BXBX NOVEL Chapter 137 Negotiations.
"Frejya…" Sam parroted, shock visible on his face.
The first thing his mind went to were the Frejya files, but something wasn\'t right about that line of thought.
The files detailed the creation process of the shells housing the Valkyrie AI, focusing on their role as artificial wombs that would help humanity recover once the Calamities are defeated.
It spoke nothing of any queen, and Sam just assumed the name was used because it fits the theme, since Frejya is a goddess associated with beauty, fertility and sex.
\'The blueprints you found are fake\'
Just then Sam remembered what Wolf had told him in his last call. Up until now he had assumed he was referring to the Valkyrie files, since everything in the Freyja files matched what he learned about the Valkyries\'s bodies. However now that he thought about it there might\'ve been something that slipped his mind.
"Hey, is something wrong?" Mjölnir asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.
Sam stared at her for a few seconds, unable to think of anything to say. It was then that something became clear to the silver haired Nephilim.
"You… you don\'t know anything about this, do you?" She asked.
"No." Sam shook his head confirming her suspicion. "This is the first time we heard about any of this."
"You mean… you don\'t know about the first queen?"
"Until a few weeks ago, we didn\'t even know that your kind existed."
This time it was Mjölnir\'s turn to be shocked. The war has been going on for an entire decade yet their enemy didn\'t even know about their exitance. Something wasn\'t right about that.
"But… we\'ve been through a lot of negotiations…" said the Nephilim. "We have made several announcements before, how can you not know about us?"
"This is the first time I hear about this." Sam replied. "I suspect the ones you were in contact with made sure to hide the information from the public."
Though there were many theories about their origin, at some point everyone started to think of the Calamities as just another natural disaster. It didn\'t help that there was no real pattern to their actions making it impossible to decipher them.
After the Nephilim made their first appearance Sam speculated that the higher ups at the Resistance knew about them. The Declaration came soon after and confirmed it, revealing that they chose to defy an enemy they couldn\'t hope to defeat and dragged the rest of humanity toward doom along with them.
"You mean… you have been fighting this whole time without even knowing why?"
Mjölnir was as confused as Sam. It didn\'t really make sense to her; why did their leaders hide the truth this whole time? What would they gain from doing so?
"Do we need a reason to fight?" Sam spoke after a moment of silence, his eyes narrowed into a sharp glare. "Strange things appeared out of nowhere and went around destroying everything without saying as much as a single word. How were we supposed to react to something like that?"
For some reason Mjölnir felt like hiding when he looked at her that way. She thought about it for a moment and soon realized how things must\'ve looked from their side.
The Calamities were simple drones sent out to do the dirty job for the Nephilim. They had no consciousness and a very limited intelligence, with all of their abilities being focused on dealing damage.
Hela had made the choice to use them at the first stage of the war to send a message, because of that the Nephilim themselves weren\'t involved in the war so far.
With their leaders hiding information from them, the humans must\'ve seem the drones as nothing but mindless monsters that came to wreck havoc on their lives for no particular reason.
"But… I don\'t understand…" Mjölnir spoke, her eyes cast down. "Why would your leaders do such thing? It\'s not like they could gain anything from hiding the truth…"
80% of humanity was lost in the first year alone. Such a burden couldn\'t be carried by anyone, and no one wanted to take the blame for it. The last thing the Resistance leaders wanted was a angry mob coming after their heads because of the decision they made.
"Well, it\'s not like knowing would\'ve changed anything." Sam said after a moment of silence.
Odin convinced the people ruling the world from the shadows to help him fight the Nephilim. The negotiations happened without the public\'s knowledge and the war started just like that.
No one knew about the Nephilim, where they came from and what they\'re after. Sam didn\'t believe that much would\'ve changed even if they did, after all their enemy doesn\'t seem to care about the innocent lives they killed.
"This… doesn\'t feel right…" said Mjölnir, her lips quivering a little. "I always… I always believed you chose to fight this war. I never thought…"
When the news about the negotiations breaking reached the Nephilim, it was concluded that the humans in this new world chose to side with Odin and fight against them.
It somewhat makes sense that they would do so. After all the Nephilim had massacred every last human in their own world, they didn\'t exactly have the credibility needed to convince the humans to work with them.
"Ms. Mjölnir, you said you caught Odin, right?" Sam asked.
"... yes…"
"I see… Since the war has yet to end, am I right to assume that you have yet to fulfill your objective?"
"Yes." Mjölnir replied. "Though we have him in our hands, Odin has yet to reveal where he hid the first queen…"
Holding his chin, Sam began to think things through from the very beginning. A lot of things had changed since the battle with Torso, and with the appearance of the Nephilim the war was no longer about wiping out the Calamities.
Now that he knew about their objective he could offer to help them find their queen in exchange for a ceasefire, but would the enemy accept that at this point?
They could always finish off humanity then take their sweet time flipping every stone on this planet. The Nephilim had no reason to negotiate with them anymore, but maybe he could somehow convince the one in front of him.
\'Well, not like I\'ll lose anything by trying…\'
Taking a deep breath, Sam went through his plan two more times before looking into the Nephilim\'s eyes.
"Just so we\'re on the same page, are you sure that your first queen is still on this world?" He asked.
"Eh? Well, I don\'t know for sure…" looking up, Mjölnir gave the question some thought. "We have no reason to believe that Odin would send her to another world when he remained in this one."
"I see… so that means she, queen Frejya, is still here on this world, right?"
"That\'s what we would like to believe…"
Pausing for a moment, Sam coughed to clear his thought. He was about to execute his plan which placed an incredible amount of pressure on him, but just as he was about to say the words his thoughts took a sudden turn causing him to stop in his tracks.
The silence returned and the air in the room grew heavier. Mjölnir couldn\'t bring herself to say anything, waiting as the human male swam in his thoughts for quite a while.
A minute passed then another. Glancing at the Nephilim for a moment, Sam sighed and went ahead with his plan anyways.
"Ms. Mjölnir, I\'m sure you\'ve already realized that there us a lot we don\'t understand about this situation."
"... yes, I think we\'re in similar position…" she answered.
"That said, after thinking about it for a while I realized we might know the reason our leaders kept the truth hidden from the public." Picking up his cup, Sam was about to take a sip just to realize that the tea has gone cold. He placed it down and returned his gaze to the Nephilim, their eyes meeting as she waited for him to reveal his thoughts. "To put it simply, if the public knew about your queen\'s kidnapping they would\'ve done everything they can to make sure she\'s delivered back to you."
Mjölnir was speechless. She didn\'t know how to react to that statement.
"But…" after a long silence, she finally decided to voice her doubts about what the human male just said. "What makes you sure about that? I mean… wouldn\'t you choose to fight since, you know…"
The Nephilim massacred the humans of their world, every last one of them. If the humans of this world heard about it, wouldn\'t it make sense for them to be more hostile toward the other worldly invaders?
"The answer to that is simple." Sam held his hand up, shrugging his shoulders with a smile. "We had no chance at winning from the very beginning. We\'ve only made it so far because of the Valkyries."
Going by how things went so far, Sam was convinced that the Nephilim queen is prone to violence. She ordered the total annihilation of the specie that created her kind and didn\'t hesitate to do the same in their world. If she really wanted to find Frejya then there are more than one way she could\'ve gone about it, like spreading propaganda among the people and tricking them into working for her.
\'She must really hate humans, huh…\'
But the same wasn\'t true for all Nephilim, and the one sitting in front of him was proof of that.
"Say, Ms. Mjölnir." Sam spoke again. "Would it be alright if I asked a favor from you?"
"... what?"
"As I said before, there are many things that we didn\'t understand about the current situation. Maybe there is still a chance for us to work together."
The silver haired Nephilim could only stare at the man. While she understood what he\'s trying to say, the answer she was about to give him didn\'t change.
"The queen has given her orders. There is nothing I can do." She said apologetically.
Even if he was about to offer to help search for Frejya, the Nephilim had no reason to grant him that opportunity. In the end they can just continue the search after every last human is wiped out.
"I see… then, how about this." Holding up a finger, Sam made another proposition. "Get me one meeting with your queen. Even if it doesn\'t lead to anything, I would like to have a talk with her at the very least."