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Chapter 18
What happened afterward eventually led to the present.
It had been him, after all, who allowed a black dragon with the appearance of someone Werner’s age into the mansion, and who accepted his request to stay at the ducal estate for the time being.
Which was exactly why his headache only worsened.
If news ever leaked that the Black Dragon Isid was currently staying in the Valentine Ducal House, the situation would become unimaginably complicated.
No—not merely complicated. The entire Empire would be thrown into chaos.
For the last five hundred years, the reason the Empire had remained safe from outside invasion was, in no small part, because of the guardian dragon’s existence.
And the Black Dragon Isid, though he appeared once every fifty years to circle the skies above the Empire, had never once allowed anyone the chance to meet him directly.
Thus, people could only confirm that he had not abandoned the Empire through the barrier protecting the land and through his unfailing appearance every fifty years.
However, among the descendants of the five heroes who had fought beside him in the past—excluding Roel the Great Spirit Master—there existed one additional token.
Click—
The necklace in his hand was precisely that.
Though Isid had said it would no longer be useful now, so it likely no longer served its original function.
What exactly he had meant by those words still remained a complete mystery.
“…This is driving me insane.”
Not a single question had been properly answered, yet the situation alone had advanced somehow, and it made his temples throb.
Kalips muttered the uncharacteristically harsh words under his breath and let out a sigh as he rose from his seat.
“…”
Through the door his two sons had rushed out of earlier without properly closing came the very source of his headache, strolling in lazily.
The black dragon.
The black dragon who had barged into another person’s home in the dead of night casually claimed the sofa with a posture loose enough to seem almost delinquent. Then he flicked his gaze toward the seat opposite him.
Compared to before… his attitude had become incomparably more crooked.
At that moment, a passage from a book describing dragons crossed Kalips’s mind.
Dragons, called the supreme magical race, were exalted beings. The book had practically worshipped them, saying they were nobler and more arrogant than any existence in the world.
Naturally enough, the author had been a mage.
Anyway, after blankly staring at the dragon who no longer carried even a trace of gentleness, Kalips swallowed another sigh and sat back down.
“…”
Silence lingered for a moment.
The black dragon stared at him so intently it felt burdensome. He finally spoke just as Kalips swallowed his third sigh.
“Ro-well is asleep.”
That pronunciation between “Ro-el” and “Well.”
A faint light flickered briefly in his emotionless gaze.
“…I see.”
Kalips answered slowly, swallowing the questions rising in his throat.
In truth, there was much he wanted to ask.
What exactly was his relationship with Roweina?
Since when had he known that child, who had not even reached her seventh birthday yet?
What was the bond between them that clearly could not have formed over a short period of time?
And why did he look at her with such tender eyes?
It was only natural to have many questions after something as shocking as a bolt from the blue.
But he could not reveal those doubts.
The black dragon before him would never kindly answer his questions anyway, and Roweina, now asleep…
This, too, was probably part of the secret the child carried.
‘…I hope someday you’ll tell me yourself.’
More important than satisfying his curiosity was the fact that the child who had always acted so mature had, for the first time, completely relaxed and looked comfortable.
That was also why he had allowed the mysterious black dragon into this house.
Not because he was the Empire’s guardian dragon, but because Roweina had looked so utterly at ease beside him.
From the moment Kizef was born, and from the instant Eunice died in his arms, the three children had become the most important beings in his life.
There existed nothing more precious than them.
“I’ll allow you one chance to ask what matters most to you.”
And so, when the black dragon said that, Kalips opened his mouth without hesitation.
“Are you safe for Roweina?”
Isid silently looked at him.
“That is your question?”
“Yes.”
His face showed not even a trace of regret.
He was speaking the truth.
“As a citizen of the Empire, I offer you my respect. But if you are a danger to Roweina…”
His sharp eyes did not waver in the slightest.
“…Then I will risk this life to destroy you.”
Though fierce enough to sound almost savage, those words were a warning.
Isid remained silent for a moment as he looked into those unwavering eyes.
Then he suddenly let out a short laugh, deep satisfaction appearing on his face.
He still did not particularly like the existence called Roel’s “family,” but with resolve like that, he could acknowledge him as worthy of being Roel’s family.
“Your concern is unnecessary.”
And so Isid added a single sincere truth.
“Ro-well is… someone more precious to me than anything else.”
The dawn sky that blanketed the world in silence was black.
The territory of the Tesserenia Empire, which occupied more than half the continent, was said to have received the blessing of the gods.
Except for the far north, the climate remained mild in every direction throughout all four seasons. The land was fertile and suitable for farming, yielding abundant harvests every year, and its vast territory held countless beautiful resort regions.
But not every part of the Tesserenia Empire was like that.
The far north, where freezing cold persisted even in midsummer.
The deserts forever battered by sandstorms.
The jungles so hot and humid that humans could not set foot there, swarming with monsters.
The one thing all those places shared was that they rejected human intrusion.
Though humans could not survive there, there were still beings that had made such extreme environments their home.
Monsters, animals, insects, and races other than humans all lived there.
Just because humans could not inhabit a land did not mean the land held no value.
But in the vast continent, there was exactly one place—
One single place alone—
That was different.
Saaaa—
A chilling wind swept across the pitch-black earth beneath a moon so bright it should have illuminated the world.
Tick. Tick.
The object rolling weakly across the cracked ground was a shell.
More precisely, a dried, hollow skeleton.
The skeleton rolled with the howling wind before striking a blackened rock and shattering to pieces.
Crumble—
The bones broke apart as though made of packed sand, scattering into the air.
Soon, without leaving behind even the slightest trace that it had ever existed, the skeleton dispersed completely into dust.
Saaaa—
The wind, heavy with the stench of ominous death, once again clawed across the black land.
It was as if space itself devoured all existence.
The phenomenon inspired grotesque terror, yet there was no “living creature” in this place capable of feeling such emotion.
Because this was that kind of place.
A land utterly dead, where not even a blade of grass could survive.
This was the “Black Zone,” where no living being could exist.
This land had not always looked so horrific.
Hundreds of years ago, it had been a beautiful plain where flowers bloomed brilliantly among green grass.
Trees reaching toward the sky here and there served as resting places for animals, while rivers flowing through the plains quenched the thirst of both flora and fauna alike.
People occasionally visited, but fundamentally it had been a land preserving nature’s beauty.
It was five hundred years ago that such a place transformed into this dreadful sight.
The final battle between the dark mages who sought to resurrect their god and destroy the world, and the allied forces formed to stop them.
That battle five hundred years ago had been unprecedented in both scale and ferocity.
Both sides exhausted every ounce of remaining strength.
In the end, victory belonged to the alliance.
They slew the leader of the dark mages, secured the “Orb of Sin,” their sacred artifact, and prevented the resurrection ritual.
But behind that victory existed irreversible losses.
This land was one of them.
The deathly energy released by the dark mages and their servants stained the land with death.
After the long battle ended, the Order carried out purification rituals, but they could not restore the land to life.
After the war that determined the fate of the world ended, the world became busy once more.
Farewells to the fallen.
Rebuilding ruined cities.
Hunting down fleeing remnants.
Amid all those tasks, this land—which had already died beyond recovery—was gradually pushed aside.
The intervals between purification rituals grew longer and longer, until they stopped completely after the death of Emperor Kyle, who outlived all his comrades except the Black Dragon Isid.
From that day onward, all purification efforts for the “Black Zone” ceased entirely, and only occasional maintenance of the magic formations blocking entry for safety reasons continued.
And so one hundred years passed.
Then two hundred.
Now, five hundred years after the catastrophe—
Step.
Someone entered the “Black Zone,” where ordinary people suffered hallucinations and auditory delusions merely by setting foot inside.
