Eisen stared at Aaron, not sure what to think. Was he just always this calm internally? Maybe he had some kind of condition that didn't allow for his heart rate to change. But that couldn't be the case, right? Eisen didn't understand this at all, but clearly, something was going on here.
.|v-l'e -.
Evalia, also having noticed that Aaron was acting, took a deep breath and held her hand toward the Filth, "But please, you really do not need to worry. While this creature is still best kept inside of this box, simply for your peace of mind, we are happy to announce that we have tamed it!
It has not yet been given a name, but we have managed to make sure it could stay here without concerning or distracting you," she explained, placing her hand onto the crystal cube. Taking this as a signal, the Filth quickly reacted.
It grabbed the clothes that had been neatly folded up in the corner of the space and carefully pushed its myriad of hands inside of the clothes, as if trying to fill the space.
It slowly but surely took on its humanoid form, and at last, leaned down to grab the sunglasses before placing them down on its face. The Filth slowly nodded its head, and then sat down, kneeling in the center of the cube.
The room quickly grew silent, and the expressions of everyone changed. Some people seemed relieved, but others had twinges of confusion and shock mixed in there.
"We have luckily managed to figure out the weakness of these creatures, and we're more than confident that we can face them with plete ease," Evalia said with her hands behind her back, smiling broadly, "Oh, but please, don't worry! This is the only one that appeared here, so you are pletely safe."
Eisen carefully nodded, still glancing over at Aaron who was still just as calm as before internally, despite now acting up how relieved he was, "You have no need to worry whatsoever. This summit can continue as planned. There should be no further incidents like this, but we wanted to be transparent as we took on the duty of hosting you all."
The old man took a deep breath, nodding over to Brody, who quickly pushed the crystal cube back over to where it stood before, in a place where it was mostly out of view behind some pillars.
The filth had to stay in here so that they could make sure Samuel couldn't reach it, but there was no need to keep it directly in front of all the envoys, since that would really only make them more nervous than they needed to be. Luckily, Evalia's art, music, and speech were doing a pretty good job at calming everyone down and making sure that the Filth wouldn't actually be a distraction.
And so, the peace treaty summit continued. Eisen started out with a summary of how things were left off yesterday, and then guided the conversation along. Each side seemed to have reconvened yesterday evening to make sure that everyone was on the same page, and now, so now, Eisen was giving each side another chance to make new offers and demands, before opening the conversation again.
After that, Eisen's task was once again to intervene when things veered too far off course or when individuals became too aggressive or unreasonable. That being the case, the second day went a lot better than the first day already.
Since most of the big issues were already addressed right away on the first day, the second day was filled more with smaller matters, or revisitations of some matters that were left undecided the day before.
Though, Eisen could barely even pay attention to what was going on. He managed to still do his job well enough, luckily, but he couldn't help himself but focus on Aaron the whole time. He hid it well enough, so he doubted that any of the envoys noticed, but clearly the other originals realized. Maybe Aaron himself also noticed, though he didn't show it.
But how could Eisen trust any part of how Aaron acted anymore?
Time until lunch passed by incredibly fast, and when food was being served, Eisen took the opportunity to stand up and make his way outside to take a breather. Evalia and Xenia stayed behind to watch the envoys and make sure they didn't interact with the Filth, but Jyuuk and Brody followed the old man outside.
"Hey, are we sure that we didn't get something wrong?" Brody asked, "I mean, that kid, seriously?"
"... I don't know. I would like that to be the case, but I doubt it," Eisen replied, though he really wanted them to be wrong as well, "It looks like Aaron was involved with summoning something from another realm."
"But how? And why? He's actively doing what he can to ensure the treaty is going in the best way possible.
I mean, his stances are the best possible oute from my point of view, and he's doing a good job convincing the others as well," Jyuuk pointed out, glancing around, "And we spied on them so we know that Aaron didn't tell them anything during the secret meetings to get them to act the part or something.
He's actively doing what he should, and he didn't change course after realizing the plan failed."
"Unless... the plan didn't fail," Brody suggested, cupping his chin in thought. Eisen looked over toward him confused.
"What do you mean?"
"Clearly Aaron is a lot different from what we thought. Maybe his goal was never to stop the summit from proceeding as normal, but he had something else in mind."
Eisen stopped for a few moments, trying to consider this option, but he had no idea what to really say to that. It was possible, of course, that this was some kind of weird, plex plan that Aaron had set up for some eventual good that just wasn't clear right now. But that wasn't something they could count on right now. There was an option that seemed a bit more likely.
"... Maybe he has been influenced by Samuel for a while. He could be just some kind of pawn."
"Wouldn't he be doing the opposite of what he's been doing all day? He would be trying to make the war happen more actively, or get freaked out when the plan didn't work. Samuel tends to control through manipulation and fear."
Eisen thought about what Jyuuk was saying, but shook his head, "Samuel himself might be realizing that he doesn't have a shot at really starting the war by stopping the treaty summit, especially since he can't see inside.
So maybe instead, he's going another route; it would be possible to start a war by having one side attack the other right after the summit," Eisen suggsted, thinking for a moment, when Brody widened his eyes.
"Hold up, do you think the Filth was a distraction?"
"A distraction?" Eisen asked, and Brody immediately turned to the beastman next to him.
"Jyuuk, send out some of your monsters to check the rails. Eisen, I'm sure you and Xenia have some kind of access thing for those security rail checks, right? Can you see if something weird was happening with that?" Brody asked, and Eisen immediately pushed his hand into his item storage as Jyuuk sent out a swarm of insects, manding them to check any possible irregularities in the rail network.
Eisen checked the control panel for the railway's security system, the part that was meant to check any possible damage done by nearby monsters. It didn't note down anything weird, but Eisen still quickly went through the logs to make sure that all the values were correct.
"There doesn't seem to be any major damage, but there could still be something like a trap laid out nearby," Eisen pointed out, "We also need to send someone to check on the trains. Aaron was really interested in them, so maybe they ended up doing something to them.
If the trains derail or there's something incriminating hidden in there, it could still be used as an excuse to start a war between these two sides."
The old man clicked his tongue. He still didn't get why this was happening, but no matter what, he wasn't going to let something bad go down here. He wouldn't let the peace treaty fall through.
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