Chapter 272
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 272
Chapter Title: That's Something to Be Grateful For
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone was taken aback.
The Monster Lord's form, massive as a mountain, was visible from anywhere in São Paulo to anyone with eyes.
Among them was Li Chingwei, naturally, watching footage from various drones in the sky garden of Ketchalkoatl headquarters.
"Well, it looks like it's planning to smash the entire city flat."
As if it were truly unexpected.
Li Chingwei tilted her head slightly as she gazed at the colossal figure moving at that distant height.
Tzushian beside her couldn't hide his troubled expression either.
"It seems we'll have to scrap most of our prepared plans."
"We will."
Li Chingwei let out a sigh.
Just as when they'd captured Louise, they'd devised multiple plans to gradually erode the Forest Guild's forces.
But with Gula flipping the entire chessboard over, most of them were now useless.
Did it notice? Or was it instinctual judgment?
Either way, it was befitting of a Monster Lord with keenly developed instincts—utterly unpredictable.
"I never imagined it wouldn't last half a day, let alone a full one, before blowing itself up."
...The problem was that this unpredictability went in the opposite direction.
"I never dreamed that fool would pull something this stupid..., so how did you foresee it, Princess?"
"I didn't predict it exactly. I just made it so he had no choice but to do this."
Her plan had been to annihilate his guild members and corner him, driving Gula into a rampage.
But seeing Gula leap onto the surface of his own accord before she could even unfold her plans properly, Li Chingwei murmured softly.
"Anyway, thanks to the Monster Lord voluntarily cooperating, we've finally met all the 'conditions'."
There were plenty of ways to stop Gula and defeat the Forest Guild.
If she'd willed it, the war could have ended long ago.
Yet the reason she'd only caught small fry and dragged things out was simple.
She needed justification.
—Justification so that even after killing the Monster Lord, none of the other top ten guilds or the Liberation Brigade could use it as an excuse to act.
'I never thought the opportunity would come this quickly..., I owe Maya my thanks for this.'
Internally grateful for the unexpected chance born from Maya's disappearance into Gula's trap,
Li Chingwei picked up the wooden king she'd crafted in the likeness of the six-headed beast from the start.
"It's time to end this game of war."
"You mean...?"
"Yes."
Thud.
Li Chingwei placed the wooden king in the center of the city.
Then, spinning around as if there was nothing more to see, she continued with a cold smile.
"Now we begin the hunt."
"Even if others don't know, you must."
"Know what?"
I slowly raise my head.
Capturing Rimon in my gloomy green eyes.
Twisting my pale bluish lips into a smile that could be mockery or sneer,
I continued softly.
"How incomplete we seven princesses truly are."
Were the Seven Dragon Society to hear this, they'd foam at the mouth.
To them, the princesses were dragon incarnate.
The essence of psionics no master could attain, awakened and wielded as naturally as breath from the moment of hatching—the closest to perfection.
But Rimon offered no rebuttal.
As if it were obvious.
He simply opened his mouth calmly.
"You mean the half-dragon blood, right?"
"Yes. As you say, the ancestral pure blood we inherited is but half."
It was only natural.
Had they received the dragon's pure blood in full, they wouldn't be mere 'princesses'.
"We were born with power and talent transcending humanity because we inherited even half of the ancestor's pure blood, but that's precisely why we're inherently unstable."
Slowly.
I place one hand on my chest.
Feeling the immense psionic pulsing with my heart—a force too great for mere human flesh to bear.
"Like this body of mine."
I said with a self-mocking laugh.
Even lowly serpents or insects rarely die from the venom they carry.
Yet here I was, a dragon's descendant, unable to withstand my own toxicity. Proof of my imperfection.
"The other princesses are the same."
The Green Dragon Princess's instability just stood out due to her poison.
Compared to the seven dragons, all seven princesses bore some twist.
Problems born from the imbalance of psionics too vast for their flesh.
"The White Dragon Princess lost the wisdom of Jibaekryonghyeongun, the wisest of the seven ancestors."
A princess unable to control her prescience, gradually losing emotions until her short life ended.
"The Blue Dragon Princess is lost in her sense of justice and mercy, blind to reality."
Transcending space itself, she knows not the gap between ideals and reality, unyielding in her stubbornness.
"Black Dragon Princess? She knows no conscience or faith."
Reading and manipulating minds, she trusts no one and seeks no trust in return.
"Even our most perfect Golden Dragon Princess can't contain her greed and arrogance, while the Red Dragon Princess knows only how to live as a tyrant."
The omnipotent one ignorant of restraint, and the one who knows destruction but not cherishing.
"Silver Dragon Princess—that madwoman needs no mention."
Even Maya, cynically recounting the others, furrowed her brow and held back on the Silver one.
In a way, she exemplified the seven princesses' flaws better than I.
The Seven Dragon Society's seven princesses.
Heirs to the noblest bloodline, descendants of dragons.
But as individuals, not bloodlines, they were unstable and precarious across generations.
Without the instincts etched into their bodies, several bloodlines would have died out long ago.
"I believed completing Dragon Psionic would resolve our incompleteness."
Not employing twin sisters as aides would only buy time.
Eventually, I'd die, a new princess born, new aides appointed, another like Karra sacrificed to my poison.
Perhaps even those future sisters.
Unable to bear it, I'd made myself the research subject to find answers.
"A foolish notion."
The results were惨烈.
Carving my flesh, reversing psionic flow.
Through every torment, ruining my health, she gained but two insights.
One: completing Dragon Psionic with her half-blood power was impossible from the start.
And the other...
"Ultimately, without finding the 'eighth Dragon Psionic', it was all for naught."
...To solve their issues, the 'eighth Dragon Psionic' was essential.
An inevitable conclusion, perhaps.
Had it been possible otherwise, the Society wouldn't have searched for the eighth for nearly a millennium.
"Once I realized that, I shifted research to artificially creating the eighth Dragon Psionic. But..."
"No results, right?"
"Another folly."
The eighth was the Society's long-cherished wish.
If one princess sacrificing lifespan could achieve it, it would have happened ages ago.
Blind to that obvious truth...
No, ignoring it knowingly, she pressed on.
Inevitable.
She was the Green Dragon Princess.
The Society's most tenacious, obsessive one—seeing things through to the end once begun.
"In the end, I merely squandered the lifespan Karra gave me."
Common knowledge to the Society for centuries.
She'd wasted half her life confirming it, frittering away the rest, she said.
At the end of a life of losses and failures, more cynical and sneering than any, she twisted her lips.
"Well? Isn't it a laughable tale?"
The world's greatest researcher committing such idiocy—how could it not be comedy?
Seeing Maya mock herself, Rimon scratched his cheek.
"Not particularly amusing."
"Unexpected. I thought you'd roar with laughter, you who've zealously beheaded our Society for centuries."
"That'd mock my master's efforts."
"It's worth mocking."
"No, it's not."
Rimon shook his head.
Others might mock.
The world scorns the reckless fool who ruins their body for naught.
But not him.
He couldn't.
"Mocking one who struggles to their limit against unfair fate—when you've never even tried—is what deserves scorn."
Rimon said softly.
Then, gazing at her with serene eyes, he added,
"At least, that's what my master taught me."
"...Are you mocking me now?"
"Just sharing my honest impression."
"..."
Anyone else, perhaps not. But to quote the Sword Duke's teachings to a Seven Dragon Society princess?
If sarcasm, the finest mockery.
Yet Rimon's eyes on her were too deep, too calm. Unconsciously, Maya realized.
This was comfort.
Not as a slave, but as a person.
Not to the Green Dragon Princess, but to Maya the woman.
Plain words, sans rhetoric—raw, honest consideration.
Even so, from the Society's archfoe and blood enemy, Rimon, they should mean nothing.
...No, they must mean nothing.
Yet seeing his serene eyes, Maya realized anew.
Long ago, the Bronze Age.
Facing the mighty seven dragons.
Turning the world against them.
Undeterred by ridicule of impossibility, struggling to limits, changing fate's course—one of three Sword Masters.
That man stood before her.
A fact she knew.
A past to resent.
Yet she felt the opposite.
Her efforts futile? Never meaningless.
Acknowledgment from one who'd conquered impossibility seeped deep, naturally, into her wound-filled heart.
Her long-cold blood warming again.
...An illusion.
Shaky bridge effect from her rescuer in crisis, plus instincts awakening in weakened body.
Oversecretion of hormones causing transient sway.
As physician and researcher, Maya judged coldly.
Yet the illusion burned hot.
The instinct's whisper too intense.
Unthinkingly, she speaks.
"Rimon Asfelder, are you still my slave?"
"Of course."
"...Then, good."
Good what?
Mocking herself for words without meaning, Maya rose.
"You shouldn't move yet..."
Even now, slave-like, he tried to support her. She raised a hand to stop him, then moved.
As she'd done many times before.
But slower than ever.
Slipping off.
Unbuttoning the draped shirt.
Drawing her arm from the loose sleeve.
Letting the sole garment covering her body slide to her feet.
"Rimon."
First time not as Sword Duke.
As a man, calling his name.
Maya slightly lifted her head.
Exposing her utterly nude body.
Her green eyes—deeper than a swamp, gloomier yet more beautiful than jewels—holding him, pale bluish lips parted.
"Hold me."