Ch.147The World After Defeat – 2

“My dear, what lies in that room?”

At Charlotte’s curious question, the boy turned his head to look where her finger was pointing. Charlotte’s fingertip was directed toward a wooden door.

After confirming this, the boy answered as if it were nothing special.

“The Ancient Dragon’s Ring. It’s a cursed artifact that takes the life of whoever wears it, and even just being near it rapidly weakens humans until they die. I brought it thinking it might be able to kill me, but it didn’t work on me.”

“If it were merely a ring that leads its wearer to death, there would be no reason to keep it so far away from the other weapons. The fact that you’ve isolated this ring in a separate chamber suggests there must be a good reason for it.”

“Sharp observation. You’re right. I deliberately isolated it.”

“I am asking what that reason might be. Come now, answer me.”

“The weapons next to it always develop problems, one by one. They either go berserk on their own, or their suppressed power gets released uncontrollably. Cleaning up afterward was always a hassle. The weapons don’t necessarily go berserk without the ring nearby, but it’s certain that they do so much more frequently when it’s close to them.”

Charlotte barely listened to the boy’s answer, letting it go in one ear and out the other. In truth, asking about the ring’s function was merely a pretext.

From the moment she realized that the artifact in that isolation chamber was a ring, Charlotte had made up her mind to obtain it from the boy by any means necessary.

Even if it wasn’t truly a wedding ring in the genuine sense, what did it matter? Whatever meaning it held, if the recipient wore it on the left ring finger, it would essentially be no different from a wedding ring.

The boy showed a slight hesitation before accepting her request not long after. Despite it being a cursed ring, he believed that Charlotte would be able to overcome it.

“Kuhak… Cough! Cough!”

“Charlotte!”

It was a mistaken belief, however.

Immediately after Charlotte proudly slipped the ring onto her left ring finger, her body jerked, and blood gushed from her eyes, nose, ears, and mouth.

Had the boy not quickly removed the ring, Charlotte’s life would surely have ended there. Even after the ring was removed, Charlotte remained unconscious for some time.

After confirming that Charlotte was safe, the boy sighed in relief and shoved the ring back into isolation. Then he delivered a lengthy lecture.

In the end, Charlotte had to be content with receiving a different weapon instead of the wedding ring she had desired.

That was the first encounter between Charlotte and the Ancient Dragon’s Ring.

The Ancient Dragon’s Ring was, as its name suggested, an artifact said to be carved from the bone of a dragon. That was also why the ring had a slightly yellowish tint.

How the dragon was captured and how its bone was processed remained completely unknown. In fact, no one except the lord even knew the ring’s name.

Until the boy appeared, it was simply called “the cursed ring.” No one wanted to speak the name of a cursed object.

This was because everyone who wore the Ancient Dragon’s Ring, without a single exception, complained of extreme headaches before perishing as blood poured from the seven openings of their head.

Moreover, even just carrying the ring without wearing it would cause a person’s body to rapidly waste away until they suddenly collapsed and died.

The speed at which the ring weakened humans was truly remarkable; even the strongest warrior couldn’t last more than an hour.

Given these circumstances, it was only natural that the ring became marked as a cursed object to be avoided.

Rumors about the ring that took human lives merely by being worn spread with exaggerations that it would bestow immense power upon anyone who could endure its death and successfully suppress it.

And the boy, who had been searching the continent for various methods of suicide, couldn’t possibly miss news of such a ring.

The boy traveled to the city where the ring was said to be kept and boldly declared to the lord that he would take the ring, and the lord sighed and gave permission, telling him to try if he could.

The lord, who had been worrying about how to dispose of yet another corpse, was shocked when the boy returned with the Ancient Dragon’s Ring on his finger, looking somewhat deflated.

Then, after confirming that the boy was unharmed, the lord told him the ring’s true name that had been passed down through generations and transferred ownership to him, telling him to handle it himself.

The boy, who had unexpectedly become the ring’s owner, concluded that he was doomed not to die again and carelessly stashed it away somewhere in his magic tower.

It wasn’t until the boy met a dragon as part of his suicide attempts that he learned what the Ancient Dragon’s Ring truly was.

“My dear, do you remember the Ancient Dragon’s Ring?”

“Of course I remember it. Why suddenly? Don’t tell me you want to try wearing it again? Let me tell you in advance, that’s not happening.”

“I came personally to inform you of something I discovered while researching dragon mana extracted from your memories, and here you are making needless assumptions. I should punish you.”

“…What did you find out that’s got you like this?”

“That artifact you call the Ancient Dragon’s Ring was not a cursed object that kills humans nearby. Rather, it seems the ring was trying to help humans in its own way.”

After meeting a dragon at the end of an eight-year-long search and fully experiencing its breath, Charlotte read all dragon-related memories from the boy’s mind.

Only then could she understand the true purpose of the Ancient Dragon’s Ring.

This ring was meant to give its wearer eyes identical to those of a dragon.

Eyes like those of dragons, beings who manipulate pure mana itself and dwell in higher dimensional spaces where ordinary humans cannot even breathe.

The brain, which began to think on a higher dimensional level after acquiring these eyes, would overload, causing people to die.

The reason people died just from carrying the ring was because of the pure mana leaking from it. The same was true for why weapons near the ring would go berserk.

Charlotte had continued trying to wear the Ancient Dragon’s Ring after her first attempt and failed, bringing her failure count close to double digits.

It was no wonder the boy had hesitated when Charlotte asked for the Ancient Dragon’s Ring when Serena received the Wind Shear.

If Charlotte had been a little less intelligent or a little less powerful, she might have kept forcing the ring onto her finger until she died trying.

Charlotte was too smart for that, and too strong to ignore her instinct’s warning of death. She couldn’t throw herself down a path where death was certain.

But now, things were different.

“Haaah…”

Charlotte exhaled a long sigh as she lifted the rough-looking ring. As if urging her to wear it, it was exactly the right size for her left ring finger.

The ring was carefully slipped onto her finger. From the moment she first saw this ring until now, she had never considered any finger other than her left ring finger.

Immediately, a tremendous pain struck her head.

“Hng, kugh…!”

Charlotte gripped the armrest of her throne tightly as pain squeezed her entire head. She gritted her teeth. Her face turned bright red, and blood flowed from her eyes instead of tears.

Her brain screamed, urging her to quickly remove the ring. Charlotte ignored all these warnings and focused solely on enduring the pain.

After some time had passed in this state, Charlotte exhaled a labored breath as she confirmed that the pain was gradually subsiding.

She tasted blood in her mouth. She must have unconsciously bitten off part of her tongue, as the piece of flesh in her mouth seemed much shorter than usual.

The ring remained on her left ring finger.

It meant she had succeeded in controlling the Ancient Dragon’s Ring.

After casting a healing spell on her body, Charlotte stared at her left ring finger with the ring on it, her face rigid. Though it was a happy occasion, smiles were a luxury now that the boy had been abducted.

“Dragon’s sight, huh…”

What changes when one acquires eyes with the same properties as a dragon? Charlotte felt the change as soon as she gained control of the ring.

‘I can see.’

The world Charlotte saw had completely changed. Her blood-red eyes gleamed with an unusual light. The method of reading the surrounding mana was engraved in those eyes.

It felt as if all the mana floating in the atmosphere existed solely to follow Charlotte’s commands. Her body, still not fully recovered from the pain, slowly rose from the throne.

She opened her right hand with the palm facing up and created a small fireball above it. It was a very basic spell, almost the foundation of all magic.

Then, Charlotte’s eyes read the flow of mana spreading around the fireball.

It was fundamentally different from merely observing magic with the eyes or analyzing its appearance.

Everything about that fireball was captured in her eyes.

Where the mana was absorbed and where it flowed, how much mana was consumed and where, even what form the mana took inside the fireball.

Charlotte waved her hand to extinguish the fireball. Then she created a more advanced fire spear that rotated clockwise.

The same phenomenon occurred again.

The internal structure was perfectly visible to her. If before she had only known about it intellectually, now she understood it at an instinctual level.

The dragon’s eyes that contained the magic found a more efficient way to maintain the fire spear. Charlotte immediately implemented this method.

She moved the mana, changed the circuits, replaced the internal circulation structure. There was no need to memorize it. She already understood everything.

When the work was done, the fire spear had been transformed into a spell with four times the efficiency and twice the power compared to before the modification. It was truly a remarkable achievement.

Charlotte twirled the fire spear above her hand. She thought that even if she encountered an unfamiliar spell, she could perfectly replicate it just by capturing it with her eyes.

“…Truly amazing.”

For even Charlotte to express such admiration, one could imagine the astonishment brought by the dragon’s eyes.

Although Charlotte could confidently claim to have reached the human limit in the field of magic, she now realized in reverse how ignorant she had been.

If Charlotte before acquiring the eyes was merely a human running at high speed, Charlotte after acquiring them was a magician who traversed dimensions through teleportation. She was fundamentally different from her former self.

Perhaps this is what it feels like to see for the first time after living as a blind person all your life.

“But it’s still far from enough.”

After muttering those words, Charlotte clenched her fist, crushing the rotating fire spear in her hand. Sparks scattered onto the red carpet leading to the throne.

Charlotte had no intention of being satisfied with mere eyes that could read the flow of mana.

That woman.

The woman who took her husband.

The woman who inflicted terrible powerlessness and the wound of defeat upon her.

To tear apart that woman who dared to lay hands on her husband and return the pain she had received a thousandfold, one eye like this was far from sufficient.

“…Ugh.”

Suddenly, Charlotte’s vision spun as she tried to take a step. With a short groan, she momentarily steadied herself by placing a hand on the throne, staggering sideways.

A trickle of blood flowed from her nose.

Although she had succeeded in controlling the ring, it was still imperfect. More research and more effort were needed.

She had gathered all the necessary materials.

The brain needed for research was contained in Charlotte’s head with unparalleled performance. The motivation needed for effort? She had more than enough.

After suffering a miserable defeat against Olivia, and after hearing the last words the boy whispered before being dragged beyond the black void, Charlotte’s goal had been set.

Dragon subjugation.

She intended to defeat them indiscriminately and research them to fully obtain their power.

If just wearing a ring made from their bones had brought her to this level, what great achievements could she attain by researching an intact dragon?

The Charlotte of the past would not have even attempted such a method. Dragons are extremely sensitive to mana, so they would return to their lairs the moment they detected magic searching for them.

That was also why the boy had spent a full eight years searching for their whereabouts without asking Charlotte for help, trudging around in vain.

But now things were different. Charlotte had the dragon’s eyes that allowed her to see the same world as them. Even if they fled to their lairs, she could simply follow them in.

“I will surely bring you back, so wait for me. My dear.”

As Charlotte made this pledge, a chilling cold spread around her.