Chapter 5: Truly Beautiful

“Understood.”

Luri stopped trying to convince Perda. She had considered warning him firmly and refusing, but chose instead to accept his decision.

After finishing breakfast, Perda followed her. They headed to a clearing in the garden.

“I’m going to touch you for a moment.”

Luri herself, who usually avoided contact so much, said she was going to grab him.

“Go ahead.”

“Fine.”

Luri took hold of his clothes. In that instant, the blazing sun disappeared.

Something covered his field of vision—huge wings.

From Luri’s back, a pair of wings emerged. She beat them powerfully toward the ground and lifted off.

Whoomph—!

Gravity vanished, and the resistance of the air slammed into Perda.

It wouldn’t have been surprising if he had thrown up his breakfast. Even so, he swallowed hard and withstood the pressure and wind.

The dizziness and pain lasted only a moment.

“We’ve arrived.”

Hearing her, Perda opened his eyes. The landscape before him had completely changed—they were on the mountaintop.

‘In real time, barely three seconds. Did we reach the summit in that span?’

It wasn’t teleportation—it was pure speed. Among dragonspawn, that was as fast as it got.

‘No, maybe even among dragons.’

Perda stared at her, thoughtful.

“What you should be looking at isn’t me.”

“Huh?”

“Look down.”

“Ah, right.”

Perda turned his head and looked east from the solitary peak.

A faded plain stretched out before him.

The Cursed Land.

A swath of land tainted since the death of the demon king.

Something was stirring there.

‘Monsters.’

Creatures that, since the demon king’s birth, had kept slipping into the continent.

No one knew where they came from or how they were formed; not even after Perda killed Valdrova had it been discovered.

All that was known was that they shared the same objective from 150 years ago.

‘Create lands where only death remains.’

Exterminate all living things and dominate them.

What he saw were monsters crawling up from the East.

‘In the East they’re colossal.’

They were enormous. Crawling from a land that couldn’t be purified, they reached monstrous sizes—just rolling on their backs could bring down a fortress. A catastrophe humans couldn’t handle.

Amid those bleak shades of despair, a red flame flickered—primal in tone.

No, it wasn’t a flame.

‘The red dragoness, Valdrova.’

The one who would be his betrothed was fighting down there.

Valdrova was as large as any other dragon, and yet still barely half the size of the monster she faced.

The size difference was immense, but that didn’t make her easy prey.

Krrrrrumble!

Dragon and monster bodies collided.

Despite the size disadvantage, she didn’t give an inch.

The air, on the other hand, quaked violently—a shockwave that swept through the forest and reached the high mountain where Perda stood.

“Ugh…”

His body tensed.

It wasn’t simple human fear—the cause was clear.

The dragon’s mana was mixed into the wave, penetrating his skin.

‘Dragon Fear…’

The scale of it was nothing like Luri’s.

Even knowing it wasn’t directed at him, it felt like that gaze pierced through him.

‘That’s the red dragoness.’

A powerlessness of a different kind swept through him—different even from what he had known as a great mage.

Valdrova’s battle continued.

Crunch! Crunch!

Sovereign of power and mistress of flame, the red tyrant fought with overwhelming superiority.

With sharp claws, she tore through thick hide; with her snout and fangs, she sliced veins and tendons.

The monster, no matter how it thrashed, seemed sluggish against her agility.

She attacked with cruel precision, exploiting blind spots without mercy.

Strength, speed, and a natural instinct for combat.

Screeeech!

With all its tendons severed, the monster collapsed, unable to resist.

Even left like that, it would die—but Valdrova’s violence did not cease.

Rip—! Rip—!

Her claws pierced the monster’s belly and tore it wide open. Even from afar, Perda could make out the purple blood and greenish entrails.

At the same time, Valdrova’s belly swelled.

Beyond the pale white underbelly, an intensely bright red light began to glow.

‘Fire breath.’

Fwoooosh!

The red dragon’s breath, fiercer than the flames of hell, scorched the creature’s insides.

— Screeeech!

The scream was short-lived.

From every hole in the monster’s body, Valdrova’s scarlet flame erupted violently.

Its insides weren’t just cooked evenly—they were reduced to ash.

The form crumbled into smoke and dust, and upon the Cursed Land, only the red tyrant remained standing.

— Roaaaar!

Valdrova’s roar shook everything around her.

“Gah!”

Perda couldn’t withstand it and collapsed.

‘So… Dragon Roar is of this magnitude?’

A sensation of being crushed by a dragon—one he had never felt, not even as an archmage.

His hands and feet trembled; his teeth chattered.

He was, literally, overwhelmed.

“This is the true form of the one who will be your consort.”

Luri crouched beside him and looked down at him.

“The blood of the red dragon carries a murderous ferocity—what you humans call the essence of the evil dragon. It’s not a personality trait, it’s essence.”

She emphasized the word.

Perda understood why.

‘Essence cannot be changed.’

An evil dragon will always be an evil dragon.

That thirst for killing can’t be removed, and there’s no guarantee it won’t one day be turned on him.

“A red dragon cannot live without destroying. If you stay by her side, you must be prepared to be killed any day.”

Luri’s impassive gaze seemed to say do you now understand how frivolous your decision was?

‘Her power is, without a doubt, terrifying.’

Even from afar, her gaze pierced the mind. That was undeniable.

‘But I’m not afraid.’

In Perda’s mind were those eyes—and also Valdrova’s emotions.

What she saw and felt gave meaning to all her actions.

‘She does this for the world.’

Just as she hid her true nature out of love for this world,

she hunted monsters with her own claws to protect what she loved.

‘She’s an evil dragon.’

But at the same time, a knight with a noble heart, the guardian dragon of the continent; an ascetic pursuing an unreachable ideal.

“Truly…”

And fear transformed into awe.

“She is magnificent.”

Perda’s eyes sparkled.

He smiled.

***

Luri hated humans.

If dragon blood flowed through her veins, it was only natural that she harbored that feeling.

But her lady Valdrova loved those beneath her.

‘And that’s why she got hurt.’

After the assassination of the Third Prince, Luri’s hatred toward humans became deeper than that of any other dragonspawn.

Precisely because she despised them more than anyone else, she understood well the gap between humans and dragons, and she knew exactly what it was she loathed.

That’s why she knew what would happen if a mere human witnessed the true form of the red dragoness.

‘He asked for it himself.’

Perda had asked to see it.

She had warned him again and again—even tried to stop him.

That she had ultimately lifted him up and flown off before the battle ended didn’t change the fact that she had warned him plenty.

Up to that point, everything had unfolded just as Luri had imagined.

Perda was paralyzed, watching, trembling before a dragon fear of another level.

A typical situation.

Soon, his face would twist in terror, then he’d despair at his own weakness,
and finally, he’d beg for his life.

‘At that moment, my lady will understand too.’

That a human and a dragon could never be one.

That’s how it was supposed to go, and everything seemed to be following the script—until it didn’t.

“Truly magnificent.”

Words that should have been impossible escaped from Perda’s lips.

Luri turned her head, thinking she’d misheard.

But when she looked, she was even more stunned.

‘Is he smiling?’

She couldn’t understand it.

How could he smile at that brutal scene of tearing and burning? Shouldn’t he be trembling in fear, aware that he might share the same fleeting fate?

‘No way…’

In that instant, a lightning bolt of an idea struck Luri’s mind.

The reason that man could remain so calm as Valdrova’s betrothed.

The reason he could smile in such a moment.

‘That explains everything.’

‘A damn deranged masochist.’

Luri’s hatred toward Perda deepened even further.

***

That night, Perda couldn’t move a single finger and lay in bed.

He had endured a dragon fear and a dragon’s roar.

Any ordinary human would’ve lost their sanity.

He, on the other hand, had kept a clear mind—but his body was wrecked.

‘Can I really not move?’

He tried to move his hand—no success.

But a toe twitched.

When he blinked, his big toe wiggled.

When he tried to move his mouth, only his nostrils flared.

‘There’s no helping it.’

The fact he was even conscious was a miracle.

The best thing to do was stay still and let his thoughts flow.

‘I’m going to lose an entire day.’

A day he could’ve used to open his circle.

‘Why did I even want to see that in the first place?’

He recalled the reason—a feeling, a hunch that the battle might give him the answer.

‘Was I right?’

Now he had to find out.

Perda decided to go over every detail of what he’d seen.

He mentally returned to the moment he reached the mountaintop. The smell of the air, the temperature on his skin, the roughness of the stones under his feet—

He recalled everything with clarity.

In that mental image, he watched the battle again.

It wasn’t the fight of a cursed dragoness, but—

‘The noble struggle of a scarlet knight.’

The one who would soon be his betrothed.

In that instant, he felt a tremor within.

‘This is…’

Perda knew that sensation well.

The same one that overwhelmed him when he was cast out of House Rosnova.

‘A red circle is forming.’

Red circles are born from emotional surges.

Since he had been trying to open a blue circle, he should have rejected it immediately.

‘It’s strange.’

But he didn’t.

He felt that this red circle was different.

‘It’s not born from hatred or a thirst for vengeance.’

It was another emotion—just as powerful as those, but with a different origin.

‘I felt it when I imagined Valdrova’s battle.’

And now the same—thinking of her made the circuit take shape clearly.

Maybe that’s why he had wanted to see the battle.

‘Then…’

Maybe that was the answer.

Perda stopped hesitating and focused on his emotions toward Valdrova—his awe, her majestic bearing.

He put his vague feelings into words, organized them, and intensified them.

The mana spun violently inside him like a raging sea ready to consume him.

But Perda had already reached the ninth circle in his past life; he knew how to control that whirlpool.

He contained the leak, compressed it, and shaped it into a single circle.

‘The circle.’

He felt both relief and euphoria, and confirmed again the source of the emotion.

‘There was no hatred or vengeance.’

That meant the future wouldn’t be the same, that he wouldn’t repeat his past mistakes.

‘I did it.’

Perda smiled with satisfaction.

His nostrils flared deeply.