A sudden festival at Jaylee's base

Jaylee was walking back and forth in front of his HQ's screen with a worried face.

After looting Negi's base and retrieving all her crystal cores he had returned to his original base but upon doing so he noticed his secret plans had already started and all population of his base had vanished aside from the maids that always accompany him and the other professions that had no fighting capabilities at all.

Now he had finally enough material to expand his base, but, without population, what good would that do? After all, no matter how fancy the hospital building is, it won't cure anyone without proper doctors and nurses working inside it, right?

Thinking about this he did what he could to solve the immediate problem, building two new labs that would allow him to make more girls at once, and as soon as the labs were finished, he put the order to make another fifteen more servants and went back to the HQ to wait for the news.

Back to Jaylee's secret plan, it started the day after Negi had contacted him. Taking out his crystal cores from the research and alchemy labs, he created and upgraded a ranger camp and another barrack, increasing his soldier limits to 20 and ranger limit to 10.

Then, using the researchers who lost their jobs as their work place stopped working, plus the few jobless servants he had available, he filled all new vacancies, multiplying the strength of his army at once, but instead of sending them all to the imminent battle, he only sent the ones Negi knew about, which meant only the 10 first soldiers he had.

As he joined Apollo and Negi and the battle planning progressed, Jaylee advised to have Apollo, who had the biggest army, to stop the enemy using all his troops. Jaylee's excuse was that it would work better if all troops were under a single commander and he was the one with the highest power among them. Apollo didn't find a way to deny his logic so he agreed albeit reluctantly.

After the battle planning was over Jaylee secretly sent a hidden command through his maids in the middle of the night, ordering all his rangers to prepare an ambush in the forest between the fortress and Negi's base and to gather all his soldiers, engineers and farmers to attack Apollo's base.

Jaylee's servants had a special stealth skill that made them undetectable by radars while they stood still in a single place. It was completely useless once they began attacking, but perfect for ambushing the enemies.

Before the Sun could rise in the horizon, while Negi and Apollo were deep inside the land of dreams, a group of ten pointy eared rangers stealthily ran through the woods without being detected by anyone and soon disappeared leaving no traces behind, while, at the same time, a group of soldiers, armored engineers and farmers equipped with lances, walked right around Negi's radar detection range, in direction of Apollo's camp.

Back to the present, Jaylee was feeling quite apprehensive as all his plan had failed. Not only his the troops attacking Apollo's base were annihilated, but even the ambush troops who he had armed with poison and were targeting his weakened soldiers had been destroyed as well!

Several hours ago he had noticed the dwindle in the numbers of his secret troops who were attacking Apollo's base. First it was a farmer, then an engineer, and another farmer... Little by little his troops started dying and there was nothing he could do about it. Truth be told, he did expect to find some resistance, but this went way beyond what he expected as even his armored engineers and soldiers were being killed as well.

"Maybe they fell on some traps? No, this number is too big to be caused by traps! Did he, like me, reserved some of his troops? No! That guy was an idiot! There is no way he would think ahead like this, right?"

And then, just as he was considering what was going one, all his secret troops vanished at once.

"Fuck! He got me! It was a trap all this time! I never saw this coming! Great play Apollo! But two can play this game! I wonder what you will say when you receive the surprise I have prepared for you..."

Through his numbers, Jaylee couldn't see how close he was from conquering Apollo's base, so he ended up with the wrong impression that there were plenty of troops hidden there, enough to kill them all in a single move.

But even if that was true, in the moment he took care of Apollo, no matter how many troops were in his base, they would turn useless, right? If anything, they would be converted to his once it was over, right? So, maybe, these news weren't that bad.

"Let's bet everything in our ambush!"

And then, the numbers of rangers started falling as well.

"What!? They still have strength to fight back!?"

9,8,7,6...

"Come on! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

5,4,3...

"You can do it! Don't surrender!"

2,1...

"Nooooo!!!!!!!!"

0.

...and this is how things reached this point. Night soon arrived and Jaylee continued to walk in circles around his HQ, waiting for a miracle to save him from this situation.

"Maybe he will give up. Maybe he was poisoned...."

Murmuring to him, his eyes were red and his face was pale, giving the impression that he was someone close to a mental breakdown.

"Master. Please, have some tea."

"Shut up! I'm thinking here!"

Worried about his health, his maids tried to calm him down, but, unfortunately, this had the opposite effect.

One hour passed by, then another, and another.... and as the clock announced the start of a new day, multiple red points started appearing in the map.

"He is here! Damn it! HE IS HERE!!!! THIS IS THE END! THIS IS THE END!!! DAMN IT!!!! DAMN IT!!!!!"

"Master! Calm down!"

"SHUT UP!!!! GRACE IF YOU WANT ME TO CALM DOWN, TELL ME A SOLUTION!!!!"

"..."

"TELL ME! IT'S AN ORDER!!!!"

"We can attack them together, but we will probably not be enough. Maybe if we activate the buildings self-destruction function after disabling the limiters, we can use facilities like bombs, but doing so will explode all resources inside as well and they have to be close or they won't be caught in the blast..."

"Self-Destruction...Oh!!! Great idea!!! Perfect! If I can't have it, nobody can!!! Let's do it! Do it now!!"

"Master, it will take five minutes for the building's system to reach overload and-"

"That's no problem! I can buy some time! Tell all others, prepare the fireworks! We will have a great show tonight!"

"...Yes, Master..."

-/-

What Apollo decided was to split the group in two. One would head directly back home while the other would strike Jaylee's base.

Because of the talk between Negi, Jaylee and him, Apollo knew where Jaylee's base was located, so, after checking Negi's base was empty, he and his group headed straight there, not even stopping to rest through the night.

"We are here."

"Thank you, Rose. Any enemy?"

"None yet... There are no sounds or movements anywhere. The base appears to be empty..."

"Do you think he evacuated?"

"...I wouldn't know..."

"Let's not waste time waiting, show me the shortest path to his HQ!"

"Yes, Master!"

The group walked through the buildings until they reached the HQ.

In front of the HQ, Jaylee was drinking his tea while sitting on an armchair similar to the one Apollo had inside his Palace.

"Greetings. Why have you come so late at night?"

Looking at Lee's mocking smile, a huge fury overtook Apollo who stepped forward and screamed in a loud voice.

"Lee!!! Why did you do it!? Why did you betray us!?"

Reacting to Apollo's accusation, Jaylee threw his teacup aside and standing up in a pose of indignation he answered in the same tone.

"Shut up Apollo!! What did you want me to do!? Do you really think you gave me a choice!?"

"What are you saying!? Negi extended her hand to you! Me too, I thought of you as my ally! We didn't look down on you or mistreated you in any way! How can you say we gave you no choice!?"

"Don't make me laugh! Let's say we had won that battle and conquered Ector's base! Then what? You would get 50% of the crystal cores, Negi would get 30% and I would stay with only 20%!"

"That's just fair! I was the one who invested the most, so it's fair to receive a higher share!"

"Bullshit! If we did that, after less than one week Negi would come knocking at my door to finish me off!"

"Negi would never do that!"

"Yes she would! I have proof! Listen to this! This is the audio recorded of her talking to her butler!"

[...anyway, Hayate, prepare a plan to invade Jaylee after this is over.]

[Master, isn't he our ally?]

[Ally or not, we need to eat him if we want to prevent being devoured by that pervert with the little girls.]

Hearing the way Negi was referring to him, Apollo's face turned red in shame and fury, but he didn't allow Jaylee to mislead his thought. Sure, Negi was guilty, but Jaylee was guilty as well!

[You think they will attack us?]

[Who knows? But preparations should be made before the battle, not after it!]

"How did you get this? Were you spying on her!?"

"Of course I was! From the moment I saw her, I never believed a single word she said! And this was the only way I had to defend myself! In the end of the day we are all opponents, information is power and I have no motive to give blind trust to any of you!"

"All right! Fuck Negi! Whatever! But why did you attack me as well!? You dare to prepare am ambush against the allies who fought to defend your home! How dare you do that!?!"

"Apollo, are you really asking me that!? After the Oni Master, you are the most dangerous Master in this island! Even if I devour Negi, I am still not as strong as you! Why should I let go of the perfect chance of finishing you off!? If my plan had succeeded, you would be out of the game without even knowing who ever stroke you down!"

"What do you mean!? ...Wait! You mean! My base!? You attacked there as well!!"

"I sure did! All my troops were killed! What the hell did you hide there!? If you had it, why didn't you use it in the war!? See! You are just another hypocrite like me!!!"

"Bastard! No matter how you try to paint it, I'm not the same as you!! I would never lower myself to do such a dirty thing as backstabbing an ally!"

"Hypocrite! Don't act like a saint who never bloodied you hand! I also know you took another player down! Don't pretend it never happened!"

"That and this are completely different! That bastard was not my ally! I-"

"You attacked his base without warning after it was half destroyed by boars! It could be said that you stabbed him while he was already on his deathbed! No matter what excuse you use, you and I are the same!"

"Shut up, backstabber! I will hear no more words from you! Girls! Attack!"

"Hahahaha! Are you pissed off because all I said was the truth!? That's right! Show off your true color! No need to pretend to be a saint!"

"SHUT UP!"

"See you in hell, mother fucker!"

BOOOM!