"Should I move to kill Brigham?" General Stark, who had no intention of endangering his family, asked his wife for advice.
Briella, who had been asked this question, shifted her attention to the seven-year-old, who was looking at the map of the Sumatran Kingdom.
"Zion, what do you think we should do?" Briella inquired. "If we eliminate Brigham, the war will stop, right?"
The boy shook his head as he continued to scrutinize the map that was laid out on the table.
"My goal has never been to stop the war preparations, Lady Briella," Thirteen replied without taking his eyes on the map of the Sumatran Kingdom. "I already told you that my purpose is to change the direction of the war. In short, the Tigerkins must be ready to wage war, but the enemy will not be the Barbarians."
"If not the Barbarians then who?" General Stark asked.
"I can't tell you right now," Thirteen answered. "Because if I did, you would definitely consider leaving the Valbarra Kingdom with your family. I will need your help if we are to give the Sumatran Kingdom a fighting chance against our true enemies."
General Stark, who wasn't satisfied with Zion's answer, was about to press him to tell him the truth, but his wife, Briella, held his arm and shook her head.
"Just trust him for now," Briella said softly. "That is what my vision is telling me."
For the first time, Briella lied to her husband.
She really hadn't seen any other visions aside from Thirteen coming to their residence.
However, she was willing to lie in order to make her husband cooperate with the boy, whom she believed was sent to the Valbarra Archipelago for a reason.
"Fine, then tell me, what should I do?" General Stark stared at the human boy, whom his wife trusted very much. "Am I supposed to just sit here and wait for those assassins to come knocking on my door?"
"Of course not," Thirteen replied. "We are going to strike, and strike hard, deep behind enemy lines, in order to make them bleed. And for this to work, I will need your most loyal subordinates who are willing to die for your sake.
"The missions that they will conduct are downright treasonous, so if they are more loyal to the King than you, this plan will not work."
The more General Stark listened to the boy, the more he felt that Zion was a very dangerous person, which made him wonder what the boy had experienced to become this evil at such a very young age.
"Just tell me one thing," General Stark said with all the seriousness he could muster. "Are you doing this for the Tigerkin Race as a whole, or are you just weakening the Sumatran Kingdom to allow the Barbarians to trample over us?"
Thirteen, whose gaze was on the map of the Sumatran Kingdom all this time, raised his head and met the General's gaze without flinching.
"Although it is hard to believe, I'm doing this to give your race a higher chance of survival," Thirteen answered. "Not only the Tigerkins, but I plan to do this with the Barbarian Race as well. After I'm done with the Sumatran Kingdom, I will return to the Barbarian Lands, and find the ringleaders on their side as well.
"What you don't know, General, is that this entire thing is actually a big conspiracy. Brigham and some of the nobles of the Sumatran Kingdom have sold your people to someone else. The same can be said for the Barbarians. The point of this whole war is to simply weaken both sides.
"Tell me, General, who will benefit most if the Tigerkins and the Barbarians have an all out war with each other? Who will benefit most if the powerhouses of the Valbarra Archipelago were to die one after the other?"
General Stark pondered for a bit, but he couldn't think of anyone who would benefit from this war. However, his line of thinking changed the moment he excluded the people that lived in the Valbarra Archipelago.
"Don't tell me, the Mainland?" General Stark looked at Zion in disbelief.
Thirteen nodded his head in confirmation. "That's right. The true enemy will come from the mainland, and they will arrive shortly after the war starts. I will not go into detail, because they are not important right now."
"I see, so that's it," General Stark finally understood why the human boy said that he only planned to change the direction of the war.
He didn't plan to stop the war preparation completely.
No.
He needed the Tigerkins to be ready for war, but not against the Barbarians but the true enemies that would arrive from the mainland.
Thirteen knew that he needed to share a bit of information to the General to make him stop doubting his every decision, and his every move.
If he wanted to get General Stark's full cooperation, he must make him understand that there was a greater threat outside the scope of his vision.
"How about I share this information with the King?" General Stark asked. "If I do, I'm sure he will at least hear me out."
"Useless." Thirteen shook his head before returning his attention on the map. "Your King won't believe you because you have no proof. Also, the masterminds behind the Radical Faction will no longer spare any effort to eliminate you and your family.
"They will recognize you as a thorn that must be removed no matter what. When that happens, you will be a fugitive in your own Kingdom. So, General, just close your eyes, and let me, and Anwir handle the dirty work for you.
"All you need to do is remain the General who will protect his people. Keep your image clean, so when you actually speak, people will listen to you. Also, make sure to give me a small team that is loyal to you and only you.
"Make sure that there is at least one Champion in the group. This mission is very dangerous, so I will need someone who will be able to cover our tracks when things get messy."
General Stark nodded and promised that he would give Thirteen the manpower he needed.
This made Thirteen very happy because he would use the people that the General would give him to not only throw a wrench on their enemies' plans, but also profit from the experience as well.
'I guess it's time for me to change profession to that of a Bandit Lord,' Thirteen mused. 'Time to loot some people.'
What Thirteen lacked in the Sumatran Kingdom was manpower and resources.
Since the General would give him manpower then he would just steal the resources from others.
After all, since the ones he was stealing from were his enemies, he would not hesitate to steal everything from them.
This would not only help delay the war, but it would also make the other nobles, who were part of the Radical Faction, become more wary, thinking that they were making enemies the more they pushed for their warriors to start marching on the battlefield.
Thirteen and his previous Hosts specialized in stealing stuff from prominent families, as well as raiding the treasuries of a Kingdom.
Now that he could justify this hobby of his, he would not hesitate to fill his own coffers with the wealth of his foes, who had no idea that their nefarious schemes were already discovered by the General Stark's family.
