Chapter 142

**Chapter 142: It’s Okay to Cry**

Silverwind was a dragon adorned with shimmering silver hair and radiant silver gaze. Among all dragonkind, she was known to possess the gentlest heart. In the past, her fondness for humankind was so profound that she earned renown across the lands as the most approachable of the Guardian Dragons.

Yet, if the universe demands an equilibrium, the complete inverse of her gentle demeanor manifested in her spawn.

In sharp opposition to Silverwind’s tender nature, her spawn prioritized strict order, rigid rules, and unbroken tradition above all else. This unyielding stance was born out of harsh necessity; facing the relentless onslaught of Frost Giants pouring over the Northern Barrier, every life stood as an indispensable resource. Because of this, the hardy tribes of the North viewed being chosen as a spawn of the Silver Dragon as the ultimate distinction.

Viewed through that lens, Ruri—having bypassed standard customs to undergo the Ascension Ceremony—stood out as an anomaly, and she was received with deep hostility.

Had they been slightly more lenient, they might have tolerated her attaining the status of Dragon Spawn through the ceremony. The true grievance erupted when Ruri made her genuine aspiration known: she wanted to stand as a warrior.

From that day forward, Ruri faced an unbroken barrage of merciless, cruel torment.

“Lord Goz was more ruthless than anyone else.”

Goz Silverwind was second-in-command even back then, a devoted warrior serving beneath Silverwind. He clung to ancient protocols and discipline with such fanatical zeal that his temperament seemed completely antithetical to the very dragon he served.

Because Ruri had not been chosen through customary martial selection, she was forced to learn the basics from scratch, and those fundamentals demanded sheer, unyielding endurance. Taking advantage of the claim that he was tempering her grit, Goz singled Ruri out as his personal punching bag.

What occurred went far beyond strict instruction.

It was an endless pattern of severe thrashings and calculated cruelty.

Goz pushed Ruri to the absolute brink time and time again, as though his true intent was to end her life. The brutality was so extreme that even the peers who once detested Ruri began to regard her with quiet pity. Trapped within the physique of a young girl, she endured harrowing hardships that would have shattered even hardened battle veterans.

Yet, despite everything, she refused to break.

She understood the distinct agony of yielding. The resilience she had forged merely to survive in the lowest strata of society had hardened into the unbending stubbornness of a combatant.

*I will become a true warrior for the sake of Silverwind, the father who gave me shelter.*

*Whatever fails to destroy me will only grant me power.*

That fierce resolve gradually shaped her destiny.

After being repeatedly fractured and reforged beneath Goz’s brutal regimen, Ruri evolved into an exceptional fighter. Having spent decades enduring an environment more merciless than any other, she progressed far more rapidly than any fellow Dragon Spawn, until her martial prowess grew impossible to dismiss.

Fifty years after she had first become a spawn, her name was formally put forward for a position within the personal guard. It was the highest honor, granting proximity to Silverwind—the dragon she held in the highest reverence.

Even so, Ruri felt no joy at the prospect.

“Do you understand why?”

“I don’t.”

“To earn a place in the personal guard, you are required to strike down a sitting guard member. And once someone becomes part of that guard, yielding in combat is viewed as an ignominy far greater than perishing in one’s bed.”

To claim the rank, she would have had to enter a fatal duel. Even if an adversary surrendered, tradition dictated that they must die to cleanse the dishonor. That was the unbending creed of the Silverwind Spawn.

“To any other fighter, it would have seemed a glorious undertaking. But to me, it was completely different.”

To her, it was never an issue of martial prestige; it was the slaughter of her own family. For Ruri, who still desperately clung to the warmth and meaning of kin, taking the life of someone she considered family was something she could never bring herself to do.

Knowing they would brand such sentiment as weakness, Ruri never formally renounced the prospect. Instead, she ventured past the Great Barrier that kept the bitter Northern frost at bay. Deep in the frozen wastes, she swung her battleaxe against colossal giants, wielding the deadly combat mastery she had scraped together on the threshold of death.

Without question, she had transformed into a fearsome combatant.

Because her dread of Goz had thoroughly burned away her ability to fear anything else, Ruri fought with such terrifying efficiency that the monsters began referring to her as the “Nightmare of the Frost Giant.” Her feats elevated the reputation of Special Task Force Silverwing, and her ferocious martial glory brought great renown to the name of Silverwind.

That was the life she led, before and after she acquired her family name.

“Earlier today… I fell prey to an illusion cast by a demon.”

“What kind of trick?”

“I heard the voice… of a little brother I had long forgotten.”

Her tone sounded distant, lost in bygone times.

“That brother, whose face and name had slipped from my mind… came rushing back into my memory with striking vividness.”

“Was it actually him?”

“If you mean was it genuinely a human, no. Its blood was emerald green.”

“Then it was an enemy monster.”

“Indeed. Almost certainly…”

Was it a spell? If it had been pure sorcery, Ruri would have recognized it as an enchantment. Yet to her perception, the illusion had appeared precisely like her lost brother.

Was it a psychic attack designed to dredge up dormant trauma?

Whatever its nature, its purpose was clearly to fracture the victim’s spirit. Ferda couldn’t help but wonder how he would have fared had he faced such a mind-breaking assault himself.

“Yet you managed to break free, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t break free on my own… I had to be saved.”

Ruri pressed her lower lip between her teeth before reluctantly whispering the name.

“When I was utterly helpless, Lord Goz appeared and intervened.”

Goz Silverwind.

She had been rescued by the very individual who terrified her more than anyone else in the world. Ferda understood immediately that Ruri’s present emotional collapse was tied directly to Goz.

“Had he not stepped in… my life would have ended right there.”

A visible tremor ran through Ruri’s frame.

“Are you shaking because you came so close to dying?”

“No. Death… no longer frightens me.”

“Then were you terrified that Goz would strike you?”

“I certainly fear Lord Goz… yet that dread is something I have lived with for a very long time.”

“Then what caused you to break down like this?”

The wound ran far deeper than simple terror.

“Lord Goz… looked at me and said I was entirely useless.”

The figure she feared so deeply—someone she considered family—had delivered those heartless words straight to her.

“Those harsh words… they keep echoing in my mind.”

The person she dreaded most had delivered a cutting insult, leaving a grievous wound upon her heart. Under ordinary circumstances, Ferda might have struggled to grasp such pain, but those words struck a deep chord within his own chest. What Ruri was suffering was the exact torment Ferda had experienced not long ago.

Erembalt Rosnova.

Erembalt had thrown Ferda into the perilous position of serving as the Archduchess’s fiancé and subsequently cast him aside. Ferda was fully aware that he had been discarded. Yet, when the man who had abandoned him reappeared only to reiterate that separation in cold blood, the agony was far sharper than expected. The sting of being forsaken a second time cut far deeper than the original abandonment.

If Ferda himself had buckled under such grief, how could Ruri be expected to fare any better? Her heart had to be aching even more. Regardless of how much terror Goz inspired in her, she unquestionably viewed him as kin deep within her soul.

In Ferda’s eyes, she was no longer a fierce, seasoned retainer, but merely a wounded young girl. Though she possessed greater power and had lived far longer than him, what sat before him was simply an abandoned child who had never known genuine warmth or love.

*She carries such a crushing burden of duty.*

By accepting her role as an attendant to Valdrova, her ties to Silverwind had fractured. She had been cast aside back then, and now Goz had rejected her once again.

Ferda pondered whether there was anything meaningful he could offer her.

*Try harder.*

*Put it out of your thoughts.*

*Keep pressing on.*

He understood well that such platitudes offered zero solace. If grit and sheer determination were enough to overcome every barrier in this world, Ferda would have earned his knighthood long ago. Thus, he weighed every word with immense care.

Looking at Ruri, Ferda spoke softly.

“Ruri.”

“…Yes.”

“It’s completely fine to cry.”

“…What did you say?”

Ruri stared up at Ferda, her expression filled with confusion, as if questioning the absurdity of his statement.

“You don’t need to suppress it. You can let all your grief spill over to me.”

“I am not holding anything back. I…”

“There’s no reason to pretend.”

Ferda spoke with quiet tenderness, as though offering comfort to his own younger self.

“I understand how much strength it took for you to open up and confess that.”

“There is nothing more agonizing than holding back tears when your heart is breaking. The sky won’t fall simply because you weep, so go ahead and let it out.”

Crying openly means laying bare the vulnerabilities one keeps hidden inside. With adulthood comes an unfortunate restraint where one finds it impossible to shed tears even in moments of profound sorrow. Many assume this realization comes with growing older, but Ferda had grasped it early on, upon the death of his mother. The moment he discovered that the entire world stood hostile against him, there was simply no room left to weep.

Ferda understood that truth intimately. People often glorified that detachment as strength, but it was fundamentally a slow death of the soul. And following the immutable laws of nature, once something dies within, restoring it is nearly impossible.

“Are you worried that I’ll tell someone else?”

“If it makes you uncomfortable, I can step outside.”

Ferda moved to stand up and leave the room. Yet the moment he began to rise, something caught him. Ruri’s fingers firmly grasped his sleeve.

Her gaze shifted upward toward Ferda. Her trembling lips seemed ready to utter something, but instead, tears finally welled in those icy, unyielding eyes.

From that instant forward, Ferda saw nothing and heard nothing. He barely registered the moisture soaking through the cloth on his shoulder as her subdued weeping grew into heavy, mournful sobs.

After some time, Ferda found himself at a complete loss. He genuinely did not know what to do next. Though he was the one who had encouraged her to release her emotions, he had no real experience in soothing a weeping girl.

His hand hovered in midair, hesitant. Guided by a habit formed while caring for Mori, his fingers drifted instinctively toward Ruri’s head. Isabella had previously instructed him that patting the head of an older individual as a gesture of praise was improper, and Ruri had always disliked such gestures.

*Yet if it is meant for comfort rather than praise, perhaps it will be fine.*

Gently, Ferda rested his hand against her hair. At that touch, Ruri pulled back slightly from his shoulder.

For a second, he feared he had committed a grave misstep. He braced himself for her anger, but her reaction took a different path. Shifting her head from his shoulder, she pressed her face directly against his chest, burying herself in his embrace.

And there, the tears flowed once more.

He could not fully fathom her thoughts, but holding her like this certainly made it easier to stroke her hair in gentle, soothing strokes.

Ruri wept her sorrow away while Ferda quietly comforted her, patting her head. The profound crying that felt as though it might last forever eventually quieted down. Even the ragged sniffling tapered off, until absolute silence settled across the room.

“Ruri.”

“Ruri?”

No response came when he called out her name. Tilting his head closer toward the crown of her hair, he caught the steady, rhythmic sound of her breathing. Having exhausted every ounce of her sorrow, she had drifted off to sleep.

“…Now this is quite a dilemma.”

He had granted her permission to weep, but he had never anticipated that she would fall asleep right in his arms.

—

The conflict that had erupted so abruptly reached its conclusion.

Once the encirclement was shattered and the transport corridors were secured, a flurry of supply wagons began rolling actively across the Far East. They passed through the gates of the developing settlement alongside numerous returning commanders basking in their triumphs.

Concurrently, celebratory provisions arrived courtesy of Halim and the Pascal Trading Company. Included within the provisions from Halim was a personal dispatch penned by Ahmed Hashim. Though concise, its heartfelt sincerity was unmistakable.

Utilizing the provisions provided by both benefactors, Ferda organized another grand feast. The populace, worn down physically and mentally by the protracted tension, shared laughter, conversation, and songs in celebration of their triumph.

Bards residing in the town began to perform, yet the repetitive heroic tales of conventional knights were nowhere to be heard. In their place, they sang the saga of a dragon.

“A solitary peak towering over the Land of Demons! Clad in crimson scales with eyes of pure gold! They claimed an atrocious beast dwell within, claiming countless mortal lives!”

“The land was blinded by endless misconceptions, and the true reality remained buried deep beneath! Yet on this very day, that hidden truth has come to light!”

“When the vile ranks of abominations sought to crush our spirits, she ascended high atop the peak of the Lonely Mountain!”

“Unfurling her scarlet wings and radiant scales, she issued a proclamation to the beasts of the Far East!”

“‘The sovereign shield over this Hestia, the protector of the Serdes Continent, is none other than I, Valdrova!'”

Naturally, that specific anthem garnered the greatest enthusiasm. The local folk were, after all, the eyewitnesses who had seen Valdrova’s majestic form closer than anyone during the intense battle.

Widespread admiration brought monetary profit, creating a lucrative trend for travelling bards. Other performers quickly followed suit, composing their own musical tributes, resulting in dozens of unique variations surfacing within days.

Ferda instructed Isabella to distribute travel funds to every bard. These artists were wanderers; as they traversed rural villages, they served as the primary conduits of news across the Serdes Continent. Spreading melodies honoring Valdrova throughout the realm would prove immensely beneficial in dismantling her villainous reputation.

The festivities carried on with intense fervor, mirroring the heavy oppression the people had endured, showing no intention of dying down even as midnight passed.

Ferda, however, did not lose himself in the revelry. He remained acutely aware that the broader conflict was far from resolved.

“From this point forward, you must remain exceptionally vigilant.”

Olivia spoke with the gravity of someone who had caught sight of an even more formidable menace. She and Ferda were seated in a strategy room, reviewing post-war logistics. She warned that they had merely survived an immediate crisis, only for a fresh storm to brew on the horizon.

“The Emperor has initiated his strategy.”

“Are you referring to Godfrey Arken?”

“Indeed. The man related to me by blood.”

“Did the Emperor take the field directly?”

“He has not acted in person, but he without question granted resources to the incompetent Crown Prince.”

The original strategy aimed to eradicate all twelve massive abominations. However, four of those targets were eliminated by outside forces.

One was struck down by the Lightning Dragon Storeus, while two others were neutralized by the spawn of Silverwind.

“The final monster was reportedly felled by a lone warrior entering from the Far East Union’s front… though their true background remains unidentified.”

“A lone mortal?”

“Yes. Reports indicate that single warrior possessed enough martial dominance to turn the entire battlefield.”

Ferda contemplated how extraordinary a warrior would need to be to shift the momentum of an entire front alone.

*It has to be the Armored Knight.*

He had abruptly vanished prior to the Start of Spring Festival and had likely joined the combat ranks during his attempt to return. That explanation seemed most plausible.

“Leaving aside that unknown combatant, it means four objectives slipped from our grasp. Will that pose a significant setback?”

“Our objective required a flawless, comprehensive triumph for the Far East. Yet within that intended victory, four targets fell due to the interference of the Imperial Capital. An incomplete victory drastically diminishes its political weight.”

Ferda grew quiet, considering who would suffer the greatest consequences from that diminished standing. The answer was obvious—the very woman sitting across from him.

She intended to leverage this campaign as her core political foundation.

The political arena of the Empire was dominated by established factions determined to safeguard their entrenched authority. If an ambitious newcomer moved without an ironclad, indisputable achievement, the existing powers would dismantle them without mercy.

“They will launch their offensive soon. It would be wise to draft robust defensive measures without delay.”

Olivia delivered her warning with utmost seriousness. Ferda wondered if she was exaggerating the urgency, yet her assessment proved eerily accurate.

The very next dawn, Ferda witnessed the reality with his own eyes.

Marching across the grounds where the lingering traces of last night’s celebration still remained, an armed unit marched into the settlement.

The knights of the Empire had arrived.