━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
To be honest with herself, even Noelle hadn’t been aware that she was capable of defeating so many elders of the Nightingale clan all alone. In fact, she was quite certain that she definitely couldn’t have done it just a couple of years back.
‘My skills haven’t really improved by that much since then, right? In that case… this has got to be her doing…’ Noelle sighed. ‘It’s good to know that I haven’t ‘wasted’ it, but…’
Somehow, it felt really embarrassing to confirm that the ‘energy’ of her little boss had ‘nourished’ her somehow. Fortunately, no outsider would ever know of the secret between them.
Of course, even if he’d known, the only conscious elder who was already foaming at the mouth in anger was a little too ‘busy’ to care about her embarrassment.
Luckily for him, Emilia seemed to have finally taken some pity on the ‘elderly’, and started actually laying down her ‘conditions’ for the Nightingale clan’s survival.
“If you would recall what I said earlier, I was actually looking for some ‘help’ in taking down the big rotten tree that’s leeching off of the people of Carmen. Of course, I don’t cooperate with useless people, and unfortunately… you’ve already failed my test.”
The crimson-haired beauty looked so genuinely disappointed that even Noelle believed her words for a few moments, even when she knew for a fact that her little boss was acting.
𝒩𝑜𝗏𝐥xt.𝗰𝓞𝕞
Of course, the elder who remained on the ground in a daze felt a mixture of both anger and panic in his heart at her words.
After all, it didn’t seem like she was just humiliating them without reason, but that they’d really lost out on perhaps their best opportunity of changing their fate for the better.
Prejudiced as he was against the girl, he couldn’t deny that partnering up with Emilia almost always led to great harvests for everyone involved. This had been demonstrated clearly time after time, both in Blue Dawn and Phoenix.
In fact, given how subservient they appeared in front of her, perhaps even the rise of the twins of the Gray Wolfe Corporation could be mostly attributed to this girl’s support!
With the government already on their case, the elder knew that the Nightingale clan’s future was bleak if they failed to get some support soon. But no matter how hard he tried to crack open his skull to come up with an idea to turn the situation around, there simply seemed to be no way out.
Struggling to stand up, the leading elder wheezed heavily while supporting himself against the table. ‘No no, no way… could it be that the legacy of our clan will be broken just like this?’ The elder growled. ‘I-It’s fine for us to bear with a little humiliation, but I can’t let the name of the Nightingale clan vanish from this world as long as I’m alive!’
Not all was lost for him, though, since Emilia didn’t really intend to drive him to despair. She only wanted to instill in him the fact that it was the Nightingale clan that desperately needed her help, not the other way around.
The crimson-haired girl smiled. “Lucky for you, although your Nightingale clan doesn’t really meet my expectations, I can still consider cooperating with you for Noelle’s sake. As long as you’re willing to do what’s necessary to make amends with her, that is.”
The leading elder naturally knew that the history of an ‘abandoned child’ of the clan couldn’t be all flowers and rainbows. And going by her attitude so far, even if she didn’t hate them to her core, the gray-haired girl definitely had no familial affection for the clan in her heart.
To make amends with her—as the crimson-haired girl put it—would definitely involve dragging many of his clansmen’s faces through the mud, and perhaps even their pride would be trampled upon wantonly.
But so what?
When compared to the consequences of continuing to let their boat sink in this turbulent sea, the elder felt that it was better to bear with a few more slaps to the face.
Anyway, this could also be considered a ‘test’ for their clansmen’s loyalty and endurance, and perhaps they would all come out stronger because of it in the end.
With that thought in mind, the elder’s determination quickly soared as he ignored the pain all over his body to turn to the gray-haired girl and gave her a deep bow. “I do not know what injustice you have suffered or what grudge you might have, but no matter what it is, I hope that you can keep our blood ties still in mind as you think of the future.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
If the words moved Noelle’s heart, she definitely didn’t show it on her face. But even so, there was nothing that the leading elder, or any of his companions for that matter, could do, except for complaining about it among themselves.
Of course, the grand elder who hadn’t participated in the meeting was stunned silly when he saw his bruised and battered elders cry like bullied children.
“I cannot believe that a child can be so unreasonably fast and strong, especially without the special training our clan’s children receive!”
“Well… it’s not impossible for the White Deer to have found her potential early on, and given her some special kind of training.”
“How cunning!”
“Or maybe her strength is the result of some sort of drug that can burn her potential for the sake of immediate bursts in performance?”
“Ohhh… I didn’t even think of that!”
“How insidious can they be?!”
Of course, aside from slandering the White Deer Corporation secretly, there was little they could do about it now that their ships were pretty much tied together.
And to make matters worse, they even had to suck it up and accept the interference of these ‘insidious and cunning’ people in their internal clan matters.
The elders couldn’t help but be depressed. It hadn’t been that long since they got out of the Gray Wolfe’s control, and now they were back under someone’s heel again. And this time, they even had to ‘humbly’ ask for it!
“This can’t possibly get any worse, can it?” The grand elder sighed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━