Chapter 5
“A love marriage is the only way after all. What can’t a person do when they’re blinded by love? Marriage would be practically guaranteed! Warden Duke, what is that impressive face of yours even for? Are you going to make soup with it? Attend any salon party you can and seduce a woman! Ah, right. This is perfect. Soon, there will be a celebratory banquet at the imperial palace…!”
At that moment, a devilish idea flashed through Gustav’s mind.
On the surface, he might have looked like a cunning dwarf who only came up with petty tricks and took off his pants at every opportunity, but the adviser, who secretly had a vast blueprint spread out inside his head, swiftly recognized this golden opportunity that had flown in by chance.
In truth no one knew—not even Max himself—that the person who actually examined and weighed the conditions for Max’s spouse more strictly than anyone else was none other than Gustav.
It was just that he thought, well, so what if his superior took a somewhat unsatisfactory spouse right away? The world had convenient systems called divorce and remarriage. Besides, the ultimate spouse Gustav was secretly aiming for, the one most suited to Max, was not some narrow-minded person who would care about a man’s trivial past romantic history.
Well, that didn’t mean there was any need to go the long way around.
How could he let this chance slip by?
Gustav, excited, began to push forward passionately.
“That’s right! Let’s hook a noble young lady at the capital’s celebratory banquet! With love!”
“Ha, romance? Love?”
“Make her a prisoner of sweet, bitter feelings and then, bam…!”
“You’re spewing nonsense.”
A file folder flew straight into his excited face with a smack.
Gustav had touched another of Max’s sore spots. Love this, love that.
At this, Maximilian’s fist clenched even tighter than when he had caught the man in the middle of his nearly finished tryst. There was a snap as the nib of the pen he was holding broke.
“Love doesn’t solve anything.”
“……!”
“It does not end wars, and it does not drive away famine or disease.”
“No, that’s something completely different…”
“Gustav. What is the motto of our unit?”
“Those bastards who go looking for romance die first…”
In the end, the broken pen flew off somewhere. Then Max leaned his chair back and scowled deeply. A tired voice flowed from him.
“If you understand, then stop spouting that soft nonsense and come up with a better alternative.”
“……”
“I suppose I really do have to butcher that dragon.”
“Ah, my lord, please…”
This time, Gustav snapped as he wiped the nosebleed running from his reddened philtrum. Max’s dreadful persistence, which knew no surrender, was clearly an important virtue as a ruler, but at the same time, it was also an utterly tiresome flaw. Still, he could understand why Max was so fixated on hunting the dragon.
He couldn’t marry because of the micropenis curse.
A dragon’s magic could only be undone by the dragon that had cast that spell. Or, it would be released if that dragon died.
But who would dare negotiate with a tyrannical dragon?
Therefore, he would kill it and lift the curse.
It was very simple logic. If one ignored the complicated political dynamics and economic issues lurking behind the matter of the dragon hunt… Gustav let out a deep sigh. He squeezed his eyes shut, then, truly reluctantly, revealed the dubious final secret method in a crawling voice.
“Well, there is one more method I’m not entirely sure about.”
“What. You’ve been hiding that all this time? How should I kill you?”
“Why don’t you hear me out first, then boil me or roast me as you please? I kept my mouth shut because I knew the Warden Duke would absolutely hate it.”
“Speak.”
“So… well, the dragon probably isn’t dead, but it’s been quite a while since its presence disappeared from the birch forest, hasn’t it? Whether it fell asleep or moved its nest… In any case, some witch or other seems to have settled in the forest in the meantime. But they say that witch is quite effective. Especially when it comes to deception, apparently. Who knows? Perhaps she might even be able to overturn the dragon’s curse.”
Maximilian Romundale had quite a lot of words he was picky about.
The moment the word ‘witch’ came out, his handsome brow crumpled again. That was how knightly sorts usually were. These existentialists, who trusted in the power of absolute violence, detested abstract concepts like invisible sorcery or the power of spirits. Naturally, they also despised people in those lines of work. Normally, they were people he wouldn’t even associate with.
But right now, he stood at the edge of a cliff.
Maximilian drummed his fingertips on the desk and sank into thought. Watching him, Gustav felt a little sick. He had been forced to offer a dead-end measure based on rumors, but the aftertaste was unpleasantly ominous.
These damned unlucky hunches always turn out to be right.
He would have rather preferred that Max dismiss it at once, telling him not to spout b******t, but in that moment, Gustav realized it by instinct.
Ah, the Warden Duke, who would use any means no matter how vile for the sake of his goal, was surely going to visit that witch.
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