IBFWGFG 81

Chapter 81

Fortunately, what Lucis wanted was not independence.

She asked for one townhouse mansion.

Puzzled, I still gave her an empty building.

More precisely, I moved the servants’ quarters — the building right next to the main house — to another building, then handed that building over to Lucis.

“This mansion is yours now.”

Lucis put her hands on her hips and sniffed as she looked up at the three-story house.

“Gwanghwigung.”

“Huh?”

“It’s Gwanghwigung.”

She’d already named the mansion.

(‘By the way… “gung”…?’)

I thought for a moment and realized the place Lucis had visited a few days ago was the prince’s platinum palace. Maybe she’d been upset that even ordinary humans had palaces while she didn’t.

I smiled softly and ruffled Lucis’s hair.

“Alright, shall we go supervise the move?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Lucis didn’t have many things, but moving was still a large, time-consuming event.

The servants first cleaned the grime and old dust from the building, then moved Lucis’s things and furniture in.

Most of Lucis’s things were clothes.

There was a reason Lux made Lucis new suits every day, and also because Hella and Shia bought cute clothes for her every day.

“The bed goes here.”

“This is the bedroom.”

“The dolls go here.”

“This is the playroom.”

“The undine goes here.”

[I’ll sleep with Lady Lucis!]

“Heh heh. Clothes go here.”

“Her clothes will keep increasing, so you need to designate at least four rooms.”

“Hmm… then again. This is the bedroom.”

“Bedroom, yes.”

“This is the doll room…”

But what took the longest was the layout of Lucis’s mansion rooms.

Although it would be reasonable for the servants to be annoyed by the fussiness, they all waited with smiling faces for Lucis to decide.

They looked nostalgic, as if they themselves had been just as excited when they decorated their rooms for the first time.

“Uuum…!”

Lucis’s deliberation went on late into the night.

Lucis woke slowly to a gentle touch rousing her.

“…Lu. Wake up. It’s morning.”

Listening to that voice and surrendering to the warmth pressing on her, a loving hand began massaging her arms and legs.

As she drowsily drifted between sleep and waking feeling that touch, the massage reached her head.

Press-press.

With the head massage fully waking her, Lucis let out a contented yawn and greeted Seymour for the morning.

“Hi.”

“Mm. Good morning today too, Lu.”

Lucis turned her head to look for the undine. The undine Lucis had hugged to sleep the night before was somehow barely balanced at the edge of the bed, snoring.

Lucis wriggled over and scooped the undine into her arms. The cool body of the undine was perfect for beating the heat of summer.

“Jomuljomul.” (sound of poking)

Lucis gave the undine the same massage Seymour had given her.

Although made of water, the undine had a jellylike, bouncy feel that was fun to touch.

[Heeheehee! It tickles!]

Soon the undine woke and clung to Lucis.

“Today we’ll eat first, then bathe.”

“Huh?”

At the unusual order, Seymour stroked her head and explained.

“The bath has a small problem and they’re fixing it urgently right now.”

“I don’t need to bathe.”

“Ahaha. Let’s go to the dining room first.”

Seymour picked Lucis up and Lucis held the undine.

At the dining room they arrived at, Simon, Shia, and Locarium were already seated.

“If you’re going to sleep with that thing anyway, why did you bother taking a house?” Locarium asked.

Lucis rolled her eyes at him and happily devoured a steak.

[glug, glug!]

The undine drank orange juice beside her. Seeing the undine’s yellow-tinged body made Lucis laugh with pleasure.

After breakfast Lucis went back to Seymour’s room and waited for the bath repairs to finish.

“I’ll go to the study first. I have something I must finish by the morning.”

Seymour went to the study first.

“….”

Seizing the opportunity, Lucis slipped out the window and ran away.

“Luuucis niiim!”

“You have to wash, where are you goingoo!”

“The runaway fit’s acting up again!”

After Irina’s tutoring, Lucis had been a good child — she followed the maids’ rules to keep human discipline and didn’t make things hard. But not today.

Today there was something more important she had to do than following human rules as a dragon.

[Are you going to secure the rare?]

“Yes.”

She was going to secure her new rare: the Palace of Radiance.

Quickly crossing to the adjacent building, Lucis first climbed along the outer wall. Of course she used magic to climb safely and quickly.

Standing on the roof, she looked down over the townhouse.

As she scanned the area, she noticed birds nesting in a corner of the roof.

• chirp chirp.

The birds, which were chirping, suddenly turned their heads and met Lucis’s eyes.

The birds bowed as if asking permission, and Lucis generously permitted them to stay.

Lucis ran around the roof for a while, checking whether her rare’s ceiling was sturdy.

[There won’t be any leaks!]

Satisfied that the roof was fine, she nodded and descended back to the ground.

“Ah! Lady Lucis!”

“Here! Over here!”

The maids tracking Lucis rushed up, but Lucis was faster — she vaulted through a window and ran.

“Luuucis niiim!”

Leaving the maids’ unhappy cries behind, Lucis walked around the building’s exterior.

She approached the loose outer brick she had noticed yesterday.

It was a stone half buried in the ground, loose where shorter adults couldn’t see it.

“Ugh.”

Lucis heaved and pried out the brick. A hole large enough for her to crawl into appeared.

Looking around, she crawled into it quickly.

Wriggle-wriggle.

She crawled through gaps between the building’s foundation stones and floorboards.

[This seems to be above the bath! I can feel the water’s aura!]

The undine stuck to Lucis’s back and joined her in the underground exploration.

Lucis thoroughly scanned the floor and even crawled through empty spaces between walls, checking carefully for any weak or loose parts in her rare.

Along the way she met plenty of bugs too.

[Such cute-looking bugs! What are their names?]

“Cockroaches.”

[That’s a cute name too!]

She met rats as well.

• squeak!

“Squeak?”

• squeak squeak!

The rats told her a strange tale: someone had come here before Lucis and settled in the basement.

“…?”

Following the rats, Lucis descended to the cellar.

The cellar was used for storing wine and cheese — a place Lucis hadn’t explored before.

• squeak squeak!

The cellar walls were solid and fine.

But when Lucis reached where the rats pointed, her hand slipped into what felt like a mirage.

There was no magic within Lucis’s awareness that she couldn’t sense. So this had to be a sacred seal using holy power.

“…An intruder.”

A vision of the lake flashed into Lucis’s mind.

The madman who had poured out white, blazing hot power trying to kill them.

When Lucis recalled the madman swinging his scepter at Seymour, she released her mana.

Kwaaaah-!

With a storm of magic, the holy seal that had been hiding the secret entrance was shredded in an instant.

The rats and the undine clung to Lucis’s body. Like the eye of a storm, Lucis herself was unaffected by the magic storm’s aftermath.

“Uhhagh?!”

Inside the exposed hiding place there was a clergyman wearing a dusty makeshift robe.

On the hideout’s wall, many pinned notices contained information about the Mausoleum family.

“Lester?”

Lucis asked.

But the clergyman couldn’t answer.

Lucis’s furious, animalistic aura — dragonfire — was spewing out relentlessly.

Kuuuuu-.

Coarse mana began to gather in Lucis’s hand.

Realizing she would die if this continued, the clergyman finally managed to open his mouth through fear.

“Ah, no! I am not a priest of the Order of Repose!”

“Enemy.”

“I am not your enemy! Baby Radiant Dragon! I came to save you…!”

“You hid in my rare.”

Lucis’s eyes fixed on the clergyman’s white clothes. Rage filled those round eyes.

“White power is the enemy.”

Lucis reached for the clergyman. Just as violent magic was about to manifest from her hand…

“Lu, stop.”

Seymour embraced Lucis from behind and placed his hand on her arm, gently applying pressure.

“It’s okay. Leave the rest to us.”

“….”

Lucis slowly lowered her hand.

As her mana that had filled the surroundings vanished, Hella quickly moved in and subdued the clergyman.

Seymour lifted Lucis into his arms. Lucis stared at Seymour’s eyes, then buried her face into his chest.

“It’s okay. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“…I hate them.”

“Me too.”

Lucis felt her rigid body melt under Seymour’s hand as he stroked her head.

Relaxation she hadn’t noticed washing into her left a soft, sleepy feeling, and an unintended small voice slipped out.

“Seymour mustn’t die.”

“….”

Seymour’s hand paused for a moment, then gently smoothed Lucis’s hair.

I blamed myself.

‘I’ve been neglecting Lucis.’

Lucis was a child. She had gone through the big event of fighting gods — that couldn’t have left her untouched.

Besides, Lucis had already lost her closest people, like parents — she wasn’t just any child.

‘She must have been very anxious.’

From the time she’d started sleeping in my bed every other day, she’d been sleeping beside me every night since we went to Resting Lake.

And now we’d found a clergyman hiding in the townhouse — no wonder her anger and anxiety had boiled to the surface.

Earlier, when Lucis’s mana had suddenly exploded, I had been startled, tossed aside a stack of papers, and rushed over.

If I’d been even a little later, she would’ve had blood on her hands.

‘Damn. This isn’t the time to be doing this.’

Hella, Simon, and I had subdued the clergyman and locked him in an empty room in the knights’ quarters.

We intended to extract information about what the church was aiming for.

‘Lucis… I hope she doesn’t develop trauma from the church.’

I just wanted to finish the interrogation quickly and go calm her down before any trauma could deepen.

“Brother.”

Perhaps reading my thoughts, Simon spoke.

“You should go see Lucis. I’ll take care of this place.”

His words made me feel glad and grateful, but also puzzled.

Why was he telling me to go — not “we” but “me”?

Hella also looked at Simon with slightly surprised eyes.

“I’ll pull every scrap of information out of him.”

But Simon merely smiled with confidence and motioned me to hurry and go.

After a brief silence I asked, “Simon. You didn’t finish building the torture circuit, did you?”

Simon gave a faint smile without answering.