Kanak cleaned up the wrecked magical wind-breaking equipment caused by the battle and activated the backup ones.
Finally free from the noisy wind, I began to vent my anger… or rather, to resume negotiations, moving my fingers in slight motions until the surroundings were tidied up.
“To have lured a king from a foreign land all the way out here, only to attempt a sudden ambush. Even the hidden archers seem to be part of a perfectly planned crime, wouldn’t you agree?”
With each movement of my fingers, the tangled red threads lightly tightened around the necks of Shete and Cardan, repeating the cycle of constriction and release.
Moreover, perhaps because Eleonora had taken quite a beating, the voice that came out of me sounded menacing enough even to my own ears.
The physique of a Dragonkin is truly wondrous; having soared through the skies and crashed to the ground, rolling and folding into all sorts of shapes, yet hardly any trace other than a scratched mark remained on Eleonora’s body. Still, the fact that she was injured is what really matters.
“Honestly, I didn’t know you could fight this well.”
Originally, I thought Cardan Lionheart was the Suwang, so taking on two Suwang-level strong ones wasn’t part of the plan.
In other words, I was supposed to overpower Cardan while Eleonora, Lavina, and Kanak took care of the rest.
The fact that Shete managed to hold out for so long almost led to a major mishap.
The Suwang doesn’t get to be where he is for nothing.
I planned to immediately intervene if Eleonora became endangered, but thanks to her surprising valor, I was able to avoid that risk.
Instead, she ended up with a scratch.
…Ah. Thinking about it again, it just pisses me off.
“What’s holding you is not your mouth but your neck and limbs, so why no response? There’s an old saying that broken things can be fixed by hitting them. Since you have two arms and legs, it wouldn’t be bad to start by taking one apart to fix that vocal malfunction.”
“…It wasn’t completely planned, you know. We had to act when our identities were exposed.”
Finally, a response.
It seems like I understand how important one’s posture is in conversation.
Look at this. Once I hung you by the neck, you became so cooperative.
You might think that that flimsy excuse is anything but cooperative, but considering how many times that indigo cat stabbed me with its spear, my patience would make even a Joseon-era nobleman cry tears of envy.
Of course, the excuse offered was feeble, but now that the conversation had started, I couldn’t just let it slide.
Alright, now that we’ve opened our mouths, let’s see what else you have to say.
“By the way, do you have any reason to hide your status as Suwang?”
“That’s—”
“I said I’d hide it.”
Curiosity wasn’t the primary reason behind the question; it was half-formal, just tossing it out there.
Surprisingly, the answer came not from Suwang Shete Raselo, but from Cardan himself.
*
Suwang, Cardan Lionheart.
The hulking lion Beastman once truly had such a title.
—Nyahaha. I thought I was going to die.
This was before meeting that indigo cat burglar.
Shete Raselo was a problem child from the slums.
Her life began in a damp and foul-smelling alley.
It was unclear whether her parents lost their lives or abandoned her.
However, the way the kids growing up in the alleys survived was strikingly similar regardless of their race or nation.
Poverty and hunger, violence and competition for survival.
In an environment where fists spoke louder than law and the value of life barely exceeded that of a stale loaf of bread, both children and adults were equally pushed to the brink, and those who couldn’t shed their morality met a grim fate buried in trash.
She survived in such a place.
The young Shete, scavenging through garbage, naturally grew into a petty thief.
Caught stealing food and beaten senseless, she still managed to escape with her life, learning the tricks of the trade through trial and error along the way.
In the slums, this was merely everyday life, and if that was where it ended, Shete Raselo would have remained just another one of many slum dwellers.
But was it fate’s whim? She had a talent too brilliant to end in the slum.
It started from a minor difference.
She could run far faster than her peers even while stealing a loaf of bread, and she had a sense of balance that allowed her to leap across rooftops without hurting herself.
Then, in the year she turned fifteen, Shete caught the attention of a criminal organization simply for being too disruptive in her territory.
But telling Shete to stop stealing was no different than telling her to starve to death, so she ignored the organization’s warnings and acted as usual.
The second warning arrived not in words but in the form of violence.
Five members of the organization armed with tools came after her. In self-defense, Shete killed them all.
It wasn’t something she intended to do. It was like a cornered rat unwittingly striking down two cats that were poised to pounce.
The opponents she had always thought she had to run from turned out to be inexplicably weak.
A fifteen-year-old girl made five corpses in under three minutes with her bare hands.
That day, as if following a pre-arranged script, stronger and more numerous gang members chased after Shete. However, none of them instilled a true sense of danger in her.
It was only when she fully wiped out a criminal organization that Shete finally realized she was quite different from others.
Legs capable of outrunning anyone.
Eyes that could easily count even the grains of sand scattered by the wind.
An innate sense that allowed her to replicate techniques she had only seen once.
Shete Raselo had talent.
Talent for fighting, talent as a warrior.
Too busy surviving each day, for the first time, she had a dream.
A dream to one day live freely, not in these stinky, dreadful alleys, but tucked into a warm bed with food to eat.
Fortunately, the Suwang Kingdom was uncharacteristically kind to the strong.
Even the king was chosen not by hereditary succession but through sheer strength.
Shete, having burst out of the slums, thought she had to grow stronger to survive and put her skills honed in the slums to use by robbing the soldiers’ barracks.
When soldiers rushed out to catch the intruder, they failed to capture the girl they thought was just an ordinary petty thief, and in the process, she freely learned the movements of those who made war their business.
But after all, it was the military; Shete’s escape wouldn’t last long.
Bound and captured, Shete was eventually taken to Suwang Cardan Lionheart, who happened to be visiting the troops at the time.
Though a petty thief, Cardan found interest in her skills that had momentarily allowed her to evade the soldiers and, on a whim, decided to test her.
And he witnessed her talent.
“That was real. I was confident she could surpass me.”
Without hesitation, Cardan took in the girl from the slums who had been a thief.
Though it wasn’t the expected outcome, it ultimately brought Shete out of the alleys and into the light, where she learned to fight from Cardan and became terrifyingly stronger at a remarkable speed.
“It took her four years to surpass me.”
In a nation where the ruler is chosen not by hereditary succession but by pure strength, the Suwang Kingdom.
A Suwang must always be the strongest Beastman of the time.
They cannot be merely a Beastman, nor can they be a weak Beastman; only one who is the strongest among all in the Suwang Kingdom is granted the title of Suwang.
Shete Raselo, who had surpassed Cardan Lionheart, thus became the Suwang.
But unlike the previous transitions of power, the fact that Shete had become the new Suwang was conveyed to only a tiny handful of Beastmen.
“Why go to such lengths?” Aria asked.
Since Cardan personally took in and raised Shete, it wasn’t because he feared losing the Suwang title.
As if expecting the question, Cardan immediately confessed without beating around the bush.
“Typically, the transfer of a Suwang occurs when the predecessor has grown old and weak, or has died, or when someone with superior talent emerges.”
Shete was of the latter kind.
Yet even compared to past examples, she was exceptional.
No Suwang in history had claimed the throne in their teens.
“If she had been a little weaker, she might have chosen to pass the title according to tradition later. However, such talent was unprecedented. Therefore, I wanted to keep the young, talented, yet currently still immature Suwang hidden for a while from the world.”
“I see. So you wanted to conceal your trump card.”
At that, Aria nodded as if she finally understood.
Aria knew better than anyone that while overwhelming numbers are always valid in war, once a certain number is in place, the variables created by a few strong individuals can be far more terrifying.
Given her own strength, she could underplay an entire small city alone.
As Aria’s gaze flicked over to Shete, the girl, who had been secretly wiggling her fingers in a desperate attempt to escape the blood-red threads binding her, froze.
Seeing the bright yellow eyes still searching for an escape route, Aria slightly twisted her lips and began to wiggle her fingers as well.
As the thread binding her lightly tightened and then loosened, Shete finally ceased her struggles, wearing an expression filled with dissatisfaction and suspicion.
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