"Well, how am I supposed to get out of this one?" Levi muttered as he rubbed his temples. A dull headache had settled behind his eyes while he stared at the reports spread across his desk. The negotiations at the United Nations headquarters had barely moved in months, and every new meeting seemed to end exactly where the previous one had. It was the first time in years that he genuinely felt trapped by his own calculations.
The frustrating part was that the negotiations were not failing because the diplomats were incompetent. On the contrary, some of the finest negotiators from every major nation were gathered on Null Island. The real problem was that nobody wanted to compromise while they still believed time was on their side. As long as everyone knew there were many years left before another Guardian Trial, delaying difficult decisions carried almost no political cost.
That assumption had also shaped Levi's own planning. When the delegations departed for Null Island, he had expected the talks to continue for years before a final agreement was reached. The distances between nations had grown dramatically after the expansion of the Earth, meaning transporting diplomats across the world required careful planning and enormous resources. Because of that, he had deliberately planned a long-term mission rather than a short diplomatic summit.
From his perspective, everything had proceeded according to schedule. The diplomats were debating complicated issues, collecting information, and gradually narrowing their disagreements. Sixteen years still remained before the alliance structure absolutely needed to be finalized. There was no immediate deadline forcing anyone to rush toward an imperfect agreement.
Unfortunately, Levi had overlooked one critical factor.
He had never considered how the military would react.
The more he thought about it, the more obvious his mistake became. Military officers viewed time completely differently from politicians. While diplomats measured success by reaching the best possible agreement, soldiers measured success by whether they were becoming stronger before the next battle. To them, every unnecessary delay meant valuable training time had been lost forever.
There was another reason he had failed to predict their reaction. Throughout most of his political career, military affairs had never truly fallen under his responsibility. The previous European leaders had always handled strategic defense matters themselves, believing those issues were too important to delegate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As a result, Levi had accumulated decades of diplomatic experience but very little understanding of military culture.
That lack of experience was beginning to haunt him.
The military that existed today was also very different from the one described in older government reports. Before Herman Merz returned to power, corruption had slowly spread through the armed forces. Promotions still depended largely on merit and skill, but politics and personal influence had gradually begun affecting appointments. Since the world had gone so long without fighting true large-scale wars, discipline had weakened in many places.
Herman had changed all of that.
The moment he resumed command, he began a systematic reform that spared nobody. Officers who abused their authority disappeared from important positions almost overnight. Standards were tightened across every branch of the military, and competence once again became the deciding factor behind promotions. Within only a few years, the European military had transformed back into the professional force it had once been.
That transformation also changed the mindset of the soldiers serving within it.
Young recruits no longer viewed military service as a stable government job. They joined because they genuinely wanted to become professional soldiers capable of defending humanity. The defense of the northern border had become legendary throughout Europe, and the memorial roads leading toward the battlefield were constantly filled with visitors paying their respects. Seeing the sacrifices made there inspired countless young people to enlist.
Because of that, the idea of one of their officers being reduced to little more than a diplomatic mascot infuriated many within the armed forces.
Soffie represented everything the new military stood for. She had earned her position through ability rather than family influence, despite being Herman's granddaughter. She was rebuilding the European cavalry into a modern fighting force, and many officers believed that project would become vital during future Guardian Trials. Taking her away from that responsibility for months on end felt like wasting one of their most valuable assets.
Levi leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply.
"So what exactly am I supposed to do?" he whispered.
Replacing Soffie sounded simple in theory, but every possible replacement created another problem. The military refused to send another promising officer to spend months attending diplomatic meetings, while the generals themselves were far too important to leave their commands. The politicians wanted someone with prestige, but everyone possessing enough prestige also had responsibilities they could not abandon.
The only alternatives were equally unpleasant.
One option was creating a rotation system where different military representatives periodically relieved one another. While practical, it would signal to the rest of the world that Europe considered the negotiations unimportant. Diplomacy depended as much on appearances as actual agreements, and constantly rotating representatives would weaken their political position.
The second option was much harder.
Finish the negotiations.
Levi laughed bitterly.
If ending the negotiations were easy, they would already have done so months ago.
The subjects being discussed affected the future security of every nation on Earth. Every proposal carried enormous military and economic consequences that would shape humanity's ability to survive the next Guardian Trial. Nobody wanted to make a mistake that could cost millions of lives.
Money complicated the situation even further.
After the first Guardian Trial, the System had established international loan limits based on each nation's performance. Every country could borrow resources worth up to ten times the wealth it had earned during the trial. That single rule dramatically widened the gap between successful nations and those that had struggled.
Naturally, nobody wanted to surrender the advantages they had already gained.
The economic imbalance was only one half of the problem. The military disagreements were proving to be even more difficult to resolve because they touched on national pride as much as battlefield effectiveness. Every country believed its soldiers had fought bravely during the first Guardian Trial, and for the most part, that belief was true. The issue was not courage, but consistency.
The larger nations repeatedly argued that the smaller countries had fielded legions that lacked the discipline necessary for prolonged operations. Nobody questioned the determination of those soldiers because they had fought with everything they had. In many cases, they charged into battle with a ferocity that surprised even veteran commanders. Unfortunately, courage alone could not compensate for poor coordination once formations began to break apart.
Levi had read countless after-action reports from the campaign, and the same pattern appeared again and again. The legions from smaller nations often displayed extraordinary individual bravery, but maintaining formation under prolonged pressure proved much harder for them. Officers struggled to keep shield walls intact, and communication between units frequently broke down during the largest engagements. None of it came from cowardice; it came from a lack of experience and standardized training.
The larger countries argued that this difference became most visible during the final assault on the goblin portal. The spearhead of the great V-shaped formation was almost always composed of legions from the largest military powers. Those armies possessed decades of institutional knowledge, well-established chains of command, and strict battlefield discipline that allowed them to continue advancing even while taking heavy casualties. Every soldier knew exactly where they belonged, and every officer trusted the units beside them.
Ironically, the highest casualty rates were often suffered by the forces protecting the flanks. Those positions were frequently assigned to the smaller nations, not because they were considered expendable, but because the center required absolute precision to avoid collapsing. Holding the edges demanded flexibility rather than coordinated breakthroughs, yet it also exposed those units to constant pressure from the enemy. Whenever a shield wall opened even slightly, the goblins exploited the gap without hesitation.
Levi understood that these statistics painted only part of the picture. Many of the smaller countries had only recently achieved stable standards of living after fusion reactors spread across the globe. Entire generations had grown up worrying about whether tomorrow's meal would exist, and that uncertainty inevitably shaped military culture. A society that had spent decades struggling to survive could not instantly produce the same level of discipline as nations that had enjoyed prosperity for centuries.
Some diplomats from wealthier countries failed to appreciate that reality. They saw only battlefield reports and casualty numbers without understanding the history behind them. Others argued that standards should remain universal regardless of circumstance because the enemy would not care about economic hardship. Both sides had valid points, which only made reaching a compromise even more difficult.
Levi sighed as he closed another report and placed it onto the growing pile covering his desk. Every document offered evidence supporting one position while simultaneously creating new objections from another. It felt less like solving a puzzle and more like trying to complete one whose pieces changed shape every time they were moved. No matter how carefully he examined the situation, no simple solution appeared.
"This isn't something I can solve alone," he admitted quietly.
For the first time since the negotiations had begun, Levi accepted that his own perspective was no longer enough. Diplomacy was never the work of a single individual, no matter how experienced that person might be. If he wanted to break the current deadlock, he needed the collective experience of every senior diplomat under his command. Perhaps someone else would notice an angle he had overlooked.
Within the hour, orders were sent across the diplomatic network requesting an emergency strategy meeting. Representatives stationed throughout the world were instructed to prepare detailed reports on their governments' current positions. Levi already had an idea forming in the back of his mind, but it was an ambitious proposal that would require broad international support. Convincing Europe alone would be difficult enough; convincing the rest of the world would be another challenge entirely.
As Levi prepared for the meeting, another conversation had already reached its conclusion hundreds of kilometers away.
"That should finally light a fire under their asses," Herman muttered after placing the receiver back onto its cradle.
He was not normally someone who enjoyed threatening politicians, but patience had its limits. If the diplomatic corps continued treating military personnel as symbolic decorations instead of valuable officers, someone needed to remind them that the armed forces had responsibilities extending far beyond conference rooms. Hopefully, his call would be enough to accelerate the discussions.
With that matter temporarily settled, Herman turned his attention to the thick stack of reports waiting on his desk. Unlike the diplomats, whose greatest concern was negotiation, the military had no choice but to prepare for the worst possible outcome. Every intelligence estimate assumed that peace could collapse without warning. It was always better to prepare for a disaster that never arrived than to be surprised by one that did.
The reports all focused on a single event that everyone believed was approaching.
The first human breakthrough to Stage One.
At first glance, such a breakthrough sounded like something worth celebrating. Humanity had struggled for years to grow stronger, and reaching a new stage represented a historic achievement. However, military analysts viewed the event from a completely different perspective. They were less interested in the individual reaching Stage One than in the chain reaction that might follow.
Several intelligence divisions had reached the same unsettling conclusion.
The corrupted humans had not remained idle.
Evidence gathered from previous expeditions suggested that corrupted infiltrators had secretly entered multiple hidden Secret Realms over the years. Whenever humanity concentrated its attention elsewhere, those infiltrators quietly manipulated conditions inside the realms. Nobody knew the full extent of their plans, but the pattern was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Even so, that was not Herman's greatest concern.
What truly worried him was history itself.
There had already been three confirmed cases in which hidden Secret Realms suddenly burst into reality without any warning. Every recorded incident had ended the same way—with overwhelming violence and catastrophic civilian casualties. The military archives described those events in chilling detail, and Herman had studied every one of them personally.
The most devastating example had occurred in the mountains of Tibet.
The terrain there was extremely rugged, making surveillance and transportation exceptionally difficult even before mana transformed the world. Unfortunately, one hidden Secret Realm had formed between a major city and the permanent garrison responsible for protecting the region. When the realm finally erupted, the defending legion found itself cut off from the civilians it was supposed to protect.
The result had been horrific.
Before reinforcements could break through, countless corrupted creatures poured out of the collapsing realm and descended upon the city. Entire districts were devastated before organized resistance could be established. Although the defending legion eventually regained control of the situation, the price paid in civilian lives remained one of the darkest chapters in China's history to date.
That single incident again changed how military planners viewed hidden Secret Realms.
If a nation with as much territorial control and surveillance capability as China could overlook one until it exploded, then no country on Earth could honestly claim to be completely safe. Smaller nations possessed even fewer resources for continuous monitoring, while larger countries simply had too much territory to observe perfectly. Somewhere beneath forests, mountains, deserts, or oceans, other hidden realms could already be waiting.
Herman closed the report and folded his hands together.
"If the first Stage One breakthrough triggers even one of them..." he murmured.
He did not finish the sentence.
He did not need to.
Everyone responsible for humanity's defense already understood exactly what those missing words implied. The next great battle might not begin with armies crossing borders or portals opening in plain sight. It could begin with a hidden Secret Realm erupting beneath a peaceful city, catching an entire nation completely unprepared.
That possibility alone was enough to justify every preparation currently being made, no matter how excessive they appeared. To the outside world, it looked as though the military was preparing for another global war. Herman knew that assessment was accurate.
Because if even one hidden Secret Realm erupted after humanity's first Stage One breakthrough, it would be one.