Chapter 25
It was nonsense.
She knew well how much Viante coveted the dukedom.
Because she was one of the people he had tried to pull to his side by offering bribes.
Viante was stupid, but not someone to be taken lightly.
If he thought he couldn’t win, he wouldn’t have challenged in the first place.
Yet, such a person had repelled the knights he had prepared all by himself?
It was impossible.
Behind the emperor’s permission to summon a monster from Molrepe was the crown prince.
‘The crown prince, who wants to eliminate Monlepe, wouldn’t have allowed such a strong monster to be summoned.’
He must have tampered with the magic circle in advance to ensure a weak one appeared.
And yet, in an effort to thwart such intentions of the crown prince, she had proposed the card of a political marriage….
“How adorable.”
The princess, who thought Edenber had spread false rumors to avoid a political marriage with him, chuckled.
“Yes, Duke Monlepe. Let’s see just how strong that monster is.”
* * *
“Hah!”
“Eyah!”
The once quiet space was now filled with knights. The training grounds of the ducal castle were buzzing with activity for the first time in a long while.
It was because those who had been like frogs in a well had started group training after this civil war.
The knights of Monlepe weren’t bad in skill, but neither were they exceptionally outstanding.
It was because after the divine beast’s disappearance, all the skilled ones had left, and it was a gathering of those like Dylan who had circumstances or no lust for power.
Why had such people changed overnight like this?
It was all because of Asil.
When fighting Viante’s holy beasts, Asil had diligently dodged the knights of Edenber who held swords.
It was still better that Viante’s retainers were holding swords.
Since they were clearly distinguished as enemies, even if a bit scary, she could just fight back.
But the knights of Edenber, who were allies, were different. It was scary to entrust her back to them with drawn swords.
So she only fought in front of knights who had dropped their swords or were incapacitated, but Dylan interpreted it differently and announced it.
“Lady Asil hates weak humans scurrying around in the back the most.”
At this, the entire Monlepe knight order was shocked.
Hating weak humans scurrying in the back. Doesn’t that mean they weren’t even worth standing on the same battlefield!
It was common for divine beasts with strong power to look down on their family’s knights.
However, to so blatantly refuse even standing on the same battlefield was a first.
Even if they had no lust for power, fighting alongside a divine beast was the dream of all knights.
Yet that divine beast refused to stand on the same battlefield as them.
‘Damn it.’
‘How trash-like must our skills have been!’
The mindset of ‘this level of skill is enough’ and settling for reality had crumbled. Accordingly, everyone was now burning with determination in their eyes to improve their skills.
However, Asil herself was thinking something else.
“Pehyah.”
Asil swallowed dryly in tension. While doing so, she looked at the knights sparring with real swords with trembling eyes.
After the day of the civil war, Asil had become the true divine beast of Monlepe.
Not only had she overturned the precarious atmosphere of the civil war in an instant, but she had led it to victory.
Now, the servants would stop in their tracks and bow their heads whenever Asil passed by.
At first, she thought they were letting their guard down to catch and roast her like baby food, but their attitudes seemed too sincere for that.
‘Asili really seems to have become the boss of Monlepe!’
So she started strutting proudly through the castle corridors with her shoulders back and belly out.
However, the knights were different.
From the day after the victory in the civil war, they had looked at Asil with unusual gazes.
And now, they even often called her to watch them fight.
‘Is it to scare Asili?’
Her fear of humans was slowly improving, but Asil still couldn’t relax when humans held swords.
It was because of what the kindergarten teachers had drilled into her until her ears blistered.
“Humans are more fragile than beastkin, but you mustn’t let your guard down. Instead of sharp teeth and claws, they use weapons called swords. A human with a sword is like a beastkin preparing to attack.”
Asil couldn’t understand at all.
‘Why do they keep preparing to attack in front of Asili?’
Even as the boss of Monlepe now, maybe it’s a warning not to let her guard down because they could roast and eat her anytime?
‘I need to become an even more ferocious dragon.’
Her mouth was parched from tension.
Asil tightly gripped the front paw of the rabbit sitting next to her with one front paw, and with the opposite front paw, drank the strawberry juice the maid had brought.
Drinking juice with floating ice in the cold winter made her head tingle.
“Pehyi……”
So without realizing it, she wrinkled the bridge of her nose, and the knights who had finished sparring approached cautiously and asked.
“How was it, Lady Asil? Our sparring?”
“With this level, can we stand on the same battlefield as you?”
“Pehyiii……”
Asil, who had been wrinkling her nose from the headache given by the cool strawberry juice, shook her head side to side. May the headache go away quickly!
However, the tense knights mistook it for another meaning.
Exchanging glances with each other, they conversed without Asil knowing.
“Still not yet, I guess.”
“Damn……”
Disappointment settled on faces that had been colored with hope.
But soon it changed to an expression of resignation.
‘Well, with this level of skill, we couldn’t even beat the knights of the Stara Fit ducal family.’
Stara Fit was the family that had despised Monlepe the most for lacking a divine beast.
Moreover, it was the family that had annihilated the Monrepe knight order a few years ago due to some incident.
Two knights who had straightened their postures saluted properly.
“We apologize for the intrusion.”
“Thank you for watching our sparring. We will return stronger.”
Only then, freed from the headache, did Asil jump down from the chair.
‘The fighting is all over, I guess.’
It must mean she can go now.
Having finished the strawberry juice just in time, Asil decided to return to her room. She had to hurry and practice becoming a ferocious dragon.
However, since there were many knights with swords in the training grounds, she moved by sticking close to the wall as much as possible to avoid showing her back.
The knights, shocked by that action, felt a surge of emotion.
“Look at that.”
“Not only does she refuse to entrust her back to us, she doesn’t even want to show it.”
“Damn, this trash-like skill!”
A fire began to blaze in the knights’ hearts to improve their skills.
In the midst of that, Asil had smashed all of Dylan’s practice wooden dummies while he was away on leave.
“Pehyap!” (Eyah!)
Thwack!
The knights whispered about the wooden dummies destroyed in an instant.
“Does it mean Dylan doesn’t need to train?”
“No, from what I saw then, Dylan couldn’t even hold a sword.”
“Anyway, there must be something different about him, so she smashes them all and leaves.”
Damn it, I want recognition. The desire to improve skills burned again.
So they looked enviously at Dylan’s broken spot, but Asil, not knowing the reason, tilted her head.
‘Why are they looking like that? Are those humans broke too?’
Asil, who had only been called during sparring times, hadn’t seen the other knights training with wooden dummies.
‘Now I can’t give gold coins anymore.’
Asili is poor too. She can only give wood. Feeling glum, Asil trotted back to the divine beast’s room.
* * *
The peace of the Monlepe ducal family was shattered to pieces by a single invitation sent by Iocaste.
To avoid rumors, imperial family members often sent invitations to banquets in the name of a proxy.
They only used their own name when sending to special people like lovers.
Yet, Iocaste had sent the invitation in her own name. It was a natural sequence for the ducal family to be thrown into uproar.
“Were you exchanging love letters with the third princess?”
During tea time in the greenhouse garden.
At Elkai’s question, Asil, who had been eagerly munching on strawberry cookies, paused her front paw.
‘Was husband in that kind of relationship with the princess human?’
If she got married, her goal was to marry multiple beastkin like mom, so she didn’t mind if her husband married multiple women too.
So she sent a curious gaze, and Edenber turned serious.
“Absolutely not.”
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By Anna 💓
