? After your little show, this girl likes you even more, just like the thousands all over the continent. You"re the heartthrob of Angaria, you know."
"Get to the point, or I"m ending this conversation."
"There"s no need to get so-"
"The last time I saw you, you were about to chase me down and kill me and my soldiers."
Daneel was honestly sickened by this two-faced Queen who was talking casually for some reason, right now. All he wanted to do was find out her reason behind accepting that suspicious offer to start an event like the War Games, but he hadn"t wanted to ask about it, by himself.
The Queen let out a short laugh as she heard this, which sounded like the melody of tinkling bells from a place of wors.h.i.+p.
Of course, this only made Daneel remember that instance where he had been forced to kneel to her more.
"Oh, that? It was just a fit of anger! I wouldn"t have killed any of you! I might merely have…tried to persuade you, before letting you go! After all, how would it look if the esteemed Queen of Arafell had guests over and took undue advantage of their presence in her Palace? So, what have you been up to?"
"Oh, nothing. Just building a torture maze for my most trusted commanders. Why don"t you take a sponsored, express tour inside? I promise, you"ll love it so much that you"ll want to stay back! I would insist that you do."
Daneel felt like saying this, but he held his tongue. That feeling of being chased really had irked him to no end. h.e.l.l, right now, he wondered whether he should be considering that this move from the Queen, to accept the War Games, was some sort of sign that she had allied with Axelor.
Yet, with her ego, he knew that that was impossible.
Gritting his teeth, Daneel said, "None of your business. Now, get to the point or I hang up in the next second."
"All right, fine! I need your help. I have no idea why that dumb monkey from Axelor proposed those War Games, but I think it is a perfect opportunity to sneak into his Kingdom and steal the parts of the Grand Inheritance that he has. Or, if he carries them with him, to ambush him and take them from him. That is why I agreed to his proposal."
Daneel took two seconds to answer.
"Yeah…No thanks. You"re on your own. Good luck with that."
Saying so, Daneel cut the connection and…waited.
With a smirk, he could just imagine the outrage that must be on display in Arafell right now.
He could remember exactly how much anyone hated to be hung up on, and, this was something that was supposed to especially infuriate women, at least, if he chose to believe TV shows.
That was exactly his objective.
Sure enough, a scorch mark had just been added to the Royal Throne Room in the Kingdom of Arafell.
"THAT LITTLE USELESS a.r.s.e CUT THE CONNECTION ON ME?! WHEN I CALLED HIM TO GIVE HIM A CHANCE?!"
Even though Priscilla was frantically trying to calm the Queen down, her efforts were bearing no fruits.
"I REEVALUATED HIM! BUT HE STILL…"
"Queen Arafell, he really must be under the wrong impression that you wanted to kill him before. It is difficult to look past something like that."
As Priscilla repeatedly said stuff like this, the Queen finally calmed down and placed the call again.
Seeing the trinket flash, Daneel tapped his foot and let it ring for 2 seconds, then 5, then 10.
Finally, after 15 seconds, he answered.
"Didn"t I give you my answer? What else do you want?"
"YOU-"
"Queen!"
"ARGH! Alright! Priscilla says I should be clear-headed, and the girl is right. Look. I need your help. Both of us are in possession of everything in our Empire Spirit Pedestals hidden behind the second seal. Even though I am powerful, I"m not confident in taking down the crazy guy who"s sealed in Axelor. We need to fight together. I"ll even promise you two things: half the spoils, and an oath. We can split the rewards, first: One piece of the Grand Inheritance, each. After that, I"ll make you an oath that I would give away the parts that I have if you a.s.semble the rest, while you swear the same thing. This is the best compromise I can reach, keeping the continent"s safety in mind."
Daneel couldn"t help but scoff as he heard this.
If he couldn"t tell that she was full of sh*t, then he might as well step down from his post right now.
Yet, something was definitely intriguing.
The objective of both of these two was the Grand Inheritance. Their every action was probably geared toward fulfilling their goal of gathering all the parts, and gaining the power to become someone who could rule the continent.
If so….could Axelor"s intention behind sending the invitation also be related to that?
That would definitely make sense.
Daneel"s line of thought was interrupted by the Queen.
"King Daneel, I am willing to take this step down because I have seen that maybe, I really did underestimate you. Make your decision wisely."
Huh?
At this moment, Daneel considered it seriously.
He hadn"t been taking the Queen seriously, at all, as he couldn"t even think, for a moment, about teaming up with her.
Putting aside the fact that she was a nutcase, there was no way that he would ever trust her with his back.
Still, he hated Axelor more, for everything they had done so far.
His main consideration, right now, was whether to even scheme in this matter or try to obtain the most while those two duked it out.
Yet, for some reason, he found the former idea very unappealing.
There were multiple reasons, from how no one knew yet that he was even in the Race, to how there was a major risk of the Big 4 finding out.
To keep the first thing an uncertainty, Daneel had even declined the offer from Drakos to set up formations around Lanthanor just like the ones around Axelor and Arafell. After all, if they tried to come to his Kingdom just like he had done, they would be able to infer the same conclusion like him. Instead, Daneel had asked for different types of countermeasures and deployed them even though they weren"t as effective, over all.
Besides, even if the a.s.sumption was made that they won and stole the parts of the Grand Inheritance, would Axelor just sit around and accept that?
No! It might do something truly stupid like tattling to the Big 4 about how its entire research into the Empire Spirits was wrong.
Or, maybe they might even go over to the Church.
That wasn"t to say that Daneel advocated that Axelor should be allowed to keep those parts, just because of reasons like these.
No, there were just too many variables in this plan, and that showed Daneel that it was too risky.
He knew that, sometimes, it was better to let an opportunity go even though it might look like another like it might never come along.
In the matter of the Queen, Daneel just wasn"t ready to let his suspicions go.
His opinion still remained that the strategy that they were using, itself, was wrong.
Daneel had understood something very important after opening the second seal. The Emperor had made a clear plan from top to bottom. If he had a reason behind hiding certain information behind certain seals while laying the groundwork for the eventuality that the one who was capable of breaking the third seal should be the one to control the Grand Inheritance, then Daneel suspected that there might even be some tie between these seals and the Grand Inheritance, itself.
After all, no one knew what it was or what it was supposed to do.
So, Daneel"s plan regarding this had formed unconsciously just a few days ago.
He would endeavor to follow the Emperor"s way that had been laid down, instead of looking for extreme loopholes.
After all, loopholes like using more people to skew the average were fine in Daneel"s view, mainly because he could guess that it might be impossible to even reach the level needed if there was only one Kingdom in the mix.
Regardless, Daneel"s answer to the Queen had already been decided.
"Nope. But good luck with that. I have stuff to do. Don"t involve me in things that don"t interest me."
The last sentence was, again, meant to allay the fact that he might not even have an Empire Spirit in his corner.
This time, as Daneel hung up, there was no returned call.
Thinking that the Queen might completely have gone bonkers, Daneel headed off to find Faxul and help him.
He would still keep a close eye on these War Games to see what would happen, but, for now, Daneel had decided to concentrate on his schemes and his commanders.
The "Road through h.e.l.l" was supposed to be as discreet as possible, so openly hiring people was a no-no. At the same time, numerous missing workers in a Kingdom would raise suspicion.
So, after discussion with Faxul, Daneel decided on a mid-way plan.
They would hire workers using bogus offers, and then abduct them, so that there would be no issues.
They were fine with building the area by themselves, with magic, but understanding designs and implementing them would take professional work that they couldn"t do.
The thing was that the level of these designs wasn"t at a range that present-day fold could understand.
Still, by making concessions, Daneel and Faxul worked tirelessly on this project and finished it in a week.
Meanwhile, the plan for the first phase of the train had been finalized. The first train would run from the capital to the closest town, and, although the method of propulsion was still being discussed, the route had been laid out.
Daneel was torn between three designs: one that used Ether Blocks, which was too expensive. One that used mages to power spells of propulsion, which was also expensive. And one weird one that had also been found in the Emperor"s journals: a self-propelling train where cycle-like seats in the carriage would allow citizens to get a good exercise in, and also get themselves to their destination.
While he was deciding on these, the "abductions" began to get the commanders to the "Road Through h.e.l.l".
Yet, it seemed that this was something that would be marred with shocking happenings.
First on the "hitlist" had been Kellor, who would be abducted from his room. Daneel had sealed off the room tightly for this purpose.
True to his from, Faxul burst in, cackling crazily while wearing billowing, red clothes.
A fight ensued, which was one-sided for the most part, with Faxul idly playing around with his opponent to make him feel desperate, on Daneel"s orders. The King of Lanthanor"s idea had been to start the process of bringing out "need" from here, itself.
Only, halfway through this, Kellor…broke through, and hurled a Warrior-level Woodcutter Axe at Faxul, who had only been prepared for Exalted Human level attacks, and had been acting as one to make Kellor feel desperate.
Just as Faxul had been about to get his hand chopped off because of not being fast enough, Daneel had had to step in and reveal himself.
Yet, he did so with a very rueful expression on his face.
They had gone to all that trouble of building that d.a.m.n Road, and if they were being honest, they would admit that they had been secretly looking forward to the dignified commanders going through it.
Only, the middle-aged Grand Court Mage had thrashed all of their plans.
At this moment, Daneel and Faxul felt like two teachers who had painstakingly built a teaching course filled with torture to help their "struggling" students graduate.
Yet, the first student they had gone to…had aced the test on his first try.