I Married the Dragon I Killed
Chapter 16
Echidna Philiaz.
Age unknown.
Formerly a member of the Philiaz coven, she was expelled by her sisters due to ideological differences.
Reason for expulsion: Obsessed with handsome men and falls in love instantly.
She had disheveled black hair and dark circles that looked like Gothic makeup.
Her lips were black, and her skin was pale, as if it hadn’t touched a single drop of sunlight.
She carried the gloomy aura typical of a witch.
If she stayed still, one might consider her a beauty in a mysterious way, but that unique witch-like vibe ruined everything.
And as for whether she acted like a witch—
“Hello. I’m Echidna~.”
Her childish way of speaking, which contrasted sharply with her appearance, shattered even that characteristic atmosphere.
“Hehehe….”
She smiled as if she were a good-natured person, but it was so awkward that even the smile felt gloomy.
Everything about her made it difficult for her to mingle with ordinary humans.
She had accepted immediately upon seeing Zed.
However, since he had to explain what the job entailed, Ferda entered the witch’s house to face her.
“You said you’d do it no matter what, but do you know exactly what the work involves?”
“No. But it doesn’t matter.”
Echidna’s dark pupils surged like a stormy sea.
“I-I’m just so happy to be with such handsome gentlemen and such a cute young lady… Hehehe. If you tell me to, I’ll be your dog.”
The madness typical of a witch began to seep into her voice.
Ruri furrowed her brows, and Zed, feeling creeped out, recoiled.
Only Ferda remained composed.
“Echidna Philiaz. You manufacture Golems, don’t you?”
“Yes? Ah, yes. Why?”
“Could you carry out that Golem production at our Valdroba Castle?”
“O-Of course. I can. Hehe. If you tell me to, I’ll be your dog. Woof, woof.”
She was shouting her acceptance repeatedly without asking a single question.
This behavior caught even Ferda off guard.
‘I thought she’d be a bit better in the past, but this is when she was at her worst.’
Compared to when Ferda had first known her, she was a total mess right now.
“Ferda-nim.”
Ruri spoke, nudging him slightly in the ribs.
“Were you really trying to recruit a girl who just makes Golems?”
“U-Um, I can hear you?”
“Yes, just Golems.”
“I-I said I can hear you!”
They were giant creatures made of mud or stone.
At best, they could manage a simple walk; they were essentially corpses if you took away their size and durability.
There was a reason “Golem-like” was used as an insult.
“Do you have any Golems you’ve made recently?”
“Huh? I-I do, but… I haven’t finished it yet, so it’s embarrassing…?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not the one who’ll be embarrassed.”
“Ah, then… I’ll show you~!”
Echidna clapped her hands twice.
At that, a wardrobe burst open, and something stepped out from within. It was a wooden doll crafted in the shape of a sturdy man.
Its eyes were large and sparkling as if they would spit out jewels, and its lips were sharp.
It had a face and physique that looked like a child’s fantasy of a prince.
Watching the three of them stare intently at it, Echidna twisted her body shyly.
“Hehehe. It’s embarrassing because it’s not finished….”
“The face could use some more refining.”
“No. The doll itself is complete?”
“……This is?”
Zed couldn’t hide his astonishment.
This was the completed form?
The Golem creaked as it stepped outside, and its face turned slightly toward Echidna.
Echidna grinned.
Creeeak— creeeak—
The wooden Golem moved with the sound of stiff, grinding joints.
The Golem reached up, took some tea from the cupboard, and began to brew it.
What was surprising was that the Golem had accurately picked and chosen a specific item.
“There are so many teas in the cupboard. Why did it bring that one?”
“Um, well, as for how this works… Ah, it’s a bit of a boring story, so I shouldn’t explain it in detail, um, mmm….”
Echidna stomped her feet while clenching both hands.
Ferda opened his mouth, thinking he should answer instead.
“That is because—”
“Wait! I-I think I can do it!”
It took about three minutes just to choose her words, and she was breaking out in a cold sweat.
Finally, Echidna finished organizing her thoughts and spoke.
“To put it simply, it senses my mood and brings the tea I like. I’m in a good mood today, so it brought Darjeeling.”
“The Golem… did?”
Ruri asked as if she couldn’t believe it.
Echidna scratched her head bashfully.
“Ehehe. I wanted to try making it like that. That’s why I’m creating the magic for it.”
“Creating magic… Does that mean you draw the Runes yourself?”
“Yes, that’s right, little lady! I studied that reeeeally hard!”
Even Ruri, who looked down on humans, felt a sense of wonder this time.
To create a sophisticated magic circle, one must learn Rune Making—the process of condensing meaning.
And being able to create Runes was the realm of masters, with fewer than ten such artisans in the entire Serdes Continent.
She wasn’t just a simple Golem maker or a gloomy witch.
‘A Rune Maker.’
She was a witch with the power to create magic.
Ruri looked back at Ferda.
Unlike the beginning, when she was full of disgust, her eyes were now filled with awe.
“How do you know about people like this?”
“I just happened to find out.”
The reason he remembered her was, naturally, rooted in hatred. It was because she was one of the humans who wasted their talent to an egregious degree.
‘It was enough to make me cough up blood.’
Echidna Philiaz liked handsome men to a pathological degree.
To the point that such longing led her to the Red Circle.
However, due to her characteristic witch-like gloominess and her lacking interpersonal skills, Echidna ended up in a dire situation where she couldn’t meet any men.
Unlike others who would think to fix the gloominess or improve social skills, she thought like this:
-If I can’t date one, can’t I just make a boyfriend?
She found it distasteful to turn someone into a specimen or use them as a puppet like other witches.
With a mindset somewhere between a human and a witch, her answer was to create something human-like through a Golem.
Her efforts led her to master formula commands and Rune creation, and she became a Rune Maker.
‘She used Rune Making—something even I, a Great Mage, couldn’t do—just to make a boyfriend.’
Ferda felt like he might cough up blood even now.
To think she was sitting there developing a power capable of upending the world just to make something like a boyfriend.
‘But thanks to that, I know that Golem soldiers who respond to flexible command systems are not impossible.’
Homunculus, the artificial lifeform that could be called the pinnacle of alchemy.
They can learn their tasks through study and perform work in areas humans cannot.
However, their production is limited, and they have the disadvantage of not being fully controllable like humans.
Then there were Golems, which could be mass-produced but had the disadvantage of being unable to perform complex movements and commands.
Echidna’s Golems were the ones that took only the advantages of both.
‘Clearing the monsters from the Far East Front is not impossible.’
Revolutionary technologies, as significant as the magical engineering led by Bernel Marquis, could be presented.
“Then I believe our discussion is finished. I shall give you your appointment letter.”
“An a-appointment letter?”
“You are the Chief Researcher of Valdroba. There is already one other Chief, but your departments are different, so you won’t need to mind each other.”
“Ah, i-is that so?”
There was another one.
Hearing that, her black eyes rolled around before she spoke shyly.
“Is… is it a man?”
Ferda nodded.
With a flushed face and fidgeting fingers, she asked.
“It is a man.”
“Is… is he hand…some?”
Echidna’s eyes sparkled as if it were the most important question.
“He looks like an ordinary scholar wearing glasses.”
“Ah, is that so? Well, it doesn’t matter~….”
Echidna looked disappointed.
Her eyes flicked toward Zed.
Being a natural playboy, Zed reflexively gave her a bright smile.
“Hehehe, hehehehe….”
Zed’s face gradually stiffened at the sinister aura.
He wanted to step back, but there was nowhere to retreat.
“Can you depart immediately? Or do you need time to prepare?”
“No. I have Subspace Storage Magic, so I can put everything in and leave right away. Hehe….”
Subspace Storage Magic was a 5th-circle spell.
That meant she was currently at least at the 5th Circle.
And it also meant her obsession with handsome men was monstrous.
“That’s good. You all should head to Valdroba Castle first by carriage.”
Zed turned his head sharply and asked.
“Aren’t you going with us?”
“There is still one person left I need to bring.”
“Then let’s go together? I’m your attendant.”
“There’s no need for that.”
“No, don’t be like that….”
Zed said with an awkward smile.
“Let’s go together. Please.”
Desperation could be felt in that “please.”
It was a plea not to leave him alone with that woman.
‘I can’t do that.’
Ferda knew.
The completed Golem that the future Echidna would create.
That its appearance would take the form of Zed Swallow.
And that it was Zed Swallow’s looks that would make her fall into a single-minded devotion.
‘So I have to keep them together for the time being.’
To soothe Echidna’s madness, he had to keep Zed by her side.
However, it was unclear what kind of future would befall Zed due to that obsession.
And he didn’t care.
He’d figure it out.
Thus, Ferda succeeded in recruiting three talents.
The pioneer of magical engineering, Bernel Marquis.
The master thief, Zed Swallow.
The Rune Maker, Echidna Philiaz.
And the final person remaining was—
“Hellus Phobidas, the Sage of Water.”
Among the figures presented, he was the only human Ruri knew.
A late-blooming mage in his mid-forties.
However, he gained the name ‘Sage of Water’ for being famous for seeing through things with his brilliant wisdom and insight.
He was living in a mansion he built in a rural village.
A man of non-attachment who belonged nowhere, following the conviction that he must always be with water.
“How do you plan to win over a man who said he wouldn’t do it even if the Arken Empire offered him a fortune?”
Ferda’s current recruitment score was two successes and one pending.
It was hard to predict before because she didn’t know the targets, but this time, it was an opponent she could predict to some extent.
Ruri judged that it would be difficult to win him over with Ferda’s current abilities.
‘I don’t think he’ll bring him by asserting authority or using intimidation….’
She couldn’t help but be curious about what brilliant idea he had.
Ferda replied like this:
“I have no interest in the Sage of Water.”
Ruri knitted her brows.
“Then why did we come here? You wrote down ‘Sage of Water’ and even came all the way to his house, yet you say you’re not here to bring him?”
“What I’m looking for has no name. So I simply used the name Hellus Phobidas as a substitute.”
“Did you deceive me?”
Ruri narrowed her eyes and glared with a sharp expression.
“Only half-decently.”
Ferda glanced up at the mansion.
The windows were wide open, and the back door used by the servants was slightly ajar, as if it hadn’t been closed properly.
Watching it, Ferda asked.
“Where do ordinary country women usually do their laundry?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
Ferda scanned her from head to toe.
He saw a expressionless girl wearing a maid uniform.
“Aren’t you a servant, for starters?”
“Even servants have ranks. And I solve everything with magic. I’m not some brat beating laundry with a wooden stick at a stream.”
“A stream, then. Thanks.”
Following Ruri’s non-advice, he headed toward the stream.
Just as she said, it wasn’t hard to find.
“You damn idiot! You can’t even do that!?”
The verbal abuse of a middle-aged woman echoed in the place where only the sound of flowing water should have been.
There was a fat middle-aged woman and a scrawny girl.
Their clothes were exceptionally clean for village folk.
It was clear they were servants of a noble.
The fat middle-aged woman poked the girl’s laundry with her finger and shouted.
“If you beat and wrung the laundry, you should put it in! Why do I have to tell you that every single time for you to understand!? Beat! Wring! Put! Got it!?”
The blonde girl nodded cautiously.
“Ugh, to think I’m sitting here teaching such a fool! What kind of divine punishment am I receiving… Ugh!”
The middle-aged servant beat her chest and scowled.
The girl showed no sign of being intimidated.
She looked down at it with hollow eyes and simply resumed the work she was told to do.
“Is she a nuisance?”
The middle-aged servant stood up with a start.
Her eyes quickly scanned Ferda, and a smile spread across her face.
“Oh my, milord. My apologies. I’ve shown you something unsightly. Haha. I ended up raising my voice while educating one of our dull servants….”
“Was that education?”
“Of course, a noble lord like yourself wouldn’t understand. Don’t you have to give them a shock like this for them to understand? That’s why I’m doing it.”
Ferda’s eyes turned toward the girl.
He stroked his chin and let out a sound.
“Hmm, to me, that looked less like education and more like you just venting your frustration. And there’s no need to educate that kid anyway.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Don’t you think your command was simply wrong?”
The middle-aged servant blinked and asked.
“My apologies, milord. I don’t understand….”
“From what I saw and heard, you made her repeat the act of beating and wringing the laundry. However, you didn’t seem to tell her where to put it. If you had told her that, she would have undoubtedly continued the work.”
“Oh my, do I really have to say every single little thing? A person should have some intuition and do things tactfully, but she’s just so dull….”
The middle-aged servant glared at the girl.
The girl simply continued kneading the laundry as if she had no interest in their conversation.
“Right. The problem is that you’re viewing her as a person.”
“What do you mean? Are you saying this girl is some kind of tool?”
“If you had thought of what you’re handling as a tool rather than a human, things would have been different. Don’t you think it’s too much to expect a tool to think?”
The servant had a face that didn’t understand those words.
Ruri, who was listening quietly, also couldn’t understand Ferda’s words.
“Where in the world is there a tool that eats and sleeps? If it were a tool, you’d just shove it in a warehouse or throw it away….”
“Why didn’t you throw her away?”
“Would she be gone just because I threw her away? She’s someone the Sage of Water cherishes.”
“Hmm, is that so?”
“A girl like a stray mutt that no one knows where she was picked up from.”
The servant poured out curses without rest.
Ferda listened to it calmly and asked.
“If you dislike her that much and find it hard to get rid of her, how about handing her over to me?”
