SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 360: Chapter 360: Cracks in the Snow

Valttair moved ahead of him and did not look back.

His steps carried him cleanly down the corridor, posture straight, presence already returning to the gravity of the hall they had left behind. By the time Trafalgar slowed, Valttair was gone—swallowed by distance and stone, as if the conversation had already been filed away as complete.

Trafalgar stopped.

He stood before one of the tall windows lining the corridor, the glass stretching from waist to ceiling, revealing nothing but white. Snow fell endlessly beyond it, soft and steady, drifting over mountains so high their peaks vanished into cloud and mist. The world outside the castle felt unreal from this height, distant and muted, like something happening somewhere else.

He exhaled slowly.

’Honestly... I have zero desire to go back in there.’

The thought came without anger. Just fatigue.

He could already picture it—the looks, the half-smiles, the thinly veiled remarks. The forced conversations. The choice between responding and pretending not to hear. Between engaging and making himself smaller by ignoring it all. He knew how it would go, because it always did.

Only this time, it was different.

They weren’t laughing anymore.

What waited for him in that hall wasn’t mockery or open contempt. It was attention. Sharp, focused, calculating. The kind that followed him now because he mattered. Because he had become something they could no longer dismiss.

That realization weighed more than the insults ever had.

His gaze drifted back to the snow, to the mountains buried beneath it.

’I wonder how tall they really are,’ he thought. ’These mountains.’

It was a pointless question, and he knew it. A distraction. Watching the snow fall was easier than stepping back into a room filled with expectations and restrained hostility.

For a moment, he considered staying there longer.

Then he straightened.

Avoiding it wouldn’t change anything. The discussions, the looks, the provocations—they would come whether he faced them now or later. And delaying only meant giving them space to decide the tone of the next encounter without him present.

He turned away from the window and resumed walking toward the hall.

The snow continued to fall behind him, silent and indifferent, as Trafalgar moved forward.

The corridor narrowed as he approached the entrance to the hall.

The light dimmed, not fully dark, but muted enough that shadows gathered along the walls and corners. It was the kind of half-light the castle favored, where stone swallowed sound and distance became deceptive.

Trafalgar noticed the presence before he consciously registered it.

A figure leaned against the wall near the doorway, posture relaxed, deliberately casual. Partially obscured by shadow.

He saw her clearly anyway.

His eyes cut through the darkness without effort, the enhancement of his Primordial Body sharpening detail where others would have seen nothing but vague shape and movement.

Platinum-blond hair.

Cyan-blue eyes.

Rivena.

His steps didn’t slow, but something inside him tightened all the same.

’What a pain in the ass.’

The thought came dry and automatic, stripped of surprise. Of course it was her. It always was. Whenever he was present, Rivena found a way to insert herself into his path. To test. To provoke. To play.

The word made his stomach turn.

She liked this. Liked pressing at old scars, seeing what still reacted, what still flinched. And now that he’d become the center of attention, now that the family’s gaze had sharpened around him, her interest had only grown.

Trafalgar didn’t look at her.

He adjusted his course just enough to pass by without acknowledgment, gaze fixed forward, intent on the hall beyond.

He was already past her when he heard it.

”Tch.”

The sound was quiet, irritated. The click of a tongue against teeth.

The air shifted.

Mana condensed behind him with a familiar, sickening pressure.

Metal sang as it formed.

A curved blade materialized in Rivena’s hand, its edge catching what little light reached the corridor. In a single smooth motion, she raised it and set it just beneath Trafalgar’s jaw—close enough that the cold of the steel brushed his skin.

He didn’t turn. His gaze stayed forward, posture unchanged, as if there were nothing at his throat at all.

”Are you going to lower it?” he asked.

His voice was flat. Cold. Almost bored.

The question made Rivena pause.

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she studied him, eyes narrowing slightly as she took him in from behind—his stance, his breathing, the complete absence of tension she expected to feel.

No flinch.

No hesitation.

No fear.

Something in her expression shifted.

The old reactions weren’t there.

The memory she liked to press against—the freeze, the shallow breaths, the silence—none of it surfaced. Whatever leverage she’d once held had slipped through her fingers without her noticing when.

For a heartbeat, she simply watched him.

Then her lips curved upward. Slowly.

A smile crept across her face, pleased and hungry. She lifted the blade a fraction higher, then dragged her tongue along its edge, savoring the taste of cold metal as if the act itself amused her.

So that’s it, her eyes seemed to say. So you think you’re whole now.

Good.

She lowered the sword.

Not all the way. Not withdrawing it. Just enough to break the threat without ending the moment.

”Where are you going in such a hurry, dear little brother?” she asked softly. ”It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.” Her tone dipped, intimate and wrong. ”You don’t even greet your sister properly anymore. Haven’t they taught you manners?”

She leaned closer, close enough that her presence pressed into his space.

”If you want,” she murmured, ”I could teach you again.”

Trafalgar stopped.

Not because of the blade.

Because of her.

He turned his head just enough to look at her—really look at her—and the expression on his face made something flicker in her eyes.

Disgust.

Unfiltered.

Undiluted.

”Get lost, Rivena,” he said. Nothing more. No raised voice. No threat. Just rejection.

For the first time, her smile faltered.

Just a little.