I'm Going to Change my Husband with a Predatory Marriage

‘A dragon who fell in love with the princess at first sight, attacked the wedding procession, and plundered her.’

This was a very famous story. And I used it to marry Arpad. Also, before the return, the tales used by Evangeline and Ludwig, the stories of the dragon Artanus and princess Istrid, were facts and history. The presence of Arpad before my eyes was proof of that.

A descendant who inherited the dragon’s bloodline.

However, in addition to the story of the founder of the Istrid imperial family, the story of a dragon kidnapping a princess and a knight trying to save her was common. Not only on Earth, but also in this world. But people usually didn’t ask these questions.

‘Why do dragons always prey on princesses?’

In most stories, there were two main reasons. First, to make her its wife. Second, to catch and eat her. But I knew that these two reasons are actually derived from the same reason. Because of the existence of the ‘Dragon Bride’. The dragon’s bride was a being who could make the dragon’s strength and body stronger.

“It’s as if a part of the dragon that was supposed to be one piece has fallen off.”

Therefore, each dragon tried to take his bride in a different way. He took her as his companion and stayed with her throughout his life. Some were even eaten. Although the methods were polar opposites, the dragon’s desire for a bride was the same. Even more earnestly. To the point where he lost his senses. Even after turning a country into an enemy and waging war for several years, Artanus did not give up on Istrid. He couldn’t do that.

‘It means that Princess Istrid is that important to Artanus.’

It was a side effect of the power of the ‘bride’ that even dragons lost their reason and became mere beasts. So, what kind of person was a ‘bride’ to mixed-race people who couldn’t overcome dragon blood? What about someone who didn’t know when they would go crazy and die? I thought I already knew the answer. Because I had seen Arpad completely crazy with mania. In my first life, Arpad would probably have killed me if his head had not fallen on the Emperor’s sword before he killed me. Controlled by mania, he became an animal and simply followed his instincts to eat his ‘bride’. The tension and anxiety grew taut like a bowstring pulled to the end.

* * *

I learned this long after I met Arpad in my first life and saw him die. It was in the previous life, episode 3. Even for me, who has experienced it three times, the moment of death was a terrible and horrible memory every time. There were a few moments that I remembered as horribly as death, or even more so. Those were the moments I had with ‘that man’.

‘Magataplord Gaspal.’

He was an unusual person among Evangeline’s followers. He wasn’t taken in by Evangeline’s abilities, loveliness, or specialness like others.

‘He joined hands with Evangeline solely for personal gain.’

In a word, he was like a mad scientist. Scientists who do all kinds of crazy experiments with humans in dramas and movies. If you change that person into a wizard, and change the part that was crazy about science experiments into magic experiments, that’s Gaspal. And the area he was most crazy about was the part related to dragons. He wanted to create a dragon with his own hands, and the royal family that inherited the dragon’s bloodline was the test subject he desperately wanted.

‘So Gaspal cooperated with Evangeline in exchange for Arpad’s body.’

This was why I did not suspect that Evangeline liked Arpad. Evangeline always handed over Arpad’s body to get the magic tower’s cooperation. And Arpad’s body wasn’t the only thing the Mage Tower received from Evangeline. This included humans who could be freely used in magic experiments. Most of the test subjects that Evangeline provided to the magic tower owner were executed prisoners. I was also among them.

Evangeline secretly took me, who was imprisoned on charges of adultery and treason, for a while and gave it to the Magic Tower owner as an experiment. Gaspal chuckled and treated me as special among test subjects.

“Please, please stop! It hurts so much!”

“I can’t help it. Eva asked me to treat you especially well.”

The change that occurred in the days when all kinds of cruel and painful experiments continued was purely coincidental. That time when I, who was running away from pain, couldn’t go out and ended up in a more dangerous place. I met Arpad there. To put it more accurately, I met the person who ‘was’ Arpad.

I had met Arpad several times in several lives. As Crown Prince Arpad, or as Mercenary King Gerald. But that was the first time I had seen him in his corpse state, a living monster after death. Even though I knew Arpad’s face, I didn’t know at the time that the being was made from Arpad’s corpse. This was because the body was grotesquely deformed. His entire body was covered in black scales, and an incomplete wing sprouted from his back. His fingernails and toenails grew like hooks and crushed bricks. The sight of a monster that looked like a mixture of a dragon and a human was just creepy. A chained monster with no reason or anything, it rushed towards me. I thought I was dead because I was motionless.

“Aaaah!!”

“Aaaahhh!!!”

But no. I was alive, and the monster made from Arpad’s corpse was holding me and looking at me with red eyes. A monster no better than an animal with no reason left.

“…?”

“Grrr…”

And the next moment. The monster started licking the wound on my knee where I fell. I soon realized.

“Are you drinking my blood?”

The monster licked my blood as if it were nectar. Then, when it realized there was no more blood to lick, it bit my neck and tried to drink my blood. The one who stopped it was the magic tower lord.

“This! That’s not possible! Eva asked me to keep this test subject alive and return it to her!”

The monster created from Arpad’s corpse was blown away by the Magic Tower’s magic and crashed into the wall.

The Magic Tower’s main gas arm tilted his head.

“Hmm? But why didn’t it kill this test subject? Every time it came close, it tore it to pieces and killed it.”

And as a result of several terrible experiments, Gaspal was able to come up with a result.

“I see. It was because of your unusual constitution! Your blood and flesh strengthen the dragon’s strength and compensate for its imperfections. So, mixed-bloods with high instability have no choice but to hope to gain your abilities even if it means eating you. My God. My prediction was correct. Princess Istrid was a special being. As you! So, something huge like a dragon needed her.”

He cheered and used me for all kinds of experiments for half a year. This was the nickname he gave me.

“The Dragon’s Bride. There is no nickname more fitting for you.”

I was the best test subject for the magic tower owner who was crazy about dragons. He always felt regretful.

“So sad. I want to see what the results would be if I were to meet you with Crown Prince Arpad when he was alive, but I’m really disappointed.”

And when Evangeline told him to return me because she would have to publicly execute me, he even resisted.

“We haven’t finished the experiment yet! Give me a little more time!”

However, because he wanted to monopolize the results of the experiment, he did not tell Evangeline about my constitution. Thanks to that, it took half a year to return from the magic tower to the imperial prison. Maybe they decided to receive my body after I died.

After Evangeline got me back, she executed me right away, so I didn’t know what happened next.

My third life was truly terrible in many ways. Among that time, the half a year at the Magic Tower was especially terrible. At least, was it an advantage to know what abilities I had as the ‘Bride of the Dragon’ and how to use them? No, when I thought about it again, I didn’t think it’s an advantage. From that experience, I knew that I, the ‘Dragon Bride’, would be very useful to the living Arpad. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but know one thing.

“When a dragon finds a bride, he tries to take her to make up for his imperfection. There are many ways. If it is the most primitive and violent method, then… They’re probably going to eat her.”

Gaspal would keep muttering to himself even if I didn’t want to hear it. About the ecology of dragons he found out. And about my power as the dragon’s bride. He even had a hypothesis about how those with dragon blood would act toward me.

Every time, I felt terrible, but I agreed. During the conversation, he got distracted and the experiment would stop.

“So every dragon that sees me wants to eat me?”

“It won’t be like that for everyone. You know it from Princess Istrid, right? she didn’t die. You also saw her descendants.”

In response to Gaspal’s words, I muttered as I looked at Arpad’s corpse hanging on the wall like a specimen of a butterfly.

“The Imperial family.”

“That’s right. Yes. The Imperial family. Noble bloodlines that inherited the bloodline of the great dragon.”

“Then will they want to eat me when they see me?”

“That could be possible. But they won’t all try to eat the bride?”

He whispered in a low voice.

“Or they might try to blend in.”

* * *

And now, standing before my eyes was a man born with the blood of a dragon, second only to the first emperor in the 300-year history of the empire.

Arpad was alive. And he had shiny red reptilian eyes.

 

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