🔊 TTS Settings
chapter 33
It felt as if his mind was whitening out like a snowfield. Horrific memories that had lingered at the bottom of his thoughts like dusk were pushed away and erased by the rising sunlight.
Izrael finally had to admit it.
The Shuen Felicita he had known and the girl standing before him were completely different people.
He couldn’t understand how this had happened, but the suspicions he had carried for a long time had now solidified into certainty.
Izrael had thought he had already experienced enough surprises because of her.
That was true—until he tried the bread she had left behind. Until he saw her sneaking into his room and slipping out again like a thief, hiding clumsily, and wondered what she would do next this time.
On the table was a tray of bread she had clearly left behind. It looked freshly baked, glistening with a savory aroma that made it seem delicious.
And it wasn’t plain bread—it was raisin bread.
Even if it had been poisoned, he thought he might still take a bite just to acknowledge the effort she had made to learn his taste.
But the moment he took a bite, Izrael froze in place.
“…!”
An enormous mass of magical power spread through his entire body. It was a sensation he had never experienced before.
It felt as if a dragon’s heart had been wrung out—an overwhelming surge of mana swallowed him whole. It took a long time before the violently surging power finally began to settle.
His muscles felt as light as clouds. He could clearly feel the pulse of mana flowing even to his fingertips.
When he came to his senses, he found himself already pushing open Shuen’s door.
Shuen, sitting inside with eyes round like a startled rabbit, met his gaze. Barely controlling his rough breathing, Izrael spoke to the maid.
“Please leave us.”
“Pardon?”
“I have something to discuss alone with the young lady.”
The maid looked back and forth between Izrael and Shuen with uneasy eyes. Only after Shuen gave a small nod did the maid leave and close the door.
Izrael placed the tray in front of Shuen and asked.
“What is this bread?”
Shuen blinked in confusion. She seemed certain he would never realize she had brought it secretly.
Her expression betrayed every thought she had.
And that was exactly why he became more certain she was not the same person.
Even while acting as if she had some scheme, she openly revealed her emotions without distance or caution.
Tilting her head, Shuen frowned slightly and asked carefully.
“…Was it bad?”
He let out a hollow laugh, half in disbelief.
But in that moment, her attitude changed in an instant.
She crossed her legs, and her previously soft brows tilted sharply.
“Ha. I only said it was bread that was going to be thrown away, so I told them to throw it into your room if they were going to discard it.”
“….”
“For a freeloader like you, isn’t that already a luxury?”
The mocking expression on her face was exactly the Shuen Felicita he remembered.
‘So this is the curse on you.’
Izrael stared at her as if trying to see through the shell covering her.
As if piercing through a faint veil to uncover what lay beyond.
He knew—there was a girl beyond that layer who had once said she wanted to help him.
Izrael answered firmly.
“Understood.”
For now, no matter what question he asked, he would not get a proper explanation.
He decided to stop wasting time and go find Hiser. If anyone knew about Shuen’s bread—and the mana within it—it would be him.
It also aligned perfectly with the reason Hiser had suddenly appeared in the mansion and stayed near Shuen.
Just as he was about to leave without hesitation, Izrael stopped.
The girl’s dejected face when she asked whether it was bad bread came back to him.
Without turning around, he said,
“For the record… it wasn’t bad.”
“What are you talking about? Have you gone crazy?”
Ignoring her irritated voice, Izrael added lightly,
“It was delicious.”
Without waiting for her response, he left the room.
Her raised, angry voice followed him through the door, but he ignored it.
He immediately drew a magic circle.
Hiser was currently away on leave, having left the estate. Officially it was a visit to his hometown, but it was obviously a lie.
A tracking magic circle that followed the trace left on a target was completed.
With his lips pressed tightly together, Izrael placed his hand on the circle. Light enveloped his body.
The world flipped in an instant.
The first thing he saw was blazing red flames. Everything before his eyes was burning.
For a moment, it overlapped with the scene of the Felicita mansion being engulfed in fire.
Izrael frowned.
Within the roaring flames, a massive dark shape was slowly burning away.
Through the rising fire, he realized what it was.
A dragon’s corpse.
Like an entire mountain set ablaze, the scene stretched out before him. A familiar figure stood silently in front of it.
Even though he must have sensed the presence, Hiser did not turn around once.
Staring at his shadowed back, Izrael asked,
“Did you do this?”
“Hardly. I have no interest in killing my own kind.”
Unlike you humans.
The remark reached his ears clearly. As always, this foul-tempered dragon had a talent for needling others unnecessarily.
Just from his back, Izrael could imagine that infuriating smug face.
“If not you, then who?”
Hiser turned his head slightly, looking at Izrael with mild curiosity.
“Well. I thought you might already know.”
Shrugging, he added casually,
“I heard there was a human who enjoys hunting dragons, so I looked into it a bit.”
A dragon that hunts humans would make sense—but a human that hunts dragons? What kind of insect eats a bird?
“So, did you find anything?”
“If I had to say, it would be impressions.”
“Impressions?”
“He goes out of his way to kill only dragons with particularly bad reputations.”
Hiser’s pupils narrowed as he spoke indifferently.
“I find it rather amusing that a human is weighing good and evil like that.”
Izrael searched his memory, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. He had heard something similar long ago.
A nameless dragon had roared while bleeding:
“How can a human like you claim what you do is justice!”
And the golden-haired man standing upon its massive body had replied:
“The one who judges your evil is not me, but my sword.”
A sword that shone like the sun even under a sky of scattering ash.
A human who walked a straight path as if he were the protagonist of the world.
Rahiel Iscarot.
The moment he recalled that name, a chill ran through Izrael’s fingertips.
It felt as vivid as the sensation of a cold blade piercing his heart.
Hiser, who had been watching him closely, murmured to himself,
“So you know him too.”
But Izrael no longer heard him.
The seconds of a frozen clock had begun to move again.
Tick.
In the direction time was meant to flow.
Hiser’s voice pulled Izrael back to reality.
“So, why did you chase me all the way here?”
“….”
“You even used high-cost tracking magic. This must be serious.”
Hiser finally turned fully around, still wearing his usual relaxed expression.
The flames behind him painted his face in shades of orange. His sand-colored eyes slowly scanned Izrael.
“Ah… I see.”
As if realizing everything from a single glance.
“You tried it too, didn’t you?”
Just as Izrael had suspected, Hiser already knew everything.
“How is this happening?”
The rough edge in Izrael’s voice slipped out.
“Is this also because of that curse?”
“What do you think?”
Hiser had said that Shuen was under a curse, and that he was trying to break it.
A curse that caused her to lose control of her own body if certain conditions were violated.
But he had not explained the details, only adding that it was extremely difficult to break.
Even for Hiser—one of the strongest dragons in history—it was troublesome.
Izrael had also been told that both he and Shuen had talent in magic.
When he first heard it, he thought it was nonsense. A scam meant to deceive an ignorant noble girl.
Because Shuen’s magical capacity was nothing special.
Not low, not high—just average. Ordinary.
But the bread she had baked contained an enormous amount of mana—enough to tempt even dragons.
After a long silence, Izrael answered honestly.
“…I don’t know.”
“Then leave it as something you don’t know.”
Izrael frowned.
No one understood better than him how obsessed dragons were with mana.
They were a race overflowing with greed as immense as their bodies.
Some even craved mana like addicts, caring nothing even as their bodies collapsed.
Their hearts would eventually fail under excessive mana, leading to ruin—but they never stopped.
Izrael looked at Hiser and asked,
“Is that why you approached her too?”
