Chapter 166
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 166
Chapter Title: A Great Resolve is Needed
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Precognition was an astonishing power.
Simply knowing what would happen in advance granted an informational advantage no one else could replicate.
That was why players held prophecy skills in high regard and dreamed of acquiring them.
But those who could easily extract the desired information with a skill had no idea.
They didn't know the fear of precognition.
Reading the future meant feeling the emotions of the future ahead of time as well.
On a date, one might foresee the breakup and cry.
At a funeral, one might see a future niece or nephew and smile.
In conversation, one might rage at a future humiliation.
To others, they looked like a madman laughing, crying, and raging for no reason.
Thus, those with precognitive abilities grew accustomed to controlling their emotions, eventually showing nothing even if a family member died before their eyes.
And that wasn't even the end of it.
Just like a mystery novel whose ending you already know—no matter how masterful—loses its thrill.
No matter how intense the pre-felt emotions, when the actual event occurred, it barely stirred any excitement.
It was something you'd already experienced, after all.
With each use of precognition, emotions wore down, until eventually even the very concept of emotion faded into obscurity.
Unable to feel them.
Even if felt, unable to express them.
A life of merely mimicking emotions dictated by foresight.
That was the fate most of the White Dragon Clan met.
The White Dragon Princess was no exception.
No—rather, as the one with the greatest precognitive power in the clan, her emotional decay had come faster than anyone's.
That was why.
Why the White Dragon Princesses always met early ends.
Why their final fates were usually suicide or wasting away.
Having foreseen all futures and lost all emotions, they could find no meaning in life and simply gave it up.
"We have brought Your Three Highnesses, Tata."
The clan that served the three princesses.
"And we witnessed the deaths of two of them."
The close aides who had seen the princesses' deaths up close.
"We saw exactly how they lost their lives."
Yet the woman who could not accept those deaths no matter what.
Tata continued, a faint trace of sorrow and anguish flickering across her otherwise expressionless face.
"Both lost their emotions at far too young an age, married suitable consorts out of duty alone, and then gave up on life."
It wasn't just the previous or the one before.
Most White Dragon Princesses throughout history had been the same.
"Simply because they could not find their fated partner."
The exceptions who escaped that miserable fate were exceedingly rare.
Only the princesses who bonded with their fated partners and endured the emotional wear.
Thus, while many White Dragon Princesses sought their fated ones, few ever succeeded.
For a White Dragon Princess who knew all futures, finding a fated partner who could reignite emotions was that difficult.
In the end, the White Dragon Princesses of history had no choice but to immerse themselves in something to preserve even a shred of emotion.
Painting, sculpture, dance, literature, music, and so on.
Mostly artistic hobbies that evoked emotion or感動.
That was why the White Dragon Clan had developed particularly around arts and cultural ventures within the Seven Dragon Group.
But that was merely small comfort.
Even princesses who loved the arts eventually lost all passion and met their fates.
"But Your Highness is different."
Knowing those past princesses' ends better than anyone, Tata gazed at Aynsha and Rimon with eyes gleaming fiercely.
"Your Highness has already found your fated partner. The one who can make you happy."
"......"
"So please do not stop Tata. Tata no longer wishes to see Your Highness unhappy."
Unlike the previous princesses who could do nothing, Aynsha still had a chance.
To fall in love like an ordinary girl.
To live laughing, crying, and getting angry.
A chance to be happy.
And for Aynsha to seize that chance, Tata declared without hesitation that her own life was a small price to pay.
Watching Tata proclaim it without a shred of doubt, Rimon muttered inwardly.
'So that's how it turned out.'
The reason for the betrayal he hadn't understood until the end.
Even though it seemed so out of left field, Rimon wasn't surprised—instead, he accepted it.
The Seven Dragon Society: a crime syndicate before a corporation, fundamentally a religion.
Even in the days called the Demonic Cult, they had been tightly united around their seven princesses. Such widespread betrayal didn't make sense.
There was only one possibility.
When the betrayal was for the princess's sake.
In that sense, Tata's actions were quintessentially Seven Dragon Society.
"Aynsha, what will you do?"
Thus, Rimon shifted his attention from Tata to Aynsha.
He knew that for her sake, Tata would neither stop nor give up.
All that remained was Aynsha's choice.
Aynsha now had three options.
One: Accept the desperate plea of her nursemaid who raised her and stand by as she carried out her plan.
Another was...
"......The reason doesn't matter. Betrayal is betrayal. It cannot be tolerated."
As the head of the crime syndicate Seven Dragon Society, doing what duty demanded over emotion.
No matter the intent, plotting and attacking without permission was betrayal.
Thus, she would punish according to the society's code.
With an emotionless declaration, Aynsha revealed her choice.
"So I will kill you."
"Your Highness, you've grown so splendidly. Tata is proud."
Even hearing those words cold enough to border on cruelty, Tata showed no disappointment or sorrow.
As if she'd expected it.
Or as if it was only right.
She merely raised one hand with a faint smile.
"But Tata cannot die so easily."
It happened right then.
From the ceiling rigged with lights, the corners of the audience seats, the back of the stage prepped for broadcast—here and there throughout the studio.
Over twenty investigators draped in white cloth embroidered with dragons appeared.
The Divine Dragon Squad.
The White Dragon Clan's strongest force, composed solely of Grandmaster-level experts, revealed their formidable presence at Tata's command.
"Punish me as you will. But at least we'll ruin this broadcast program first."
"It doesn't matter. Tata will die anyway."
Tata and the Divine Dragon Squad, resolved to proceed even at the cost of death, like fanatics wrapped in bombs.
Aynsha, machine-like, ignoring all to execute the traitor Tata and her clan.
The psionics emanating from them tangled in the air, their shockwave about to shake the studio—
"This is why the Seven Dragon Society."
Thud.
Rimon set down the duffel bag on his back, dispersing their focus and artfully disrupting the psionics.
Rimon drew all eyes.
But he ignored them, fixing sharp eyes on Aynsha.
"So this is your choice? Killing the nursemaid you said you absolutely had to save?"
"Yes."
"Fine. Got it."
As if no reconsideration was needed.
Sighing at Aynsha's curt immediate reply, Rimon said,
"Then try getting past me first."
"......?"
Perhaps because it was so unexpected.
As if she couldn't grasp the meaning.
Aynsha blinked blankly on her expressionless face, and Rimon stated flatly,
"I'm going to change the future just to spite you now. I'll stop you from killing your nursemaid too."
"......I don't understand. Confusion. Bewilderment."
Half because she hadn't foreseen Rimon stepping up like this, half because she couldn't comprehend his actions.
Aynsha muttered dazedly.
In contrast, Tata smiled warmly.
"As expected of the consort Her Highness chose. Showing such steadfastness even against Her Highness for her sake—Tata can now rest easy..."
"Don't get the wrong idea."
"Wrong idea?"
"I said I'd stop your princess. Never said I'd let you off."
"......"
"Need it spelled out simpler?"
Tata's smile vanished, her face now marked with question marks.
To her and the even more bewildered Aynsha, Rimon drawled lazily,
"Come at me all together."
Aynsha killing Tata.
Tata and the White Dragon Clan harming people and ruining the program.
He wouldn't tolerate either, so he'd smash them both.
Seeing Rimon declare it boldly, Tata's mouth flapped open like a nutcracker doll before she finally asked for confirmation.
"......You mean you'll face Her Highness and us all at once? Alone?"
"Yeah."
At that utterly absurd answer, Aynsha and Tata—snapping out of it—spoke almost in unison.
"You're insane. Out of your mind."
"It seems the consort doesn't know much about our Seven Dragon Society."
"What, think I can't?"
"Of course."
"Naturally."
Unlike their earlier bickering over betrayal and execution, Tata and Aynsha answered side by side.
It was only natural.
The White Dragon Princess: one of the Seven Dragon Society's seven princesses, whom only a Sword Master could face.
The Divine Dragon Squad: one of the seven elite forces created to stop Sword Masters, worthy of the great name 'Dragon.'
Facing both alone was something even a monarch—the absolute ruler of this era—would need a coffin prepared for.
In fact, after Sword Wave Billy the Kid got in over his head and suffered, even Sword Masters avoided facing a princess and her Dragon Squad together.
The sole exception: one man.
The mad dog who clashed with the Seven Dragon Society more ferociously than any other Sword Master.
That was why Rimon smirked as he pulled something from the duffel bag he'd set down.
"Is that so? What about now?"
"What do you mean, 'now'......?"
"......?"
The moment they turned puzzled faces toward Rimon, wondering what nonsense this was.
Tata unwittingly shut her mouth.
Aynsha's pupils shook.
What Rimon drew from the bag was none other than a single sword.
Of course, it was just a sword.
Antique-looking yet strangely pristine, it was ultimately merely a weapon.
Yet they were shaken because it resembled too closely a certain sword any Seven Dragon Society clansman would recognize.
Shiiiing.
Even that alone, they might have accepted.
Tata muttering, 'What an ominous fake,' and Aynsha agreeing vigorously.
But Rimon's hair losing its black like ink draining away, turning white.
The subtle shift in his features, the scar appearing at his eye.
Above all, those chilling golden eyes froze not just the two, but the entire Divine Dragon Squad.
"I told you. Interfering with me would take a serious resolve."
She hadn't foreseen it, so she hadn't known.
Even if she had, she wouldn't have believed.
Faced with a reality beyond imagination, all Aynsha could do was one thing.
"......Hic."
Gazing at Rimon Asfelder—her fated partner and the Seven Dragon Society's living catastrophe—her expressionless face hiccupped.