Chapter 209: Summit Disagreements
The summit still continued and I can see why Siti and Daina didn’t pay much attention to what was being discussed.
For the past hour and a half, we’ve pretty much been listening to these people talk about shipping routes and nothing else but that.
"Is this usually what happens here?" I whispered to them.
Diana sighed, her hand still stroking my thigh under the table, "Pretty much. And the both of us are just stuck on the stage being their figureheads."
"Hmm... Didn’t you just say that as Mortal Gods, you can do whatever you want? Why are you subjecting yourselves to this then? You could just leave whenever you want, right?"
"Hmm? Oh, if you want to leave, we can leave right now actually. It’s just that... I’m having fun right now~" She giggled, giving my thigh a squeeze.
Siti chuckled softly, "When it was just Diana and I, we would just talk while up here so it’s not that different. If we’re tired, we would just leave whenever we want."
Diana gestured towards the hall, "But sometimes, they would make things entertaining by arguing about the stupidest things so we treat this as some kind of entertainment too."
Right... I don’t want to say it but I guess for them to see these people discussing the future of the region as just entertainment...
Then again... I suppose if you think about it, because we are the Mortal Gods, there was no way our own countries would get a bad deal from this so even if we don’t say anything, we would get nothing but benefits.
So there’s really nothing for us to say unless the other two countries with Mortal Gods want to gang up and bully the other on--
"This is outrageous! How is this fair?!" I blinked as the person representing my country protested.
He was glaring at the two men opposite him, representatives from Malaysia and Indonesia.
"We’ve agreed to set aside a ten percent share for everyone else so we can split the remaining ninety percent between the three of us! So why is our share only twenty four percent?!"
Ah geez... And here I was hoping that everyone would be able to get along and not try to bully another...
Surprisingly, the representative from Thailand spoke up, "I do not believe this share is fair. As much as you might say that both of you have more people to care for, we also need to consider that we are depending on them to take in the other worlder refugees. That would definitely bump up their cost as well."
Huh... I didn’t expect someone else to speak up on our behalf... Especially when facing against two countries with Mortal Gods but they themselves did not have one.
I’m guessing they wanted to support us after I helped them with the portal in Chiang Mai?
I could tell that all three representatives were surprised to see the representative from Thailand speaking up for us. Heck, even the Singaporean representative was giving him a look of surprise.
To his credit, he recovered quickly, "Exactly! We are housing so many other worlder refugees despite us having barely enough space to accommodate them here! If anything, we should be asking for more in order to support them!"
The representative from Malaysia scoffed, "But it is also true that you are also using them to dive into rifts in other countries to get a cut of the Mana Crystals. No one else in this region has a mobile force like yours that is able to go around claiming a cut of it. I think you guys are doing just fine like that, right?"
"We weren’t doing that to make profit to begin with! We were doing that to supplement the cost of housing and taking them in from the very start! Now that we also have a Mortal God of our own to support, we need the bigger cut!"
"Hmm... But your Mortal God is still new though. How about this? We allow your Mortal God to interact and learn from our Mortal Gods in exchange for that percentage of the cut?"
The Singapore representative narrowed his eyes, unable to say anything here since that other guy was pulling out the Mortal God card.
If he said anything to refute that, it could be seen as him insulting the other two Mortal Gods since this guy was basically giving a ’generous’ offer of letting two Mortal Gods be my tutor and my support, something that would definitely be worth more than anything anyone could ask for... On paper at least.
In reality, this was basically just having two Mortal Gods suppressing a single Mortal God and probably making sure that they can’t grow too big and gain influence.
It’s actually something that has happened before between countries in alliances where they use their Mortal Gods to suppress another Mortal God in order to decrease competition.
Just as I was thinking about intervening, Siti suddenly leaned forward and tapped on the button to activate her microphone which silenced all the other microphones in the hall.
"I am willing to do it for free. All I need is a free pass to visit him whenever I want and have the same given to him. That would be good enough."
Diana also leaned towards her mic right after her, "I feel the same. There’s no need to demand any payment on my behalf. I am completely willing and would actually prefer to do it for free. Same conditions."
I gave them each a look as they leaned back in their seats, their hands still draped on my thighs and rubbing them unashamedly below the table.
Everyone else in the hall had turned to look in our direction, clearly not expecting the Mortal Goddesses themselves to speak up on our behalf.
There were some people who directed their gaze at me, most likely thinking that I did something to them.
Umm... I can’t completely deny that seeing what happened last night but... I don’t think they actually thought that far.
Seeing these two already standing up for us, it would reflect quite badly if I said nothing so I also went ahead to tap on the button to activate my microphone and leaned towards the mouthpiece.
"I don’t think my maths is bad, but leaving ten percent for the others means there’s ninety percent to split. And last I checked, ninety divided by three was thirty, not twenty four."
I then leaned back and everyone’s gaze was now on the two representatives.
In an instant, they were completely out of cards to play and even their own Mortal Gods had turned against them.
At this point, it would just be a matter of whether they wanted to insist on holding on to their pride or not.
The Indonesian representative was the first to speak, "I am ok with lowering our share to thirty percent. As a gesture of good will, we can also offer an additional two percent for the first two years from our share as repayment for your support over the past few years."
Oh? That’s a surprise.
The Malaysian representative kept his face neutral as he also nodded, "We are also willing to do the same. I hope all of us will be able to work together closely from now on."
There were murmurs drifting throughout the hall as they watched the two countries who had been dominating this space step back for the first time in the past few years.
Not that I can blame them because honestly... We really did depend on them to help with the portals and we probably wouldn’t be able to continue our daily lives if Siti and Diana had chosen not to step up.
Despite them saying it’s not expected for Mortal Gods to dive into rifts themselves, I know for a fact that they have led several expeditions in the past as well so they’re just more practical about it in the sense that they choose to fight because they want to and not because they have to.
Which was kind of different for me because I’m of the belief that I fight because I have to as this was a role that was given to me.
But well... It’s just that there’s always some greedy people within the group that would always try to latch onto stuff to parasite benefits for themselves... And, as a result, made people despise the entire group because of that one person.
Now, I guess those people are realising that they won’t be enjoying the same level of benefits anymore since a new player has stepped onto the stage.
The hall kind of descended into an awkward silence after that but thankfully the emcee came in with a clutch save.
"Ahem... Everyone, it is time for lunch... We have prepared food downstairs for everyone to enjoy. The summit can resume in two hours. Attendees, please hold for the Divine Ones to leave first..."
Oh, nice. Lunch. I was just getting hungry...
...
...
Yeah I wasn’t, I just wanted to get out of there.