Chapter 7: Impossible Demands

The man droned on and on in an increasingly monotonous tone. Ishida was too tired to listen and eventually fell asleep. A while later, he felt a sharp pain on his shoulder. 

He was about to cry, “Ow!” when he remembered that they were prisoners and tried his best not to make a sound. 

“What is it?” he whispered to Rhina.

“We have lost, according to our very precise and accurate estimates, one hundred and twenty tanks, five hundred and thirty-three soldiers, eighty-two rifles, one hundred and eighty pistols, ninety-seven assault rifles, ninety-nine daggers, fourteen bayonets, and seven thousand, eight hundred and fifty-seven bullets in the fighting today.” 

The lieutenant paused, took a sip from his coffee mug, and continued. “We now demand war reparations from you rebels! The people of Mount Lagoda must pay us a sum of five hundred thousand Koblos as war reparations.” 

A great number of gasps and sighs followed the lieutenant’s announcement. 

“Five hundred thousand Koblos? Our entire town makes less than a thousand Koblos each year from all our hard work!” Ishida whispered angrily.

“If you do not oblige to our terms or cannot find a way to pay us the money in seven days, we will burn this mountain to the ground and sweep its ashes into the river!” the lieutenant threatened

“Seven days? Outrageous!” a daring Lagodan man bellowed.

“Say another word about it and you’ll face a firing squad!” Lieutenant Monte barked.

After the assembly, the Medietan soldiers arrested everyone on the mount and locked them up in jail. 

“You rebels shall remain imprisoned until you come up with a reasonable plan to pay us the war reparations,” said the lieutenant craftily. 

Ishida was locked up in a small cell with ten other Lagodans. Even he felt very miserable about the defeat, which had left their land in ruins and had greatly ashamed his people. 

Moreover, he longed to apologize to Rhina for being rude to her earlier. 

It was late in the night when the jail cell’s door finally burst open. Two Medietan soldiers stepped in and threw in another prisoner. The door then closed with a loud bang. 

Ishida crawled to the entrance to see who it was. Without any lights in the room, it was too dark to identify the person.

“Who is this?” he finally asked.

“Ishida? Is that you?” said a familiar voice. 

Ishida burst into joyful tears. “Rhina, I’m so glad you’re safe,” he replied, embracing her while the other people in the cell remained silent.

“I am very sorry for being so unkind to you today,” Ishida apologized.

“No, you were just telling me what I should have done. I’m sorry for being so rude.” Rhina shook her head.

“Where did they take you?” the young man asked after wiping his tears away.

“The lieutenant figured out who I was,” Rhina explained. “They called my father, the general of the Medietan Army. He didn’t realize that I was gone until they told him that I was here, hundreds of kilometers away from home. 

“At first, the lieutenant was going to send me back to Lucada, but Father flatly refused. They kept me in the interrogation office for many hours until they concluded that I was guilty of supporting the rebellion and sent me here.”

“So you really are General Lucarius’ daughter?” Ishida inquired.

The girl thought for a while and unwillingly replied, “Yes.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me? More importantly, why did you run away?”

Rhina did not answer. “Why did you run away?” Ishida repeated his question.

“I’m sorry, but it’s not your problem,” she hastily responded.

“He clearly isn’t worried.” 

“You should still go back and apologize.”

“I wouldn’t in a thousand years!”

“You must, for the sake of reconciliation!”

“Why would I need to apologize if he never did?”

“Rhina, you should be glad that you still have a father, unlike me.”

“As far as I’m concerned, he no longer considered me to be part of the family ever since my mother passed away. If I go back now, he’ll probably lock me up for the rest of my life to prevent me from running away again/” 

Ishida did not know what to say. “You know what? I believe you made the right decision to leave,” he finally told her.

“You really think so?” 

“Yes. From what I’ve heard, he’s one of the most villainous men of our time. He’s the exact opposite of King Rexius. Locals call him, ‘the man who starts all wars,’ while King Rexius was known as, ‘the man who ends all wars.’”

“My father wasn’t always like this. He was very kind when Mother was still alive. It all changed when a political enemy assassinated her in our very garden. Ever since then, Father never allowed me to take a single step out of my room.”

“And ever since then, hundreds of armed conflicts have taken place, including the one that ended this morning,” Ishida sighed. “But who knows? Just as your father turned into an evil man, he could turn back into a hero when King Rexius returns!” 

As the night drew on, the prisoners in the cell fell asleep and began snoring. But Ishida was unable to go to sleep no matter how hard he tried. 

He kept on thinking about the war reparations they would have to pay and how they would gain such a huge sum of money.

On this same day, Medietan and Piletan armies launched a joint-invasion of the Kufan Kingdom. The Luvosian Kingdom, seeing a chance to expand its territory, launched its own invasion. 

Within just a few hours, the three nations’ forces reached the outskirts of Kufaville and laid siege to the city. Luvosian artillerymen, known for their lethally precise aiming, wreaked havoc on the capital. 

As news of the Siege of Kufaville reached the Kufan generals, Kufan armies began retreating on all fronts. 

Despite having won several battles against the Luvosians in the North, the Kufan Kingdom’s Army Group North was forced to withdraw to the south in order to save Kufaville. 

The Luvosians took this opportunity and quickly asserted their control over Lake Kufa, the largest and only source of fresh water on the continent of Piletus. 

The Piletan generals looked with envious eyes at the Luvosians; for Piletus desperately needed fresh water. 

Then, without any warning, Theoland, which had remained neutral for the entire time, declared war on the Luvosian Kingdom and attacked Luvosian positions along the shore of Lake Kufa. 

It was later revealed that the king of Theoland had previously signed a mutual defense treaty with the king of the Kufans, promising to aid the Kufan Kingdom in the event of an outside invasion. 

A massive Theolandian army joined forces with the retreating Kufan armies and marched south to break the Siege of Kufaville. 

Despite being heavily outnumbered, Theolandians and Kufans managed to relieve Kufaville, shocking the world. 

By the time that the Siege of Kufaville ended, Kufaville had been subjected to twenty-four long days and weary nights of relentless bombardment. 

Most of the city had been reduced to rubble, and seven out of every ten Kufans became homeless. 

When a Kufan army headed west and threatened to take over the Medietan Empire’s oil refineries in the Free City of Shefa, Medietan armies were forced to withdraw from the Kufan Kingdom, ending the Kufo-Medietan War. 

Meanwhile, another Kufan army journeyed across the vast Sub-Piletan Desert and laid siege to the city of Octeville. 

When the Piletans attempted to break the siege, they were decisively defeated. More than two hundred thousand Piletans surrendered to a force of just twenty thousand Kufans. 

As a result of this humiliating defeat, General Aleksander Salbris of the Imperial Piletan Army was court-martialed and replaced by a man known simply as, “Iskenderson.” He was called by no other names and his given name was unknown. 

General Iskenderson was not interested in fighting a war with the Kufan Kingdom and negotiated a peace treaty between the two countries. 

The Luvosian Kingdom, with both of its allies out of the war, had no choice but to make peace with the Kufan Kingdom. Theoland also stepped out of the war and withdrew its troops from Luvosian soil. 

After just one and a half months of fighting, the so-called “War of the Nations” ended. 

There was no clear victor, and the only significant change brought with this war was the appointment of General Iskenderson.