’What a coincidence,’ I thought, looking towards that young man who had just affirmed my doubt.
It was merely a casual remark, considering that, according to the original plots, there was only one family that seemed to have witnessed unprecedented growth, rising in ranks from simple merchants to the ones at the forefront to stand against the Arcutus family.
After the present head of the Arcutus family somehow vanished, the family was left to fend off against Olea, who was increasing her strength.
At that time, they had entered into a title battle with a noble family that had risen in the ranks to claim the title of Duke.
They challenged the Arcutus family, which had already become weakened due to the news of its head vanishing circulating.
Yet, due to their long history and hidden powerhouses, no one dared to challenge the Duke family, considering that in the end any strong noble family could, in a battle, turn the members into their slaves, taking women and everything from the defeated ones.
However, breaking everyone’s expectations was a phoenix rising from nowhere called Roherians, who were once known as merchants before rising in ranks.
Faced against the Roherians, the Arcutus family lost most of its competent warriors, leading to their loss of the title of Dukes, which went to the Roherians.
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After being attacked by Olea, the Arcutus family faced complete eradication, from where Olea’s chase for Kyle began.
So, the puzzle remained: how did these Roherians manage to hold enough strength to go against a family with such a strong lineage and history, demonstrating their abnormal growth rate?
Though I knew that secret, I would take a slow approach towards them before concerning myself with everyone at once.
"So, how many women did they take from your family?" I asked casually, taking a bite of the food and cuisines lying on the dining table, as it could not go to waste.
"...They are monsters, even my sister," the young man uttered with visible anger.
In a normal scenario, it would be wise for a brother to save his sister and go against anyone to protect her.
However, given his position to save the other members of his family and this world’s background, where everyone was treated as individually responsible for themselves—gender equality at its peak.
For example, from my old world’s perspective, it was the same for him as his brother—not sister—who sacrificed himself for their family.
Where males and females in this world hold the same status as independent entities without dependence.
"You were weak; that’s just it," I stated, shrugging my shoulders. I could see the angered expressions forming on a few of their faces.
They faced defeat from that family, becoming their stepping stones, and were now having strange thoughts about how the women from their families must be getting treated like slaves.
’Idiots,’ I thought, shaking my head with a chuckle.
I could clearly see how fooled these men were, failing to understand that all those women had gone to the Roherian family of their own accord.
Considering this was the only family that I thought was ethical enough to give opportunities and a future to those they defeated.
To be exact, whoever noble families they defeated, they offered a very alluring kind of contract to the women in particular, especially those from families who were weak and had no future under their family.
Most probably, those women would have ended up either used for political marriages or treated poorly in that family with no future.
So, it simply was that if a woman who had no future received a chance to gain strength and rise on the path of immortality, she would choose it without hesitation.
The Roherians just provided that, increasing the number of cultivators under them while giving them what they needed: strength.
This was also the major reason why the Roherians were becoming one of the strongest families in the future.
They were collecting women with their own free will while bestowing upon them a very specific kind of strength that only a woman could possess, using it to rise from the ninth realm to the fourth one.
If I recall correctly, even Aleriana had become one of the Elders of the organization established by the Roherians in the seventh realm.
A merchant family rising from the absolute lowest, in the ninth realm, to the fourth realm was considered a legend in itself.
But for me, who naturally knew the backstory and the reason why they possessed so much power, it felt as if I held the very bargaining source of that family, which was the phoenix tears—a pool of crystalline water that possessed the power to awaken the phoenix bloodline within any woman.
If I recall correctly, the real presence of Rohirian’s strength was shown in the battle with the Arcturus family, where the women cultivators from that family were literally wearing phoenix-scaled red armors that were impenetrable while burning in hellfire as they went against thousands of cultivators from the Arcturus family.
It was depicted as one of the great wars within the ninth realm, where the Rohirians, in collusion with some neighboring kingdoms, later in the story after the ascension of Aleriana Vandreat, took over the Azure Flame Kingdom and finally, one after another, ascended to the upper realm.
It was like a whole organization of women opened the path to immortality—which was just ascending to the upper realm. It was after arriving in that realm that they came to know that there were a total of nine realms and they were still at the bottom.
This was the secret of that family, alluring enough to claim for myself.
However, I knew that pursuing such an action would only bring disaster by disturbing one of the major plots of the story.
So, I put it aside, considering I did not want to create an organization here with women I could not control.
Rather, I preferred to focus solely on the major characters.
So, rather than quantity, I chose to focus on quality and directly target the future, who were naturally the major characters.
"Surprising to see how you are already aware of the secrets of the Roherian family?"
’!?’