I Married the Dragon I Killed [Novel] Chapter 258

Chapter 258: Uncontrollable Power

Ferda left the castle and headed down into Hestia Village.

The long summer was ending and autumn was approaching, so the residents had gathered to prepare for the harvest festival.

Because they had come from many different places, the preparations were designed to show each group’s unique character while still blending everything together.

Ferda glanced at the scene as he passed.

His destination was the Adventurers’ Guild.

When it had first been completed, the guild hall had stood almost empty.

Now it was crowded with people.

Hestia had been designed as a city for adventurers, and one could see with the naked eye that the plan had finally begun to work.

‘There are plenty of useless amateurs mixed in too, though…’

Even so, a quick glance revealed more than a few people who looked genuinely skilled.

That alone was enough.

Ferda stepped inside.

The eyes of the hot-blooded adventurers immediately turned toward him.

“Who’s that guy? Why is everyone staring at him?”

“Who else? Isn’t he the man who’s going to become the husband of the Red Dragon, Lady Baldrova?”

“That young man?”

Many people knew of Ferda’s achievements.

He was the man who had driven the development of the Far East and found a way through the crisis when the region was surrounded by colossal monsters.

As a ruler, he had demonstrated outstanding judgment in recruiting talent and administering territory.

He had also been recognized for his gifts as a mage and his cold composure as a commander.

An all-rounder in every sense.

Looking at his accomplishments alone, one would have assumed they belonged to a man at least in his mid-thirties.

Those who had never heard his age were understandably shocked by how young he looked.

Of course, rumors about nobles were always exaggerated.

Some wanted to assume Ferda was no exception.

But even that was difficult.

He possessed a grave, mature atmosphere almost impossible to associate with a young man.

The instant one met his blue eyes, thoughts seemed to pause, as though staring into a deep lake.

Carrying that atmosphere around him, Ferda calmly approached the receptionist.

“Greetings, Regent. How may I assist you?”

“Is the branch chief inside?”

“Yes, she is. She just returned from an expedition and is currently resting. Ah, Regent?”

Ferda simply walked past the receptionist.

It was absurdly high-handed behavior, but no one had any realistic way to stop him.

He went directly to the branch chief’s office and knocked.

“I’m busy. Come back later.”

“This is Regent Ferda.”

The handle immediately turned on its own and the door opened.

Ferda found himself momentarily speechless at what he saw inside.

The room was complete chaos.

Trash, treasures, and things somewhere between the two filled every available space.

Amid the piles sat a blue-haired woman.

She wore filthy adventurer’s clothes and oversized glasses.

As she scratched at her tangled hair, she only made it even messier.

The sight strongly reminded Ferda of Burnell.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“…Did you find anything useful?”

Now that they were alone, Ferda spoke to her more respectfully.

Erika looked at the ceiling and released a long sigh.

“I think this expedition was probably another bust.”

“You call it a bust while examining everything very carefully.”

“That’s precisely when I need to look even harder. If I miss something and fail to recognize its true value, I’ll be furious. And if someone else has better eyes than I do, my pride won’t survive it.”

So the dignity of a dragon had been pushed aside by treasure hunting.

She chewed on her lip and muttered,

“Ugh, this is stressful. I don’t know why I willingly put myself through this.”

“Could you not simply stop?”

“But it’s addictive. Think about it.”

“About what?”

“What if I risk my one precious life entering a place no one else dares to go, drag something out with enormous effort, and it turns out to be an incredibly rare treasure beyond even our current knowledge!?”

“…”

“Or better yet, what if everyone else dismisses something as worthless, but I recognize its true value and discover it’s worth tens, no, hundreds of times more!?”

“…”

“Do you have any idea how exciting it is to know all that, casually walk up to someone else, ask, ‘Is this any good?’ and watch their reaction!?”

“…You truly are a child serving the Aspect of Water and Magic.”

“Don’t mock me! If you ever tasted the appeal yourself, you’d never escape it either!”

Whatever she said.

Ferda sighed and moved on.

“I heard Alberto has been working as an adventurer.”

“Ah, yes.”

The armored knight had once displayed overwhelming ability.

But after suddenly disappearing following that adventure, someone had been needed to fill the gap he left behind.

Alberto, the Moving Fortress.

He was a talent capable of replacing the man once called the Armored Knight.

So Ferda had made him an offer.

After the war, would he be willing to fill the vacant role as an adventurer?

Alberto had calmly accepted.

Even after deciding to become a knight, his wandering temperament apparently made adventuring the perfect fit.

“Unfortunately, he decided to operate alone.”

“Why?”

“He said he doesn’t like forming groups or taking orders. Absolutely infuriating.”

Erika looked deeply displeased.

“Adventurers are not permitted to act independently, are they?”

Ferda remembered that it was one of the guild’s rules for joining.

“That rule exists to increase adventurer survival rates. It was created for reckless newcomers who have courage but no skill, people who don’t even understand their own limits and rush off to get themselves killed.”

“Alberto is strong enough to be exempt?”

“Yes. He is.”

“How did you determine that?”

“…”

Erika looked out the window and muttered bitterly,

“If this were still Erika Iorga, Blue-Eyed Master of the Magic Tower…”

Apparently she had set the condition that he could receive an exception if he defeated the branch chief, and using force had not worked out in her favor.

“Well, what’s done is done. He also promised to honor a profit-sharing arrangement that most Gold-rank adventurers would never accept, so there was no reason for us to stop him anymore.”

Alberto had never even asked for rewards when he wandered around slaughtering demons, so it was hardly surprising.

“I’ve been rambling about trivial things. You didn’t come here for that, did you? Shall we get to the point?”

“Yes. I came for another reason.”

Ferda quietly stated his purpose.

“I am asking for advice from the Master of the Magic Tower.”

Erika’s eyes immediately became serious.

She removed her glasses and swept one hand toward the door.

A blue barrier formed, cutting off all sound and presence from outside.

She ceased being Erika the Platinum adventurer and became Erika Iorga, Blue-Eyed Master of the Magic Tower.

Then she sat before Ferda.

“What could possibly require my help, Regent?”

“You once said you wanted to research my mana.”

“Yes.”

She had wanted to investigate the mana in Ferda’s blue eyes, the mana that had once calmed Baldrova.

“Even up to recently, I haven’t found any meaningful result.”

“You are saying it is simply mana?”

“Yes. It feels like… ordinary mana belonging to someone with a Red Circle.”

“Are you certain?”

Ferda asked again.

Under normal circumstances, Erika might have taken offense.

But the fact that Ferda was asking so bluntly only made the seriousness of his visit clearer.

“What happened?”

“It occurred while I was recruiting a woman named Gae Bolg…”

Ferda explained what had happened that day.

Gae Bolg had attempted to obliterate the surrounding area.

Ferda had been unable to stop it.

Then came the whisper.

An action outside his control.

And finally…

“Your shadows swallowed them completely… and they disappeared?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you already hide all sorts of things inside your shadows? Could the shadows have swallowed the blast along with the objects?”

“I can store objects, but I cannot make them become something that never existed. And with an explosion of that magnitude, the shock alone should have left me severely injured.”

He stored things inside the shadows.

The shadows did not possess any natural force capable of nullifying impact.

Swallowing a bomb did not extinguish the bomb.

“Something that completely erases existence… Still, isn’t it too soon to decide that from one incident?”

If that had been the only incident, Erika would have been right.

He would merely have been overreacting.

“Of course, that was not the only time.”

The whisper had come once before.

Ureas in the form of Amon.

King Heinkel, consumed by Gamigin.

Just before Ferda’s death, the voice had stolen away his consciousness.

And when he returned to himself…

“You’re saying both corpses had disappeared completely?”

“Yes.”

Erika looked as though she could scarcely believe it.

But because she knew what had happened in the Arken Empire, she could not simply dismiss Ferda’s words.

King Heinkel had used Gamigin’s magic, so one could argue that he had been dragged into Hell.

But Ureas carried imperial blood.

Before entering battle, he would certainly have been marked with tracking magic designed to recover his corpse.

Even if he vanished into another dimension, that magic should have followed him to the end.

And yet Ureas had reportedly been erased in the most literal sense while that tracking magic remained active.

If that was connected to Ferda’s magic…

‘Impossible.’

Had anyone else told her this story, Erika would have dismissed it as nonsense.

But this was Ferda.

She knew he was not the sort of man who fabricated events that never happened.

Since he had come here with such a serious face, she had an obligation to listen.

“So in short, you believe there is something within you stronger than the power you consciously possess?”

“Yes.”

“Something that seems to possess another personality and controls your body regardless of your will…”

“Correct.”

“If possible, I’d like to see it with my own eyes… but that would be difficult, wouldn’t it?”

“…Yes.”

Even Erika, who strongly favored empiricism, hesitated.

If this force had overwhelmingly defeated King Heinkel after he was consumed by Gamigin, Erika’s own strength would not be enough to contain Ferda if something went wrong.

“You possess two Circles, and one of them seems to have a will of its own… It could be reasonable to suspect some form of dissociative or schizophrenic symptom. What do you think?”

The higher a Red Circle developed, the more violently emotions intensified, and the mind inevitably became less stable.

“That may be possible.”

That voice that resembled his mother.

Perhaps it represented the past Ferda remembered itself.

The ugly monster that desired nothing but power.

Ferda had once been that kind of monster.

“But… even if this is a mental disorder, that doesn’t explain why your strength rises so explosively.”

“…”

“How frustrating. It almost sounds as though someone made a wish.”

When magic produced a mystery no one could explain, mages sometimes dismissed it with a phrase like that.

Perhaps someone wished for it.

A Wish.

A realm humans could only reach upon attaining the Ninth Circle.

Even High Elves who had lived for thousands of years had never reached it.

Dragons went without saying.

‘A Wish…’

Ferda had used one before.

He had killed Baldrova and reached the Ninth Circle.

He had wished for those things to disappear from this place.

Then magic had manifested regardless of his will, and the wish had been granted.

‘Was that truly a Wish?’

Ferda did not know.

The complete disappearance of those bombs.

The annihilation of two demons.

The fact that time itself had been reversed and he had returned to the past.

Even Ferda, who had actually used the phenomenon before, still stood before an unknown realm.

Perhaps because of that, one possibility came to him.

What if the Wish Ferda had possessed in the past had crossed over with him when he returned through time…?

“Then what do you want to do with this power, Regent?”

What should Ferda do with it?

He thought for a while before answering.

“If possible, I want to remove it.”

“Remove it…?”

Erika was startled by his choice.

She had met countless mages.

And in essence, Erika herself was little different from one.

The deeper one delved into magic, the stronger the obsession with it became.

If nine out of ten mages discovered power they could not control, they would search for a way to control it.

Almost none would give it up as quickly as Ferda.

“Is there really a need to remove the power itself?”

As a mage, she thought his conclusion far too hasty.

“You may end up burning down the entire house just to kill a flea.”

She was not saying this merely because she personally coveted the mysterious power.

Removing the uncontrollable magic Ferda described would require a complicated and dangerous process.

“Artificial processes like perception suppression, distortion, or creating aversion to memories can damage a human mind, and their effectiveness is uncertain.”

“I know.”

“Especially since you possess a Red Circle. As long as emotion remains the fuel, complete removal will be nearly impossible. If you truly want it gone, we’ll eventually have to tamper with the Red Circle itself.”

“…”

“Are you prepared to abandon your path as a mage as well?”

For a mage, losing mana was almost the same as death.

Ferda was not afraid of losing mana.

‘But what forms my Red Circle is…’

Baldrova herself.

Removing the Red Circle meant removing the emotion of loving Baldrova.

If everyone’s safety required that, then the conclusion became that Ferda must forget her.

In the end, even Erika did not have a clean solution.

“Then why don’t we begin by identifying exactly what the power is?”

“I would like to, but even the High Elf Elder fell critically ill while attempting to examine my mana.”

Even an Elder connected to the World Tree had nearly died while approaching Ferda’s origin.

For Erika, alone, the danger should have been even greater.

“I don’t think we’ll be in as much danger as you imagine.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Because I happened to find several books intended for Red Circle holders.”

Erika rummaged through the pile of spoils she had brought back and continued,

“The reason the Elder became critically ill was probably because he tried to approach your origin directly. Correct?”

“…Correct.”

“That was dangerous because he attempted to receive everything in its raw form, including information he couldn’t process or resolve.”

“But if that information were processed into a form that could be shown instead of forcing someone to receive it directly, the process should become several times safer. The people of the east call it…”

She pulled out one of the books and showed it to Ferda.

“The Deep Projection Technique.”