Chapter 72: Confirming It With Their Own Eyes

The cub’s soft, sweet voice kept drifting in from up ahead. Nestled in the silver-haired sovereign’s arms, he only had his little head peeking out.

Right now, he was tipping his chin up slightly, looking a bit excited as he told Mansendis about what he’d just been up to.

Wen Yuzhi probably didn’t even realize it himself.

Whenever he spoke and needed to pause to think, he would unconsciously tilt his head—and that little cowlick standing up at his crown would sway along with it.

Like a mood detector made just for a cub.

When he was happy, it perked up high. When he felt down or sad, it drooped limply.

It made you want to keep staring at that little tuft of silver hair, again and again.

Wen Yuzhi, meanwhile, was completely unaware. He was still chatting affectionately with Dad.

It was all trivial things—trivial to the point of being almost boring—but beside him, Mansendis listened with absolute seriousness.

The silver-haired sovereign’s lashes lowered as he turned slightly to the side, focused and attentive. When the cub finished speaking, he would answer at just the right moment.

“If you want to bring them, then bring them.”

“If you like them, you can bring back more.”

“You picked something out for me? Then should Zhizhi tell Dad in advance what it looks like?”

Every reply was patient. Every single sentence Wen Yuzhi said, he answered carefully—earnestly.

The scene hit the women behind them like a shockwave.

They couldn’t help pinching themselves.

“Hss...!”

It hurt.

So they weren’t dreaming...

And yet what they were seeing was even more absurd than a dream.

Since when had Mansendis ever had a side that could be called gentle?

Patiently listening to meaningless little details, then responding to them seriously...

If that earlier standoff hadn’t confirmed, beyond doubt, that this really was the same Prince Mansendis from back then—and if it weren’t for the fact that no one alive was bold enough to infiltrate the Saint Clan and impersonate royal-blood—

they would’ve started wondering if the silver-haired sovereign in front of them had been swapped out.

This didn’t feel like the same Saint Clan at all.

Tasiya had once summed up her younger brother like this:

“He has a body, but no heart.”

The Mother Goddess used blood to forge his flesh, but never gave him a heart capable of understanding emotion.

So to them, the Mansendis of the past had always been something cold and hollow.

Nothing could reflect in his eyes, as if he didn’t belong among the Saint Clan—or even in this world.

But the silver-haired sovereign standing before them now looked like someone had filled in that missing heart. He had emotions. Even the icy stillness in his eyes had taken on warmth.

And all of that change could only be blamed on...

Their gazes drifted naturally to the cub.

From their angle, they could only see Wen Yuzhi’s profile.

But even just a profile was enough to make those women’s emotions flare in an instant.

Silver hair, gold eyes—those were Salilaino traits. There was no doubt about it: the cub in front of them was a noble royal-blood Highness.

And coupled with that earlier “Dad,” his identity was practically self-evident.

The little Highness...!

It really was the little Highness!

“Did you see?”

“I saw.”

“Mother Goddess above... he’s so tiny...”

“Mond said his bloodline just awakened—he only cracked his shell not long ago. Before that he was left outside...”

When it reached that point, they all fell silent at the same time.

No one understood better than they did why the little Highness had been left outside.

“Those damned star pirates!”

“They stole our treasure!”

Even after all these years, the moment they thought back to what had happened, rage flooded their chests again.

Their eyes narrowed without them noticing. Mental energy churned around them, and in those tightening pupils was reflected a killing intent that hadn’t cooled in a long, long sleep.

Maybe because his talent leaned toward healing, Wen Yuzhi was especially sensitive to the Saint Clan’s negative emotions now.

He was still tucked in Mansendis’s arms, but he felt the surge of emotion from behind.

...Those unfamiliar Saint Clan.

He blinked.

Um... were they angry?

Wen Yuzhi didn’t know what they were angry about.

But after soothing those soldiers before, he already had experience. His mental energy floated over on instinct, smooth and practiced.

Heave-ho, heave-ho—

In no time, the anger was wrapped up.

Once the restless emotions had been soothed, the cub was gone.

Not a single cloud left behind.

Quietly racking up merit and fame.

And the women who’d been combed through by that mental energy froze in place, stunned.

“I felt it...”

“So... that just now was the little Highness’s...”

They didn’t say the rest, but they all understood: none of it ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) had been a hallucination.

Their mental seas, on the verge of rioting, had truly been soothed.

And that gentle, comfortable touch—soft, fluffy mental energy...

It was clearly from the little Highness.

Once that clicked, their eyes all snapped to Mond.

Their stares were practically demanding an explanation from the old chief affairs officer.

What, exactly, was going on?

And during their long sleep... what had happened to the Saint Clan?

Mond, pinned under a row of vertical pupils: “...”

That long-forgotten fear—being ruled by these iron women—rose in his chest again.

He looked helpless, but he didn’t hide anything. He cooperated and told them everything he knew.

After all, if Mansendis was willing to bring them out, then chances were they might work together again in the future.

And if that was the case, there were things they needed to know ahead of time.

.........

Mansendis was fully aware of everything happening behind him, but he didn’t stop Mond.

Just as Mond guessed, letting them out came with Mansendis’s own calculations.

But before he made those calculations official, he needed to be sure these women weren’t harboring other intentions.

He didn’t tell any of that to the cub in his arms.

Instead, after Wen Yuzhi drew his mental energy back in, he lowered his head and asked softly, “Zhizhi wants to pick out your own warship?”

Wen Yuzhi nodded.

“Alvin said I can build a fleet that belongs to me.”

He said it brightly, even swinging his legs a little, clearly excited about building a fleet.

Or rather—he was excited about anything that belonged to him, anything he could decide for himself.

It gave him a sense of security.

Back in the Wen family, he was usually the one being decided for.

The school he attended was arranged by the Wen family. Even that so-called engagement had been arranged by the Wen family. There were very few things he could truly choose for himself.

So after coming here, he cherished this feeling of being able to make his own decisions even more.

As mentioned before, Esoris didn’t just provide the Saint Clan with massive amounts of ore—military manufacturing and weapons research were also based here.

And warship production was inside the armaments factory behind the base.

Once the designers in the base heard the king had brought the little Highness over to choose a warship, they were all summoned.

They brought stacks of blueprints—warship models they’d designed carefully.

Wen Yuzhi took one look and realized he couldn’t understand any of it. Power systems, weapon systems... to him, all that dense data only showed him the simplest things: the exterior shape, the style, and a rough sense of the ship’s size.

Seeing the cub’s serious expression, Mansendis guided him calmly.

“Does Zhizhi have an idea what kind of warship you want?”

The designers nodded too.

“Little Highness, you can tell us all your ideas. We can design the model you want personally.”

They said it with complete confidence—like they weren’t talking about destruction-class warships at all, but toys for a cub.

And in a way, that really was how they saw it.

The Saint Clan didn’t lack warships. Even destruction-class ships could be produced at any time.

A few destruction-class warships—if the little Highness wanted to take them to play with, that was fine.

The Saint Clan had that kind of confidence.

And Wen Yuzhi... actually thought about it seriously.

“I want a bigger one.”

Bigger was better. Ideally, it would be like the Thanatos—so he could invite Dad, Mond, Alvin, and all the Saint Clan he knew to come play on his warship together.

He didn’t say that out loud, but his eyes were sparkling. Mansendis only needed one glance to more or less guess what he was thinking.

It wasn’t hard to guess.

A cub’s emotions were always easy to read, and in Wen Yuzhi’s plans for the future, Mansendis and Mond—and the Saint Clan he knew, the ones he was familiar with—were always there.

That was also why Mond, Alvin, and the others in high positions all truly loved a cub so sincerely.

Not only because he was royal-blood—

but because he genuinely treated them as family.

That realization left the women a little dazed.

They had never seen royal-blood relationships be this harmonious, this warm.

And when Mansendis saw them staring like that—

while the cub was still discussing things with the designers, the silver-haired sovereign walked over to the women.

“You’ve already seen him.”

He was referring, of course, to what he had promised them: letting them see the cub with their own eyes.

When he’d mentioned he had a child, their first reaction had been to demand to know where that child was.

And that instinctive move, without question, had exposed that they knew Tasiya had been secretly cultivating royal-blood.

Even if they didn’t know everything, they likely knew about the existence of a royal cocoon.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have gotten that agitated the moment they heard the word child.

Mansendis even had reason to suspect they knew about the theft incident on Esoris.

But faced with his questioning, they had clung stubbornly to one demand: they wanted to see Wen Yuzhi with their own eyes. Only after confirming the cub’s identity would they speak.

“We have to see that child for ourselves!”

Even under Mansendis’s icy gaze, they refused to retreat.

Of course, Mansendis could have used harsher methods and forced them to confess everything in detail.

But that would’ve wasted more time.

He didn’t have time to keep grinding them down underground.

Ever since that dream, Wen Yuzhi practically stayed glued to him all day. If Mansendis was gone too long, the cub would grow more and more uneasy.

And Mansendis had already been down here for a while. If he stayed longer, the cub would be upstairs looking for him.

It was because of that that he’d agreed to their request, allowing them to trail behind from a distance and get a look.

And the moment they saw Wen Yuzhi, they confirmed it.

This cub was the royal cocoon Tasiya had once sent them to guard.

The aura on him—the feeling he gave them—was exactly the same as that royal cocoon back then.

The discovery made them so excited they could barely hold it in.