Chapter 115
– So. A new fairy was born already?
“…Yeah.”
– That’s good. The restoration of the dimensional barrier will speed up even more.
Probably. Cassius replied inwardly and lazily leaned back against the sofa.
– But somehow you sound lacking in energy?
“Since when did you ever care about my voice.”
– That’s harsh, Cassius. We may look like this, but we’ve known each other for 380 years~
For a moment, he almost retched. Cassius glared at the gramophone-shaped communicator, then snorted.
“Stop talking nonsense. Just tell me how many years are left.”
– Hmm… at this pace, you should be able to go to another world within at least seven years.
Ikelid answered as if singing. At those words, Cassius fell silent again.
– Eki is bringing fairies forth pretty quickly. Seems the world has recovered a lot. There are probably fairies being born in places even I don’t know about too.
“……”
– Maybe not seven years, but five… or even sooner.
The tendons on the back of Cassius’s hand, gripping the pipe stem, bulged prominently.
Five years. Or maybe even less. For a dragon, even ten years were like a fleeting moment, but the thought that the time he could spend with Eki might be far shorter made his vision grow dark with despair.
‘Can Eki… accept that?’
Human hearts changed often, so he didn’t know if she would still like him by then. It almost seemed better if Eki grew tired of him, cursed him out, and left the Thousand Tower.
But if that didn’t happen, if they spent the next few years in happiness together, the two of them wouldn’t be able to accept the separation.
Eki, especially, would be devastated.
‘I really shouldn’t get close to Eki.’
Whether lust or anything else, he had to push her away. Otherwise, wouldn’t he end up hurting her in the not-so-distant future.
Cassius had even considered acting cruelly toward her so she’d detach emotionally, but after seven years under his eccentric authority, she’d lived just fine, so he concluded it wouldn’t work. Rather, she’d notice he was deliberately acting out and try to figure out why. Eki was a persistent and clever disciple.
And Cassius couldn’t turn his back on that Eki. Above all, when all it took was stroking his c**k once for him to cling like he’d give up his liver and gallbladder, how could he possibly ignore her?
“Damn it…”
When he muttered the curse softly, the half-asleep Ikelid asked in a sly voice,
– You’re like this because of Eki, aren’t you?
“…Why is Eki coming up here?”
– You don’t seem very happy about the dimensional barrier being restored.
Cassius’s eyes narrowed.
He’d never even imagined trying to tell Ikelid about his situation. Because he still vividly remembered what kind of crisis he’d gone through when they first met.
‘Wow. What’s this now. There are still dragons alive?’
‘H-Help… help me.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Help… me…’
‘Hmm.’
Back then and now, his appearance hadn’t changed due to lifespan extension magic, but the young Ikelid had been at the height of his powers, powerful enough to be called the greatest archmage of the era. That was why he hated dragons, the root cause of the Dark Age, and he’d tried to cut down Cassius’s neck in one strike, even though Cassius couldn’t even polymorph yet and had only barely formed a dragon larval body a few months after hatching.
‘If I die, the barrier will collapse.’
If that bastard dragon hadn’t barely managed to spit out the last words his parents left him, that would have been the end.
‘…Barrier? What barrier?’
‘The barrier that supports the dimensional shield.’
‘What kind of nonsense is that?’
‘My parents said… this world could survive because of me…’
So you must survive no matter what.
Cassius wrapped his wings around his body to protect himself amid the unfamiliar human mages he’d never seen before. It might have looked pitiful, but Ikelid examined him carefully to judge the truth of his words.
A forest with nothing in it. There, a stranded dragon hatchling that looked like it had been starving for quite some time.
After pondering for a long while, he eventually took Cassius back to the Mage Association. And there, Cassius endured countless humiliations and proved that his words were true.
– Cassius, you know this too, right?
At Ikelid’s voice breaking his thoughts, Cassius’s eyes, which had been fixed on the window outside, rolled back to the gramophone. As if knowing he had his attention, Ikelid spoke in a smooth voice.
– You decided to leave this land once the dimensional barrier recovered.
“……”
– So don’t let yourself get swayed too much by Eki.
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