All I Have to Do Is Feel It Again

There is a tale about a blind man and an elephant.

In short, three blind men are each asked to touch a particular part of an elephant and describe what an elephant is like, but all three give different answers.

The lesson of that story is that one cannot judge the whole by a part.

Yet there are some things so clear that one can grasp the whole after seeing only a part.

In Ferda’s case, at this very moment, it was Valdrowa’s beauty he was seeing.

All he could see were her chin and lips.

Her jawline, clean and clear as porcelain, stole Ferda’s gaze.

The lips resting above it were red and glossy, like an apple covered in morning dew.

Even from just the lower half of her face, Ferda could tell.

The person who would become his partner was a woman.

And that she was an unparalleled beauty he had never seen before.

As that information flowed into him, Ferda did not know what emotion he was feeling.

That was why he merely stared at her lips.

Valdrowa’s engagement wine flowed between her lips.

It slowly trickled through the narrow gap and finally emptied the cup.

At that moment, Ferda sensed something changing inside his body.

The fear of dragons engraved within Ferda’s body was disappearing.

“A mortal shall escape the unknown and become one by washing away fear.”

It was exactly as Luri had said.

His primal fear of dragons was fading away.

‘She really did make extensive preparations for ordinary humans.’

The heart of this engagement ceremony was allowing the two of them to face each other.

That was why Ferda could feel it once more.

The anticipation she had hoped for, and the pain she had felt when that hope was dashed.

As Ferda gazed at her intently, the dragon-head-shaped helmet shifted slightly toward him.

The eye slit glanced this way, then quickly turned away.

‘I stared too much.’

Ferda turned his head away and stood still.

“Next, we will read the vows to each other.”

Luri handed the baton to Ferda with a face that looked as though she could not be more displeased.

Valdrowa waited silently with her head bowed.

Ferda slowly exhaled, turning the tremor in his vocal cords into a clear voice.

“You do not know me well.”

Ferda had spent a day writing that sentence.

That was how difficult he found the opening phrase for expressing his feelings.

“But I know you.”

And so the answer he came up with was—

“You gave me your heart. Through your heart, I caught glimpses of you and learned.”

To express everything he felt to her with sincerity.

“I saw how you were betrayed and slandered countless times. They hated you again and again.”

Clink.

The armor flinched each time Ferda recited a vow.

“Yet you fulfilled your duty with dignity. You never turned your back on what you wished to love, and loved it to the very end. That nobility of yours set me right.”

He thought that was the best choice.

“Therefore, I swear this vow here. Just as you gave me your heart, this time I will offer you mine. My king, my everything.”

That was the end of what was written in Ferda’s vows.

“I did not write this in the vows, but…….”

Yet Ferda’s words did not end there.

He raised his head and looked at Valdrowa.

When his eyes met those of the dragon’s head, he lowered his head deeply.

Clink-clink.

She was fidgeting with her hands politely clasped together inside the armor.

“It is such an honor to be engaged to a beauty like you.”

The iron helmet bobbed violently.

Luri looked at Ferda with an expressionless face.

Her hands and feet, however, had curled so far they were practically twisting.

“Now, the bride-to-be’s vows—”

Luri’s words were cut off.

Valdrowa’s hand had signaled her to stop.

“What is the matter?”

-…….

Valdrowa did not answer.

Instead, she turned around and began walking away.

Ferda quietly watched her, wondering whether she was preparing something.

And so Valdrowa returned to her lair,

Thump—.

and simply shut the door.

“…….”

“…….”

Valdrowa had gone straight back without reading her vows.

Ferda and Luri stared at the firmly closed door.

“……The engagement ceremony has been completed.”

The ceremony ended just like that.

Valdrowa had not read her vows, but they had done everything necessary, so there was no need to dwell on it.

“Then let us return now.”

Luri called out to Ferda.

But no answer came.

After the situation had ended so one-sidedly, he merely gazed at the iron door with a solemn expression.

“Lord Ferda?”

Luri asked him again.

Ferda, who had been thinking deeply as though possessed by something, opened his mouth again.

“I wonder if I might withdraw from the world for about three days?”

“Withdraw from the world?”

“It means exactly what it says: I intend to spend time alone without eating or drinking. It means I do not want to be disturbed.”

A declaration that he would shut himself in his room and abstain entirely from food and drink.

That was how it sounded to Luri.

‘It seems the shock was quite considerable.’

Reading vows to each other.

Yet he had been the only one to read his, while the other party had gone inside the iron door.

So Ferda must certainly have been embarrassed.

“I understand.”

A crescent-shaped smile at the corner of Luri’s mouth refused to fade.

* * *

“As expected of you, Master. With this, the initiative has passed to you.”

Luri entered Valdrowa’s lair and applauded her.

Valdrowa had returned to her dragon form.

Coiled up, she had buried her head beneath one of her wings.

Valdrowa had kept ruining the engagement ceremony, but this decisive action held great significance for Luri.

“I never imagined it would be such a strategy. A one-sided hit-and-run, I mean.”

-…….

“You made him read such painfully embarrassing words aloud, humiliated him, and then ended things unilaterally. His momentum must have been completely broken.”

-…….

“……But it seems that was not your intention.”

Luri’s expression, which had been genuinely delighted, gradually turned blank in response to Valdrowa’s silence.

Valdrowa, who had hidden her face beneath her wing, raised her head.

-I…… wanted to read my vows too. As the one welcoming a partner…….

“……I think I understand.”

Luri turned her eyes toward the place she had deliberately been avoiding.

There were signs that Valdrowa had prepared no less thoroughly.

Luri knew how many sheets of paper Ferda had crumpled and thrown away to write his vows.

‘Ten sheets.’

And what that produced was one page of vows.

Not too much, just the right amount.

But the vows Valdrowa had written were—

‘Twenty whole pages.’

They filled twenty pages, packed densely on both sides.

The amount of paper sacrificed to write them exceeded three books’ worth.

Pure girlish sentiment utterly unlike the infamous Grand Duke.

It was just the sort of thing that would be terribly awkward if anyone other than her fiancé saw it.

But Luri had been Valdrowa’s attendant for hundreds of years.

This was only worth a single sigh.

“If you liked him that much, why didn’t you do it when it actually began?”

-That……

Valdrowa’s lips moved.

-I couldn’t look at him.

Luri tilted her head.

“What do you mean, you couldn’t look at him?”

-I couldn’t face those eyes…… and I lacked the confidence to speak.

She was uttering the lines of a shy girl in the face and voice of a fearsome dragon.

-His gray hair, those sharp eyes that seemed to see right through me, and his gentle voice…….

“…….”

-When I looked at them, my mind went completely blank…… and I couldn’t do anything.

“……This Luri’s mind is going blank too.”

-Do you understand how I feel as well?

Luri wanted to pierce her eardrums and vomit blood on the spot.

“Anyway.”

Fearing she might scold her again if she heard any more, Luri changed the subject.

“From now on, your husband-to-be will begin serving as the lady of the house. He will manage this castle and its subordinate territories.”

-That…… is something I am well aware of too.

“And when humans gain power, they begin to change.”

-…….

Power.

Even Valdrowa, who had been excited by those words, grew calm along with Luri.

The Third Prince.

The Third Prince, who had died by her own hand, still tormented her.

Though it had happened decades ago, to one who had lived through eternity, it felt like yesterday.

“That is what it means for mortals to live as time carries them along. Always be prepared to be disappointed. My master, my great ruler.”

-I understand…….

Valdrowa’s gaze turned toward a distant place as she sank into deep thought.

The innocent girl who had faced a human returned to being an immortal.

Even Luri did not particularly enjoy throwing cold water on a joyous day.

‘But it is necessary.’

Just as even a war hero passing beneath a triumphal arch must realize that he is nothing more than a human,

she also had to know that what she cherished and loved was destined to become corrupted or disappear someday.

That was the best advice Luri, a dragon spawn and Valdrowa’s loyal subject, could give.

* * *

Ferda entered seclusion immediately after the engagement ceremony ended.

Unlike Luri, who thought he had shut himself in his room out of shame and shock, Ferda needed time alone.

‘This feeling I had while looking at her.’

When Ferda had been writing the vows, he had simply written them down as his thoughts dictated.

But when he actually spoke them aloud, Ferda felt something that had been sinking to the bottom of the water rise up.

So much so that in the end he even added an unnecessary postscript not included in the vows.

‘Why did I do that?’

Ferda knew.

He knew that saying such things would surely fluster her.

And that it might ruin the ceremony.

‘But I had to.’

It was founded on an irrational impulse.

An impulse telling him that if he did not say it now, it might be too late, and Ferda had been led by it.

In the end, he had flustered Valdrowa, and the engagement ceremony had not gone as planned.

‘Why?’

Ferda closed his eyes with that question in mind.

He revisited his five senses, dredging up what he had seen and the feelings he had experienced then.

Ferda repeated it to himself dozens of times so he would not reach the wrong conclusion.

At last, he arrived at a conclusion.

‘It was that moment after all.’

The sight of her he had glimpsed for a moment as she drank the engagement wine had left Ferda dazed.

The emotion of that moment had briefly made him no longer himself.

Not Ferda the Archmage, but simply a man—Ferda.

‘But what should I call this?’

To find out, Ferda recalled only that point when his emotions had reached their peak.

He repeated it over and over, seeking only that answer.

At that moment, Ferda felt something stir.

It felt as though something was spinning violently inside the circle he had already formed below his lower abdomen.

The more that driving force grew, the hotter his chest became.

‘The Red Circle is moving.’

It was a current rushing so swiftly he could not control it.

At the same time, it was a turbulent torrent rough enough to devour him.

‘This could be dangerous…….’

Instead of searching for the answer, Ferda focused on the sensation.

He had two choices.

Distract himself and calm the Red Circle’s movement.

Or focus on that emotion and make it even more turbulent.

‘Calming it is the best option.’

Agitating it was a dangerous choice no different from pressing a knife to his throat.

The same was true even for Ferda, who had been an Archmage.

‘But to forge the dignity befitting Grand Duke Valdrowa…….’

He had to risk danger and take an adventure.

That was the resolve of Ferda, who had set foot in Valdrowa’s territory.

‘Let’s do it.’

Ferda concentrated his mind on a single point.

Creating a second circle was similar to creating the first.

But there was no longer the vague difficulty he had faced when creating the first circle, so it could be described more easily.

‘The problem is that I don’t have enough mana to build it up that much.’

Breaking through a Circle was like breaking an egg.

To enter a new world, one had to break one’s own shell and prove it.

What was needed for that was a hard beak and strength.

Mana and mental power played those roles.

Ferda had both conditions in place.

‘First, I need to concentrate…….’

Ferda closed his eyes and assumed a posture.

He let his consciousness fall deep inside, down below.

At the same time, his five senses faded.

The sound of his heartbeat and even the passage of time felt through his skin disappeared.

At last, nothing remained that could disturb Ferda.

All that remained was his complete consciousness.

Ferda drew a line in his mind.

That line became his guide, and the roiling mana moved along it.

It naturally guided the mana to a new place without going against its temper.

A stream formed from a great river grew larger and larger, eventually becoming the shell of a new circle.

‘I overlay it like this.’

Another circle wrapped around the one he had made.

As he slowly shaped it, the form of the Circle became distinct.

After focusing solely on shaping it for forty-eight long hours, Ferda completed it perfectly.

Two circles revolved within Ferda’s lower abdomen.

Ferda had become a Second Circle mage, a Spell Blower.

“Hmm…….”

Though he had become a Second Circle mage in only a few days, Ferda was not satisfied.

‘The emotion has been assimilated.’

A new path had opened and he had become a Second Circle mage, but Ferda’s emotion had been assimilated.

That tingling emotion had become part of Ferda, and the excitement he felt when recalling that memory had disappeared along with it.

‘That is the drawback of the Red Circle.’

It demands greater and greater stimulation, and stagnates when the stimulation disappears.

Thus, one must either become a monster consumed by emotion or become something that never quite amounts to anything.

‘All I have to do is feel it again.’

Though he regretted not having discovered the answer, he felt no impatience.

The moment he faced her again, this emotion would swell up once more.

He was certain of it.

Ferda smiled.

* * *

“I expected as much when you said you were going to shut yourself away, but…… have you become a Second Circle mage in the meantime?”

“That is what happened.”

A mage who had reached the Second Circle within three days.

He had been here for only a little over a month, yet he had gone from an ordinary person to a Second Circle mage in an instant.

‘An abnormally rapid rate of growth.’

Though he was only a Second Circle mage, his growth alone was awe-inspiring.

“So is this where I will work now?”

“Yes. Though you only have authority as an acting official.”

The place where Ferda and Luri stood was the Grand Duke’s office.

It was decorated with brown aged wood and optimized in every way for administrative work, while at the same time exuding even the dignity of its occupant.

When Ferda first set foot there, he had almost mistaken it for a place where a king would certainly be waiting.

Ferda, savoring the atmosphere, asked Luri,

“So now that I am officially her fiancé, what am I supposed to do?”

“As I mentioned earlier, appoint people of talent. Now that the Grand Duke is beginning to act, we need to fill those positions.”

“Yes, I heard that. But can I decide that arbitrarily?”

“Of course not, Lord Ferda.”

Luri picked up what had been placed on the table and held it up as she spoke.

“But this can.”

It was the Grand Duke Valdrowa’s seal.

The seal held authority virtually equal to that of its owner.

There was a reason people said one should treat a royal seal as though it were the king himself.

“Appointing people of talent…….”

If he were told to choose someone right now, most people would ask for time.

At the very least, it would be best to take two days to consider it carefully.

“……Yes, there is someone.”

Yet Ferda’s pen moved without hesitation.