Chapter 115

I Married the Dragon I Killed
Chapter 115: It Is Not Anger

The battle began.
Ferda drew a magic circle in his hand.
Three magic circles manifested, floating at regular intervals.
— Lightning.
What he fired were lightning projectiles.
An element that boasted overwhelming speed shot toward Lucy with a gesture from Ferda.
— A shallow trick.
Lucy was an experienced witch, someone who had been through countless battles.
She predicted that Ferda would use Lightning and blocked its path with vine stalks.
Bang!
The projectile flying along the path took a direct hit.
But that was not the end.
— Oh?
She blocked the Lightning, but what scattered from within were clusters of mana spheres with mass.
They spread out and surrounded Lucy.
— An interesting trick.
Lucy did not dodge.
They pierced cruelly through her body, but she did not blink.
— Invoking three spells unaided and applying them that way.
The technique Ferda showed was enough to surprise Lucy.
For a Blue Circle user, by the time they could display such a technique, they would have reached the 5th Circle.
— You only used the speed attribute necessary for Lightning. Putting small spheres inside a giant sphere. I know there is a magic circle to do that…
She snapped her fingers with a sharp snap as if realizing something.
— Don’t tell me you did it manually?
— You talk too much, Pavilion Master.
— That just means you have plenty of free time, doesn’t it?
— That’s quite true.
A blow that lands.
A black explosion erupted beneath Lucy, warping space.
The strongest element among those in existence: Darkness.
It was a Dark Lightning manifesting beneath her.
Her head, already full of holes, was completely obliterated by the Dark Lightning, and the visible Lucy Philias died instantly.
— Hehehe, amazing.
What resonated was the voice of Lucy Philias, echoing throughout the garden.
The body that should have lost its vitality moved like a broken doll, then took a step forward.
At that moment, as if nothing had happened, the shredded flesh returned to its flawless state.
— Using Barbatos’ Shadow Arts to strike the opponent’s blind spot. Good strategy, but a little lacking in depth, sweetie.
— Are you the one talking about depth?
One wondered if the person who forced a fight upon a mere 4th Circle Mage had any right to say that.
Lucy simply smiled with amusement instead of retorting.
— Very well then, try your best to break this girl.
Lucy hurled thorn tentacles toward Ferda, and Ferda charged at her using various spells and means as a mage.
Ferda already knew.
No matter what he did, breaking Lucy was impossible.
Even feeling matched was just Lucy adjusting things to make him mistakenly believe he was barely keeping up.
— At this rate, there’s no end.
Lucy let out a long yawn, bored.
— It seems my sincerity was not conveyed properly, so I will say it once more.
Lucy’s energy surged powerfully.
— If you lose here, I will violate your fiancée.
— This crazy bitch…
A curse slipped from his mouth.
At Ferda’s loss of composure, Lucy smiled with satisfaction.
— Sweetie, do you know what it is for a woman to violate another woman? It is on a completely different dimension from men. She will be turned into a pleasure slave in an instant. How about making a dragon that way?
Whether those words were true or not no longer mattered to Ferda.
He could not endure the insulting words coming out of that mouth.
Ferda hardened his resolve.
To fight prepared for his mana to run dry.
Yet even so, Ferda could not defeat her.
Even if he had already killed Lucy once, it was like striking a rock with a raw egg.
Ferda knew her purpose.
“To draw out the trump cards.”
Every mage has their own trump card.
Whether to flee, land a decisive blow, or bring the enemy down with them.
Sometimes there are things kept secret even at the cost of one’s own life.
What Lucy was doing was precisely bringing them to light.
She was breaking Ferda’s conviction and reason, inducing him to show everything he had.
And Ferda had to accept it even knowing so.
Lucy’s threat could not be taken lightly.
Even if it was a joke, if Ferda did not show sincerity, that joke would become truth.
That is how witches are.
He gave his all, yet Ferda reached the brink of mana exhaustion.
— Is that all?
Lucy, with her veil torn and one eye missing.
She was a mess, but with a single step, she returned to her original state.
Ferda breathed heavily and asked her.
— Satisfied?
— Satisfied? Do you think this girl went through so much trouble just to be satisfied?
Lucy scoffed.
— You spoke with such seriousness, yet your sincerity was not properly conveyed; truly pitiful. Valdrova is truly destined to become miserable.
“Do not speak my fiancée’s name with that mouth.”
He wanted to say that, but Ferda could not.
After fighting so hard, all he felt was helplessness, and if he was going to be manipulated by someone’s hand, how could he save her?
“You cannot save anyone.”
“So, let me show you who I am.”
A circuit spun in Ferda’s chest.
A sweet voice whispered.
“Show her your true self.”
— Shut up.
Ferda resisted the voice.
Yet it tried to invade Ferda’s heart through the cracks of his helplessness.
That pleasure of being possessed by hatred once more tried to violate Ferda.
Ferda made his choice faster than ever.
“Rather than submit.”
Ferda deployed a magic circle.
“I would rather die.”
His target was his own chest.
— Dark Lightning.
A black sphere flew toward his heart.
Whoosh!
But what was heard was the sound of something cutting through the empty air.
Ferda’s wrist was pointing toward the sky, and a small hand holding it was visible.
— …Incomprehensible actions.
A girl with black hair and red eyes looked at him with bewildered eyes.
Ruby pupils and a faint scent of lilac.
A Pavilion Master’s face that ordinary men would never see even once in their lifetimes.
He wondered why that face was visible.
The black veil fluttering behind her.
The Dark Lightning had grazed her head.
Ferda looked into her eyes and asked.
— Satisfied now, Pavilion Master?
Ferda glared at her fiercely.
Driven to the limit by mana exhaustion and mental resistance, his expression was completely out of control.
— That expression alone is truly satisfying.
She flashed a mature smile on a childlike face.
She placed her right hand over Ferda’s chest.
Something flowed through his heart.
The exhaustion inducing migraines vanished.
She was replenishing Ferda’s deficient mana just enough for his mind to recover completely.
— I am sorry for making you fight an unwanted battle. But this girl, sweetie, needed to test you.
— What test?
— What lies inside here.
She pointed to Ferda’s heart.
— Didn’t you say these two eyes see many things?
— That’s right.
— Coincidentally, these eyes can see what constitutes your mana. But it is a power without interest, so I paid no mind to it. The one who broke that notion was you.
— What is in my heart?
— Something heterogeneous.
— Heterogeneous?
— Something that does not suit you in your current state.
She added with quite a serious tone.
— But it is, without a doubt, something created by you. For those of us who possess Red Circles, it is something that can never coexist.
— You tested me because of that?
— That’s right. I needed to draw it out before you yourself realized the reason.
A gesture indicating there was no other intention.
What could she truly want from Ferda?
Lucy Philias.
She was the master of the Rose Pavilion, the Eldest Sister of all witches, and the mage with the strongest power.
At the same time, she was the Authority of the Red Circle.
For now, that alone was enough to be convincing.
— So, sweetie, can you tell me what it is?
Ferda’s mouth did not open easily.
He knew he had fallen into her trap, that hiding it was useless.
Because it was Ferda’s shame.
— Don’t tremble, just tell me. We are practically married already, aren’t we?
— …What?
Ferda frowned deeply.
Lucy smiled upon seeing that.
— Hahaha! You took off my veil, so the groom has seen the bride’s face, hasn’t he?
— Don’t talk nonsense.
— It really is fun teasing you. You have a cute side.
She covered her laughing mouth with her hand.
Perhaps because of that, her crescent-moon eyes gleamed enchantingly.
— Now that I have lightened the mood with a joke, answer me.
It felt unsettling, but the earlier pressure had disappeared.
As she said, the mood had lightened.
— This is…
What killed my enemy,
What killed my family,
What killed my fiancée,
— My anger.
It felt like a penitent confessing his sins.
Lucy looked at Ferda in silence at that answer.
— Think again.
But the answer was outside Ferda’s expectations.
— Why?
— Why else? Because it is not your anger.
No, it was anger.
Remembering when that voice was heard, that was how it was.
When Ruri was threatened and submitted,
And when he almost killed his father, Eremvalt Rosnova, with his own hands—the voice was heard.
If that wasn’t anger, what was it?
— Think again. There must be something that made you misunderstand it like that.
Ferda turned at those words.
Discarding the answer he had already established, he focused his senses like someone searching for a new answer.
He traced back to when Ferda tried to kill Valdrova in the dream.
Ferda asked himself.
“Was that emotion truly anger?”
No.
It wasn’t.
What he gained by killing her was emptiness.
The emotion that sent him back to the past.
“Then, is it emptiness?”, he thought, but that wasn’t the answer either.
Following that trail, Ferda moved forward toward the answer.
Then something surprising happened.
Something that could not be grasped no matter how hard he tried to seize it with his eyes began to take shape.
This emotion existed before his yearning for her.
Something affirming its existence so faintly with every heartbeat.
Ferda finally spoke its true name.
— Regret.
Yes. It was regret.
That anxious voice was the regret Ferda possessed.
The ashes that remained after burning everything in the world.
Those ashes had settled in a corner of his heart.
— So that’s what it is.
Ferda couldn’t ask.
Before he could, Lucy moved.
— So that yearning was also formed, ultimately, through regret?
Ferda nodded.
— I know. It’s disgusting.
— Mmh?
Lucy raised an eyebrow and stared at Ferda.
— I don’t know what misunderstanding you have, but this girl doesn’t find it disgusting, sweetie.
— Your tone didn’t sound like it.
— Your misunderstanding. What reason would there be to find it disgusting? Without that emotion, do you think you would have ever met Valdrova?
Ferda could answer immediately.
Absolutely not.
Ferda only truly knew Valdrova after killing her.
Until then, she was an evil dragon, and he cursed her as deserving of death.
At her departure, he cheered that the era of the dragon would end with death and that the human era would arrive.
He had never heard that voice, but at this moment it seemed to resound with vivid cruelty.
— Valdrova is a truly wretched woman. Good people do not dare to meet her, and only those trying to use her abounded; she really has no luck with people.
— …
— Furthermore, she is unnecessarily fearful. Phase of Fire and Power. She has the strength to tear apart all the monsters that raid the Far East, but not once did she wield her authority, so she brought disaster upon herself.
Valdrova never lorded over anyone.
Knowing that protecting the Far East was out of guilt, current noble politics were full of bastards who exploited that.
Not wielding authority, not watching out for herself, that was the face of a coward fearing ruin.
— She is not fearful.
Ferda refuted her words almost instantly.
— If not fear, then what?
— That woman acts that way because she is stronger than anyone else.
But to Ferda, that was far from being “fear.”
He was once the worst mage on the continent.
The reason was not just revenge.
While preparing endless vengeance, he prepared for ambushes every single time.
He gave up night sleep, wrapped himself in barriers, and spent days suffering from paranoia.
He was a demon of vengeance and, at the same time, a coward.
He needed a certain-victory method, and without it, he did not shy away from cowardice.
That was why Ferda knew.
If she were a coward, she would have lorded over someone.
And she would have shattered even the sky above her head.
Lucy, who had been watching this in silence, opened her mouth.
— Head.
— ?
— Bring your head here.
Ferda hesitated, then leaned his head toward her.
Lucy stood on tiptoes and tried to place her hand on Ferda’s head.
— Mmh, still not enough. It can’t be helped.
Lucy pulled Ferda’s body and embraced his head.
As if comforting a child, she began to stroke him.
— There, there.
— What is this…?
— Shh, be quiet. Ruining the mood is not good.
Ferda could not even ask why in the face of the unilateral action.
— Sweetie, you amuse this girl. Talking to a man, feeling fresh youth for the first time in centuries.
After enjoying it for about five minutes, she released his face.
— Shouldn’t a good boy be rewarded?
Lucy’s face, which he looked at, was filled with joy.
— Those two emotions you possess will, instead, become blessings.