Chapter 10
The Dragon’s Breath
The promised month had nearly passed.
Three days remained until his engagement ceremony with the Dread Queen.
With a face full of displeasure, Luri pointed at a sheet of paper and a pen.
“Please write a page containing the vows that will be used during the engagement ceremony.”
“Is there not a standard format for such things?”
“There is, of course, but…”
At that moment, Luri’s throat bobbed.
She forcibly swallowed the sigh that threatened to emerge in place of a breath attack.
“Her Majesty says that since it will be a private engagement ceremony, she wishes to proceed without unnecessary formalities.”
“And?”
Ferda calmly nodded upon hearing that.
“What a romantic.”
“Calling her a romantic is putting it nicely. This is worse than getting married in a stable. Writing the vows yourselves…”
Luri continued grumbling.
In the end, she could no longer contain what had been building inside her small chest.
“Haaaaah…”
It was a breath attack.
A hollow breath sank toward the floor as though it might bore straight through it.
‘An engagement to a human, yet she insists on a private ceremony and even has them write their own vows…’
Even a spawn born to obey a dragon could not help accumulating resentment.
Thus, it was understandable that Luri would sigh like that.
“…”
Had Luri valued her own feelings above all else, Ferda would not have been standing here now.
She could easily have interfered.
But Luri had not resorted to such petty methods.
‘If anything, she has helped me.’
Ferda could sense her complicated feelings.
She wanted the engagement to fail, yet at the same time, she wished for Valdrova’s happiness.
“…”
It was truly unfortunate.
Ferda decided to grant her a brief look of sympathy.
“What is with that look?”
“I was merely thinking how pitiful you are.”
Luri’s face twisted at his sincere sympathy.
“I do not wish to hear such words from a human like you.”
“What will happen after the engagement?”
“Things will probably not be much different from how they are now.”
“Of course. That was not why I asked.”
“Even so, should you ask me to hit you, I will do so without hesitation.”
“I will decline.”
“There is no need to worry. Strength is the one thing I am confident in. I can control it well too.”
“None of that is necessary.”
Luri raised her tiny fist.
That adorable little fist had shattered a bed and broken through the floor beneath it.
Ferda did not feel like making such a request, even as a joke.
“In any case, once the engagement proceeds, you will have to bring servants into the castle. You must also appoint officials to help govern the territory.”
“Servants and officials? Must I do that myself?”
“Yes.”
Ferda found her answer puzzling.
“You seemed not to like those who sought power. Yet now you are telling me to seize it?”
“I do not hate humans who hold power. I hate humans blinded by it.”
The third prince of the Arken Empire had been blinded by power and had ultimately been unable to escape death.
“Power should naturally be held by those who have little interest in it. Those who do not desire even greater power—”
Ferda tilted his head.
“Is this about the welfare of the people?”
“As you must have noticed after seeing the current lords, the situation is a complete disaster.”
Ferda recalled the lords who had gathered at the assembly.
Their fat, hopelessly sluggish bodies.
The way they trembled in terror that their heads might be severed made them resemble pigs trapped inside a slaughterhouse.
“Those who should serve as the pillars of the land are all too busy filling their own bellies. They visit brothels and gorge themselves on expensive food, claiming that because they stand on the front line, they never know when they might die. The people living along the foremost border—”
“I did not know.”
The people’s welfare.
Hearing that phrase caused Ferda to wonder about something.
“Does the Dread Queen Valdrova not wish for humans to be happy?”
“She does.”
“If she stepped forward and said a single word, would that not put an end to nearly all of this?”
“It probably would.”
“Then why has she not done so?”
“…”
Luri fell silent.
Her expression turned cold, and dragon fear poured uncontrollably from her body.
She resembled a dragon whose reverse scale had been touched.
“For now, I will remain silent on that matter. You will learn enough about it later regardless.”
Ferda decided to take a step back.
“Very well. Then all I need to do is write the vows?”
“Yes. Please excuse me.”
Luri bowed and left through the door.
Haaaaah…
The sound of her sigh crawled across the floor and reached Ferda’s ears.
Recalling what she had said, Ferda picked up the pen.
‘Vows…’
They said beginning was half the battle, yet Ferda found himself stuck on the very first line.
Should he have asked her exactly how such vows were supposed to be written?
That would have made things easier.
‘Perhaps I should put it off until later.’
Instead of writing the vows, Ferda decided to compose several letters.
He had once told the lords,
—I do not care in the slightest what any of you do.
But now the time had come when he would have to care considerably more than that.
That was the problem.
‘I told them I had no interest in them. If I start interfering now, they will resist.’
Ferda was aware that the first impression he had left was not a good one.
Now that he would be contradicting his earlier words, their impression of him would only worsen.
With no other choice, he decided to send each lord a letter.
The letters stated that he might interfere in their internal affairs from time to time.
At the end, he added the following sentence:
—Should this displease you, do not reply. I respect your wishes.
Every single lord sent back a response that very same day.
The day of the engagement ceremony arrived.
Ferda had demonstrated his abilities while also proving that there had not been the slightest falsehood in his words.
With nothing left to criticize, Luri quietly accepted the engagement ceremony.
“Your epaulet is crooked. And after I went to all the trouble of starching your clothes, how could you wrinkle your trousers?”
Instead, she began the day by finding fault with every little thing.
“It would be quite convenient if I had hands and eyes where you are standing.”
“Why not obtain a pair?”
Luri took a step back.
She quickly hid both hands behind her.
“I do not wish to touch you. Do it yourself.”
“Hmm. You truly are like a dog.”
“Would you like to fight me? You need only say the word.”
“No. I merely meant that you are loyal.”
Luri growled, but Ferda endured her constant complaints and corrected each issue she pointed out.
‘An engagement ceremony…’
It did not feel real.
When a man married, he usually experienced one of two emotions.
The joy of getting married.
Or the sorrow of being sold away.
Ferda felt neither.
‘I have been like this ever since returning to this day.’
His heart was unnaturally still for someone who possessed a Red Circle.
‘Am I going through with this engagement merely because I believe it is something I must do?’
He wondered whether this was nothing more than a mechanical act performed out of duty.
His overwhelming rage and hatred had disappeared, but all his other emotions had faded along with them.
‘Is it right for me to face Valdrova with a heart like this?’
A vague unease lingered in one corner of his chest.
‘A vague sense of unease…’
Ferda smiled faintly.
Uncertainty was a human weakness.
‘No matter what else may be true, I am still human.’
For now, that was all that mattered.
Ferda decided to focus only on that fact.
The engagement ceremony was held before the entrance to Valdrova’s lair.
Hundreds of bundles of candles illuminated the interior. They decided to conduct the ceremony only twenty paces from the iron door behind which Valdrova remained.
Once everything was prepared, Luri knocked on the door.
“My Lady, we will now begin the ceremony.”
The enormous iron door cautiously opened.
Air escaped through the gap, mixed with the air outside, and flowed into Ferda’s nose and mouth.
“Urgh.”
His breath constricted.
There was none of the murderous intent he felt when facing a monster, yet the air alone carried an overwhelming sense of fear.
Had Ferda been even slightly weaker, he might have lost consciousness on the spot.
Luri examined his condition and said,
“You must endure it.”
“I… know.”
“Then we will begin the engagement ceremony.”
Ignoring Ferda’s condition, Luri began carrying out the proper procedures.
They had already discussed that this would happen, so Ferda straightened his posture and focused on regulating his breathing.
“Let the thread be joined.”
Luri placed the bowl and drinking table she had prepared in front of Ferda.
Carefully holding the bottle, she poured clear liquor into the bowl while reciting the ceremonial words.
“The mortal shall escape the unknown and wash away fear, and thus the two shall become one.”
As he had been instructed beforehand, Ferda accepted the bowl and drank.
Its taste was as clean and clear as its appearance.
‘I really am no good with alcohol.’
Even as he had grown older, Ferda had never once enjoyed alcohol.
This was the first drink of his life.
After Ferda took the first sip, Luri poured the remaining half into the bowl and carried it before the iron door.
“The immortal shall erase the futility of the endless flow, and thus the two shall become one.”
It was now Valdrova’s turn to drink.
Sssrk.
A claw emerged.
It was the terrifying weapon that had torn apart the bodies of countless monsters.
The claw carefully descended toward the bowl containing the engagement wine—
Clatter!
—and knocked it over.
An awkward silence followed.
With another clattering sound, the claw retreated behind the iron door.
Wondering whether this was somehow part of the ceremony, Ferda glanced toward Luri.
“…We will begin the ceremony again.”
And they did exactly that.
Luri recited the vows, Ferda drank first, and once again it became Valdrova’s turn.
Clatter!
In this manner, the claw overturned the small bowl of engagement wine three times.
Ferda was beginning to face a crisis of his own.
‘A few drinks are enough to make me drunk…’
His head throbbed, and he could feel the reins binding his five senses gradually loosening.
He had a feeling the next attempt would be the last.
Crack!
At that moment, the loud sound of something breaking came from somewhere nearby.
It would have been foolish to worry that the cave was collapsing.
Unless Ferda had heard incorrectly, the sound had undoubtedly come from Luri’s body.
“Please excuse me for a moment.”
Luri squeezed through the narrow opening in the door.
Ferda assumed she was going inside to prepare something and was about to wait patiently when—
“What in the world are you doing, My Lady?!”
Luri’s sudden roar came flying through the doorway.
Ferda’s intoxication vanished at once.
“My Lady!”
The breath she had swallowed again and again throughout this past month—
“I have endured enough!”
—finally erupted in full force.
“I endured it when you insisted that an engagement ceremony, which should properly be made public by the Dread Queen, be held in secret! I endured it when you refused even to meet him face-to-face!”
Her voice grew steadily louder.
She sounded angrier than Ferda had ever heard her before.
“But because you are afraid to face your own fiancé, you hide away and interfere with the engagement! Just what do you think the man waiting out there—!”
Only Valdrova’s rough breathing could be heard. She could not utter so much as a squeak.
Then came a deep sigh, followed by Luri’s voice once again.
“Come out proudly and greet your fiancé! If you overturn the engagement wine one more time, I will not remain idle!”
After shouting furiously, Luri emerged from behind the door.
Her face had already returned to its usual businesslike, expressionless state.
Ferda found himself staring at her.
Through his gaze, Luri could guess exactly what he was thinking.
“…Did you hear that?”
“I imagine even the other lords far in the distance heard it.”
“…Haa. Well, what can be done?”
Luri released a heavy sigh, looking as though she had developed a headache.
“As you can probably infer from what just happened, My Lady suffers from social anxiety.”
“Social anxiety…”
“…”
“Anyone who heard that would find it ridiculous. The being who saved the world hides because she is afraid of mortals.”
“You are revealing rather important information.”
“You would have learned eventually. No matter how much you dislike it, this is not something that can be hidden forever.”
Her silver eyes lowered slightly.
“She is about to become your partner. That means her weaknesses will become your weaknesses as well.”
“Shared responsibility, then?”
“Is that not what marriage is?”
Ferda silently nodded.
Marriage meant shared responsibility.
For some reason, he did not find that particularly appealing.
Not once in his life had the phrase shared responsibility sounded pleasant.
A short while later, the closed door opened again.
Ferda expected another enormous claw to emerge, but what appeared before his eyes was a humanoid figure.
He turned his gaze toward the person who would become his partner.
“…Hm?”
He was so surprised that the sound escaped his lips.
‘…Armor?’
The figure was wearing full plate armor.
The helmet had been crafted in the shape of a dragon’s head.
Despite being made of metal, it was so intricate and imposing that he momentarily mistook it for an actual dragon.
It looked almost exactly as one might imagine a dragon walking upright on two legs.
The extraordinary detail of the armor was surprising, but—
‘She is enormous.’
More astonishing than anything was her height.
She was far taller than 180 centimeters.
She appeared to be around 240 centimeters in the armor. Without it, perhaps she was roughly 220.
“…”
If her appearance followed human standards, that meant a beauty standing 220 centimeters tall was inside.
Could the person beneath the armor actually be a man?
“We will now conduct the engagement ceremony one final time.”
Before Ferda could indulge that ominous suspicion, Luri resumed the proceedings.
Ferda once again drank the engagement wine, despite having already consumed three bowls.
The alcohol made his eyelids feel impossibly heavy.
He wondered whether Valdrova would overturn the bowl yet again, but that did not seem likely this time.
To ensure she neither knocked it over nor spilled it, Luri simply grabbed the helmet and lifted it off.
Ferda finally saw the woman hidden inside that cold, unyielding shell.
And the first sight of Valdrova, the Red Dragon’s face, drew an involuntary exclamation from him.
“Ah.”