The dragon’s mystery looked like it would be solved far sooner than expected. That was because the research site Kyle had been investigating—the final destination of the legion—was right nearby.
The clamorous thunder of hooves pounding in unison finally came to a halt.
Adrian, riding in the rear, brought his horse to a graceful stop and turned his attention to the conversation happening up front. At the vanguard, Mikhail was speaking to the legion commander beside him.
“We’ve arrived safely.”
“It’s a relief the journey wasn’t as treacherous as we feared…”
Fortunately, they hadn’t encountered a single monster along the way.
But the legion’s real journey was only just beginning.
The commander’s eyes swept across the horizon from beneath his lowered brow. The land ahead was silent and still. Lifeless. The barren dirt stretched endlessly in every direction, devoid of even the faintest sign of a living creature.
“Direction?”
In response to Mikhail’s question, Kyle, holding a large map with both hands, answered.
“Straight ahead. If we ride, it’ll take thirty minutes. On foot, an hour.”
After a brief moment of thought, Mikhail made a quick decision.
“I see. Then let’s have half the troops remain here and establish a temporary base. The rest will proceed on foot.”
The legion commander, standing beside him, nodded in approval at the prince’s practical judgment.
He saw in Mikhail the makings of a commander who wouldn’t rigidly adhere to textbook strategy, but rather one who could exercise flexibility where needed.
At first, he’d assumed the royal graduate from the academy had joined the military simply in search of glory. But over the past few years, he’d come to see that Mikhail was nothing like those shallow nobles. The more time he spent with him in the field, the less he could see the prince as some greenhorn knight, and the more he saw him as a genuine comrade.
The commander tightened his grip on the reins and gave a firm nod.
“It’s a sound decision. The horses need rest too. Let’s do as you say.”
At his words, a soldier nearby blew the signal horn. Then, raising his arm skyward, he gave a series of hand signals. It was an order to set up a temporary base at their current location. The soldiers who had halted their march quickly dismounted.
If they wanted to finish constructing a shelter before nightfall, they would need to move fast.
***
Before the tents were pitched, a table was first laid on the dirt for the commanders. Mikhail, the legion commander, Kyle, and Catherine gathered around it, a large map spread out in the center.
Kyle pointed to a specific spot on the map with his index finger—marking the legion’s current position.
“Any researchers who can’t fight should stay here. Only the minimum personnel should move forward.”
“Why?”
The legion commander raised one eyebrow. He hadn’t intended to bring all the researchers along either, but something about Kyle’s use of the words ‘only the minimum’ caught his attention.
“Because… from here on, we’ll need to travel by boat.”
“Boat?”
Everyone around the table turned their eyes to the tip of Kyle’s finger once again. The surrounding terrain was all flat land. The map itself depicted no signs of a lake, river, or sea—just a finely detailed stretch of uninterrupted continent.
“What do you mean?”
Mikhail was the first to voice the question. Kyle, understanding their confusion, nodded and elaborated.
“As I mentioned in my report, it was originally no more than the size of a small puddle.”
Tap. He picked up a quill and touched the map at a specific point, leaving a tiny blot of ink.
“But its size has steadily increased. That hole continues to spew out black mana without end.”
Kyle moved the quill gently, drawing a small circle around the ink blot. Then he added a larger one outside it, and another even bigger one after that. Like the concentric rings of a tree’s growth, the circles grew in expanding waves.
“And now, the black mana has spread as far as this area.”
The final circle Kyle drew marked the spot they had believed to be their destination. But that was not their true target. What the legion sought was the source—the heart of where the black mana had begun to flow.
“Magic couldn’t close the hole. We tried plugging it with a stopper of matching size—only a temporary fix. We tried burning it shut. We tried shattering the edges. Nothing worked.”
“…”
The gravity of Kyle’s explanation darkened the faces of everyone listening.
A heavy silence fell over the tent.
“It’s… a little more dangerous than what the report suggested, isn’t it?”
The legion commander’s voice broke the silence. Kyle gave a calm nod.
“We don’t have time to linger here.”
Mikhail muttered under his breath. He was right. The black mana continued to spill from the hole. If they wasted time dithering, the spreading zone could keep growing—until it eventually swallowed the entire continent.
“Let’s quickly sort out who’s going.”
The legion commander agreed without hesitation, rising swiftly from his chair.
A brief and to-the-point military meeting.
Oh? So that’s what it is… Adrian was perched atop a large boulder. His eyes, as he eavesdropped on the conversation, shimmered with a flicker unlike their usual calm.
And then—
“What are you doing over here?”
The bright golden glow in Adrian’s eyes vanished in an instant. As his now plain brown eyes shifted, he saw one of the researchers who’d ridden at the rear of the legion standing beside the rock.
“Ah, just… resting for a moment. Bit exhausted.”
Adrian muttered softly, pretending to be worn out.
The researcher plopped down beside him with a sympathetic grunt.
“Phew, I guess it’s tough doing fieldwork after spending all day in the workshop fiddling with herbs, huh? Honestly, this is the first time I’ve ever ridden a horse all day.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of rough.”
Haha, Adrian let out a sheepish laugh, raking his hand through the back of his hair. This guy probably came here looking for a quiet spot to slack off. He chose the perfect place, the dragon thought silently, his gaze drifting back to the distant table where the military meeting had taken place.
Hm? Are they already moving?
The area around the table was already empty. Just as Adrian turned his head quickly to follow Mikhail with his eyes—
Crimson eyes caught his gaze, locking onto him.
Mikhail and Adrian were looking directly at one another.
Was Mikhail… looking for me too? Adrian slowly lifted the corners of his lips into a faint smile. And at that quiet, subtle smile from the dragon, Mikhail responded with a soft curl of his own eyes.
It was a curious coincidence. With a human’s inferior vision, there was no way Mikhail could have clearly seen Adrian’s face from this distance.
Adrian rose abruptly from the rock and began striding purposefully in Mikhail’s direction.
As though he’d completely forgotten he’d just been speaking with someone else. His body was moving ahead of his thoughts.
“Huh? Where are you going? You’re gonna help with building the tents? That’s pretty tough work, you know.”
The researcher’s voice trailed after him, sounding like he wanted to stop him. But Adrian, walking briskly, finally opened his mouth.
“I’m all rested. I’ll be going now.”
Right now, he needed to go to Mikhail. Whatever the researcher mumbled behind him, calling him a weirdo, didn’t matter to the dragon at all.
Mikhail.
He stood quietly, gazing this way as if he had known Adrian would walk toward him all along. They were so far apart that they looked like mere specks to each other. Yet neither looked away. Or at least, Adrian believed so.
The movements of other humans bustling about setting up camp didn’t matter at all. Adrian pushed off the ground with the swiftness of someone sprouting wings on his feet. Tents being pitched and humans working hard flew past his vision like a blur.
Tak—his final step seemed to cover far more ground than any ordinary human stride. I hope I didn’t give myself away as something other than human. That tiny concern didn’t take root in his mind until he’d already reached his destination.
Finally, their figures came into clear view in each other’s eyes.
“Not a good…”
Adrian murmured as he looked at Mikhail.
“…feeling.”
A vague statement.
The kind of phrase Adrian hated most in the world. Words that conveyed absolutely nothing—empty and useless. A feeling, really? What was anyone supposed to do with that?
Adrian pressed his lips together and furrowed his brow.
But Mikhail seemed quite pleased with that vague expression. His lips curved upward slowly, and then he parted them to speak.
“Then you’ll come with me, won’t you?”
Faced with those words, Adrian could only nod, as if under a spell.
If he’d been moving with his true dragon body instead of this human shell, his tail would surely have swayed slowly behind him—just to show how much he liked what Mikhail had said.
