Chapter 99: Setting Up To Extract Information
Within the Luna Manor's dining room. Luna's furniture wasn't anything fancy or ornate, it was just a regular table fit for a small family which made it feel homier.
"Sit," Luna offered a chair to Ines.
"Th-Thank you, Lord Luna," The young girl nervously replied.
"Please, you can call me Luna," He smiled as he continued, "I'll get straight to the point. I'm quite curious about your homeland. Your reasons for invading our planet and the ones before it. If I'm to be quite frank, it seems quite reckless and, well, desperate." Luna paused for a second before saying the word 'desperate'. He observed Ines' reaction and true enough, that word made her show a forlorn expression.
Inhaling deeply, Ines described her homeworld's situation. After what seemed like hours of her explaining and Luna taking in all of the information she mentioned while recording all of it in audio and video format.
"As you can see, Lord- I mean, Sir Luna--"
"Luna," He corrected her.
"Er- Luna," she allowed herself to be corrected as she blushed a little. She was evidently not used to the informal way of addressing the man in front of her, "As you can see, the reason why my homeworld's methods seem like such, is because it truly is that way. We have no choice but to brute force our way in, as quickly as possible, and as you had mentioned earlier, it is indeed to rapidly deplete the planet's manpower. I hope this is enough for you to spare General Vizicsacsi's life."
"We'll see. As you mentioned earlier that this time around, it's not as easy as you had expected. Care to elaborate?"
"Although the first few waves would usually be eliminated, the Generals would usually be able to flee and survive which enables them to share the information they've received to the next wave. We've never faced total annihilation as we did against the <Sovereign Nation>, hypothetically speaking, even if we somehow did in the previous planets, it wouldn't be in such a miserable fashion where your men only faced injuries with zero casualties," Ines honestly replied.
Luna knew it was because of the advantages they had amassed beforehand. This gave him a little bit of hope but added even more pressure. What could he possibly do next in order to achieve the same results in the next wave? He had to achieve zero casualties or at least keep it to as minimal as possible in order to easily weather the following storms.
In other words: As hard as they have been working so far... It still wasn't enough.
Luna pondered for a while, "What can I possibly do? Pushing them to work harder will have diminishing returns. As a matter of fact, it would only have consequences. And if working hard doesn't work, working smarter than usual should do the trick. But how?" After leaving a mental note for himself to discuss this further later, he turned to his guest. "Ines, walk with me. Allow me to give you a tour of the surrounding area while we talk. Some things have changed since the start of the invasion."
"With pleasure," Ines returned a polite smile. Did she have a choice? Still, she felt as if she could trust Luna.
On top of the walls, Luna led Ines to have a good view of a vast area of the <Sovereign Nation>. After walking for five minutes, the area where the <Trees of Life> came into view. The area looked nothing like how it was before. The trees themselves changed the landscape. What used to be flatlands now had a waterfall with the trees themselves being at the top. Tamed mutant beasts were frolicking in the area. The people that Luna put in charge of the redesign made it so the water flowed through the majority of the <Sovereign Nation>'s territory.
While the area around the <Trees of Life> were still off-limits and was heavily guarded, the area further below it resembled China's Xiangxi Hibiscus Town except more enchanting. The rocks were almost like diamonds and there were numerous sectioned-off areas in the river where different groups of people could relax. It could easily rank as the current and previous Earth's number 1 wonder of the world.
Even the mutant beasts were specifically instructed by Maxene to not defecate in the nearby areas and to do their business in the farmlands instead or for the personal gardens in other families' backyards if need be. They would play with the children and the adults alike. Any type of abuse towards the mutant beasts was also considered a criminal offense.
Houses were built around the elevated land were owned by the Nation's top brass where their families could stay.
"Beautiful," Ines commented as she seemed hypnotized by the place she saw in front of her.
"There are areas that are comparable to this on this planet, Ines. What do you think?" Luna asked.
"There is an area within the palace that resembles a garden, but to even maintain it costs a lot of resources. This is just..." The young lady had no other words she could think of at the moment. Even the word 'beautiful' didn't do it much justice.
"It's something that your world seeks to take away from us. And it's something that we would die trying to defend," Luna gave her the hard truth.
"But, what if-" Before she could even finish her sentence she was cut off by Luna.
"What if we could share? Live in peace?" He said with a straight face.
"Is it possible?"
"I don't believe that anything is completely impossible." Luna honestly replied. He believed that the things currently deemed impossible were just considering the current realm of understanding they had.
Ines' face lit up, "Then that means that-"
"Just because nothing is impossible doesn't mean that it's not close to impossible," Luna instantly dumped cold water on the young lady's optimism as he followed it up with a more optimistic statement, "but that still means that it's not impossible. But you realize that it will be very hard for your people and ours to understand one another, right? We know next to nothing about you besides the fact that you wish to kill us all and take what's ours. What part of that supports your cause?"
"Then I will do my best to share everything I know about us! I'll do anything if it means there's even the tiniest bit of a chance!" Her eyes lit up as she felt as what she thought was out of the question now had a sliver of hope.
Soon, a couple of guards that Luna had called for appeared. "Lead Princess Ines to her lodgings and make sure she is well-provided for," He commanded.
"Yes, Lord Luna!" They both replied. "Right this way, Princess Ines."
The young lady took another glance at Luna before she followed the guards.
Not long after, Sura appeared behind him. "That was quite mean of you, giving her hope like that. You knew that none of it will be our choice. Not to mention the people of Earth, the Gods would never allow it. Why?"
"Setting up to extract information. She has to be willing to give me the majority of the information she possesses before I can start prying for the ones that matter the most," Luna looked at his wife as she walked towards him and hugged him.
"That's what's scary about you as an enemy. You're always straightforward which gives people the impression that that's how you do things. If I had not felt that you actually felt bad deceiving a young lady such as her, I would have been disappointed in you," she smiled as she looked up at her husband.
"Thank you, my love. From what I've learned so far, we need even more of an advantage despite our good results. If we were to suffer heavy casualties, morale would plummet. I have to do-"
"Shh," Sura interrupted him as she kissed him deeply and said, "You don't have to explain, dear. I understand and I'll do what needs to be done to lessen your burdens."
As the two were having their moment, Maxene's voice suddenly rang through their ears.
"Father! Mother! I just caught some boxing lobster looking things! Father, can you cook them for me? These damned things actually did a bit of damage to our eastern walls!"
Luna and Sura both looked at each other. Managed to do 'a bit of damage' to the walls? With how much they have been reinforced? Most creatures would do zero damage to those walls at this stage. So what were these lobster-looking things exactly?
"Oh, one of the scientists are saying that they might be Mantis-Shrimps. I can kinda recall what these things are based on the information I absorbed before, but they're definitely way bigger than the ones I know of," Maxene explained.
"We'll be right there," Luna replied.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
TheLittleFatty
TheLittleFatty National Geographic has a video on youtube about Mantis-Shrimps if you're curious about what they're capable of.
Here's a video of Xiangxi Hibiscus Town during the day and at night if you're curious: https://bit.ly/31UngU1
It truly is a beautiful place and I wish to go there one day!
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