Chapter 97
Chapter 97
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 97
Chapter Title: Master and Pet #4
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Elga still vividly remembered the events from a year ago.
It was the time when she had arrived in Monarch City, the capital of the Angmar Kingdom, for the first time in ages to attend her cousin Aira's grand birthday celebration, which was just around the corner.
“The capital is so boring and dull as always. Isn’t there anything fun around here?”
Back then, Elga had been constantly on the move, leading expeditions to suppress rebellions in the borderlands and the raids by foreign barbarians.
To her, the pretentious social gatherings and banquets of Monarch City—full of nothing but empty pomp and vanity—were utter hell.
“Lady Lioness, your beauty truly lives up to the rumors. If you wore the necklace passed down as an heirloom in our family, you’d be even more stunning.”
Idiot.
“According to the latest intelligence, tulip prices are about to skyrocket. I’ve invested three thousand gold myself and bought up as many as I could. Once the profits roll in, I’ll send you a whole crate of tulips, Lady Elga.”
Tulips? What an imbecile.
“I hear you keep a lion at the Lioness estate in Borza. Is that true? Raising exotic beasts is impressive. I’ve got an elephant at my villa. Oh, and elephants are stronger than lions, you know.”
What the hell kind of elephant?
The noblemen of the capital were especially insufferable idiots, to the point of nausea. They competed with each other to boast about their wealth and status.
Pathetic gelded hyenas, the lot of them.
They strutted around like nobles, yet trembled like leaves in front of her father, Reinhardt. To Elga von Lioness—the lion herself—it was nothing short of laughable.
The Angmar Kingdom really is on its last legs.
A real man needs ambition.
Ambition.
In these chaotic times, shouldn’t every man dream of etching his name into history, one way or another?
Even the barbarian slaves she’d captured not long ago were more impressive than these fools. Those savages had the guts to invade Queen Aira’s territory without fear.
Elga tossed a barbed remark at the man prattling on about the majesty of elephants before her, half-mocking him.
“Slave.”
You’re a slave to the times.
But the man failed to grasp her meaning and kept chattering away.
“Oh, so Lady Elga is interested in slaves too? I love slaves myself. I have my attendants serve me by the day of the week. The new slave market that opened recently is top-notch.”
The man went on to describe the slaves in his employ—dull tales of buying the daughters of fallen nobles from the Angmar civil wars and making them wait on him hand and foot.
As Elga half-listened and yawned, the man continued.
“Speaking of which, I hear there’s a most peculiar slave at the market. A slave going for thirty gold coins, no less.”
Thirty gold?
A slave that expensive?
“Is it some princess from a neighboring kingdom or something?”
Elga sneered, prompting the man to explain.
“No, it’s a man. They say he speaks in the strangest ways. Claims to know the future.”
“Knows the future? What’s his name?”
“Theo Gospel. I think that’s it. I chatted with him a bit myself. He said he’s waiting for someone to buy him for a high price. Very—”
Bored out of her mind, Elga stood up and headed straight for the slave market.
There, she found a man spouting the most bizarre nonsense.
“So, liberal democracy is this ideology where there are no slaves, no nobles, equality reigns, and freedom and responsibility are paramount.”
It wasn’t hard to find him.
A crowd had gathered.
“Pfft, listen to this guy. Spouting complete nonsense.”
“Doesn’t he know democracy already failed in the ancient Artana Kingdom? What a savage.”
“For something so absurd, it almost sounds convincing. He speaks differently from the other slaves too. Look at how refined he is—probably some scholar or mage tower dropout who couldn’t pay tuition.”
“Studied too much and lost his mind, huh? Poor bastard.”
“…….”
Amid the mockery from the crowd, the man in the enclosure furrowed his brow. Less a man and more a youth teetering between boy and adult.
Elga asked.
“Are you Theo Gospel?”
“Theo… Gospel?”
The man repeated his own name as if hearing it for the first time.
Is he a bit off in the head?
But his face quickly twisted into something eerie, radiating a mix of mania and ecstasy. Like an enraged monkey, he clung to the bars and shouted.
“Theo Gospel! Yes, that’s it! That’s me, Theo Gospel! This is the Angmar Kingdom, right? With Queen Aira!”
His eyes swiftly scanned Elga’s body. The gaze felt deeply unsettling, and just as she turned to leave—
“You’re Elga von Lioness, aren’t you? Golden hair, blue eyes, massive axe, and a cloak stamped with the lion sigil! Daughter of Reinhardt!”
“You know me?”
“Of course! Buy me! You won’t regret it! I swear! I know the future!”
He knows the future, huh.
Just like they said.
Figuring he’d make for decent entertainment in the meantime, Elga decided to buy the slave.
“He’s normally ten gold, but five will do. We were about to dispose of him since no one’s buying anyway.”
They’d said thirty gold, but this was a bargain.
And so, her boredom-busting slave was acquired.
If his ramblings got too outlandish or dull, she’d just put him to work as a manor servant.
He seemed sharp enough, and his speech wasn’t the crude gibberish of typical slaves. Maybe he really was a scholar, as people said.
Tormenting frail scholar types might be fun.
But then, the things the slave said started coming true, and everything began to change.
And now, that very slave stood before her, declaring with solemn gravity.
“I am the last scion of a fallen house.”
Last scion of a fallen house.
Meaning he’s noble-born.
After the Angmar Demon King was subjugated, the land was wracked with civil wars, leaving countless ruined noble families.
Elga forgot her earlier melancholy and reminisced about the past. Theo Gospel was undoubtedly no ordinary slave.
At times, he spoke more nobly than nobles themselves, spouting strange theories like universal gravitation, conservation of mass, and the Communist Party—proof of his intellect.
She’d vaguely suspected he was a noble who’d fallen into slavery. And her intuition had been spot on.
Elga inwardly praised her own wisdom, then feigned disinterest as she asked.
“A fallen house, you say? Which one?”
“That… I can’t reveal. It’d put me in danger.”
“…….”
Elga understood immediately. Noble houses with blue blood rarely fell for trivial reasons—rebellion or treason, usually.
The descendants of traitorous lines faced merciless punishment, often extermination. If Theo Gospel’s origins came to light, he’d draw all sorts of arrows.
No wonder he wanted to hide it.
But to Elga, it hardly mattered which house he hailed from. It was surely some low-tier noble family, far beneath the Lioness name.
Low nobles were all much the same.
What mattered now was that Theo possessed “blue blood”—noble lineage.
It soothed her pride a little.
The self-loathing she’d felt daily over clinging to a mysterious orphan slave eased into something like, “A slave, but noble-born? Well… acceptable enough.”
So he really was noble stock.
Suppressing a surge of delight, Elga maintained her stern demeanor, as if her anger hadn’t fully subsided.
“Did our Lioness house bring down yours, by any chance?”
Her sharp question made the half-elf Theo’s eyes dart sideways evasively.
“Well… you could say that.”
“So you approached our house on purpose? Pulled that stunt at the slave market to catch my eye?”
Theo raised his brows as if baffled.
“The slave market…? Ah, well… you could say that. As expected of Lady Elga. So perceptive.”
“And so, you infiltrated the Lioness house to avenge your family?”
“That’s—”
Theo Gospel fell silent.
But Elga knew better than to let her guard down then. The real danger was when he clammed up and sank into thought.
Who knew what scheme he was cooking up behind that silver tongue.
So Elga struck first.
“But your house’s fall was ultimately your own fault, wasn’t it? Sounds like you were lackeys of Angmar. Like the Draco family. Following a foolish king leads to ruin.”
Elga suspected Theo’s house had ties to the Angmar Demon King. It even explained his quasi-prophetic abilities.
They said the Demon King had possessed clairvoyance, piercing future and truth alike.
Granting similar gifts to loyal houses wasn’t far-fetched.
Even so, Elga felt a chill.
Like a blade pressing against her throat.
To think a traitor’s edge had crept this close without her noticing.
On the other hand, she couldn’t help admiring how this small half-elf, Theo Gospel, had pushed her to this point—with a tenacity and will that belied his stature.
It was ambition, plain and simple.
A blazing ambition that could engulf Theo, herself, the Angmar Kingdom, and the entire continent.
To Elga, that was deeply satisfying. A man needs drive.
But why reveal it now?
“So, why confess this after all this time? Because you’re from a traitorous line? Want me to punish you? For approaching me with impure motives?”
“No. It’s to show you how sincere I am toward you, Lady Elga.”
“Sincere?”
“There might have been impure motives at first. But not anymore.”
His blue eyes stared straight at her. Clear, limpid blue. They seemed to pierce right through her.
“Can you feel my sincerity?”
“Hmm…”
Elga grumbled, still unsatisfied. But the ambitious half-elf’s tale wasn’t over.
“Even so, I must revive my house no matter what. And have lots of children. Maybe take multiple wives. Like a lion with his pride.”
“What?”
What the hell?
Elga’s mood soured as if she’d heard something repulsive.
“What’s that supposed to mean, lion?”
“Lions keep harems of lionesses, right? Like a real man. That’s what a male does.”
Male.
The word felt out of place for a pretty-boy half-elf, but history’s great heroes did tend to have multiple wives.
Take the Lioness family’s legendary founder, Lion King Borza Lioness—he’d had ten wives, ten lionesses.
Without them, pioneering the harsh west would’ve been impossible.
That was why the Lioness house took “Lioness”—honoring his wives over the king himself—as their name.
But to hear such macho talk from this sweet-faced half-elf? Elga nearly burst out laughing.
“So, you’re saying you’ll chase after lots of women to sire a bunch of kids?”
“More or less.”
“You’re completely insane.”
“…….”
Theo Gospel pressed his lips tight. He knew full well how reckless it sounded.
Yet for reviving and sustaining a house, taking multiple wives and breeding like rabbits was brutally effective.
The Lioness family’s eighth head, Joseph, had saved them that way—marrying into six houses at once.
So, swallowing her bubbling rage, Elga asked out of morbid curiosity.
“Fine. How many kids are you planning?”
A crucial question for marriage.
Theo hesitated.
“…A bout thirty.”
“Thirty—? Thirty kids?”
“Shouldn’t I aim for at least thirty?”
“…What!?”
Thirty? As in three-zero?
No wonder he couldn’t do it alone. Even one a year would take thirty years.
The thought crossed Elga’s mind before fury exploded. Why am I even calculating this?
“Out, you bastard!”
She shot to her feet, determined to evict this dreamer of delusions from the dormitory.
A smack on his back sent him tumbling into the hall with a pathetic “Eek!”—a feeble yelp far from heroic ambition.
The fact that she, a great house’s lady, had fallen for such a wretch infuriated Elga. She yelled after him.
“Take your damn squirrel too!”
━Woof woof!