I … I wasn’t sure why that sounded like, er, not quite a good thing. Perhaps … perhaps … maybe the issue was that he thought I was trying to change the terms of the agreement? Even go back on my word?

  I mean, he was nowhere near angry, I’d barely even call him “mildly annoyed,” but even his “mild annoyance” could have dire consequences.

  In the end, after thinking for a few seconds, I just nodded slowly.

  “Yes. I’d like to clarify the vague terms of the agreement, and come to an agreement with regards to some new options that have opened up. Such as my teleportation capabilities.”

  “Very well,” Genghis Khan announced and gestured at the chair opposite to his. “Sit, please.”

  I did that, obviously. Now that we were closer and both seated, I realized that he was actually slightly taller than me. Huh. I’d expected the height difference to be in the opposite direction, considering how people in the past were said to have been smaller in general, but I guess he wasn’t average in any way. And quite frankly, even if he were, I dare anyone to tell him that to his face.

  Steepling his fingers, he met my eyes properly for the first time. The action was smooth, but in a way that spoke of repeated practice, rather than a lifetime of using it. I wasn’t entirely sure how I could tell, I just knew that’s what it was. But obviously, he’d done this to look more modern.

  The specter of history looming over anyone he dealt with should give him a solid advantage in negotiations, yet at the same, if someone decided to assume the worst instead, and assume he was the savage Western history liked to paint him as, they’d just nod along, not agree to anything, and then, run like hell. So he’d learned to give the impression of someone born in the last century, rather than a man nearly a millennium earlier.

  But if it was needed, I sincerely doubted he wouldn’t be able to become the most intimidating individual on the planet at the drop of a hat.

  I wasn’t entirely sure how long I’d just sat there, hoping that [Innate Etiquette] would make the fact that I was staring even slightly less obvious, but eventually, the corners of his lips quirked up, and he spoke.

  “Well, I believe when you were talking to Ambassador Altan, Raid Bosses were your biggest concern. And while they are powerful, I find that I am more than capable of dealing with them myself. Do the ‘ancients’ you work for have any trouble them?”

  “No,” I shook my head. “But we didn’t know about Nation Bosses back then. And near as I can tell, there isn’t any individual force on the planet that can take one down, possibly not even an entire nation’s nuclear arsenal.”

  That last part was mostly speculation based on what I’d seen from the defensive ability of the Bones of the Forgotten, the Nation Boss conjured from Paris’ catacombs. Its passive defenses blocked all modern projectiles, be they missiles, artillery shells, or even simple grenades, and there was absolutely no reason to believe that nuclear weaponry would be exempt.

  And it wasn’t like you could keep chucking nukes at the monster even if you had them and didn’t care about the radiation, trusting that the projectiles intercepting the missiles would detonate the warheads.

  Except nukes, quite simply, did not work that way. A nuclear detonation was a runaway chain reaction of nuclear fission as atoms split, unleashing multiple neutrons that would, in turn, crack other atoms, until you unleashed all the stored energy of the supernova that had forged the fissionable material all those billions of years ago.

  Triggering something like that required precision, a precisely calculated detonation of conventional explosives compressing the radioactive portion of the bomb while increasing its heat by several thousand degrees Celsius in an instant, not only ensuring that at least a few atoms split, but also making sure that when that happened, everything was so tightly clustered that the unleashed neutrons were bound to strike something else and kick off the reaction.

  Therefore, anything that broke a nuke and wasn’t the explosives meant to trigger it, well, it simply wouldn’t do much. You could drop nukes, you could shoot them, hell, you could even blow them up using grenades or artillery shells and in all likelihood, very little would happen. Sure, you’d wind up spreading radioactive materials all over the place, and any explosives you used would, in effect, become dirty bombs, but what you wouldn’t get is a big bang and a mushroom cloud.

  All of which was a very roundabout way of saying that in order for a nuke to detonate as intended, that detonation had to be triggered by the person controlling the weapon, or whatever onboard computers it had.

  I supposed that one could use regular artillery to determine the range of a Nation Boss defensive ability and then detonate nukes just outside that, using a litany of “near misses” to destroy it, but that wouldn’t work anywhere near as well as it might seem at first glance.

  All monsters were supernaturally tough, bosses even more so, and Nation Bosses, being at the top of the heap, took that to utterly ridiculous heights.

  At the same time, all explosions rapidly lost power the further you got from their epicenter, and they were overall much less effective out in the open compared to being in an enclosed area.

  In other words, only a fraction of their power would even reach the monster. Killing one with nuclear weapons would be easier than gathering enough ancients to kill one outside of Europe or Central Asia, but not by much, and it would make one hell of a mess.

  “In other words, you would like to amend the initial terms, removing the need to provide support against Raid Bosses, while requiring it against Nation Bosses?” Genghis Khan suggested.

  “Barring extraordinary circumstances,” I said. “It’s always possible something goes wrong.”

  “Obviously.” He nodded again. “However, if help is required, and you, specifically, are in a position to speed up travel using your portals, you will do so.”

  “As long as the same applies, should we need your help,” I replied, switching to a more formal and old-fashioned tone without even thinking about it.

  “How would that work?”

  I gestured at my surroundings. “I can portal to where I’ve been in the past. If you are somewhere I’ve visited, I can be there in an instant.”

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  “And you will return me, once the issue has been resolved.”

  I nodded. “Assuming I still have any uses for the day left.”

  “If you don’t, I receive priority once they recharge.”

  I nodded, again. It was possibly a bit much, though honestly, with four portals a day, I could afford to have one spoken for and besides, it wasn’t very different from the arrangement with Vice Admiral Drake. He stayed in the Untersberg when the next challenge appeared, attracting all the monsters along with the others, and then I’d immediately send him on his way.

  The two of us went back and forth for a bit longer, but it wasn’t overly complicated. If a monster of such titanic power as a Nation Boss showed up, and only one party to the treaty had something like that to deal with, the other person had to come help as quickly as possible, using my help. As per usual, I’d be playing taxi, and to help with that, some of his people would be ferrying me around Ulaanbaatar and its surroundings later, so I could more easily fetch or reinforce his forces as needed.

  “And what if it’s something greater than a Nation Boss?” Genghis Khan asked.

  “Then we’d better help because something that strong is coming for us once it has torn a bloody swathe through Asia,” I replied, flatly. Actually, I was pretty sure that had been a trap, to see whether I’d hedge my bets, considering how dangerous a beast like that would be, so I’d chosen the coldly logical answer. I figured he’d prefer that over a sappy “we keep our promises.”

  “What makes you think Mongolia would lose?” he asked, tone still even, though I doubted I’d have been able to sense any darker intent if he didn’t want me to. Yet I had a feeling that he wasn’t upset. And [Piercing Gaze] certainly wasn’t throwing up any red flags either.

  “The new magic of this world is based on video games. You have regular monsters, Field Bosses to dominate whatever area they cover but can be taken down by small groups, Raid Bosses that require large, organized, raids to take down barring the presence of someone of your power. And then, normally, you have World Bosses, which are the strongest monsters in the game.

  “But we’ve seen Nation Bosses instead, and they can fight an entire continent’s military on their own. Granted, the System empowers traditional fighting styles more than modern firearms, but even if that weren’t the case, a Nation Boss could fight off a literal army.”

  I paused briefly for a moment, but he motioned for me to continue.

  “At the same time, we know that more powerful monsters show up in the latter challenges, and I sincerely doubt something we’ve already seen in the second challenge is the be-all, end-all, of what the System can throw at us.

  “Therefore, I submit that we have, at the very least, World Bosses to look forward to, though there’s probably a stage in-between that and Nation Bosses.”

  “Continental Boss,” Genghis Khan suggested, rubbing his beard with his right hand. “I can see how that would get ugly. What would your plan be to fight something like that?”

  “Keeping in mind that I’m not the Untersberg’s strategist and only represent three of the ancients in the alliance, our approach would be a few probing strikes to see what kinds of abilities a monster like that would have, then make a plan based on that.”

  “A simple plan,” he noted.

  “But one that can be applied in all situations. Something more complicated would likely fail in most situations.”

  “Yes. However, flexibility in the chain of command is likewise important. It does not matter how capable the ultimate leader is; they cannot control every facet of combat. Subordinates need to be able to make decisions on their own.”

  Well, he was right about that, and he’d used that to conquer an empire.

  First, he’d forged a highly disciplined, mobile, and overall capable army.

  Second, he’d established a meritocracy and promoted the most promising candidates to positions of leadership regardless of their social standing.

  And thirdly, he’d torn through anyone who dared stand against him with said army, using hit-and-run tactics, feigned retreats, psychological warfare and generally wielding his army in whatever way was needed to win. And even when Genghis Khan himself hadn’t been present, his generals, sometimes referred to as his Four Dogs of War, had done so in his stead.

  But I just shrugged.

  “I’m not a military leader, I’m a diplomat with a few spells.”

  More than a few, but still, I felt like bragging about my power might come across as a threat. Not that I actually had the power to be a danger to him, but I decided to er on the side of caution.

  Genghis Khan just gave me a flat, almost disappointed stare. Apparently, he disagreed.

  “Can I ask you something?” I asked after a couple of seconds. He shrugged.

  “How much and what kinds of magic have you seen in your old life?”

  “I’m assuming you’re not asking about shamanism or ceremonies, but rather the modern magic, with immediate and apparent results and clear chains of cause-and-effect?” he nodded slowly. “Other than the fact that I am present here, in this time, I can’t say I’ve seen anything. “Why do you ask?”

  So I shared with him my hypothesis about how the magic had been leaving this world, including my suspicion that the Golem of Prague had been built far earlier, but only unleashed in the 16th century.

  “How could you prove it?” he finally asked.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’d likely have to find some archeological evidence of when he was made.”

  “And what would it mean if you were correct?”

  I shrugged, helplessly. “It would be interesting, and might help explain other phenomena as we find them?”

  “What about the implications it has for the System itself? What if it is what has been siphoning off the world’s magic, burning it over the course of this year to create disasters the likes of which the world has never seen, and will burn itself out once the year is over?” He suggested, making me stiffen in my seat as I recalled the discussion I’d had with Fionn on this subject. Anyone reinforced by the [Physical Overhaul] would likely be screwed, to start with.

  “Then there is not a damn thing we can do about it as things stand right now,” I confessed after thinking about it for a long moment.

  “But you are willing to try, and so are those you represent. That is what matters.”

  Genghis Khan grinned.

  “Therefore, I, Temujin, Genghis Khan of all Mongolia, promise you that barring a betrayal of our pact or an attack by another nation, I will put my entire effort into ensuring that humanity endures past the end of this year. Assuming you and yours do the same.”

  The oath was clear, and so was the implication: anyone who attacked him would be annihilated.

  “In that case, in the name of those I represent, I swear the same,” I replied.

  That … that had gone just about as well as I could have possibly expected. And I now had a basis for any future treaties.

  No picking fights, no attacking other nations, do whatever you can to keep humanity alive. A common-sense basis for deals in the current situation, but with politics, that wouldn’t necessarily be enough. That being said, anyone wanting more could get slapped down with some line about how they seemed to value themselves above even Genghis Khan. Barely even an implication of a threat, but the subject of the threat was Genghis-freaking-Khan. ‘Nuff said.

  I was soon dismissed and then returned outside, where I was not greeted by a limousine, but a jeep with the same driver who’d brought me here.

  “Ambassador Vogt, I’ve been ordered to drive you to several places for the purposes of magical transportation.”

  He sounded a little unsure as to what driving me around had to do with portals, apparently, that information hadn’t been fully been passed along, but he’d be driving me around nevertheless.

  “Thank you,” I nodded, and got the back, catching sight of the front of my suit in the process, and the third sigil there, next to Dietrich’s and Charlemagne’s. An emerald salmon before a golden oak on a black base. I’d never seen it before, but it was rather obvious as to whom it belonged. And then, the System belatedly confirmed it.

  [Trait registered: Ambassadorial Authority: Fionn Mac Cumail]

  So, Fionn was letting me run around making promises in his name, but hadn’t told me … why exactly?

  Honestly, I had the distinct feeling he’d just forgotten, then noticed that I was in Mongolia and given his okay, trusting my [Ambassadorial Authority] to inform me. Still, he’d already given me magic, and was working hand-in-hand with everyone else to fight the Challenges. In all likelihood, he’d been intending to make it fully formal, and just messed up the timing slightly. Being nigh-omniscient was an entirely different thing from being on top of literally everything your powers told you about.

  And then, of course, came the level-ups for having and surviving a meeting with Genghis Khan.