Saving The Monster Race Starts With Breeding The Elf Village

Chapter 360: Clash Of Cultures

Poppy, who had always considered her barrier her ultimate defense, looked utterly exposed.

A sudden wave of fear washed over her. She scrambled backward, clutching onto Sigrid’s arm and looking at Luca like he was a ghost.

"How...How did you do that?" She asked timidly. "How did you just walk through it?"

That was the million-dollar question on everyone’s mind.

"Honestly?...I have no clue."

Luca just shrugged, looking totally innocent.

"I just walked forward. It felt like pushing through a thin layer of air. After that tiny bit of pressure at the start, there was nothing holding me back."

Sigrid and Thea locked eyes, the realization hitting both of them at the exact same time.

It wasn’t that Poppy’s magic was broken, nor was the barrier failing.

They looked back at Luca, and a cold chill ran down their spines.

He was simply way too strong!

His sheer physical presence and raw power were so overwhelming that a defensive spell designed to repel normal physical forces was completely neutralized the second he touched it.

To everyone else, that barrier was an brick wall; to Luca, it was a piece of tissue paper!

Luca, seemingly unaware of the turmoil he had caused, pressed on.

"So you see, I really had no idea about the barrier. I just wanted to take a bath, and I stumbled upon this scene. No one can really blame me for that."

He turned to Poppy, his expression shifting to something more thoughtful.

"And as for looking at you naked...well, that never actually happened."

Poppy snapped out of her daze, her face flushing with anger.

"What are you saying, human?! You just admitted you saw me bathing in the lake!"

"Of course I did." Luca nodded calmly. "But I didn’t see a human girl standing there in her birthday suit."

He gestured toward Poppy’s petite body, making her instantly flush with embarrassment and cross her arms over her chest as if his gaze alone was stripping her down.

"What I saw..." Luca continued. "...was a magical horse with a horn on its head taking a swim. And since when is looking at a horse considered looking at someone naked?"

Poppy’s jaw dropped.

"It’s the exact same thing! I wasn’t wearing any robes over my unicorn body! Everything was completely exposed to the world!"

"It’s basically the same as seeing me completely naked!"

Luca stared at her in disbelief, not expecting such a twist.

"Wait? So you’re telling me that in your culture, the horse parts of your body are also considered...private?"

"Of course they are!" Poppy looked at him like he had grown a second head. "We cover every part of our bodies! Whether it’s our upper human half or our lower half!"

She gestured at the centaurs around them. "Look at them! They all wear armor or robes over their horse bodies! It’s the same as wearing clothes!"

Luca looked around.

And for the first time, he properly took in the sight of their clothes.

Every centaur was indeed wearing some sort of covering over their horse half.

Robes, skirts, armor—all of it draped over their backs, covering their flanks all the way down to where their legs began. Even their tails poked through specially made holes in the fabric.

The only exception was Thea, whose armor had several gaps that showed glimpses of her body.

But even she was mostly covered.

’So the horse body is considered private.’ Luca realized. ’The equivalent of a human’s naked skin.’

He let out a long breath. "Okay. I get it now."

He held up his hand. "In your culture, looking at the horse parts of your body is considered...exposing yourself. I understand that."

The centaurs nodded, some looking relieved that he finally understood.

"But." Luca continued. "In my culture, looking at a horse—whether it’s a centaur or a real horse isn’t strange at all. It’s not something taboo or sensitive."

"It’s just...a horse."

To prove his point, he pointed at Sigrid.

"Do you feel strange when you see a normal horse roaming around without any cloth on it?"

Sigrid hesitated. "Well...no, but—"

"Exactly." Luca cut in smoothly. "It’s the same for me. I don’t mean any disrespect, and I don’t view you guys as wild animals."

"But when I look at your horse body, my brain doesn’t register it as something sexual. I’m just not attracted to that part of you."

He paused, adding with a dry grin, "I mean, don’t get me wrong. I can admire the muscle tone, or how smooth your fur looks..."

A collective wave of awkward fidgeting swept through the room.

Even Sigrid looked a little uncomfortable with how casually he was describing their anatomy.

"...but as for sexual attraction?"

Luca shook his head firmly. "Zero. None at all. To me, it’s completely innocent."

"So while I totally respect that it feels weird in your culture, you have to understand that I had no idea about any of this.

He looked at Poppy with sincerity.

"I apologize for what I saw. Truly. But from my perspective, I’m completely innocent here."

He braced himself for another screaming match, but to his surprise, nobody yelled back.

The centaurs looked at him with a mix of embarrassment and mild grievance, clearly a little offended that he found a core part of their bodies so unappealing, but nobody spoke up.

Sigrid and Thea exchanged another long glance and let out a quiet sigh.

They had already come to the same conclusion earlier—it was all just a massive cultural misunderstanding.

Poppy still looked deeply aggrieved that Luca had essentially called her horse half unsexy, opening her mouth to complain.

But Thea gently placed a hand on her shoulder, quietly hushing her.

Seeing this, Luca was pleasantly surprised.

’Huh. They’re actually pretty reasonable.’ He thought to himself.

Unlike what Nyx had warned him about centaurs being stubbornly rigid, they were actually listening to reason.

Once he laid out his side of the story, they actually took his background into account and realized they couldn’t really judge him by their own rules.

Wanting to keep this momentum, he pressed forward.

"As for the supposed violation you mentioned earlier."

He said, drawing every eye back to him.

"I’ll admit—at first, I genuinely had no idea what you meant. Yes, I crossed the barrier. Yes, I apparently saw your queen in a state she considers equivalent to nakedness."

He frowned. "But violation specifically? I was lost on that part."

He looked at Sigrid, then at Poppy. "But now that you mention that the horse parts of her body are considered private, I think I understand."

He paused and awkwardly said,

"The violation you’re talking about...is the act of me jumping on top of Poppy’s back and riding her, isn’t it?"

Immediately, the centaurs looked away.

Some clenched their fists. Others bit their lips in frustration.

A few of the younger ones looked like they wanted to draw their swords and charge at him right then and there.

Poppy herself was so embarrassed she had buried her face completely in Sigrid’s ponytail, refusing to look at anyone.

Sigrid’s voice was tight as she explained,

"It’s not just for unicorns, Hero. It’s the same for all centaurs."

"The act of climbing upon us and riding us is the equivalent of your human concept of stripping a girl completely naked and ravaging her on the spot."

Luca’s face went pale. "That bad?"

"That bad." Sigrid confirmed. "And worse, considering Lady Poppy is the queen we all serve."

"What you did constitutes disgracing royalty. In the harshest interpretation, that could be considered the highest form of treason."

A heavy, oppressive silence settled over the group as the weight of this fully landed on Luca.

He held up both hands. "Alright—I understand why all of you are upset. I essentially violated your queen without even realizing the significance of it."

A few centaurs’ expressions darkened further at this blunt phrasing.

"But I genuinely had no idea what any of this meant! I thought I was simply dealing with a wild unicorn."

He gestured toward Poppy before quickly adding to prove his innocence,

"And to be clear—she’s the one who charged at me first. I only wanted to admire her from a distance, but she came straight at me, and I had no other option but to climb on."

"Of course I charged at you!" Poppy snapped, finally finding her voice again. "Did you expect me to simply let some pervert who’d been staring at me bathe get away without consequence!?"

"That’s your perspective." Luca said evenly. "From mine, all I saw was a unicorn charging at me at full speed with a very sharp horn pointed in my direction."

"I wasn’t about to just stand there and let myself get impaled, was I?"

He offered a small smile.

"So I dodged a few times. But you were persistent, and eventually climbing onto your back was the only option I had left to avoid getting gored."

Poppy’s face flushed deep red with humiliation at the reminder.

"So really." Luca continued. "What I did was an act of self-defense. You’re the one who attacked first. I simply responded."

Poppy looked like she was about to faint.

"You...You’re saying I’m the one at fault here?!"

"I’m saying it was a misunderstanding on both sides."

"A misunderstanding?!" She was shaking with rage. "You violated me! You—you—"

"And I’ve apologized for it." Luca retorted. "Multiple times. And I’ve explained why I didn’t know it was wrong...What more can I do?"

The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife.

The centaurs were torn.

The younger knights still looked furious, but the older, more experienced centaurs were keeping their cool, analyzing his words logically.

They realized that even though what happened was a nightmare for their queen, Luca really didn’t have any malicious intent.

It was a clash of cultures, of perspectives, of worlds.

And neither side was entirely wrong.