“…….”
When Catherine fell into silent contemplation for a while, Adrian, seated beside her, spoke up with a listless expression. The dragon had no intention of waiting around endlessly for her to process the situation.
“What, you don’t trust what Mikhail said?”
At his clear voice, Catherine suddenly lifted her head. She met Adrian’s piercing golden eyes, staring straight at her. No matter what he was thinking, there was a noble, commanding gaze that seemed to overlook everything from above.
No one who met that gaze would ever believe he was just a regular human. The dragon had no need to further prove himself—his aura alone explained his existence perfectly.
That was why Catherine shook her head and replied firmly.
“I’m not foolish enough to doubt the great Dragon.”
“Hmm.”
Adrian let out a short hum, feigning contemplation. He rested his elbow on the table and leaned his chin into his hand, staring at Catherine. She turned her head slightly, sensing the dragon’s gaze—but it was too late to hide anything.
“Then what’s with that lukewarm expression?”
“……Lukewarm, you say?”
“Don’t like the phrasing? I’m asking about the reason that’s clearly weighing on your mind.”
“…….”
Catherine bit her lower lip, as if his words had struck a nerve. Mikhail, who had been quietly listening to the conversation, raised one eyebrow. Since Catherine hesitated to answer, he too grew curious about this supposed “reason.”
“……It’s just that…”
At last, Catherine forced open the lips she had struggled to part. She couldn’t afford to keep the dragon waiting much longer. It was the exact moment the patiently silent dragon had been about to speak again—her timing was sharp. Adrian watched her closely as she continued.
“The fact that the Dragon is on this battlefield… I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps this is the prophesied moment.”
The prophesied moment. Adrian’s expression turned ambiguous.
Almost as if she anticipated that the dragon’s mood might sour, Catherine quickly added,
“There’s a ceiling mural that was discovered in a dungeon several centuries ago.”
Despite her initial hesitation, her tone was surprisingly calm as she stated the facts. Adrian’s eyes narrowed sharply, his chin still resting on his hand. If she meant the “ceiling mural found in a dungeon,” there was a lot he knew about that.
The gem had changed the fate of the continent, just as the legends foretold. It had been done using the noble power of a dragon.
“A prophecy?”
—But who in the world could have? The dragon stared at the ceiling mural.
That unnaturally pristine, high-dimensional mana. The way the painting had flowed and transformed in an instant like running water—and finally shifted into the image of a single human in a forest with a gold dragon. It was such an unusual experience, the dragon had never once forgotten it.
However, Adrian furrowed his brow in confusion at what Catherine said next.
“It’s a terrifying painting, where the entire continent is engulfed by black beasts. So horrific that ‘hellish’ would be a mild description.”
“……Wait.”
Her explanation didn’t match what Adrian had experienced.
He raised a hand slightly to stop her, murmuring,
“A terrifying painting? Wasn’t it an incredibly peaceful one? That doesn’t sound like the mural I know. If the one you’re talking about is the same ceiling mural I discovered in the dungeon with Carlo… the image was of a gold dragon bestowing a sword to a human in a lush forest. Granted, the fact that the mural had changed again wouldn’t be all that surprising. It had already changed once when I saw it.”
“……I thought so.”
She nodded, as if she’d expected that.
Catherine had suspected that the “Luce Fennigan” mentioned in historical records was none other than Adrian himself. It had been Luce Fennigan and King Carlo de Inehart who first cleared that dungeon. After his coronation, Carlo had dispatched multiple expeditions to investigate the dungeon thoroughly. Though his aim had been to retrace the steps of the vanished Luce Fennigan, the teams had returned with no traces of the dragon—only with an unexpected discovery: the dungeon’s ceiling mural.
“There’s a record that King Carlo de Inehart said exactly the same thing as you. He even confirmed that the mural had changed. Though he originally described the first image of the angel in quite vivid detail…”
Catherine slowly shook her head from side to side, her voice tinged with regret. At the mention of King Carlo’s name, Mikhail—who had been silently listening to their conversation—leaned forward over the table. Catherine’s words carried far more weight and gravity than he had anticipated. The mural she spoke of was one Mikhail already knew of. Until now, he’d dismissed it as nothing more than the work of some eccentric painter. But something had always seemed off about it—it didn’t quite fit the narrative of the war Carlo had once waged against the monsters. That was why most people had chalked it up as mere artistic fantasy.
“Since then, the mural has never changed—not even once. For centuries, the ceiling remained fixed in that grotesque vision of hell. Every brushstroke, every detail matched perfectly, without a single deviation.”
“…….”
Adrian said nothing for a moment. Then, as if the subject was of little consequence, he leaned back from the table and gave a nonchalant shrug.
“Sure, it’s surprising… but what does any of that have to do with this situation now?”
Catherine had clearly started this line of conversation for a different reason. At Adrian’s indifferent tone, both Catherine and Mikhail’s eyes flicked toward each other across the table, silently debating whether they should go any further with this—especially in front of the great Dragon himself. Catching onto their hesitation, Adrian gave a quiet snort of laughter.
“Just say it. I’m dying of curiosity over here.”
For someone claiming to be dying of curiosity, the dragon looked rather unimpressed, but Catherine nodded once at his permission.
“……Do you know what lies at the center of that image? The thing that plunges the entire continent into horrific death?”
“Catherine.”
Mikhail’s clear voice cut through her words. His face had hardened, his expression twisting as if he’d just heard an accusation he found deeply unpleasant.
He already knew what Catherine was about to say—and he understood why she believed that this very moment might be the one prophesied by Ordinas. No doubt, Adrian’s sudden visit to his tent last night had thrown her into confusion. If Adrian hadn’t held such immense meaning to him—hadn’t been that Dragon—Mikhail likely would have arrived at the same conclusion she had.
But whether the theory held any truth or not, Mikhail didn’t want to see Adrian wounded by it.
“It’s enough to just state the facts.”
That was why he had to stop Catherine’s words, which carried with them a shadow of personal judgment.
Only then did Catherine seem to fully grasp that the one listening to them now was indeed a dragon. She halted her quickened breath and took a moment to steady herself. After a deep breath and a soft ahem to compose her emotions, she began again.
“As I said, the mural depicts the continent consumed by black monsters… and at its center—”
Her gaze flicked toward Adrian’s face, then quickly turned away.
“—is a gold dragon, breathtakingly beautiful in its cruelty, roaring as it’s corrupted by black mana.”
“…….”
Gold Dragon. Adrian’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Noticing his reaction, Mikhail interjected from beside him.
“It’s probably just a coincidence.”
“It could be.”
Catherine nodded in agreement.
“That’s what I thought—until now. Even when the black beasts overtook the continent in a flash, I dismissed the mural as just the work of some over-imaginative artist. But that changed the moment I learned the gold dragon who vanished centuries ago had appeared here today. Can we still call this just a coincidence?”
“……Adrian just protected the camp from the monsters earlier.”
Mikhail frowned as he countered her statement, clearly exasperated. Their gazes met midair, locked in that brief instant of doubt—each questioning the other’s true thoughts.
“Maybe that mural really was a glimpse into the continent’s future.”
Adrian murmured softly, breaking his silence.
He had already experienced something eerily similar. It had happened after the death of an elder dragon—when he felt disgust for Ordinas’s will, for fate itself. In that moment, his radiant gold scales, always shining like the sun, had blackened and flared up in flames.
