Chapter 11: Just to Feel It Again Is Enough

There is an old story about blind men and an elephant.

In short, it involves letting three blind men touch different parts of an elephant and then describe what kind of animal it is. Each one gives a different answer.

The moral is clear—you can’t judge the whole from a single part.

However, there are things so obvious that, by seeing only one part, one can understand the whole.

For Perda, that moment was the beauty of Valdrova.

The only thing he could see was her jaw and her lips.

A chin line as clear as porcelain caught his gaze.

And her lips, red and shiny like an apple bathed in morning dew.

Just by looking at that lower part of her face, Perda understood two things—that his future partner was a woman, and that he had never seen such beauty before.

That revelation disoriented him.

That’s why he couldn’t stop staring at her lips.

Valdrova brought the nuptial wine goblet to her mouth.

The liquid slid slowly between her lips until the chalice was emptied.

At that very moment, Perda noticed a change within himself.

The fear etched deep in his being toward dragons was fading away.

— The mortal shall transcend the mystery and, by washing away fear, will unite with the eternal.

Exactly as Ruri had said.

That primitive fear of dragons was dissipating.

‘They really prepared all of this with ordinary humans in mind.’

The core of the ceremony was allowing both parties to look each other in the face.

And so, Perda felt it again—the hope she had harbored and the pain caused by its frustration.

When he observed her more calmly, the dragon-shaped helmet turned slightly toward his side.

A pair of eye slits glanced at him briefly before turning away sharply.

‘Maybe I stared too much.’

Perda turned his face away and waited in silence.

“Now we will proceed with the reading of the mutual vows.”

Ruri, with a bored expression, gave the turn to Perda.

Valdrova, with her head bowed, waited.

Perda exhaled slowly, transforming the trembling in his vocal cords into a clear voice.

“You don’t know me well.”

It had taken him an entire day to write that sentence. Finding the first line that expressed what he felt was too hard.

“But I do know you.”

And the answer was—

“You gave me your heart. Through it, I was able to see you and learn from you.”

It was his way of expressing everything, honestly.

“I saw you being betrayed and slandered over and over again. I saw how much they hated you.”

Clank.

Valdrova’s armor trembled with each line of the vow.

“And even so, you fulfilled your duty with nobility. You never turned your back on what you loved and defended it until the end. Your righteousness corrected me.”

It was, he believed, the best choice of words.

“That’s why, here and now, just as you gave me your heart, I now give you mine. My queen, my everything.”

That was where what he had written ended.

‘This part I didn’t write, but…’

His voice did not stop.

He raised his head to look at her.

Upon finding the slits of the helmet, he immediately looked down again.

Clank, clank.

Valdrova’s armored figure moved awkwardly, as if trying to hold something back.

“It is an indescribable honor to be engaged to a woman as beautiful as you.”

The iron helmet shook strongly.

Ruri, expressionless, watched Perda—though inwardly, she squirmed in embarrassment.

“Now we will proceed with the bride’s vows—”

She was interrupted.

Valdrova raised her hand to stop her.

“Why…?”

— …

She didn’t answer.

She simply turned around and began to walk away.

Maybe she was preparing something, Perda thought, and watched her.

But Valdrova went into her lair.

Thud.

She closed the door behind her.

“……”

“……”

She had left without reading any vows.

Perda and Ruri stood in front of the closed door.

“…The ceremony is complete.”

Thus the rite concluded.

There had been no vows from Valdrova, but the essential part had already been fulfilled.

“Let’s return, then.”

Ruri tried to pull him out of his daze.

But got no reply.

Perda just stared at the iron door, serious, absorbed.

“Lord Perda…?”

When she insisted, he finally responded.

“Forgive me, would it be possible to lock me up for about three days?”

“Lock yourself up?”

“Yes. Without eating or drinking, to spend the time in solitude. I beg you not to interrupt me.”

It was a declaration—he would isolate himself without touching food.

To Ruri’s ears, it sounded like this.

‘He must be really shaken.’

The vows were meant to be mutual, but she had run away without saying a word.

It made sense for him to feel ashamed.

“Understood.”

A crescent moon-shaped smile curved on Ruri’s lips.

***

“Just as I expected from you, my lady. With this, the initiative is now in your hands.”

Ruri entered Valdrova’s lair and applauded.

The queen had returned to her dragon form.

Coiled in a ring of her own body, she hid her head beneath one wing.

Valdrova had ruined the ceremony several times before, but this decisive move held great weight for Ruri.

“I never would’ve imagined such a tactic. A one-sided strike and a swift retreat.”

— …

“Making him read such a sappy vow, leaving him humiliated, and then ending everything at once—no doubt his momentum was completely cut off.”

— …

“But that wasn’t your intention, was it?”

Ruri’s face, previously delighted, turned neutral.

Valdrova lifted her head.

— I wanted to read my vows too. As is fitting for one who receives a companion.

“…I understand.”

Ruri shifted her gaze to a corner she had been trying to ignore. There lay a pile of crumpled sheets.

She knew how many pages Perda had torn up while writing his vows.

‘Ten.’

From those, a single final page had emerged.

Simple and fitting.

But Valdrova had written twenty.

Twenty pages filled to the margins. And she had wasted enough paper to fill three entire volumes.

A sensitive and pure spirit, unbecoming of the feared dragon queen.

If anyone else saw them, it would be mortifying.

For Ruri, who had been by her side for centuries, it was merely a reason to sigh.

“If you wanted it so badly, why didn’t you do it?”

— That’s…

Valdrova moved her lips.

— I couldn’t look at him.

“Look at him? What do you mean?”

— I didn’t have the courage to meet his gaze and speak.

With her fearsome dragon face and voice, she let out the words of a bashful maiden.

— That silver hair, those eyes that seemed to pierce through me, that soft voice…

“…….”

“When I saw him… my mind went blank, and I couldn’t do anything.”

“…So did mine, my lady.”

“You understand how I feel too?”

Ruri was about to drill into her own ears and cough up blood from sheer embarrassment.

“Anyway.”

If she kept listening, she’d end up scolding her again, so she changed the subject.

“From now on, the future consort will begin acting as lord of the household. He’ll take charge of the castle and the vassal lands.”

“That… I know well.”

“And when a human takes power, they begin to change.”

“…….”

Power.

Upon hearing that word, even Valdrova, who had been in high spirits, fell silent.

The Third Prince.

That prince whom she herself had killed still haunted her.

It had happened decades ago, but for someone who had lived through eras, it felt like yesterday.

“That’s how mortals live—flowing with time. Always be ready for disappointment, my lady, my great sovereign.”

“I understand…”

Valdrova’s gaze drifted into the distance, lost in thought. The pure maiden who had faced a human became once more an everlasting being.

Throwing cold water on a day of celebration wasn’t pleasant for Ruri either.

‘But it’s necessary.’

Even a hero receives ovations under the triumphal arch only to remember afterward that they are still human.

In the same way, she had to remember that everything she loves and cherishes will eventually be corrupted or disappear.

That was the best advice Ruri, dragonspawn and loyal servant to Valdrova, could give her.

***

After the ceremony, Perda immediately went into seclusion.

Unlike Ruri, who believed he had locked himself away out of embarrassment and shock, he needed time alone.

‘That feeling I had when I saw her…’

When he wrote his vow, he had simply put down what he thought.

But when he spoke it aloud, something that had been buried deep in his consciousness surfaced.

So much that he ended up adding words that weren’t on the page.

‘Why did I do that?’

He knew that by saying it, he’d leave her unsettled.

He knew it might ruin the rite.

‘But I had to say it.’

It was an irrational impulse.

He feared that if he didn’t say it at that moment, it would already be too late—and he let himself be carried away.

In the end, he confused Valdrova and the ceremony veered off course.

‘Why?’

With that question, he closed his eyes.

He went over what he had seen and felt with all five senses, recalling it again and again.

To avoid clinging to a false clue, he repeated it dozens of times until he finally reached a conclusion.

‘It was at that moment.’

When he saw her briefly as she raised the goblet to drink the nuptial wine, Perda lost his breath.

That feeling made him, for a moment, someone different—not the great mage he had been, but a man named Perda.

‘But what is this called?’

To find out, he focused solely on the moment of greatest intensity.

He repeated and repeated, seeking only that answer.

Then he felt it—a shiver.

Within the already-formed circle, beneath his lower abdomen, something spun violently.

The more that engine grew, the more his chest burned.

‘The red circle is in motion.’

It was a wild, uncontrollable current—a flood that could swallow him whole.

‘Dangerous…’

Instead of forcing an answer, he focused his senses.

He had two options—distract himself to calm the red circle’s movement, or focus on the emotion and stir it up even more.

‘The best option is to calm it down.’

Agitating it was like placing a blade to one’s neck—a dangerous choice even for someone who had been a great mage.

‘But if I want to be worthy of Queen Valdrova…’

He had to take risks and venture forward.

That was Perda’s resolution the moment he stepped into her domain.

‘Let’s do it.’

He focused his mind on a single point.

Forging a second circle was similar to forging the first, but without the initial vagueness—he could now define it more easily.

‘The problem is I don’t have enough stored mana.’

Opening a circle is like breaking a shell.

To enter a new world, you must break your own shell.

For that, you need a hard beak and strength—mana and willpower.

Perda had both.

‘First, focus…’

He closed his eyes and assumed the posture.

He dropped his consciousness deep down.

His senses dulled—he no longer heard his heartbeat, nor felt the flow of time on his skin.

Nothing could disturb him.

Only his bare consciousness remained. He drew a line in his mind.

The line served as a guide, and the turbulent mana flowed along it.

Without resisting, he guided it naturally to a new place.

The stream born from the great river swelled until it formed a new circular shell.

‘Then you layer it.’

A circle that wraps around the one already formed. He slowly shaped that new form and defined it with clarity.

For forty-eight hours of continuous effort, he molded it until it was complete.

Two circles now spun in his lower abdomen.

Perda had become a 2nd-circle mage—a spell blower.

“Hmm…”

Even after reaching the 2nd circle in just a few days, he wasn’t satisfied.

‘The emotion has run its course.’

As the new path opened and he reached the 2nd circle, that emotion had calmed.

That tingling had become part of him, and the thrill he felt recalling it was now gone.

‘That’s the downside of the red circle.’

It always demands stronger stimuli; without them, stagnation sets in. You either become a monster devoured by emotion or remain half-formed.

‘Just to feel it again is enough.’

There was no rush, even if he hadn’t yet discovered the name of that feeling.

When he stood before her again, that emotion would overflow once more.

He was sure of it.

Perda smiled.

***

“When he said he was going to lock himself up, I had a feeling—but he’s already 2nd circle?”

“That’s right.”

A mage reaching the 2nd circle in three days.

He had barely been there a little over a month and had gone from civilian to 2nd circle in a flash.

‘An abnormal growth rate.’

Even if it was “just” the 2nd circle, the pace of his progress commanded respect.

“Then, is this my office?”

“Yes. Though only with delegated authority for now.”

Perda and Ruri were in the queen’s office.

Aged wood lined everything; it was a space optimized for governance and heavy with presence.

When Perda crossed the threshold, he could almost swear the queen was seated at the far end.

As he absorbed the atmosphere, he asked,

“Now that I’m officially the fiancé, what do I do?”

“As I said—staff selection. The queen has returned to action, so her place must be filled.”

“I heard. But can I decide that on my own?”

“You, no.”

Ruri lifted what was on the table.

“But this can.”

It was Valdrova’s royal seal.

The seal carried the same authority as its bearer. Hence the saying—treat the seal as if it were the king.

“Talent selection, huh…”

The normal thing would have been to ask for time to think about who to appoint.

At least two days, calmly.

“…Yes, I’ve got it.”

But Perda’s pen began to move without hesitation.