The Martial Unity
chapter-2080

"Nothing?! You're telling me the Intelligence Bureau, which receives hundreds of billions of dollars of funding each year, has absolutely no intelligence on how in the world that bastard Rael woke up from an incurable disease?!"

The atmosphere in the federal headquarters of the Republic of Gorteau curdled upon the rage of the President of Gorteau.

"…Mr. President, I can assure you that the entire bureau is working overtime to gain insights into the sudden inexplicable recovery of the Emperor of Harmony," the director of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence managed to squeeze out. "We are coordinating our infiltration and surveillance divisions to gather as many insights into this event as possible. We've even deployed the Martial division and have already entered into negotiations with the Beggar's Sect and the Shadow Guild. You will be the first to know the moment we gain any breakthroughs in intelligence."

"Goddammit!" President Raymond cursed with frustration. "Why did this have to happen now of all times?!"

His fingers steepled as his eyes swam around in uncertainty. "…Summon my chief of staff and director of campaigning affairs. Inform them that I want a thorough and scrupulous report on the impact of this on the upcoming presidential elections."

"…Yes, sir."

"Arrange for a meeting with my donors and the stakeholders of the National Libertarian Party immediately."

"Yes, Mr. President."

"Arrange a separate meeting with Whiterock, Streetstate, and Rearguard immediately."

"Yes, Mr. President."

"Have the analyst division of the Intelligence Bureau redo the threat profile analysis of the Kandrian Empire with its latest developments."

"Yes, Mr. President."

A heavy sigh escaped the President as he massaged his forehead. The return of the Emperor of Harmony had come at a terrible time. In fact, President Raymond could not think of a worse moment for it to arrive. The presidential elections of the Republic of Gorteau were barely a year away.

His administration and party had already chalked out their campaign strategy and had already begun executing it, but the return of Emperor Rael threw out all his plans. It was such a major event that the political parties in Gorteau had halted to a stop as each of the presidential candidates began re-examining their campaign strategy.

Not all parties of the Republic of Gorteau were equally affected, of course.

The one most negatively impacted by this news was the National Libertarian Party due to the fact that it had a hawkish foreign policy.

The power vacuum that Emperor Rael had left, followed by the Kandrian Throne War, had severely eroded the political cohesion, making Kandria less prepared to deal with foreign threats.

It was one of the reasons for the rising tensions between Kandria and its three peers.

Within the Republic of Gorteau, those rising tensions were largely fueled by the hawkish National Libertarian Party. A party that historically utilized any and all incentives to push for war. It was a party whose benefactors and stakeholders were the thriving arms industry, comprising of weapons developers and manufacturers and also much of the Martial industries, including independent Martial Artists, Martial mercenary groups, and Martial Contractors.

Thus, in addition to ideologically supporting war, they also needed to wage war to satisfy and please their donors so that the funding and donations never stopped.

This time, the National Libertarian Party had chosen the Kandrian Empire.

Its state of political weakness and dissent had riled up much of the party in warring fervor. They had smelled blood in the water.

After all, one of the greatest reasons behind the Kandrian Empire's power was the fact that Emperor Rael maximized its net potential by having many opposing forces synergize harmoniously to yield a sum that was greater than its parts.

Without him, that advantage was gone, reducing the nation's effective net war potential.

Thus, the Kandrian Empire became the target to fulfill the party's bloodlusted political ideology and also to satisfy their stakeholders, who deeply profited from war.

Over the past three years of his term as president, the National Libertarian Party had merrily fed its voter base much propaganda about the Kandrian Empire. They droned on and on for years about how the Kandrian Empire was a nation plagued by an authoritarian monarchy system that oppressed its citizens with leaders that they did not choose.

They described vividly how a single family, the Kandrian Royal Family, tyrannically ruled over its citizens and oppressed them for four long centuries.

They presented themselves as noble purveyors of democracy.

Naturally, the Libertarian voter base ate up the propaganda heartily over the years, firmly becoming anti-Kandria as President Raymond made it his primary policy to garner votes.

Everything was going well until Emperor of Harmony returned from the brink of inevitable death.

Suddenly, the reason that Kandria was ever chosen as a target, its political weakness, was gone.

Suddenly, the very foundations of the National Libertarian Party's call for war against Kandria had vanished.

They were no longer dealing with a leaderless, divided nation.

They were dealing with a man who was widely recognized to be one of the greatest leaders of all of human civilization.

It was common wisdom in the political sphere that it was extremely unwise to pick a fight with Emperor Rael Di Kandria.

Unfortunately, much to their own chagrin, they had unwittingly found themselves doing just that all of a sudden.

Even worse still was the fact that they couldn't really change gears at this point in time for many reasons.

For one, their voter base no longer expected it but had come to demand it.

Not to mention, any attempt to halt now would be widely perceived as cowardly.

They would lose the elections.

They would also lose a good chunk of their donors who thrived in war and would not be pleased to be denied a war.

"…Damn!" President Raymond grimaced at the terrible predicament that he had found himself in.

"…Mr. President, it's time for your statement and press conference soon."

The man stirred as he returned back to reality, steeling his face as he prepared himself to walk down a path of his own making.