"At that time, the then young master of the Schmidt family had found a ship aground on the north coast of the Kingdom of the End."
"In fact, the late young master had witnessed the moment when the ship had run aground off the coast of that place while a battle was taking place near him."
"With the report distributed by the headquarters, I discovered that the young master had seen a battle of several Spiritual Kings and beasts that he had never seen before. But not only were those beasts unique, but they were also powerful, and there were even several in the 6th stage of cultivation!" Barbara said while she had a melancholy look on her face.
After the young master of the Schmidt family had reported on that event, a group had been dispatched from the headquarters to bring the surviving beasts into their territories.
And Barbara was in that group!
Because of this, she felt even worse for all that had happened to the power that had nurtured her.
In the action that resulted at the end of that family, Barbara had actively acted...
Obviously, she wasn't to blame for what had happened. After all, she was just following orders. However, for someone like her, feeling guilty didn't feel wrong. They had made a crucial mistake, and she had corroborated it!
As he listened to this, Minos avoided showing his surprise to everyone there. 'Was this the ship Emlyn had been brought to the Central Continent? By the time Barbara said this happened, this event had taken place at about the same time as Kyla's mother's escape...'
She then continued to speak. "After the young master watched that battle for a while, he had immediately reported everything he had discovered to the family. After that, it wasn't long before we were sent out to find those beasts."
"From what was passed on to us, the family intended to give refuge to those spiritual beasts that survived. As a mid-sized power, the Schmidt family has always been on the lookout for possibilities to increase our numbers, and this seemed like a great chance for us."
"And even though the stronger beasts had died during the previous fight that had taken place, some of the weaker ones had managed to flee. Anyway, when we looked for them, it was not difficult to track down most of them, as some were wounded from the fight. And, at the same time, they didn't know the territory they were in."
"It was at this point that we made the mistake that later led to the destruction of the Schmidt family!" Barbara said with tears in her eyes as she remembered some scenes she had witnessed.
Meanwhile, the four people around her were paying close attention to her, at this moment, when she finally continued, after pausing for a moment. "Eventually, we were able to gather 13 beasts from the 5th stage of cultivation, mostly from different races."
"Everything was fine with us. After all, the elders had managed to make a deal with those beasts for their cooperation. In exchange for momentary protection, at least until they reached the 6th stage of cultivation, those beasts had agreed to work for the family for a thousand years!"
"Many of them were on the verge of death when they were saved, and that's why it wasn't so difficult for us to reach this agreement." She said in a deep voice.
But that was just what Barbara and the members of that family thought. As high-potential spiritual beasts, all those specimens that had been refugees by the Schmidt family could live much longer than just a thousand years. Some could even live as long as human Gods if they reached their full potential!
So, in exchange for help at a crucial time, those beasts wouldn't mind helping the Schmidt family for just a thousand years.
"The family was in a party mood. After all, this was an agreement that in less than a century could result in several spiritual beasts from the 6th stage of cultivation! With that alone, we could elevate our position in the kingdom and become a first-rate family!"
"Even getting higher-level territory in the Kingdom of the End would not be beyond our means."
And upon hearing that, Abby nodded her head in agreement, sensing that the Schmidt family had just made the obvious under the circumstances. This friend of Minos understood perfectly this action narrated by Barbara. After all, even though the power behind her was already one of the strongest in the Brown Kingdom, her own family was still trying to improve.
And this could be seen in the dispute that had taken place about eight years ago when King Brown had made the Red Valley available shortly after Albert's death.
The Millers had naturally joined the Silva family and tried to get that region left by the Red family.
Finally, influential organizations continued to seek more and more powers, especially those that had not yet reached the top echelon of regional power.
'The more you have, the more you want.' That was a true maxim for the attitude of noble families towards power!
'If that was the cause of the Schmidt family's downfall, then they truly had a lot of bad luck. Any other power in the region would try to do the same, even my family!' So, Abby thought to herself as she felt a slight chill down her spine.
Based on what she knew about her own family, Abby had no doubt that the power she belonged to could have fallen in the Schmidt family's place if it had known about such a situation!
'Ahh, sometimes being ignorant is a blessing in disguise...' She thought as she watched the woman in front of her, who at the moment had reddened eyes and continued to tell her story.
"After a few weeks with those beasts at our headquarters, we were finally tracked down by the human survivors of that battle that the young master had witnessed. At that time, three Spiritual Kings had come to demand that we deliver the surviving beasts to them. Otherwise, we would be destroyed."
And obviously, the Schmidt family hadn't caved into the 'absurd' demands of those three pirates. After all, as powerful as they were, with two at level 54 and one at level 55, that was still something that our family could handle!
The organization that Barbara came from had 17 Spiritual Kings, 5 of which were already above the level of those people. Because of that, they had refused without giving it much thought.
That was indeed an extraordinary force for mere pirates. Still, it was far to make a mid-sized noble power fear them!
Not only that, but as pirates, those individuals received no support from any of the regional noble families and were simply 'autonomous.' With this, without a background that the Schmidt family recognized or feared supporting those individuals, there was no room for negotiation!
"Obviously, the elders expelled those three from our headquarters, telling them never to return to our territory. And in the short term, that seemed to have worked. We weren't bothered with this matter for several months, and the threat of those three pirates had even been forgotten."
She then stopped for a moment, letting out a deep sigh of regret, and then continued. "But that was just the calm before the storm. In the months when we thought the problem had been overcome, those three individuals were going behind the scenes, manipulating other competing powers of the Schmidt family."
That hadn't been hard to do. After all, there were several families the size of House Schmidt in the Kingdom of the End, and many of them would be delighted to reap the benefits of that power's demise.
These organizations were already competitors and disputed each territory and resource that appeared. With this, when they saw that they had the chance to eliminate the Schmidts, due to the help of the three pirates, some families in that place had started to plot against the power behind Barbara!
"Anyway, when we found out about it, it was too late. We were decisively attacked by three noble families from the Kingdom of the End and those three pirates from before. After the first battle took place, within a short time, all the specialists in our family had been killed, and the survivors had started to flee."
"And that was my case. While I was fleeing with a group of survivors, we were surrounded by members of the Hargraves family. They slaughtered our group's nobles and sold the subordinates to pirate groups, like the one I was sold to." She finished speaking while using a handkerchief to wipe some of the tears from her face.
