The twins used the mailbox of a company they’d bought to handle all the communications with their growing list of allies. After Suzie went and collected all the letters from the mailbox, the twins looked over them at their hideout.
“It feels like we’re just making things in Lylat worse,” Suzie remarked. “I don’t know if I like this…”
“Guilty as charged,” Wille replied.
“Just remember, it’s not our job to help this place out,” Lukas added.
“What? That’s horrible,” Suzie said. “Oh, but if things get too bad here, you’ll take me with you to Din, right?”
“Yeah, sure,” Wille replied. “We’d be happy to have you, Princess. Right, Lukas?”
“Yep. But I wouldn’t be too worried if I were you. We might end up saving this country anyway, you know?”
“What do you mean?” Suzie asked. “Come on, tell me already! What good does helping the Royalists do?”
“It’s gonna make the king eat himself alive.”
“………Hwuh?”
After two months of behind-the-scenes maneuvering, the major newspapers announced that a new law had been passed: the Great War Asset Compensation Act. It was a measure that would use money from the national treasury to cover damages suffered during the Galgad invasion. Anyone who lost land or property over a certain value would be made whole.
It was, in essence, to direct wealth transfer to capitalists and the aristocracy. The king had lost all propriety and was practically spitting in the masses’ faces.
“But why…?” When Suzie read the news in the morning paper, she began trembling right there in the hideout. When she first joined up with the twins, they’d instructed her to read the news every day. “How did a law like that even pass?! Do they have no respect for the suffering we’re going through—?”
“Heh, just like we drew it up.”
For all of Suzie’s shouting and hollering, beside her, Lukas smiled smugly. He skimmed the paper and scoffed.
Everything was going according to the twins’ plan.
“Lylat intelligence might be hot shit, but with how corrupt their king and his cabinet are, they don’t have what it takes to be our opponents.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“When the Royalists start getting out of control, the Rationalists will have no choice but to join up with the Liberalists.” Wille took out his notepad and started writing. “And that’ll shift the balance of power.”
Once again, he showed her what the situation in Parliament looked like.
BEFORE: 355 seats (Royalists, Rationalists) vs. 75 seats (Liberalists)
NOW: 185 seats (Royalists) vs. 245 seats (Rationalists, Liberalists)
The change was plain as day. The Rationalists had shifted sides, leaving the Royalists isolated. The number of seats controlled by each party hadn’t actually changed—none of the blackmail material had been used to force Rationalists to step down. Yet even so, there had been a dramatic change in the political landscape.
Now Suzie understood what the twins had been aiming for. “That’s why you helped out the Royalists… To force the Rationalists to act!”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but basically, yeah.”
The Royalists wanted to expand the monarchy’s influence, and the Rationalists wanted a monarchy that abided by the constitution. Both parties wanted to support the existing power structures, and the similarities in their beliefs had historically made them allies. With the Royalists going out of control, though, the Rationalists had little choice but to stand against them. They were happy to have a government that benefited the rich and powerful, but they drew the line at having the king and an even smaller elite receive further boons on top of that. However, the bill was a prime example of exactly that. For aristocrats who’d lost their fortunes after the war was over and capitalists who’d rebuilt quickly, there wasn’t enough to be gained.
Now the upper class was turning on itself, and the Royalists were getting the short end of the stick.
Suzie simply couldn’t believe it. People who harmed the government got locked up. That was how it worked in Lylat. “If this is so bad for the Royalists, then why didn’t Nike and the Genesis Army stop it?”
“Because they’re powerless to stop people from helping the king.”
Wille’s answer earned a gasp from Suzie.
The Genesis Army’s job was to crack down on spies and activists that opposed the royal administration. However, all Lukas and Wille had done was support the king. Even if Nike had found the twins out, there was no way the king and his cabinet would have let her arrest them. For all of Nike’s power, defying the king was still easier said than done.
Thanks to their unusual strategy, they’d completely boxed Nike out.
Just then, a carrier pigeon came flying to the hideout window. There was a letter strapped to its leg. The twins’ supporters only used those for passing along highly urgent information.
“Our tip just came in. It’s coming next week,” Lukas said with a smirk when he read the letter. “They’re holding a vote of no confidence against the cabinet.”
The twins had a number of allies in Parliament, too.
After soaking the letter in water to destroy it, Lukas went on. “The opposition’s got a majority now, so that’s hardly a surprise. We’re about to have us some parliamentary elections. Only problem is, I doubt the king’s gonna hold to the principles of fair and honest elections. We’re gonna have our work cut out for us.”
Now that the cabinet had a motion of no confidence looming over them, they were sure to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies. Once they did that, there would be a new election. If the Royalists took a hard loss, it would herald a profound change for the nation.
“When you’ve got parties fighting over parliamentary seats, you’ve got an electoral game on your hands,” Lukas continued in delight. “And I don’t lose at games.”
In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the invincible royal administration had come crumbling down. Things in the Chamber of Deputies had seemed all but hopeless, yet the political situation had shifted. And it had done so on the whims of a single man.
Lukas had told her about his title—the title of games master.
He was a spy who’d moved untold political organizations and special-interest groups to action. With unimaginable skill, he’d tied the Genesis Army’s hands and led the king to ruin, with the king himself being none the wiser.
It took Suzie a good long while to pick her jaw up off the floor. She could tell that the man before her was, quite literally, one of the best spies in the world.
For some reason, that knowledge made her chest ache.
“…You could probably win just fine without me,” she couldn’t help but mumble.