Chapter 120
No one would welcome a disciple dating the master they had worked with for a long time. On top of that, they had started with s****l relations, so if things went wrong, Eki’s reputation could fall straight into the abyss in an instant.
‘Damn it… if only I’d thought a bit more about Eki…’
The dragon, who had forgotten how to live among others and didn’t understand how much influence an unhealthy master disciple relationship could have, descended the spiral staircase while pondering for a long time.
Soon, when he reached the iron bars leading to a dark corridor, he let out a gloomy sigh and opened the door.
Creeeak.
The old hinges screamed. The moment the iron door leading underground opened, the torches lined up along the corridor flared to life one by one. Unlike the turmoil in his mind, Cassius’s pale green eyes calmly swept over the monsters imprisoned in their cells.
There was nothing out of the ordinary. The restraints were functioning properly, and the bars were sturdy. Still, Cassius didn’t relax his stiff expression and continued inward. Past dozens of monsters, deeper still. To the very end of the underground where even torchlight couldn’t reach.
A gate even larger than the inner door connected to the underground appeared. Cassius placed his hand on the handle without hesitation. Golden haze rose from his fingertips and flowed into the keyhole of the iron gate, and with a click, clack, the lock began to come undone.
And when the door finally opened, red light flooded the deep underground that had been filled only with pitch black darkness.
“……”
Cassius frowned, yet didn’t avert his gaze from the light. He walked forward steadily and looked around.
Before him were heaps upon heaps of a thousand dragon hearts, made by setting vivid red blood into uneven molds and hardening it into jewel like forms.
‘…This place will be shut down soon too, won’t it?’
Dragon hearts. Magic stones imbued with immense power, created by dragons offering up their hearts. They were the sacrifices of the barrier formation his parents and kin had used to maintain the dimensional barrier, even if only temporarily. As if proving that fact, beneath the red jewels tangled together like chunks of ice was a blood array drawn in blood.
If, as Ikelid said, the dimensional barrier fully recovered in just a few years, then this would be the last place Cassius needed to visit. He planned to retrieve his parents’ hearts here, destroy the magic, and then leave for another world.
If only Eki weren’t here.
‘Thinking about it, isn’t it strange.’
Ten years were but a moment to him. If so, weren’t the past seven years he’d spent with Eki an even shorter time? Then why… had she become an existence he couldn’t exclude from an issue that determined his entire life?
At the thought, Cassius stared at the red jewels for a moment, then slowly closed the great door. Turning back toward the tower, his footsteps remained heavy.
❖ ❖ ❖
“You guys, be honest with me.”
Night had fallen before she knew it, and a black curtain had descended over the wide Pinon Forest. With her mind just as tangled as Cassius’s, Eki chose not to sleep and instead grabbed the most approachable fairies to dig into her suspicious master’s inner thoughts.
“Did something happen to Master?”
【 Mmm? I-I dunno. 】
【 Dunno either. 】
Venta and Tys pretended to whistle in unison and clasped their hands behind their backs. When Eki stared at them intently, Tys finally couldn’t take it anymore and jumped up.
【 Th-That’s too much. How could you even think that? Saying you’d pull out all my hair…! 】
【 Calm down, Tys. Eki only thinks about it. She doesn’t actually do it. 】
“Want to bet on whether I really will or not?”
The reason Eki was grilling the fairies was simple. She remembered their ability to read other people’s thoughts.
‘They must’ve seen what was in Master’s head too.’
If so, wouldn’t she be able to find out just what was making Cassius look so unhappy.
‘He seemed like he was getting better on the final inspection day… then suddenly from the next day, he started keeping his distance from me again. Ah, seriously.’
She couldn’t take it anymore. If she just kept watching his mood here, she wouldn’t be Eki Provanet.
She knew her master was as delicate and sensitive as his appearance suggested, and prickly on top of that, but she couldn’t let him keep digging himself into a hole alone whenever something came up.
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