A Little Step Forward
The hatchling Lilia loved her mother. To a dragon, a mother wasn’t defined by blood but by the closeness felt through the homogeneity of mana. With Ivelin’s half-elf traits added on top of that, Lilia had become a child who loved her mother just as much as her outward appearance suggested.
“Where are you going?”
“To meet the black-haired uncle.”
“Black-haired?”
Still, because she was a dragon, her pronunciation was clear and articulate. The way she conversed with Ivelin was markedly different from any ordinary five-year-old. Her memory was also exceptional, so she easily recalled who the “black-haired uncle” her mother mentioned was.
“He’s a good uncle!”
“That’s right. He’s a good uncle and a cool one too.”
If anyone saw Ivelin right now, they would be shocked. The woman who, without Ian by her side, had always been colder than the northern winds was now radiating a gentle aura like a spring breeze.
The corridor that would normally have been silent was now filled with Lilia’s soft humming. After walking through it, they arrived in front of the office. Ivelin straightened both her own clothes and Lilia’s a little before reaching out to knock—only to grab the back of Lilia’s collar as the child tried to poke her head through the door out of pure curiosity.
“Haa…”
A sigh escaped her at the behavior that strangely reminded her of someone. In the end, she had no choice but to knock in that awkward position.
“Come in.”
And so, while Ivelin waited behind her, Lilia was the first to poke her head inside. Even though Ivelin had received Ian’s permission to enter, the child still seemed a bit shy and kept only her head visible.
“You’re… Lilia, right?”
“Yep!”
Ian had left the naming entirely to Ivelin and had already been briefed in advance.
“I see. What brings you here, Lilia?”
“I wanted to show you this.”
The way she fidgeted and came forward to show herself was completely different from the figure who had once worn an assassin’s robe. Her horns and tail were visible, yet they somehow suited her perfectly.
“Wow. Pretty, isn’t she?”
“Yep! Lilia is pretty! Hehe.”
“I’m glad you think she’s pretty.”
As Ian and Lilia quickly grew comfortable with each other without any sense of rejection, the corners of Ivelin’s mouth lifted slightly.
“Up we go. I didn’t think you’d come, what’s the occasion?”
Though work had paused for a moment, when Lilia came running over with her arms stretched out, Ian lifted her without hesitation. Since Marbel had already finished discussing the most essential matters, he quietly withdrew to make conversation easier. Only three people remained in the office.
“My senses are reacting.”
“What kind of senses?”
“The sense that an annoying human is coming.”
To Ivelin, Ian sometimes showed a childish side, but because she liked him, she viewed him through rose-colored glasses. However, even among his former party members, there was one problem child who created all sorts of trouble just like Ian…
“Hahaha! I have arrived!”
Bang!
The door through which Ivelin and Lilia had entered burst open as if exploding. A man with grayish hair wearing a robe stood there.
“Huff… huff… I-I am Z-Zenon, from the Magic Tower.”
The attendant who had chased after Zenon—even though he had used acceleration magic—finally fulfilled his duty and collapsed on the spot.
“Welcome, Mr. Ashtray.”
“Ivelin, you’re still… not quite the same, are you?”
Having known her for a long time, he could sense something different. Her words were no different from before, but he caught the subtly softened atmosphere around her. When he slightly turned his gaze, he saw an unusual being. At first glance, she looked exactly like a young Ivelin, but the black horns and black tail made it clear she was no half-elf.
He wanted to let his rising excitement show, but as someone who had spent ten years in exile as punishment and had been tasked with educating children, he drew on that experience to stay calm.
“This is…?”
“Her name is Lilia.”
Rather than a stranger, it was the unfamiliar mana that made Lilia bury herself deeper into Ian’s arms, only peeking out her head a little.
“Hello. I’m called Zenon.”
Zenon, who would get as excited as Ian whenever they visited mysterious ruins, approached Lilia with surprising gentleness. Even Ivelin looked surprised. Seeing that Lilia was still wary, Zenon gathered mana at his fingertips and created moving solid forms. It was the same magic used to create communication orbs, but he was manifesting it purely through sensory control.
At the sight of the vividly moving mass of mana that had taken shape, Lilia climbed down from Ian’s arms and began chasing after them.
“Hehe!”
Watching her play so happily, all the adults in the office couldn’t help but smile.
“How about it? Want to learn?”
“I want to do it too!”
“Then will you go with Mommy and wait for me?”
“Yep!”
When Ivelin headed off with Lilia toward the place where Zenon would give lessons, Marbel, who had been about to enter, stopped in his tracks.
“I’d like to speak with him alone for a moment.”
Having zero desire to get involved in a conversation between the Magic Tower Lord’s disciple and the Grand Duke, Marbel quickly backed out of the room.
“It’s been a while, brother.”
“Haha! I never dreamed you’d become a Grand Duke.”
“Who would have known?”
“Neither of us likes dragging things out, so let’s get straight to the point. Not many people know about the dragon, right?”
“Only those inside the citadel know, and we’ve decided she’ll stay inside until we’ve built up enough power to protect her.”
“What about the ducal side?”
“Duke Adrahan will handle it, but I suspect even Lady Kiana knows on the surface.”
“That loudmouthed girl?”
“Yes.”
What Zenon was worried about wasn’t the North, but Kane’s side.
“Don’t worry too much. Even Duke Adrahan said that after the runaway incident, they had a big fight and everything’s fine now, so we should trust that.”
“Tsk. I’m hardly in a position to criticize others.”
Before meeting Ian, an accident at the Magic Tower had cracked his core. While searching for a way to fix it, he had nearly fallen down a horrific path.
“If I hadn’t met you, I probably would have tried to rip out another mage’s heart and transplant it.”
The reason he was trying to create a new breathing technique using a dragon’s breath and Dragon Heart was to restore his barely maintained core.
“I heard from Clayven that the Magic Tower Lord’s disciple got bewitched by a woman. What happened?”
“Ah. It wasn’t me, it was my junior. He used to be such a smart kid, but instead of doing the research he’s supposed to, I have no idea what he’s up to.”
“And you’re not only going to teach Lilia, right?”
Although they had used Lilia to bring Zenon here, considering the amount of support money involved, even Zenon’s conscience wouldn’t allow him to focus solely on Lilia’s lessons and related research.
“Before coming, I contacted a few acquaintances. What adventurer mages want most is a stable life, and since I dropped your name, they’ll probably come.”
He had successfully arranged for a stable influx of mages.
“And I need to research the Demon Realm a bit. I’m curious how the environment can be so completely different with Wintergard as the boundary.”
Research on the Demon Realm as well.
Both projects had the drawback that they could only be maintained and continued if they produced results in Wintergard.
“I’ll head to the lesson for now. If I make the little dragon lady wait any longer, that half-elf miss might stab a dagger into me tonight.”
“Haha…”
After the storm passed and Marbel returned, his complexion didn’t look very good.
“G-Grand Duke?”
“What is it?”
“L-Lady Kiana Adrahan has arrived in the territory.”
“Haa. Let’s go.”
The bomb he had forgotten about had finally arrived. Ian set off together with the anxious Marbel.
Strangely enough, in this world where trains had been invented, long-distance travel didn’t take as much time as one might think. There was no direct train to Wintergard, but if one arrived at a nearby territory and switched to a carriage, it didn’t take that long.
The problem is that she didn’t need to come this quickly.
After receiving the contact three days ago, he had looked into the academy’s field training. In reality, it was little more than a vacation period given to diligent academy students under the guise of practical experience.
“Where is the young lady?”
“She is inside, sir!”
The veteran knights stationed in the citadel at his request greeted Ian without any disturbance, even though the duke’s daughter had arrived suddenly. When he opened the door to the guest reception room, Kiana was elegantly waiting for him while sipping the tea her exclusive maid Mel had prepared.
“It’s been a while, Your Grace.”
“It has. So, why exactly did you apply to come here?”
“At first it was personal greed, but now I’ll say it’s for the sake of our territory. Isn’t one of the things the North lacks most mages?”
“Ah! Mages are fine now. Zenon, the Magic Tower Lord’s disciple, has arrived.”
“Pardon?”
Kiana was momentarily stunned by the sudden mention of the Tower Lord’s disciple. Then she remembered one particular mage from Ian’s party. Gray hair, dark circles, and glasses that always slid down. Despite his seemingly sloppy appearance, he showed absolutely no mana leakage even though he was a mage.
An impossibly outstanding level of mana control and senses.
On top of that, the magic he applied using his vast knowledge. Though young, he was a monster the likes of which had never appeared even in the Adrahan ducal family, which had produced mages for generations.
“T-Then…”
Kiana, who had only been thinking in terms of magic, quickly began searching for things she could do. Since Ian had come as extra help anyway, she pondered what to assign him and soon came up with an idea.
“Ah! You received lord training, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I was an only child until my younger brother was born.”
“Then as my acting Grand Duke, please handle some work in my stead.”
“Excuse me?”
“There’s no chance of news leaking outside the citadel anyway, and I have a lot of things I need to do outside right now. There’s simply too much work.”
“That can’t possibly—!”
“Marbel! You can work with the young lady! That’s all!”
Marbel, who had been waiting outside, hurriedly opened the door and rushed in, but Ian had already escaped through the guest room window. After holding it in for several days, a perfect person to dump everything on had appeared, so he didn’t hesitate.
“H-Haha…?”
Kiana Adrahan. At eighteen years old, the rose-colored glasses of her one-sided crush were beginning to peel away little by little.
Having escaped from the hell of paperwork, Ian immediately changed out of his cumbersome formal attire into something comfortable for movement. Although defeating the lich in the Forest of Wailing had made the area safer, there were still many things that hadn’t been properly identified. The people here already had their hands full dealing with the demonic beasts coming from the Demon Realm, so they had to prepare for any possible contingencies.
Using that as an excuse to soothe his mind, Ian was about to leave the castle and head toward the Forest of Wailing when he ran into the head butler who was running toward him in a hurry.
“Your Grace. Where are you going?”
“I’m going to scout the Forest of Wailing. It’s not completely safe yet, so I need to check it out.”
“That’s fortunate. We’ve received an urgent communication from the Adrahan territory.”
It was the communication orb he had received for the secret meeting with Kane, but using it as a contact network had been a stroke of genius. News that would have normally taken time reached Ian quickly.
“What does it say?”
“It says dwarves have appeared.”
“What…?”
Elves existed. The noble kingdom of Sephit that worshipped the World Tree, a massive tree beyond the western edge of the empire. He had encountered them before and had grown thoroughly tired of them. But dwarves had vanished from history hundreds of years ago. They hadn’t gone extinct; they had disappeared along with the dragons, and no one could find them.
“I’ll depart immediately!”
“Y-Your Grace! What about the others!?”
“I’m enough by myself!”
Ivelin and Zenon needed to focus on Lilia. He had dumped the Grand Duke’s duties onto Kiana, so he had plenty of time. He would meet the dwarves and fulfill his duties as Grand Duke, but for his own satisfaction, he crossed the Forest of Wailing alone.