Chapter 373: Negotiation Tactics 101.

Luke was a prominent Grandmaster Rank knight serving Reynold Stroptor, and he had watched his friend rise since childhood. Coming from a small town, he had only ever had two friends.

Reynold and Lucia.

Reynold had always been smart in everything, while Lucia and Luke took responsibility for protecting him as he did business.

Slowly but surely, Reynold continued rising through the ranks as a merchant through sheer talent, eventually marrying Lucia, whom Luke himself considered a sister.

But after Lucia passed away, she had asked him for a single favour.

To protect her family.

Luke had already failed her once.

And now, as the two monsters before him, a boy barely looking past twenty, released an aura of Ascendancy, his body trembled with primal fear.

Sweat covered his body, and all he could think about was running away. His body refused to follow his commands, refusing even to draw his sword and defend his friend from these monsters.

He could see Reynold’s face frozen pale with terror.

The other knights were no better.

Even Luke’s own disciple, Layla, who had reached Master Rank at an incredibly young age and cemented her place as a genius, couldn’t move.

"Now, now. We are not here to battle."

Their auras receded at once.

Luke and the other knights immediately collapsed to their knees while Reynold let out deep ragged breaths from his chair.

He couldn’t even speak.

So Luke, being the strongest among them, took responsibility because he knew that if they were to battle, the entire estate his friend had built from scratch would be obliterated.

Not just that.

Perhaps even the entire Kingdom of Rosarco.

"What do you want?"

***

Alden looked at the only Grandmaster Rank knight throughout the estate. Of all the people present, only he seemed to be in the proper condition to speak.

...Maybe I went a little overboard there.

Alden regretted showing off his power so much. He wanted to negotiate with Reynold but after his little display, the guy seemed to be completely out of commission.

Still, it wasn’t as if he had shown all his power. He had made sure to confine his aura only to this room because he didn’t want to attract any useless attention.

Shrugging away his useless thoughts, he looked at the knight.

From what he could sense, the man seemed to possess the Shadow or Darkness Element.

"What I want is simple. Peace. That’s what I want."

Alden spoke with a slight smile as he took a seat on the chair and leaned back slightly.

"Act like you didn’t see or feel anything because what we are here for doesn’t concern you or anyone else." His mind raced as a fake story started weaving itself together naturally. "If anything, we are here for the benefit of you pitiful mortals."

With those words, he kicked the chair beside him, where Aemirya was seated, eating her desserts as if the entire situation didn’t concern her in the slightest.

Her gaze was as disinterested as ever as she looked back at him.

He raised his eyebrows at her, hoping she would understand his intentions.

But as if thinking it was some useless trick, she immediately turned her gaze back toward the delicious-looking pastry in front of her.

He kicked her chair again as Reynold and the other knights gave him strange glances through their fear as if they couldn’t understand what he was trying to do.

This time, she looked even more annoyed.

"What, you bastard?!" She muttered with a goddamn pastry stuffed in her mouth. "Just speak instead of twitching your eyebrows like some worms."

Alden let out a sigh.

This bitch, really...

...Way to ruin the aura I created.

Alden barely resisted the urge to curse her and instead spoke through gritted teeth.

"Please show them your true appearance, MY QUEEN."

He made sure to stress the last two words deliberately to show his anger but instead, a smug smile appeared on her face.

Fuck, this bitch knew all along what I wanted.

"If you insist, my Knight."

She placed the plate with the pastry back on the table and lightly snapped her fingers. Her white hair started glowing faintly as a single obsidian horn stretched from her temple.

Two draconian wings appeared behind her back as an aura of terror, beyond that of a normal Ascendant, spread through the air despite her not even trying to exert any pressure.

It was simply the aura of her existence.

Something that suppressed the weak-willed as naturally as breathing.

All the knights present in the room, a Grandmaster and two Master Ranks, along with Reynold himself stared at her with their mouths agape.

"A dragon?!"

Only Luke managed to mutter those words as all of them dropped to their knees at once. This time, there was a hint of respect mixed within their fear.

Humans, be it in the future or the past, were really suckers for Dragons.

Dragons were known as creatures of mana and every civilisation that used mana more or less treated them as superior beings.

So this kind of respect wasn’t unexpected.

But it was exactly what Alden had been aiming for all along.

"Have you understood why we were lying about our origins and why we were trying to lay low?"

Alden spoke with even more confidence than before.

Most of them nodded without asking anything because, well, a Dragon’s existence gave answers even to questions that had no answers.

Hell, Alden would have loved using Aemirya’s identity as a Dragon to gain entry into this kingdom as the highest-ranked VIPs if they weren’t being hunted by the entire Dragon Continent.

But Reynold, the merchant, who had finally regained his bearings, was the only one smart or maybe dumb enough to ask a question.

"Forgive me for my impudence but I still don’t understand why that would force you to hide your origins. Great beings such as the mighty Dragons would be accepted into any kingdom or empire without question, so why hide?"

Tsk.

I really do hate smart people.