“You knew all along, didn’t you! Of course you did!”
Ayra angrily crushed the pebble in her hand, furious at the spirit that had toyed with its master. From between her fingers, hearts a little larger than usual scattered with soft little thud thud thud sounds. It was as if the spirit, sorrowful at being scolded, had shed tear-like droplets from its essence.
[Tip. The Spirit GM always wishes the user a flower-strewn path!]
So it had been hiding it for her own good, huh? Even so, she couldn’t help but feel betrayed. Squeezing the pebble as though wringing out a soaked sponge, Ayra took a deep breath.
“Janus, can I ask you sothing? Are you... close with Nilma Argan?”
She bit back the urge to just blurt out, Are you a dragon? Her heart was pounding hard. Janus’s sharp ears must’ve picked up on it, because he gave her an oddly curious look.
“The one you were avoiding earlier was Argan, huh?”
For a mont, Ayra considered lying—maybe say Nilma was a creep who kept hitting ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) on her. Stir up so tension. But she thought better of it. She still didn’t know exactly how deep Janus and Nilma’s relationship ran. Better not to stir that pot. So instead, she gave a safer excuse.
“I knew him from when he stayed at the lord’s castle. If soone working at Solar’s lordship is seen wandering around Bolni, he’d probably get suspicious.”
“Mm, fair enough.”
It wasn’t a lie. That had, in fact, been her initial reason for hiding. Ayra still didn’t want to reveal her identity as Solar’s lord to Janus—especially if he really was a dragon.
“We’re not exactly close. More like... a rich subordinate that’s easy to order around.”
That was a relief. A rich but ugly pushover underling definitely couldn’t compare to a capable, handso mage lover... right? Ayra took another deep breath and calmly asked the real question, heart thudding so hard it was making her dizzy.
“Then... Janus... are you a dragon?”
At that, Janus ca to a stop. He lifted the arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her in by the shoulders, chuckling. His voice was light, as if he were stating sothing trivial.
“Humans do call my kind that.”
Then, suddenly rembering sothing, his eyes glinted mischievously as he teased:
“What, wanna cut open and see what my organs look like?”
Ayra ntally scread every curse word she knew. That damned conversation about cutting open a dragon in Dalum Gorge flashed through her mind. She forced a crooked, awkward smile.
“H-haha... why would I cut open my own lover’s belly? That’d make insane...”
Only then did she fully understand why the pebble had kept his identity from her. If she’d known Janus was a dragon, she never would’ve made such reckless comnts about dissecting one.
‘And this perverted dragon’s favorability wouldn’t have gone up either.’
Yeah, maybe ignorance had been a blessing in this case. Ayra half-regretted not whacking him with the iron ball earlier. But then again, she was pleased to have gotten firsthand data on a dragon’s defense and strength.
“A dragon... That explains why his HP was 9,999,999.”
She gave Janus a once-over, newly aware. Tousled red hair, sharp almond-shaped eyes, a sleek nose, and upturned lips... he looked entirely human.
But those rare survivors of dragon massacres all said the sa thing: the creature wearing a human face wasn’t human. Those who rembered what the true form of a dragon looked like all trembled, afraid the mory might even appear in their dreams.
Even now, in his human guise, there had to be sothing... sothing not human.
As her gaze road, it slowly landed on his forearm—scratched earlier by Mishio as he struggled. The blood that had once welled up was now crusted into a deep red scab.
“...Damn. If I’d known, I would’ve swiped a drop while I had the chance.”
Born a mage, she couldn’t help the disappointnt. Her fingers twitched instinctively. Janus, watching her quietly, tilted his head and narrowed his eyes slightly. She was still processing when he asked:
“Your heart’s pounding like a startled rabbit. Are you scared now that you’re standing in front of a dragon?”
Only then did Ayra realize just how fast her heart was racing. His fingers brushed softly against the nape of her neck, as if feeling for her pulse.
She didn’t answer. Was she scared? In front of a being who could take her life—or destroy her entire estate—without effort? She stared blankly down at her trembling fingers.
Janus gently took her hand, like calming a frightened animal, and looked closely at her face. Then, with a spark in his eyes, he grinned.
“...Nope. That’s not it.”
He ran a hand down her cheek with playful fondness.
“You fell for all over again now that you know I’m a dragon, didn’t you?”
Ayra jerked her head up, inhaling sharply.
From Janus’s perspective, she didn’t look scared at all. Her hands trembled, sure, but her body wasn’t cold—her temperature had actually gone up slightly. Her cheeks were flushed. Her gray eyes shimred blue, glinting like a child receiving a long-awaited present.
Seeing those eyes—so ready to pounce on him for so kind of experint—Janus felt genuinely amused for the first ti in a while. As he looked at her flushed cheeks, hunger stirred. He quietly licked his lips. Soft, warm, and delicious—his red eyes glead with a flash of predatory hunger.
Ayra, who’d just been seen through, didn’t even notice and turned her head aside slightly.
“Right. You’re a dragon...”
She said it like it was only natural—like anyone would long for a mate that powerful, that terrifying. But they both knew that wasn’t the real reason.
Janus didn’t call her out. Instead, he smiled faintly, as if letting her have her excuse, and smoothly shifted the topic.
“Right, we were talking about Solar collapsing earlier. Where was I?”
The reminder jolted Ayra back to reality. The fluttery excitent of eting the being she’d once dread of knowing vanished like foam, replaced by a cold weight in her gut.
Only now did the fact hit her again—he really is a dragon. She recalled how Janus had wiped out the Ocampania group without blinking. Dragons could easily reduce an entire human city to rubble, alone.
She studied his face carefully, then answered.
“You said... you were tired of searching for your lover for ten years. That it was getting annoying.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I said.”
“Exactly?”
“And that’s why Solar’s going to collapse.”
Janus said it with the tone of soone talking about a local shop closing down. Ayra went silent, trying to parse what she’d just heard. Her brain stalled. Then she repeated it back, to confirm.
“You an... because you’re sick of not finding a proper lover, you’re going to destroy Solar? As in—kill the people living there?”
Janus tilted his head slightly—then nodded, cheerfully.
“Well, yeah. You could see it that way.”
A cold weight dropped in Ayra’s chest.
She had hoped the D-day on Solar’s collapse was due to debt, or maybe so plot by Sobletz or Bolni. But this... this was the worst possible reason she could have imagined.
That Solar’s destruction was tied to the most violent and brutal force imaginable in this world—a dragon.
Dragons were avatars of annihilation. They slaughtered humans without cause, reduced cities to ash. Then, when another dragon caught wind of it, they’d clash for days—only for both to either perish or one to survive and go hunting again. Sotis another would just appear and exterminate everything in sight.
Very few people ever survived a direct encounter.
Unless it was the Dungeon, where insane mages gathered; or a transcendent knight capable of slaying dragons; or a massive, fortified estate already claid by a dragon—there was no way a place like Solar could withstand such a force.
Ayra shuddered. But her first thought wasn’t to run back to the Dungeon and hide.
Instead, she thought of the people she wanted to protect—Jinas, who worked himself to exhaustion for Solar; Botello, who had lived his whole life there; Bloom and the other staff, the citizens who called Solar ho.
Even knowing it might be pointless against a non-human, Ayra still asked the question that rose in her throat.
“Why? Why go that far...? You’ve lived in Solar for ten years, haven’t you? You’ve got close friends there.”
Janus was close to many people. He laughed, talked, joked with them like a brother or a friend. It had never felt fake. Ayra had truly thought Janus cared for them.
Janus nodded at her words.
“Yeah. They’re pretty decent folks.”
“And yet... you’d kill them? Even people you’re that close to?”
Like he’d killed Mishio earlier?
Now that the joy of discovering he was a dragon had faded, her hands had grown cold again. Janus, with a voice as if soothing a petulant child, said softly:
“Not that I feel nothing. It’s a bit of a sha. They’re fun to be around.”
“A sha? That’s it? Just a little regret?”
“Well, you are human, so it might be hard to understand. If I had to compare it to sothing in human terms... let’s see...”
Janus sounded just a bit annoyed, as if he’d had to explain this before.
“It’s like raising ducks or pigs. You feed them, take care of them, wait for them to grow. So of them are entertaining to watch. So even taste good. And sotis, you might get attached to one or two. But in the end, they’re livestock. If I want to pick out the best ones, so blood might get spilled. That’s just how it is.”
Only after that excessively gentle explanation did Ayra truly understand why Janus had killed Mishio so easily.
Mishio had never been a real friend to him. Just a nominal one. One of many ants in a field—maybe a shiny one he’d taken a liking to, but nothing more.
Janus wasn’t a psychopath. He was simply a being who wasn’t human.
And Ayra finally grasped the reality: all dragons were like this.
That’s why they could massacre without hesitation—just as wolves hunt deer, and humans slaughter pigs.
To a dragon, ducks, pigs, humans—they were all the sa.
All except one.
Just one—
Their mate.
Reviews
All reviews (0)