I Married the Dragon I Killed
Chapter 32
Chapter 32. I Shall Make a Proposal
A nameless country village.
Inside a manor that looked out of place with its opulence, a man sat with a smug smile on his face.
“The Eradication Squad should have arrived by now.”
Hellus was in high spirits.
He knew exactly what kind of people the Eradication Squad were.
They were the sort of malicious lot that was better dealt with by handing over a bit of gold rather than trying to shake them off.
Having such connections was a blessing.
“Once I get that girl back… it might be better to establish myself within the Empire.”
The only reason he had maintained neutrality was the risk of his true identity being discovered.
It would be a disaster if that girl were kidnapped once again.
‘By the way, does that fellow Ferda Valdrova know what that child truly is?’
There was no way to uncover the girl’s identity.
For her, rules were absolute.
Since he had conditioned her to listen to no one’s words but Hellus Phobidas’s, she was nothing more than an idiot who couldn’t understand a word anyone said.
If she were returned safely, it would mean the Regent had no idea how to use her.
‘Phew, things will work out.’
He uncorked a bottle of whiskey and poured it into a crystal glass.
At that moment, a carriage came to a halt outside.
He peeked through the curtains and looked out.
It was a very welcome face.
‘Sir Karl!’
Hellus rushed out even without putting on his shoes properly to greet him.
“Welcome! Sir Karl!”
“…….”
“Haha, to think you’d visit at such a late hour. How did the mission go?”
“…….”
“Why so silent? Hmm? Since you’re here, why not have a drink? So, what happened to the child?”
“Get in.”
“Get in? Oh, yes, of course.”
Hellus climbed into the carriage.
The plush, luxury carriage was empty.
Karl climbed in after him and slammed the door shut.
“……Depart.”
The carriage began to move.
Hellus’s eyes widened.
“Sir Karl, where are we going?”
“…….”
“Answer me! This—this is a kidnapping, isn’t it?!”
Hellus threw a fit.
But Karl merely sat there in silence.
“So that’s how you’re going to play it?! Do as you wish! Just know that I will never step foot in the Empire again!”
“……Sigh.”
Karl, who had been sitting still, let out a deep sigh.
He raised his head and his hand at the same time.
Slap!
His calloused palm was no different from a wooden club.
“Ack!”
“Shut up, you pig.”
“Wh-what is the meaning of… this, Sir Karl?”
“What does it look like?”
Slap!
“Can’t you read the room? It’s because of that girl you told us to bring that everything went to hell, isn’t it?”
“The brat? I told you that brat would serve as a good pretext for you—”
“Who gives a damn!”
Slap!
“I!”
Slap!
“Am only here because of that, fuck!”
It was violence born of pure venting, but the logic was sufficient to make Hellus behave.
Hellus’s mouth was cut, and blood streamed from his nose.
“Anyway, thanks to you giving us that brat’s description, you’re in too deep to back out now, so just follow quietly.”
Karl spat out a sigh toward the ceiling.
Fuck, why am I doing this?
Karl swallowed his lamentation and threw himself against the backrest.
Hellus sat in the most polite posture imaginable as he was hauled away.
Questions piled up inside him, but Hellus decided not to pay them any mind.
In this situation, there was no way for him to escape anyway.
Because he wasn’t actually a Sage.
After traveling aimlessly, the carriage came to a halt.
His body was picked up like a sack of luggage and moved somewhere.
Where he was dragged was the audience chamber of an old castle.
A red carpet traced a path across the floor, and banners bearing the crest of a red dragon hung upon the walls.
Beneath one such banner stood a young man who looked incredibly youthful.
“Do you know who I am?”
Hellus was seeing him for the first time today.
However, the current situation and the aura the man radiated made his lips move of their own accord.
“F-Ferda Valdrova….”
“That is quite casual.”
“I… I greet the… Regent of Valdrova-nim.”
Hadn’t they said he was an eighteen-year-old brat of a Regent?
But he was completely different from the rumors.
Looking up at him in this moment felt like facing a giant.
Though Hellus had been a brat who even defied Karl, he didn’t dare dream of doing so against Ferda.
Standing beside Ferda was a girl he had seen once before.
His young maidservant whom he had cherished.
The source of knowledge he had tried so hard to recover.
‘Was she always such a beautiful girl?’
He hadn’t noticed at all when he left her in the care of that fat woman.
With her hair neatly combed and dressed in fine clothes, she looked like nothing less than a young lady of noble birth.
“You are the Sage of Water, correct?”
“What Sage of Water… I am merely a Magic Worker, no different from an old man in a back room.”
“I thought you were just a fool, but you’re smarter than I expected.”
Hearing that response, Ferda let out a sincere exclamation of admiration.
“Is your servant dead?”
“……Yes.”
“Indeed, one can never forgive someone who takes away what is precious to them. Is it not difficult for you to forgive me as well?”
“What is there to forgive? The sin was committed by this foolish one.”
“What sin?”
“…….”
“To say you’ve sinned without knowing what the sin is… that would be telling a lie, wouldn’t it? I dislike empty words.”
Hellus forced out the words he never wanted to say with his own mouth.
“Using a child to bluster about as if I were a Sage… that is my sin.”
Hellus bowed his head low.
“So… please, just spare my life.”
He yielded, showing polite etiquette.
However, what was reflected in Ferda’s eyes was indifference.
It was a face that felt no value whether the man lived or died.
“You have lived your life pretending to be a Sage, but you are intelligent nonetheless. So I trust you will understand this well.”
Ferda leaned in and whispered into his ear.
“Do you think you can live here?”
“…….”
“Those who have tasted power can never forget its flavor. That is why power struggles are the most vicious and filthy. How great was the power you tasted?”
“…….”
“Respected in your village, and even the Empire desires you. Can you let that go and return?”
“I—I can forget—”
“No, if I let you go like this, you will move to reclaim that power. Not because you are stupid, but because you are human.”
Hellus’s entire body trembled.
Despite the cool weather, sweat poured off him like rain.
Ah, I’m going to die here.
“Therefore, I shall make you a proposal you cannot refuse.”
All fear vanished, and a single ray of light fell upon him.
Hellus lifted his head.
“Don’t you want to live as a Sage?”
“What… do you mean?”
Ferda placed an object he had kept in his robe onto the floor.
It was a crystal ball.
“It is a communication crystal. A high-grade crystal containing the essence of ten-thousand-year ice from the deepest parts of the northern snowy mountains. It is made of materials superior to those of the Empire. Forget about mediocre mages; even the Imperial mages wouldn’t dare to eavesdrop on or track it.”
He tapped the crystal ball and continued.
“What is linked inside this is Mori’s mind.”
“Mori…?”
“The name of this young lady you had in your service.”
Ferda lightly patted Mori’s shoulder.
The girl reacted to that voice.
It truly had become her name.
“You desire this child’s knowledge. So, live as a Sage as you wish. You may indulge in pleasure by night and dispense useless wisdom by day.”
The proposal was for a life no different from his usual one.
It was exactly what he had desired, yet he didn’t dare snap it up.
For sweet rewards always came with a fatal price.
“What must I give you in return?”
“Your soul.”
Everything.
“Become my dog.”
Hellus had hated getting involved with people.
It was because it was obvious his lack of talent would soon be exposed.
But there was something he hated even more.
Losing his money.
Losing his reputation.
What supported all of that was power.
To lose power was to lose everything.
It was just as Ferda said.
He was already craving the power he had enjoyed.
He was already a dog of power, and he would do anything for it.
Even if it meant dealing with a devil or anything else.
Therefore, Hellus bowed his head once more.
“I shall be your loyal dog.”
Ferda went down to the castle basement.
Echidna’s laboratory was located at the very bottom of the castle.
When he opened the door, the gloom of a Witch flowed out like an eerie mist.
The only difference was the absence of the typical Witch’s herbal scent and bubbling cauldrons; instead, the air was filled with the smell of ink and stone dust.
“Welcome, Regent-niiim!”
Echidna greeted him with a beaming smile.
She rushed over like a large dog welcoming its master.
The only difference was that she radiated an ominous aura that made even Ferda flinch.
“How did the contract go?”
“Ah, of course, I took care of it! I fastened the dog collar just as you said, Regent-nim! Ehehe, at first when you said it was a big dog in silver armor, I wondered what you meant, but I never imagined it would be a knight!”
Echidna giggled like a fool.
In fact, when he had said he needed a ‘collar to tie up an armored dog,’ she had actually brought a real dog collar.
From that point on, Ferda had stopped using metaphors when speaking with Echidna.
“Where is the contract?”
“H-here it is!”
Echidna pulled out the stored contract and showed it to Ferda.
Ferda glanced over the contents and then asked Echidna.
“Do you understand these details?”
“Hehe, there’s so much written there, I don’t have a cluuue what any of it means.”
Echidna scratched her head sheepishly.
If one were to name those who handled malicious contract magic well, it would be demons and witches.
However, there was an exception to every rule.
The reason Echidna hadn’t been able to get a boyfriend in the first place was that she couldn’t create those clever phrases or inescapable procedures of a contract.
‘And because that was difficult, she created an unprecedented learning-type Golem… I see.’
She was the type who chose a difficult path because the simple things were hard, and that path turned out to be the right answer.
Even thinking about it now, it was absurd.
Anyway, while Echidna was the one who processed the contract itself, Mori was the one responsible for writing its contents.
Inside the Library of All Things in her head.
There were even copies of contracts written by demons.
Ferda had instructed her to create the clauses based on those, and Mori had succeeded in drafting them over the course of three hours.
‘The true dog collar is complete.’
In this way, he had gained two dogs.
A dog that had seeped into the Empire, and a dog that was smarter and stupider than expected.
Ferda placed the contract on Echidna’s desk with a satisfied expression.
“How is the Golem production going?”
“Well, you see. Should I say it’s still quite a ways off…?”
Looking at the Golem assisting her, it was still only at the level of recognizing Echidna’s face and serving tea.
If there was any visible progress, it was that the shape of the face was gradually changing from a crude drawing.
It was still impossible to tell for sure, but it was undoubtedly becoming more like Zed Swallow.
Ferda watched it quietly and asked pointedly.
“I hope you aren’t just preoccupied with sculpting the face?”
“Wh-wh-wh-what are you talking about! I only touch the appearance whenever I can’t think of anything else to do, you know?!”
Her flustered reaction was incredibly suspicious, but Ferda didn’t press her immediately.
‘The process of compressing a sentence into a Rune is a difficult task in itself, yet she is a Witch who can achieve it.’
Since it was a task that was difficult to yield immediate results, Ferda had no intention of criticizing her for being lax.
“I’ll continue to count on you.”
“Yes, I understand. But, Regent-nim?”
As he was about to turn away after finishing his business, she caught him.
“What is it?”
“Um, you’ve reached the 3rd Circle, right? The energy I see now is stronger than when I saw you before.”
“That’s right.”
“In that case, would you like to try an Aptitude Test?”
Echidna proposed, holding up a crystal stone that had been sitting on her desk.
An Aptitude Test.
It was something he hadn’t heard of in a long time.
“By Aptitude Test, do you mean finding the attributes I possess?”
“Now that you’ve reached the 3rd Circle, it’s a good time to find your magical path as well. All mages do it at least once, don’t they?”
3rd Circle, Magic Worker.
This is where magic truly begins to pour out, substituting mana to command and transform elements.
That is the stage where one begins to find their aptitude, and Ferda had also measured his around that time.
An Aptitude Test is generally treated as little more than a pastime.
For those with a Blue Circle, it stops at lightly learning that their aptitude is a bit higher.
This is because the nature of the mana itself is uniform.
However, it is different for owners of a Red Circle.
For mana based on emotion, that aptitude was almost everything.
“Let’s do it.”
“Ah, then I’ll get it ready for you!”
Echidna chanted a spell while waving her fingers in the air.
The mana flowing from her fingers drew a magic circle in the air.
Then, the magic circle gradually grew smaller, glowed intensely, and transformed into a specific shape.
A Rune had been created.
Even a simple task like this would normally take a month, but this woman had produced it on the spot.
Truly a Rune Maker.
Echidna embedded the Rune into the crystal stone.
“Here it is!”
“Thank you.”
Ferda picked up the crystal stone.
He knew how to use it.
When Ferda’s mana reacted to the Rune, it would take on color and form inside the crystal through the Rune.
‘Back then, was I darkness and lightning?’
Two attributes formed on a foundation of hatred.
Darkness has high destructive power.
Lightning is a magic with high speed and penetration.
No one could stop Ferda’s magic, which combined the strengths of those two.
‘It will be different now.’
His heart now is different from back then.
As proof, can’t Ferda’s mana suppress Valdrova now?
Surely his attributes would have changed as well, and so his path would change too.
Ferda watched his mana react.
The mana reacted to the Rune, causing a chemical reaction inside the crystal stone.
If one handled fire, flickering flames would appear.
If one handled water, blue, sloshing droplets would form.
What appeared before Ferda’s eyes was none of those.
The inside of the crystal was dyed pitch black.
It was a color that seemed to devour everything in existence.
It was something all too familiar to Ferda.
‘Darkness….’
And from within it, a faint blue spark flickered.
“Oh, you have lightning too?”
Nothing had changed.
No, if something had changed…
‘Was it… always this dark?’
The inside of the crystal stone was even darker than what he had seen back then.
