"Pledge my fealty? So, how is this supposed to work? Am I to kneel on one knee and swear my undying loyalty, like in the tales of chivalry?"
Sigrid murmured, raising no objection.
"You... agree?"
Jenkins blinked, his voice hesitant as he asked.
"Why shouldn't I?"
She tilted her head, her gaze fixed not on Jenkins, but on the kitten stretching its neck to sniff an apple on the low table before the sofa. "Perhaps the mantle of a Savior is important, but I don't believe I can shoulder that responsibility. So, even knowing the truth, I have no intention of getting involved."
It was reminiscent of how Jenkins himself once felt—that he neither wanted nor was capable of shouldering the responsibilities of a king, and thus had no desire to beco one. The allure might be great, but for so, even the most powerful temptation is nothing more than a burden.
"Since you need it, then take it. Perhaps you should have told sooner. There was no need to invite here specifically for this. I'm not as severe as you seem to think."
Her words made Jenkins feel a little sheepish, but he still insisted,
"I won't take it for nothing. I must compensate you—I never take advantage of anyone."
"But I'm not just anyone else."
As Sigrid spoke, Jenkins was about to say sothing more to clarify his position, but just then, a startling roar suddenly sounded from overhead.
It was not the cry of a cat, nor was it a sound from the opera stage. The soul-shaking roar ca from overhead—more precisely, from high up in the sky.
Jenkins wasn't the only one who heard it; anyone in the surrounding blocks without severe hearing loss must have heard it too. Even the soaring music from the stage below their box faltered for a mont. The performance only resud after it was clear the sound would not be repeated.
But a commotion was already breaking out in the nearby boxes; people clearly no longer felt safe. Jenkins turned to Sigrid, a confused look on his face.
"Was that a dragon's roar? It sounded like the red dragon from the Evergreen Forest."
"I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that dragon, so I can't distinguish its roar," she replied. "But I'm certain that was no ordinary animal."
With that, they both rose from the sofa. Jenkins scooped up Chocolate and placed the kitten on his shoulder. As Sigrid started to head out, Jenkins stopped her.
"Let's settle the matter of the Tree Soul first," he urged. "I don't want to put it off any longer. If I let the people from the Tree House take you away, I'll regret it for the rest of my life."
Jenkins set aside the matter of the dragon outside. Though he wasn't entirely sure what this "pledge of fealty" entailed, he followed the etiquette he'd gleaned from operas and stories. He had Sigrid kneel before him on one knee, then picked up the script from the coffee table and began to recite the lines.
The dragon's roar sounded again during the ritual, but this ti it was more distant, almost inaudible. Both Jenkins and Sigrid ignored it, concentrating on the task at hand.
The long preamble of the script proved ineffective. The manifestation of the Tree Soul only began with the most crucial exchange:
"Sigrid Christine Capet, will you swear to pledge your fealty to for all your life? That, second only to God, I shall be the object of your truest loyalty?"
Jenkins asked.
The line was rather dreadful. The script, after all, was from a romance, where the so-called "knight's fealty" referred to the protagonist pledging his loyalty to a princess. The playwright had taken so creative liberties with the phrasing, and Jenkins only realized how awful it sounded once the words were out of his mouth.
"I am willing."
Sigrid replied, still kneeling before him. Then it was her turn to ask:
"Jenkins Redemptor Williams, will you accept my fealty, and swear that you will never prove unworthy of this oath?"
It was another strange line, but Jenkins nodded nonetheless.
"I swear by the Sage."
The words had barely left his lips when a verdant light blood from Sigrid's chest. Jenkins knew it was terribly impolite, even immoral, to stare at a lady's bosom, but he couldn't help himself.
Sigrid's expression contorted as if she were suffering from a sharp pain in her chest. She instinctively clutched her left breast, gathering the verdant light in her cupped hands. Though she held them clasped together, the brilliance still radiated from between her fingers.
Without rising, she remained in that position and extended her clasped hands toward Jenkins. A faint sheen of sweat was visible on her forehead, as if what she held weighed a ton.
Jenkins imdiately reached out, placing his hand over Sigrid's. The mont his right hand covered the glowing seams between her fingers, the verdant light shot up his arm and directly into his heart.
Jenkins felt a similar pang in his own chest, but it lasted only an instant. Then, the Dragon Soul residing within his heart gave a powerful throb. Beside its burning, crimson fla, a slender, verdant fla began to materialize. The two did not rge, but simply resonated with one another.
The Silver Dragon Lord Anathasia had once said that fusing the Four King Souls required a specific thod, one known to the Star Spirits. Even if one couldn't actively pursue the powers of a Savior, gathering the other two souls had now beco a priority. Jenkins made a ntal note to ask Rakul about it soon.
"Are you alright?"
He reached out and helped Sigrid to her feet. The golden-haired nun shook her head.
"I just feel... strangely empty inside," she said. "It's an odd sensation, but I'm not hurt... What's glowing?"
A green light was still visible through Jenkins's thin shirt. At first, he assud it was the still-unstable power of the Tree Soul, but when he looked down, he saw that the light was coming from the two parts of the World Tree Seed.
He pulled them out. The two black, tallic-looking seeds had changed color at so point. The black exterior had completely faded away, revealing a bumpy, ochre surface that looked remarkably like a walnut shell. Judging by the shapes of the two pieces, one large and one small, they would form an irregular oval if joined together.
To the touch, they finally had the texture of wood. The green light was emanating from these "two walnut halves." The glow persisted for quite so ti; Jenkins and Sigrid watched for at least two minutes before it finally began to fade.
"Is the Tree Soul connected to the World Tree Seed? Or did two similar powers just resonate with each other?" Jenkins mused. "No, we should check on the situation outside first. I have a feeling one of my ntors might have an answer to this."
When they stepped out of the opera house and onto the street, everything seed perfectly normal: an ordinary street, ordinary pedestrians. He glanced up at the sky, which was shrouded in a gray mist. The sun, filtered through the fog, cast a wan, yellowish light, but there was no sign of any large creatures.
But that roar hadn't been a hallucination. Of that, Jenkins was certain.
"I'm going back to the Sage's Church to get so information," he said to Sigrid. "Are you coming with , or heading back to the flower shop?"
She thought for a mont before replying:
"I should return to the flower shop. If that really was a dragon's roar, then there's been an incident. The church might need ."
They were both decisive people, so they didn't waste ti on pleasantries. Jenkins simply reiterated that he wouldn't take her gift for nothing and promised he would find ti the following week to bring Sigrid for a visit to Maidenhaven Road.
"And this ti," he added, "I promise there won't be any interruptions."
He took a carriage to the church, arriving at nine-fifty in the morning. Jenkins hadn't forgotten about the cocktail party he had to attend that afternoon, so he was still undecided on whether to get involved in whatever incident the dragon's roar signified.
Miss Bevanna was at the church, so Jenkins went straight to her for information. His suspicions from the opera house were confird: the two terrifying roars that had echoed over Nolan thirty minutes earlier had indeed co from the red dragon temporarily residing in the Evergreen Forest.
"I can tell you what happened, but this doesn't concern you, Jenkins," she said firmly. "Don't even think about participating. This is not sothing you can interfere with."
"Why?"
Jenkins asked at once. Usually, even when Miss Bevanna objected to his involvent in a case, she never used such a prohibitive tone.
"Because you can't fly."
Her answer was simple.
The incident today was another Cursed Item outbreak. The one that had inexplicably appeared was A-03-5-2737, the "Specter of the Dragon Hunter." It was a rare case among Cursed Items, carrying the lowest possible danger rating of "5." This is because the phenonon only manifests around creatures with a draconic bloodline concentration exceeding eighty-two percent, and even then, only probabilistically—roughly the sa odds as an ordinary person stumbling upon a human-targeting Cursed Item while walking alone at night.
According to the records, before the 15th Epoch, when half-blood dragons were still relatively common in the material world, the Specter of the Dragon Hunter was rated a level 2 danger. But as the dragons dwindled with each passing generation, to the point that they are now virtually nonexistent, the item's danger level was repeatedly downgraded to its current minimum. While the specters themselves are quite dangerous, humans are safe as long as they stay away from the pure-blooded dragons they are almost certain never to encounter.
The Specter of the Dragon Hunter is generally considered an "event-type" Cursed Item. When it triggers, the initial signs are an unnaturally dense fog forming around the target dragon, followed by a rapid drop in temperature to near-freezing levels. Two to three hours after the fog appears and the temperature plumts, a troop of specters, numbering anywhere from seventeen to ninety-eight, will erge from the mist and begin their hunt.
All of these specters ride mounts capable of traversing any terrain—including, but not limited to, water, land, and sheer rock faces. The mounts resemble skeletal horses clad in bronze-colored tal armor. They are capable of sustained flight and leave trails of white frost in their wake as they tread upon the air.
Each specter is clad in black, bone-like full-plate armor and equipped with standard-issue weapons forged from a special alloy, including swords, daggers, bows, and throwable black powder bombs. Furthermore, each is proficient in one or two ice- or water-based elental spells specifically designed for hunting dragons.
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