Volume 5, Chapter 22 – Shattered Night

The moment she thought of Claire, Claire appeared.

Fia gave a secret, wry smile. If there was one person she was most afraid of seeing right now, it would have to be Claire.

Although Claire hadn’t asked much about the situation with Nola, Fia could feel that she was very concerned. Thinking about it, if she were in Claire’s position, caught between her fiancée on one side and a niece she regarded as her own on the other, it would indeed be a difficult dilemma. While Claire blamed Nola and knew she had done wrong, she didn’t want to see her in pain. That was precisely why Claire hadn’t appeared in the cell during the flogging this morning.

Fia brushed back her white hair, which was being tousled by the wind, and turned to look at Claire behind her. As always, under the moonlight, Claire’s entire body emitted a faint silver glow, like a goddess descended to the mortal world.

“I was thinking about Tilulu.”

Fia confessed honestly.

“Tilulu?” Claire’s eyes widened in surprise. She then came to Fia’s side, walking with her shoulder to shoulder. “Let me think… Fia has already decided to help Tilulu restore her kingdom, but because you don’t know her well enough, you’re feeling uneasy?”

At the end, Claire lowered her head and looked at Fia’s profile with a charming smile.

Fia’s breath caught for a moment. It wasn’t that she was embarrassed by Claire’s charming appearance, but that she was nervous about what to say next. Her index finger unconsciously wrapped around a strand of her hair, again and again.

“How should I put this… Actually, I decided to help Tilulu for the sake of Silvar’s interests. Although I haven’t met the Royalist or Regressionist factions yet, Tilulu is weak and young. I don’t need to see the other two factions to know that she is the easiest to control. Making her the queen is the most beneficial for Silvar.”

“The method I thought of is to first get familiar with Tilulu and build a reliable bond, be it as sisters or friends. Once I become an irreplaceable person in her heart, the future Queen Tilulu will not allow the Cold Night to do anything that harms Silvar’s interests. It’s just that I have no idea how to implement this specifically. Furthermore, the thought of using a child like this makes me feel guilty. If Tilulu finds out in the future that I was just using her trust, how should I face her…”

“As long as you treat Tilulu sincerely, Fia, you wouldn’t have so many worries, would you?”

“No,” Fia shifted her downcast gaze to the side. “The starting point is different.”

Although Fia was someone who pursued a perfect outcome rather than a perfect process, this matter clearly couldn’t be judged solely by process and outcome.

Claire couldn’t help but let out a light laugh.

“But if the person who needed help wasn’t Tilulu, but someone else, like that Chazo from the Royalist faction, you wouldn’t choose to help; you’d just sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight, right?”

“Chazo doesn’t need my help either.”

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“That’s not what I mean. I’m trying to say that, setting aside the interests, you yourself want to help Tilulu. You don’t want to see the tragically-fated Tilulu continue to be miserable. In that case, why not invert the cause and effect? It’s not that you’re helping Tilulu so you can use her in the future, but because you helped her, she won’t be detrimental to your domain, Silvar. Doesn’t that solve the problem? After all, if it were someone else, you wouldn’t help. You’ve always been the type who can’t bear to see the weak being bullied. Even if you set aside the burden between nations and just follow your heart, you’ll achieve the same effect.”

Claire’s words made Fia fall silent for a moment. Then, she looked up with a helpless expression.

“That’s sophistry…”

“But it’s also a solution. Ordinary people don’t even have the chance to get your help, Fia, let alone a deal so good that money can’t buy it. The price of restoring a kingdom is to not do anything that harms Silvar’s interests in the future. In other aspects, she can do whatever she wants. If you proposed this deal to any random noble, they would respect you as their savior, not to mention Tilulu doesn’t even have the capital to restore her kingdom in the first place. This is a deal with immense profit.”

The logic was sound, but Claire was looking at it from the perspective of a transaction, which was different from achieving a goal through emotional leverage. If she had proposed this to Tilulu as a condition for her help, she certainly wouldn’t be so hesitant. The problem was that this condition contradicted Radric’s ideas. Radric could promise that the Cold Night wouldn’t invade Silvar, but he couldn’t promise more detailed things, like not forming friendly treaties with Silvar’s enemy, the Alfrieg Kingdom, or not providing them with strategic resources for profit. But if she controlled Tilulu through emotion, all these conditions could be met.

As if peeking into Fia’s thoughts, Claire, who was a head taller, quietly looked at her profile. On this fairy-like, beautiful face, many worries were etched, clearly not dispelled by her guidance.

Still as stubborn as ever, Claire couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. She had seen from their first meeting in Aurora City that Fia valued her principles to the point of obstinacy. Although this wasn’t a flaw, and was even a shining point, this quality often caused the person themselves to suffer.

Even if left alone, Fia would definitely go and help Tilulu. Claire decided to change the subject, to divert Fia’s attention from this matter.

“Anyway, since you’ve already decided to help Tilulu, shouldn’t you think about where to start? Lover? Wife? Or just ordinary sisters? To be honest, I don’t think the bond of sisters is that strong, especially since you didn’t grow up together as biological sisters.”

“…What are you talking about, Claire?”

Fia was instantly pulled back from her thoughts. She had indeed thought about using her experience with Claire on Tilulu, but she had already rejected that plan. And the strangest thing was that Claire was proposing such an outlandish suggestion in a perfectly natural and serious tone. According to a normal script, Claire should have grabbed her by the collar and angrily demanded, “Do I even have a place in your heart!”

“Just a very serious suggestion?”

“No, normally, you should be warning me not to have any improper thoughts about Tilulu, right?”

“Your ‘normally’ is so strange, Fia…”

Claire’s emerald eyes were filled with confusion.

As always, I’m the strange one, Fia realized.

To Claire, it was normal for a king to have multiple wives. She was the special one. The World Tree Continent was not like the Human Alliance. It was natural for powerful people to have multiple wives. The beastfolk would even have relations with a powerful person they had just met, just like eating and drinking, in order to produce more outstanding offspring.

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Earlier, when facing Mother Yulisha, Claire had also said in a small voice that as long as they could be together, it was fine if she wasn’t the queen consort—she was viewing herself in far too humble a light.

As if remembering something, the slowly walking Claire suddenly asked.

“Could it be that the reason you’ve never accepted Anastasia, Fia, is because you thought I would object? As for me, I would accept anyone who is truly good to you.”

“Anastasia?”

Another question mark appeared above Fia’s head. She knew that Anastasia had always seen her as the sun of her life, but what did that have to do with a marital relationship?

This time, it was Claire’s turn to pause. She stared into Fia’s eyes, as if searching for something. It wasn’t until Fia, embarrassed by her staring, looked away that Claire finally put on an expression as if she were looking at an idiot.

“Fia… don’t tell me you still don’t know what Anastasia is thinking? Even though I’ve only been with her for a month, I can already sense her feelings.”

“Isn’t Anastasia my older sister?”

She had always thought of Anastasia as her own sister.

“So that’s how it is. Forget it. Anastasia has her own thoughts. Saying it out loud might just make things worse. I’ll ask her privately in a few days. Anyway, don’t get stuck in a rut over the Tilulu matter. And you have to think carefully about how to restore her kingdom. I lived with Nola for a while and have some understanding of beastfolk customs. What they respect is one’s own strength. If Tilulu becomes queen entirely with your help, they will respect you more than her. The moment you leave her side, her position will become precarious.”

“I’ll just kill everyone who disobeys.”

“This is a tradition that has been passed down for ten thousand years. It’s not something that can be changed overnight. If you use killing to stabilize Tilulu’s regime, Fia, doesn’t that mean you’ll have to stay in the Cold Night forever to protect her?”

“Tsk.”

Guys with only muscles in their heads are so troublesome.

“Then isn’t the matter with Tilulu unsolvable? She has to rely on her own strength to win over the people, but she’s only at the Second Tier. She needs to be at least at the Seventh Tier to stand on her own.”

She couldn’t spend decades of her life in the Cold Night.

“That depends on your wisdom, Fia. Perhaps not working on Tilulu herself, but finding a method through the Royalist faction’s Chazo or other tribal leaders is also an answer. For example, making Chazo lose the hearts of the people, or not actually making Tilulu strong, but instilling fear in the hearts of the people to make her seem powerful, can also achieve the same effect.”

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“Hmm…”

Claire’s reminder gave Fia some inspiration. The root cause of the Cold Night’s weakness was the lack of unity between the tribes. The leader’s orders couldn’t reach far beyond the capital; their rule was insufficient.

This meant that not all tribes supported Chazo as king. As long as she took Tilulu and gathered those scattered tribes one by one, making them recognize her as their leader, Tilulu would have the capital to rule. After accumulating a certain amount of strength, she could then settle the score with Chazo. As for how to win over those tribal leaders, with the Cloud Moon of the Illusory Sea, making Tilulu seem powerful would be no problem at all.

I’ll give it a try.

Her expression gradually brightening, Fia looked up with her ruby-like eyes, their light now reserved.

“I think I understand what to do now. Did you think of all this from the beginning, Claire?”

Although Fia had long known that Claire was very smart, because she rarely showed it, Fia couldn’t help but be surprised when reminded by her.

Surprise appeared on Claire’s beautiful face.

“How would I know what you’re thinking, Fia? I was just giving some advice from an outsider’s perspective. So what did you think of?”

“Let’s talk on the way back. We’re a bit far from the village.”

Fia stopped and pointed to the canopy of trees above them, which had already covered the cold night sky. The coniferous forests of the Cold Night did not become bare even in winter.

However, before Fia could take two steps, she seemed to remember something, and turned around, coughing pointedly.

“Ahem, Claire, I have a spell I want you to see.”

“Here? It won’t affect the village?”

“It won’t. It’s not an attack spell—so, can I use it?”

Without waiting for Claire’s answer, Fia eagerly cast the long-planned spell.

[Nation-Toppling Beauty]

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In the end, just as [Deterrence] had no effect on Claire, [Nation-Toppling Beauty] didn’t work at all either. This result greatly disappointed Fia, especially when she recalled Claire’s confused expression of “Did you use a spell?”.

She didn’t know if it was because Claire’s magic resistance was too high, or because Claire was not of this world, so the spell couldn’t affect the unnaturally born Claire. Fia decided to look for a higher-tier spell similar to it and then secretly try again. Anyway, since Claire didn’t know what she was doing, there was no possibility of her deliberately cooperating and making a fool of her.

As for now, Fia, Tilulu, and the others were sitting in a stationary carriage, waiting for the soldiers guarding the city gate to let them pass.

According to Radric, the Snake-folk village was just a temporary stop for Tilulu. They hadn’t lived there for long. The village where Tilulu was truly hidden was elsewhere. It was just that due to the atrocities of the Lionfolk soldiers, those villages no longer existed. The villagers inside were either killed or captured by the Lionfolk to be sold as slaves.

According to Radric’s original plan, he would have already taken Tilulu and hidden far away from the Cold Night, slowly training her abilities. The reason why he was now not only not far away, but was heading deeper into a nearby Snake-folk city, was because Fia had found him this morning and agreed to the conditions he had mentioned before—when Tilulu became queen, she would guarantee that the Cold Night would not invade Silvar, and the mithril mines controlled by the Lionfolk would be transferred to Fia. In return, Fia would help Tilulu become queen.

Looking at Fia, who was sitting opposite her in the carriage, Radric, completely shrouded in a cloak, crossed his arms, his half-closed dragon eyes filled with suspicion.

“We still can’t understand why you suddenly changed your mind and are willing to make a deal with Tilulu. What are you planning? I will not allow you to manipulate her.”

“Do you want to hear the truth or something nice?”

“Elf princess, we admire your strength and methods, but that is not a reason for us to trust you unconditionally. We want to hear the truth.”

“The truth is that making Tilulu queen is more beneficial to Silvar than letting anyone else be queen. You’ve seen the grudge between me and the Holy Son. Whether it’s her or Chazo, who has now declared war on Silvar, letting them be king will only bring endless trouble. In comparison, Tilulu, who can give a guarantee, is much more stable than the others.”

This was, of course, nonsense. The reason she had agreed to Radric’s conditions was just to have a reasonable excuse to help Tilulu.

Not lingering on this topic, Fia cut straight to the chase.

“So the Snake-folk leader who has been secretly supporting Tilulu is the master of this city? Chazo didn’t get rid of him?”

“This is the border of the Cold Night. Chazo’s reach doesn’t extend here. The Cold Night is not like your Silvar, where whatever the king says goes. Here, the tribal chieftain is everything. Even if these tribes feign compliance with the king’s orders, Chazo can’t do anything about them.”

“There are thousands of tribes in the Cold Night, and with the inconvenient transportation, by the time he deals with one, the tribe he just dealt with has already made a comeback. It’s better for both sides to have a tacit understanding. As long as the local tribes recognize him as king and pay taxes regularly, he will turn a blind eye to them. Ultimately, it’s a lack of control over the lower levels. The farther away from the capital, the more obvious this feeling is.”