I Married the Dragon I Killed
Chapter 48
Ferda returned to the pitch-black room.
Instead of sleeping, he intended to continue his cultivation.
The mana cultivation method: Shape of Shadow.
If other mages were to rank it, it was a technique difficult enough to be placed in the “High” tier.
However, Ferda was a man who had already walked paths far more difficult and arduous than this. He could perform it as if such a task posed no problem at all.
All that was required was the movement of his circles.
And finally, those circles began to move.
‘The quantity is absurdly lacking.’
Ferda knew ways to force it out. Had he done so, he could have risen to the 5th Circle this very moment.
But he didn’t. He knew all too well how dangerous it was to be consumed by emotion.
Ferda remained wary of his feelings and struggled to find an answer.
And finally, he found it.
Ferda closed his eyes. He spread the flow of mana and concentrated it throughout his body. Then, he slowly tilted his focus and overturned everything.
Ferda’s mental image pressed down entirely onto the floor. His mind was projected into the world of shadows.
In the flickering candlelight that swayed with his breath, shadows shimmered. Those shadows began to move of their own accord, slithering up and coiling around Ferda’s body.
The rising shadows met the red circle within Ferda’s dantian.
‘Valdrova.’
Ferda’s mind began to imagine Valdrova’s form of its own volition. A mad painter lived inside his head. He repeatedly painted the same image on the canvas, yet never satisfied, he repeatedly destroyed it.
He painted thousands of pieces and destroyed thousands more. The unfulfilled heart was not a simple thirst.
‘It was also something I wanted to figure out when I reached the 3rd Circle.’
The question had vanished while he was busy stopping Valdrova’s rampage. But in the end, Ferda realized it.
There was an unfilled void in the image of Valdrova he was painting. In that void were two syllables.
‘Tomorrow.’
At that moment, the mad painter in his heart began to move. Unlike when he was seized by rage, a sense of zeal took hold. This time, he painted Valdrova’s form without hesitation on a much broader canvas.
‘Her tomorrow.’
Not just her tomorrow.
‘A tomorrow… where I am present.’
He filled the empty space with himself. That painting was formed into a single sentence.
‘I want to share tomorrow with her.’
The moment the sentence was completed, something amazing happened. The paintings created by his shallow imagination began to come alive.
Ferda knew what this was.
‘Childhood heart.’
A dream dreamed by a frail boy a long, long time ago. The vaguely drawn image of a companion was overwritten by a beautiful woman with red hair and four horns.
It was a dream, and at the same time, an ecstasy. Ecstasy is the pinnacle of emotion.
It moved.
The uncontrollably growing heart caused the circles to surge. If left alone, Ferda was destined to be broken.
Thus, Ferda concentrated. Because the future where the two of them were together had to be a reality, not a delusion.
Ferda brought the sense of the spirit’s form he had focused on into the circles.
At that moment, dozens of hands gathered the torrential mana and began to mold it into a shape.
‘It’s easy.’
It was on a different level from simply scooping it up with one hand. The time he had spent laboring to create the 1st and 2nd Circles felt much harder.
‘Too easy.’
Since he was surrounding and pressing from all directions, there was no hole to escape through. The rotation moved as rotation should, and the form was molded as form should be.
In that way, it was overlaid with the shape of a new shell.
Ferda had reached the 4th Circle.
Ferda opened his eyes. The shadows wriggled and moved, eventually transforming into the shape of hands.
It was the 3rd-tier magic, Shadow Hand. No, it was on a completely different level from that Shadow Hand. This was no mere artificial construct created by magic.
It was another part of his body hidden inside Ferda. Ferda adapted to it immediately.
‘The shadow is me.’
A hand branched out, and another hand was created. Those hands into yet more hands. They branched out continuously in that manner.
The small room was filled with black hands.
‘And I am the shadow.’
The candle flickered and went out, unable to withstand the dense darkness.
The Guild.
A guild is a collective that proves the status of its members and provides benefits. In return, it holds them accountable for their actions, controls them with rules, and occasionally demands unity for profit. Its essence was protecting their vested interests through the association.
However, the Serdes Human Magic Society was different in nature from such guilds.
Surveillance rather than proof. Control rather than benefits.
That was the world in which mages lived on the Serdes Continent.
The founder was Erdes Roton. A war hero of the 12-man expedition assembled to defeat the Demon King during the Dragon-Demon War, and the founder of the Human Magic Society.
Even now, 150 years later, she was still alive and active. A mage who had not relinquished the title of the strongest mage of humanity even to the current generation.
A collection of intellect. A living witness.
Though she possessed undeniable seniority, she looked younger than women in their prime.
“You must attend to your official duties.”
“I don’t want to!!”
She threw a tantrum like a child, far beyond just looking young.
“I said I don’t want to work! Leave me alone!”
“Official duties have been delayed for days. Look at this. They’ve piled up so high I can’t even see the President’s face!”
“I piled them up because I didn’t want to see your face. Blue, you do it instead.”
“How can I do it? And my name is Lu.”
“You won’t die just because things are a bit delayed. If you’re that annoyed, tell them to talk to me themselves.”
“But you won’t open the door for them, will you?”
“I open it just fine if they challenge me to a duel.”
“What madman in this world would fight the President?”
She was a war hero of the Dragon-Demon War and the strongest mage of humanity. In a world where the win rate is infinitely low if there is a gap in circles, there was theoretically no one who could defeat her.
“That’s exactly the problem. They say they’ve staked their lives on it, but when I ask, ‘Do you want to die?’ they shout, ‘I want to live!’ and scurry away. They have no grit, no grit at all.”
“You turned the last person who staked his life into a cripple, didn’t you?”
“I just failed to adjust my strength a bit in the heat of the moment. I reached an amicable settlement with the party involved, didn’t I?”
She brushed it off as if it were no big deal. The only thing the secretary could do was sigh and hand over the documents he had brought.
“This is the attendee list for the upcoming Grand Council. Please check it.”
Not that it matters if you don’t.
Lu muttered under his breath.
With a flick of Erdes’s finger, the list flew into her hand.
“There are a lot of old geezers I know. If they’ve eaten that many years, they should just hand things over to their sons. How long are they going to keep at it?”
“Indeed.”
The secretary’s eyes looked at Erdes meaningfully.
“Withdraw that gaze before I pluck your eyeballs out. Or else, hmm?”
Erdes’s gaze, which had been scanning rapidly, suddenly fixed on one spot.
“Is there a problem?”
“I thought I misread it.”
She repeated the word several times.
“But I didn’t misread it. Blue, you bastard, aren’t you doing your job properly?”
“Huh?”
He was flustered by the sudden outburst. She pointed to a name written on the list.
“The surname of this man here is written as Valdrova?”
“Ah, that is indeed the name of the Red Dragon Valdrova. I didn’t list it incorrectly, nor was it a mistake on the organizers’ part.”
“You swear it’s not a lie?”
“Yes. There are records as well.”
Erdes shrugged her shoulders to shake off the embarrassment.
“That terrifying dragon is doing something unusual. So, is he Valdrova’s sponsor?”
“Uh… did you not know that?”
Erdes smiled brightly. However, a cold shadow fell over her face.
“What is it that I don’t know? The fact that I’m a brainless young lady who doesn’t know how the world works? Or the fact that your head might fly off today?”
“Hick! That’s not it! I had absolutely no intention of belittling or mocking the President! This was purely…”
“The main point.”
“Well, he is the fiancé of the Red Dragon, Valdrova.”
“Fiancé?”
Immature as Erdes was, she knew what being Valdrova’s fiancé meant.
“For real?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m asking if it’s for real.”
“Uh, yes. It’s for real.”
“Fascinating. No one usually goes there just to be executed… Give me the records on this human, Ferda.”
“Ah, one moment!”
The secretary placed both hands on his temples and chanted a spell.
“Search, Ferda Valdrova.”
At that moment, bundles of paper squeezed through the gap under the office door and stacked neatly in front of the secretary. Having finished the spell, the secretary handed the papers to Erdes.
“H-here they are!”
Her eyes quickly scanned the documents.
“Let’s see, the third son of the Rosnova Family… hmmm….”
Erdes’s gaze became quite calm. As her eyes moved further down the page, her expression turned serious.
“Blue.”
“Yes.”
“When is the Grand Council being held?”
Lu’s eyes widened.
“It opens in five days, but surely you aren’t thinking of going?”
“I was going to skip it because I thought they’d just talk about boring things, but I think it might not be bad to go take a look.”
Erdes’s lips curled as she stared intently at Ferda’s portrait.
“Besides, I might as well see this stupidly handsome face, right?”
“Isn’t there significance just in you attending? We might be late, but I’ll prepare the carriage right away—”
“No, there’s no need for that.”
Erdes spun her finger in the air. Then, a circular portal similar to the trajectory she drew appeared in the void.
“There’s a simple way, so why do such a bothersome thing?”
The 5th-tier Teleport Door.
She had implemented a difficult spell simply, without an incantation or a magic circle. For any mage, it would be a wondrous moment they might not see in a lifetime.
However, for Lu, the anxiety was greater than the wonder.
“So, Lu. I’m going to go do some official business.”
“Pardon?”
“Hold down the fort while I’m gone. And don’t forget to feed the cats!”
“No, President! Wait a moment!”
“I’m off~!”
The President nonchalantly waved her hand and threw herself into the Teleport Door.
“If you’re going to take a portal, can’t you just finish your backlogged work before you gooooo?!!”
The portal closed, making Lu’s scream meaningless.
Ten days before the Grand Council.
Ferda finished his preparations to head to the Central Region. He had to depart now to reach Blancaros’s territory in the Central Region.
‘Customs are quite useless.’
The higher the status, the more one must possess. Among those things is time, and having leisure is a virtue of the nobility. For Ferda, who had experienced the future, it was a laughable matter. Once magic cars became common, such leisurely culture had vanished. Instead, nobles began to desire even faster means of transportation.
“Regent-nim, may I enter?”
It was Zed, not Ruri. He was wearing a red formal uniform as a member of Valdrova Castle. It was because the vassals of the Valdrova Principality were regulated to dress that way.
“Sir Arwen and the soldiers sent by Count Consilus have just arrived.”
“I see.”
“We’ve finished preparing the carriage, so if you just board… huh?”
Zed scanned Ferda’s body as if something were strange.
“Is there a problem?”
“It’s not exactly a problem, but I was wondering if you were going dressed like that….”
Ferda’s clothes were plain as could be. Nobles are beings who strive to shine in any way possible. Thus, it was basic for them to draw thread from gemstones to make their clothes glow. The most common choice, gold thread, was a must. When he had entered the royal palace, Ferda had been wearing red clothes with gold thread.
But now, he wore red on a black base. Furthermore, the luster was only at a moderately starched level. Compared to other nobles, it was far too plain.
“I never liked the color gold to begin with.”
“Where in the world is there a person who hates gold?”
Zed reacted as if it were absurd. He scanned Ferda’s clothes and evaluated them in his own way.
“Since you don’t have that, you’ll look similar to me.”
“That’s good. It reduces the chance that an assassin who doesn’t know any better will target me.”
“For a body double, you’re too handsome; I don’t think they’ll target me instead.”
Zed flashed a smile full of narcissism. Ferda didn’t mind and picked up an object on the table.
“Take this.”
There was some distance to receive the object, but the moment Zed was about to take a step, something amazing happened.
Sss—.
A shadow extended from Ferda’s hand, grabbed the object, and brought it over to Zed. Zed was quite flustered by the shadow hand but tried not to show it.
“What is this?”
“The item I promised.”
At the mention of the promised item, Zed checked the contents.
“Ferda Valdrova, the consort, representative, and Regent of Valdrova, acting as the representative of Valdrova, the Great Dragon and Ruler of Power and Fire, hereby appoints Zed Swallow as the King’s Sword and the Shield of the People….”
Even without reading all the tongue-twisting content, he could tell what it was.
“A knight’s commission?”
Zed raised his head, his eyes wide.
“…Is this for real?”
“Would it be fake? Isn’t that what you were promised when you joined?”
“Well, you said you’d help me enter high society, but I didn’t expect you to commission me as a knight right away.”
Becoming a knight is the stepping stone to nobility. Therefore, unless one is from a knightly family passed down through generations or has achieved notable military merit, it is impossible.
“Is it okay for me to receive this now?”
“There’s no need to worry. Your abilities were sufficiently proven in the Imperial warehouse.”
“No, it’s not that….”
Zed waved his hands.
“Aren’t these things usually supposed to have a grand banquet?”
“…”
“Inviting women, singing songs, drinking alcohol—it’s a bit much to skip such important parts….”
Ferda stared intently at Zed, who was mimicking tipping a glass. Should I just take it back?
“Just focus on your mission, Sir Zed.”
“Tsk. I understand, Regent-nim.”
My party….
Muttering like that, he left the room.
“I should get ready quickly too.”
Ordinarily, he would have received Ruri’s assistance, but there was no need for that anymore.
Sss—.
Black mist-like tendrils extended from Ferda’s sleeves and chest. That mist formed into eight strands of hands and began to attend to Ferda. They fastened buttons and tidied his appearance, creating a look close to perfection.
‘As expected, it’s worth being at the 4th Circle.’
Currently, because he was unskilled, he used them for such simple tasks, but these hands were Ferda’s arms. Once he became accustomed to them, he could cast magic circles and catch opponents off guard. The talent still remained in Ferda; all that was left was practice and experience.
“Shall we go?”
The sound of Ferda’s boots echoed down the hallway. When he reached the inner castle gate alone, many soldiers were gathered below.
“Show your respect!”
Arwen’s voice rang out loudly. The soldiers moved in unison and knelt. Even though it was just a single movement, one could tell how they had been tempered by rigorous training.
“Arwen Wolfheart, and the 30-man unit under my command, have been ordered to carry out the escort mission!”
“Ordered!”
The shouts of the knights. Ferda scanned each of them and nodded.
“I appreciate your hard work.”
“Yes! To your positions!”
Arwen mounted his horse, and the soldiers formed a defensive square for the escort. Beside Arwen, Zed was also mounted. Though he had been a knight for less than a day, he looked the part, fitting for a playboy who had supposedly made many women cry.
Ferda turned his gaze toward the carriage. Waiting there was the red carriage and the maid, Ruri. She was holding the door with her usual business-like expression.
“Please board.”
“Right.”
It was the moment Ferda stepped out of the castle to board the carriage. Ferda felt a gaze and slightly turned his head to look up at the castle.
A balcony from the inner castle that overlooked the castle gate. No one was there. It was only natural. What was I expecting?
“Ferda-nim?”
“Let’s go.”
Ferda took his seat, and the carriage began to move. The long ten-day journey passed by in a flash.
