Free Web NovelChapter 106: Don’t you dare talk down on my Hana!
Hana’s eyes slowly read the system quest again, thoroughly dissecting the objective.
> [Objective: Investigate the Crimson Court and determine the validity of the Ancestral Claim. Figure out what your Mate Raiden’s position is and expand your influence there.]
Expand your influence. The phrasing was precise, cold, and heavy. It meant she couldn’t just settle this dispute from the comfort of her fortified den; she was going to have to physically travel to the Crimson Court’s territory.
She had to go with Raiden directly into the mouth of whatever viper’s nest he had never even visited before.
But leaving New Eden right now was a massive, uncalculated logistical risk. The structural foundation for the Health Sector was barely set, the cowering Fox Tribe slaves still required intense physical supervision from the boars to prevent a labor strike, and the drones needed constant terminal oversight.
If she walked away now, she was leaving behind a half-finished garrison.
More than the tactical complications, though, the pure biology of the situation didn’t add up in her head.
Hana’s dark eyes shifted, narrowing slightly as she studied the immaculate, heavy crimson silk draping the white fox’s shoulders. Even in her past world, a high-grade textile like that required a functional industrial loom and an advanced supply chain—things the primitive, mud-caked beastmen of the lower valleys couldn’t even dream of conceiving.
Her gaze slid past the messenger, landing on the trench below where the grey-furred Fox Chief was currently on his knees, his hands raw from hauling rocks.
Raiden’s father was a standard, primitive native who didn’t even understand the true depth of the bloodline of the female he had married, a chief whose ignorant negligence had ultimately gotten Raiden’s mother killed right in his own village.
If the Crimson Court was an ancient, high-grade lineage capable of bypassing her defense grids with silk robes, what would they do when they calculated the data?
What would they do when they discovered that a lower-ridge peasant hadn’t just failed to protect their high-born daughter, but had actively caused her death?
Hana’s gaze flicked back to Raiden’s rigid, pale profile. What was your mother thinking? she thought, a spark of pure, clinical disgust twisting her internal calculations. Why would a female from a high-grade, advanced tribe leave an elite faction like that... just to go for a primitive beastman in a mud hut?
It was an irrational trade. A completely flawed deficit. It was these kinds of things that occurred when someone fell in love. She always hated that concept. It was idiotic how they went crazy because of that one word.
Letting out a slow, deliberate breath, Hana leaned back into her mechanical chair.
"Let’s speak," she directed, her flat voice cutting cleanly through the heavy, suffocating silence of the shade.
The white fox messenger didn’t look at her immediately. He slowly tilted his chin, his gaze dropping from Raiden to Hana’s black tactical uniform with a faint, snobbish curl of his lip.
His three bright-red tails gave a slow, patronizing sweep behind him as he adjusted the jade medallion in his silken sleeve.
"And who might you be, human?" the messenger asked, his tone dripping with a smooth, condescending arrogance that treated her like an illiterate stray. "A servant of the outer ridges should not interrupt the court’s decree to its—"
GRRRRRR.
A low, vicious growl ripped from Raiden’s chest before the white fox could even finish the sentence. The pink fur on his tails stood completely on end, his emerald eyes flashing with a sudden, dangerous heat that completely broke through his frozen panic.
"Watch your tongue," Raiden snarled, his fangs bared as he stepped half a pace in front of Hana’s chair. "Don’t you dare talk down on my Hana."
"First, you pretend you do not see me," another voice boomed from the edge of the trench—a deep vibration that made the stone beneath the messenger’s boots visibly shudder. "And then you talk down to Hana."
Caspian strode out of the corner, his massive black scales gleaming under the mid-afternoon sun, his heavy tail leaving a deep, violent groove in the dirt.
His golden eyes were completely slit into predator needles, a terrifying orange glow instantly building at the base of his throat as he hovered over the white fox like a mountain about to collapse.
Kulu, still perched on the high ledge, didn’t drop down, but the sharp, metallic click of his crimson spearhead adjusting its target ringed clearly through the clearing.
"I am the king of this forest," Caspian hissed, his massive chest rising as he glared down at the silk-robed intruder. "You breach my perimeter, you ignore my title, and then you insult my mate on my own soil? You are looking to die, white rat. Tell me where to tear you first." He growled.
The white fox messenger stiffened slightly, his pristine fur bristling as the sheer physical pressure of two apex vanguards locked onto his vital signs.
But he didn’t cower like the primitive slaves in the dirt; his ancient lineage kept his posture rigid, his hand remaining firmly on the jade seal. freёweɓnovel.com
Hana simply raised a single hand, a silent command that instantly froze Caspian’s advance and kept Raiden’s tails from flaring into another feral cycle.
"Stand down," Hana muttered, her tone entirely unbothered by the dramatic show of dominance.
She sighed softly, her fingers tapping against her knee. In her past world, she had dealt with elite bunker commanders and corporate high-brows who thought they owned the wasteland; it was only normal for a higher-level tribesman from an isolated faction to feel naturally haughty when stepping into a lower ridge.
She could calculate the psychological baseline. She would forgive his ignorance exactly once.
"I’ll ask the questions here," Hana said, her dark eyes locking onto the messenger with a cold, clinical intensity that had absolutely nothing to do with primitive beast world intimidation.
It was the gaze of a predator looking at prey. "First... How did you find this coordinate? How did you know Raiden was here?"
The white fox messenger looked at Hana again, the cold efficiency in her eyes causing his snobbish expression to falter for a fraction of a second before he smoothed his silk robes.
"The blood does not lie, human," the messenger replied, his voice losing a fraction of its haughtiness under her scrutiny, though his chin remained high. "Yesterday, this rogue released his feral senses. The true, unleashed frequency of the Crimson line rippled across the valley network. His grandfather sensed the resonance from the inner sanctum. We simply traced the energetic signature directly to this rock."
Hana went silent for a second, and then she asked,
"Who is his grandfather?"
