You Must Be Out of Your Mind

"Demon Lords…? Did you just say Demon Lords?"

"That's right."

"— Hh."

A smile.

A sharp, clear-eyed beauty wearing a faintly dangerous half-smile.

The flicker of something combative in the eye made thorned rose a fitting phrase.

"And — twenty of them."

"Without a doubt."

"— Where."

"— In hand."

"…"

Crisca's faintly-charged eyes were on Hasim's. Searching for a tremor of bluff.

Hasim never once looked away. The aqua-blue held her stare back.

A bystander would have read it, on the surface, as a romantic stand-off — two people staring into each other's eyes — but the actual exchange between them was the line between life and death.

For Hasim in particular, Crisca's eyes could lead, in this moment, directly to death. Fail to seal the alliance here, and Lemuse died. Lemuse dying was, for him, equivalent to Hasim dying.

"— Proof?"

"I would show you, but I cannot."

"And what does that mean."

"They have already been dispatched to strike Mūzeg."

"That's quick of you, Hasim. Arrangements before the alliance is even signed. Wouldn't normal be: sign, then the four of us craft the strategy together, then deploy the Demon Lords?"

"— Hah."

A scornful snort.

Muran and Fasalis, beside her, noticed that Crisca was, briefly, miffed.

"There's no need."

"What did you say."

"There's no need, Crisca. Have you, even once, won against Brad?"

"— !"

It was — frankly, by now — provocation outright.

The combative phrasing landed in Crisca like a sudden body-blow. She had been studying Hasim for openings into which to thrust suspicion; the counterattack came back through her opening instead.

She'd assumed she was the attacking side. The unexpected counter pulled the breath out of her.

The next words — caught.

Hasim's eyes did not miss the moment. Before she could find words, he laid the next flagstones into the path.

"Would the strategy of three people who never once beat Brad at Aios actually be useful here?"

Arms widened, posture broadening, putting himself visually larger.

"— No. No, Crisca."

It was, strictly, the embodiment of arrogance. The incarnation of insolence.

But because every word of it was true, Crisca could not, on the instant, rebuke him.

Hasim's high-handed line looked like wild assertion. It was based on hard fact.

Brad. That is — Serius Brad Mūzeg.

The only person in the world with a record of putting Brad in the dirt strategically was the man across the table from her.

That fact sat heavy on her lips. Anything she tried to say felt locked under it.

"Cooperating won't produce a better plan. — That's not how strategy works.

"Throwing ideas onto the table is, of course, useful. Compromise can produce excellent things. — But. The ideas have to each have a possibility of working to begin with. Listening to ideas with no possibility, and folding them into the strategy, is the worst form of foolishness. It is converting a winning plan into a losing one."

"You're — saying whatever you want…! As ever, sarcasm and a lacerating tongue were always your speciality!"

Even Crisca, finally, gave the situation a hostile word.

The anger, on her face, lifted the weight off her lips.

Hasim, opposite her, kept the same easy ironic smile.

"…"

He said nothing now.

Try saying something was the meaning of the silence. He waited for her words.

Crisca felt herself hurried and mercied, simultaneously, in a strange combined way. Most of all — she felt that Hasim was driving the conversation. Irritation built.

"…Damn it! This is the first time in my life I've been this furious at myself for not being able to fire back!"

In the end, however much she could insult Hasim's manner, she could not, on the substance, deny him.

Instead, the gaze again that could pierce a man through —

"…Do you really have a plan? Will the strength of those Demon Lords, really, let us match Mūzeg — and Serius?"

Since she could not refute the prior point, she had to accept the premise.

Hasim's reply —

"It will."

— was instant.

He did not miss the tilt of her internal scale toward agreement.

In the moment of the tilt, he kept the voice firm.

"That's why I moved early. — I'm not denying all of your strategic value. The thing is, my plan had limited time to execute. I did, regretfully, prioritise it."

He pulled back, now.

The justification — I had no time, my strategy first — was rooted in the prior fact.

Pulling back while keeping what he meant to keep.

"— I see."

Crisca, painted into the corner, had no real reply. Hasim had constructed the trap so that she ended the negotiation standing, but with the only opening she had to pry suspicion into already filled in. The thing he had sealed it with was experiential fact — heavy iron.

In retrospect, looking calmly, she could see the combat shape of the negotiation. She had the intelligence for it. By the time she saw it, it was over.

A momentary opening; provocations launched in big arcs to be parried; while parrying, her armour was being closed up. Once she had got past the swings and decided this time I will, the armoured infantry of Hasim's interlocking arguments — somewhat suspect in its details, but solid as a wall — was already in front of her.

Her sword wasn't going to pierce that armour.

The rest was: Hasim simply needed to walk across the line called alliance, and the duel was over.

— Out-foxed, cleanly.

Words, expression, voice, gesture — she felt herself, at every layer, played.

When the exchange ended, that was the residue in her chest. Defeat.

Strictly, this had not been a contest of winners and losers. Underneath, the basis was friendly. But still — Crisca came away with the feeling: I lost.

She wasn't going to sulk silently.

She decided.

"— Right. …It is certain, yes? You will, certainly, make Mūzeg choke on this."

"Yes. Naturally. Not just choke — using this as the seed, we build a force across the eastern continent capable of standing up to Mūzeg. Their tyranny, if left, will eventually flatten the whole continent. To save the individual states, we need the first victory — now."

Smooth, measured, but with weight under it. Perfect tone.

In that moment, Crisca confirmed: the duel is decided.

"…Right. Zuria approves Lemuse joining."

A small slump in the voice, a slightly sulking note replacing the thorned rose.

Hasim caught it, and laughed — clean, undisguised, big.

"Hah! Crisca. Still that put-out about losing an argument to me? On the surface that lovely-lady look, internally still the same kid."

"S-shut up! I am working on it, you know! My retainers tell me carry yourself with more gravity and you mustn't sulk like a spoilt child, nag nag nag — I am working on it!"

"Yes, yes, yes. Got it."

"You — you're not actually listening, are you?! You've always been like that! At Aios you—"

"Yes, all right. You can tell me later. Later."

Brushing Crisca's protests aside with one hand, Hasim turned to the last of the three.

The unmoving giant. The King of Filarfia — Fasalis.

---

"That leaves you, Fasalis."

"…Yes."

A low, animal-growl reply.

"By the look of you, what worked on Muran and Crisca won't get you nodding."

"Mostly I'm in. But of the three, I'm the cautious one."

"Possibly that's why the 〈Alliance of Three Kings〉 hasn't fragmented. The other two are sharp but, tactically, more unbridled."

"You're not exactly different, Kudo. — No. Hasim."

Fasalis, retaining his easy posture, looked Hasim straight in the eye. With folded arms, the wall he projected was a degree heavier than Crisca's.

"What I'm thinking about is what comes after victory."

"After victory?"

"Yes."

Fasalis began, in his measured way.

"We win. Yes — given an adequate Magic-stone Cannon stockpile and your strategy, victory against Mūzeg is conceivable. But winning is not the end."

"Meaning?"

A nod, then —

"…First, Mūzeg is not small enough to collapse from a single battle."

"Granted."

"Even with the Cannons, the strength-gap by total state-power is what it is. We cannot finish Mūzeg in one stroke. Yes, winning a tactical engagement gives us political leverage; yes, it opens the door to follow-up. But both sides survive."

"Yes."

"And here is where the trouble starts, Hasim. Suppose we win — narrowly. Mūzeg's underlying state-power is still the larger one. I'm not talking about strategic-tactical capacity. I'm talking country-as-a-whole. Phrased simply: their recovery from war wounds runs faster than ours. They have the numbers for it."

"…Yes. They do."

Hasim knew. State territory, resources, and most importantly the sheer pool of people — Mūzeg held the lead on all three. The sum of the Three Kingdoms plus Lemuse might not even reach parity with Mūzeg by those measures. In real time, Mūzeg was still expanding north and west.

"After a narrow win, we are wounded too. Smaller wounds, certainly, given we won. But who recovers to full strength faster?"

"…"

"Eight times in ten, Mūzeg. We may be tightly aligned, but at the end of the day, we are independent states. As kings, each of us prioritises his own country first. That is the role."

Muran, the Kingdom of Kushana.

Crisca, the Kingdom of Zuria.

Fasalis, the Kingdom of Filarfia.

And Hasim — the Kingdom of Lemuse.

Each, by duty, prioritises his or her own.

"So when that moment arrives, I will pour my effort into restoring my own state to full strength first. But the Kingdoms collectively run lower than Mūzeg on state-power, so we don't catch up. And, geographically, we sit closer to Mūzeg. We become first targets for retribution. Retribution before our wounds heal — we don't survive that."

"Where are you going?"

"— I want a guarantee. Lemuse is the one of us furthest back. Lemuse can use the Three Kingdoms as a shield."

"Yes. That's so."

Hasim conceded the geography.

"For my country's sake, Hasim, I want a guarantee that Lemuse's aid, post-war, runs preferentially to Filarfia."

"…I see."

A small smile.

Not amused. The prefiguring smile of someone about to begin a fight he is glad to be in. Combat-eager.

Of the three, Fasalis was, almost certainly, the most adept negotiator.

Muran had locked in the magic-stone supply — a clear net positive for Kushana.

Crisca's commitment was framed at the Three Kingdoms level. Not specifically a Zuria privilege.

By that frame, Crisca had, on net, the worst result — she had not extracted a Zuria-exclusive privilege.

By the same frame, Fasalis was the best. Hasim acknowledged it internally.

Fasalis was extracting a post-war reconstruction priority — a hard right specific to Filarfia — under the cover of a broader alliance.

The Three Kingdoms were, after all, allied, not one body. The criterion for the right call as a king was whether the leader prioritised the country.

So Hasim smiled. He'd just spotted, in the man he was about to lock arms with, a king's-quality talent he could approve of. He was glad of it.

And Hasim, of course, had his own preparation for this.

"All right, Fasalis. — I'll give it to you."

What.

"The current Lemuse — and the future Lemuse, as well."

That day, in front of the three kings, a 〈Mad King〉 was about to be born.

The man on whom future historians would split, sharply and divisively, said in this moment the first words that would become the watershed of that division.

The historians' opinions were divided. But on one specific point, both schools agreed:

"In any case — by any measure — he was insane."

---

"The future Lemuse?"

Fasalis tilted his head.

"Yes. The future Lemuse, too."

"Spell it out."

"Not a complicated story."

Hasim was matter-of-fact.

"If the eventual victory against Mūzeg is one we're not satisfied with — I give you all of Lemuse. — All of it. The current Lemuse, and—"

---

"All Lemuse personnel still to be born from this point onward."

---

"…Madness."

Fasalis caught the meaning of the line faster than the others did.

In the same beat, he saw, in Hasim's standing-arms-wide declaration, a terrifying shadow.

"Everything, Fasalis. Today's Lemuse has placed all its hope in me. It's the result of years of me quietly running the country's administration behind my father's back. Standing out too much would have stripped the cover — Mūzeg's eyes would have followed — so I've damped it lately. Even so, I am, by now, recorded in the Lemuse public's mind as the light. Even if I hadn't come here today, the rumours would have leaked through, somehow, soon enough. That is how unsuppressible a light I am to those people."

The way Hasim was speaking — the cadence — read very much like the old-style, vicious Demon Lords of pre-modern eras.

Self placed at the apex; everything else below; the embodiment of power's monopoly.

The incarnation of arrogance, in a tone that absolutely justified itself. There was no actual grounding for the line, but the sheer authority in it made the listener want, despite themselves, to believe.

If anyone wanted charisma defined, this was it. The air Hasim was producing.

"And from that position, depending on how I run it, I can manipulate the Lemuse public without their realising it. I have the small-arts for it, and I'm a competent actor. So I can serve you, Fasalis, without the citizens picking up on it. What looks, on the outside, like a Lemuse-first policy — would in fact be a service to Filarfia, with no thought spared for Lemuse's actual future. The most wholehearted and supreme service one country can render another. — That's what I'll give you."

Insane.

The word almost left Fasalis's mouth.

Hasim spoke as if he meant every syllable. Fasalis, as a fellow ruler of men, felt — under that — a real and frigid horror.

"As long as I'm alive, I will keep Lemuse a slave to you. Your country is small. With a slave Lemuse on tap, you can use the entire human-resources pool of another country toward your own ends. You would have plundered a country without ever waging the war to do so."

A vertigo. Was the man across this table the same species as me? A thought that he was, in fact, something else, not a man.

"That's a guarantee, you understand. As long as I'm alive, betrayal is impossible. I'll formalise it through a formula-pledge if you want. All of Lemuse — yours."

A dangerous, almost intoxicating note in the voice. Pleasure-tinged. Fasalis felt, against the pleasure, primal fear.

"—"

A Demon Lord.

The word came up in his head, unbidden.

— Here, in front of me, is the kind of vicious Demon Lord one reads about in old books — and the books would not even be exaggerating in his case.

— Possibly, this is what an actual Demon Lord is.

Fasalis, Muran, Crisca — all three landed on the same inner thought, hearing Hasim's smiling, towering declaration.

"…You'll be hated, Hasim. The whole long history of Lemuse, the pride that house has built — you'd, alone, destroy that? — Could you?"

The unspoken weight of the question was not light.

One man, unraveling something built up over generations by who knows how many hands.

If he did such a thing, Hasim would not, on death, reach the 〈Empyrean〉. He would be denied ascension. He would be cursed by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions — every Lemuse soul — beaten, suffering, and not even after death would he find rest.

A solitude isolated from every dimension. A loneliness whose magnitude, to call merely loneliness, would be an undersell. An incomparable darkness.

— Impossible.

No human could do that. No one human could pull down a thing built on that much human time and effort.

Humans don't have that kind of strength.

If asked to do that, Fasalis thought, frankly, I'd rather just die.

"I'll do it. I'll do it, Fasalis."

— but as if he had read straight through Fasalis's interior, the aqua-blue eyes were on him again.

A frightening pair of eyes.

Frighteningly level. Frighteningly honest.

"You're insane, Hasim. That is something a king does not say. You will turn your own people into slaves with your own hands?"

"If we lose, it's over. Then — better that I give them a false peace. What they don't know cannot hurt them. If we don't get a clean victory against Mūzeg now, Lemuse falls anyway. Then I give them, at the end, a counterfeit peace at least.

"Lose: we die. Half-victory: we live as ignorant slaves. — Burn the boats. Hah!"

He laughed.

Hasim was laughing.

And his eyes —

Fasalis, on the verge of looking, stopped himself.

If the eyes were not laughing, Hasim was forcing this. That would be a hopeful read.

But — if even the eyes were lit up, in pure elation —

— Fasalis would not be able to look at this friend as a friend any more.

So he didn't look.

"— So. Are you satisfied, Fasalis?"

Hasim's voice came back to its prior tone. Fasalis lifted his head.

The clever Hasim of moments ago. The shadow had passed.

So he answered.

"…Yes. As an answer to my demand, that suffices."

Whether correct or not aside — rationally, Filarfia had secured a real reconstruction-priority. As a piece of diplomatic negotiation, it was a success.

In point of fact, he could have nodded at the original line and saved everyone the rest. He had stayed on it, he realised, because of his closeness to Hasim — concern about how Hasim was handling it.

— Am I just being soft?

Hasim was Hasim. He had probably foreseen everything before he opened his mouth. Fasalis chose to believe that. Fear, intimidation, madness, charm — all of it deliberate, chosen by someone who had read his cautiousness perfectly.

…Let it be that.

The wish drifted, quietly, in his chest.

"Right. The seal. Let's wrap the 〈Alliance of Four Kings〉 quickly and shift to the operational discussion."

Already, Hasim was producing a large seal from his coat and pressing it onto a paper Aisha had handed him from behind. A contract, presumably.

Just past that conversation — and already onto the next.

Like a great dragon that only moves forward.

This man would, presumably, dispose of an idiot king and a coup with comparable efficiency.

Hasim, briskly, all of this is on schedule in the body language — the three kings, by then, had no further objection.