Inside the room, aside from the people from the Twin Cities, everyone else present had a very interesting expression on their face.
Some were thinking. Some were pleased. Some were angry and dissatisfied. Some looked miserable. Some were expressionless. And then there was the blonde girl blinking with a blank, adorable look on her face.
"Isn't this a little too overbearing..." Unable to hold back any longer, an envoy from a small nation in central Valoran, squeezed between the two great powers of Demacia and Noxus, stepped forward and looked at Logan cautiously.
Being forced into a war?
As a minister from a small nation, he knew better than anyone what happened when a small country got dragged into a large-scale war.
It became fuel for the great powers, that was all.
Victory did not belong to small nations. Defeat did not belong to them either. When the war ended, they gained nothing. The only thing left for them was a single line in some history book, something like, In this year, at this time, this kingdom and that empire went to war, and then this nation vanished from Runeterra...
So even though his country had received aid from the Twin Cities, he had still stepped forward, hoping to refuse.
But before Logan could say anything, someone else spoke first.
"Overbearing? That's funny. Tell me, did you use your brain at all before you said that?"
At Logan's side, Mel looked at the man and continued coolly, "When Noxian cavalry tramples your cities flat someday, I hope that while your country is being erased, the words you say to those Noxian soldiers will be the same, that Noxus is just being too overbearing."
"Hah, funny thing is, Grand General Swain really has considered annexing the smaller countries nearby. Right, if I remember correctly, that area doesn't fall under Demacia's defensive line, does it?" Katarina picked up the thread, grinning as she looked at Fiora.
Fiora fell silent for two seconds. She glanced at Logan, remembered Marshal Tianna's orders before this trip, and King Jarvan's attitude toward the Twin Cities, then said softly, "As long as Noxus does not establish a foothold there, station troops, and begin settlement and farming, then yes, I can speak for Demacia. That area is not under Demacian control."
"Then that's easy. When I get back, I'll have..."
"Wait, wait!" The small-state minister who had spoken earlier instantly panicked. He shouted, "You can't do this! Is, is the Twin Cities really just going to watch?"
"Aren't you supposed to be committed to preserving peace in Valoran?" he asked Logan urgently.
"Preserving peace in Valoran?" Silco narrowed his eyes at the man, his gaze dark and venomous, like he was looking at a dead man. Then he continued,
"Was Logan not clear enough just now? We've already defined this war as one that concerns the survival of Runeterra itself. If Runeterra goes under, how the hell is Valoran supposed to keep existing? Is your skull full of paste?"
"And besides, when exactly did we ever say we were devoted to preserving peace in Valoran?" Silco said loudly. His gaze swept across the faces in the room before he went on, "I've realized that when we treat people like you too well, you start mistaking the Twin Cities for pushovers. You're afraid of Demacia, afraid of Noxus, even afraid of the tribes of the Freljord, but you're not afraid of the Twin Cities?"
"You don't dare negotiate terms with Noxus, but you do dare come here and negotiate terms with us? Where exactly did you people get that kind of nerve?"
Ever since the Twin Cities had been founded and begun reaching out to the wider world, their public image had been that of a friendly, peaceful city-state that loved helping others, almost like some selfless defender of order and justice that supported every nation and maintained peace.
But was that really true?
Not a chance.
At the very least, neither Zaun nor Piltover had ever intended to become saints.
Nine out of ten Piltovans were merchants, and the last one was in politics. To put it bluntly, Piltover was a city built on interests above all else.
And Zaun?
Lawless, chaotic, ruthless.
The old Zaun had been darkness through and through, and even now, Zaun was still a city where strength ruled.
So from the very beginning, the Twin Cities had always had a goal.
They were not trying to become some ridiculous champions of world peace. They wanted to unify Runeterra into a federation, then stand at the top of it.
"Well, that's what happens when your Twin Cities spend too long playing the nice guy~" Katarina said from the side with a teasing smile. She held one hand up, a dagger spinning over her fingertip, the corner of her mouth curled upward as she continued, "Demacia and Noxus both joined the Twin Cities because we faced the gap between ourselves and them honestly. But you people..." She trailed off, then clicked her tongue.
"Tch. This really is interesting."
In the group from the smaller nations, all kinds of thoughts began surfacing. Then a few of them exchanged silent looks and stepped forward together, raising their hands.
"We're willing to join the Twin Cities Federation."
"That's right. If Runeterra falls, Valoran goes with it. Minister Kortej, your view is far too short-sighted!"
"What do you need us to do?"
Logan had not said anything up until now, but at this point, he finally spoke.
"I know what you're worried about. I can promise you this, you will not be sent to the front as cannon fodder. From the very beginning, I never planned to put ordinary people on the battlefield. For most of you, your role will be as the Twin Cities' logistical support."
"The Twin Cities need manpower and resources for weapons development, and that is where your work will be. Of course, the Twin Cities will not use you for nothing. You will be paid appropriately."
Logan took a deep breath.
There was no denying that what he was doing here carried an element of coercion. But things had already reached this point. No matter how little he wanted to do this, he had to step forward.
He could easily have handed this off to Silco and Mel, then stayed behind the scenes like before, continuing to play the good guy so people would keep describing Logan as easy to get along with and kindhearted whenever his name came up.
But the true face of the Twin Cities had always been him.
"So now, everyone willing to join the Federation, move to my left. Anyone unwilling, move to my right."
"You only get two paths. Anyone who hesitates and tries to stay neutral, the Twin Cities will deal with them first," Logan said calmly. "I will not allow fence-sitters to exist."
That evening in Zaun, Logan, Silco, and Jayce were gathered at the Forgen Tavern.
In Silco's office, several opened bottles were sitting on the table. Silco had taken off his coat. Jayce had loosened his collar. Logan sat in one corner holding a glass, staring blankly into space.
"The people we called in have all signed the agreements, but there's still one problem. In the Twin Cities, they act one way, but once they go back to their own nations, there's no guarantee they won't change their minds."
Silco's voice rang out quietly.
Jayce let out a drunken burp, wiped the corner of his mouth, and said, "Honestly, is there really any point in bringing them in? Especially some of those countries, there are a few that don't even have ten thousand people, and they still call themselves nations. What exactly are we getting out of adding people like that?"
"What can they even do? Logan, I really don't get it. Cranes and Hextech gauntlets are already working perfectly for laborers. We're not actually that short on manpower."
Hearing that, Logan closed his eyes and thought for a moment.
Actually, Jayce was right.
Those small countries could barely help the Twin Cities at all. Their technology was backward, their civilizations underdeveloped, and the resources around them were scarce.
Well, scarce was normal. If they had been rich in resources, Noxus under Darkwill would have crushed them long ago.
"Spirit matters. And I'm betting on the future," Logan said after thinking it over. He turned to Jayce and explained, "This war isn't something that ends quickly. We can control when it begins, but when it ends is unknown. So we need to prepare for the future in advance."
Then Logan smiled and added, "Besides, small countries aren't without talented people."
"Talented people?" Jayce clearly did not buy it.
Silco, however, understood immediately. He nodded with a faint smile. "That's true."
"No, wait, you think those tiny countries can produce talent too? They barely have any population at all!" Jayce set down his glass and said loudly.
"Drop the arrogance. It makes you unpleasant to look at," Silco said flatly, his expression thoroughly unimpressed.
Before Jayce could answer, Silco continued on his own.
"Let me ask you something. Ten years ago, what exactly was the difference between Zaun and those small countries?"
Jayce opened his mouth, then shut it again.
Silco did not let him off.
"Back then, Zaun's economy was backward. Compared to Piltover, it was night and day, just like the positions of the two cities themselves. But did that Zaun produce any fewer geniuses?"
"Let me ask properly, Viktor, Zaun's genius. Is he worse than you? Did he have anything close to the education you had?"
Jayce's face turned awkward, and a lot of the alcohol seemed to leave him right away.
If there was one person Jayce admired the most, Viktor was absolutely near the top.
Just as Silco said, Viktor had clawed his way up from the bottom of Zaun. The education he received and the environment he had to survive in were things Jayce could barely imagine.
Jayce's own family had fallen on hard times, yes, and he had rebuilt House Talis with his own hands, turning the hammer crest into Piltover's brightest symbol. But even in those years of decline, Jayce had still received a solid education, and while he was young, he had access to the Kiramman family's resources.
And even with all that, compared to Viktor, they were basically evenly matched.
"And what about Ekko, who grew up in Black Lane and turned the garbage you people threw away into treasures? Is he worse than you?" Silco pressed on.
Jayce's hands tightened on his thighs.
All right.
Ekko was not worse than him either.
That kid had grown up wild. Even now, under Heimerdinger's guidance, he still had never become the kind of academic inventor Jayce and Viktor were. His research thinking was wild, imaginative, and unrestricted.
Seeing Jayce sit there with his head lowered and his fingers digging into his leg, Silco sneered, then delivered the final blow.
"And my Jinx Powder, is she worse than you?"
"..."
Jayce lowered his head even farther.
That one was the heaviest hit of all.
When it came to making weapons, if Jinx said she was second, no one in all of Runeterra would dare claim first.
Just look at what she had made.
Drones, laser guns, Hextech chem-missiles, a Hextech shield watch, chem-smoke grenades, and the Super Mega Death Rocket!, with destructive power comparable to a god's single strike.
Jinx and Ekko had grown up in similar ways, both wild and self-taught, but Jinx was bolder. Maybe because she was a little crazy, a lot of things that human minds normally treated as taboo, things even Ekko would not dare imagine or touch, Jinx would absolutely think of and try.
Before Hextech crystals became weapons, who made the first Hextech weapon?
Hah.
Jinx had.
Little Powder as a child had already figured out how to turn the explosive force of shattered Hextech crystals into a mobile monkey bomb, so what did you think she was capable of now?
Logan was enjoying this from the side. Seeing Jayce sit there in shame, he chuckled and said, "Jayce, the reason geniuses are geniuses is because their emergence isn't determined by their environment."
Jayce lifted his head, slapped both cheeks lightly, and said seriously, "That's my fault. I was too arrogant."
"You and Silco are right."
He understood what Logan meant.
A genius would not be held back by circumstances. No matter the situation, a genius could still rise. And the ones who were buried by their surroundings and never made it out were not geniuses.
At least, not geniuses who managed to grow.
Back in the old Zaun, under those conditions, Viktor, Ekko, and Jinx had all made it out. So were the conditions in those small countries really worse than what Zaun had been back then?
Of course not.
"That's why we need to make sure they join," Logan said meaningfully.
This world would never lack geniuses.
In a world of magic, there were geniuses everywhere.
What it lacked were geniuses who could survive long enough to grow properly.
And if Runeterra was going to oppose the Void, then the first thing they had to guarantee was that the world would keep producing new geniuses in the future.
As for whether those people would truly be useful, Logan believed they would.
After all, there was a section in Sylas's story where, while working with the Mageseekers, he once visited a small village and saw a girl surrounded by lightning. Her magic was so vast that Sylas could not even see through it.
The Sylas of the future had met Lux, and even Lux, whose ceiling among Runeterra's mages was easily top five at the very least, was still inferior to that girl in Sylas's eyes.
So that raised the question.
If that girl had survived, and received the education she deserved, and been allowed to grow up properly, then just how powerful would she have become?
Would she have become the next Lissandra?
The thought honestly left Logan feeling a little regretful.
Silco tapped the table with a bent finger. "Enough. I already sent people to handle it. That girl you brought back from Ionia, I've already dispatched her."
"By now, there should already be quite a few scouts inside those small countries."
Logan smiled and nodded.
At the same time, in a forest somewhere in Valoran, a nimble girl with hair like a hedgehog stood on a tree branch. Her face was covered, and she wore a strange pair of goggles.
There was only a narrow slit between the goggles and the veil. They fit perfectly around her eyes. The goggles were black, with small frames, but the left side had a tiny notch in it, and inside that notch sat a blue gemstone no bigger than a grain of rice.
She lifted her hand and made a series of motions in front of her.
That was the hand-signal system she had set up during her training in Zaun.
The moment she finished the gestures, several black shadows shot out from her side at once.
After those shadows disappeared into different directions, she turned her gaze toward a distant place. Through the trees, a pale gray wall could just barely be seen. She narrowed her beautiful eyes as she looked at that city.
"This is my first mission."
The girl's voice was lovely, clear as a songbird, but with a thread of coldness in it.
"I'm absolutely not going to fail."
The instant she finished speaking, her body vanished into the woods.
Akali, head of Zaun's special operations division, had just begun her first mission for Zaun.
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