"Our royal capital has fallen."
"...Sorry, could you repeat that one more time?"
Following the conclusion of our violent clash with the undead legions, the high-ranking officials representing Heed, Nagan, and the Beast Kingdom congregated to hold a blue-sky strategy meeting regarding the postwar cleanup. Even though I had successfully vaporized the Carrion Golem, the sheer volume of organic debris that served as its source material—namely, the mountain of conventional undead corpses—remained heavily scattered across the landscape. Since they were technically the citizens of the Beast Kingdom, we couldn't simply incinerate them without checking first. We had to process them in accordance with local cultural customs.
Furthermore, we explicitly needed to discuss the fate of that massive, makeshift outdoor swimming pool I had accidentally manufactured. If they gave me permission to dismantle it, I could easily prepare a quick demolition array—which essentially meant blasting it to pieces with a Mana Cannon. However, if we were to deconstruct the structure incrementally, the massive volume of water trapped inside would inevitably flood the lower basins. Conversely, attempting to flash-vaporize the pool with maximum thermal output would burn the surrounding landscape to a crisp. I couldn't exactly execute either option without proper authorization.
Granted, I had initially joked about marketing it as a regional tourist landmark, but at this rate, it was genuinely trending toward becoming an official attraction!
So, with every intention of conducting a mature, logical discussion, I joined the outdoor council, only for—
"The primary royal capital of my native Nagan has officially fallen into enemy hands. Ahaha, dear me, it seems I have made quite the oversight~."
Venting an absolute bombshell right at the opening exchange, the Tactician offered a deeply embarrassed, sheepish smile. W-What on earth is wrong with this guy...?!
Your nation's primary seat of government was literally plundered by hostile forces, so why on earth are you standing there smirking like a fool?! Are you mentally unhinged?! Letting out a bashful "ehehe~" while calling the absolute collapse of your nation's capital an "oversight" is completely psychopathic! This doesn't even qualify as a catastrophic blunder anymore; it's a literal existential crisis for your entire kingdom! And more importantly, why are you leaking this high-level classified data right here? The official delegates of the Beast Kingdom are sitting directly next to you! Even an ostrich like me, who possesses absolute zero political common sense, understands that you are supposed to conceal military failures or at least report them with an appropriate level of profound, structural gravity!!!
While the rest of us sat frozen in absolute, jaw-dropping shock, Matilde was the quickest to regain her operational composure. Stepping forward as a representative of the Heed Kingdom, she interrogated him directly.
"I-Is... is the general infrastructure secure? What are the actual casualty metrics?"
"Oh, absolutely. Well, by conventional metrics, the situation is thoroughly disastrous. However, structural damage to the primary populace was kept to an absolute minimum; active military casualties are limited to roughly a dozen individuals, and His Majesty alongside the senior cabinet ministers have been successfully evacuated to a secure perimeter. The architectural damage is restricted to minor structural collapses across a few outer blocks... From a 'Tactician's' perspective, I managed to secure the absolute highest possible quality of defeat."
"...Your capital was completely occupied, and that is the extent of the damage?"
"Yes, precisely."
"Did your garrison execute a bloodless surrender?"
"Oh, heavens no. I am told the physical engagement was exceptionally fierce."
Okay, look. I possess absolute zero historical context regarding continental warfare, but is it structurally normal for a full-scale siege on a nation's capital to yield a single-digit casualty report? No, obviously not. Based on the sheer, unadulterated horror painted across everyone else's faces as they stared at the Tactician, this guy was clearly the sole anomaly. Wait, what? Under normal circumstances, shouldn't a hostile occupation of a capital result in catastrophic, widespread devastation???
"Well, I simply applied myself and worked quite hard to ensure this outcome."
"Y-You worked hard. Right. Good for you."
"Now then, I am hardly the type of individual to introduce entirely unrelated internal matters to an international forum. Under ordinary circumstances, the loss of our capital is a profound domestic embarrassment; resolving the matter internally would be the proper protocol. However..."
Pausing mid-sentence, he slowly rotated his gaze until his eyes locked directly onto me.
The fact that he went out of his way to face my direction meant this development explicitly intersected with my personal agenda. The only individual within the borders of Nagan who possessed a direct link to our flock was the adorable Red Knight-chan. If anything had compromised her safety, my structural mood parameters would plummet straight into the negatives—a reality this man was undeniably aware of. If a tragedy of that caliber had occurred, the individual standing before me would be acting significantly more subdued.
Which meant this was a separate matter. ...And there was only one logical alternative.
"The faction currently occupying the throne room of Nagan. The reports indicate their vanguard is accompanied by an immense legion of the undead... and centered directly at the heart of their formation is the physical vessel of the late 'Beast King'."
"...Oh?"
"We can state with near absolute statistical certainty that the mastermind pulling the strings behind our occupied capital is the exact same individual responsible for manufacturing the anomaly we destroyed today. ...Therefore, Lady Wraith. Regarding our upcoming mobilization to reclaim the capital of Nagan... do you intend to participate?"
His eyes locked onto mine, silently tracking my reaction.
Under conventional international law, domestic insurgencies are strictly meant to be resolved by the native government. Furthermore, knowing this monstrous Tactician, he had undoubtedly engineered dozens of counter-strategies to resolve the occupation independently. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the hostile faction had already stepped directly into a meticulously prepared trap the exact microsecond they crossed the threshold. If I were to decline his invitation, he would likely execute a swift, ruthless suppression array and restore order by tomorrow morning. His absolute, serene tranquility despite losing his capital made that reality abundantly clear.
Yet, he chose to explicitly extend a formal invitation to me. It was undoubtedly his way of honoring our previous arrangement. Prior to launching the undead suppression sweep, I had explicitly dictated my terms to him: 'The Thief belongs to me.' I had explicitly invoked the leverage of the "favor" he owed me to claim processing rights over the mastermind. He was simply fulfilling his end of the bargain.
(Though I'm sure he has a massive secondary agenda hidden beneath that polite facade... Honestly, given the terrifying processing speed of his brain, he could have easily resolved the entire capital crisis before our flock even noticed something was amiss. He could have cleanly executed the "Thief" in the shadows, walked up to me with a straight face, and said, 'Ah, we searched everywhere but couldn't find them!' while offering a dummy target for me to vaporize.)
In short, having our Ostrich Fleet march directly into Nagan to participate in the capital reclamation project at this exact operational juncture was simply the most advantageous variable for his master blueprint. From my perspective, it gave me a green light to violently execute the garbage who dared to defile the corpse of the Beast King, so I had zero complaints. Furthermore...
"Is the reason you chose to disclose this information in front of the Beast Kingdom's delegates precisely what I think it is?"
"Indeed. However, from a structural standpoint, their territories are currently operating under the administrative stewardship of the Heed Kingdom. While there are undoubtedly individuals within their ranks who possess a profound desire to participate in the liberation of their former sovereign's vessel, mobilizing a significant military force is structurally unfeasible. Even so, I calculated that open transparency would be far more diplomatic than progressing the narrative behind closed doors."
As he spoke, our shared gazes drifted toward the delegates of the Beast Kingdom. While the active combat personnel who fought today consisted predominantly of local civilian militias, a small contingent of formal generals and bureaucratic ministers had accompanied the army to oversee the postwar treaties. They had joined this outdoor council to iron out the logistical cleanup... but the exact millisecond the phrase "Beast King" left the Tactician's mouth, visible, profound tremors rippled across their features.
"Matilde. What's the actual logistical outlook from your perspective?"
"...To speak with absolute candor, my current administrative tier does not grant me the authority to finalize a mobilization of that scale. Regardless of how passionately the Beast Kingdom's delegates petition my office, deploying a formal military expeditionary force is highly improbable. We are currently operating under zero intelligence regarding when the surrounding nations might seize the opportunity to launch a cross-border invasion against the Beast Kingdom's outer borders. The theater is far too volatile to justify a massive deployment. Furthermore, given that our primary vassal state has yet to achieve baseline domestic stability, the High Command of Heed would strongly prefer that Lady Wraith's flock remain within the regional perimeter rather than marching off to Nagan. ...Though, naturally, we possess zero legal right to restrict your movements."
Though she offered a brief, startled blink at the sudden prompt, Matilde immediately stabilized her posture, processing the variables for a few moments before delivering a thoroughly rational, objective breakdown.
Her analysis was entirely accurate; the geopolitical quicksand enclosing the Beast Kingdom was incredibly messy. While I didn't fully comprehend the finer nuances of high-level statecraft, based on the educational summaries provided by the adorable Little Queen Luchiya and Amelia-san...
First, while the Beast Kingdom had effectively been absorbed under the administrative umbrella of the Heed Kingdom, Heed lacked the surplus military capital required to comfortably defend two separate sovereign territories simultaneously. Their baseline national power was fundamentally modest, and their maximum mobilizable troop metrics were severely limited. Furthermore, even if they attempted to utilize the indigenous forces of the Beast Kingdom, the total annihilation of the late Beast King and his elite standing army meant the territory possessed absolute zero conventional military deterrence against foreign aggression. Consequently, I was currently being utilized as a biological nuclear warhead—a specialized, Strategic Asset whose mere presence on the board acted as an absolute deterrent, projecting a passive threat of: 'If you cross this border, I will personally vaporize your entire lineage. Try me.' This psychological shield was intended to buy them the structural window required to rebuild their conventional military infrastructure.
(But if our flock packs up and marches across the border to Nagan under these conditions, and foreign intelligence networks catch wind of my absence, they will immediately identify it as a gold-plated window of vulnerability and launch a massive, multi-pronged invasion. ...What a massive pain.)
To be completely frank, having our personal autonomy and movement parameters heavily restricted by high-level geopolitical web-spinning was incredibly irritating. However, if my reckless self-indulgence resulted in the widespread slaughter of innocent civilians—even if they were complete strangers whose faces I had never seen—I simply couldn't justify moving my feet. If the opposite side of the scales held the immediate survival of my children, I would choose the "Flock" without a single microsecond of hesitation. But hunting down this mysterious "Thief" was, for all intents and purposes, a purely personal grudge fueled by my own stubborn selfishness.
If a massive wave of innocent casualties occurred solely because I wanted to settle a score, well... that would leave a thoroughly repulsive taste in my mouth.
"Yes, I am intimately aware of those operational parameters. For Nagan, the absolute collapse of the Beast Kingdom would likewise introduce severe regional instability. Consequently, I intend to deploy a minor strategic deception to bypass the issue..."
As I wallowed in my internal conflict, the Tactician smoothly offered a counter-proposal. ...Well, of course you have a specialized solution cooked up already. Honestly, while I fundamentally despise this man's entire existence, I possess a strange layer of professional security regarding his intellectual processing speeds. I trust his capacity to solve problems, even if I wouldn't trust him to hold my wallet.
"That being said, accumulating the necessary strategic harvest will naturally require a minor window of preparation. Our internal intelligence networks are systematically neutralizing hostile scouts as we speak, ensuring that high-level data regarding the 'Capital Incident' remains strictly confined to the individuals currently occupying this circle. Since we possess a reasonable structural buffer, let us form up and transition back to the capital of Heed. We shall convene a formal war council alongside Queen Luchiya to engineer an absolute solution."
With those words, he smoothly transitioned back into the primary agenda of the postwar cleanup, immediately shifting to a detailed economic proposal regarding the monetization of my accidental giant swimming pool into a regional tourist landmark. Wow, so you really were processing the exact same corporate scheme I was... Wait, hold on a second, buddy!
"You're phrasing that like my participation is already a finalized variable? I explicitly haven't given you my official answer yet, you know?"
"Oh? But provided I eliminate every single structural complication, you will be participating, correct?"
"...I mean, technically yes, but still."
Yup. Confirmed. I absolutely hate this guy.
◇◆◇◆◇
While the maternal figures were locked in a complex, high-level geopolitical debate, the ostrich children were currently experiencing a profound, existential wave of absolute boredom.
After all, processing abstract socio-political treaties was completely beyond the structural capacity of the ostrich mind. While it was an undeniable fact that their cognitive architecture had received a massive developmental upgrade, their maximum processing limit capped out strictly at the level of a hyper-active preschooler. Faced with a circle of serious adults holding their heads and groaning over complex logistical equations, there wasn't a single proactive contribution the chicks could offer. Consequently, they simply outsourced one hundred percent of their intellectual heavy lifting to Mama. Furthermore, since their working memory struggled to retain data over extended intervals, maintaining a continuous focus on a singular, abstract problem was a neurological impossibility.
As a result, they naturally sought to amuse themselves by playing together across the plain... however...
"Stinky."
"Food! Smells stinky!"
"So dirty!"
Regrettably, the great outdoors had been thoroughly disqualified as a suitable recreation zone.
The explanation was painfully simple: the shattered, crushed remnants of the undead legions they had spent the morning violently obliterating were currently littered across every single square inch of the local topography. Prior to the commencement of the council, Mama had explicitly treated the entire flock to a high-speed, industrial-grade bath, scrubbing away every ounce of grime. Having finally achieved an absolute state of pristine, fluffy cleanliness, the chicks possessed zero desire to immediately plunge themselves back into a rancid, muddy landfill. Granted, if one of the more unorthodox thinkers had connected the dots and realized, 'Wait, if I make my feathers super dirty again, Mama will have to give me another round of magical bubble-baths...?!', the narrative might have shifted, but fortunately, no such corporate breakthrough occurred.
The negative karmic energy anchoring the corpses had been thoroughly plundered to construct the Carrion Golem, which had subsequently been completely erased from existence by Mama's solar strike, ensuring these remnants would remain permanently inanimate. However, the physical reality of nearly thirty thousand decaying carcasses didn't simply vanish into thin air. A significant duration had transpired since their clinical demises, and the advanced states of decomposition were currently venting a thoroughly apocalyptic stench that violently assaulted their sensitive olfactory receptors.
During the heat of active combat, their brains were far too saturated with the singular objective of "CRUSH! DESTROY!" to pay attention to the environment... but now?
"Run race?"
"Eeeh—!"
"No way!"
Attempting to execute their signature high-speed sprints was impossible because the soil was fundamentally stinky. Attempting to dig magnificent holes was disqualified because the dirt was stinky. Taking a casual afternoon nap was an absolute non-starter. Turning their desperate gazes toward Mama in hopes of securing some quality attention yielded zero results; she appeared to be deeply entrenched in a highly serious conversation. Whenever the collective flock projected an intense, sorrowful stare toward her, she would notice the signal and offer a warm, loving wave of her wing, but she showed zero signs of wrapping up her meeting to come play or fix the stinky environmental situation.
In short, they were forced to take matters into their own talons and engineer an independent solution to kill the agonizing boredom.
"What do?"
"Massive crisis!"
"Unyu-nyu..."
The ostrich chicks plunged into a state of profound, philosophical contemplation.
And mid-way through their contemplation, they completely forgot what they were contemplating about. Consequently, they began contemplating about what they were supposed to be remembering, only to promptly forget that as well. Under ordinary historical parameters, the flock would have trapped themselves within this infinite cognitive loop until the sun dipped below the horizon or an external force intervened... but today was different. By some miraculous stroke of evolutionary fortune, this specific flock possessed an absolute intellectual giant within their ranks. Yes, we are talking about the legendary Dele-chan.
While the rest of the three-hundred-strong ostrich flock actively manifested the vast, empty expanse of the cosmos behind their eyes, Dele's mind alone began processing a rolling stream of complex mathematical equations. Granted, they consisted entirely of single-digit addition, but it was an intellectual marvel nonetheless.
"I have cracked the code!"
"Cracked code?"
"What find?"
"Amazing~!"
"Clap clap clap!"
The sudden, thunderous proclamation issued by Dele caused the surrounding chicks to offer a brief, startled jump. While they possessed absolute zero comprehension regarding what she had actually figured out, they intuitively understood that a magnificent breakthrough had occurred. Gathering around their intellectual leader, they began enthusiastically executing the manual hand-clapping technique Mama had previously demonstrated to them.
"Over there! The mega-structure Mama built!"
"Over there?"
"Where?"
"The gigantic wall?"
"Un! That exact one! We are going to turn it into our personal recreation center!"
The grand epiphany Dele had secured was none other than the massive, makeshift execution arena Mama had constructed to incinerate the golem—otherwise known as the Beast Kingdom's newest premium tourist destination. According to the structural data stored within Dele's slightly unreliable memory banks, Mama had explicitly dumped an astronomical volume of water directly into the center of that stone fortress. In short, it was an instant, industrial-sized swimming pool—a sanctuary perfectly engineered for swimming, splashing, and aquatic horseplay.
Even if some of the chicks didn't particularly care for swimming, the sheer height of the stone barriers offered a magnificent climbing wall, and the flat ridges at the summit provided a premium location for afternoon naps. And above all else, that specific sector was completely free of the stinky undead carcasses. Every single trace of filth had been thoroughly vaporized into oblivion by Mama's Mana Cannons.
"Absolute perfection! We can play there!"
"Ooooh—!"
"Incredible!"
"A literal genius!"
As Dele delivered her comprehensive presentation outlining how the destination checked every single box on their recreational itinerary, the surrounding chicks listened with intense focus. While the theoretical breakdown was incredibly complex—causing the incoming data to smoothly enter one ear and immediately exit the other for a vast majority of the audience—they grasped the baseline concept that a legendary playground awaited them. With the destination officially locked in, it was time to deploy immediately... but first, they needed to check in with Mama.
"Let's go report to Mama~!"
"Mama!"
"Let's go! Let's go!"
"Maternal unit!"
""""""WAAAAA!""""""
Once a unified consensus was achieved, the operational velocity of the flock was absolute. With the collective consciousness of all three hundred chicks synchronized under the singular mandate of 'Advance toward Mama,' the entire regiment simultaneously engaged their high-speed biological thrusters.
Naturally, the outdoor strategy council was still actively in session. The Tactician was the absolute first to register the sudden, cataclysmic shift in the environment, utilizing one hundred percent of his vocal capacity to screech an emergency evacuation order to the delegates. I mean, can you blame him? Three hundred hyper-kinetic ostriches were currently executing a maximum-velocity charge directly toward their coordinates, and from the perspectives of the conventional humanoids, there was absolute zero context explaining the sudden assault. It was pure, unadulterated terror.
Wraith was the sole anomaly, offering a thoroughly detached, completely vacant observation of, "Oh look, the kids are coming over." But the surrounding officials possessed zero luxury to indulge in casual commentary. If they failed to clear the trajectory immediately, they would be violently trampled to death. The raw kicking power of a fully grown ostrich was mathematically calibrated to comfortably send an adult male donning full-plate steel armor flying through the atmosphere; standing directly in the path of a synchronized stampede meant instant clinical demise. The delegates scattered like a hive of bees targeted by a localized explosive strike, executing frantic, undignified dives into the safe zones. The exact microsecond the perimeter was cleared, the wave of ostriches slammed directly into Mama.
Had a conventional human attempted to anchor that impact, they would have been instantly converted into a fine, uniform meat paste. But fortunately, this was Mama. Seamlessly shifting her center of gravity into a deeply anchored seated posture, she absorbed the terrifying kinetic payload using nothing but her raw biological chassis. Granted, given the sheer volume of three hundred incoming bodies, a series of deeply unsettling, highly structural cracking sounds echoed from her skeletal framework, but such structural failures were completely irrelevant to her. Without a single shift in her facial expression, she flooded her internal systems with fresh mana to trigger instant reconstruction, casually extending her wings to pat and soothe every single head that jostled for position.
"Mama~!"
"Maternal unit!"
"Play with us!"
"Ah, sorry about that, my loves. Did you all get incredibly bored? Yeah, the environment out here is a bit too dirty to properly play in, and the smell is honestly awful. Your mother and the adults were actually just finishing up a discussion on how to clean up this entire mess, so could you give Mama just a few more moments?"
"Understood!"
"We will wait!"
"Headpats please!"
"Yes, yes, good children... Now then, Dele? I assume you spearheaded this sudden mobilization for a reason?"
"Hmm~? ...Ah! Mama! Over there! That giant thing! Can we please go play inside that massive structure?!"
Though she experienced a brief, terrifying microsecond where she completely forgot the entire reason she had marched the army over to Mama, the gentle prompt allowed her to successfully retrieve the data from her memory banks. Utilizing the tip of her wing to point toward the massive architectural anomaly Mama had left behind, she looked up with wide, pleading eyes.
"Ah, that place... Dele, give me just one second, okay? Hey! Tactician!"
Hesitating for a brief moment as she calculated the structural variables, Wraith slowly turned her head toward the safe zone, projecting her voice toward the Tactician, who was currently peering out from behind a secure rock formation to assess the situation.
"I'm going to step away from the table for a bit to supervise the children's recreation arrays! We're wrapping up the meeting here, right? No objections?"
In a single, terrifying flash of cognitive processing, the Tactician instantly realized the structural trap he had been placed in. If Wraith abandoned the council right now, the elaborate psychological countermeasures he had scheduled for the latter half of the meeting to properly manage Mama's operational parameters would completely fall apart. Intending to deploy a series of highly sophisticated rhetorical devices to smoothly manipulate her back to the negotiating table, he opened his mouth—only to instantly abort the sequence.
From the collective perspective of the ostrich chicks, this beautiful, perfect plan to play inside the mega-pool with their beloved Mama was currently dangling on a thread, and if that strange, intensely untrustworthy man in the robes uttered a single syllable matching the word "No," he would instantly sabotage their happiness. While they didn't comprehend a single line of the high-level politics, they understood with absolute, primal certainty that anyone who denied their playtime was a mortal enemy of the state.
Consequently, three hundred pairs of sharp, hyper-focused predatory eyes simultaneously locked onto the Tactician. The collective glare radiating from the flock was a single micro-fraction away from absolute, unbridled bloodlust. The exact millisecond he made the wrong rhetorical choice, a wave of frustrated, throwing-a-tantrum ostriches would march forward and comfortably consume his entire existence.
Sweating profusely, the Tactician slowly, deliberately raised his hand and flashed a definitive green light.
"Oh, we're good to go? Wow, appreciate the flexibility. Alright everyone, let's go check out the new playground! Mama is going to execute a quick safety scan of the interior perimeter first to ensure there are no lingering hazards, so make sure you stay behind me until I give the word, okay?"
""""""YEAHHH!!!""""""
And thus, a wonderful, thoroughly chaotic pool party was enjoyed by all.
〇 Can Ostriches Actually Swim?
While they are rarely classified as master aquatics, a vast majority of the biological specimens possess a functional capacity to swim. Naturally, individual deviations exist, and certain chicks are thoroughly terrified of deep water or possess zero buoyancy control. In fact, during today's pool party, several distracted chicks completely forgot their own physical limitations and blindly dove straight into the deep end, triggering a minor crisis when their feet failed to locate the basin floor, resulting in near-drowning events (all subjects were instantly fished out of the water by Mama's high-speed interventions).
Furthermore, while surface swimming is entirely operational, diving beneath the surface is an art they are heavily disqualified from executing. Because their dense, specialized plumage traps an immense volume of air, their natural buoyancy metrics are absurdly high, making it structurally counter-intuitive to submerge their mass. That being said, exceptions to the rule always exist; one extraordinarily anomalous chick managed to comfortably dive twenty meters straight down to the absolute bedrock of the pool, retrieving a pristine fragment of vitrified glass to present to Mama as a shiny premium gift.
Additionally, with a minor amount of specialized kinetic training, an ostrich can comfortably sprint directly across the surface of the water.