episode_0102

“···Yes?”

Julias laughs bitterly.

“The older Lamia gets, the bigger she gets. Being a Dragonian, you can extend your lifespan, but recently, my body has been weighed down by my own weight… I feel like I’ve reached my limit.”

······That’s right.

No matter how well a reptile is cared for, it will eventually die from being crushed by its own body. To begin with, even Earth’s anacondas, which are smaller than Julia, are weighed down by their own weight, so they are slow among snakes.

Maybe you don’t have the energy to travel together.

···Maybe it could be Julias’ will. If I can listen, I should.

“What please?”

“I don’t want to die. But that doesn’t mean I have any desire to become the Dragonia of the Magic Tower who knows how.”

Julias’ mischievous eyes look at me.

“I know how to get on with my life. I need your help to try it.”

my help?

“Are you saying we need more Precious Blood?”

“No, you are the third type Dragonia, an authority on the Twin Goddess school. I heard you are close with Edeline Grace.”

Grace…?

How did this person know that? No matter how I knew, I can’t say for sure that I can help. It’s not that I’m close to Grace, it’s just that Grace is helping me according to Amor’s will.

I’m not close enough to Grace to even listen to my request.

“I can’t say we are close friends. Because she is just helping me unilaterally.”

Julia shakes her head.

“‘The Magic Tower is fair and fair.’ Do you know why there is a saying?”

“I don’t know.”

It’s my first time hearing this, but I felt it terribly during my first meeting and first conversation with Grace. Dragonia possessed ridiculous absolute power and was a serious idealist—No.

Grace has enough power to turn her ideals into reality, so she cannot be dismissed as an idealist.

“The magic tower that holds such beliefs places many restrictions on the dragonia of the magic tower. Among them, there is a limit to becoming a pillar of the Magic Tower.”

Julias approaches me without changing his height and holds out his hand. Those long fingers came towards my neck, dug into my clothes, and scanned my chest.

Soon, Julias’ white hand took out a large copper ring with an eagle engraved on it, which she had made into a necklace.

“Dragonia’s personal circumstances and emotions. It is absolute ‘fairness’ that ignores all of this and does not show favoritism to anyone.”

Julias’ hand glances at the copper ring.

But both eyes are staring intently at me.

“Do you think this is fair?”

······no.

“I will negotiate with them at a time when no harm will occur to you. And for that, you need this ring.”

“Does this ring have any meaning?”

Julia nods slightly.

“This is a very high credit card. It looks copper on the outside, but it’s an alloy called orihalcone. Also, it’s big for a ring, right? Actually, this is both a ring and a seal. The eagle is the national bird of Horus and a symbol of the royal family.”

Greed shines in Julias’ eyes.

However, Julias, who soon quelled his greed, put the ring back into my clothes and organized it.

Its subtle, alluring gaze stared at me and began to slowly circle around me like a movie villain.

But Julia is a Lamia.

Thanks to this, just like the man-eating anaconda movie I saw a long time ago, Julia’s body begins to coil. Julia wrapped around me and hugged my back.

“Hand over your credit card to me. Then, as long as I live, I will help you for the rest of my life. Anyway, after you grow up, I can even help you out at night.”

I feel sorry for Julias, who seduced me with his soft voice in my ear, but the last words struck a chord. Fecal incontinence is an absolute requirement.

“Why don’t you take it away?”

“If you do that, it’s obvious that you’ll be beaten to death by Juyul, right?”

no.

“In fact, don’t you think things will happen as they happen?”

There is nothing I want to achieve in life and I have no greed, so I am making an unconventional proposal. In other words, it is boredom. Basically, negotiation is about stabbing low, reaching an agreement with the other party, and working your way up.

“Well… that too. Sometimes I miss the spirit of a century ago. Ah~ Where did the enthusiasm of my youth disappear?”

I can’t think of ever going to see Grace in the first place.

Perhaps because he took my silence as denial, Julia walked away from me and started taking out medicine.

It’s a ring that has no particular use, so it doesn’t matter if I give it away.

But if Julia helps me, I have something to ask her.

“I can give you a ring. And───.” “And?”

“···Help me pass through the black forest.”

I’m really, really scared of Striders.

*

“Will you follow me?”

“Yes.”

Jules’ expression turns bizarre.

“You know how much the root snake hates Dragonia, right?”

“You can introduce me as your friend. Would you kill your granddaughter’s friend?”

As Jules’ rejection and Julia’s request continue, someone grabs my shoulder. White and small…Sur’s hand. Sur was looking at Julias and looking at me with the gaze of a protagonist looking at a foolish villain who awakened a sealed evil spirit.

“What on earth have you done…?!”

Even the reactions are the same.

Why do I suddenly want to tease you so much?

“I awakened the sealed evil spirit.”

Shir looked at me with an incomprehensible look in his eyes───

match!

He hit my back.

“What?!”

“You idiot!”

What on someone else’s back…!

Even though it hurts, why does it feel cool? While I was talking privately with Julia, Dennis seemed to be getting ready for bed inside the cave.

After lighting Julia’s lamp, he sat down on the rock ledge and ate beef jerky pickled in raw sugar and pepper.

I put my butt next to Dennis.

“Lee is very resourceful in persuading Julia. If you have Dronnia, passing through the Black Forest won’t be difficult.”

Now that I think about it, why on earth did it get the ominous name Black Forest? Is it because the color of the tree is black?

“···What kind of place is this place called the Black Forest?”

I know there are a lot of bugs in the Black Forest, but I’ve never heard of what that place is like. I only had a vague notion that it was a place where human-sized Grima were crawling around.

“The trees are tall and dense, so no sunlight comes in. During the day, you can see the surroundings, but at night… you can’t see an inch in front of you. It is a hotbed for all creatures that hate sunlight.”

···It is said that all the creatures that people hate are gathered together.

“It’s not as big as the southernmost part, but it’s one of the remote areas that’s quite famous among the demi-humans. It’s dangerous, but it’s because it feels bad.”

Dennis examines the arrow he has been holding all day and straightens its feathers. Then he glanced at me and immediately burst into laughter.

“It’s okay. It’s a hotbed of creatures that hate light, so they won’t approach it because they hate light. Only animals whose eyes have completely degenerated or are missing are at risk.”

Oh, that’s why Jules asked for medicine to repel insects called blind ants.

“Sihyeon, come here.”

It’s Jules’ sudden voice.

When I turned my gaze toward the sound, I saw Jules, who had been arguing with Julia for a while, looking in my direction.

“Why are you doing that?”

As I approached, Jules glanced at Julias and then looked at me again.

“This bitch is talking nonsense.”

“What did you say?”

···Julias is looking at me with a mischievous smile.

What on earth did he say?

“Aren’t you insisting that you are accompanying me because you want to? You are telling nonsense that you are your slave?”

“That’s right.”

Jules’ expression becomes stiff.

Jules looked at me and Julia alternately with confused eyes, as if he couldn’t understand the situation. Then, as if he hadn’t reached a conclusion, he looked at me again.

“···What do you mean?”

“It’s nonsense.”

The corners of my mouth began to turn up mischievously, following Julias’s. Only Juul looks at me with wide eyes.

“Uuhuh······Ahaha──!!!”

As Julias smiles brightly, Jules shakes his head and sighs. A look of resignation is evident on his face.

“Okay. Do whatever you want.”

*

The group had to wake up early in the morning, before daybreak, and start preparing for departure. I think I wasn’t planning on waking up Nana Shir until I got ready, but since I wasn’t sleeping that deeply as I was sleeping in an unfamiliar place, I woke up right away.

Just as I was finishing arranging the bedding, Shir woke up to the noise around him and opened his mouth so wide that it tore apart and yawned.

Shir got up and looked around, saw the collapsed mud ceiling, then turned his gaze to look at me.

“···It’s still dark… Are you leaving already?”

My voice wasn’t silenced.

I don’t think Shir was sleeping that deeply either.

“I’m sorry~. Lexia gets anxious when I go on a trip. I thought it would be better to just quietly give him a hint while he was sleeping and then leave right away.”

When Yulias, who was passing by, answers, Shir, who is as hard as stone, looks at Yulias blankly. After yesterday, Sur still had a hard time dealing with Julia.

Did he sense Shir’s inner thoughts?

“If you find it difficult to call my name, I don’t mind calling you witch.”

Shir holds my hand and nods like a rusty gear.

“Yes…witch.”

Julius smiled at Shir and resumed his work. The childlike look on Sur’s face when looking down is cute.

When she grows up, she will make hundreds of people cry, not just a few men.

I thought it was cute for no reason, so I patted Shir’s head and resumed arranging the bedding.

“I’ll come prepared too.”

“Bring plenty of useful poison.”

Perhaps because this place was wet and humid, Juul was wiping his sword with oil on a cloth. Dennis’s ability to put away the bedding faster than a sergeant in his final years was admirable, and Jules had nothing to say about it.

I was third.

I taught Shir, who was sitting next to me, how to organize the bedding as if teaching my successor. Shir looks at me blankly, as if my demonstration is fascinating. I don’t think folding bedding is anything new.

As we shared the dry food, Julia soon appeared wearing a strange outfit. She is still wearing clothes that cover her arms and resembles a bathrobe.

What is unusual is that she is wearing a one-piece dress, as if to conclude that the only part of the human body that is exposed is the head. Wearing extra clothes in the South is no different from saying you’re going to get fat.

Do all dragonias move around like that?

A leather strap ties the waist of the gown. There were various medicine bottles attached to the strap, and the thing that caught my eye the most was…

“That’s mosquito repellent, right?”

A familiar container that looks like Vaseline.

Julia nods.

“That’s right. I also brought a lot of poison for various pests.”

At the mention of mosquito repellent, Dennis’ eyes turn in this direction.

I could feel great interest in those eyes. Even if you use mosquito-repelling grass found in the wild, it is not available anywhere and is not very effective.

Did Julia feel those gazes too?

He immediately quietly approached Dennis, opened the cap of the mosquito repellent and held it out to Dennis.

“Dennis. Could you please apply some mosquito repellent?”

Dennis smiled happily and held out his hand toward the mosquito repellent that Julias held out.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“No.”

Julia, holding Dennis’ hand, laughs mischievously.

“I will apply it for you.”

“Ah… Yes.”

After receiving Dennis’s awkward permission, Julia’s hands applied mosquito repellent─── Oh my.

All you have to do is apply mosquito repellent like you would apply sunscreen to your hands, but how can you apply it so obscenely just with the shape of your hands? It’s not only pornographic, but it’s also obscene. Shir was also dumbfounded, probably thinking the same thing.

Is that the age of someone who has lived for over two centuries?

“It’s called mosquito repellent, and it’s really amazing to apply it.”

“Shir, don’t look at things like that.”

“Yes.”

I focused.

That technique will definitely have some use.

I glanced at Dennis and saw that his ears were red. Dennis couldn’t resist Julias’ coy look and turned his gaze towards Jules, and Jules started laughing as if he was dumbfounded.

“Crazy bitch. Let’s stop fooling around and leave quickly.”