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Chapter 65

“Indeed.”

“I’ve heard rumors that they caused trouble with the Council of Atlantis and that they’re on bad terms with Moby Dick. And you came to recruit me to that very team?”

“Precisely,” Leonard replied frankly.

Even though she had brought up the expedition team’s negative reputation, she didn’t lose the sparkle in her eye.

Leonard thought, So, is she going to pretend to think badly of Aquamarine so that she can negotiate more favorable terms? Is that it? What an obvious strategy.

In fact, he knew ever since he saw her profile that she wasn’t very good with words. Her lack of eloquence matched her hostile, antisocial tendencies. On top of that, as someone with elf blood, she was naturally aloof toward humans. She’d probably had to bargain and negotiate before as an explorer, but that didn’t make her good at it.

“Sorry, but I’m not going to sit through your idle talk,” he said, cutting her off. “Yes, Aquamarine has fallen into a position that is precarious in multiple ways. You don’t need to point that out. Neither the Council nor Bermuda will help us. Only we can save ourselves, or else we’ll drown.”

“Then...”

“Isn’t it the same with you?”

With that one sentence, Ninian’s demeanor changed abruptly. Deep bloodlust filled her single eye, then spread to the entire room. Both of them were empty-handed because weapons weren’t allowed inside meeting rooms, but if they had them, she wouldn’t just be radiating bloodlust. She would be aiming her arrow at Leonard. In fact, her bloodlust might have gotten the best of her and made her shoot even if she didn’t know what would happen next.

“You know something about me, don’t you?” she accused.

Leonard’s face was still calm. “I don’t know anything.”

“What?” His honesty caught her off guard, but the sharpness soon returned to her eye. “Don’t lie to me! Are you mocking me, human?!”

She lunged forward, arms outstretched. Even if she had to thrash him to the ground, even if she had to choke it out of him, she would get an answer.

But she was mistaken.

It didn’t matter whether her mana cultivation was several Degrees higher than his or if he was unarmed.

She had no chance of winning against him.

Crash!

From the moment she spun through the air to the moment she slammed into the ground, she didn’t understand a single thing that happened.

“Guh!” The force of the fall knocked the air out of her lungs.

If Leonard had attacked her seriously, her ribs would have broken. However, because the broken bones could have punctured her lungs and killed her, he had slowed his throw, allowing her to get away with just some bruises.

“A layperson shouldn’t attack a martial artist,” he remarked.

He’d just used the Dianchang Sect’s Seven Severing Strikes. It was an attack that took out the opponent after severing seven acupoints.

However, it doesn’t work if the target is fast enough to dodge the strikes or strong enough for the strikes to do no harm.

Ninian was neither. She would lose one hundred out of one hundred times. She was confident she could win if she had her bow, but when she was unarmed, Leonard would always defeat her, even if he only had one hand.

But as it turned out, Rank B explorers were not your average people. Even though she hadn’t properly fought him, she sensed the difference in their abilities and grew pale. If they continued to fight unarmed, she wouldn’t last more than a few seconds before she died.

“Stand up,” Leonard ordered after overpowering her with one move. “I said that to provoke you, so I’ll overlook it this time. But if you try to attack me again, I will break a limb or two.”

“Provoke me? So you were testing me?”

“Yes.”

Ninian sat up and glared at him. However, her lower body was still too weak for her to stand properly.

“Before I came to you, I found out that you would save everything you make as an explorer. Not only do you take on commissions every single day without fail, you don’t even spend any money on equipment or supplies. Why is this?” he asked.

“...”

“If you were only saving money for yourself, there is no reason you wouldn’t buy such items. And if the rumors are true and you are part elf, your perception of time should be different. But considering how hasty you are to make money, that means that there’s an urgent reason.”

The fact that Leonard was able to immediately come so close to the truth with just a few clues sent a shiver down her spine. With her reaction being an additional piece of evidence, his theory was confirmed.

“You never made any connections with anyone in this city, which means you have a distrust of the humans here. You are saving money for someone else’s sake, not your own. If you combine these two, the answer is quite simple.”

She was trying to save someone who was currently being held captive by someone in Atlantis City. That meant she was either trying to pay off a large ransom or needed a lot of money before she could attempt to save them.

With her secret laid bare, Ninian looked up at him, looking jaded. “Aren’t you a clever one? And so what? What more do you have to say now that you know my secret?”

“I believe I already told you my intention when we first met.”

“That you want me to join the Aquamarine expedition team? Is that really it?” She looked at him sharply as if to say that provoking her wasn’t necessary if that was all he wanted.

“Aquamarine can’t afford to trust anyone else right now, so the only option is to gain others’ trust first before recruiting them,” Leonard explained.

“What?”

“The fact that you haven’t asked anyone for help means that your enemy is too powerful. The same is true for the Aquamarine expedition team. We’ll help you with your problem, so join us. That’s the offer I want to propose to you.”

Ninian was speechless for a moment and silently stared into Leonard’s dark red eyes. Her gaze was intense, as if she were trying to see through his true intentions.

She closed her eye for a moment before opening it. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You don’t need to. Just remember that we need new members, and you need help.”

“So it’ll be a mutually beneficial relationship. Humans are disgustingly crafty.”

“Would you rather accept charity?” Leonard pointed out.

Ninian smiled bitterly. “I suppose not. I accept your proposal. If you can resolve this mess, I’ll join.”

“Good.”

Though not as good as formal contracts, simplified contracts still had a lot of binding power. They wrote out a basic agreement, read it over, and each placed a single drop of blood on the signature line. It glowed for a moment to signal that their contract had been confirmed. The process was that simple, but not even an Archmage could modify or cancel simplified contracts once they were signed.

It was decided that Leonard would hold onto it.

“Now it’s time to hear your story,” he said.

Ninian sat down again, searching for the right words. Not long after, she began to tell the story of her life, now several decades old.

***

The half-elf Ninian had been unlucky since her childhood. Her mother was kidnapped by a slaver outside of the forest and sold to a small noble family. She barely managed to escape and return to her homeland, but then she found out she was pregnant.

She wasn’t so heartless as to resent an unborn child, and she didn’t accuse Ninian of wronging her.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t love you.”

Every time she looked at Ninian, she would cry as painful memories came up. Her daughter had done nothing wrong, but she couldn’t even hide the fact that her daughter caused her pain and sorrow.

Though Ninian never lacked food, clothes, or shelter, Ninian’s circumstances made others call her a half-breed, and she was unable to make any friends. She grew up as passively as a leaf blowing in the wind, simply taking whatever pain or sorrow that came.

But her sister brought light to her dreary world.

“Sister! Sister!”

“...Why are you calling me that?

“Huh? Because you’re my sister, of course! Dummy!”

“You’re the ignorant one here. I have no younger sister.”

“That’s not true! Our mom said so!”

“...What?”

They had the same mother but different fathers. Half-sisters. Unlike Ninian, whose ears would only ever be half-grown, her younger sister, Vivian, had the ears of a full-blooded elf.

Vivian’s mother couldn’t bear to look at Ninian due to her trauma, and her father carried that burden alongside her. But unlike them, Vivian herself always followed her around, looking at her with innocent eyes.

No one liked Ninian. Even she hated herself. But Vivian loved her.

“Sister! Let’s go to the mountaintop today!”

“I can’t use spiritual arts like you can. I’m a half-breed, you see.”

“That’s a bad word! And so what if you can’t use spiritual arts! You can just hold my hand!”

“...I can never win against you.”

Her sister’s goodness pushed away the thorns without her even knowing, and Vivian’s optimism, as warm as sunlight, melted away the pain and sorrow that had accumulated in Ninian’s heart. Her sister gave her the strength to live on, and she eventually found the courage to make a life outside the forest.

When leaving, Ninian said, “Call me if you ever need my help, Vivian.”

“Sister, why are you leaving?”

“You are the only person here who loves me. I’m going to find people I can love and be loved by and tell them about you. When the day comes, I will see you again.”

Vivian cried for the first time. It was hard to leave her behind, but Ninian didn’t look back.

She left the forest that she knew like the back of her hand only to experience a mountain of hardships. She slept on the road, made her first campfire, and forced herself to eat unfamiliar foods. There was only adversity.

It was much harder to live in human society as a half-elf than she’d ever imagined. Some people desired her for her beauty, while others tried to make her reveal the location of her homeland.

Since she had a talent for mana cultivation, she had reached the External Force Tier before she had left the forest. If it weren’t for that, it would have been dangerous.

I’ve heard that the Arcadian Empire doesn’t discriminate against non-human races... but it’s too far for me to see for myself. I’ll have to spend several years focusing just on making money if I want to afford to use a spatial portal to get there.

Decades passed after she left her home. It was a long time, even for a half-elf.

It was around then that she received a message from Vivian.

Vivian used a high-level spiritual art that allowed her voice to reach blood relatives, even hundreds of miles away. Ninian was happy to hear from her, but then she heard Vivian’s desperate cry for help.

“At—the Atlantis Maritime Alliance!”

As soon as it reached her, Ninian sprinted out of her house and ran in the direction of the Alliance. Even though she was just shy of the Eighth Degree External Force Tier and the wind spiritual art had been able to reach her, it was a long distance. It took her months to reach the coast, and she barely managed to obtain a ticket to Atlantis City. When she got there, she looked for Vivian.

Eventually, she found her trail.

“Vivian!”

“Huh? Who’s this half-breed?”

She stumbled upon the steps of the Rank A expedition team Santa Maria. They had been exploiting her loving sister after tricking her into signing a predatory contract.