’Well, at least we won’t have to worry about them attacking us.’
Jason frowned as he thought about this, and he asked the system how quickly time moved in the Stone Catacombs when compared to Earth.
[One day within the Neutral Zone is equivalent to one hour on Earth.]
’A ratio of 1 to 24. That’s not bad. I’m sure they did that so that the council can have long meetings without worrying about being away from their worlds for too long. It also works for me since I won’t have to leave my family unprotected for a long time.’
Jason thought this with a bit of relief before he turned to listen as Riyala explained what the Stone Catacombs were to the confused Gina. Once Gina seemed like she understood, Jason asked Riyala a question.
"Did the Emissary say anything else?"
Riyala frowned as well, and she seemed to think for a moment before she finally spoke:
"He just told us to come with whatever case we’ve gathered against them because they’ll be doing the same. I’m a little worried they’ll ask us to pay them more because we pushed them this far."
Jason hummed, and he told Riyala not to let it get to her.
"I found a few loopholes in the treaty that we can use. It’s not much, but if we add it to what you found, then we’ll have a reasonable argument against them."
Riyala’s eyes lit up when she heard this from Jason, and even the soldiers standing at the door were shocked that Jason managed to find anything at all! The Radagan scholars had been looking through that treaty for the better part of two weeks now, and they were barely able to put together a reasonable case! How was one person able to find something when an entire library of scholars couldn’t!?
[The system has found [5] possible loopholes that would aid the user in the case against the Machina.]
Jason smiled at the system, and he thanked it for its hard work and the system responded in a smug tone.
[The system is the best in the Primordial Expanse, so searching through a treatise is nothing.]
Jason chuckled internally at the system’s self-confidence, and he turned as Gina clapped her hands and spoke up to everyone.
"You guys must be tired from your long journey. I just made lunch. Come join us. We can eat and talk about all this when we’re more relaxed."
The soldiers at the back immediately started to protest, and Gruwen spoke up with a slight stammer.
"N-No, please don’t mind us. We are only here to stand as guards as—"
Gruwen felt her words die in her throat as Jason turned to the soldiers, and they all swallowed as Jason spoke.
"We don’t turn down food in this household. If she asks you to eat, then you’ll eat. Understood?"
"Y-Yes, Kingslayer."
The soldiers couldn’t help but feel extremely small in front of Jason. Even though Jason wasn’t releasing any power at all, they still felt like one wrong move would be the end of their lives at that moment! Gina came up beside Jason and began to pull him towards the dining table with a smile, and Riyala followed after them while laughing at something Gina had said. And the three soldiers had no choice but to take off their shoes as they entered the apartment and went to join the family of three.
...
The three days leading up to the hearing were some of the busiest days that Jason had ever gone through. Riyala spent those days on Earth with Jason and Gina, and the three of them worked hard to put together a reasonable argument against the Machina Overlord. Riyala had called on some of the scholars from Radagan to help with this, and Jason realised early on that they were going to need all the help they could get since they were running out of time, so he called Cercei, and he decided to involve him in the planning process. Neither Jason nor Cercei had spoken about the last meeting that they had, and they didn’t even bring up the runes that Jason had put on Cercei at all. It was almost like they had a silent agreement not to involve anyone else in their personal disagreement, and the only people who knew about the runes were Cercei, Jason, and the runecrafters working with Gaia, who were trying to get rid of the runes.
Cercei brought Jason, Gina, Riyala, and the rest of the Radagan group to the Gaia headquarters in America. The headquarters was a large citadel that stood on one of the peaks of the Rocky Mountains in North America. It had been built like a literal fortress, and when Jason saw it, he thought it was the sort of thing you would find in one of his little sister’s old fantasy manga. If not for the fact that Jason saw various helicopters moving around the building, then Jason would have thought that he was in some other world! The building was covered on all sides by very dense clouds since it was so high up, and there were many large satellite dishes and Gatling guns arranged around the building to intercept anyone who would try to invade it.
Cercei took Jason and the others to a room that had many other people in it, and Cercei explained that these were the interdimensional scholars here on Earth. Most of them were humans, but there were some interworld species amongst them as well, and Jason was a little surprised to see all the species working well together. Apparently, Cercei had already been working on finding loopholes to the Overlord’s request right from the moment that Jason let him know about it, so the only thing that the scholars needed to do now was to compare what they found with what the scholars from Radagan had found! The scholars took all their work along with Jason’s findings, and they got into a deep conversation as they tried to put them all together in a reasonable way! And Jason could only sit with Gina and Riyala as they watched the quarrelling group. Sometimes, the scholars would ask Jason or Riyala for their input since they were the two with the most knowledge about the treaty, and they would give some tips whenever it was needed, but other than that, the scholars were the ones who really put in the work to form a proper case file!
The preparations lasted for a long time, and by the time they were done putting everything together, it was already early morning of the final day before the hearing. Jason took Gina and Riyala home through the shadows, and all three of them agreed that they needed to get a lot of sleep so they could be ready for the next day.
"Wait, together? Are you sure?"
A panicked voice echoed through the hallway on the upper floor of Jason’s house, and Jason turned to look at the bathroom door with tired eyes. Jason was currently sitting in the bathtub while leaning back calmly, and he listened as Gina’s voice echoed through the door as she responded to Riyala.
"Come on, we’re both girls. And it’s not like Jason hasn’t already seen all of it. Don’t be such a pussy."
Jason felt an amused smile grow on his lips as he heard Riyala cry out in protest, and he wasn’t surprised when the bathroom door opened to show both Riyala and Gina standing there naked. Riyala looked like she would rather be anywhere else but here. Her face was glowing red, and she was using one hand to cover her nipples as she stared at the ground with intensity! It felt like Riyala was about to combust with how much smoke was rising from her ears! Gina, meanwhile, looked like the most confident woman in the world, and Jason couldn’t stop himself from appreciating the beauty of the two women in front of him. Gina’s assets were a lot larger than Riyala’s, and that allowed Gina to possess the sexiness that only a goddess could claim to have, but that didn’t mean that Riyala wasn’t fucking beautiful either. Riyala’s assets were modest, but they fit her perfectly and gave her a look that most women would kill to have.
Jason just smiled at Gina and asked her what the hell she was doing to poor Riyala.