25 - Chapter 25
It was absurd.
She knew very well how much Biante coveted the Dukedom.
She was one of the people he had tried to bribe and win over to his side.
Biante was foolish, but not someone to be taken lightly.
He wouldn't have bothered attacking if he didn't think he could win.
But he single-handedly defeated the knights he had prepared?
It made no sense.
The Crown Prince was behind the Emperor's permission to summon the Munrepe's monster.
'The Crown Prince, who wants to get rid of Munrepe, wouldn't have allowed such a strong monster to be summoned.'
He must have tampered with the Magic Circle beforehand to make sure a weak one came out.
She had presented the card of a political marriage to stop the Crown Prince's scheme...
"How adorable."
The Princess chuckled, thinking that Edenber had spread false rumors to avoid the political marriage with her.
"Alright, Munrepe Duke. Let's see how strong that monster is."
"Hap!"
"Iyat!"
The once quiet space was filled with knights. The training grounds of the Duke's castle were lively for the first time in a long time.
It was because those who had been frogs in a well had started group training after this civil war.
The knights of Munrepe were not bad, but they were not exceptionally skilled either.
After the Divine Beast's disappearance, all the skilled people had left, and only those with circumstances like Dylan or those without a desire for power had gathered there.
Why had these people changed so suddenly?
It was all because of Ashil.
When fighting Biante's Saint Creatures, Ashil diligently avoided the knights of Edenber who were wielding swords.
It was somewhat better when Biante's Family Deities were holding swords.
Since they were clearly identified as enemies, they could just fight back, even if they were a little scary.
But the allied knights of Edenber were different. It was scary to have to turn their backs to them when they had drawn their swords.
So, Ashil only fought in front of knights who had dropped their swords or were incapacitated, but Dylan interpreted it differently and announced.
"Ashil-nim hates weak humans messing around behind the scenes the most."
The entire Munrepe knight order was shocked by this.
Hating weak humans messing around behind the scenes. Didn't that mean they weren't even worthy of being on the same battlefield!
It was common for Divine Beasts with great power to disregard the knights of their own family.
But it was the first time they had so openly refused to even be on the same battlefield.
No matter how little desire they had for power, fighting alongside a Divine Beast was every knight's dream.
But that Divine Beast refused to even be on the same battlefield as them.
'Damn it.'
'How trashy must our skills be!'
The minds that had been complacent, thinking, 'This level of skill is enough,' collapsed. As a result, they were all burning with determination to improve their skills.
However, Ashil was thinking something else entirely.
"Bbi-hya."
Ashil swallowed hard, feeling nervous. At the same time, he watched the knights sparring with real swords with trembling eyes.
After the day of the civil war, Ashil became the true Divine Beast of Munrepe.
He had not only reversed the atmosphere of the precarious civil war in an instant but had also led them to victory.
When the servants now saw Ashil passing by, they stopped walking and bowed their heads.
At first, he thought they were trying to lower their guard to catch him and roast him into baby dragon skewers, but their attitude seemed too sincere for that.
'Ashil seems to have really become the boss of Munrepe!'
So, he straightened his shoulders, stuck out his belly, and began to strut proudly through the castle corridors.
However, the knights were different.
After the day they won the civil war, they looked at Ashil with unusual eyes.
Then, they even often called him out to watch them fight.
'Are they trying to scare Ashil?'
His fear of humans was slowly getting better, but Ashil still couldn't relax when humans held swords.
It was because the kindergarten teachers had taught him something that was etched in his ears.
"Humans are weaker than Beast-man, but you must not let your guard down. They don't have sharp teeth and claws, but they use a weapon called a sword instead. A human holding a sword is like a Beast-man preparing to attack."
Ashil couldn't understand at all.
'Why do they keep preparing to attack in front of Ashil?'
Even though he was the boss of Munrepe now, were they telling him not to let his guard down because they could roast him at any time?
'I need to become an even more ferocious dragon.'
His mouth was parched with tension.
Ashil held the Starabbit's paw tightly with one front paw and drank the strawberry juice that the maid had brought him with the other.
Drinking juice with ice floating in it in the cold winter made his head tingle.
"Bbi..."
So, he unknowingly wrinkled his nose, and the knights who had finished sparring cautiously came over and asked.
"How was it, Ashil-nim? Our sparring?"
"Can we stand on the same battlefield with you at this level?"
"Bbiiii..."
Ashil, who was wrinkling his nose because of the headache caused by the cool strawberry juice, shook his head. He wanted the headache to go away quickly!
However, the nervous knights mistook this for something else.
They exchanged glances and talked without Ashil knowing.
"I guess it's not enough yet."
"Damn it..."
Despair settled on their faces, which had been filled with hope.
But soon, they changed to an accepting expression.
'Well, with this level of skill, we wouldn't even be able to beat the knights of the Starabbit Dukedom.'
Starabbit was the family that most despised Munrepe, which had no Divine Beast.
It was also the family that had annihilated the Munrepe knight order in some incident a few years ago.
The two knights straightened their posture and saluted respectfully.
"We apologize for our discourtesy."
"Thank you for watching our sparring. We will come back stronger."
Only then did Ashil, who had recovered from his headache, jump off the chair.
'Is the fighting all over?'
It seemed like it meant he could go now.
Since he had finished his strawberry juice, Ashil decided to go back to his room. He had to go and practice becoming a ferocious dragon.
However, since there were many knights with swords in the training grounds, he tried to stick close to the wall as much as possible so as not to show his back.
The knights, shocked by his actions, were overwhelmed.
"Look at that."
"Not only does he not trust us with his back, but he doesn't even want to show it to us."
"Damn it, these trashy skills!"
The desire to improve their skills began to burn brightly in the knights' hearts.
Meanwhile, Ashil destroyed all of Dylan's practice wooden dolls, who was absent on vacation.
"Bbi-yap!" (Iyap!)
Thwack!
The knights whispered at the wooden dolls that had been destroyed in an instant.
"Does that mean Dylan doesn't need to train?"
"I don't think so. When I saw him then, Dylan couldn't hold a sword either."
"Anyway, there must be something different about him than us, so he must be destroying them all and leaving."
Damn it, we want to be recognized. The desire to improve their skills burned again.
So, they looked enviously at Dylan's ruined spot, but Ashil, who didn't know what was going on, tilted his head.
'Why are they all looking at me like that? Are those humans out of money too?'
Ashil, who was only called to the sparring sessions, had not seen the other knights training with wooden dolls.
'I can't give them gold coins anymore because I don't have any.'
Ashil is a beggar too. He can only give them wood. Ashil, feeling dejected, trotted back to the Divine Creature's Room.
The peace of the Munrepe Dukedom was shattered by a single invitation sent by Iokaste.
To avoid gossip, the imperial family would send invitations to banquets in the name of an agent.
They would only use their own name when sending invitations to special people, such as lovers.
However, Iokaste had sent an invitation in her own name. It was only natural that the Dukedom was turned upside down.
"Were you exchanging love letters with the 3rd Princess?"
During tea time in the greenhouse garden.
Ashil, who had been diligently picking up strawberry cookies, stopped his front paw at Elkai's question.
'Husband, were you in that kind of relationship with the Princess human?'
Since her goal was to marry several Beast-man like her mother if she got married, she didn't care if her husband married several people as well.
So, when she sent him a curious look, Edenber became serious.
"Absolutely not."
