Chapter 283 Independence -12
Chapter 283 Independence -12
Alex regarded Jiha and spoke gently.
"I didn't expect to see you again at the party. What brings you here today?"
"Did I come somewhere I shouldn't be?"
Jiha jerked his chin toward Sirel, who was being guided by a maid.
"She said she wanted to come to this party. I'm just here with her."
"Ah, is that so?"
Alex tilted his head with elegance.
His bearing was princely, brimming with the kind of dignity you'd only see in a comic.
"I didn't know the details, but you two must be quite close. You make a fine pair. I envy you."
"You don't have a woman?"
"Regrettably, I've lacked such connections."
"None that caught your eye?"
Jiha spoke casually, and Alex didn't answer right away.
Though they were talking, Jiha knew this stage was Alex's trap.
'He didn't care if I came or not. If I didn't show, he planned to take Sirel hostage. If the hostage play didn't sway me, he'd have just killed her.'
Lowchen had killed citizens without a second thought to buy time, and Alex was no different.
Ultimately, this bastard was a high-ranking officer of the Secret Society, the kind who'd drag innocent people in and use them for experiments just to overturn the world.
"It's simply that I've lacked connections."
As Alex tried to brush it off, Jiha spelled it out.
"Because compared to Gashiel, no other woman catches your eye?"
"...It must simply be my own inadequacy that left me without connections."
Alex forced the words out, a hint of gritted teeth slipping through.
Gashiel was Alex's Achilles' heel.
The mere mention of her name by another man brought out a flash of violent rage.
'A genuine lunatic...'
Jiha let out a hollow laugh and stepped forward. Alex extended an arm to block him.
"A moment. I'll conduct a body search before you enter the party. It's all procedure..."
"Of course I'm armed. What are you talking about?"
Jiha made a show of drawing the gladius he'd hidden inside his jacket, pressed against his back.
"...I believe weapons were prohibited?"
"Am I supposed to face Lowchen empty-handed?"
Alex frowned.
His expression showed he hadn't considered that.
"Why would he come? I did not invite him."
"That Shade you used before. Lowchen lent it to you, didn't he?"
"..."
Alex didn't answer, but it was correct.
Alex might outrank Lowchen, but not in combat ability.
"You got troops from Lowchen, but all you've done is lose them. You've gained nothing."
"What does that matter? To him, Shade are just convenient soldiers he can replenish endlessly. And what I did before..."
Alex bristled at Jiha's words.
Even if he admitted his own ability fell short of Lowchen's, having it rubbed in his face naturally soured his mood.
"It doesn't end there. Lowchen seems to be misunderstanding things between you and me."
"Excuse me? What do you..."
"Well, I'll explain that later."
Jiha smiled and walked forward.
Alex followed, flustered.
"Wait. Jiha, what in the world..."
"Can you afford to follow me when more guests might arrive?"
"..."
Alex stopped in his tracks, frozen.
Jiha walked toward Sirel, throwing the words over his shoulder.
"I'll be enjoying the party. Let's have the detailed talk later."
The party hall.
The invited guests alone appeared to number around four hundred.
Mostly merchants, retired politicians, and wealthy individuals.
If the previous party had been a private gathering of men, this was an assembly of Waris's luminaries from every field.
These were people normally busy with their own affairs, but the moment Jiha entered the hall with Sirel, he drew all eyes at once.
As the man who had declared martial law in Waris, Jiha now held more power in his grasp than anyone else here.
Everyone watched him, clearly wanting to approach but acting cautious.
'Well, an introduction is usually required... High-ranking types love their socializing rituals.'
People who believed they had class tended to think approaching first lowered their standing.
So an intermediary introduction process was mandatory.
We haven't met, have we? This is a friend of a friend of a friend I know.
I've heard much about you. It's an honor to meet you.
Oh no, the honor is mine...
This process of weighing each other's status and rank was essential, but it didn't work on Jiha.
Jiha prioritized practical benefit and objectives, so he recruited combat personnel first.
The people under him with any social prestige were just the Uniques he'd tamed.
He knew quite a few faces from taking over the Merchant Association, but they kept their distance, calculating their ledgers.
'Everyone's busy reading the room.'
Jiha gave a wry chuckle and took in the hall's interior layout.
The lavishly decorated interior, the wine glasses arranged on rectangular tables so anyone could take one, all perfectly aligned without a single flaw—that alone made it clear how much money and effort had gone into this party.
As a former secretary to a high-ranking man who'd been to countless functions, Jiha could assess it instantly.
Sirel, standing beside Jiha, shook her head.
"...I don't think this was the place for me."
"What are you talking about? You're pretty."
Jiha said it with a smile, and Sirel gave him a delicate glare.
"Hmm, fine. Whatever. Since we're here, let's just eat and drink something good. The high-and-mighty can sort themselves out."
Sirel wasn't just talking—she actually headed off to get drinks.
As Jiha watched her retreating figure, someone quietly approached him.
A cool-headed beauty with dark blue hair braided down her back, unlike her usual style. It was Pairan.
"Here."
Unlike Jiha, Pairan hadn't come with an invitation. She'd infiltrated.
The people watching Jiha had noticed she was a former Super Rare, now a Unique Grade Yogwi, but none of them imagined she'd sneaked in.
Why would a Unique stoop to using the back door?
"Barjet?"
"She's doing as you said. Though it seems there's no success yet."
Barjet was searching Alex's mansion right now.
'Gashiel is definitely here.'
Alex's obsession with his older sister Gashiel was that of a madman.
If he'd hidden her, he'd never be satisfied unless he could check on her whenever he wanted.
'Even if someone's guarding her, they can't stop Barjet, a Unique.'
Jiha might call Barjet the fake article, but she was still a woman with a cornered ferocity when pushed.
It was a curious trait... but once women were pinned under Jiha, they couldn't make a peep.
"..."
Wasn't Pairan staying silent right now, after all?
Even strong-willed women lost the will to challenge him once they knew Jiha. Barjet was the only one who at least made a show of defiance.
That hint of potential was precisely why Jiha bothered trying to make something of Barjet.
'If Pairan moves, Lowchen can't miss the fact that she entered Alex's mansion with me. I leaked it on the streets on purpose. Use Pairan as bait to lure Lowchen while Barjet searches for Gashiel. Not the most reliable plan, but there's no other option.'
When the time came, Asira and Yura would lead the security forces following Jiha and cooperate with the security officers to seal Waris in two layers.
Narsha had been left guarding the barracks against unforeseen incidents.
Pairan was bait to draw in Lowchen. By process of elimination, Barjet was the only one left for the search for Gashiel.
'Well, it'll cost less blood than the alternatives, so she'll manage. Honestly, she only needs to do half the job...'
Jiha actually didn't have high expectations for Barjet. Even if Gashiel was found, she probably wasn't in any state to act anyway.
Pairan pointed out, "Bringing a civilian here seems dangerous."
She meant Sirel.
Unaware of the underlying currents of this party, Sirel was tilting her head at the countless glasses before stopping a passing waiter to ask questions.
Jiha answered calmly.
"She's in more danger anywhere else. Your brother or Alex would try to grab her as a hostage at the first chance."
"My brother isn't the type to..."
"He doesn't kill civilians?"
Jiha smiled, and Pairan shut her mouth.
Hadn't he bought time before by killing civilians indiscriminately, summoning Shade to block pursuit?
"...My brother wasn't always like that."
"What made him that way?"
Jiha was genuinely curious about the siblings' past.
The brother had become a top-tier attacker for the Secret Society, trying to burn the world down, while the sister had defected, become a Unique, and was now trying to stop that brother.
"You say that because you don't know how Yogwi live."
"I know they're rejected by their parents."
"...For us, it wasn't even that. It would've been better if it were."
Under Jiha's gaze, Pairan spoke slowly.
"Our biological parents were siblings."
"..."
Incest? Depending on the era and culture, it might have been tolerated, but on modern Earth it was taboo.
Was Warsland different? Reading the meaning in Jiha's eyes, Pairan explained further.
"It's madness, yes. It varies by species, but marriage within first cousins is generally taboo. But... there are cases where it isn't."
"Like what?"
"In the village where we were born, it was normal."
Pairan spoke with deep resentment.
"At a glance, it looked like a secluded human village living quietly, but they never let outsiders in. They were terrified their secret might be exposed. I didn't know as a child, but... I learned that my parents committed incest to create me."
"There are specific human bloodlines that produce Yogwi especially well. Our parents, who were siblings, became husband and wife to continue that blood. My brother and I were born in a village built for the purpose of producing Yogwi."
"A multi-generational experiment?"
Jiha responded coldly.
Human lifespans in Warsland were no different from Earth.
Advanced nations on Earth might have centenarians, but Warsland's relatively backward civilization meant a human reaching fifty was considered a long life.
But that was for humans. A long-lived species conducting such work over hundreds of years could manage the continuation of a specific human bloodline.
"For such an experiment, aren't Yogwi a small population?"
With their odd eyes and pale skin, Yogwi had striking external features.
"The focus wasn't on just any Yogwi, but on creating especially powerful ones. Most fetuses can't accept a Shade and die immediately. When a child is miscarried that way, they'd just make the mother conceive the next one. The village where I lived... was that kind of horrifying place."
"..."
It meant a place where humans were livestock.
"How is such a thing permitted?"
"...Humans in Warsland have no central authority. We're divided between the two camps, but the best we can do is occasionally form small villages of our own. Above all, not a single Unique has ever emerged from humans, so our political standing is incredibly weak."
"So they made a deal with a Shade?"
"...In the place I lived, they did."
Without power, they made deals to obtain it.
A village that collectively struck bargains with vengeful spirits trapped beyond this world, offering up their own unborn children.
"..."
Jiha had seen all manner of horrors since coming to Warsland, but this story truly sent a chill down his spine.
It was pure insanity.
"...We siblings were the most successful. We were brother and sister who passed through the Night King's own hands and were safely born into this world."
"And?"
"The village's expectations for us were immense. And in truth, my brother had the talent. In the village's hundreds of years of history, his talent was supreme. He quickly surpassed the adults."
"A tragic ending, then."
At Jiha's words, Pairan nodded slowly.
"But in the end, the conclusion was that it still wasn't enough to summon the Night King. So the adults... believed that a child born from mixing my blood and my brother's would be the Yogwi to eventually summon the Night King. Yogwi never have children, but they believed the two of us, who'd been handled by the Night King himself, would be different."
"..."
Forcing siblings born of incest to then commit incest with each other? How many hundreds of years had this gone on?
Jiha recalled Iroha's information.
Blue, Purple, and Ouroboros had all secretly conducted experiments to artificially grant Mana.
The moment those unethical experiments came to light, people would revolt to a degree that not even the law of survival of the fittest could suppress.
This, right here, was part of that.
"We decided to refuse... but my brother and I were divided. I said we should flee to another village. My brother said we should kill them all."
"..."
Killing everyone in the village meant killing their own parents too.
Jiha closed his eyes.
"When we met again, my brother had joined Ouroboros, and I was under Lady Asira."
"You talk too much."
"He'd say as much himself."
Pairan, who'd been mulling over Jiha's words, reflexively looked back.
Her expression froze. Jiha also turned slowly.
Lowchen stood there, a glass in his hand.
"You talk too much, Pai."
Speaking exactly as Jiha had predicted.