Simona frowned when she heard Leonel's words. If it had been someone else who said this, she might have directly attacked. She didn't like the tone, and she liked the fact there was no explanation afterward even less. The current Leonel was far more condescending than he was charming, but it was difficult to refute that he deserved this sort of arrogance. Then again, Simona felt that she was thinking too much. In reality, the issue wasn't with Leonel's tone, but rather that he so seamlessly began to talk to her like a subordinate, something that left her uncomfortable.
She had, indeed, agreed to help Leonel in order to return a favor, but she hadn't subordinated herself to him. These two things couldn't be equated. Leonel had just spoken like she was any of his other followers. He hadn't been disrespectful, but the implication had irritated her.
Simona took a breath and shook her head. Indeed, in this situation, she was meant to be a subordinate even if she didn't like it. She wasn't here to fight for her own Heirship, but rather that of Leonel's. She had followed all of his plans up until here, and it could be said that without his guidance, she would have been taken out like the other Constellation families already. The Godlen family was unable to exhibit their full strength here, so left to her own devices, she would have had to flee already. This was probably what happened due to the odd nature of their partnership. She knew too little about Leonel and was only here to repay a heavy favor. In addition, her Pyius family cared less about outward prestige, or else her mother would have never married her father to begin with, so she was in a unique position to return this favor.
Shaking her head, Simona waved a hand to the young man who had already returned, causing his brows to unfurrow. "I was in the wrong to begin with, I questioned his methods when he's clearly already come to a decision. He was already respectful enough," Simona said lightly.
The young man didn't say anything to this. Since Simona had spoken, he accepted it. Even if he had felt that she was wrong, he wouldn't have voiced it.
...
"That didn't sound very smooth," Aina suddenly said when Leonel returned to her side. "This not explaining things habit of yours will get you into trouble."
Leonel smiled. "It's not too big of a deal, whether she's on board or not doesn't make much of a difference to me."
Leonel could have asked the Oryx or the Skies, or better yet Aina and the others to round up the 90 million that had escaped, but he hadn't. Instead, he had gone out of his way to ask Simona to do it, and that was to draw a clear line. That look that Simona had given to the young man with the black flaming lion was all Leonel needed to see. If he was going to command people, he needed them to be perfectly in sync with him. Those that thought they could do things better were only a liability and nothing more.
This was also why during the battle, he had only asked for a minor amount of help from Simona, enough that it wouldn't be too obvious that he was making a statement, but also little enough that it would be obvious to them that he hadn't come on bended knee for their assistance.
The peculiarity of their relationship lent itself to this sort of outcome. Leonel was very good at reading the intentions and emotions of others, so it wasn't something that escaped his grasp in the slightest. The hard truth was that from an outside observer's perspective, Leonel had done very little to end up with a lot. No matter how important the little puppy was to Simona, he hadn't even known that when he came across it, and the puppy could have easily been found by anyone else. Of course, there were other matters about that event that made Simona endlessly grateful, like the fact he hadn't sacrificed the puppy at the altar of his speedy progression and increase in strength, but humans were also interesting creatures. It was all too easy for gratitude to turn to complacency and complacency to turn into disdain.
If you did too much for someone, they could very easily take your kindness to just be a matter of fact, and regardless of how helpful Leonel had been to restoring her future potential, it was a fact that it was still something that anyone could have done.
Human nature could easily ignore the deeds of the extraordinary if it happened too often, let alone when the deed wasn't very extraordinary at all. But at the same time, Leonel's grasp of human nature was extremely profound. He had targeted the problem before it even truly became one.
Now, whether Simona would remember that and take it into consideration moving forward, he didn't know. That much would be up to her. But like he said... He didn't really care much either way. If she didn't know what was best for her, or if her Godlen or Pyius family wanted to "stand up" for her, then in his eyes, the result wouldn't be very much different. It would only mean one extra buried enemy. Nothing more, nothing less.
"So then what do you actually want to do with them, then?" Aina looked at Leonel. Clearly, she had no intention of letting him skirt off like Simona had. If not, she had a few strong waist pinches in store.
Leonel grinned when he saw the dangerous look in her eye. "Well, just think about it. Everyone on this continent knows about Xavnik and almost none of them know that he's been defeated, at least for the time being. "Did you see how uniform and mono-colored their army was? Nice and organized if you ask me, very cool uniforms as well, top class. Third Nova did well."
Leonel's grin became wider. Aina's gaze flickered, although Leonel hadn't answered, the implications were all too obvious.
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