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Standing before him and being stared down like that felt as if a picture-perfect character jumped out of the screen of my computer and tried to compare his magical feats with whatever I had accomplished in my just until recently boring life.

But as small and insignificant as Claudy\'s face made me feel, I still had a job to do. And now that this prince-like guy introduced himself, I was obliged to follow suit.

"My name is Peter… Peter Von Ziaq," I revealed after a momentary hesitation.

And no, I wasn\'t going for the effects of saying it like, "I\'m Bond, James Bond". I simply forgot about how the system changed my surname when I first stepped through the portal. And in the heat of the moment, this small bit of information somehow happened to be at the forefront of my mind.

\'Well, my intelligence and wisdom are practically double as high as they were before my evolution,\' I thought. \'So it only makes sense it\'s a lot easier for me to think that fast.\'

Intelligence outlined the processing speed of my brain while wisdom showcased the amount of information I could store in it and the speed at which I could access it all. And with both of them that much higher than ever before, it only made sense I wasn\'t all that accustomed to the full extent of my abilities.

"And I speak on behalf of all the protectors of the forest gathered here," I added after gathering my thoughts and finally growing somewhat immune or, at the very least, resistant against Claudy\'s noble charm. "So, now that we\'ve established I\'m a civilized person, I ask again. To my request of your full and total surrender, what say you?"

As interesting and potentially important as Claudy appeared to be… I still had to mind the threat that I believed Fay tried to warn me about. And so, regardless of how happy I would be to take my time conversing with this man in any other circumstances… Right now, I couldn\'t afford to allow those humans to stall for time.

And that\'s what I was more and more certain their goal was.

\'Which suggests, they are awaiting some sort of rescue. And with that in mind, Fay\'s warning…\'

I took a shallow yet long breath, staring Claudy down as I pressured him with my eyes for a response.

"You appear to be a civilized person indeed," the gold-haired man spoke, still with the same calm, collected voice. "So I will be forward and assume you know it\'s impossible for me to agree to those terms," he replied. "I\'m just an acting leader of the guild. Even if I gave the orders, my men would simply replace me. And so, I would rather not give those orders, to begin with"

This man\'s words… made sense.

But they sounded more like a barter, not an actual concern for me.

For what use would be a leader that has no prerogatives to actually lead and make decisions? A folly like that could appear in non-professional armies, where personal connections and status took precedence over ability and discipline.

But in a patchwork army of various different mercenary units, all railed under the standard of their guild? With the people who learned firsthand the value and importance of order and hierarchy?

"Your words ring true," I smiled at Claudy before opening up my arms and shrugging them away to the sides as if to point at all the celestials and divines patiently waiting for my orders. "But I\'m in an even more precarious situation. They listen to me because, as we can all see," I swung my hands, pointing them at the whole of the camp-turned-battlefield.

"My orders and plans work and get the job done. And I could never justify all of our losses if I allowed you to just walk away. And again," I leaned my head to the side and smiled lightly, "What will stop you from coming back once you join with reinforcements?"

If we left the question of the credibility of our statements aside, we found ourselves in a stalemate. Just like Claudy couldn\'t give the orders his men wouldn\'t follow, I couldn\'t push for an outcome the celestials and divines wouldn\'t be willing to accept.

And with this line of reasoning leading to nothing but a bitter battle to the last man… It was for the best to simply try another angle.

"Listen man," I softened my tone and dropped all pretense of formality and noble elegance. "Just like you wanted to know if I\'m a civilized person, I want to know if you are a pragmatic one."

Staring right into the gold-haired prince\'s eyes, I squinted my own.

"I know there\'s a force heading our way as we speak. And while I\'m capable of ending your army here and then defeating all of those who will come after, the cost of doing so…"

I allowed a hint of annoyance to appear in my eyes, making myself look as if I just saw the mountains of gold and used favors that achieving what I\'ve talked about would cost.

"My goal is to end this war. Because pragmatic people like me figured out, just making a fair deal is a hell of a lot cheaper and easier than throwing armies around." I took a breath before heaving it out in a long sigh. I allowed my face to relax a little and softened up my voice. "So, allow me to present you the caveats of our situation that I\'m trying to reconcile."

I raised my fist to my mouth and cleared my throat with a cough.

"As we speak, your reinforcements are nearing our position. Yet, for them to arrive too quickly, they can only be front guard or a unit traveling light, extremely light."

I brought my arms together and crossed them on my chest, staring right into Claudy\'s face.

"Either way, we can slaughter them all. Sure, they will buy you some more time, but we simply cannot allow the imperials to find such a nice, reinforced base here. So, no matter the cost, we will have to remove you all and burn this camp down."

There was no emotion in my voice, even with the ironic smile plastered all over my face.

"In this scenario, you die. But what if I let you go?" I leaned my head over my other shoulder, shaking it a little as it moved. "Then you will be back once the imperials arrive and all of the sacrifice of my dear allies will be for naught."

"That\'s… correct," Claudy reluctantly agreed with my words.

After all, my entire idea was built on the most predictable and thus most likely outcomes. Results that, while smaller than what everyone wanted, reconciled everyone\'s interests and met it all in the middle.

"Again, my goal is to end this war by removing the reason for it. And if the Imperials simply want to conquer the forest, I have my ways of forcing them to take responsibility when I offer them what they claim they want. But for that, I need leverage over them," I explained my entire line of reasoning that gave birth to the very foundations of my plan.

No matter the country, moving huge armies around required a reason. A desire those armies were meant to secure. And with that much mass behind this entire campaign, this desire, even if ultimately fake, could still become a rope for me to bind their hands with.

"And that leverage is…?" Claudy asked, only to squint his eyes and throw a quick look over his shoulder at the troops awaiting the results of the talks.

There was a visible sense of pressure at the very back of the young man\'s golden eyes. The air appeared to tense up around him as he gave his soldiers a long, look.

Then, Claudy raised his eyes higher, to the line of trees looming in the near distance.

"To have you all become our hostages in a bid to force the empire to come and talk rather than having them send their troops to kill everything that moves and burn everything that does not."