"Pride?"

"Yes. Pride. If they've been targeted time and time again, do you think they'll take it lying down? The pride of being an elf and a being of basic rights will be violated should they do nothing about his death. If the factions are smart, they'll realize the problem of having someone like the fourth prince too late. Troubled times give birth to heroes.

"Once the elven race bands together to face the enemy that wanted to strip them of their rights, can the factions and government stay there and do nothing? Unless they wanted the entire world to be at conflict and give the demons a chance of killing everyone, they'll pacify the situation and ensure the elven race's survival. The consequences of ignoring this or terminating the elven race are bigger than you think. Fear will be planted in everyone's hearts and doubt will spread." s.h.i.+ro chuckled.

This was the easiest solution that she had thought up of. While parts may be subjected to adjustment depending on the situation, it was one of the best chances they had at getting what they wanted.

"This… could work." The eldered muttered in surprise since she had brought forth several logical explanations.

Hearts of the people, the greed of the factions and the threat of the demons on the front lines.

"We'll consider this over the next few days. In the meantime, you can experience top tier treatment from us." The elder nodded and gestured for them to leave.

"Ok. Just make sure that you don't support the fourth prince for now." s.h.i.+ro reminded.

Leaving the council room, s.h.i.+ro saw a few maids waiting outside. Blythe was nowhere to be seen as s.h.i.+ro guessed that he had been sent away.

"Miss s.h.i.+ro, would you please follow us and we'll show you to your rooms." The elven maid bowed respectfully.

"Thank you."

When they arrived at the room, s.h.i.+ro made sure to set up some formations so that they couldn't be spied on.

"So what did you want to ask of me?" s.h.i.+ro smiled and sat down on a chair. Removing her disguise, she returned to her usual look.

"Didn't you say that you couldn't make any plans? What was that about?" Madison asked since she remembered about s.h.i.+ro talking about how she couldn't make any concrete plans until she had more information.

"I never said I couldn't make plans. Only I needed more details to make a feasible plan." s.h.i.+ro replied nonchalantly.

"Then does that mean you came up with all of that within the time you were in the elder's room?" Chen Yu widened his eyes in shock.

"Yup."

The party looked at s.h.i.+ro as if she was an absolute monst- correction. Chen Yu looked at s.h.i.+ro as if she was a monster while the other party members could only leave their jaws hanging in shock.

"How?!" Madison cried out. There was no way that s.h.i.+ro could have planned all of that with the small amount of time they had in the room.

"Easy. To make this plan, I need a few key points. The goal of the elders along with the state of the elven race. Once I have both of these, I'll be able to make a plan." s.h.i.+ro raised two fingers and crossed her legs.

"The goal was safety of the race with a powerful s.h.i.+eld and the most powerful s.h.i.+eld as of this moment is obviously the world government. The state of the elven race was a war between the princes. With these two points, I then thought of hurdles that I needed to clear.

"Number 1, the factions. Number 2, the princes. Number 3, the foreseeable future and number 4, the fact that Lyrica doesn't want to be queen." She smiled.

"Since these were the main hurdles, I devised a way of clearing the hurdles so that we can achieve our final goal. Naturally, this was thought up on the spot so there may be some loopholes that may appear later. But we can fix that by adapting to the situation."

". . . Remind me to never play chess with you." Chen Yu sighed. While she made it sound easy, one would find it hard to present the plan to the elders. By showing her own force which could contend with the elders, s.h.i.+ro was able to level the playing ground and get them to talk with her.

With the amount of pressure that the elders were outputting, normal adventurers would find it amazing if they could think of a plan rather than how to survive.

"You overestimate me. While I did sound confident, there are unchangeable variables that I didn't mention earlier." s.h.i.+ro chuckled.

"What do you mean?"

"Lyrica's influence." She turned to Lyrica.

"My influence?"

"Yes. Even if they place their focus on the first and second prince, the factions will keep a tab on you since you have the highest chance of inheriting your father's legacy." s.h.i.+ro shook her head. There were few ways that she could change this but it would risk suspicion and prompt the factions to make a move early. That was the situation that she hoped to ignore since the other pieces weren't in place yet.

"But don't worry about it too much. I'll do the hard stuff now since you can help me at a later date." s.h.i.+ro smiled.

"Thank you." Lyrica felt a little emotional since s.h.i.+ro was trying her best to help her out of this situation.

"No need for thanks. In the meantime, I want to go link up to the teleport shrine so that we can travel freely between New York and Miriel." s.h.i.+ro suggested.

Meanwhile…

"So my sister has returned. Just when we discovered father's legacy as well." A voice muttered in displeasure.

"Do you think it's the elders?" Another voice asked.

"Of course it is. Who else would it be?" The first voice retorted. The owner of the voice was the first prince Neldor. His hair was a deep red while his eyes were golden. Sporting a thin yet powerful physique, his demeanour lived up to his cla.s.s of Ascended Sword Emperor.

As for the second voice, it belonged to an emissary of the Rising Sun faction.

"Should I take care of her then? Unlike your brothers, she doesn't have any support." The emissary smiled.

"No, not yet. I want to see what the elders are planning first. If anything, we can lure my second brother to kill her and give the elders a reason to side with me." Neldor replied.

"If you say so." The emissary shrugged. He was just here to support the prince and not tell him what to do. After all, the faction wanted to see what he could do.

The same situation happened with the second prince as he opted to hang back and see what happens for now. Any rash movements could spark the start of the war after all.

Arriving at the Teleport s.h.i.+ne, s.h.i.+ro placed her hand on the centre platform and registered her mana.

"I should be able to travel to New York right now if I wanted." She muttered with a smile.

Turning to the other party members, she decided that they needed some more levels while they waited for the elder's response.

"You lot go to a dungeon for now. Prioritize on levelling up Silvia since her support will help a lot in the upcoming fights. Lisandra, you and Yin party up with Silvia to level her up. Lyrica, Madison and Chen Yu, you three party up and learn how to kill things above your level without Silvia's help." s.h.i.+ro instructed.

She didn't go since she wanted to search for some information in the library. But it didn't matter too much since the EXP that Lisandra earns is funnelled to her due to Lisandra's Cla.s.s. This meant that she could level up while she was in the library.

"Understood." The party nodded since they knew that their best option was to follow s.h.i.+ro's instruction for now.

Watching the party leave for the dungeons, s.h.i.+ro pulled out her phone and searched for where the royal library was. She wanted to uncover some information regarding Kuromi if she could. That way, she could at least guess who her enemies were.

Not only that, she may even find out about the relation between Kuromi and Yuki.

'I might even be able to find out about her situation right now since in the letter, she said that it was problematic for her to send the letter.' s.h.i.+ro thought to herself while making her way to the library.