Before she could control herself, she blurted. "No! Anyone but her!"

"Why? Are you afraid now?" Isaac sneered in his heart. "Girl, you should have thought well before committing the crime!"

​​

"You-" Lia was about to say something else when she felt her servant poking her arms again. She suppressed her anger again and glared at Isacc with all her heart. "You better speak nicely, or else you'll regret it later."

Her voice was icy cold that was enough to make the weak-hearted people tremble in fear.

When Zion saw this, he face-palmed himself. Hadn't he warned her not to be too aggressive? He wanted her to balance the act of being a pitiful princess who could only talk loud and not do anything, but why was she leaking out her bloodthirsty aura?! Then his poking increased its pace until the dhampir girl finally couldn't take it anymore and slapped his hand away.

But Isacc didn't care about it anymore. He ignored the girl and didn't even consider glancing at the human before he called out to his soldiers. "Is it done?"

One of the soldiers standing by his side walked out and returned after a while as he nodded to Isacc.

As the soldiers dragged these two people to the prison carriage with horses tied at the front, Zion's mind wandered again. Although his eyes were sharply observing every elf at that place, he was also thinking at the same time about something else: Lia's reaction to the sentence that they were going to be taken to the capital and presented to the queen.

This dhampir girl had ended up showing immense hatred in her heart toward the elf queen like if it weren't for the restrictions, she would fly away and kill that queen in an instant! Something must have definitely happened between the two of them. But what? Zion's eyes narrowed.

But before he could think more about it, he heard the guards cursing words: "Walk faster! Are you even a human? I've heard humans used to have a high speed centuries ago! Then why are you walking like an ant? C'mon! Pick up the pace!"

While they were busying, taking Zion and Lia to the capital city, somewhere else, presumably in another corner of the world, two people sat with windows and doors tightly shut so that no one could hear their voices. Only a candle brightened up the room at the center of the round table, and on either side of it, two people sat on their respective chairs, facing each other. No one could tell from which race they belonged because of the dimmed light.

Their faces illuminated as they glanced at each other with a grave expression as if they had just heard of bad news. One man with brown robes and matching eye color hit the table in anger. His blonde hair was disheveled as if he hadn't combed his hair for the entire night. There were dark circles under his eyes that made his appearance look haggard.

His face twisted in anger as he looked at the fire at the center. "How could this happen? We planned it so well! How? Just how?! I stayed awake for so many nights to manage our spies, but what happened in the end?"

The man sitting in front of him raised the corners of his lips. His blue eyes shone as he glanced at the fire. In a calm and serene voice, he spoke. "That was just a minor setback."

"Minor setback?!" The brown-eyed person couldn't take it anymore. His anger reached the ultimate height as he glared at the fire as if it were the reason why he had gotten angry in the first place. "You call that minor setback? We lost the opportunity in the Vanne kingdom! Who the heck was that imposter? Our plans are being ruined, and you call that a minor setback? You know why we need that power, don't you?!" He looked at the calm face of the blue-eyed man and got even angrier. "You call yourself my close friend, then why don't you care about the words I'm saying? Isn't this for your benefit?!"

"Calm down, Rico." The blue-eyed man sighed and shook his head. "I'm destined to end up like that. I thought I could change history, but I couldn't, and it doesn't matter."

"It matters to me! We can just make sure to kill the remaining dhampirs and make up for the number!" Rico thought for a while and said, "We were nearly there. Just a few dozens of people, and that's it!"

The man with blue eyes shook his head and smiled as if what Rico was saying had nothing to do with him. He was so calm that even the brown-eyed man thought that this man must have another plan to fulfill his goal. Rico squinted his eyes and took a deep breath to calm down. "You have another plan, don't you?"

Inside his heart, he was constantly praying for the blue-eyed person to have another plan. Otherwise, they would be doomed.

Just then, the blue-eyed person said in a calm voice. "Have you heard of a story about a spider?"

Rico frowned and didn't know why this person brought up a spider in their conservation. But since he trusted the man sitting in front of him, he shut his mouth and continued to listen obediently. The blue-eyed man was his master in a sense, so he shouldn't raise his voice against this person. He took a deep breath to calm himself and focused on what the man was saying.

The blue-eyed person continued. "A spider tried to make a web for the first time and failed brutally. It dropped on the ground, injured."

At this point, even Rico became curious about the spider. He asked, "Then what happened?"

"The spider got up on its feet, climbed the wall, and started building its house again, and sadly, it failed again. But this time, it didn't fall on the ground like before. It kept hanging in the air, holding onto the thread as if it were its lifeline. Then it started building again. What do you think happened this time?"

Rico scratched the back of his head and replied with a hint of confusion in his voice, "It failed again?"

The man shook his head and smiled. "It passed this time, and the house it built was better and larger than what it had previously imagined."

Realization dawned on Rico as a trace of excitement appeared in his eyes. "You mean…"

"You don't have to worry about the dhampirs. They'll grow, create babies in the coming decade, multiply their population to get back their kingdom. We have failed once, but it's not necessary that we might fail again. We can give them a hand to help them get their kingdom back and wait for them to grow before we can strike again. As for that imposter who ruined our plans, I know how to deal with him. We should send our spies to different kingdoms to investigate him."

Rico nodded, but he opened his mouth again when he remembered something else. "I fear our plans will be ruined in the Viridis kingdom too. From what I have heard, there's a dhampir girl and her servant that was found sneaking on the street. If they were to cause some trouble…."

"Kill them." The blue-eyed man spoke and got up from his seat as he headed over to the door. Then he paused as if he just got another idea and said, "Better yet, make their lives miserable. Make it so like they're the criminals and create fake evidence that could point fingers at them such that even the queen of the Viridis kingdom couldn't help but doubt them. Just make sure that the dhampir girl and her servant's image become so bad in front of the public that even if they speak the truth, none of them would believe it."

"Why not kill them directly? It seems troublesome to do these things."

"Why troublesome?" The blue-eyed man looked back at Rico. "I'm only cautious. If the elf queen investigates after we make an assassin attempt on that dhampir girl, we might be dragged in the water soon. Better to remain hidden and do a puppet dance to stop the ants."