Things turned out exactly as the Naga Queen had predicted. The next day, the many elders of the Senate questioned the Merfolk King about his defeat and listed all the losses his failure had inflicted on the empire.
Standing beside him, the Naga Queen said bluntly, "Anyone who says another word dies!" Only then were the elders cowed into silence.
Unlike the virtuous ruler the Merfolk King presented himself as, the Naga Queen was a tyrant through and through. Only now did the elders realize that the Second King and the Merfolk King were not rivals. They were husband and wife.
If you criticized a man in front of his wife, did you really think she would not kill you? For a moment, everyone in the Senate fell silent. Only after the Merfolk King sighed softly and delivered something akin to an Edict of Self-Blame did the elders finally settle down.
Although the Second King and the Merfolk King were the Deep Sea Empire's strongest fighters, the elders of the Senate were its backbone. Thus, both the Naga Queen and the Merfolk King generally sought to placate them.
In the end, the Naga Queen's proposal was approved.
In essence, if they did not believe His Majesty the Merfolk King had lost because his opponent was terrifying, they could send a small elite force to investigate for themselves.
The Senate also knew that pushing their luck any further would only thoroughly offend the Second King and the Merfolk King, so they agreed to the Naga Queen's proposal.
The Royal Family and the Senate each had an Octopus Assassination Force, and the Senate's force was somewhat larger than the Royal Family's.
The Senate therefore decided to deploy this force to probe the enemy's strength and see whether they truly were as unfathomable