“Now then, what to do with you?” Yuuto sighed, his hand resting on his chin. Before him was Thutmose III, made to sit on the hard ground with his hands tied behind his back with rope.
“Do what you please.” Thutmose was almost defiant in his reply. Despite having the military might he did, he had suffered a humiliatingly thorough defeat. Yuuto couldn’t help but feel for the guy, but he wasn’t lenient enough to let someone who’d attacked him just go either.
However, this was the Napoleon of Egypt, a man that had made his mark on history with his greatness. If Yuuto killed him, he might end up seriously altering the course of history. He didn’t want to risk it.
“In that case... How about a trade agreement and peace treaty between us and Kemet?”
“Wha...? Huh...? A peace...treaty?” Thutmose looked confused. His lack of understanding was written all over his face. “What are you scheming?!”
“Is it that unusual? All I’ve ever wanted was to live in peace. Nothing more.”
“I know all about you! You’re the king of the land to the west of Ahhiyawa, are you not?! You came here to conquer this land!”
“I was the king. Now I’m retired.”
“...Huh?”
“I gave my crown to someone else, and now I’m living the good life.”
“Y-You expect me to believe that?! You’re probably still manipulating that king you installed from the shadows, making him your puppet!”
“That sounds like a major pain. Why would I want to do that when I’ve already had enough of being king?” Yuuto screwed up his face in displeasure just imagining it and waved his hand in dismissal. Perhaps Yuuto’s feelings finally got through, because Thutmose stared hard at Yuuto’s face for a while in disbelief, as though he were trying to bore a hole through it. Finally...
“You’re...telling the truth?”
“Yep. All I want is to live a relaxing, happy life with my family.”
“...For one that possesses such power, you are strangely unselfish.”
“I get that a lot, yeah.” Yuuto gave an impish grin. Unselfish—many others besides Thutmose had called him that, but the truth was, all he wanted was peace for his friends and family. Nothing more, nothing less. “So, do you think you could just leave me alone and let me be?”
“You ask for the impossible. I cannot let a presence hke yours simply roam free. However, I understand the difference in our power at present, so there is no other option.”
“I’m glad you’re so quick on the uptake. Also, try not to take your resentment of us to the grave.”
“Do not worry. I don’t intend for my descendants to inherit this shame.” Thutmose snorted, unamused, and with that, a trade agreement and peace treaty between the Iarnvidr Trading Company and Kemet were forged.
In the following years, Thutmose III swiftly made the rest of the Orient his (though perhaps he’d learned something from his defeat, as he proceeded more carefully this time) and made Egypt the largest it had ever been. Furthermore, as he had promised, Thutmose didn’t take his resentment to the grave, but the soldiers who’d survived that battle did tell tales about what they’d experienced, often at the peak of their drunkenness. They said that the battle was despair incarnate, that it was hke facing off against a mythological demon, and as a result, the hill in the greater Megiddo region that had been the site of the battle came to be known as “Har Megiddo” in their native Hebrew—in other words, Armageddon, prophesied by the Bible to be the location of the final battle to take place during the end times.
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