Chapter 68
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
By the time the sun, sinking in the west, was painting the sky with sunset,
Luri began cleaning up after the tea party with the help of spirits.
The water spirits washed the dishes, and the wind spirit dried them.
The desserts Ferda and Valdrova had left untouched disappeared into Luri's mouth one after another.
It was a perfect division of labor.
Except that Ferda still had not gotten up.
“Why did you say something so pointless?”
Ferda asked.
It would be a lie to say there was no emotion in his voice.
Luri gazed at him steadily with a businesslike expression.
“Womanizer.”
Ferda frowned.
“That wasn't womanizing.”
“I merely stated the facts before me. That you held hands with that damned woman.”
“Were you trying to rain on my parade?”
“Rain on your parade? Shouldn't you be thanking me?”
“What?”
What the hell was she talking about?
“If I hadn't said that, would you have held hands with her at all?”
“The hand?”
“Yes, your hand. The hand you were enjoying so much. Whom do you think you have to thank for that?”
What was she talking about now…?
That was what he wanted to think, but when he looked back on what had happened today, he could not.
Ferda had entered the tea party determined to do everything he could not to hurt her.
He had not intended to hold Valdrova's hand today.
‘If she hadn't brought up Olivia,’
he would not have held her hand.
‘If she hadn't told him she hadn't gone hunting today,’
Valdrova would have suffered tonight.
Everything had happened because Luri had said something that could easily be misunderstood.
“Are you saying all of that was part of your plan?”
“Isn't that obvious?”
Luri snorted.
“You are a greedy man, Master. Even the slightest provocation makes you take a step forward. I knew that if I brought up that woman, you would naturally make a move.”
For a brief moment, he had forgotten.
She had managed this castle longer than anyone else and watched over Valdrova.
So she knew Valdrova better than anyone.
Ferda could not help being inwardly astonished.
Had she ever gone this far for him before?
Luri had tried to help him several times as a maid.
But all she had done was help him indirectly, for Valdrova's sake.
This was the first time she had intervened and helped him so directly.
Perhaps that was why she seemed different from usual.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Luri asked under his fixed gaze.
“You just seem a little different from usual.”
“How do I seem different?”
“I'm not sure. Should I call it cute?”
She froze.
“Cute…?”
“If I had to define it, I'd say you're something like a cute little dog-pig.”
“……”
Luri's expression twisted violently.
Ferda knew this feeling well.
The disgust he had sensed when he first met her.
No, this was even stronger than back then.
“If you're going to say pointless things, leave at once. You're getting in the way of my cleaning.”
“Fine.”
Ferda hurriedly tried to leave as well; he did not want to get caught in the crossfire of her irritated voice.
“Lord Ferda.”
Luri called out to him.
With the sunset streaming in at an angle, Luri stood with her back to him, visible in that spot.
She was Luri the child, not the sharp, capable maid.
“Don't worry.”
Ferda beat her to it before she could say anything.
Luri did not say anything either.
She merely gave a small nod.
* * *
Valdrova's lair.
Apart from the thick iron door, it was nothing more than a vast, raw cave on the inside.
A dragoon wearing a red dragon's head entered the cave.
It was Valdrova, the Aspect of Fire and Power.
She had just returned from the tea party.
Valdrova stood in the middle of the cave and slowly lifted her head.
Only then did she finally realize that she was alone.
She pressed the jewel embedded in her chest.
Srrr—.
The interior of the dragoon armor was exposed, and it expelled what had been inside.
What emerged was a woman 160 centimeters tall.
“Hwaaahhh……”
Valdrova panted as though she had escaped from a brutal battlefield.
No, a battlefield would probably have been easier for her.
Even when she had spent six straight hours exterminating monsters, it had not been this exhausting.
It had only lasted about two hours.
All she had done was sit and talk with Ferda.
Yet every moment of it had been overwhelming for Valdrova.
Even while wearing armor this enormous.
Valdrova looked up at the armor and murmured,
“I couldn't take it off today either……”
The armor had been made by the Bronze Dragon for Valdrova, who polymorphed into human form.
Like the terrifying Red Dragon she was, it was large and imposing, and capable of producing a threatening voice.
The intention had been to make her display the dignity of a dragon and ruler.
In practice, however, it served the opposite purpose: a place to hide.
Like a snail's shell.
“What would Mr. Ferda say if he saw me……?”
With a hollow laugh, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror beside her.
Two pairs of horns, golden cat's eyes, and red hair that swayed like it had been spun from rubies.
Few people had ever seen Valdrova like this.
Only Luri and the dragons remembered her face.
As a result, there were few opinions of her polymorphed form.
Luri called it a balanced beauty that concealed outward strength beneath gentleness.
Another dragon simply called her a “softie.”
And the human Ferda……
“Hngh……”
She did not want to think about it.
Whenever she recalled the expression on his face then, her mind went blank.
Her body seemed to float, as though a hundred hands were tickling her.
She had been unable to control the situation in which she no longer felt like herself.
“I want to hear it……”
She wanted to hear him say she was pretty.
She wanted to hear him say she was beautiful.
She wanted to hear those words after showing him her true self, not the armor.
That was why she wore a beautiful dress beneath the armor even when she put it on.
Did Ferda know?
That inside the armor he was looking at was a woman wearing a dress.
That she hid herself in the armor every time because she could not summon the courage to show him.
“And yet you say that……”
Her voice was soaked in embarrassment.
She remembered what Luri had said before the tea party.
-I held hands with Olivia Arken and looked around the White House.
Valdrova understood.
A man like Ferda could certainly hold hands with a beautiful woman, couldn't he?
Yes.
That sort of thing could happen.
“As if it could……”
She had been jealous.
Of course she could not help being jealous.
Her fiancé had held hands with another woman.
The man who was supposed to spend his life with her after they were wed had held hands with another woman.
At the same time as she felt jealous, Valdrova found her own behavior ridiculous.
“Even though I'm the one who ran away every time……”
Ferda had always been waiting.
Valdrova was the one who had hidden because she lacked the courage to show herself.
And yet she had gone and become jealous.
“Idiot.”
She blamed herself.
“What a stupid idiot.”
Even so, a smile formed at the end.
“Still…… I did well in the end.”
She had never imagined that the words “Let's hold hands” would come from her own mouth.
It had been impulsive, but without that impulse, she would never have dared to say it.
“……”
Valdrova stared blankly at her right hand.
The hand Ferda had held.
Ferda's warmth still lingered in that hand.
“It was warm……”
Valdrova felt it clearly.
How warm a heart he possessed.
How capable he was of caring for others.
‘That's why this castle is becoming so lively.’
It had been a year since he entered this castle.
The castle had grown lively, and she heard news of the territory's development as well.
He was accomplishing things Valdrova had never done, and had never been able to do.
What she felt at the sight was admiration.
‘Then I need to change too.’
And stimulation.
Valdrova repeated to herself that she had to do so.
It would be the greatest reward she could give Ferda, who had come to her as her fiancé.
“I'm sleepy……”
Her eyelids were heavy, and her body had grown languid.
On days when her blood ran hot, she could not sleep a wink, but now she had the feeling that she could sleep soundly if she closed her eyes.
She should have turned back into a dragon and gone to sleep, but Valdrova did not dare do so.
She wanted to treasure this warmth he had left behind, this trace of him, just a little longer.
Valdrova lay down where she was.
She curled up on her side like a coiled snake and hugged the warmth in her right hand tightly.
She thought about tomorrow.
Her tomorrows had always been a succession of pain.
She had not wanted to think about them, and whenever those thoughts came, she would go to bed to escape them as quickly as possible.
But today was different.
The tomorrow taking shape in her mind made her feel alive.
What should she do,
How should she do it,
to make Mr. Ferda happy?
Drawing an endless line that never reached a conclusion, she fell asleep.
* * *
In the central region of the continent of Serdes stood a building that seemed to pierce the sky.
It was the tallest building on the continent, a Magic Tower.
Built by the Blue Dragon Iorga, the tower was where all the blue dragon spawns lived and carried out their daily activities.
The building was called the Blue Eye.
Eyes exist to see.
True to its name, the Blue Eye was a network of surveillance created to observe everything beneath the sky.
The hierarchy was determined by the location of one's quarters in the Magic Tower.
The very top floor was the nest of Iorga, the dragon.
The floor directly below belonged to Erika Iorga, the representative of the dragon spawns.
And she……
“It seems the humans are beginning to notice.”
“Not openly, but they are currently pointing out the flaws in the Blue Eye's surveillance magic.”
She felt herself aging faster than ever.
Surrounded by the elders, she was handling proposals and documents.
“How much can the humans estimate through their calculations?”
“There was no accurate data, but at present, they seem to estimate that it has decreased by thirty percent.”
Thirty percent.
It was a figure that could never be overlooked.
“At this rate, they may notice Lord Iorga's absence……”
Iorga, the Blue Dragon.
She was the Aspect of Magic, the possessor of magical power rivaling an absolute being, and in fact responsible for half of the Magic Tower's magical power.
But Iorga was also being consumed by Godwin's darkness.
Even simply living in seclusion without showing herself carried far too much risk.
That was why Iorga had made the unilateral decision to crystallize her own body.
“What will you do?”
The elderly mage elders trailed off as they waited for Erika's answer.
As the leader of the blue dragon spawns, she was calmer than anyone else.
Erika finished reviewing the documents, looked down at the final page, and tossed them onto the desk.
“It is still within the normal range.”
The elders were startled by her words.
“How can thirty percent be within the normal range?”
“In reality, our Magic Tower has lost fifty percent of its magical power. Half of it is gone.”
They were already severely lacking the magical power needed to maintain the Blue Eye's surveillance network.
If they spread it over the same broad area as before, it lacked depth; if they focused on depth, its range became narrower.
“The humans estimating thirty percent means that the substitute is making up for twenty percent.”
That was why they had abandoned the old method and were searching for more flexible substitutes.
They were concentrating the surveillance network on volatile areas and coordinating with adventurers' guilds to cover areas beyond its reach with manpower.
“We need to analyze it further and find a substitute.”
“We cannot rely on adventurers forever. Unless we heal the source, all of this will be pointless.”
“Isn't that why we are going through all this trouble now, to heal the source?”
Erika's eyes sharply glared at the elder.
“If you can come up with a solution right now, I will hold my tongue. Go ahead and propose one.”
“That…… is not possible.”
The elder cowered and lowered his head.
Erika sighed through her nose and gently soothed them.
“I know how anxious you all are. I feel the same way. Our Magic Tower, the Blue Eye, is currently facing an unprecedented crisis. To preserve our reputation as the eye that watches over the continent, we would need to use every bit of magic we have, and even that would not be enough.”
But they could not do that.
“However, if we do, it will become impossible to create Lord Iorga's cure. Since she sensed her condition worsening and entered hibernation, we do not have much time left.”
They were truly lacking everything.
Mana, time, and manpower.
“But we must appear capable of handling the situation with room to spare. Without confidence, this tower we have built with such effort will collapse in an instant.”
The Blue Eye ruled over and surveilled magic.
They had to make it unmistakably clear that magic was firmly within their grasp.
“Understood.”
“I suppose all we can do is trust our leader.”
The elders who had been attending the meeting withdrew.
When the last one had left and the door closed,
“Hooooooh!!”
Erika, whose face had worn the expression of an ironclad leader, let out a sigh like steam escaping from a pressure cooker.
“Fuck……”
What came out of her mouth was a string of profanity.
They said crowns were heavy.
The crown Erika wore felt as though it would one day break her neck.
‘I can't just wipe them all out.’
Dragon spawns had a nature that looked down on other races.
If they had been other dragon spawns, they would have threatened or attacked the humans at once for daring to talk back despite being mere humans, but Iorga's descendants could not bring themselves to do so.
Magic was a tool for rational beings.
Losing their temper was irrational, no different from signaling that their magic was in danger.
Their greatest weapon was composure.
They had to show that nothing was different from usual and that they were confident they could overcome whatever happened.
Thus, as their leader, Erika accumulated only more unspoken troubles.
“Phew……”
Erika rose from her seat.
She felt as though she would explode if she remained still, so she tried to clear her head by gazing lightly down at the scenery.
The rich colors of early autumn were scattered like dots.
The scenery changed with every passing year, but her thoughts were always much the same.
The great mountain in the north.
‘A place inhabited by fools with nothing but blocks of ice in their heads.’
The western plains.
‘The home of religionists stuffed with hypocrisy.’
The southern desert.
‘A playground for extremists who practice self-destruction.’
The black earth in the east.
‘……Ferda Valdrova.’
No, it was a little different from usual.
Normally, she would have thought of it as ‘the graveyard of greedy people slowly rotting away.’
But ever since she had attended the Grand Council, that thought had been overlaid with a human name.
-What will you do in the end?
His words still echoed in her mind.
The final fate of the secret created by Godwin.
“The end……”
She went over the end again and again.
No answer emerged.
Neither an optimistic future nor a pessimistic one
was something she could accept.
No one knew what the future held.
They might be able to predict it, but it was impossible to see through it completely.
“Arrogant bastard……”
Iorga's descendants lived in the present to prepare for the future.
Erika Iorga was no different.
She did not become pessimistic, nor did she become optimistic.
That was the rationality Iorga pursued.
But then.
Whenever she thought of Ferda, those words kept circling in her ears.
They buzzed like a mosquito.
What will you do?
What are you going to do?
What are you going to do, huh?
What can you do?
“Phew……”
Erika sensed that she had reached her limit and raised a finger.
At that moment, a small drop of water condensed at her fingertip.
The drop spread into a curtain and completely enveloped her surroundings in an instant.
“Phew.”
She took a deep breath.
And then,
“So what?!”
she shouted.
“What makes you think you're so great?!”
She stamped the floor and waved her hands wildly.
“I went to all that trouble to crush that proposal and stop those damned ice fools, and what makes you so great, acting all high and mighty on your own?! You're only human! Only human!! What makes you think you're so damn great?!”
If she could not calm down, she would let it all out.
“I don't know! I quit! I'm not doing this! Why do I have to do this!? What does it accomplish!? Everyone keeps blaming me!! Even though they can't do it themselves!”
For several minutes, she shrieked and vented everything pent up inside her.
Knock, knock—.
“Um, Lady Erika?”
Her secretary came looking for her and opened the door.
Erika, who had been screaming as though having a fit, moved hurriedly.
She withdrew the water curtain and sat down.
She returned to looking like the leader she always was.
“What is it?”
The secretary began her report, never imagining that Erika was the woman who had just been rolling around and throwing a hysterical fit.
“I came to report on the investigation records for House Rosnova that you requested. Is now a good time?”
The timing was masterful.
Erika felt guilty for no reason.
“Go ahead.”
“To begin with, there was nothing seriously wrong with House Rosnova itself. It is one of the Empire's knightly houses, a common family that achieved accomplishments remarkable for humans and is barely maintaining its lineage.”
“Are you saying there is nothing wrong with Regent Ferda's family?”
“At least not with House Rosnova.”
She turned to the next page.
“The problem is Anna Rosnova, Regent Ferda's biological mother.”
“What about her?”
“There is not a single piece of information about his biological mother.”
“Not a single piece? Do you mean she was an ordinary commoner or something?”
“No. She does not fit into that category. We may need to investigate more deeply, but it is almost as though……”
The woman hesitated briefly, wondering whether she could say this.
“As though we are chasing a ghost that never existed in the first place?”
“A ghost?”
It was the most irresponsible thing an investigator could say.
But Erika did not overlook it.
They were Iorga's children, and they knew Erika well.
The fact that she had said this meant they had dug extremely deep and found not even a speck of dust.
Erika murmured,
“The reason there are eggs is that there are chickens.”
There was a cause behind every result.
There was a mother because there was a son.
Even dragons, who were gods to them, had creators.
They had dug for information to learn even a little about Ferda, only to be met with an unknown question.
‘Just what kind of man is he?’
Just as she thought that,
a clattering, thundering sound came from the stairs.
A frightened man came running up, an incongruous sight in Iorga's rational tower.
“Th-there's a huge problem!”
“Why are you making such a fuss?”
“Th-that! T-this!”
What he handed her was an image captured through magic.
It showed several dragon spawns recovering a body in a snowy field.
“A silver dragon spawn…… died?”
“Yes.”
That alone was a grave matter.
Every dragon spawn remembered the deaths of those who shared their blood.
Silverwind, famous for having the strongest bonds, would never leave the culprit alone.
If this were all he had brought, she would have assumed that a bloodbath was about to begin somewhere.
She immediately sensed that their urgency meant something else.
“And on the next page……!!”
A group of Silverwinds flying through the sky.
Among them was a dragon spawn with enormous wings.
“The ice fool leader himself……?”
For Goz Silverwind to move personally was not an ordinary matter.
It meant he intended not merely to bring down one individual, but to destroy everything that person possessed.
Why?
Why was he moving personally?
Erika thought.
One person immediately came to mind.
‘No way…….’
It could not be.
That bastard was not that stupid.
He knew perfectly well what his relationship with Silverwind was; there was no way he would do something so insane.
But she needed certainty, so she forced herself to ask the question.
“Who laid a hand on Silverwind's descendant?”
He answered, and her fears became reality.
“Regent Ferda Valdrova!”
The fuse had been lit.