I Married the Dragon I Killed

Even if it was a rural manor, it was still a house where a noble had once lived.

That also meant it could not collapse from a mere explosion or an ordinary spell.

‘With an explosion of this magnitude…’

It seemed impossible that both Regent Perda and that demon could have survived.

And yet, the commander ran toward the collapsed manor.

Regent Perda could not die.

At least, until they discovered what would happen if he died, they could not allow him to die.

Then, amid the rubble and the cloud of dust covering the area, he saw a single figure standing upright.

Was it the demon?

The commander drew his sword and unleashed his aura.

But surprisingly, that figure belonged to a man he knew.

Perda Valdrova.

That man stood majestically in the middle of the ruins.

“Regent, are you alright?”

The captain of the knights ran toward him.

Perda threw a mana sphere at them.

It exploded directly beneath their feet.

Boom!

“Ugh! What are you doing?”

“Don’t come closer.”

Perda’s warning.

His gaze remained stubbornly fixed on a single spot.

“That bastard isn’t dead yet.”

Wasn’t dead?

Shortly afterward, just as Perda had said, something began to stir and rise from the rubble.

Exactly where the captain had been running.

“I wanted to take a few more people with me… but you saw right through me.”

“Even when you’re about to die, you still don’t abandon that miserable way of speaking.”

“I see… I never thought you were useless, but you really were a very strong opponent.”

He tried to stand by supporting himself on a shattered leg, but kept staggering again and again.

That meant his demonic regeneration was not working.

“That strange light… It’s so powerful that even my regeneration won’t work. If this keeps up, I really will die.”

He smiled unpleasantly as he raised his claws.

“Then how about taking you with me as company?”

“I already have a companion.”

“How enviable. Would that be Her beautiful tyrant Grand Duchess Highness? I wish I had been born a woman…”

The demon’s remaining life was also fading away.

With the last of his strength, he spoke.

“Darling, couldn’t you tell me what you did to me? Consider it a gift for my journey into the void.”

“Do I look that stupid to you?”

“Hehe, even at the end, you’re still a difficult man.”

Finally, he dropped to his knees.

“Then how about I tell you a secret?”

“I’m not interested.”

“My objective was only to wait until you arrived here.”

Perda allowed him to continue speaking.

At the same time, he began chanting a spell to end the demon’s life.

Blue lightning made of blue mana crackled in his hand.

“But ultimately, you were never the real target.”

Perda’s magical chant stopped.

“What do you mean?”

The demon answered with a smile.

“I wasn’t trying to catch you. I wanted to lure someone else. Someone smaller, more fragile… that adorable little creature.”

Small.

Fragile.

Adorable.

At that moment, only one person came to Perda’s mind.

Because she was the only one who was alone.

‘Ruri.’

***

Ruri Silverwind.

As the heir to Silverwind’s bloodline, she was the fastest warrior of all.

She was also known as the Nightmare of the Frost Giants.

For someone like her, beast-type monsters were nothing more than a childish game.

Ruri did not wait for the monsters to arrive as the other knights did.

She stepped directly into their path and decided to exterminate them all.

Twenty beast-type monsters.

Thirty Melteds.

Time required to eliminate them.

A single minute.

‘I’ve become slow.’

Ruri objectively evaluated her own performance.

When she had been the commander of the Silverwind Special Mobility Brigade, she would have wiped out a force of that size in less than thirty seconds.

‘Have I become too accustomed to peace?’

They said that peace was a poison that rusted swords.

Unlike her days in Silverwind, when she even slept with an axe in her hand, she had rarely had a chance to fight since becoming Valdrova’s maid.

No matter how much she continued training, it was only natural that she had become rusty.

‘I may never recover my peak form, but I need to train harder and become who I was again.’

Because now she had many more things to protect.

After reaffirming her determination, she turned her head.

She looked toward the place the monsters had been heading.

The place that was supposed to be attacked.

It should be safe now.

‘Even so, I should check on the village.’

Ruri spread her wings and flew toward it.

And the concern she wanted to confirm with her own eyes became reality.

Something was wrong with the village.

‘Too quiet.’

Even with hearing sharp enough to clearly distinguish the sound of insects in the grass, she could not perceive the breathing of a single human.

That village had already died before she arrived.

Then it happened.

A presence suddenly appeared within the range of her keen senses.

Before her mind could process it, her body reacted.

Ruri threw her axe.

The enormous weapon traced a great arc as it flew straight ahead.

However, just as expected of someone capable of concealing his presence so suddenly, the response was equally extraordinary.

The axe, advancing along a fierce trajectory, entered a sinister spatial crack and was swallowed by it.

Through that fissure that blocked her vision, the figure of a man could be seen.

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

Beneath the sun shining high in the sky stood a man in a gray robe.

The intense light cast deep shadows, but not even those shadows could conceal his completely pale skin.

“You may have your axe back.”

With a simple gesture from him, Ruri felt a chill run down the back of her neck.

The very axe she had thrown at him was now pointed at the back of her head.

Her body pushed off the ground agilely.

She spun through the air in a great somersault.

At the same time, she caught the spinning axe’s handle.

She applied force to her body, stopped the rotation, and landed softly.

Then she spoke the name of that existence.

“You are Curved Demon.”

He was responsible for the sudden monster incident that had occurred in Hestia Village.

“I suspected it, but were you also the one who suddenly made those giant monsters appear?”

“Of course. Summoning twelve of them at once was a little exhausting, but it was still possible.”

Curved Demon smiled faintly.

Even if it had cost him considerable effort back then, a month had already passed.

He had undoubtedly recovered completely.

They could not afford to underestimate him.

‘Just how strong is this man?’

Ruri evaluated his capabilities.

She knew more or less that he was a mage who specialized in manipulating space.

‘Even Tower Master Erika was defeated by him.’

Although Dragon Spawn tended to look down on the descendants of other dragons, Ruri did not underestimate him.

He had demonstrated superiority even in battles between mages.

And since he controlled space, he naturally had an advantage against a warrior like her.

But Ruri was a descendant of Silverwind.

‘If brute force isn’t enough…’

Silverwind was the symbol of steel and wind.

‘Then I’ll crush him with even greater force.’

She simply had to strike at a speed beyond his ability to react.

Her eyes sharpened.

“Storm!”

As she summoned a greater wind spirit, a white current wrapped around her feet.

And then—

She vanished along with the wind.

“Oh?”

Curved Demon let out a sound of admiration.

It looked like a teleportation spell.

But it was not magic.

It was pure speed.

“If you can reach that speed, then I shall respond with an equivalent speed.”

Curved Demon moved a finger.

The space around him opened up, blocking Ruri’s path.

At the same time, he twisted the surrounding space and triggered lethal explosions.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The distortions in the air began exploding around her.

Ruri’s invisible figure gradually became visible, leaving traces of her movement behind.

She was not merely fast.

Her body seemed to have freed itself from inertia, changing direction freely.

With dazzling movements, she avoided every one of those distortions.

Ruri stubbornly continued searching for Curved Demon’s blind spots.

“As expected of someone whom Silverwind favored so greatly.”

Although Curved Demon seemed to be praising her, Ruri did not take it as a compliment.

‘He’s predicting everything.’

He seemed to leave openings.

But he constantly closed them or turned them into traps.

That meant that even though she was attacking with absolute speed, the advantage still belonged to Curved Demon.

‘One hit.’

She felt everything would change if she could land a single hit.

But that hit never came.

“Let us end this pointless warm-up game here.”

All the spaces opened by Curved Demon began to close.

Ruri’s axe tried to reach his body.

But the spatial fissure swallowed Curved Demon’s figure first.

Had he disappeared?

No.

He had simply increased the distance between them even further.

Curved Demon’s presence was felt nearby once again.

Ruri turned her gaze.

It was the village warehouse, its doors firmly shut.

She threw her axe.

She did not aim for the center of the presence.

She aimed for the warehouse supports.

Craaash!

The monstrous force of the axe shattered the interior pillars.

Naturally, that attack could not inflict meaningful damage on him.

But it eliminated the enclosed space that restricted vision and movement.

Now it was no different from an open plain.

The collapsing planks did not even touch Curved Demon’s head.

They slid across some kind of rounded barrier and fell to the ground.

Now.

Ruri, as the experienced warrior she was, once again searched for an opportunity to cut his throat.

Curved Demon did not flee.

Nor did he open another spatial fissure.

Instead, he placed something in front of himself.

If it were only an ordinary hostage, she was prepared to split both of them apart together.

During her days as a Silverwind warrior, she had learned one lesson.

Misplaced compassion only brings greater disasters.

Ruri raised her axe.

And then Curved Demon asked with complete calm.

“What do you think this is?”

Whoooosh!

The wind pressure generated by the axe exploded.

Ruri’s axe stopped directly in front of Curved Demon.

She had reached him.

It was an opportunity to split him in two.

And yet, she could not do it.

Everything changed the instant she saw what he had placed in front of himself.

“Ah…”

A gasp escaped Ruri’s lips.

She could not believe what she was seeing.

Standing before her was a dark-brown-haired boy who looked to be about seven years old.

“…No.”

Ruri denied the image before her.

Then the boy opened his mouth and let out a desperate voice.

— S-sister…

The voice pierced Ruri’s ears.

The axe of the girl known as the Nightmare of the Frost Giants began to tremble.

She took a step back.

Then the boy, tears welling up in his eyes, spoke in a choked voice.

— Save meee…

“No. You…”

You’re already dead.

You died a very long time ago.

You’re buried in memories so distant that I can’t even remember your name.

There’s no way you could be here now.

— Please, don’t abandon me… This time, please…

Even though her mind knew it was fake, she could not deny it.

“Ahh…”

Thud.

Ruri dropped her axe.

She stretched out her hands and tried to embrace the boy who was approaching her.

As if refusing to lose that figure again.

She moved closer to wrap him in her arms.

Pshhk!

However, that figure shattered to pieces.

A spear thrown from behind her pierced the boy’s head like a skewer and continued flying onward.

The spear that pierced the boy’s head was made of silver and steel.

Ruri knew exactly what weapon it was.

There was only one person capable of wielding that spear.

Even before remembering his name, a figure descended toward the spear.

Enormous wings, more than five times larger than his own body, swept down from the sky.

He grabbed the spear and dragged it across the ground.

Craaaash!!

The figure of the boy Ruri knew instantly disintegrated into particles and vanished completely.

A cloud of dust concealed Curved Demon.

The silver spear pierced through that cloud and headed straight for him.

However, the space where Curved Demon should have been was already closing.

The battle was over.

Ruri remained motionless.

The enormous silver wings folded back and disappeared once more.

Goz Silverwind.

The being closest to Silverwind.

The man who had inherited his essence and aspired to become the next dragon.

He had arrived.

“What were you doing?”

he asked Ruri in a mocking tone.

“Dropping your weapon in front of the enemy. Were you planning to kill yourself?”

“I…”

Ruri could not answer.

Instead, she silently stared at the place where that childish figure had been mercilessly destroyed.

Both human blood and Dragon Spawn blood are red.

But that blood had been green.

Which meant it had never been human to begin with.

What Ruri had seen was nothing more than an illusion.

And yet, the shock had left her unable to move.

“Why did you hesitate?”

“……”

“Don’t make me ask a second time. Because I don’t know what I might do if I have to keep looking at that pathetic expression.”

Ruri opened her mouth with difficulty.

“…This is Imperial territory.”

Instead of answering, she said that.

She meant that he had no right to be there.

Goz let out a scornful laugh.

“I know. Did you think I would set foot on this land without a reason?”

“Then that means…”

“The Emperor officially requested my assistance. In exchange for settling part of the debt associated with the Silverwind name.”

That meant he had a legitimate justification for being there.

Ruri felt deep contempt toward the Empire.

But that was not what mattered at that moment.

She was standing face to face with Goz.

That terrifying man stood before her, backed even by Silverwind’s authority.

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“……”

Seeing her remain silent once again, Goz let out a sigh.

“Fine. Why would I want to know your thoughts anyway?”

He looked at Ruri over his shoulder.

“I no longer expect anything from someone who has become too weak to be called a warrior.”

That gaze full of contempt.

It felt as though it pierced straight through Ruri’s heart.

It hurt.

It hurt so much that it was unbearable.

“To someone who has abandoned the heart of a warrior, even an honorable death is too good.”

He drew his spear and began walking away.

“You no longer need to fear me. I will not come looking for you again after this. Return to that castle and live your life. Even if you change your mind and come back, the North will no longer be your home.”

After leaving those words behind, Goz disappeared.

Ruri lowered her head.

Her fists trembled violently, soaked in frustration.

In that empty village, she remained completely alone.

Exactly like that day.