Chapter 538 Loren feels that everyone is questioning him
The lights in the House of Lords meeting room were concentrated and dim, illuminating the documents and maps on the table.
Duke Moretti took a deep breath.
"Wilford, you've got one thing wrong. Regardless of whether our enemy is the Horning Empire or the Blood Clan, what we need to consider right now is the possibility of fighting. The war of resistance is bound to fail. Continuing it will only lead to the demise of our army. Please analyze the problem rationally."
In contrast, Duke Moretti was calmer and more prudent, reminding everyone present of rationality and realism.
The other members of the House of Lords present seemed somewhat hesitant during the debate.
They exchanged worried glances, now looking at the Prime Minister at the head of the table, now looking at the Duke.
The tension was almost palpable.
"The northern strait of the continent is our natural trench and battlement. It is the widest waters that the southerners of the Horning Empire have never seen. We have experience and geographical advantages. The blood clan dare not fight us in person at sea. If it is on land, these guys who cannot stand the sunlight will no longer have absolute safety guarantees during the day."
Lanci stated slowly.
"Then men, women, young and old will all despise us for our wrong decisions and dereliction of duty - because we failed to fulfill our duty to protect them, leaving them defenseless to face the vampires."
Duke Moretti pressed on step by step. "Once the Fuklo Kingdom and the Edith Kingdom on the east and west sides fall, we will be surrounded and eroded on land. Even the northern snowfield behind us will be blocked. The naval battle you mentioned will not be established. What can we use to fight the Honing Empire? Do you think they won't fight a tug-of-war with us? The Honing Empire has plenty of patience, and they have the entire southern continent behind them. What do we have behind us? The neighboring countries that are shaky and may become enemies at any time? The snowfield that is dark all year round? Or the group of demons on the other side of the snowfield who are eyeing us covetously and are also impossible to communicate with?"
"I will try my best to use diplomacy and seek support from neutral countries."
Lanqi said immediately.
Compared to Duke Moretti's sharp questioning, his response seemed particularly short.
"Your Excellency the Prime Minister, you shouldn't bypass me and try to have diplomacy with other countries. This shows a lack of trust in me."
Foreign Minister Duke Moretti shook his head.
"But besides considering seeking an opportunity for peace talks with the Honing Empire, have you ever considered putting aside your attitude and seeking help from neutral countries?"
Lanci questioned.
"Haha, I don't know whether to say that the Prime Minister is optimistic or naive. Neutral countries, even if you randomly grab a young person in the parliament who knows a little bit about history and ask them why there are still countries that remain neutral at this stage, they can tell you the answer. If we can be a neutral country that reaps the final benefits, wouldn't our Polant Empire also want to be the last one to end up like that?"
This question was met with only cold sarcasm from Duke Moretti.
"Instead of seeking a hegemon that is far stronger than us, if you have the ability, why not persuade a neutral country that is even on par with us to help the Kingdom of Bliss and give the people more confidence? Instead of asking us to take risks without any chance of winning, and just talk big."
Although his tone still showed the restraint of a diplomat, the dispute between the two had obviously become more intense and was about to break out into a quarrel.
After Duke Moretti finished speaking, many congressmen hung their heads and sighed helplessly.
It’s not that the Prime Minister’s ability to argue is inferior to that of Duke Moretti.
But at this point in time and facing the facts, the entire Hersarem was in a panic. They could not help but lean more towards Duke Moretti and think about the possibility of peace talks that the Duke mentioned.
No one saw any hope of victory. Even though the Prime Minister's courage was like a flame, no one was willing to throw himself into the flame.
As long as the Prime Minister gives in now, they will be able to follow Duke Moretti's proposal, change the current trend in Hersarem, and actively prepare for negotiations.
"No need to say more. I will not change my mind. We, the Polant Empire, want to show the vampires our backbone. They will never be able to conquer all humans. I will take full responsibility for this matter."
Lanqi stood up, pushed his chair into the table, glanced around the conference room, and said.
"are you sure?"
Duke Moretti's voice finally turned cold.
"Yes, that's why I'm sitting here."
Lanqi gently released his hand that was pushing the chair, and the heavy thud of the chair legs hitting the ground naturally startled the surrounding congressmen back to their senses.
Duke Moretti was not at all intimidated by Lanci's momentum.
"Can we understand that the Prime Minister has completely denied any possibility of negotiations with the Horning Empire?"
Duke Moretti finished speaking and silently looked at the conservatives.
“…”
Lanqi remained silent.
This time he did not refute Moretti and show his tough attitude, but just walked out of the meeting room alone, and his back announced that the meeting was over.
…
In the Capitol.
When Lanqi walked around the corner of an empty corridor, the cat boss jumped out from the shadows and crawled into Lanqi's coat.
"Meow meow meow, why don't you fight anymore? Are you really considering surrendering?"
The cat boss asked Lanqi in a barely audible voice.
It was very worried, afraid that Lanqi was really convinced.
It saw that the current situation of the Polant Empire had become——
[Public support: 132→145/1000 (popular support and cohesion)]
[House of Representatives: 419→305→252/1000 (Support rate among the top leaders of the Polant Empire)]
[Military Strength: 124/1000 (with the Honing Empire as a reference)]
[Finance: 221→222/1000 (Current productivity of the Polant Empire)]
[Diplomacy: 115/1000 (diplomatic relations with the Demon Realm and surrounding countries that have not surrendered)]
The overall odds of winning are unsurprisingly still locked at zero, as the comprehensive data begins to get worse.
More than a day had passed since they arrived in this shadow world.
At present, there are just over 43 days left.
On the first day, in addition to getting familiar with and winning over the people around him, after a public speech in front of the media after taking office, Lanci's public support quickly rose from 132 to 145, and it seemed to be continuing to rise slowly according to the speed of communication.
However, because he publicly expressed the idea that active resistance should be taken, he seemed to have offended the conservatives, and one item of the House of Representatives plummeted from 419 to 305, and fell again because of the quarrel with Duke Moretti just now.
The fiscal changes may have been due to the encouragement from Ranchi, which gave the people more confidence and slightly improved productivity.
There has been no change in military strength or diplomacy.
"If I had continued to refute Duke Moretti's words, I would have left written evidence of 'rejecting all possibilities of peace talks'. He was trying to trick me. Duke Moretti may have arranged for a meeting recorder to record our conversation in the next room, and this would become a handle for the conservatives to impeach me, so I could never admit it just now."
Lanqi answered the little black coal ball in a low voice as if talking to himself.
"Meow."
Boss Cat suddenly realized.
There is actually such a trap.
Luckily you reacted just now, otherwise the parliament item might drop below 100 directly, declaring the end of the game.
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
No, you are a little too skilled.
How come you, an art student, become such a veteran when you arrive at Congress?
…
Ikerita Academy, the conference room on the top floor of the main building of the Sage's Hall. The conference room with light-colored walls is brightly lit, and the green plants placed on the spacious windowsill always bring vitality to this space.
But at this moment.
In this conference room, there was constant chaos due to controversial topics, which suddenly became heated discussions from time to time.
"Ranqi now has several choices. First of all, he can only take care of the people and the parliament. He must try to balance them as much as possible and use his knowledge to transform the Polante Empire and improve its military or finances as much as possible in a short period of time. Only in this way will there be hope of changing the 0% chance of winning."
Many professors were discussing.
The seats and tables are arranged in a circular format, with several large round tables surrounding the central projection screen.
There were five or six teachers sitting at each table, some staring at the projection screen with frowns, some actively communicating with the professors around them.
This was more like a seminar or critique than a meeting.
"In fact, Lanqi's performance in improving public opinion is pretty good. If it weren't for the difficulty in dealing with the House of Representatives, he might have been able to raise public opinion to a higher level by the end if he had given it his all."
Seeing that Lanqi in the shadow world was caught in a dilemma, people outside also discovered that the relationship between "public opinion" and "parliament" in this shadow world was one of increase and decrease.
Although Ranch seemed to have some talent for boosting public sentiment, the corresponding price was a sharp drop in parliamentary approval ratings.
Public opinion does prefer a prime minister who can lead them to victory, but the House of Representatives is mainly controlled by conservatives and has a solidified structure that Ranch cannot shake in a short time.
However, these two items are obviously auxiliary factors.
The formula for calculating the odds of winning is unclear, but one thing is certain: military strength and finance are the two indicators that are most correlated with the chances of winning in this shadow world. Even if public opinion and parliament are raised very high, if the military strength is not enough or the finances are too low, the chances of winning will still be zero.
"Time is Lanqi's capital now. Every day is almost a consumable for him. Apart from the necessary time to stabilize the people's hearts and the parliament, it depends on how he chooses to allocate his time to improve the other three items."
"Lanqi is a magic craftsman from another era. He should be able to improve the military strength a little in forty days. But unfortunately, he is not a seventh- or eighth-level magic craftsman, so it is difficult to make a significant improvement."
"In peacetime, Lanqi can be a non-human and increase finances by sacrificing diplomacy, but in wartime, it is difficult to fabricate productivity out of thin air, and diplomacy cannot be lowered any further. Although inspiring public morale can slightly affect productivity, there is a limit after all."
"As for diplomacy, it takes a long time. The above four indicator options are basically measured in days, but if you choose the diplomatic route, it will take at least weeks. And if it fails, it is a pure waste of time and there is no benefit."
Ron, the vice president of the Sage Academy, put away his pen and summarized the conclusions they had reached in the past two days.
He glanced at Loren who was sitting in the main seat in the conference room, then looked at the silver-haired woman from the Church of the Goddess of Destiny beside him, the legendary Saint of the Northern Continent, and said nothing more.
He knew that Dean Loren was already overwhelmed by his own affairs at the moment.
Since returning to the royal capital Ikerit and then to the emergency meeting room of the Sages' Academy, Loren has hardly spoken.
This time, the Seventh-Level Shadow World was not just an internal meeting of the Sages’ Academy. Professors from the Magic Engineering Academy and the Alchemy Academy also came to discuss and analyze the situation in real time.
They need to give feedback to the United Parliament of the Southern Continent Kingdom and the Shadow World Management Association. Once the Shadow World goes out of control or gets out of control, leading to unpredictable natural disasters, the Parliament and the Association will immediately take post-disaster measures to deal with the disaster.
At present, according to their evaluation results, this shadow world is not an ordinary seventh-level shadow world, but an extremely difficult strategy type.
"Loren..."
The Ice Witch gritted her teeth and sat beside Loren. She followed Loren to the conference room of Ikerit Academy, as if to lower the temperature of the surrounding air.
When I came to the southern continent, I originally planned to slowly go to Ikerit to see how Hyperion was living. Unexpectedly, I heard a bolt from the blue as soon as I arrived in the Kingdom of Hutton.
The moment she learned about the situation, she almost strangled Loren's neck and demanded that Loren return her Hyperion.
Hyperion did not turn on the live broadcast. It seemed that she did not want to record the situation around her. Currently, we can only see Lanqi's condition, and we don't even know whether Hyperion is still safe.
“…”
Now Loren was sweating and feeling very uncomfortable.
He didn't know how to get through these forty days.
He had originally hoped that Lanqi would be able to learn a lot of new skills during the past six months, and maybe there would be some hope for him to pass through the seventh-level shadow world. However, after seeing Lanqi's first day in this seventh-level shadow world, he was even more disappointed.
This shadow world is more about strategy and mechanism than combat. Even if Loren is thrown in, he may not have much hope of passing it, because he cannot fight against the entire Horning Empire by his own strength.
Not only did he not know why Lanqi suddenly came back and started making trouble again, but he also felt as if he was starting to fight against the whole world.
The Hutton nobles, His Majesty the King, the Southern Continent Kingdom Federation, and the Church, all began to question him frantically!
(End of this chapter)