Chapter 188……………………………………
Meanwhile, Lisma’s expression gradually darkened as he waited for Elupe, who still hadn’t returned.
The many spirits watching him began to bustle about, hurriedly searching for any trace of Elupe.
[“He is a human who has meddled with black magic. It would be better not to get close to him. Perhaps we should simply leave him alone.”]
[“He is my contractor.”]
[“He was someone who should have died from the start. Isn’t he a half-breed mongrel with spirit blood in his veins?”]
It meant that if not for the Spirit King’s whim, he would have been a being who should have died long ago.
He had heard those same words a long time ago, but back then he had felt nothing in particular. Now, however, the spirits’ words were irritating him.
[“I do not want that.”]
[“Isn’t the reason the Spirit King ended up like this all because of that mongrel? Why are you trying to keep him alive?”]
Lisma swallowed a sigh at the dissatisfied voices of the spirits.
The spirits were in a difficult situation because Lisma had suddenly lost his physical form.
Since something that had never once happened to the Spirit King had occurred, it was only natural that some spirits began to harbor negative feelings toward Elupe, his contractor.
But Lisma did not like that.
[“I will make the judgment. I should go look for El right now.”]
[“You must not go.”]
[“…Move. It won’t end well for you if you try to stop me.”]
[“If you go now, you may never return.”]
At the small spirit’s words, the clusters of light began to panic.
It was only natural for the frightened spirits not to know what to do.
Spirits did not pass down their king the way humans selected and inherited a ruler, nor did they fight among themselves like beasts competing to choose a leader.
When a Spirit King vanished, the next Spirit King was naturally born. For spirits—who practically never died—it was rare for their king to change.
[“Then that is all the more reason I must go.”]
[“Why must the King personally step forward for the sake of that mongrel?”]
At the voice filled with incomprehension, Lisma gave a bitter smile.
To him, El was more precious than anything.
Even though countless spirits who worried about him stood before him, he was still stepping forward for El. Seeing that, he wondered if perhaps he truly was an unqualified king.
[“Even if it means walking a road from which I can never return, I don’t mind. If I must live without ever seeing El again, that might be even worse.”]
* * *
I thought it might be possible to break this space using black magic, but I couldn’t act recklessly because of Lisma’s warning.
If I used powerful black magic here, the connection that existed between Lisma and me might completely break.
“He said it was like a side effect caused by the collision between powerful black magic and powerful spirit energy…”
Still, I couldn’t remain trapped here forever.
Kyle had regained his senses and restored the room to how it was before, but my heart had already grown cold.
My feelings for him were the same as before, but that was separate from the issue of staying here.
“Looks like you’ll be skipping meals again today.”
Yuliter entered my room with an indifferent voice, as if he had no interest at all.
I glared at the cold bread and soup before finally turning my head toward him.
“Please tell me more about the Dragon’s Bride.”
It was a concept that had never appeared in the original story, so I wasn’t sure whether it was truly okay for me to become the Dragon’s Bride.
If becoming the Dragon’s Bride meant nothing special happened…
‘If it simply fulfilled the condition for staying with Kyle… maybe we could live together without worrying about anything.’
Even though I knew it was a foolish hope, I couldn’t easily let go of it.
“A dragon’s fiancée who doesn’t even know what the Dragon’s Bride is… How ridiculous.”
Yuliter looked down at me with an uneasy expression, as though he had just heard something he shouldn’t have. It was obvious suspicion.
“I don’t understand why you’re suddenly saying that. Wasn’t it you, Lord Yuliter, who told me to leave if I wasn’t going to become the Dragon’s Bride?”
“….”
At my words, Yuliter flinched slightly. Then he crossed his arms and lowered his head toward the floor. I was the one who eventually broke the long silence.
“I don’t know why Kyle wants to make me his bride. If I at least knew the reason…”
“Have you been naïvely believing a dragon’s words at face value?”
I was at a loss for words when Yuliter asked that with a look of disbelief.
“Are you saying Kyle has been deceiving me?”
“Countless humans have targeted Kyle until now. After the imperial family learned the love story of the former guardian deity who loved the first emperor, wouldn’t it be stranger if they had simply left Kyle alone?”
“….”
Thinking about it calmly, Yuliter’s words seemed right.
If greedy humans had learned this fact, they would certainly have tried countless ways to seduce Kyle.
‘Then why did Kyle say that to me…?’
“It was your fault for catching the dragon’s eye in the first place. Who could just ignore that damned sparkle of your soul?”
“The sparkle of my soul?”
“You didn’t know? I can clearly see your souls colliding.”
After saying that, Yuliter suddenly realized something and his expression darkened.
Since it seemed like I shouldn’t provoke him while he looked so serious, I quietly waited. He muttered something incomprehensible.
[“Kyle can’t see the collision of souls, so he shouldn’t know this. Then how did he sense the sparkle?”]
Watching Yuliter hastily disappear, I realized that the light coming from my body was real.
* * *
After that, I fell into a deep sleep in the boring room.
Even when I didn’t want to sleep, drowsiness kept overwhelming me—as if someone was forcing me to fall asleep.
[“Why of all places are you here?”]
The voice of Elupe from the original story trembled excessively. Since we had met like this several times already, I was almost glad to see her today.
Then suddenly I wondered if the “collision of souls” that Yuliter mentioned referred to the soul of the original Elupe and mine.
[“If you want to live, you need to run away from here immediately.”]
The emotion I felt from Elupe was unmistakably fear.
Since I didn’t know why she was trembling so much, I decided I should calm her down and find out what she was afraid of.
“The imperial family ordered the execution of Count Inferna and his entire family. I was lucky to survive, but I don’t really have anywhere to go.”
Since everything I said was true, I thought she wouldn’t be able to scold me.
[“Even so, not here. You have to run away.”]
“Why do you keep telling me to run away? Kyle brought me here to save me…!”
[“Ha… Have you ever heard this story? Dragons cherish their own kind terribly. If one of their kind is killed by another being, revenge begins immediately. A revenge staked with their own lives.”]
I felt uneasy. The emotions of Elupe Inferna from the original story were being conveyed to me exactly as they were, and it was frightening.
“Don’t tell me… the one who killed the dragons Kyle was searching for… was y-you?”
Even as I asked the question myself, it felt ridiculous. I had already lived in this body for several years.
There was no way she had killed a dragon when she was just a little child.
[“It was an unavoidable choice. I needed a dragon’s heart in order to see the one I loved.”]
It sounded like an absurd excuse, and I didn’t want to continue the conversation. Perhaps sensing that, she hurriedly added more.
[“You know now, don’t you? That Lisma and I can never see each other if our powers collide.”]
I hated how she clung to me with a voice that sounded like she was about to cry. Besides, the idea that Lisma and I—no, that the original Elupe—were lovers…
“First—ugh. I understand that you loved Lisma, not Prince Lekanon. But I still don’t understand why two dragons had to die because of that.”
[“In the time I lived in, Lisma and I were destined to never meet again.”]
I couldn’t understand the original Elupe, who groaned as if in agony.
“Fine. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you loved Lisma so much that you obtained a dragon’s heart once. But then you should have stopped. Why would you do the same thing twice…?”
[“You may not believe it, but before I died, I returned to the day I first met Lisma. I went back without my memories, so by the time I fell in love with him again, I had already begun using black magic.”]
I wanted to scrub my ears under running water, as if I could somehow undo what I had just heard.
This felt completely different from the time I had considered leaving Kyle simply because I thought I might block his future.
If I didn’t die, Kyle would die.
‘In a world where Kyle is dead… I don’t think I could live.’
