Chapter 301 - 236: Zog Is Never Short of Little Tricks

Chapter 301: Chapter 236: Zog Is Never Short of Little Tricks

As everyone knows, while online dating may seem like a one-on-one conversation, it’s often a duel between two "strategists."

And if it’s happening in a college dorm, that single strategist can quickly expand into an entire strategy team.

It’s a classic scene: a group of people who’ve never dated, huddled together, using knowledge gleaned from movies, novels, and anime to coach someone who’s actually in a relationship.

Sir Gordo wasn’t in a college dorm, but he had a real-life university student by his side: Morris.

"She said she made a small mistake while recording a new piece today. She was going to re-record it, but then she thought that a tiny imperfection has its own kind of beauty."

In the study, Sir Gordo and Morris were analyzing the message from this "Solitary Performer."

"What does she mean by that? Could she know about my condition? Is she hinting at it?" Sir Gordo asked nervously.

Although he used his real name online, he had never posted anything on social media that revealed his physical condition.

Online, he was a high-quality, middle-aged Human male of considerable wealth, a well-read lover of the arts.

And he was, in fact, all of those things—if you ignored his physical condition.

For that very reason, he was terrified of someone discovering his illness and shattering his perfect disguise.

"Hints? What hints? What if she doesn’t even care? Besides, the important thing is to get a photo first and see what she looks like."

His armchair strategist, Morris, chimed in with his plan.

Sir Gordo had been agonizing over whether to ask for a photo for two days and still couldn’t bring himself to do it.

"That would be far too rude," Sir Gordo quickly refused.

The truth was, he was afraid that after he saw her photo, he would have to provide one of his own.

"How is that rude? Look, I’m not trying to scare you, but do you play auto chess? Ever since they added a duo mode, guys have been pretending to be girls to trick skilled players into carrying them to higher ranks and gifting them skins. It’s disgusting."

Morris grew agitated as he spoke, clearly a victim of this very tactic himself.

"If people will lie for a few in-game items, it’s only logical they’d lie for your fortune."

Sir Gordo closed his eyes, refusing to listen.

"Okay, how about this? No photo, not directly," Morris said, already on to Plan B. "First, we try a voice call. We can confirm her gender by her voice. Then, we ask for her height and weight. That way, we can get a rough idea of her, uh, figure. You get me?"

"Impossible!" Sir Gordo found Morris’s suggestion even more absurd than asking for a photo. "To ask a lady for her height and weight directly? That’s incredibly offensive!"

"We haven’t even confirmed if the person *is* a lady yet."

"She is! She wouldn’t lie to me." Sir Gordo turned his head away, his gaze falling on the book on its reading stand.

His physical condition prevented him from reading a book flat on a desk; he needed a stand to prop it up before his eyes and a special stick held in his mouth to turn the pages.

"Leave me be. I need to think. Come get me when it’s time to eat."

"Alright." Morris deferred to Sir Gordo’s decision. ’He who pays the bills calls the shots, after all.’

After leaving the study, Morris stood before a large window. Outside, bright sunlight illuminated an elegant garden.

The beautiful view, however, did nothing to improve his mood.

The easy smile Morris wore when he was with Sir Gordo vanished.

The Villain Kingdom’s declaration of war on Augustine City was making him restless.

War between two minor powers was not uncommon. In this world, peace was the true rarity; war was the constant refrain.

Some region or another was always at war, for any number of reasons: conflicts of interest, racial strife, or even just a monarch who wasn’t right in the head.

Small kingdoms were never short on deranged leaders. There were brutes who knew how to wage war but not how to govern, madmen propped up entirely by their family’s influence, and—most fatally—the lucky fools who, for one reason or another, were chosen by a great power to be its puppet.

The destinies of most small kingdoms lay not in their own hands, but in the hands of a few great powers.

Powers like the Sutton Kingdom, the Pope’s Country, the Amman Federation, and his own homeland, the Loman Empire.

As long as these great powers stayed on the sidelines, the world remained relatively stable.

The survival or destruction of a minor power had little impact on the world at large.

The problem now, however, was that the Loman Empire had entered the fray.

Although it hadn’t officially deployed troops, its public declaration of support for the Villain Kingdom sent a clear signal.

This fragile era, which could barely be called a time of peace, had only lasted a few decades.

’Is it all about to be shattered again?’

As an international student on a scholarship from the Loman Empire, he was, in theory, obligated to return and serve his homeland.

But the more he learned about Loman, the more he began to doubt whether the old Empire was worth his life’s devotion.

The entire Loman Empire, from top to bottom, was suffused with a warlike fanaticism—a desperate yearning to restore the glory of its heyday, when it had dominated the Continent.

’The ambition was admirable, but their methods were anything but noble.’

To acquire resources, they propped up puppet regimes in smaller nations, choosing not leaders who genuinely wanted to see their countries develop, but greedy opportunists who only wanted to line their own pockets.

’Such puppets were easier to control.’

This was also why so-called "lucky fools" were so often put in power.

The typical result was Loman stripping the resources and leaving the local area in chaos.

And they employed even worse tactics.

’Those tactics, Morris thought, were utterly despicable.’