[But that day, he asked me to meet him in that cave, and suddenly he chanted a sealing spell! How did he know about the dragon’s magic?]
“Suddenly?”
[Yes, suddenly! At first, I was also very confused.]
“Why didn’t you stop Lancers then? I think Rabes would have the power to do that.”
That question left Rabes speechless for a moment.
Rabes also know that. At that moment, all he had to do was retrieve his magic core implanted in Lancers.
That sealing spell was created completely just for Rabes. And the medium used to seal Rabes was a part of Rabes’ magical core within Lancers’ body.
Since the owner of the magic core was ultimately Rabes, he could have prevented the sealing curse by retrieving the magic core.
But he couldn’t.
[If I did, Lancers would have died.]
“What? Can’t you do that?”
[Lancers hadn’t made all his wishes, and if he died there, I had to wait for him to be reincarnated.]
“But isn’t the fact that he tried to seal you the same as breaking the contract? From what I researched, if a human who becomes a dragon’s contractor tries to harm the dragon, the contract is immediately broken.”
Rabes was hit by Elaine’s sharp words.
That was correct.
Their contracts were always based on mutual respect. If a human who becomes a dragon’s contractor tries to harm the dragon, the contract is immediately broken.
He knew it, but even as the sealing curse tightened on him, Rabes forced himself to believe that their contract was still maintained.
‘I can’t kill him! No matter what the reason, I could never do that.’
The person who had taken him out of the egg and the person he had first developed affection for could not be killed in such an absurd way.
Fortunately, the sealing spell was not aimed at permanent sealing.
If the spell was for ‘permanent sealing’, even if the conditions for releasing the seal were met, Rabes would be trapped in the egg forever and could not be released.
Therefore, it was the most terrible punishment for the dragon.
However, the sealing spell Lancers placed on Rabes was designed to inevitably meet the condition of unsealing after 500 years, and it was a time that could be tolerated by the dragon living forever with his eyes closed for about 500 years.
So instead of retrieving the power core, he cursed Lancers with reincarnation. If he ever saw him again, he would at least ask him why Lancers had betrayed him.
‘But I never thought he would turn out to be a half-idiot who has completely lost his memory.’
Rabes sighed softly as he looked at Elaine, who was asking why he didn’t kill him back then.
[Well, let’s just say there was no time to kill that guy.]
Elaine didn’t ask any more questions, because she noticed that Rabes looked a little bitter.
‘He must not have felt good when he was sealed.’
Elaine instead continued talking about Lancers.
“As I read through the stories about Lancers, unlike other archmages, he’s rarely mentioned with anyone else. His assistant is mentioned, but it’s not a big story…”
[Is that strange?]
“yes. Usually, a great wizard is a big figure, so there are a lot of people around him. Moreover, most of them live lives comparable to those of great nobles. But I don’t think there was anyone around Lancer Aquinal. Even though he was an imperial wizard….”
[Yeah. That guy wasn’t a sociable person.]
Rabes felt a little triumphant as he remembered Lancers smiling shyly, saying, ‘I just need you to be by my side, Laves’.
However, Elaine kept her mouth shut for a moment and then muttered.
“That person…I think he must have been lonely.”
[why why why? I was next to him!]
“He would have endured it because Rabes was there, but since Lancers was also a human being, he would have needed something like human affection. and I think he was in his late forties or early fifties when he disappeared, and he wasn’t even married by then…”
Rabes looked at Elaine blankly with a shocked face and asked.
[Are you like that too?]
“What?”
[Do you need another human being too?]
“Won’t that happen someday? I want to build a warm family. It’s a place where I can give as much love as I can and receive it in return.”
Rabes felt like he had been stabbed in the back.
‘I never thought I’d get stabbed in the back by this human again.…!’
His temper flared.
But he couldn’t figure out what he was angry about. Because there was nothing wrong with what Elaine said.
‘I hadn’t even thought about finding a mate for her.’
Elaine finding a mate, building a family, and having children wasn’t such a bad thing as long as she found the right mate.
But when the plan came out of Elaine’s mouth instead of his own, he felt angry and betrayed.
However, Elaine, who had no idea what he was thinking, smiled brightly and scratched Rabes’s insides even more.
“By the way, Rabes. When do dragons get their mates? Isn’t it time for you to find a mate?”
Even though it was a reasonable question to ask, Rabes was so grumpy that he turned his head away.
[A dragon like me wouldn’t be a good mate. Who would love something like me?]
“What? It can’t be!”
[Really. The dragons abandoned me and left. Because the egg I was nesting in was deformed.]
Then Elaine gently stroked the back of Rabes, who was sitting facing the wall.
“The dragons will regret it if they see Rabes grow up to be such a wonderful dragon.”
Rabes’s ears perked up at the words ‘wonderful dragon’.
[What do you think you know about dragons that makes you think I’m cool?]
“There’s something that you can tell just by looking at it. Such hard, shiny scales, perfect proportions, or mysterious blue eyes…”
[The fact that I breathe black fire is also a bit unique.]
“That’s right. Moreover, Rabes’s wings are flawless and perfectly symmetrical. The horns are cool, and when you become an adult, its claws look really big and strong.”
[I thought it was weird, but it turned out to be good.]
“Because I have never seen anything as strong and beautiful as Rabes.”
Rabes, who had been firmly upset, melted little by little by Elaine’s praise.
[I don’t need another dragon. I don’t need any other humans.]
Rabes, who could not bring himself to say the words ‘I just need you!’, giggled like a child.
But Elaine’s answer was unexpected.
“Thank you for your words, but you can’t do that.”
[What? Why not?]
“I am a human being who cannot live even a hundred years. What will you do after I die?”
[Then… I’ll go and do something about it]
“Yeah, I’m sure you will, time will pass somehow. But I’m a little worried that Rabes might be very lonely after I die.”
Suddenly, he remembered the five hundred years he’d spent sealed in the egg after being betrayed by Lancers.
Rabes was tormented the entire time he was trapped in the egg.
‘At the time, I thought it was just the pain of being betrayed, but now that I think about it again, I realized that there was also a lot of pain from not seeing Lancers anymore.’
From the moment he saw Elaine sacrificed, the pain that had been churning inside him was instantly forgotten.
[Humans die too quickly.]
“I wonder if dragons live too long.…Anyway, Labes, you should also get a mate. You must at least make a friend who can share eternal life with you, Rabes.”
[There’s no way something like that exists in this world.]
“Think about a way to return to the dragons.”
[no. I don’t like it!]
Elaine stroked Rabes’s forehead with a slightly sad expression and kissed him briefly.
Neither Elaine nor Rabes could understand why that conversation was so sad.
* * *
It was Lorina who disturbed Elaine’s peaceful day.
When the scripture recitation class ended and Elaine was going back to the dormitory, Lorina and her friends were waiting for Elaine.
It felt strangely familiar and made her feel uneasy, but Elaine tried to ignore Lorina and pass by.
However, Lorina, who was clearly waiting with purpose, would not let Elaine pass by.
“Oh, you know what?”
The moment she heard Lorina’s voice, a scene from her past life that was identical to this one flashed through Elaine’s mind.
It was the same place, the same voice, and the same content as then.
‘no way!’
Elaine looked at Lorina with an expression of astonishment, not curiosity.
Lorina delivered the news that Elaine had been worried about, with the same wicked smile as in her previous life.
“A maid named Emily.”
As expected, it was about Emily.
“I heard she’s been stealing food from the kitchen and bringing it to you?”
Elaine felt like she was out of breath.
After returning, she deliberately kept her distance from Emily, but it seems he couldn’t change the future in which Emily would be fired in just a few months.
“Oh my god, she stole food for her? why?”
“I guess she had a strong appetite. Having a maid steal food is something I’ve never even imagined.”
“She’s not a street rat, she’s a lowly person…”
Lorina’s friends made expressions of disgust and criticized or ridiculed Elaine, but such unimportant words were not heard in Elaine’s ears.
To Elaine, what Lorina said next was much more important.
* * *
