The ambassador listened quietly, slowly swirling the wine in his glass.
The damp scent of a storm rushed in through the window. Rain was rare in this season, especially freezing rain.
"It is said that an alien queen once fell for Him, but He cared only about the mathematical theories developed by her civilization. Compared to the bedroom of a beautiful alien queen, He was more interested in the advanced knowledge found in libraries. Back then, He wandered through the high-mass region at the center of the Milky Way, where time flowed differently from here. By the time He became the Pirate King, only a few years had passed on Earth."
As if to keep himself warm, Victor von Doom never allowed the glass in his hand to empty.
"But He loved Earth. He loved humanity. So He returned, and not long ago, He killed a god that had tried to restart Earth's ecosystem. He saw Himself as a somewhat larger ant, and believed that every human could become as strong and wise as Him, even if it took countless years of evolution. He hoped humanity could exist eternally and solve many ancient philosophical problems. He believed that by then, the Human Race's intellectual heights would reach an unprecedented level."
"A very interesting legend. So how did you come to know of it?" The ambassador shrugged, unmoved—or at least, that was how he appeared. The conversational atmosphere made the office, which should have been solemn, somewhat less tense. "Even in modern times, there are rulers who claim to be immortal and seek to preserve their rule through fear. I do not mean to question your story, but the Yugoslav Federation's and Mars's advanced technology could not have appeared out of nowhere. It must have been supported by fundamental mathematical and