MCDB CH 10

After some time passed, the blue light surrounding the moon disappeared. The Council of Elders was probably rejoicing over the birth of a new dragon.

They would likely follow the mana and go looking for the egg.

I used to be like that too.

While Axel was remembering the time when he had been an egg, Helens, who had already transformed back into a beast, came striding out.

Well, she is rather reassuring.

She seemed much freer in her movements. Maybe it was because she had spent so long living as a beast?

“The vault is deep inside the forest.”

“Deeper than the place where the magic stone mine is?”

“It’s a little farther in than that, but I wouldn’t call it far. Grab on. Let’s go.”

Axel grabbed Helens and moved with her to his vault.

“Open your eyes. We’re here.”

“This is the vault? Is that the mine over there?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Helens’s gaze turned toward the mine Axel was pointing at. The mine was in better condition than she had expected. A pile of rocks had accumulated around the entrance, but there was still enough space for one person to squeeze through.

It’s fine since I’ll be going in alone anyway. I don’t plan on mining that many magic stones.

A magic stone the size of a fist was enough to make ten swords. Since she only planned to make magic stone swords for Carlisle and the knights, it would be more than enough for Helens to go in and mine them herself.

And I can secretly mine and sell the remaining magic stones later if I ever need emergency money.

While she was staring intently at the mine, Axel’s displeased voice reached her ears.

“Beast, are you listening to me?”

“Hm?”

“I’m going to tell you the precautions from now on. Listen carefully if you don’t want to die.”

The northern forest of the Kingdom of Ilehon had belonged to Axel ever since the dragon’s essence meant for him had accumulated there.

That didn’t mean he had specifically prevented humans from entering. Back then, there hadn’t been any humans causing a commotion by trying to create a mine.

“I hid the vault well, but occasionally, a lucky human manages to discover it. To prevent that, I also placed defensive magic inside the vault.”

It was called defensive magic, but it would be more accurate to call it a trap. Still, since it was technically a type of defensive magic, that was what they called it.

“Now, let’s go in.”

“Where? Through there?”

“This is the entrance.”

Axel stood in front of a huge oak tree. It was unusually large, but trees like this were common throughout the forest.

Standing before it, Axel drew out the maximum amount of mana he could use. For a moment, it looked as though his body had been covered in black mist.

Then, in the next instant, the oak tree disappeared without a trace, revealing a narrow cave entrance barely wide enough for two people to enter.

“What are you doing? Let’s go.”

Helens followed Axel into the cave.

“Don’t get distracted and stay close. If you get lost here, you won’t be able to get out until you’re nothing but a skeleton.”

“Can you get out after becoming a skeleton?”

“No.”

The firm answer made Helens tense up.

But no matter how far they went, it was just an ordinary cave. The path was straight, and there was hardly anything about it that could cause someone to get lost.

Was he just trying to scare me?

Knowing Axel’s nasty personality, it seemed entirely possible.

“Beast!”

“Huh?”

It happened in an instant.

Helens had been following the back of Axel’s head when her gaze was briefly drawn to the multicolored stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

In less than a second, her entire field of vision flipped.

Axel was nowhere to be seen, and a dark, gloomy passage stretched out before her.

“You’re so much trouble. Such a troublesome creature.”

Axel’s tongue-clicking could be heard from somewhere, and suddenly his arm shot out of thin air.

He grabbed Helens by the wrist and yanked her hard.

She was pulled along without resistance, and soon the unfamiliar passage disappeared, revealing Axel standing there with his eyebrows raised.

“I told you not to get distracted.”

She had only glanced away for a moment. It wasn’t even enough to count as getting distracted.

But faced with Axel’s fierce demeanor, Helens lowered her gaze.

“We’re almost there, so stay close.”

“Okay.”

When she answered dejectedly, Axel shook his head.

Perhaps because he didn’t trust Helens to stay close, he didn’t release the hand he had grabbed and continued walking.

After walking for quite a while, they saw an ordinary iron door at the end of the passage.

“There.”

Axel concentrated mana in his hand and placed his palm against the door.

The door slowly opened.

“Wow.”

Helens’s mouth fell open.

So this is what they mean by gold and treasures.

There were sparkling things piled up like mountains everywhere.

Could anyone really keep their composure in a place like this?

“Get a hold of yourself.”

Here was a sparkle.

There was another sparkle.

Sparkle, sparkle everywhere.

Could she really stay calm?

“Don’t touch anything carelessly.”

“What? Are you worried I’ll sneak something out?”

Having lived in poverty, Helens couldn’t help being captivated whenever she saw something valuable. But she had never coveted other people’s possessions.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to steal anything.”

Even if she was so poor that she had nothing to eat, she never stole.

That was Helens’s principle.

“Oh, really? Then are you planning to take something openly?”

Axel’s gaze had already settled on Helens’s hand, which was reaching toward a pile of gold coins.

“……”

Helens quickly withdrew her hand and gave an awkward smile.

Even principles sometimes wavered when faced with an enormous mountain of gold and treasures.

Axel openly clicked his tongue before continuing his explanation.

“There’s defensive magic in place. You can’t see it, but magic circles have been randomly drawn across the floor. If a treasure falls onto one, the magic activates.”

Helens looked down at her feet.

Although Axel had said they couldn’t be seen, Helens could see thin, delicate lines.

Magic circles filled the floor, each containing various geometric patterns inside a round circle.

There were so many that avoiding them even if she could see them was practically impossible.

At this point, it would be fair to say that the entire floor of the vault had been covered in magic circles.

What an unnecessarily thorough dragon.

I doubt he ever imagined that he would be robbing his own vault.

Clicking her tongue inwardly, Helens asked,

“What happens if something falls onto a magic circle?”

“The entrance to the vault collapses. Everything from that door to the cave entrance. With my current mana, I can’t stop it from collapsing.”

Even though it was defensive magic powered by a dragon’s mana, Axel, who had less than a fraction of that power, couldn’t stop it.

Even though he was the one who had created the magic.

“Then what happens?”

“What do you think happens? We get trapped here and wait until someone comes to rescue us.”

“What if nobody comes?”

“Then we wait until someone comes. As skeletons.”

Axel simply had a habit of going around in circles instead of saying, You’ll die.

When Helens’s expression stiffened, Axel tried, in his own way, to ease her tension.

“As long as you don’t drop anything, it’s fine. We can’t just give up on searching because it’s dangerous, can we?”

“Of course not.”

If they had that meteorite, she could weaken the curse.

In other words, she could make it appear as though the curse had been lifted.

She would be able to switch between the bodies of a beast and a human whenever necessary.

There was no need to think deeply about how useful that would be.

The same was true for Axel.

If he could use his strength from when he was a dragon, he’d probably even sell his soul for it.

The intense fire burning in Axel’s eyes looked as though it could melt gold.

“You said it was an opalescent stone that looked like a pebble, right?”

“Yes. It’s inside a navy-blue jewelry box.”

“Navy-blue jewelry box. Got it. I’ll search from here, and you search from over there.”

The vault was enormous.

If they didn’t search systematically, they would waste a lot of time.

Helens took the western side of the vault, while Axel took the eastern side.

A wooden chest contained gemstones that looked like diamonds, while an elegant mother-of-pearl jewelry box held sapphires, pearls, and other precious stones.

After carefully checking each one without dropping anything, enough time passed that Helens’s back began to ache.

Then she called out to Axel.

“Axel.”

“What?”

“Come over here. Could that be it?”

A small jewelry box caught her eye, wedged between piles of gold coins stacked like hills.

“That looks like it.”

Yeah, somehow I had a feeling it would be there.

Helens turned her stiff neck and looked at Axel.

“You didn’t deliberately put it there, did you?”

“……Probably not.”

It probably was.

Before entering hibernation, his master had given it to him as a gift, saying that it was a meteorite he had gone to great lengths to obtain.

There was nothing useless among the things his master had given him.

And this particular gift seemed especially useful, so he had buried it deep inside a pile of gold coins so that no one could steal it.

If they pulled it out, the pile of gold coins would inevitably collapse.

Then the defensive magic would activate, the cave would collapse, and…

“How are we supposed to get that out?”

Helens sucked in a breath as she looked at the pile of gold coins.

There was no way she could give up now.

But she couldn’t figure out how to remove the meteorite without bringing down the entire pile.

“Can’t we erase the magic circles?”

“I can’t with my current mana.”

Then what were they supposed to do?

Helens carefully examined the pile of gold coins.

The jewelry box was half-buried inside it.

“There is a way to get it out.”

While Helens climbed up the pile of gold coins, Axel would use magic to prevent the falling coins from hitting the ground.

Then Helens would take out the meteorite and throw it to Axel.

Axel would take the meteorite, regain his full power, and then deactivate the defensive magic.

That would be the end of it.

“To use this plan, the meteorite inside has to be the moon that fell to the ground mentioned in the book.”

“It is. I’m certain. That meteorite was a gift from my master.”

Axel was convinced.

His master would never send him a hint about something that couldn’t be obtained.

His master must have remembered the meteorite he had once given Axel and deliberately sent the hint inside the fairy-tale book.

“Then let’s do it.”

Trusting Axel’s certainty, Helens began stretching her body.

Beside her, Axel squeezed out his mana and shouted,

“Go, Beast.”

“Trust me, Dragon.”

Helens quickly crawled up the pile and snatched the jewelry box, while Axel suspended the falling gold coins in midair.

“Catch!”

Helens threw the jewelry box straight at Axel and hurriedly jumped down from the pile of gold.

Axel opened the jewelry box.

Inside were five smooth, milky-white pebbles.

With a triumphant smile, Axel picked one of them up.

But—

“……Huh?”

“What?”

“It’s not working.”

The curse wasn’t weakened at all.

“This has to be it. Why isn’t it working?”

Axel was bewildered.

Meanwhile, Axel’s mana was gradually being depleted.

“Beast.”

Axel and Helens’s eyes met in midair.

“Run!”

They simultaneously sprinted toward the exit.

Axel continued maintaining the magic, doing everything he could to prevent the cave from collapsing.

He gritted his teeth desperately.

They had used more mana than expected just to enter the vault.

On top of that, they were getting farther and farther away from the pile of gold coins.

He had reached his limit.

“Beast, from now on, you really need to run faster.”

“No problem.”

She was already running as fast as she could, as though her life depended on it.

But Helens understood what Axel meant.

Axel cut off the mana he was using to maintain the magic.

The sound of gold coins crashing down echoed from far behind them.

Then, in the next moment, the entire cave shook as if an earthquake had struck.

“We’re almost there. Just a little farther.”

They ran with all their strength.

“Ugh!”

But Axel, having exhausted his mana, couldn’t avoid the falling rocks with the exit right in front of him.

As Axel fell and tried to get back up, earth and stones came crashing down over him.

So this is it. We’re going to be buried alive.

But just as Axel thought that, he felt something soft and furry against the back of his hand, which he had raised to keep dirt from entering his nose and mouth.

Fur?

Axel opened his eyes.

Filling his entire field of vision was Helens, unconscious, having used her entire body to shield him from the falling earth.

“……Beast!”