Divine Luck: SSS-Rank Battle Maid Harem-Chapter 514: Icy Sarcasm

As if reading from the same script, Zach's family members sighed. Calserra glanced at her husband for a moment before stroking her eyebrow with two fingers. She crossed her other arm over her torso.

"Alright, but have her wait outside. We wouldn't want a barbarian to hear our secrets, would we?" She said, pointing at Visla.

Visla was prepared to step out. She understood. After all, Zach had given her and Maura some privacy just a day ago.

"Oh, we most certainly do," Zach said before she could even start taking a step.

Calserra's smooth forehead knit into a slight frown. She couldn't tell why Zach was being so needlessly rebellious. The sooner Visla left, the sooner they could explain.

"Why?" She asked.

Zach took his time before answering. He looked each of his family members, his siblings and parents, in the eye.

He pointed at the ground.

"In this tent, I trust my familiars, and I trust Visla." He didn't continue. That was his answer. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he trusted Visla, a barbarian, more than he trusted his own family members.

"Zach!" Lilo shouted, a little reproachfully. She was well aware of what they had done, but he should know that they had done it for a good reason. He should also know that their family had fought the barbarians for generations. He could never trust one of them.

There might be a truce right now, but only because the Hydra would kill them all if they didn't kill it first. As soon as it was dead, things would go back to the way they used to.

Nymur held up a hand, stopping Lilo and anyone else from continuing. Zach was well within his rights not to trust them. But…

"Who is she, anyway?" He asked.

"Visla Maura, daughter of the Maura Chief and my friend." Zach didn't hesitate in answering. He knew what the Maura name meant. They were one of the Evandiel family's greatest enemies. There was no telling how much blood the two sides had taken from one another.

Yet, he was calling Visla his friend, and he was saying he trusted her over them.

It put a frown on all of their faces. Zach derived a twisted sense of satisfaction from that.

"How did you even meet?" Leonia asked with a frown.

Logically speaking, there should not have been any opportunities for Zach, an Evandiel, and Visla Maura, daughter of the Maura Chief, to meet under circumstances that would foster such a friendly relationship between the two.

Zach might have been kept out of the fights against the barbarians, but Visla Maura clearly hadn't. There was no being kept out of the fights for the barbarians.

Zach could be shipped off to the Academy and the other side of the Empire. For the barbarians, there was the Steppes, and then the Evandiels keeping them from the prosperous lands of the Empire.

Zach shrugged.

"We met on the battlefield—"

"The battlefield?" Lexi questioned before he could get six words in on his ten-word long explanation.

"The war?" Zach retorted. "Don't you know about it? A certain family opened a wide fucking gap in the Empire's border, and the Sesha seized the opportunity to slaughter our people. I don't know why, but that led to a war somehow," He said with a shrug, his voice dripping with icy sarcasm.

The tension in the tent rose another degree.

Lexi's frown deepened.

"But why were you there?" She asked, ignoring the elephant Zach highlighted. In turn, Zach ignored the concern in her voice.

Zach shrugged with one shoulder and crossed his arms.

"It was that or be executed," he answered simply. Once again, he made everyone's frowns deepen.

"...Why would you be executed?" Leonidas asked, knowing the answer.

Zach smiled brightly.

"Believe it or not, but when everyone in a family but one is branded a disgusting traitor, it's easy to label the last one a disgusting traitor as well." He sighed like he couldn't believe it himself before continuing,

"And no matter how much I told them I wasn't a disgusting traitor, they just wouldn't believe me." He shrugged like he was saying, 'Well, what can you do?'

Nymur slowly shook his head.

"No…There's no way the Emperor would have actually had you executed."

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Zach glared at him.

"Disgustingly easy to say when the noose isn't around your neck."

Zach had had the Empress Dowager on his side, so he hadn't quite feared for his life. But there had been nights when he didn't get much rest even if it looked like he slept. It wasn't just because the bed wasn't comfortable.

Before anyone else could say anything, Zach continued,

"Thinking about it now, I can't even blame them. The Emperor, the princes and princesses, the nobles, the citizens in the capital, the citizens of the East. If I were related in the slightest to the betrayal that led to thousands upon thousands of innocent lives being lost, of course I would want to hang me."

Zach wasn't just saying that he understood why people wanted him dead after his family betrayed the Empire.

He was saying that he understood why people wanted his family dead. It brought up complex emotions in the hearts of that family. Fortunately, complex emotions in a tense situation always find their way out. Fortunately, complex emotions can usually be transformed into one simple emotion.

Anger.

"Don't go too far, Zach! We tried to keep you out of it! We only did what we had to!" Leonidas shouted in rage. The lives of innocent people didn't weigh any lighter on his heart than it did on Zach's.

"Shut up!" Zach shouted and stood up. Leonidas was still taller than him, despite all the growing he had done the past couple of years.

"Don't use that disgusting excuse!" Zach couldn't stand it any longer.

'They had to.' 'It was for the greater good.' 'A necessary sacrifice.'

"Do you think I came here to listen to your disgusting explanations?!" He questioned with a voice tragic and loud enough to make his siblings flinch.

"You may have been hurt by our actions, but you don't call your family disgusting," Calserra chastised.

"Sit down." She wrapped him in red Domination Aura and forced him back into his chair.