16 – Episode 16
# 16
Longtail, who got a new home, looks unrecognizable. In reality, his appearance isn’t different, but the atmosphere has changed. When one gains confidence, doesn’t even the air seem different? It was a similar logic.
Looking at his face reflected on the still water, Longtail muttered. Who am I? Longtail, now the owner of ‘Hannam The Hill.’
With Ian’s help, Longtail became a proud and capable male who now possessed an incredible nest. His only task remained to attract females and produce Longtail 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generations.
[He owes me a great debt.]
Longtail’s gratitude towards Ian was difficult to express in words.
However, Ian had no intention of collecting on that debt from Longtail.
“[Debt? If friends start keeping track of who owes what, what kind of friends would they be?]”
[hahahahaha! You’re right!]
Ian and Drake burst into laughter.
In that moment, Ian heard an eerie ringing in his ears.
‘… Hm?’
A sharp sound, like a beep.
And a sticky liquid flowing beneath his nose…
‘Huh?’
Ian touched his nose and was taken aback.
Blood was gushing out rapidly.
‘Why…?’
Thud!
Ian lost consciousness.
He slammed his head on the floor of Longtail’s nest and fainted.
“Friend! Are you okay? Wake up! Friend!”
A panicked Longtail called out to Ian, but he remained unconscious.
‘What should I do?’
Longtail didn’t know what to do.
It goes without saying that Longtail, being a dragon, had no knowledge or need to know about human health.
So now, with Ian collapsed on the ground, Longtail could do nothing but pace anxiously
That was when it happened.
A woman emerged from the grassy woods.
From Noble mtl dot com
Perhaps she was one of the humans who had been with Ian, but Longtail, who couldn’t quite pay intricate attention to human faces, didn’t recognize her.
“Wait! Drake! Listen to what I have to say!”
Rumble rattle…?
“Me! Ian’s friend! Don’t eat me because I’m a friend!”
Longtail didn’t understand a word of what the woman was saying. However, one word stand out, ‘Ian.’ It could roughly understand the meaning of this word.
When humans look upon the mystical, the mystical, too, looks upon humans.
Just as Ian, who mastered summoning spells, remembered Longtail’s name, so did Longtail overcome the language barrier to remember the name of its summoner.
Longtail silently watched what the woman was doing.
When she found the drake threatening, the woman carefully approached Ian.
She placed her fingers under Ian’s nose to feel his breath, checking his pulse to confirm if he was alive.
‘That’s a relief. He’s still alive.’
The woman, Lucy Talian gave a sigh of relief.
#
‘… What time is it?’
Ian opened his eyes inside the shadowy nest.
To a drake, it was a wonderful house, as good as a high-end apartment, but to a human, it was simply a spacious burrow.
Instinctively, Ian fumbled around trying to find his smartphone.
At that moment, someone gently grabbed Ian’s arm.
“Are you awake?”
“Huh?”
Ian lifted his head. Although he was in a dark cave, Ian, who was the focus of darkness, had the ability to see as brightly as broad daylight in the darkness.
“Cassy?”
It was Cassy.
The woman who always wore a robe inside out, hiding her hair and face. The woman whose face was so beautiful every time it was revealed that it was unforgettable.
Ian was bewildered.
But why was Cassy here?
“…”
Kindly enough, Cassy was laying Ian’s unconscious head on her lap. It wouldn’t do to leave a person who had fainted on a hard floor. And since there was nothing soft around them, she simply provided her knee as a pillow.
‘It’s soft.’
Ian tried to get up, making unnecessary thoughts.
“Stay down.”
“No, I feel a bit sorry. How long have you been like this?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
Ian always felt strange whenever he talked to Cassy.
She was clearly a character from a medieval fantasy. But amazingly, he could feel an intelligence beyond medieval from her.
So far, the only person with intelligence beyond medieval that Ian had experienced was his master, Eredith.
Could it be that Cassy is a magician?
“Are you a magician?”
At his sudden question, Cassy’s eyes widened greatly.
“No?”
“So how did you get in here, with Drake?”
“They let me in since I explained that I was a friend of yours.”
“…?”
Ian’s suspicion deepened.
How had she communicated with Drake? Did she know Maronius language?
“…”
Awkward silence fell for a moment.
It was Cassie who broke the silence.
“Ian, the wizard. I have something to confess to you.”
“Confess?”
Ian sat up straight in his seat. It was a required posture for him when hearing important news.
“Hmm, okay. Speak freely.”
Looking at Ian, who seemed a little excited, reduced Cassie’s mood by a hair.
Regardless of that, she continued to speak.
“…The attack last night. It happened because of me.”
Cassie’s confession surprised Ian.
“Were you in league with the thief? It seemed suspicious!”
“…”
Possessing a pretty face was perfect for a sly fox.
Now the puzzle fit together. Cassie was a deceitful woman who lured innocent bystanders outside to sell them to robbers!
“No! Where did you imagine I’d fit in with thieves!”
“…The face?”
It made perfect sense to Ian, who had been firmly trapped in modern conventions. Isn’t it a standard rule in fantasy novels for a pretty-faced female thief character to appear?
It’s unusual for her not to be a thief with such a face? Rather, it’s occupational negligence, no? Shouldn’t she be sued for breach of trust?
With her face turning red, Cassie defended herself.
“My real name is Lucy! Lucy of Talion!”
“Real name? So Cassie was a pseudonym?”
“Yes! It’s a very important secret, so you must never mention it anywhere!”
How important could this secret be…
While having this thought, Ian recalled the previous night’s attack.
“So, she’s not a thief, but an assassin?”
“…Not an assassin. A kidnapper.”
They knew Lucy’s name.
And they had come looking for her to kill Lucy.
“What did you do to have kidnappers pursue you?”
“…You truly know nothing… Ah. Right. You are a wizard.”
Lucy Talion admired Ian’s ignorance and then quickly remembered that he was a skilled wizard.
Well, he could not know the name ‘Talion’.
Why? Because he’s a wizard. And wizards are allowed to do so.
Wizards are naturally eccentrics.
With a heavy sigh, Lucy began to explain.
“I’m engaged.”
“Already? How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Same age as me?”
“Nobles typically marry early.”
Ian was surprised by Lucy’s explanation.
“You’re a noble?”
“…”
Lucy exclaimed in pure admiration.
“That wizard must be incredibly powerful. I really don’t know anything.”
“I was betrothed at the age of seven, for the sake of the Talrian house.”
“With some crazy pedophi-… No.”
Ian quickly corrected himself.
“So, it was a political marriage.”
“Wasn’t it?”
The words ‘seven years old’ and ‘marriage’ coming out together momentarily made him lose his sanity.
Regardless of this place being a cheery medieval world, there wouldn’t be a lunatic rushing to marry a seven-year-old girl. At least there shouldn’t be.
Naturally, Lucy’s marriage was a political one.
“My husband is a knight of mercenary origin. He’s thirty-three.”
“Hmm… Congratulations?”
Even though the age difference was significant, it wasn’t entirely unimaginable from a modern perspective.
But Lucy gritted her teeth as she continued her story.
“But that bastard…! He poisoned my parents!”
“!”
Ian was taken aback by the sudden medieval drama.
Wow! The son-in-law of a noble family murdered h
The mercenary captain was no different.
Initially, he was content with the role of being the son-in-law of the viscount. But human greed is not so easily satisfied. Once seated, people wish to lie down; when lying down, they wish to sleep.
After becoming the viscount’s son-in-law, he realized that he was a foreigner who could never fit into the noble society. This was a fact that anyone would naturally realize even if they dined with the nobles for a single day.
He was not a son-in-law to the viscount, but a dog protecting the nobles’ property.
Naturally, the mercenary captain began to expand his power.
For over 10 years, a peculiar standoff continued.
It was a standoff between the viscount, who tried to defend his territory using mercenaries as a shield, and the mercenary captain who, as the viscount’s son-in-law, sought to increase his influence.
The first to draw a sword was the viscount.
“My parents wanted to divorce him. The reason being, his womanizing ways.”
“…”
What a ludicrous reason.
Was a man who was engaged to a seven-year-old supposed to live as an ascetic until his bride grew up?
If he did anything else with his fiancée, who was a teenager, he’d be a madman.
As an adult male, he naturally sought out women to satisfy his s*xual desires.
The viscount used this as a grounds for divorce.
Of course, this was only a superficial reason. The real reason must have been that he could not stand watching the mercenary captain make his move.
Nonetheless, the fact remained that a man engaged to one woman had been playing around with another…
For 10 years, the mercenary captain had toiled to develop his territory, and now he was on the brink of being kicked out.
So, the mercenary captain chose a ninja-like countermeasure.
A complete massacre.
Uh huh. I don’t know anymore~ Gonna kill ’em all~
In the ballroom, the mercenary captain poisoned the Count and Countess. It was supposedly poison, but even a five-year-old could guess that the captain of the mercenaries was the culprit.
The loyalists of the Count’s faction naturally resisted.
The mercenary captain rallied his subordinates and swept away the opposition forces.
Despite all this, the one with a sword is king, and how could those with pens try to stop him.
The mercenary captain was no fool, he’d spent 10 years fostered factions that would support him.
It seemed like his bloody political takeover was successful… but there was a problem.
The mercenary captain’s fiancée, Lucy Talrian, managed to escape from the estate with the help of her nanny!
The captain of the mercenaries was in hot water.
He was to become a noble by marrying Lucy, but without her, he was just a commoner with a sword.
In the eyes of the nobility, a commoner with a sword was no different from a thief.
Oh? There’s no Count in the Talrian estate, just a thief?
Readers familiar with fantasy novels will know what this means: thief = XP.
Those who hunt first have the upper hand.
Neighbors of the Count’s estate and their nobility friends would surely rush in first for XP farming — it was clear as day.
The mercenary captain, who was facing a crisis of losing his carefully nurtured estate to the neighboring nobles, would risk his life to find Lucy.
“So those people yesterday….”
“Yeah, they were sent by that bastard.”
Lucy Talrian spoke with a bitter smile.
“Trying to catch me again…”
Ah, so she was a normal noble after all.