Bab 160: Underworld Negotiations I
"You don't know the numbers of my forces, you don't know how powerful they are individually, despite knowing my personality quite well, you have no idea how powerful I actually am. You should have realized it isn't lower than Satan class but you don't know how high it can go."
"But even if I am that weak . . ." Jun casually referred to the regular Satan class prowess as "weak".
"A war with the Devil Race would end up much worse for your side than it would for mine. After all, there are still three critical weaknesses my group can exploit to achieve a relatively easy victory." He said looking at Grayfia with a teasing smile.
Her face was quite cold however, owing to the swiftly devolving situation. Jun not taking the initiative to star open hostilities was a good thing, especially after what her own husband had done. However, he had set the bar really low for intolerable actions leading to war as retaliation.
The ball was now in the devil race's court, except that ball was an unstable bomb that would explode with the slightest jolt.
"Weaknesses?" Rias said seemingly still a bit unconvinced and breaking Grayfia out of her thoughts.
'Do we really have such critical and so easily exploitable weakness?' She asked herself in her own thoughts.
Sona on the other hand, having already realized that Jun seemed to have everything under control, at least in the sense that he knew each possible action he could take and their respective consequences, fell deep into thought, trying to figure out the weaknesses he planned to exploit in the event of war.
She quickly figured out two, quite accurately at that but the last one still eluded her.
Grayfia on the other hand, being no stranger to war and its subtleties, as well as even greater knowledge of the current state of the world and their race, knew exactly what Jun was referring to. It only made the smile he tossed her way even more unsettling.
'Still, his relaxed stance has a foundation. If the weaknesses he has thought of are the same three that I considered, then they are truly impossible to fix, at least based on our current means.' She thought to herself.
"You seem deep in though Sona-chan. Figured something out?" Jun questioned, intent on having fun despite the situation and making the grave and delicate state of his relationship with the Devil Race a great learning experience for the people in the room who could not yet see through all the intricacies involved.
Sona looked up with a bit of a startle from being pulled out of her thoughts but quickly regained herself before responding.
"I think I figured out two of the weakness that Jun-san mentioned but I admit I'm having a little trouble figuring out the last one." She honestly revealed.
"Well that is still better than everyone else in your generation who is a bit to overwhelmed by the situation to think rationally about the problem." Jun praised.
Despite the mentioned circumstances, Sona was actually quite pleased with the praise. Regardless of whether Jun would become the enemy of her race, he was a very accomplished individual in her eyes, one worthy of great respect. As such, praise coming from him was quite valued by her.
"So what are the two you discovered then?" Jun then asked.
"The first is the amount of territory we have to protect. So long as Jun-san has great scouting capabilities which, based on the amount of information you appear to have seems to be the case, it should prove easy to avoid the bulk of our forces and use hit and run attacks to gain an advantage." Sona said.
"Quite right. Regardless of how powerful your big guns are, there are not a lot of them so avoiding them while wreaking havoc upon all your other forces and territories would be easy." Jun nodded.
"Destruction of holdings, massive common soldier and civilian casualties, such things would be simple to accomplish and it would decimate your people's ability to function as a society, even if their leaders remain in pristine condition. In fact, that might only aggravate the situation." He added.
"How about the second?" Jun continued to ask.
"Since we cannot properly defend against your onslaught, the only option would be to mass our forces and strike at the core of your group. So long as you are under such a threat, targeting civilians in a terrorist like fashion would invite similar response." Sona started.
"However, I believe we don't know where that core, the headquarters of your group are located. At the very least, you believe we don't. As such, you can attack as you please and pour as many resources into your offense as you must because there is no truly powerful retaliation to fear." She said.
"That's right. We know exactly where to strike to hurt the most but you don't know where my actual strength is concentrated and here's a freebie. Even if you did know the location of my group's HQ, you still would never be able to reach it with your means." Jun confirmed and even gave a bonus.
It left everyone not in the know to wonder where the hidden HQ was. The exchange between Jun and Sona also allowed the more ignorant ones and those not in their full capacity to think of the situation calmly and rationally, to realize how precarious the Devils' position was.
"And so we are left with only one weakness to go." Jun said in a jovial voice that did not match the conversation in the slightest.
"Grayfia-san. I'm sure you know what it is. Would you like to share?"
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P.a.t.r.e.o.n is officially up!
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You'll get to read up to FOUR week ahead, a full month, but I'll still post here.
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I would greatly appreciate any support since this is going to be my breadwinner.
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