Saving The Monster Race Starts With Breeding The Elf Village

Silence.

The entire clearing fell deathly still.

Not a single centaur spoke.

Not a single breeze stirred.

Even the birds seemed to have abandoned the valley.

Sigrid stopped walking.

For several long seconds, she didn’t move.

Then, ever so slowly, she turned around.

”You want to know why I ignore what you did today?” Sigrid asked softly. ”Fine. Draw your sword and hold it out.”

Mavis blinked through her tears. ”What?”

”Draw it.”

Hesitantly, Mavis raised her custom weapon, bracing her feet.

”Hold it with everything you have.” Sigrid instructed.

Mavis locked her elbows, gripping the hilt with both hands until her knuckles cracked.

Sigrid didn’t utter another word. She drew her broadsword in a fluid arc and brought it down with a thunderous CRACK!

The force of the strike shattered Mavis’s stance instantly. The strange weapon tore free from her grip, flying through the air and landing twenty feet away in the tall grass.

”Pick it up.” Sigrid said quietly.

Mavis’s tail lashes around. ”Big Sis, please, just listen—”

”Pick. It. Up.”

Trembling, Mavis trotted over, retrieved the sword, and stood before her sister once more.

”Now hold it up once more.” Sigrid ordered. ”This time, even stronger. As much strength as you have in that body of yours.”

Mavis’s hands shook as she raised the blade. She gripped it until her muscles screamed, until her joints ached, until every fiber of her being was focused on holding that weapon steady.

It didn’t matter.

Sigrid’s sword flashed down again.

CLANG!

Mavis’s weapon flew off in the opposite direction, landing so far away that it took her a moment to spot it amid the grass.

She then stared at her empty hands, stunned. The vibrations of the impact still echoed through her bones, a cruel reminder of how easily she had been disarmed.

”Pick it up again.”

Mavis’s voice cracked. ”You can’t do this to me—”

Sigrid’s eyes were cold. Unyielding. ”Pick it up.”

Mavis obeyed.

CLANG!

The sword flew again.

CLANG!

And again.

CLANG!

And again.

CLANG!

By the fifth strike, Mavis couldn’t even keep her arms straight.

Her shoulders were shuddering violently from the blunt force reverberating through her bones.

Around them, the centaur warriors shifted uncomfortably, eyeing the display with a mix of pained sympathy and quiet dread, but not a single one dared step between them.

—

At last, Mavis could no longer hold the weapon steady. Her arms trembled so violently that the blade quivered like a leaf in a storm.

Sigrid watched the shaking blade for a long moment. Then she exhaled a deep, weary sigh and sheathed her sword.

”You wanted to know why I conceded that fight?”

”This...This is why.”

She pointed at Mavis’s trembling hands.

”Because you are weak, Mavis. The form you were born with makes you completely unsuited for battle. That is not your fault—but it is the truth.”

Mavis’s tail drooped. Her heart was visibly shattering, piece by piece, but she could find no words to defend herself.

”The only reason you managed anything against the Hero...” Sigrid continued. ”...was because he spent the entire fight defending. Had he chosen to attack—even once, from the very first exchange—you would not have lasted a single breath.”

She shook her head slowly.

”But forget the Hero for a moment. He is someone far beyond your reach. Look at me instead.”

Her gaze locked onto Mavis’s tear-streaked face.

”All I did was bring my sword down against yours. A single, ordinary swing. Nothing special. Nothing that any trained warrior couldn’t do.”

She gestured toward the assembled centaurs.

”If any other knight of the Galloping Brigade had been holding that blade, they would have absorbed the impact without the slightest difficulty. That is what it means to be a knight.”

She shook her head again, and this time there was something like genuine sadness in her eyes.

”But what about you, Mavis?”

Mavis looked down. She couldn’t meet her sister’s gaze. Her body was trembling so violently that she thought she might collapse.

”You couldn’t even handle a single attack without your sword flying away. And if an opponent in a real battle were to do the same—” Sigrid’s voice hardened. ”—how do you expect to last? How do you expect to survive?”

”But—but I have my own ways for that!”

Mavis’s voice was desperate now, clawing for any purchase.

”You never let me train! You never even gave me a chance to—”

”No matter how much you train.” Sigrid cut her off. ”No matter what tricks you devise, it won’t change the fundamental truth that you are simply not suitable for battle, Mavis.”

Mavis’s protest died in her throat.

”There are some people who are meant to be on the battlefield. They go out and return as warriors. And there are others—”

Sigrid’s gaze bore into her sister with terrible finality.

”—who are meant to stay far away from that arena.”

”Of course, they can be talented in many other fields. Brilliant, even. Exceptional in ways that warriors could never match. But when it comes to combat...”

She shook her head.

”They are simply not suited for it. And that person is you.”

Mavis shivered as though struck. The other centaurs looked away, unable to witness the intensity of the moment.

”No matter what you do, no matter what schemes you devise, you won’t be able to change this, Mavis.”

Mavis’s heart shattered.

”So don’t you dare try to think of yourself as a knight. Don’t you dare imagine yourself charging onto a battlefield. Unless...”

Sigrid’s voice dropped to something cold and terrible.

”Unless you want all of us to hold your funeral the next day, mourning your pathetic death.”

The word hit Mavis like a spit on the face.

Pathetic.

She had heard harsh words from her sister before.

She had endured dismissal and disregard and being told she wasn’t good enough.

But pathetic—that word, delivered with such cold finality, broke something inside her that she hadn’t even known was still intact.

The tears she had been fighting finally fell.

They streamed down her cheeks, dripping onto the grass below. She tried to wipe them away. Tried to stay strong.

But she couldn’t anymore.

Thea, watching from the sidelines, let out a heavy sigh. She couldn’t bear to see this any longer.

”Mavis, can you please—”

”I HATE YOU!”

Mavis’s scream cut through the air and her tear-filled eyes burned with fury and anguish as she stared at her sister.

The outburst shocked everyone into stillness. Even Sigrid, who had remained stone-faced throughout, seemed to freeze for just an instant.

”I HATE YOU, BIG SIS! I FREAKING HATE YOU!”

Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop.

”All my life—my ENTIRE life—I’ve been trying to earn your respect! Trying to make you look at me like a warrior! Or at least...at least make you look at me the way you look at everyone else in your brigade!”

She was sobbing now, the words tearing themselves from her throat.

”But you never did that, did you? You always looked down on me. Just because of my stature. Just because I was born small.”

”And even right now—even when I defeated the Hero—I thought I could finally earn your recognition!”

”I thought I could finally hear you praise me! Just once. Just ONE TIME!”

She sneered through her tears, the expression heartbreaking on her young face.

”But did you do that? No. You didn’t do that. Instead, you—”

Her voice broke completely. She couldn’t finish.

She simply screamed. ”I HATE YOU SO MUCH!”

And then she turned and galloped away at full speed, her small pony legs carrying her across the highlands as fast as they could manage.

”Mavis, wait!” Thea called outl.

”Mavis, hold on!” Poppy added. ”Don’t go away like that! Let me talk to your sister—I’ll make her understand!”

The other centaurs joined in, their voices overlapping in desperate pleas.

”Mavis, please don’t go!”

”Come on! You know your sister is doing this for your own good!”

”She loves you very much!”

But Mavis didn’t care.

She just kept running, wiping her tears with her sleeve as though she couldn’t bear to stay in that place for even one more second.

—

Luca had gotten front-row seats to the unfolding drama.

And he found himself utterly at a loss for words.

’What a mess.’

He hadn’t said a word, and for good reason—he was an outsider, a foreign Hero who had dropped into their territorial disputes five minutes ago.

Interfering in a deep-seated sibling dynamic would have been foolish, especially when he didn’t know the history.

But part of him could understand Sigrid’s perspective.

She was a hardened commander, rigid, traditional, carrying the heavy responsibility of keeping her people alive.

To her, fighting wasn’t a game of clever tricks; it was a harsh, unforgiving reality where breaking protocol meant death.

’But damn.’ He thought, watching the distant dust cloud where Mavis had disappeared. ’Did she have to grind the girl’s soul into powder?’

This was especially strange since Sigrid had demonstrated genuine understanding earlier.

Even after everything that had happened, she had analyzed the situation and concluded that Luca wasn’t at fault.

She had even managed to forgive him for the disgrace he had brought upon her brigade.

Despite her strong adherence to tradition, she didn’t seem unreasonable.

But what he had just witnessed was definitely unreasonable.

She had kept shutting down her sister, over and over again, refusing to let Mavis speak no matter how much she tried to explain herself.

What made it even worse was that Sigrid could have simply accepted the victory and spared herself the punishment that awaited her.

No one would have questioned it.

Yet despite knowing full well that speaking up would only bring disgrace upon herself, she chose to do so anyway.

She would rather endure humiliation than accept a victory she believed she had not truly earned, showing just how strongly Sigrid opposed the outcome.

Luca truly didn’t understand what was going on. So he decided to remain silent for now.

But he couldn’t help the pity that welled up inside him.

Mavis had fought a good battle.

And now she was crying and running off into the distance, alone.

He let out a heavy sigh.

—

Sigrid, on the other hand, didn’t react much.

She stood where she was, her expression unchanged, watching the spot where her sister had disappeared over the horizon. It was almost as if she didn’t really care for her sister’s plight.

But if one looked closely, there was a heaviness in her eyes.

A weight that seemed to press down on her soul like she was doing something that she honestly didn’t want to do, but had no choice for the greater good.

Nonetheless, she quickly composed herself, masterfully hiding the crack in her armor, before slowly turning toward Luca.

”Since you won this battle, Hero, It means that I must face the consequences.”

A hint of fluster came onto her cheeks, coloring her usually stoic features.

She looked away, unable to meet his gaze, her ears twitching with nervous energy.

”It means...”

She hesitated, swallowing the last of her pride before forcing the words out.

”...you can treat my as your steed and ride me as you like.”