When Your Secret Crush Wizard Took a Love Potion - Chapter 73

Dragon.

The most advanced life form that exists, born with a heart imbued with immense magical power, capable of wielding magic freely. Their ability to incinerate vegetation with a single breath, freeze the land, and shake mountains with a single flap of their wings makes them more a natural phenomenon than a living being, beyond human understanding and control.

Dragons, with their extraordinarily long lifespans, are more like mythical beings passed down through legends and stories than actual creatures.

I remember often imagining what real dragons might be like as a child, inspired by tales where they appeared as villains or allies of the protagonists.

“…Sorry. I must have dozed off for a moment.”

Is that golden-haired noblewoman, who seemed embarrassed as she noticed me staring, truly the dragon I had believed to be a mythical being?

“Lady Orzen, do you have any idea how many times I’ve repeated the same story?”

The shock of entering a dragon’s lair aside, who could understand how complex my feelings were after finally meeting the owner of the Mistwood Forest, which had been my travel goal?

Edgar was almost fully awake from the effects of the potion, and my anxiety about the future made me feel like I might vomit. Even so, I tried to suppress my personal emotions and briefly explain what had happened.

Yet, this dragon had been dozing off intermittently, nodding off every time the story approached a conclusion. It seemed like both she and my teacher had a knack for making people’s patience wear thin.

“Well, even if I heard everything…”

“Lies.”

“…Alright. Actually, I started getting sleepy from the part where you mentioned you were so blinded by money that you accepted a love potion request.”

“That was at the very beginning!”

It seemed this dragon hadn’t heard a single word of my story.

“I’m sorry. As one gets older, they tend to sleep more.”

This statement was quite out of sync with her youthful, vibrant appearance. The noblewoman, who had been yawning widely, looked at the arm wrapped around my waist.

“Given Edgar’s current state, it’s clear that something very serious has happened.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Edgar, who had been burying his nose in my neck and focusing solely on my scent, finally spoke up.

“Are you asking because you don’t know?”

This time, I was the one responding instead of Orzen. I was still sitting on Edgar’s lap, at a large, long table surrounded by numerous chairs that could accommodate an entire knight’s order.

“I’ve been asking you to let me go for a while now. It’s embarrassing.”

“Don’t you want to sit with me, Chloe?”

Facing Edgar’s tearful gaze made me feel like I was at fault. Being unexpectedly turned into Edgar’s cuddly toy, sitting uncomfortably while sipping tea, felt like we were being observed by the noblewoman as if it were an entertaining play.

“By the way, Edgar, you’re quite amusing. You said you’d stay chaste for life because you disliked women and… Yet, you couldn’t resist your cowardly desires and ended up attacking your young apprentice. Your five-century-old virginity met a pitiful end.”

“Well, as I’ve said repeatedly, this whole situation is because of the love potion…!”

As I was about to explain the repetitive details again, a troubling detail emerged.

“Five hundred years old?”

Noticing Edgar’s doubtful look, he rested his chin on my shoulder.

Perhaps feeling guilty himself, he let out a somewhat embarrassed laugh and a particularly bright smile that was so lovely it almost made me forget the shocking news from earlier.

“Yes, five hundred years. It’s exactly half my age.”

Orzen’s indifferent remark brought me back to reality.

Even though his appearance and demeanor, due to his magical transformation, suggested he was around my age, the detached air and his usual indifferent attitude hinted at greater maturity.

Still, hearing that he was five hundred years old was a shock.

It’s not just a matter of five hundred years; it’s as if he belongs to the first line of ancestors.

To think he lived during the era when the continent was divided into three and fought over steel weapons… The weight of this revelation was overwhelming.

Just as I was struggling to come to terms with this, a voice in my ear pulled me back to the present.