Stubborn Supremacist
“As you suspected, I orchestrated the fall of House Testarosa.”
A chilling silence descended over the meeting room.
Electric currents laced with mana crackled around Sion—tick! tick!—making the air hum and tremble.
It was a pressure that conveyed her intent more clearly than words. Anyone could see she was on the verge of exploding.
Rohan saw it and hurriedly spoke up.
“Let's keep talking. I'll honor my promise.”
““!””
The elder and Sion each interpreted Rohan's words in their own way.
To Elder Levin Maxwell, it sounded like he was saying he'd take full responsibility under Hex's name, just as he'd first mentioned.
Sion recalled the promise she'd made with Rohan back at the dormitory.
“···.”
Sion, who had been glaring at the elder, rolled her eyes toward him.
Taking in Rohan, who had spoken up for her, and Clara sitting beside him, a sense of calm washed over her.
She reined in her surging mana and let out a long breath.
I'll hold back for now. I have to.
If she lost control here and acted rashly, she might never get answers for the rest of her life.
All Sion could do was silently thank Rohan for stopping her.
“Of course, from Your Highness's perspective, you must have many doubts. The difficult questions you've been asking us elders have grown quite varied lately.”
“···.”
“Time is short, so I'll share only the key pieces that connect the dots.”
Levin Maxwell glanced at Rohan as if seeking approval while he spoke.
Rohan nodded, and the elder began laying bare a past Sion knew nothing about.
“You must wonder why I and the elders who follow me did what we did—and how we dealt with Weber Testarosa, who ruled Tigrova as its lord until the advent of the Snow Tiger Emperor.”
The elder had been ordered by the man claiming to be Hex's messenger to confess everything and prove the vessel's mental fortitude.
He spat out his words in a hard tone, laced with blunt phrasing.
Sion clenched her fists and teeth, suppressing the emotions threatening to burst at his open admission of harming her father.
“Your Highness's father, Weber Testarosa, lost all authority in defeat yet felt no shame. He even spoke with joy of how the Snow Tiger Emperor would elevate Tigrova to a great power.”
Sion held her silence, trying to cool her boiling rage.
The elder seized the flow and continued.
“Afterward, he gathered us and made a proposal: to work alongside the new ruler, the Snow Tiger Emperor, for the nation's prosperity. He was excited, saying he'd even begged the Emperor not to let the elves of the coniferous forests leave Tigrova but to keep them in high positions.”
“What's wrong with that?”
Maxwell emphasized it as if it were the crux of the matter.
But to Sion, it was incomprehensible where the problem lay. Even in defeat, it seemed like an ideal path.
“Your Highness, elves cannot be ruled by beastkin.”
“Why not? For what reason?”
The elder sneered at Sion, who countered just as Weber Testarosa once had.
Until now, he'd chosen his words carefully with the princess. But thanks to Hex's messenger, he could finally vent his true feelings—and it thrilled him.
“How can you even ask? Noble elves are not beings who submit to the rule of lowly beastkin. It's only natural.”
“···Elder. Have you lost your mind?”
A thread of the anger Sion had been barely containing slipped free, filling the meeting room with a heavy atmosphere.
But the elder, trusting Hex's messenger, stood tall.
“With our guest watching, please refrain from such inflammatory language. I am perfectly sane. So many elders have sided with my cause, haven't they?”
Levin Maxwell gestured to the elders crawling on the floor.
They weren't in normal shape after Rohan's beatings, but none of those still conscious raised a counterargument.
There wasn't even a hint of remorse in their eyes.
Rohan quietly watched the elder and Sion.
Levin Maxwell's tendencies were expressing themselves more blatantly and aggressively than anything in Abyss City.
A mad old man.
A rigid mindset born from an elf's extreme superiority complex and stubbornness, hardened by long years of life out of step with the times.
Rohan had known the old man's worldview from the start, but with a shield now in place, the old fool's mouth ran wild without restraint.
The elder wouldn't stop talking.
He seemed to relish revealing every truth to Sion, and it was revolting. Wasn't that disgust the very thing that had drawn the Reverse Praise Society here?
“When he ignored our petitions against mingling with beastkin, our paths diverged—and it was inevitable.”
“So what should my father have done instead?”
“Rather than settling for a good ruler, he should have challenged again to reclaim sovereignty.”
“You speak so easily, having never fought a battle yourself.”
“Your Highness, it's what a ruler must do. Complaints of hardship are meaningless.”
Sion realized it clearly now.
She and this old man could talk forever and never understand each other.
“Look at Tigrova's strength now, and the Snow Tiger Emperor's renown. My father made the right choice for the situation. His only mistake was not purging trash like you from his side.”
Even as Sion growled with open aggression,
the elder dismissed it and droned on with nothing but the past facts. He knew spilling only this would ensure he never lost an argument.
Sion would twist inside just hearing it.
“Let me continue. Even if his health wasn't fully recovered from defeat, what power did we have to harm Weber Testarosa?”
“···.”
“Weber Testarosa was truly strong. Even to my untrained eyes, he seemed inhuman. A man who lived up to the phrase 'one against a thousand.'”
“You··· allied with someone.”
“Yes. High members of the Reverse Praise Society stepped in.”
He confessed it without hesitation, no need for denial.
It was the first Sion had heard of the group, but she could guess what the elder thought of Rohan now.
“If that's how it was, you should have killed me too. Why deceive me and bring me all the way here?”
With the question, the elf girl fixed the elder with a piercing glare.
Her voice dropped low, evoking a beast ready to tear out his throat.
“Simple. You were the condition of the deal.”
“Deal···?”
“Think back on your education so far. You've put in so much effort to become the bullet that topples Tigrova's ruler.”
Sion didn't need to ponder deeply.
The memories flooded back immediately.
“Injecting me with ideology that the Snow Tiger Emperor must die to reclaim Tigrova, looking down on humans and beastkin—that was part of the deal too?”
“It was a deal, and also simple common sense.”
“Ha···! Elder, maybe you picked the wrong backers. They seem awfully cowardly.”
Sion's words finally hit home.
The elder's wrinkles and brows twitched.
“Your Highness, mind your words.”
“Look at the situation. It's just the truth.”
Sion had grasped the rough outline.
The Snow Tiger Emperor was a massive thorn to those shadowy powers, and the Reverse Praise Society clearly lacked the merit or confidence to confront him directly.
So they'd nurture blades with potential and keep pitting them against him endlessly until one succeeded.
She had a hunch they were scheming even more besides.
Because of scum like this, my parents···.
Her parents' faces were clearer than any sense of her own life wasted.
Now that she knew the truth, her anger gave way to sheer absurdity.
“Elder. Betraying your own kind, abandoning a life of luxury, holing up in this ruin to raise me as a weapon—what did they promise you in return?”
“Many things. But the standout one···.”
The elder's face lit up with ecstasy at the mere thought.
He lifted the robe covering his wrist, revealing one unnaturally wrinkle-free, elastic arm.
“Youth.”
“What?”
Had she misheard?
An incredulous voice escaped Sion's lips.
“Your Highness, as you know, I'm no warrior. Born as a long-lived elf, I'll outlast humans. But compared to those who hone martial arts, my life is surely short.”
“···.”
“That's why it was so sweet, so alluring. The chance to be young again.”
“You fell for blatant lies. Defying the natural order, betraying and selling out your own—aren't you ashamed?”
“Lord Hex's power is no mere sweet talk. I've experienced it, seen it with my own eyes.”
Levin Maxwell remembered it clearly.
Hex, the Reverse Praise Society executive, toying with an elf by repeatedly rejuvenating and aging her before killing her.
The power that had briefly restored his own youth as a taste—and the remnants still lingering in him now.
“···Elder. You're insane. Utterly mad.”
“Your Highness wouldn't understand this terror. The ones who fear death most aren't children or hot-blooded youth. It's the elderly, staring down the end.”
Rohan clicked his tongue at the elder, rambling on about his past encounter with the Reverse Praise Society.
He knew the reality.
Hex's ability wasn't so versatile. There were issues the man himself avoided mentioning.
“···.”
Sion realized further back-and-forth was pointless.
The man before her was a lunatic.
Now that she knew the truth and the group behind it, she needed just one more answer.
“One last question.”
“Ask away.”
“Where are the kin you claim to have smuggled to other nations?”
Levin Maxwell pondered briefly, as if recalling something forgotten.
Then, in the lightest tone imaginable, he informed Sion.
“Dig up the soil in Tigrova, and you'll find their bones at least.”
She had heard everything she needed.
Sion shot up, lightning crackling around her.
Crack!
Sion's kick.
The elder, kicked while seated, tumbled across the elders sprawled on the floor.
“Urk!”
If not for his robe, that single blow would have killed him outright.
And that was what baffled him.
Was the messenger—who swore to protect him—reacting too slowly?
“Elder. Right now, I'm not hitting a person. It feels like hunting a monster.”
“!”
Sion approached with sharp clack-clack steps.
The elder flicked his gaze to Rohan for aid.
But Rohan just sat in his chair, watching him silently.