If you looked at the board objectively, Altrouge's faction was the one bleeding.
Rimuru let out a soft, amused sigh. Sure, they had kicked the hornet's nest. Altrouge was the one currently holding the bag in Cornwall, staring down the combined wrath of the Holy Church and the Mage's Association.
But short-term gains and losses were irrelevant here. Both Rimuru and Ortenrosse knew the brutal truth: if the Dead Apostles lost this impending war, they all lost. There were no individual winners in an extinction event.
So Cornwall wasn't a liability. It was an anchor, designed specifically to drag the White Wing Lord into the deep end with them.
"Here is my proposal," Rimuru said. Even behind the Oni mask, everyone in the hall could hear the bright, mocking smile in his voice. "Since you want Austria so badly, Lord Ortenrosse... we aren't entirely opposed to handing a piece of it over."
Ortenrosse gave a slow nod. "A joint rulership, then?" That aligned with his projections.
"Joint rule? Oh, no, no, no," Rimuru chuckled, casually wagging a finger. "I mean you fold your territory into Her Highness's domain. You bend the knee, and publicly swear fealty to the one and only Queen of the Dead Apostles, Altrouge Brunestud."
Pfft!
Before Ortenrosse could react, Rita Rozay-en burst into a fit of shrill, mocking laughter. "Are you sleepwalking, Leviathan? Did you hit your head on the way here?"
"And as a sworn vassal," Rimuru continued smoothly, completely ignoring the Fifteenth Ancestor's cackling, "you will naturally deploy your forces to help us hold Cornwall."
Rimuru met Ortenrosse's crimson gaze dead-on. "Any objections?"
"..."
Sitting on his throne, Ortenrosse slowly rotated the massive silver greatsword in his grip. The metal ground against the stone floor. "I am intensely curious," the White Wing Lord rumbled, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. "Who exactly gave you the courage to make such an absurd demand?"
"Austria is the geographic heart of Europe. It borders Germany, Italy, Switzerland..." Rimuru rattled off casually, intentionally leaving the thought unfinished.
Ortenrosse had spent decades sinking his roots into Germany for a reason. It wasn't just because the post-war nation was fractured and easy to infiltrate. It was the ultimate strategic chokepoint. To the west lay the Mage's Association's strongholds in Britain, France, and Ireland. To the south was the Vatican's absolute domain in Italy, alongside other fiercely devout nations.
To the east, the iron curtain of science and industry blocked the path, and further north lay Scandinavia, where the lines between magi and monsters were dangerously blurred. Germany sat right in the middle, a perfect buffer zone to monitor and bleed the Church's expansion.
Ortenrosse's ambition was to liberate southern Europe, places like Austria, which lacked heavy Association oversight, and use Germany as a shield to force the human world to acknowledge the vampires' right to exist.
Rimuru, however, wanted to push the envelope. He wanted to turn Austria and Germany into impregnable beachheads, push north into Scandinavia, and carve out a legitimate, sovereign nation for their kind.
Their endgames were different, but their immediate tactical maps overlapped perfectly.
Germany was too high-profile. The Association considered it the face of Europe. They would inevitably launch a massive crusade to reclaim it to save face. And unlike the Church's fanatical "purge all heretics" doctrine, the Association's stance on Dead Apostles was notoriously ambiguous. They just wanted order. Giving Germany back to the Association wasn't a fatal loss for the vampires, provided they had a fallback.
That fallback had to be Austria. It had to become the true Dead Apostle sanctuary.
By blatantly pointing out the geopolitical reality, Rimuru was signaling to Ortenrosse that they shared the exact same baseline strategy.
But acknowledging the strategy didn't mean Ortenrosse was going to just roll over and accept the terms.
"Have you considered the consequences?" Ortenrosse asked, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "Even if I were to agree, kneeling to her sends a terrible signal. It invites annihilation. There cannot be only one monarch among the Dead Apostles. It makes us too easy of a target."
"Constantly running and hiding doesn't solve the problem either."
Rimuru stood up straight. This was the crux of it. The ideological collision.
"My philosophy is the exact opposite of yours, Ortenrosse. I believe there must be only one King." Rimuru swept his gaze across the assembled Ancestors. "To resist, we need a unified front. To negotiate, we need equal footing. Whether you admit it or not, our numbers are dwindling. Look around. Out of Twenty-Seven, how many actually bothered to show up tonight?"
"If the Church advances one step, are we supposed to retreat three?"
"I have never retreated," Ortenrosse snapped, a flash of genuine anger breaking his composure. "You stand there preaching grand ideals, but you conveniently forget history. Who has sheltered our kind for the past few centuries? Was it your precious Altrouge?"
"I've never denied your accomplishments, Lord Ortenrosse." Rimuru turned to face him fully, his voice steady and cold. "But you cannot deny hers, either."
"You look down on her because she lacks your ambition. Because she doesn't act like a conqueror."
Rimuru scoffed, taking a step forward. "But out of all the immortal, stagnant freaks holding seats among the Twenty-Seven Ancestors, how many actually give a damn about ruling? The only entity you ever truly respected was Crimson Moon Brunestud."
Rimuru pointed a finger directly at the White Wing Lord. "There have been countless Ancestors over the millennia, yet how many possessed your drive? You can't look at her, see Crimson Moon's daughter, and demand she instantly possess her father's tyrannical ambition!"
"If you wanted her to lead, you should have given her the time to grow into the crown. Instead, you betrayed her!"
Rimuru's words rang out like hammer strikes against an anvil. The surrounding Ancestors fell entirely silent, their eyes darting toward Ortenrosse.
Altrouge, sitting beside Rimuru, went completely still. She stared up at the masked boy, her crimson eyes wide and totally dumbfounded.
"That was her responsibility."
Ortenrosse let out a harsh, bitter laugh at the accusation. "We are immortals, Leviathan. Which means every single Ancestor here is entrenched in centuries of their own stubborn, twisted nature. If you want to unite them, you must understand them intimately."
The White Wing Lord gripped his sword, his voice echoing with absolute, uncompromising conviction.
"So tell me. Why should I set aside centuries of my own experience, cast away my own power, and gamble the future of our species on a girl who doesn't understand us, and doesn't even want to rule?!"
….
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