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Chapter 21: Why the Evil Dragon Remains Evil
On a late night illuminated by a bright moon, Ferda walked through a corridor lit by candlelight.
‘It has been a truly busy day.’
Several decades of abandonment had passed, so it was not easy to catch up with the accumulated administrative matters.
‘Even so, thanks to Mori, I can move forward easily.’
The working speed had already far surpassed that of humans.
Thanks to that, if he maintained the pace, it seemed that he could finish everything within a year.
‘My role is to assist so that that person does not have to worry about anything.’
Ferda remembered it that way and did his best in his function.
Before heading to the bedroom, Ferda went toward the study.
According to his calculation, Mori would be waiting for him there.
‘At this hour she should already be waiting, so I will have to tell her to return.’
She is a girl who cannot even breathe if she does not receive permission to do so.
Ferda did not forget it and was heading there to order her to return to her room.
When he entered the study, he encountered someone unexpected.
“Hello! Ferda-nim!”
The gloomy witch, Echidna, greeted him with an awkward smile.
“Call me regent.”
“Ah! I will do it. But you must call me Echidna, alright?”
“I will.”
“Ehehehe…”
Echidna smiled in an awkward and gloomy way.
Thinking about it that way, Ferda passed by Echidna and walked toward Mori.
Just as he had predicted, she was there waiting quietly.
“?”
When Ferda looked at Mori, he noticed that she looked quite different from when he had seen her in the morning.
A light dress and hair carefully combed like strands of silk, like that of a young lady.
She was already quite beautiful, but when properly arranged she shone like a noble lady from a distinguished family.
“Is it your work?”
“Hehe, yes. Since she did not respond when I called her and was standing still, she looked like a doll… I was bored, so I fixed her up a little. Is it alright?”
Echidna twisted her body shyly.
Ferda remembered the golem that Echidna had created earlier.
It had unnecessarily large and bright eyes, a small head, and an appearance like a child’s drawing.
‘Could it be that, since she is a woman, her aesthetic sense with other women is not distorted?’
It was unnecessary, but it was not bad.
‘Rather, it is good.’
Even if she was a tool, Mori was clearly a living being, and living beings require more delicate care than tools.
Since she could not take care of herself, it was natural for someone to attend to her.
“If you have time, could you take care of Mori?”
Echidna’s eyes shone and she nodded vigorously.
“Of course! Touching with my own hands a girl so, so beautiful… is so pleasant! Ehe… ehehee…”
“I would prefer that you do not do strange things. She is an indispensable talent.”
“A-ah, I do not do those things either! Do you think I am a bad witch who eats children or men? I will only take care of her, comb her hair, and feed her!”
Since her way of speaking was already sinister by itself, everything sounded strange.
Echidna, smiling gloomily, absentmindedly brought Mori’s hair to her nose and inhaled its scent.
‘She is definitely strange.’
Ferda decided not to doubt his own judgment.
Mori, for her part, only looked at Ferda.
She had the face of someone waiting for the next order.
“For today we are finished. Return to your room and rest well for tomorrow.”
Mori nodded, stood up from her place, and began to walk.
It was then.
Booom!
The castle resounded with a loud crash.
Mori, who was walking, lost her balance and fell to the floor.
“Oh? Mori!”
Echidna hurried over and lifted her up.
Ferda held his breath, waiting to see if there would be a second impact.
Fortunately, there was not another.
Echidna broke the silence with a nervous voice.
“W-what was that? Does this happen often here?”
“It is the first time.”
Sometimes there had been small tremors, but it was the first time something like this happened in the middle of the night.
‘And it is also the first time it shakes this strongly.’
As regent, Ferda needed to find out what was happening.
“Echidna.”
“Yes?”
“Lay Mori down in her room. She is a talent needed for tomorrow. And you should also return calmly. Understood?”
“Y-yes, understood!”
Echidna carried Mori and left.
After seeing her leave, Ferda stepped into the corridor and began to walk.
‘The sound probably came from the side of the lair.’
Ferda decided to go down toward the lair.
After walking for a while, he saw a faint light shining in the middle of the corridor.
It was Ruri, holding a lantern.
“You have taken the wrong direction.”
With a calm and expressionless face, she pointed toward the direction Ferda had come from.
“The bedroom is on the opposite side.”
Although she pretended to be only a guide, Ferda perceived what she was hiding.
“You are hiding something from me.”
“Yes.”
She did not deny it.
“So, could you return to your room?”
“No. As someone who will be the master of this castle, I need to know what is happening.”
“You are not the owner of this castle.”
“But soon I will be.”
The silver eyes and the blue eyes did not look away.
Neither of them backed down.
The one who finally took a step back was Ruri.
“My lady is suppressing her own blood.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have nothing to worry about. What happened just now was something uncommon. It normally does not happen. She channels the rest into her usual activity—”
Ferda approached Ruri.
His eyes twisted with ferocity.
“What do you mean?”
There was irritation and anger in his voice.
It was an emotion he had never shown even once toward Ruri, despite her constant insolence.
Ruri frowned.
“What do you think? What does someone do to repress the impulse to destroy?”
“……”
“My lady fights against the desire to break through that enormous iron door and turn the world upside down. That desire to crush everything accumulates in her heart day after day. That is her nature.”
An evil dragon will always be an evil dragon.
The reason why she cannot receive the name of guardian dragon is not only because of defamation, but because in the end she cannot resist her destructive impulse.
“My lady has lived by killing demonic beasts to release that destructive impulse. If those beasts did not appear, what do you think she would do?”
Ferda remembered the memories of Valdrova engraved in his heart.
The answer came from his mouth.
“…Would she destroy herself?”
“Yes. If there is nothing to destroy, she does that.”
Ruri knew it well because she had observed her for a long time.
And it was like a natural disaster that not even a loyal servant could stop.
“The person you are engaged to is precisely someone like that. Not even she can control herself, and she has already hurt many people.”
That is why Ruri warned Ferda, who still had such young and foolish stubbornness.
“So it would be better if you did not say so many times that you want to see her. If your selfishness ends up hurting my lady—”
Stop.
Ruri could not continue.
Her eyes opened wide as she looked at Ferda.
Because something that did not fit him at all was falling from his face.
‘Tears…?’
From the eyes of that man with an impenetrable face, Ferda, a tear was falling.
Only one.
His expression had not changed at all, but the tear rolled down his face.
Ruri was in shock.
There was no doubt that he had cried because of what he had just heard.
Feeling the tear slide down his cheek, Ferda finally realized.
“Ah.”
Ferda was also surprised by his own state.
He wiped it with his index finger and apologized.
“I have shown an embarrassing sight.”
Unlike his eyes, his voice had no moisture.
It was as if his tear ducts had shrunk and had forced out the accumulated water.
“I understand. I understand what you meant.”
Ferda abandoned the investigation and returned to his room.
“Sorry for bothering you. I will retire.”
Ruri silently watched Ferda as he walked away.
When his figure was already becoming blurred, she was finally able to speak.
“What an impossible human to understand…”
Ruri had lived many years observing many humans, so she believed she understood them well.
But the more she knew Ferda, the more incomprehensible he seemed.
He is a man who even broke the fingers of his own allies for the sake of fairness, and who killed nobles because he foresaw that they would bring trouble later.
A man without blood or tears had cried.
‘And just from hearing a story about my lady is that possible?’
Not even a year had passed since they had acknowledged each other’s existence.
Then how could he feel such deep emotions?
Ruri repeated the question several times, but found no answer.
***
“Tears…”
Ferda was also surprised by that fact.
That he could shed tears.
Those tears had not arisen from his own emotions.
‘While we were having that conversation it seeped in.’
When he realized that that great vibration came from Valdrova, and when he understood that she was engaging in self-destructive behavior, Valdrova’s emotions seeped into Ferda.
‘Self-hatred.’
Every time she could not control herself, she fed her own hatred.
She willingly threw herself into the bottom of the well where she had buried her most impure emotions.
She listened to the cursed voices echoing in the deep abyss and strangled her own neck until she suffocated.
With that self-hatred crushing down on herself, she repressed her destructive impulse.
She wanted to exist, but at the same time she did not want to exist.
That was how she fought alone every day.
That indescribable emotion stirred beneath Ferda’s dantian.
‘The Red Circle is spinning.’
It was still insufficient to advance to the next level.
If Ferda concentrated and spent several days without sleeping, he could undoubtedly reach the third circle.
It was very dangerous, but it would allow extremely rapid advancement.
‘No.’
However, Ferda restrained the Red Circle that was spinning.
‘Not this time.’
Ferda remembered the emotion he felt when he reached the second circle.
That which had tickled him disappeared along with the achievement.
‘This I must not forget.’
In this life he had decided to live for her.
The promise he made then was that, even if he could not make her happy, at least he would not make her suffer.
This feeling was directly connected with his sadness.
He did not want to erase that sadness along with an achievement.
‘First I must resolve that.’
Advancing will come afterward.
That is the reason why I am here.
***
The next morning.
Ferda went to see Mori, who was waiting for him in the study.
She had been arranged by Echidna and was well adorned.
Ferda asked her.
“Do you know much about dragons?”
Inside her mind was the universal library.
All the information about the world was stored there.
So she nodded.
“Also about the Red Dragon, Valdrova?”
A nod.
“Can you describe it?”
Mori nodded and took the pen to write.
Instead of the elegant handwriting of scribes, she wrote with clear and easy-to-read letters.
— The existence of dragons are those who fought to transform primordial chaos into order. Those who survived were granted the essence that composes the continent. The Blue Dragon, Morgan, possesses the power to dominate mana and water, and the Silver Dragon, Silverwind, possesses the power to control wind and ice.
It was a page from a book of continental history that Ferda had read in class when he was a child.
— The Red Dragon was granted dominion over strength and fire. Its individual power is the most outstanding among all dragons.
“Is that why there are so many defamations such as tyrant or demonic dragon?”
— For a long time she was described as a being worthy of reverence, but she was officially designated as an evil dragon relatively recently in dragon history.
“Since when?”
— After the Dragon-Demon War, that is, after the death of Godwin.
The Black Dragon and incarnation of darkness.
It was the first day a dragon of the continent died.
— The Black Dragon Godwin was known as the dragon who dominated darkness, but later it was discovered that chaos was also an essence that had been granted to him. Godwin revealed his ambition and became the origin of all demons, plunging the continent into chaos. However, the other rulers intervened and he finally died at the hands of the Red Dragon Valdrova.
“And then?”
— The most accepted hypothesis is that, during the process of killing him, Godwin’s power destabiliJed Valdrova’s power. As a result, the essence of her power could not be contained and caused secondary damage.
The uncontrolled fury of Valdrova.
With the appearance of the Demon King many people died, but her loss of control also killed and burned many more.
‘Innocent humans, creatures and even Silverwind.’
A tragedy for which she would have to atone eternally.
“Is there no way to suppress that?”
Mori closed her eyes.
She was reviewing all the books stored in her mind.
After five minutes of meditation, she opened her eyes.
She shook her head.
“I see.”
Ferda accepted it calmly.
From the beginning it was a contradiction.
If there existed a method to suppress the Red Dragon, the incarnation of strength,
could she still be called the incarnation of strength?
She was condemned to suffer eternally because of her own power.
‘Is there truly nothing I can do for her?’
Ferda tormented himself.
He imagined her figure tearing off her scales and bleeding.
The helplessness crushed him like an enormous weight, and despair pierced his heart like a thousand spears.
It was a pain similar to what he felt when he absorbed her heart.
‘If only I could do something for her…’
At that moment.
A small tug struck the collar of his clothing.
Mori, who held the pen, had pulled on his clothes.
A tool does not move by its own will.
If she moved, it meant that a prior order from Ferda had been activated.
“Has a situation appeared in which you can give an answer?”
Mori nodded.
She moved the pen again.
— Based on the available information, I have identified a hypothesis to suppress it.
The moment Ferda read the next sentence, the thick fog in his heart dissipated and the sun came out.
Mori’s eyes looked at him clearly.
— According to the hypothesis, Ferda Valdrova, you can suppress her.
