Chapter 111
15. Insignificant Humans
He couldn’t clearly remember when it happened.
Perhaps the shock of that day was so overwhelming that all detailed memories flew away when he tried to recall a specific date.
First of all, the black mages’ surprise attack was the biggest shock.
Shio, who had been hibernating in his lair on a snowy mountain that no one was supposed to find, couldn’t deal with all the fully prepared black mages who stormed in.
To begin with, during hibernation he couldn’t exert his original power, and while he was off guard, hundreds of bombs exploded all at once — how could he possibly handle that?
By sheer luck, Shio managed to escape the lair and fled immediately.
Great dragon or whatever — first he had to survive.
Since he hadn’t fully awakened from hibernation yet, running away was the only answer for now.
After barely shaking off the pursuit, Shio finally reached some nameless wasteland and could at last catch his breath.
But his condition was far from good.
Because of the bombs, the aura of death had spread throughout his entire body, and his breathing was on the verge of stopping.
‘Why would the black mages…’
He had known even before hibernation that they were organizing and moving as a group.
But he hadn’t paid it much mind.
After all, the one commanding them was the green dragon Lani, and he had been friendly toward Shio……
‘Friendly… was he?’
Only then did Shio realize that all of this had been a setup orchestrated by Lani.
Lani is trying to kill me.
‘Damn it.’
Right now he wanted to rush out, grab Lani by the throat.
But with more than half his body already eroded by the aura of death, Shio could do nothing.
‘How powerless.’
So this is how I die.
For the first time, the concept of ‘death’ — something he had never once considered — felt close.
At the edge of life that approached swiftly, Shio felt emptiness.
It was at that moment.
“What the hell is this?”
An unfamiliar voice tickled his ear.
Forcing his hazy eyes open, someone entered his vision.
It was very black, and at the same time very white.
“You’re dying. No, are you already dead? Hey, are you dead?”
When he regained focus, it soon took on a human form.
A girl with short jet-black hair and light green eyes had scales sprouting on her neck and arms.
The disaster.
Instinctively feeling disgust, Shio frowned.
At that, the disaster — Celus’s — lips twisted upward.
“You’re on the brink of death and you still hate me? Hey. Snap out of it. The only one who can save you right now is me.”
Celus approached Shio, then knelt and crouched down.
She tightly grabbed a fistful of Shio’s pure white hair.
Immediately, goosebumps erupted across Shio’s entire body.
His breath caught.
He wanted to run away right that instant.
His mind knew he needed Celus’s help, but his heart refused.
An instinctive revulsion dominated his whole body.
Shio flinched and crawled along the ground.
To escape.
“This guy is acting up too. Sigh.”
“Ugh!”
Celus yanked the handful of Shio’s hair she was gripping and clicked her tongue.
“Just pass out already.”
Thud!
And then, Shio’s world went dark.
When he opened his eyes again later, Shio was still collapsed in the same spot in the wasteland, and the only trace that Celus had been there was the footprints stamped right beside him.
Looking at the deeply imprinted footprints, Shio blanked out for a moment.
Then, with a start, he checked his body.
His body was fine.
In other words, the flesh that had been rotting from the aura of death was completely clean, and the twisted organs had returned to normal.
“……Huh?”
Shio grabbed the hair flowing over his shoulder.
Strands of black were sparsely mixed into what had clearly been pure white hair.
Shio dazedly lowered his gaze.
“She… saved me.”
He let out a hollow laugh.
“The disaster… saved me.”
Lani, born from the same fragment of a god, had tried to kill him,
while the disaster — created out of a dragon’s greed — had saved him even though he had shown her clear disgust while dying.
Shio slowly closed his eyes.
The moment when what he should do from now on became clear.
***
“…….”
After parting with Shio, Daphne walked toward the training ground, lost in thought.
-That time,lady Daphne saved my life.
-I have to repay that kindness.
What is he, a crow repaying kindness or something? A dragon who repays kindness — I’ve never heard of such a thing.
No, more importantly……
“I don’t remember it at all.”
Daphne scratched the back of her head and muttered.
“Something like that should’ve happened more than once or twice for me to remember.”
Just counting the times she knocked out and saved people who freaked out at the sight of her, it easily exceeded thirty.
Shio must have been one of them, which was exactly why she couldn’t remember clearly.
-That’s why I’ve kept this hair color too. Because it’s a trace of lady Daphne.
At first she had thought, what kind of ridiculous hair is this, but after hearing the story, she understood that during the process of absorbing the aura of death, the disaster’s power had mixed in and caused it to look that way.
“Hmm.”
Daphne folded her arms.
“So that guy was really helping me out of genuine goodwill.”
Muttering with pursed lips, Daphne let out a hollow laugh.
“But then why did he tease me so much when we first met?”
Wasn’t he the one who tormented her while saying things like “It wouldn’t be fun if I just told you outright”?
Thinking about it now made her angry.
She should hit him once when she sees him tomorrow.
While murmuring those thoughts, Daphne soon realized a smile had spread across her lips.
It wasn’t the dumbfounded hollow laugh Shio sometimes let out — it was a genuine, full smile.
“……”
There was only one reason Daphne was smiling.
“Still… helping others like that wasn’t entirely useless after all.”
Because when she was the disaster, her kindness had come back as words of gratitude.
Daphne burst into laughter once more.
It was a pleasant laugh.
***
Crash!
“Aaaahhh!”
The Imperial Count, having returned to the mansion, screamed and swept everything off his desk.
Yet his anger still didn’t subside; he stomped his feet and huffed furiously.
The humiliation at the academy still lingered in his heart.
“My daughter? My family? Ha! Don’t make me laugh. Since when has that bastard ever cared about his family!”
The Count gritted his teeth and shouted.
“There must be some ulterior motive. Otherwise, there’s no way he’d embrace that delinquent!”
He rolled his eyes wildly, trying to make sense of this unbelievable situation.
“No way.”
The Count’s pupils trembled slightly.
“Could the rumor be true — that the Archduke is using that delinquent for something?”
The rumor that the Archduke, who had been discarded by the Emperor, was now using his own child.
As the rumor went, that delinquent princess had achieved remarkable feats.
But how?
How exactly had he tamed that delinquent?
What power had he given to that frail girl? How?
The Count clenched his fist tightly.
“Domit! Don’t you know anything?”
Then he shouted toward Domit — Kalid — who stood in the corner of the room.
“About what that delinquent is hiding!”
Kalid slowly blinked.
Hiding things?
There are so many.
First of all, I’d like to mention that she’s a black dragon. So how about we try contacting our disaster……
He wanted to say things like that.
But he couldn’t.
“Cough! Kek!”
The moment the thought formed, a sharp pain stabbed his chest, and black blood gushed out in waves.
“Domit?”
“Kek……! This, this crazy……!”
Kalid collapsed to his knees, vomiting blood repeatedly.
He knew exactly what this pain was.
This was……
‘Silence magic.’
A spell that prevents revealing secrets.
When did he cast the magic?
While panicking, Kalid’s memory recalled the moment Shio placed a tracking spell on him.
And right beside that, Daphne holding his finger also came to mind.
‘That was when!’
Wow…… Kalid opened his mouth in shock.
He acted like he trusted me, then pulled this trick behind my back.
Seriously — who else but a dragon would be this underhanded.
“Domit! Are you all right? Shall I call a doctor?”
At the Count’s flustered question, Kalid finally came to his senses and stood up.
“Ah, I’m fine. Just… just feeling a little stifled.”
“You vomited blood because you felt stifled? Are you insane?”
“…….”
When put that way, he had nothing to say…… Kalid sniffled.
With both silence magic and location-tracking magic cast on him, there was nothing he could do here.
Even if he contacted Lani, he couldn’t tell the truth, and even if he tried to persuade the Count as Lani ordered, he couldn’t offer any proper reward.
‘This is really absurd.’
Kalid let out a hollow laugh.
“In any case, if even you don’t know anything about that delinquent…….”
Completely unaware of Kalid’s thoughts, the Count muttered.
“Maybe I should put in a request to the guild.”
It was exactly then.
Bang!
The office door burst open without a knock.
The startled Count and Kalid turned their heads, and the person who entered shocked them even more.
“Hey, long time no see, Count?”
It was Pauline, Heros’s adjutant.
Pauline fluttered a single sheet of paper and strode into the center of the office.
“What is the meaning of this? Coming unannounced and committing such rudeness?”
“Oh dear. My apologies. But I’m in a situation where I have no choice but to be rude.”
Pauline grinned widely, recalling the short message Heros had sent earlier.
-Count. Crush him.
Short words, but the meaning was crystal clear.
Pauline thrust the paper she was holding right in front of the Count’s eyes.
“Tax audit has arrived.”
You’re done for.
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