I Married the Dragon I Killed [Novel] Chapter 257

Chapter 257: The Way of Love

Hestia.

A place that no one could call a remote frontier or a backwater village anymore.

A castle stood alone halfway up the mountain, and within that vast castle lived the person who could almost be called everything Hestia represented.

Marquis Burnell.

The blue-haired man stood looking out through the window of his laboratory.

He stared blankly at the sun sinking toward the western horizon.

For ordinary people, sunset meant the day’s work was coming to an end.

‘Not for us, of course.’

The research facilities of Baldrova Castle operated day and night without distinction.

Burnell had only opened the window because, after so long, he had thought it might be nice to watch the sunrise.

Then he noticed the sun was barely hanging over the western horizon.

Still, he decided to think positively.

At least he had seen the sun.

‘That’s better.’

Burnell thought back to his old life.

Barely a year and a few months ago, he had lived below ground in a semi-basement, surviving with secondhand magic tools while being hounded by loan sharks.

And now?

He had access to the newest magical devices inside the castle and a constant supply of the exact materials he needed.

Dozens of researchers and entire teams worked beneath him, and he had become the commander overseeing all research.

The support was so unprecedented that he could never again claim he failed because of insufficient funding.

He had become the pioneer of a field called magitech.

Burnell gazed outside with a relaxed expression.

‘So much has happened.’

He looked back over those memories.

‘Too much…’

Things that should have become nostalgic memories still made his body tremble with lingering pain.

The day he went out to capture monsters for research.

The days he was threatened into working without sleep.

The exhibition that began in Halim, where he had been placed in charge of the main presentation only for monsters to invade.

Malcolm of Peach Hill.

The endless overtime and never-ending development work.

Malcolm of Peach Hill.

Malcolm of Peach Hill.

‘Still… none of it was meaningless.’

Hadn’t they said his work distinguished itself in the latest war and greatly reduced the number of soldiers the Far East needed to deploy?

And when monsters surrounded the Far East, he had created a water purification device, demonstrating new possibilities and finding a way to supplement their shortage of mana stones.

Things that seemed as though they would require at least another decade had advanced in only a single year.

Even now, it was difficult to believe.

Best of all, magitech had finally begun attracting attention in Escolleia.

Those bookish scholars who had once treated him like a lunatic and saddled him with the nickname ‘Mess’ were now bowing their heads and asking him for technical advice.

He had even been able to enjoy the superiority that came with being a pioneer.

‘Not that it’s always pleasant.’

The problem with holding a monopoly was that explaining everything to everyone also became Burnell’s responsibility alone.

That was why cultivating successors capable of explaining the field themselves was important.

‘And now I can finally reduce my workload.’

Methods for using the energy stored in mana stones had been established to some extent, and the castle’s researchers all understood the basics.

They had finally reached a stage where someone other than Burnell could review designs.

Once he formally published his papers in Escolleia, Burnell expected the development of magitech products to enter full-scale production.

And then would begin the dream life of every developer.

Living off royalties.

There was only one certainty.

His nightmare was not over yet.

“Director Marquis Burnell!”

A voice that sent chills down his spine.

Who could have imagined that hearing the bright voice of a young man would make his shoulders jump like that?

Anyone who had experienced it personally would understand.

“Y-Yes?”

That man was the nightmare of every researcher.

“May I ask again how you said I was supposed to operate this!?”

Malcolm of Peach Hill.

He had been given one task.

Repeatedly disassemble and reassemble the magitech rifle.

Originally, the weapon had required a ludicrously complex sequence of 152 steps to assemble.

In the process of simplifying it enough for Malcolm to understand, the researchers had achieved a miracle and reduced the entire process to only ten steps.

Burnell had even declared that it could not possibly be simplified further.

Which was exactly why Malcolm’s continued confusion was enough to make him lose his mind.

If Malcolm still could not understand it, then their optimization was not finished.

And if optimization was not finished, then in Burnell’s mind they had failed.

The exhausted researchers quietly screamed inside as they watched.

“Director.”

One researcher standing nearby spoke weakly.

He was a man gifted with words who had been tasked with explaining everything to Malcolm.

“Yes?”

“Would you believe me if I said I’ve taught him eighteen more times?”

“…”

“I even tried teaching the mule Sir Malcolm rides once.”

“…And?”

“It memorized the exact assembly order.”

“…Come now. A human being cannot possibly be worse than a mule.”

“We still shouldn’t insult Sir Malcolm like that…”

“No, I’m serious. I thought it might be a coincidence, so I tried three more times. Then I completely disassembled the firing mechanism and added another twenty steps. The mule pointed them out and assembled everything in the correct order.”

“…”

No matter how Burnell thought about it, the claim made no sense.

He decided the researcher must simply be delirious from exhaustion.

Yet he could not dismiss it completely.

Because if anyone could make something that absurd possible, it was Malcolm.

‘Am I overestimating the intelligence of ordinary citizens, or is that man genuinely below the level of a mule?’

Burnell felt his patience nearing its limit.

If he had been slightly stronger than Malcolm, he might already have run over and strangled him.

“I suppose we’ll have no choice but to research a way to reduce it even further.”

“…”

“…”

“I’m sorry, everyone.”

“This is not your fault, Director.”

The researchers glared resentfully at the back of Malcolm’s head.

The fact that he was genuinely trying his hardest despite being so hopeless only made things more complicated emotionally.

‘At least my own workload has gone down a lot.’

After all, his subordinates would ultimately be the ones forced to handle Malcolm.

Wanting even a short rest, Burnell removed his glasses and prepared to leave the laboratory.

Just as he was about to escape, the door flew open.

A man appeared outside.

“Greetings, Regent.”

His benefactor, the man who had placed him in this position.

Ferda Baldrova.

“May I come in?”

“Ah, yes! Of course. Please enter.”

Burnell was exhausted enough to collapse and desperately wanted to rest, but what could he do when his superior had personally come to see him?

At least Burnell was not in the middle of a delicate experiment.

He welcomed Ferda inside.

“How have things been lately?”

There were honestly so many things happening that even explaining them felt like a waste of precious time.

Burnell chose a convenient answer.

“Everything is proceeding smoothly. Very well, in fact.”

“And the research?”

“I was planning to discuss new weapons based on the information obtained during the recent war.”

“You seem busy.”

“Not especially.”

Compared with the past, his current workload really was much lighter.

That was what Burnell meant as he modestly dismissed the concern.

“Is that so? Excellent.”

“Excellent… you say?”

His instincts immediately sensed danger.

Ferda gestured quietly.

Zed, who had been waiting outside, dragged something into view beyond the doorway.

A skinny woman with violet hair.

Both her hands had been restrained with suspicious thoroughness.

But stranger than her appearance was the fact that her eyes remained vividly alive despite her condition.

“You’re Marquis Burnell?”

Burnell answered with a baffled expression.

“Yes, I’m Burnell. And you are…?”

“You’re really Burnell!? Marquis Burnell!? The man they call the pioneer of magitech!?”

Her round eyes lit up.

She rushed toward him excitedly.

Or tried to.

A dog collar was fastened around her neck, and Garnet held the attached leash.

Even as the collar jerked her backward, the woman remained focused only on blurting out her words.

“You don’t need to know my name. I’m a huuuuge fan of yours, Marquis Burnell!”

A female fan.

A female fan of Burnell, a man who had assumed he would remain single forever because he was married to scholarship.

‘Has the day finally come when flowers bloom in my life?’

Burnell did not believe it easily.

People said a scholar’s greatest enemy was himself, but once a scholar became successful, enemies came from outside as well.

Plenty of swindlers looked at lifelong academics buried in books and assumed they were naive enough to exploit.

And the greatest danger among them was naturally women.

How many scholars had cried and lost everything because of a woman?

‘I will not be fooled so easily!’

Unfortunately, it was not easy.

A man who had spent his life buried in books naturally possessed absolutely no resistance to a woman telling him she liked him.

As a result, the fan’s face began to look prettier and prettier.

Violet hair, a thin frame, freckles.

Her bright, lively eyes suddenly seemed almost as though he had met an unparalleled beauty unlike anyone he had seen before.

“Those mana stones you created…! I absolutely love the things you’ve made with them!”

“I-Is that so?”

“Yes! Whenever I looked at the things you created, I thought, this man must care about other people’s safety. He must be incredibly kind and caring.”

They said words carried power.

Burnell could not resist the sincerity in her voice.

“So I became certain! You’re going to make me complete… Which is why I’m going to…”

She fidgeted shyly.

“Kill you. Is that okay?”

Limitless madness shone in her eyes.

“P-Pardon?”

Burnell finally snapped back to reality.

Had she just said she wanted to kill him?

As marriage proposals went, that was both far too aggressive and pointed entirely in the wrong direction.

“K-Kill me? What do you mean by…”

“I told you. You’re a caring man.”

“Y-Yes… I suppose?”

“I could feel it from the weapons you created.”

She clasped her own face, almost intoxicated, and spoke bashfully.

“If it’s you… you’ll definitely find a way to stop the weapon I create.”

Her breathing grew rough.

The sight of her growing excited entirely on her own became increasingly grotesque.

“You see, I want to pierce that shield.”

Burnell’s face turned pale.

“I want to pierce the shield you make… and show you absolute despair!”

This woman was serious.

Her admiration for him.

And her desire to kill him.

She was exposing everything without a single lie.

“Would it… be all right if I dared to do that?”

To put it crudely, she was completely insane.

They were not alone either.

Every researcher in the room had heard her.

The researchers stared in horror.

Even Garnet and Zed, who had followed them in, looked disgusted.

Only Ferda remained perfectly calm.

He looked as though he had known all of this from the beginning.

No.

He probably did know everything.

What she wanted.

What she intended to do.

That was why he had brought a woman who openly announced she wanted to murder Burnell directly to his face.

Burnell looked at Ferda with his eyes alone.

What in the world is going on?

“That is how things turned out.”

“What?”

“This woman’s name is Gae Bolg. She will be developing weapons with you from now on.”

“W-Weapons?”

“Correct.”

Ferda pointed at Gae Bolg.

“She will create a weapon capable of killing you.”

Then he pointed at Burnell.

“And you will create a way to stop that weapon.”

Cold sweat dampened Burnell’s back.

“Y-You’re saying I have to stop weapons specifically designed to kill me?”

Ferda considered it briefly, then nodded.

“Correct.”

“…”

“Do not worry. She has promised to attempt it only once a week.”

“…”

“Though whether she will honor that promise is another question.”

Burnell felt his consciousness slipping away.

Marquis Burnell.

There were now two disasters in his life.

One was named Malcolm of Peach Hill.

The other was named Gae Bolg.

* * *

Ferda returned to his private training room.

A small room untouched by sunlight.

It contained almost nothing.

A candle for temporary light.

A chair.

And a massive portrait filling one entire wall.

The portrait depicted the Red Dragon, Baldrova.

Ferda lit a single candle and quietly looked up at it.

Her smiling lips.

Yet around her eyes, the canvas had been brutally torn apart.

It was a wound created by the anger and grief he had once released because he hated himself so deeply.

That anger tangled Ferda’s thoughts.

Right now, he needed precisely that confusion.

Inside his head, Ferda replayed the incident with Gae Bolg hundreds of times.

As complex thoughts tangled together, for the briefest moment, Ferda managed to find silence.

He tested his mana.

The Red Circle.

He drew its power all the way to the limit and confirmed the realm he had reached.

Blue light instantly filled the narrow room.

Ferda became certain.

‘Fifth Circle. Unchanged.’

The repeated cycle of using mana and replenishing it had accelerated his circuits enough that even among Fifth-Circle mages, he produced mana of exceptionally high purity.

‘Then the Shadow Circle?’

He circulated the Shadow Circle he had formed through the shadows.

The flow beneath the Red Circle began moving according to Ferda’s will, drawing out its power.

‘The Shadow Circle is unchanged too.’

It possessed abnormal strength, but Ferda could still suppress it fully using his Red Circle.

Ferda believed he could control his own power.

‘But no matter how I think about it, something is strange.’

Whenever he stood before death, Ferda felt as though his consciousness sank beneath a deep lake and he lost possession of his own body.

The same had happened when Gae Bolg’s grenades were about to explode.

The voice had told Ferda he could use it.

And Ferda had used that power.

There was no other explanation for the disappearance of those grenades.

At least, Ferda himself had no ability capable of turning an attack into something that had never existed.

He remembered that day and thought carefully.

Had the voice manipulated him?

Could he have resisted that power?

Had he even tried?

After a long period of thought, Ferda slowly turned his head and looked behind him.

A single candle burned before him, so a long shadow stretched across the wall behind him.

Normally, it would have been nothing more than a natural phenomenon produced by light.

That day, it did not look that way.

The shadow resembled a giant that might swallow him at any moment.

Ferda stared at it and wondered.

Perhaps that enormous shadow was another Circle he did not yet know existed.