My Taming System Makes Me Overpowered

Chapter 41: Damn she’s hot

Before Vince could shatter Everwood’s skepticism with a calculated counter-argument, the heavy cedar door to the study swung open on silent hinges. A tall, sharply dressed elven elder stepped into the room, his long robes rustling against the polished floorboards. His expression was taut with impatience.

"Elder Everwood, Her Majesty explicitly seeks your presence in the central court," the elder announced smoothly, before his eyes abruptly snagged on the bound, hooded figure standing in the center of the room. He frowned, his gaze tracking the heavy iron shackles resting against Vince’s wrists. "Who is this? What is a commoner doing in your private quarters during an active council session?"

Everwood’s crushing aura vanished in an instant, melting away as a dark, knowing grin curved across his sharp lips. He didn’t offer a single detail about the broken pact or the magicless anomaly standing before him.

"A present for the Queen," Everwood replied casually, his silver eyes flashing with a sudden, unreadable amusement. He waved a dismissive hand toward the door. "Tell Her Majesty I am right behind you."

The elder lingered for a fraction of a second, his gaze lingering suspiciously on Vince, before offering a curt nod and turning on his heel to lead the way back toward the central gallery.

Everwood stepped up beside Vince, gesturing with a tilt of his head for the human to begin walking. The two of them trailed a few paces behind the departing elder, navigating the quiet, high-ceilinged corridors of the inner court. The silence between them stretched for several long moments, broken only by the rhythmic clinking of Vince’s iron chains.

"Tell me, human," Everwood murmured, his cold voice dropping into a low, private register so the elder ahead couldn’t overhear. "Do you believe in harmony?"

Vince kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, his posture entirely unbothered by the heavy steel binding his wrists. "All of nature depends on the harmony of all things," he replied in a cool, level deadpan. "Living and nonliving alike. Pull one thread out of the calculation, and the entire system collapses."

Everwood hummed softly, his silver eyes tracking the steady, rhythmic stride of the prisoner. "Then what do you think of us? What do you think of elves?"

Vince fell silent as they walked, his mind momentarily spinning backward. For a brief second, his mind flashed to the memory of the night he had shared with Lyrielle—the quiet, intense intimacy and the hidden depths she had carried beneath her royal baseline. Then, just as quickly, his thoughts shifted to the brutal, chaotic scene he had observed at the border market alleyway, where silver-armored guards routinely ground the weak into the dirt.

"You lot are a good species," Vince said finally, his voice carrying a rare, grounded honesty. "With your fair share of injustice and spite toward the unwanted. But amidst all of that, it’s the same heart that beats in our chests. Elves and humans alike."

Everwood paused for a fraction of a second, a low, genuine laugh escaping his throat. It wasn’t a scoff of arrogance; it was a laugh of profound realization.

He doesn’t harbor blind hatred like the rest of the humans do,

Everwood thought to himself, his silver eyes softening just an inch as he looked at the back of Vince’s messy hair.

It’s almost as if he understands exactly what it is like to be hated and looked down upon by a world that doesn’t understand him.

"Very well then," Everwood said aloud, his voice regaining its smooth, aristocratic composure. "Let us hope the other elders and the Queen see you through my eyes."

"Huh?" Vince muttered, blinking.

Before he could process the statement, the elder ahead of them pushed open the towering, twin ironwood doors at the end of the gallery.

The grand courtroom of the Ancestral Core Canopy burst into view, and the entire hall instantly fell into a dead, suffocating silence as Everwood and a shackled human strode down the center aisle.

Vince’s eyes automatically shifted as his mapping matrix analyzed the room. The hall was a staggering, circular colosseum grown entirely out of the heartwood of the world tree itself. Columns of living white bark twisted upward like massive pillars, supporting a colossal, dome-shaped crystalline ceiling that flooded the space with natural, ambient starlight. Tiers of polished wooden benches curved around the central floor, occupied by dozens of high-ranking elven nobles and stern-faced elders dressed in pristine silk robes. Every single eye in the room locked onto Vince, the air instantly turning heavy with collective shock and whispered hostility.

Everwood walked directly to the center of the floor, stopping before the grand dais, and offered a graceful, practiced bow.

"You requested my presence, Your Highness," Everwood said smoothly.

"Yes, I did. It is not very noble-like to be absent from a mandatory security meeting," a voice replied.

The voice was like liquid silk—an angelic, resonant tone that carried a terrifying, innate weight of absolute authority.

Vince raised his head, his purple eyes tracking the sound upward toward the massive amber throne sitting at the peak of the dais. The moment his gaze locked onto the monarch, his high-IQ calculative logic ground to a screeching, unprecedented halt.

Sitting before him was the most breathtaking creature he had ever laid eyes on.

The Elven Queen was a spectacular masterpiece of biology. Her complexion was impossibly radiant, glowing with a sun-kissed warmth that seemed to reject the very shadows of the room. She possessed a stunningly voluptuous, hourglass silhouette—accentuated by a remarkably busty frame and full, sweeping hips that filled out her regal, form-fitting emerald and gold silk robes with an effortless, jaw-dropping grace. Cascades of liquid-gold hair spilled over her shoulders, framing a face of flawless, ethereal perfection, but it was her eyes that held the room captive—deep, piercing amber orbs that flashed with the ancient, unyielding intelligence of a ruler.

The entire council room was staring at Vince with bared teeth, ready to demand a explanation. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a blade.

But beneath his messy hood, Vince’s mind completely derailed from the tactical survival parameters. He stared straight up at the amber throne, his baseline heart rate spiking for an entirely non-combat reason as a single, overwhelming thought locked into his brain.

Damn, she’s hot.