Chapter 5

Chapter 5

When had she last seen her?

She couldn’t remember exactly, but the princess he remembered was a woman in a lavish dress, fluttering a jeweled fan.

“Me? As the owner of this tower, I made you some soup so you wouldn’t starve. Oh, and I’m sorry, but I can’t untie you until I’m certain I can trust you. The ropes are reinforced with magic, so you won’t be able to get out of them easily, either.”

The princess looked far more at ease than she ever had at the banquets he had attended.

Click.

Seeing her deftly switch on the magic-stone lamp with the heel of her shoe, he found it hard to believe she was lying about being the owner of this tower.

The corners of Bellix’s mouth lifted faintly.

At present, the Kingdom of Lydia was in an uproar over the princess’s disappearance.

From the king to the nobles, whenever they gathered, all they talked about was the whereabouts of Princess Angela.

And yet, rather than being kidnapped, she had willingly settled down here.

And she was even raising a dragon?

“Is this how you treat a duke who came to rescue you?”

“I never asked you to come rescue me. And who was it that broke down my front door without permission? Do you have any idea how frightened Lulu was?”

“You even gave that monster a name? Your Highness, you are the daughter of His Majesty the King, the representative of God. Please, come to your senses!”

“This is the North, and people in the North don’t believe in God. Well, you probably believe in Him wholeheartedly since you’re from the capital. …Is that ridiculous religion also why you hate dragons?”

*I hate dragons?*

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Your Highness. It isn’t just me. Everyone despises dragons.”

Even the reason Bellix hated dragons was no different from that of ordinary people.

As a duke of the Kingdom of Lydia, he had managed to protect its people, but he had failed to protect his own family.

Lian.

His only younger brother, who had lost their parents at an early age and was all Bellix had left when he became duke while still young.

The boy had been only eight years old when a dragon snatched him away right before Bellix’s eyes.

Even now, whenever he closed his eyes, the scene came back to him vividly.

The sight of enormous, razor-sharp claws wrapping around Lian’s body as he was lifted high into the sky.

And Lian, flailing helplessly as he burst into tears.

“Brother! Help me! This dragon’s trying to eat me! Aaaah-!”

“Duke.”

At the sound of a quiet voice, Bellix abruptly opened his eyes.

“Are you all right?”

He had been sweating cold, so overwhelmed that he had even forgotten to breathe.

When he came to his senses, he found the princess kneeling before him, looking concerned as she examined him.

“You don’t seem to have been sleeping or eating properly. Eat something first. You must not have had a proper meal on your way here, either.”

A spoonful of soup entered his blurred field of vision.

“…If you put it like that, I’m sure I’ll be eager to eat.”

“Are you refusing? This is an order from the princess.”

She had run away from home, and she still called herself a princess.

…Ha. Well, she was a princess, after all. That was how she’d made it all the way here.

He let out a sigh without realizing it.

“Royalty, every last one of them…”

“I can hear you, you know.”

“I intended for you to hear.”

Perhaps Duke Bellix was the only person who would openly insult royalty right to their faces.

However, that was the extent of his feeble defiance.

It was true that he hadn’t had a proper meal in days.

He was confused about whether this situation was even right, but Bellix decided to switch off his brain for a moment and opened his mouth.

“That’s a good boy.”

Only then did the princess break into a satisfied smile, gently blowing on the spoonful of soup before feeding it to him.

That was when it happened.

“Sir Knight’s little brother isn’t dead.”

A young voice suddenly came from behind her.

Lulu, who had slipped in through the open doorway, held up a gemstone for them to see.

“This gemstone says that your little brother is still alive.”

* * *

“You damned monster—!”

“Big Sisteeeer!”

BANG!

Angela rushed out of the storeroom, carrying the frightened Lulu in her arms.

Bellix had finally lost his temper, unable to hold back any longer.

“What is that dragon trying to do, bewitching people?! Does it think it can say whatever it wants just because it has a mouth?! Or do you know the dragon that killed Lian, too?!”

Even though Lulu knew she was safe in her big sister’s arms, her heart pounded as if it were screaming in terror.

It wasn’t the first time the knight had gotten angry at Lulu, but this time, he seemed far angrier than he had the first time.

No, perhaps… rather than anger, he looked a little sad, too.

“…Lulu. No matter how much you want to play around, there are some things you mustn’t joke about. Did you mean to make the knight angry?”

Having hurried to the kitchen to get away, her big sister sat Lulu down on a chair.

But this was nothing like the situation Lulu had expected.

‘…I thought he’d be happy if I told him Lian was alive.’

Hic!

Still frightened, Lulu hiccupped.

“…Big Sister, the gemstone told me. It’s true.”

“The gemstone told you?”

“Yeah. It asked me to find Lian because he’s still alive.”

“…I see.”

A gentle hand patted her back.

But, unlike the comforting gesture, her big sister’s expression looked troubled.

“Lulu. Even if you heard something from a gemstone, you mustn’t go telling people about it carelessly unless you’re certain it’s true.”

“Then Sir Knight, Big Sister, and I can go look for Lian ourselves.”

“Lulu.”

A long index finger pressed against Lulu’s lips.

It was a warning that if she kept insisting, her big sister would get angry.

‘Hmph. But it’s true.’

In the end, barely a minute after entering the storeroom, Lulu was sent back to her room.

“Gemmy, what should I do? I don’t think I’ll be able to find Lian…”

This was how the whole thing had unfolded.

-Lian is Duke Bellix’s only younger brother! I was dangling from the dragon’s neck, so I witnessed the whole thing with my own eyes!

The gemstone, which had abruptly approached her with a request, had given her a detailed, storybook-like account of the incident four years ago, which was known as the Dragon Raid.

First of all, it had introduced itself as the ‘Dragon’s Gemstone’.

During the battle, it had fallen off the dragon’s neck, and Duke Bellix had kept it as proof, vowing that he would one day get his revenge.

A dragon’s possession.

It felt strange to think of it as the gemstone of another dragon rather than her own.

Whose gemstone had it been, anyway?

She would probably have to ask about that later.

That wasn’t the problem, though.

-The dragon didn’t snatch Lian away to hurt him. The wall of a building behind him was about to collapse, so the dragon grabbed him in a hurry to save him. But the people misunderstood what had happened and began shooting arrows at the dragon, leaving it no choice but to flee!

The dragon had been dodging hundreds of arrows, so it couldn’t return to the city.

What, then, was it supposed to do with the little boy?

The dragon had chosen what it considered a safe place.

It was the place closest to its own home.

It decided to leave Lian in Shadeum Village, which lay next to Shadow Forest.

In other words, if the gemstone was telling the truth, Lian was practically right under their noses!

‘How am I supposed to find Lian?’

“Hmm…”

Come on, brain! Think!

“Hyah!”

Lulu scrunched up her face and grabbed her hair with both little hands, tugging at it.

It was the first time in the life of this four-year-old dragon, who had previously only ever used her brain to think about what to eat, that she had put her mind to work for someone else’s sake.

And just then, a rather good idea occurred to her.

* * *

Bellix had refused to eat for several days.

It had all started after Lulu’s declaration that ‘Lian is alive’.

“…Your Highness. Please reconsider. Hundreds of innocent people have died because of dragons. Which matters more to you, humans or monsters?”

Instead, he began trying to persuade Angela with a solemn expression.

In the end, Angela gave up.

She gave up trying to force him to eat.

‘What am I even doing, putting up with all his wild accusations and insults toward Lulu? Besides, Bellix is a grown man.’

It wasn’t as though he would starve himself to death, was it?

Fortunately, Angela’s foresight proved correct.

After she treated Bellix as though he were completely invisible for several days, he finally began eating the soup.

He also stopped criticizing Lulu.

They said that when someone suddenly changed, it meant they were either going to die or had made some strange decision.

It left her feeling a little uneasy, but Angela reached a conclusion.

Bellix had given up on escaping.

So, what was there to do now?

“Big Sister’s going grocery shopping.”

They had run out of bread and milk.

They were also out of eggs, Lulu’s absolute favorite food, so she needed to go shopping as soon as possible.

She opened the door to the child’s room, intending to say hello and see her face before leaving, but—

Lulu, who should have been in bed, was nowhere to be seen.

Thump.

It felt as though her heart had dropped straight into her stomach.

“Lulu…? Lulu?”

“Big Sister!”

She looked around in a panic, but fortunately, a young voice called out to her from below.

Lulu had been standing right in front of the door, where Angela couldn’t see her.

However, something about the child’s appearance seemed a little suspicious.