Episode 12
The way Rii drank her tea was truly overflowing with dignity. Lifting the pure white teacup lightly, supporting the saucer with one hand, quietly savoring the fragrant aroma of the tea before bringing it to her lips—the sight was so natural and elegant it was breathtaking. Julitan merely stared blankly at that sight until Carnelian lightly smacked the back of her head.
“Most knights are people whose path was decided almost from birth—by their household, by their parents, by the potential they possess…… You likely already know this, but…….”
Rii set down her teacup and spoke in a polite, mellifluous voice.
“But it seems to me that you, Lord Julitan, are a bit different from that. Did you choose to become a knight yourself?”
Rii smiled and looked at Julitan.
“Ah, yes. Well, it’s similar…….”
‘The truth is, I’m not even a knight right now! I was caught by a wicked Seal, and this life doesn’t even feel like living!’
She wanted to shout that, but she didn’t know what would happen if she did.
“And so, many knights mistakenly believe they were born as knights from birth. In truth, I too sometimes fall into that delusion. That I cannot be anything other than a knight. Thus, knights rarely think about the meaning of their own existence.”
Rii’s words were unexpected. To Julitan, they didn’t seem appropriate for someone you had just met.
“But why say such things to me…….”
Julitan asked back. The smile Rii wore looked sad. That expression…… she felt she had seen it on Carnelian as well.
“Is the existence called a ‘knight’ truly necessary in this world? I apologize if that was unpleasant. It shows my lack of chivalry…… but for some reason, you, Lord Julitan, seemed free from such questions…… What is our worth?”
‘In the end, I couldn’t even begin to answer, nor could I properly grasp the intent behind those words. Well, it’s only natural I wouldn’t know, since I’m not a knight.’
Julitan thought as much, yet Rii’s—arguably simple—question did not vanish from her mind. It was as if that question were the voice of a Seal speaking about the very reason for her existence. And it was also a question directed at herself, who had been swept up in a fateful coincidence to this city of Bellethima, sitting blankly here while pretending to be a knight. What is our worth?
“Then now, the moment you’ve been waiting for…….”
…the match between Carnelian and Jasak, begun with the announcer’s words, interrupted Julitan’s reverie. Cheers rang out, incomparable to the previous match, and Carnelian’s figure first appeared from the end of the arena. Watching Carnelian’s splendid figure enter the arena, black hair streaming as she held her sword called Mistral as if embracing it, the people were surely under the “delusion” that the master of that Seal was “undoubtedly an outstanding knight!” Julitan couldn’t be sure of much else, but she could make an almost certain guess that Carnelian’s expression was considerably contorted right now.
“Ugh. That really is…….”
Standing in the center of the arena like a proud goddess, Carnelian’s expression crumpled the moment she laid eyes on the Seal called Jasak.
‘That Kudro has a lascivious interest in Carnelian…… I can almost sympathize.’
Julitan’s impressions of Jasak were equally unkind. According to Carnelian’s assessment, the appearance of Jasak—the “strongest Seal” that Kudro boasted of—was “a disgrace to Seals who have failed at weight management.” Anyway, she really was a woman who had no sympathy for anything abnormal. Though she herself wasn’t thought to be a model of “normalcy” either.
“Hff. Hff. Hff…….”
He even snorted roughly; it felt as though one had encountered an unpleasant mountain beast during a journey. Jasak had a frame larger than an orc’s—wasn’t he roughly three times the size of an average man? Most noticeable of all was that he was a Seal suffering from extreme obesity. Flabby, drooping flesh with nary a muscle to be found wobbled about, and worst of all, to top it off, he wasn’t wearing a shirt! It was the moment Julitan’s preconception that all Seals were handsome was shattered.
“D-don’t come near me.”
A Seal like Jasak would certainly incite terror simply by approaching, regardless of his actual skill. Driven by a physiological fear that ‘if caught in the clutches of something like that, the unpleasant feeling would last a month,’ Carnelian stepped back. Whether the crowd knew of her torn heart or not, their cheers grew louder.
“Kraaaaaack!”
With a low, bizarre howl, Jasak charged at Carnelian. A speed inconceivable from such an obese body…… or so the people must have thought, but to Carnelian’s eyes, he appeared as slow as crawling.
“Ugh?”
Jasak wore a surprised expression that Carnelian, who should have been sent flying far into the stands by his tackle, had vanished. The crowd began to murmur as well. Then.
“There! In the air!”
How high had she risen? Carnelian, looking as though she were falling from the very heavens, was plummeting toward the ground with her sword set against Jasak. The crowd’s exclamations echoed throughout the Colosseum. There had been so many matches, but never before had they seen such a spectacular sight. To Julitan’s eyes, it merely looked like the showmanship of a vain Carnelian. But it seemed she too wanted to fight from as far away from Jasak as possible.
“Uuugh…….”
In truth, it had been a match with no chance of being a contest from the very beginning. The Seal known as Jasak might be quite famous in Bellethima, but he did not belong to the upper tier occupied by the likes of Carnelian or Ikates. And thus he lacked the ability to fight on equal terms with Carnelian. Jasak hurriedly dodged, and the blade Carnelian had set plunged down like a meteor toward the arena floor, flashing brilliantly. Her figure, plummeting at high speed with her red suit fluttering, drew a crimson line across the sky together with her clothes. She fell with a cry that sounded almost like advice.
“Lose some weight!”
Along with her descent, a tremendous explosion erupted as the arena floor was torn apart. With Carnelian’s descent, the arena floor was cratered deeply—deep enough that one glance told you it would be difficult to repair. And as the dust settled, what the people could see was Carnelian holding her blade to the neck of Jasak, who had fallen in an unsightly heap. Her expression, which one would have expected to be intoxicated with victory, was unexpectedly cold.
“You may live a thoughtless life, but you don’t want to die right now, do you? Let’s end this here.”
“Kraaack!”
Was it because he couldn’t accept it, or because of an artificial fate demanding that he fight to the end as a Seal? Jasak threw a fist that tore through the wind toward Carnelian. If it so much as grazed her, even Carnelian might not escape unscathed.
“Impossible!”
As the dust began to settle alongside the crowd’s exclamations, she was revealed lightly perched atop Jasak’s thick forearm, which was outstretched, and her Mistral remained aimed threateningly at Jasak’s face.
“Under a master like that, you will never gain anything. Though a Seal’s life is originally like that…….”
Carnelian spoke in a low voice to Jasak, who was staring blankly up at her. It seemed Carnelian had never intended to kill her opponent’s Seal from the beginning. Judging by how she had executed such flashy attacks that her opponent could have easily avoided, might her true intention have been to completely destroy the arena where this match was taking place? At that moment, Julitan wondered what expression Rii wore. Because although she rejected the match itself, Carnelian’s victory was also somewhat satisfying. But the Rii that Julitan saw was in conversation with King Priston, both their expressions grave. Was something going wrong? The moment she finished speaking, Rii walked to the railing of the VIP seats and shouted in a voice so large it was impossible to believe it was hers, audible in every corner of the arena. It was as though she were resonating against the people.
“The armies of the Kingdom of Helmund have begun moving toward this place! Any who commit looting or any other crime amid the chaos of the battle soon to come shall be severely punished after the battle ends. The Kingdom of Lisenberre will absolutely defend this city!”
She finished those words with a dignified air, then quickly turned and left the Colosseum, her ivory cape billowing. The people’s expressions began to frost over with anxiety.
-intro
“It was when I met him…… that I first thought I wanted to live a little longer.”
At those words, Jaimia’s star-like pupils offered wordless comfort.
‘A war like this…… perhaps everyone is dancing in the palm of the First Emperor.’
Rii thought such thoughts before setting out for war against the Kingdom of Helmund. She had never once laid eyes upon Offenbaha, the First Emperor of Ocalland, of whom she spoke. After the unification of Hesperia, he had not left Oberammergau, the imperial capital of Zelvendor in the Western Continent, which he ruled directly; thus, for the people of the Eastern Continent, it was nearly impossible to lay eyes upon him, even for a renowned knight. But all of that was irrelevant to Rii. More than that, there was something about Offenbaha, the absolute ruler of Hesperia, that she could never understand.
Beneath the First Emperor were the three Emperors of the three Empires—Garbat, Hespalcon, and Dallakat—which partitioned and ruled the Eastern Continent; beneath them existed numerous kingdoms and principalities such as Lisenberre; beneath them were lords and knights, and at the feet of the lords lived “humans”; and humans ruled over other races such as elves, orcs, and trolls.
An order and structure for chaos, one that could not be explained by something as simple as the logic of power. Had Emperor Offenbaha, from the very beginning, wished for all beings in the world to fight one another within the rules he created? But…… why.
The rules Offenbaha had created were, put simply, a framework of the law of the jungle where the strong preyed upon the weak. Even kingdoms within a single empire could war against one another freely, so long as the empire did not intervene. For that reason, Rii—who was preparing for a defensive war against Helmund, a hostile nation—muttered “But why……” over and over with the expression of someone solving a complex puzzle, and each time, her hands unconsciously tied up her blue hair in a manner befitting “war.” Perhaps the Emperor truly was, as the rumors said, a being unreachable by the mental limits of “ordinary humans.” Rii thought the fearsome byname “Chaos God” suited him.
Just then, Rii turned her head at the sound of her office door opening. It was Ikates, his expression urgent.
“What is it?”
“The armies of the Kingdom of Helmund have a knight and a Seal with them. ……That knight is Lord Jelrid, and his Seal is Karina.”
Rii’s expression wavered at Ikates’s words.
“Jelrid Vincristine……”
The anguished expression she wore as she muttered Jelrid’s name was not one of simple fear or hatred.
Dragon Lady
Author/ Kim Cheolgon
Publisher/ Park Seongin
Managing Editor/ Editorial Department
Published by/ Next Level Studio
Address/ 4F, 113 Seongsuil-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul
Main Phone/ 070-8801-6987
ISBN 979-11-92729-25-1
This book was published as an ebook by Next Level Studio in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder.
Unauthorized reproduction of the contents of this book without the publisher's permission is prohibited by copyright law.