"Understood, Your Majesty." Mother Alicia nodded. "We will accept your gracious offer and deploy the forces you delegate to us. We are truly grateful for how reasonable you have been during this time. Frankly, you have been excessively gracious considering the lapses in our responsibility to protect our guests. His Highness Prince Rui had been targeted at a moment when his guard was down after indulging in an intimate period with his partner, and being unable to monitor and prevent an attack during such a period is entirely on us."
Emperor Rael didn't intend to be too harsh on the dark elves, considering that both he and Rui had been aware of the attack ahead of time. Still, he needed to keep appearances up, lest people get the wrong idea that it was somehow acceptable to have such a lapse in one's responsibility in security.
