Chapter 848: The Pegasus Family, An Impending Family Reunion
"Sister, why did you suddenly come back?" Maria asked, her eyes sparkling with uncontainable delight, though a hint of confusion lingered in her voice.
"Because there is something I must do," Margaret Nearl replied softly.
"Does it have to do with the Kazimierz Major?"
"I can only say that it's related."
Margaret chose to keep Ren's existence a secret for now. Her ultimate goal was to completely upend and reform the rotting core of Kazimierz, a monumental task she absolutely refused to drag her innocent younger sister into.
Shifting the focus, she offered a gentle smile. "Maria, why don't you tell me what has happened here over the years?"
"Mm-hmm, of course!"
Maria eagerly launched into a lengthy recount of the events that had swept through their lives. Her tone grew a bit more subdued as she detailed the drastic changes that had befallen their family following Margaret's exile. The once-prestigious Nearl family had suffered a steep decline, their influence eroding to the point where they had nearly lost the very mansion they stood in.
The only reason the ancestral estate remained in their hands was entirely due to the intervention of their aunt, Zofia.
"Aunt Zofia stepped in and helped us buy the house back," Maria explained, her mood instantly brightening at the mention of the woman.
Zofia was technically a distant aunt—a rather imposing and slightly overbearing Kuranta woman. She had amassed substantial assets in Kazimierz, the spoils of her own past victories in the knightly arenas. Yet, despite her considerable fortune, she seemed to harbor very little personal interest in hoarding wealth.
While she never harbored any genuine ill will, conversing with her often left one feeling as though they were being ordered around. But once someone managed to look past that bossy exterior, she was surprisingly easy to get along with.
Despite being their aunt, Zofia—known in the arenas by her title, Whislash—did not carry the Nearl surname. Strictly speaking, she belonged to a collateral branch of the bloodline, meaning she lacked the right to directly adopt the main family's prestigious name.
That rigid rule, however, was a relic from the family's most prosperous era. After Margaret had been exiled, the main branch had been left incredibly vulnerable. Had Zofia wished to seize the title of 'Nearl' for herself, her wealth and influence at the time would have made it a trivial matter.
Yet, she had never made such a move.
For one, she treated Maria more like a beloved younger sister than a niece., the surname 'Nearl' remained utterly sacred in Zofia's eyes. She wholly refused to tarnish the family's legacy through underhanded political maneuvering.
Margaret lowered her gaze, the weight of her past decisions pressing down on her shoulders. "Maria... I am so sorry. It is entirely my fault that our family was reduced to this."
Her voice was thick with guilt. She had never anticipated that her personal rebellion and subsequent exile would inflict such devastating collateral damage on the people she loved.
"No, it isn't your fault!" Maria countered instantly, her tone fierce and unwavering. "You did absolutely nothing wrong, Sister!"
She grabbed Margaret's hands, squeezing them tight. "Aunt Zofia always says that even if you hadn't done what you did, the Nearl family was already on a path to decline. Neither I nor Uncle Młynar have ever blamed you."
"Uncle..." Margaret murmured, the name stirring up old, complicated emotions. "Where is Uncle Młynar now?"
At the mention of the man, Margaret's memories immediately drifted back to the past. Her lasting impression of him was firmly rooted in his vehement opposition to her participating in the Major.
Młynar Nearl was a man who utterly despised the modern knightly competitions. He held a steadfast, traditional belief that a true knight's honor should never be polluted by corporate sponsorships and commercial greed. Even when she had claimed the championship title, Młynar maintained that she had merely dragged the sacred glory of the Nearl family into a cheap, neon-lit circus act.
Back then, she had been young, naive, and blinded by the roaring crowds. She hadn't seen the rotting, capitalistic underbelly of Kazimierz's arenas. Now, having witnessed the grim reality of the world, she found herself partially agreeing with her uncle's cynical perspective. The Major was a bloated corporate spectacle, completely divorced from the pure, unyielding spirit of true knighthood.
"Oh, right! Uncle is still at work," Maria chirped, pulling Margaret from her thoughts. "He's working as a reporter for a news agency now."
"I'll go call him right now and tell him you're back!"
Without waiting for a response, Maria dashed off to grab the communicator.
Meanwhile, in a sterile, fluorescent-lit office across the city...
"Młynar, look at this abysmal performance! Do you even want to be here? If you keep slacking off like this, you'll be out on the streets!"
"Yes, sir. I understand. I will redouble my efforts."
Standing before his red-faced manager, Młynar Nearl offered a practiced, apologetic smile, nodding submissively as the tirade washed over him.
Only when the boss finally ran out of breath and dismissed him did Młynar turn away. Stepping out of the office, he let out a long, exhausted sigh, his shoulders slumping under the weight of his mundane existence. With his rumpled suit and tired eyes, he looked like nothing more than a thoroughly defeated corporate wage slave.
That was, until his personal communicator began to buzz in his pocket.
"Hmm? Maria?"
A deep frown creased his forehead as he checked the caller ID. He pressed the device to his ear, his jaw already tightening. If she was calling to bring up her foolish desire to participate in the Kazimierz Major again, he had a dozen harsh, uncompromising rejections locked and loaded.
His refusal to let Maria enter the arena wasn't merely born of his disgust for the commercialized bloodsport. It was a desperate need to protect her. The Major had mutated into a meat grinder—a rigged, unfair slaughterhouse where naive dreamers were chewed up and spat out in body bags. Młynar absolutely refused to watch Maria march down the same tragic, destructive path as her older sister, Margaret.
"Uncle Młynar!" Maria's bright voice filtered through the speaker.
"Maria," Młynar interrupted, his tone flat and exhausted. "I strongly advise you not to mention the Major. I just spent the last ten minutes being berated by my manager, and my mood is exceedingly foul."
"Ah... well..." Maria coughed awkwardly. "Uncle, I'm actually not calling about that."
Młynar raised a skeptical eyebrow, his posture relaxing just a fraction. "Then what is it? Are you calling to demand I bring home takeout again?"
"Black-Back Perch Stew, please!" she replied instantly, clearly having anticipated the offer.
"Fine. No problem."
Relieved that he didn't have to have another screaming match about the knightly arenas, Młynar felt his foul mood lift considerably.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Maria hastily added. "That's not the main reason I called!"
Młynar pinched the bridge of his nose. "Then what do you want to say, Maria? I still have a mountain of paperwork on my desk. If I don't get back to it, I'll be fired."
"A-Actually, it's like this..." Maria hesitated for a fraction of a second, taking a deep breath. "Sister Margaret is back."
Crack!
The reinforced casing of the communicator violently splintered under Młynar's sudden, vice-like grip.
In an instant, the exhausted, submissive aura of the corporate wage slave vanished. It was replaced by a suffocating, razor-sharp pressure that cut through the sterile office air like a drawn blade. His golden eyes narrowed, gleaming with a dangerous, dormant intensity.
"Say that again," he commanded, his voice dropping into a deep, gravelly register that brooked no argument.
"Uh, Sister is at home right now..."
Beep!
The call abruptly disconnected, the crushed communicator finally giving out in his hand.
Młynar stared at the broken device, a storm of complex emotions raging behind his stoic facade. "Damn it," he muttered under his breath, tossing the ruined electronics into a nearby bin. "Why now, of all times?"
Elsewhere in the city, Zofia had already caught wind of the brewing storm.
"Ah, it seems little Maria is in quite the predicament," Zofia murmured to herself, having learned of her niece's current struggles through their recent conversations.
The young girl was dead set on participating in the upcoming Kazimierz Major, but that rigid, hopelessly decadent fool Młynar was vehemently blocking her at every turn.
Unlike Młynar, Zofia did not harbor an absolute hatred for the arenas. Or rather, she had pragmatically accepted their existence as an inescapable facet of their nation's culture.
However, she strictly insisted on conducting her duels with honor, in a fair and open manner. Back in her prime, she had fought in the Major as a representative of the Nearl family's collateral branch. Because she stubbornly refused to bow her head to greedy sponsors and manipulative corporations, she had been systematically starved of high-tier supplies and advanced equipment.
As a result, her glorious run had ultimately been halted at the top sixteen. Even when a brutal match—heavily skewed by the massive disparity in their gear—left her with a permanent injury that rendered her left hand useless for combat, she had never once regretted her choices.
So, when Maria first expressed her burning desire to step into the arena, Zofia had chosen to support the girl's decision. She only asked one thing of her niece: to maintain the absolute purity of the duel, no matter how dirty the world around her became.
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