Ch.159While You Weren’t Looking (2)

During that period when Antares and the Humanity Clan were busily working on their grand scheme…

They moved the Earth Federation’s main forces and “deliberately” leaked that information to the Pirate Alliance.

The Loki Clan, upon receiving this information, was going through a period of serious deliberation.

“Clan Leader, these bastards seem to be gearing up to push hard in our direction?”

“Since they’ve temporarily neutralized those Justice goody-two-shoes, are they trying to settle things once and for all?”

Naturally, when the upper echelon of the Loki Clan heard about this matter, they reacted with all kinds of outbursts, saying they should respond accordingly to Antares’ plan…

However, Betelgeuse, the Loki Clan leader who actually needed to respond, was showing a remarkably indifferent reaction.

“Sigh… that bastard is really pulling some nasty shit.”

“What do you mean, Clan Leader?”

“That Antares guy, what he’s doing is basically throwing cheese laced with rat poison at us.”

This made sense because Betelgeuse possessed intelligence comparable to Antares.

From her perspective, she could clearly understand why Antares was doing what he was doing.

But that didn’t mean she was unaware of the risks of leaving the situation as it was.

‘Damn bastard, I’d like to just ignore this… but he’s making it impossible to back out.’

Recalling the face of that slick golden-haired man, Betelgeuse realized that Antares had set things up so that she and the Loki Clan couldn’t possibly back out.

While deeply displeased that a clan named after the god of mischief and schemes was being used in someone else’s scheme…

She felt that, like it or not, she and the Loki Clan had to play along with Antares’ “theater.”

“Haha, damn that Antares, that fucking gay bastard, hahaha!”

“Oh my.”

“Our Clan Leader seems to be losing it a bit again, doesn’t she?”

“I agree.”

While hurling profanities at Antares, she accepted the situation.

To counter Humanity’s aggressive advance, she decided to dispatch reinforcements from the clan’s direct forces and allied clans to the border area between the Pirate Alliance and the Earth Federation.

Of course, separate from that decision…

“Hey, we have some people affiliated with the Earth Federation, right?”

“Huh? Oh yes, we do.”

“But most of them are hiding in Federation territory, so aren’t they hard to utilize?”

“Ha, shouldn’t we cause some trouble for these bastards who dare try to use us?”

“Ossu!”

“Let’s go!”

With a devilishly mischievous smile, Betelgeuse laid out her plan, and the Loki Clan responded with “That’s our Clan Leader!”

They immediately decided to mobilize their sleeper agents planted within Earth Federation territory to launch some intense trolling against Humanity.

———-

But there was one thing that Betelgeuse and the Loki Clan failed to notice.

The fact that Humanity’s offensive against the Pirate Alliance was meant to hide “something.”

The problem was figuring out what that “something” actually was.

Most users simply took things at face value, believing that Humanity saw this as an opportunity to take down the Loki Clan now that Justice had been neutralized.

The upper echelon of the Loki Clan vaguely thought, “Ah, this can’t be the real objective, there must be some other purpose.”

The Clan Leader Betelgeuse came closest to the truth when she turned her attention to the Pirate Alliance, wondering if they were planning to invade somewhere else…

But she didn’t quite reach Antares’ true objective of “subjugating neutral users and conquering territories.”

‘Hmm, is he trying to completely screw over Arcadia’s Justice? Or is it Rattenwater in Xenovia?’

She could only tilt her head in confusion while staring into an impenetrable fog.

Of course, as mentioned earlier, Betelgeuse possessed intelligence comparable to Antares.

Given a little more time, she too might have realized the true objective of Antares and the Humanity Clan…

Unfortunately, by the time our pink-pink Betelgeuse might have noticed, she judged that the distance was too great for effective “command.”

So she headed to the area with her forces and commanders=users, and shortly after…

“Um, Lady Betelgeuse.”

“Yes?”

“The Pirate Empress says she wants to speak with the clan leaders participating in this war and is inviting them to a nearby pirate fortress.”

“…The, the Pirate Empress?”

Marian, who had once thoroughly dominated her with a fisting punch to the stomach, called her and other clan leaders.

When they gathered and talked as a group, there wasn’t anything particularly unusual, just reassurances about the movements of Humanity and the Earth Federation’s main forces.

Just as she was starting to think there wouldn’t be any more problems, though her stomach occasionally ached as she dreamed of revenge against the one who had dominated her like that…

“Oh, and could the Loki Clan leader stay behind for a moment? I have something to discuss as a leader.”

“…Ah.”

“I’ve heard you’re the most powerful among the commanders… and I have some opinions to share.”

As Marian singled her out specifically…

“Ooh, as expected of our Clan Leader.”

“Fighting!”

“Go negotiate with the Empress, we believe in you.”

“…”

‘You bastards.’

With the completely unhelpful encouragement from her clan members, she ended up having a one-on-one secret meeting.

Having no choice but to meet with Marian, she experienced “various intense and violent experiences.”

After awakening as a masochist who questioned her identity and going through mental resistance, any thoughts about Antares’ true purpose, which had been a lower priority…

Simply fizzled out.

———-

And so, with Betelgeuse, who should have stopped Antares, walking the path of a masochistic pervert through TS and submission…

The plans of Antares and the Humanity Clan were proceeding smoothly without any interference.

Of course, it wasn’t completely smooth sailing.

“Ah, people aren’t really following along.”

“Honestly, looking at the current situation, isn’t it normal to think the main battlefield will be an all-out war with the Loki Clan?”

“Tsk.”

Because they were proceeding so secretly, most users believed the decoy battlefield was the “real” one.

Due to the “trolling” carried out by Betelgeuse’s Loki Clan, they faced continued difficulties in deploying Humanity Clan users to the “central area.”

“There’s no choice, we’ll have to mobilize users from subordinate clans rather than our own clan members.”

To replace the Humanity Clan’s direct users who were having difficulty moving freely due to trolling and interference…

They decided to mobilize subordinate clans who had secretly pledged loyalty, to attack neutral users in the planned central area and surrounding border regions.

Of course, considering the characteristics of solo players, the leadership believed that clan-specialized users would likely lose in one-on-one confrontations.

“We should have at least 2-3 users working together against each target, right?”

“Of course, those are all solo players there, so one-on-one would be too risky.”

To ensure mission success, they organized their forces so that users invading solo players would maintain at least 2-3 times numerical superiority.

And while they were proceeding with various preparations…

“Wait a minute, Clan Leader, doesn’t the 3rd-ranked player live here?”

“That’s right, tsk…”

Their eyes fell on Icarus, who had firmly established himself in the central area.

“Based on the posts in the gallery, 2-3 people won’t be nearly enough against him.”

“Judging from his own posts and the complaints from other users who faced him… that’s obviously true.”

“Agreed.”

Remembering his reputation as the 2-time 3rd-ranked player and the recent “warning” from the gallery…

“Then let’s assign an entire small clan of five people to him.”

“But that means we can’t attack one of the other user bases.”

“We can’t invade all at once anyway since we’re assigning 2-3 people per target, so let’s just make sure we get him.”

“Besides, his base has the Pirate Empress’s fleet and an unlimited supply of mercenaries… he’s worth at least two people on his own.”

“Agreed.”

Not taking any chances, they decided to commit an entire small clan to overwhelm Icarus.

And our Icarus, who had no idea about this in his wildest dreams…

———-

“Aaaaargh!”

“C-Commander, you should calm down first…”

“This is bullshit!!”

He was letting out tears of desperation as he watched the five eagle brothers advancing relentlessly.