Weakest Beast Tamer Gets All SSS Dragons

Chapter 1249 - Taming the Old World - Significance - 2

Reed was the first person to react, primarily because Reed normally processed every single anomalous event through the lens of culinary hospitality.

"Ren!" The large cook bustled out of the massive reworked kitchen, having stubbornly insisted on assisting Ren's and the royal staff with the preparations. He frantically wiped his freshly washed hands on his apron, grinding to a dead halt the second he registered the aristocratic woman his son was currently hauling. "...Exactly why are you carrying that dignified looking lady over your shoulder like a captured hostage...?"

"She is not a hostage, Dad... It merely appears as this since she lacked the motivation to walk."

"Oh my god I'll explode…" murmured Mayo while Matilda and Maria eyed her menacingly.

"But there is zero logical reason to carry her here like a sack of flour, it makes no sense for a guest." Reed narrowed his eyes in deep parental suspicion. "Exactly who did you kidnap this time?"

"I absolutely did not... kidnap anyone... Okay, maybe technically, but she deserved it!"

"Son." Fern seamlessly materialized directly behind her flustered husband, calmly drying her own hands on a towel. She observed Lutea with the serene, unshakeable calm of a mother who had spent the last years of her life watching her child drag bizarre, impossible things into her living room. "Is this the mother you warned us about, Larissa, my dear child... The Queen?"

A heavy, incredibly awkward silence settled over the dining hall.

"...Yes," Larissa finally admitted, her voice remarkably tight.

"She does not appear nearly as abrasive as you mentally prepared us to endure... Oh, Ren." Fern let out a long, long-suffering sigh that only a seemingly deeply unapproving mother can master. "Put Larissa's mom down immediately... And please seat her properly. Exercise extreme caution at my table, she is a highly important guest."

Ren swiftly deposited Lutea onto her feet. She remained momentarily dazed, her gaze distant, yet she instantly forced her posture into a rigid, defensive dignity, staring blankly at the two common cooks who had just casually referred to her as a "lady" and a "guest" exactly as if she were a neighbor dropping in for tea.

Lykea, predictably, was already broadcasting her unfiltered commentary at maximum volume.

"She is significantly quieter than my memory suggested," the rogue Tamer announced, possessing absolutely zero filter, scrutinizing the sovereign queen exactly like a merchant inspecting a slightly bruised fruit at the bazaar.

"Given all the terrifying rumors surrounding King Dragarion's reclusive wife, I honestly believed she would be vastly more... Imposing. But look at her, she is just a remarkably standard older woman. Exceptionally pretty, I will definitely grant her that! You can easily deduce she is Larissa's mother, she projects that exact same frigid royal bearing! Although, she is currently making the facial expression of someone who just swallowed something incredibly bitter! Does she permanently maintain that sour expression, Sirius my love, or do you think it is purely because Ren spent the last hour dangling her upside down?"

"Lykea," Sirius murmured, employing the incredibly soft, desperate tone of a man who profoundly loved his wife but simultaneously prayed she would significantly lower her volume before she triggered a royal incident.

"What? I am merely articulating the exact thoughts everyone else in the room is for sure currently having!"

"Absolutely no one else is vocalizing them for a reason... my love."

"Well, I am going to vocalize them anyway... Somebody has to!"

Luna, standing nearby, slowly dragged a hand down her face in sheer exasperation. It was a flawless, undeniable display of the exact genetic origin of her own chaotic internal monologue.

Selphira smoothly intervened, salvaging the rapidly deteriorating chaotic situation with the effortless elegance forged over four centuries of survival.

"Lutea…" Her tone was flawlessly cordial, yet a massive, unspoken history pulsed heavily beneath the single word. They were two ancient matriarchs who possessed the unblemished skin of young women, yet they had navigated entirely different eras that would have severely withered anyone lacking their double Gold-rank resources, and they notoriously did not get along too well.

"It has been an incredibly long time since I observed you outside your isolated corner. Please, sit down and consume some energy. The working demands out here have been grueling for every single one of us, and I calculate the transition has been equally exhausting for your very 'useful' self."

Lutea slowly turned her gaze toward the Starweaver, and a fraction of her rigid aristocratic tension visibly dissolved. Selphira was, quite possibly, the only entity in the entire room that Lutea historically recognized as a genuine political equal. One sovereign matriarch addressing another.

"Selphira," Lutea finally replied, snapping out of her daze, her voice incredibly tight. "I did not anticipate... encountering such ancient company today."

"Yes, nobody anticipates ANCIENT news from the castle either," Selphira countered smoothly, calmly pouring herself a generous glass of vintage wine. "That is the fundamental nature of the apocalypse... It ruthlessly shatters all the ANCIENT agendas… But maybe the OLD investments can become useful this once, especially big ones like double potions."

♢♢♢♢

Julius and Victor cautiously approached Ren, flanking Larissa's position.

"Hahaha… You literally carried my mother dangling over your shoulder," Victor noted, deploying his trademark bluntness. He sounded neither furious nor particularly surprised, merely confirming a highly chaotic reality. "And you explicitly paraded her in front of the entire populace. With thousands of civilians serving as direct witnesses..."

"She initiated with hostility…" Ren stated flatly.

"I have zero doubt regarding that..." Victor casually shrugged his broad shoulders. "She has been barricaded inside that fortress for too long... Perhaps she actually required someone to forcefully drag her into the sunlight. Honestly, I apologize; I probably should have done it myself years ago." He glanced toward his mother, significantly lowering his volume. "With all due respect... She is my father's wife. But her cognitive processing is permanently jammed in a political era that no longer exists."

Julius, as always, was vastly more measured in his assessment.

"I offer my formal apologies for our mother's erratic behavior. I genuinely hope you managed to establish a truce, or at least negotiate a functional agreement regarding our Larissa's future... Did you expose her to the Rift?" he asked quietly.

"Yes."

Julius nodded gravely, instantly comprehending the big psychological implication, possessing intimate knowledge of exactly what the chasm did to Lutea's mind. "Then you observed the harsh physiological reaction... I would profoundly appreciate it if you refrained from applying any further pressure regarding that. There are past events concerning my father and her that even we do not fully know, but the history should be undeniably devastating for her."

"I have no intention of exploiting it," Ren confirmed and Julis relaxed visibly.

And then Larissa slowly stepped forward.

Initially, she radiated pure anxiety. Ren flawlessly decoded the micro-expressions on her face: it was the agonizing apprehension of a daughter who had spent her entire life bracing for her mother to utter something unforgivably cruel, something that would irreparably shatter the fragile peace here, something that would permanently humiliate her in front of the people she valued most.

But then she truly looked at Lutea.

And she registered a change.

The Queen Mother was not miraculously transformed, she was not weeping with sudden repentance; the psychological reality was never that simple.

But she was indeed altered... She was remarkably quiet, her eyes constantly scanning the crowded room, analyzing the extravagant food, observing the humble cooks who had grown so incredibly accustomed to interacting with sovereign princes and princesses that they treated her exactly like another mundane guest, remembering the exhausted Vanguard elites that Ren claimed were the true pillars of her kingdom.

She was a woman whose entire political foundation had just been violently uprooted at a kidnapping with zero repercussions, even if her pride absolutely refused to verbally admit it.

Larissa's tense shoulders finally dropped.

And she slowly reached out, offering her hand to her mother.