TGBAP 28

Meanwhile, Julius, having left the Emerald Hall, quietly flashed his golden eyes and threw off the mask of a kindly grandfather.

“A younger sibling, hmm…… I wonder whether Leopold would welcome having a younger sibling just like me. How is our abandoned grandchild doing?”

“Yes, he is still preserving his life.”

“Hmm, at such a young age he will have to stand on his own, and it seems he’s enduring quite well.”

“It seems His Majesty the Emperor is supplying provisions once a month.”

“He’s showing mercy unlike himself. Even after he dealt with my siblings so ruthlessly.”

Julius giggled. It was like the innocent laughter of a child that didn’t suit his age.

But the laughter cut off midstream, and Julius hardened his face into a blank expression.

“It’s insolent that he deceived my eyes and kept the twins alive, but…… since it’s come to this, I’ll make good use of it.”

If he sent him to that mansion, it’s practically the same as leaving him to die, so does it matter what he uses the child for?

“When he’s ripened into something appetizing, I can proceed.”

With a meaningful smile, Julius left the corridor with the priests in tow.

* * *

About a week had passed since Lucian’s birthday. In the meantime, the three returned to their routine and spent ordinary days with nothing special.

After finishing the day’s tasks, there was an awkward stretch of time left before bed, and Lucian hugged a cushion on the sofa and kicked his feet.

“Isn’t there any fun game?”

When Lucian stared at Kaiser with sparkling eyes, his face turned dark.

He looked like he’d bolt the moment even the “n” in “let’s play” came out.

“Hyung.”

“No, nope, not doing it.”

“I didn’t even say anything.”

“I don’t care what it is, I’m not doing it. I already played with you enough today.”

Lucian puckered his lips.

“Then tell me something fun.”

“Something fun?”

“Yeah, the dragon story last time was fun. Is there anything else?”

“Hm, a story…….”

“Come to think of it, hyung, how did you come to know Ria? You said you’ve known each other for a long time.”

At Lucian’s words, Ria and Kaiser met eyes.

“I have known her for quite a while. Nearly 250 years now, I think?”

[You saw me back when you were a snot-nosed kid.]

“Snot-nosed? You really don’t hold back with dragons!”

[You were a snot-nosed kid. Back then, were you fifty?]

“Ahem, that’s right. It wasn’t long after I first succeeded at polymorph when I came here.”

For that runny-nosed kid to become a full-grown dragon soon—Ria felt anew how fast time passes.

“Hmm, before I met Ria, I should explain how I ended up coming here.”

As Kaiser began his story, Lucian’s eyes shone and he hugged the cushion tight.

“I told you before, right? That when I first did polymorph, I went to the human world to play.”

Usually dragons can polymorph around the age of one hundred. Considering that, Kaiser learned it quite fast.

His parents were overjoyed and took him to the human world.

And the first place they arrived was right here: the Odrian Empire.

“I saw humans for the first time then—those humans I’d only heard about. Unlike our dragons, who are few, there were so many of them, like an ant swarm.”

Anyway, he remembers his parents buying him lots of jewels and other things to commemorate his first polymorph success.

“After that I used polymorph a few more times, and by the time I turned fifty, I could use it with my eyes closed.”

So, with his parents’ permission, he came down to the human world alone. Of course, he was only given one day, and measures were set so that if anything happened, a signal would go straight to his parents.

“Dragons, you see—when you become a full-grown dragon, you make your own lair. I do have a lair my parents prepared for me, but I’m not a full-grown dragon yet, right? So I needed my own villa.”

Even with pocket space, he wanted to display the treasures he’d gathered little by little, and he needed a place to take refuge when he fought with his parents.

“At first I thought about buying a human mansion, but that seemed like a hassle, so I gave up. And then I found this place.”

A grand, old-fashioned, two-story mansion, a decent distance from the village, with no one living in it.

It was the only place that satisfied every condition he wanted.

“It looked like no one had lived here for a long time. So I immediately claimed it as mine.”

[Ah, I remember. I was so dumbfounded. Some kid came in saying this mansion was his and started wandering all over it.]

‘Kya-ha-ha-ha! This mansion now belongs to Lord Kaiser!’

“I didn’t know you were here back then, Ria.”

Kaiser giggled as he recalled the past.

“But isn’t this hyung’s villa?”

“No. There’s a vicious ghost here, see.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, plenty. I think it was about an hour after I stepped inside? Suddenly weird things started happening all over the house.”

In a corridor without a hint of wind, things fell; lights suddenly went out; and the neck of a suit of displayed armor even moved.

As the story suddenly turned into horror, Lucian burrowed into Ria’s arms.

“G-ghost……?”

“Yeah. All the work of that wicked ghost.”

When Kaiser pointed at Ria, Lucian was dumbfounded. In that instant, Ria felt wronged that he was afraid of her.

[Don’t look at me like that. Some kid shows up and struts around saying my house is his—should I just sit still instead of chasing him out?]

“And that’s not all. You suddenly set my butt on fire.”

[Suddenly? Wow, you said that well. You think I did it for no reason? You don’t remember you damaged part of the mansion trying to catch the culprit? Do you know how hard I worked fixing that?]

“A-ahem! I was young back then! I was so startled—what else could I do!”

To be fair, Kaiser got startled by the armor and his polymorph suddenly broke. In the end he fled in dragon form, and windows and walls got damaged.

She was angry, so she used the fireplace’s fire to chase him out of the mansion.

In the process, his butt caught fire, that’s all.

“Lucian, imagine it. It was bad enough the armor moved, but fire started floating around and chased me! If I were human, I’d have died of shock.”

And that’s not all. When he got outside, the wide-open door slammed shut.

As if warning him never to come in again.

“I cried my eyes out, so my parents got startled and summoned me.”

Seeing his tail burned, they raised a huge fuss for a while, demanding to know who did it.

“My parents told me never to go to that mansion again.”

[And yet you somehow found your way back.]

“Of course. I’m not the type who can just take it and live. ”

[Lucian, he’s that kind of guy. Usually, if you get beaten badly once, you don’t come back. But he came back again a week later.]

He even came back in the proud form of a dragon. Seeing a small dragon flapping its wings—Ria was so dumbfounded.

“No matter how I thought about it, it was unfair. That I ran away scared of some ghost I didn’t even know existed. I can’t allow something like that in my dragon life.”

Kaiser returned fully prepared, like someone preparing for a battlefield.

“I studied my own methods to drive out ghosts.”

He brought salt, garlic, holy water, and all kinds of things widely known as exorcism methods.

“But none of it worked. When I sprinkled holy water, black smoke rose up, but I couldn’t drive Ria out. Back then—did it actually work?”

[Who knows. I was fine, but it did work on other ghosts. There were one or two ghosts trying to cling to my mansion, you know. Thanks to you, I drove them out.]

“Tch, I only did other people a favor.”

[Still, isn’t that why we’re sitting side by side talking like this now?]

“Haah, isn’t it because Lord Kaiser wasn’t afraid of you?”

[Hmm……?]

When Ria made a meaningful smile, Kaiser glanced at Lucian and pressured her silently to be quiet.

It was Kaiser’s fourth attempt, I think. He polymorphed into a child like now and cried snot and tears.

‘K-ngh! I, I am! The great red dragon, Lord Kaiser! You vile evil spirit! Get out of my mansion while I’m asking nicely—aaah!’

He cried so sorrowfully that Ria back then stared at him with a blank face, forgetting even to chase him out.

In the end, when he stopped crying, she sent him out again.

Her mouth itched, but for Kaiser—who wanted to look cool to Lucian—Ria decided to keep his secret.

“Then how did you end up becoming friends?”

“Was it around the twentieth time I came here?”

[I thought you’d show up again saying, ‘Hand over the mansion!’ but for some reason you came with a gloomy face then.]

That runny-nosed kid who would invade the mansion every week to every month, shouting, ‘I challenge you to a duel!’—that day, he came with a gloomy expression unlike usual.

“What happened?”

“I lost to a dragon fifty years older than me. It was my first defeat, so my self-esteem hit rock bottom.”

[If you get technical, didn’t you lose to me too? You got chased out of the mansion every time.]

“Eek……! That’s separate! You’re an invisible, mysterious being! With that guy it was a fair and square match! And he started it first!”

Kaiser puffed his cheeks and stomped, thump thump! Ria raised both hands, gesturing that she hadn’t said anything.

Kaiser pointed at his own eyes and then at Ria, warning her to mind her words.

“He was a bad person…… no, dragon!”

“Right? He’s a filthy son of a—. If you ever see a black dragon, just leave. He’s not someone you should associate with.”

[What? I thought you picked a fight and got completely cleaned out.]

“What did you hear me say! He called me a halfwit who couldn’t even claim a mansion!”

She flinched at the intense reaction.

‘Did I tease him too much. Right, even back then he cried bitterly, furious and humiliated.’

[……So that’s when we talked for the first time. And I taught you how to beat him, too.]

I couldn’t bring myself to chase him out when he looked gloomy unlike usual.

Like Lucian, Kaiser was someone who brought novelty to Ria back then.

She still remembers it. How he called out to the air with a face full of dissatisfaction.

‘Hey, evil spirit. Why are you quiet today? Hurry up and come out! If you disappeared without my permission, I’ll never forgive you! I’m not weak—it’s just that you’re ridiculously strong, right?! Right?!’

She was flustered by the sudden words, and then he started crying miserably and she didn’t know what to do.

In the end, that day, Ria brought a stone tablet from the mansion and spoke to him for the first time.

-What happened?

“‘What happened?’ That was the first thing Ria ever said to me. I was so shocked my tears even stopped.”

Kaiser, recalling the past just like Ria, snickered, saying it was funny whenever he thought of it.

[My ass. The moment I said a few more words, you cried your eyes out.]

“Ahem! I don’t remember that!”

[……Sure, I’ll say you don’t.]

Kaiser glared at Ria, then went hng! and continued.

“Once I realized I could talk with a ghost I’d thought was just some strong evil spirit, it felt strange. So that day we talked for the first time. I think we talked about all sorts of things.”

[You asked a lot—whether I’m an evil spirit, why I’m in the mansion, why I keep chasing you out, and so on.]

“I didn’t know you couldn’t leave the mansion.”

Ria and Kaiser snickered as they reminisced, and Lucian’s eyes sparkled. He must think the old story is fun.

“Hyung, the thing about teaching you how to win—did you fight the bad black dragon again?”

[Ah, that? He suddenly asked me how he could become strong like me. So I told him to make the opponent let their guard down first. And I taught him a few spells.]

“Back then, I was just a novice who could barely use polymorph and a few fire spells. Thinking about it now, of course I’d lose. The other guy lived at least twice as long as I did.”

There was no way a hatchling barely fifty years old could beat someone over a hundred.

“Lucian, did you say you’re going to learn magic later?”

“Yeah!”

“Then learn it well. Honestly, I’ve never seen a human who wields magic as freely as Ria.”

[What’s with you, praising me?]

“Because it’s true. Until now, I thought no one could match dragons in magic, you know? But you broke that.”

Ria felt embarrassed at Kaiser’s serious words and scratched her cheek.

“Is Ria that good at magic?”

“Yeah. Second only to dragons.”

“Didn’t you say Ria is better than dragons?”

He must be confused because Kaiser spoke meaningfully.

[That’s only by hatchling standards. You can’t beat a full-grown dragon.]

“Still, if we’re talking pure magical talent, honestly I think Ria’s better. Look at her. She doesn’t even have a body, and she pulls natural mana and uses it. I didn’t even know that was possible in the first place.”

Lucian’s gaze toward Ria changed. His sparkling eyes were downright burdensome.

“Honestly, dragons are lazy. We have a habit of solving everything with a single dragon utterance. We naturally understand magic, but we don’t research it. But after meeting her, I thought I shouldn’t be lazy about studying.”

Dragons really do have pride above any other creature. Yet Kaiser set aside his pride and learned magic from Ria.

“Heh-heh, and that’s how I broke that bastard’s nose, right? I won a complete victory less than a month after losing to a black dragon, so it became a hot topic even among the elders.”

Calling it the pride of his whole life, Kaiser looked thoroughly refreshed.