Varen didn’t take his eyes off me. When he made a motion that pressed for an answer, I blocked him with my index finger raised.
“Shh.”
“Answer me, Ceryl. You also—”
“Varen, do you not hear that sound?”
Only then did Varen knit his brows and look down the corridor.
Maybe the dragon heard what I’d noticed first—his eyes narrowed in an instant.
I closed my eyes to shut out my vision and focused on sound.
A sharp wind cutting through empty air. A noise that felt familiar and unfamiliar at once. I’d heard it somewhere before.
While I was digging through my memory, my eyes snapped open.
“Varen, it’s danger—!”
KWA-GWA-GWA-GWANG!!!
Before I could finish, an explosion loud enough to rupture my eardrums hit, and the entire cavern started to shake.
The booming echoes slamming off the stone walls made me clamp my hands over my ears.
“Ceryl!!!”
Varen reflexively dragged me into his arms almost at the same time as the blast.
The explosion chained down the far end of the corridor, and then came the sound of stone splitting open with a jagged crack.
I lifted my head at the noise directly above us—and the sight I caught almost made me scream.
Cracks were spreading through the ceiling that had been holding everything up.
Before my brain could even process it, a massive heap of boulders began to drop toward us.
“Aaaagh!!!”
I squeezed my eyes shut at the merciless rain of stone.
Varen and I were knocked straight to the floor. After that, it felt like my memory cut out for a moment.
All I could hear was the nonstop explosions and the cavern collapsing.
“Ugh....”
And Varen’s suppressed groan.
A human was weak in an accident that struck without warning. Faced with the instinctive terror of death, I could only clutch my head and tremble. For a long time, I endured the falling rock like that.
At some point, the deafening roar quieted. Instead, the dirt and dust filling the air ripped a rough cough out of me.
“Cough... ngh....”
After a disaster out of nowhere, I couldn’t tell whether I was alive or dead. But since I could breathe, it seemed I’d survived.
Still coughing, I opened my eyes. The corridor, already dim, had turned into pure darkness.
But I could clearly make out the blue eyes right in front of me.
“...Varen.”
Varen was on top of me, covering me with his entire body. Behind his back, a boulder the size of a mountain was piled down over him.
The moment I understood the situation, tears burst out. I wanted to get up immediately and check him, but the rocks packed around us left no room even to plant my feet. I couldn’t move.
All I could manage was to hold his face in both hands.
“Va—Varen. Are you okay? Are you really okay?”
“Yeah. I’m—”
“Ah—what do I do... what do I do. Just hold on a little, I— ngh....”
I tried to shove the boulder crushing him, but it didn’t budge even a fraction under my strength.
That overwhelming weight came back as despair. Something like this was flattening Varen, and with these weak arms, I couldn’t save him.
“Ah... what do I do, what do I do.... Varen, does it hurt a lot? I’m sorry. I’m sorry....”
“Ceryl, get it together. Look at me.”
It even felt like the rocks pressing around us were slowly tightening.
In the narrow gap Varen’s body was forcing open, it felt like I was lying inside a coffin.
Between the consecutive shocks and the thin oxygen, I slid fully into panic.
“Snf... help, help me... someone, someone— mmph.”
It was when I was babbling like a madman, repeating myself.
Varen lowered his upper body and kissed me. That distinctive scent that always made my mind loosen on its own washed over me.
I lunged at the soft warmth greedily. Our lips, soaked with tears and saliva, pressed together and slipped apart again and again.
After the brief kiss, Varen pulled back.
“Ceryl, I’m fine.”
“Haa... you, right now....”
“Dragons don’t get hurt by something like this. So calm down.”
Only then did my mind snap back at his firm voice. I looked down and checked his body.
Varen was braced on his elbows and knees. He was holding up something that looked like a mountain to my eyes, yet he wasn’t trembling at all.
Only after I recognized it did a long breath leak out of me. When I closed my eyes, the remaining hot water streams slid down.
When I opened them again, I saw Varen smiling—absurdly, for a moment like this.
“...Why are you smiling.”
“I don’t need to hear the answer to know. I can feel how much you love me.”
In a situation where our lives were on the line, he was still going on about love. My brow creased.
And yet, at the same time, his words slammed straight into my chest.
“Ceryl, close your eyes for a moment. There’ll be a lot of dust.”
I didn’t know what he was about to do, but I closed my eyes immediately.
I kept them shut, bracing for whatever came next—and what returned was a playful whisper right by my ear.
“This is why I told you to stay in my room.”
With my eyes closed, I pressed my lips tight.
Soon, Varen’s body began to tremble in fine vibrations. Like a pebble tossed into a still lake, the ripples spread outward.
I could feel boulders the size of houses shaking. Anxious for no reason, I clasped both hands and gripped Varen’s collar.
And then, at some point, my airway opened wide. Oxygen that had been nowhere near enough in that cramped space rushed in all at once.
“Hah... ha—what? What are you doing right now, Varen? Can I open my eyes?”
“Ugh....”
Varen only let out a low groan, like he was forcing himself through it.
After a moment, the vibrations I’d felt through our contact gradually died down. Varen lightly kissed my forehead and spoke with tenderness.
“You can open your eyes now. You did well, Ceryl.”
At that, I snapped my eyes open.
Right in front of me was still the perfectly sculpted face. But the boulder that had been pinning him was gone.
Varen pulled me up into a sitting position. With only my upper body raised, I sat on the floor and looked around.
But all I could see was pitch-black darkness. The Lightstone embedded in the walls must have all been shattered—there wasn’t a speck of light left.
As I rubbed my eyes against the murky view, Varen opened his palm.
Whoosh—an orb of flame the size of a baseball was born above his hand.
It was small, but in that ink-black darkness, it was no different from a torch.
The instant I could barely make out the surroundings, I grabbed Varen’s shoulder and turned him around.
“Varen, you’re not hurt? Let me see your back.”
“I told you I’m fine. This can’t leave even a scratch on me.”
Well, yeah. Varen’s body was like metal, not stone.
Even in human form, his true body was a dragon—one of the Dravergh, the toughest-bodied dragons of all.
When I remembered him taking dozens of bombs at the Dragon Trap Tower and staying perfectly fine, the knot of dread finally loosened.
And at the same time, my blood ran cold.
The wind sound I’d heard before the explosion. I’d thought it was familiar—because it was the sound of a crossbow meant to hunt dragons.
“Varen, the human army is here. What just exploded was the weapon they used to attack you.”
“I know. There’s no need to worry so much.”
Varen stroked my head with his big hand, then rose to his feet.
When I tried to stand with him, my legs gave out and wobbled. So without meaning to, I ended up collapsing back into his arms.
“You’re the one I’m worried about. You look like you were badly startled.”
“Uh... I’m fine.”
I smiled awkwardly and patted my trembling legs. I couldn’t help, but I also couldn’t afford to look weak.
Without a word, Varen wrapped an arm around my shoulders. After pulling me in close, he stared at the boulders blocking the corridor.
The stones began to vibrate heavily under a dragon’s gaze. And then, as if they’d never been solid rock at all, they crumbled into fine sand and poured down to the floor.
Even watching it with my own eyes, I couldn’t believe it. I looked up at Varen with a stupid expression—Varen, who had carved an escape route in an instant.
“...You can do that too?”
“Because I’m Dravergh. This is nothing.”
Varen subtly puffed his chest out. It made our bodies, already close, press even tighter together.
I stared at the small flame flickering above his palm.
Come to think of it, in the forest he couldn’t properly handle his power—yet now he was freely controlling the size of the fire.
This wasn’t the time, but my chest tightened anyway. The dragon’s growth he’d shown ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) right in front of me made me swell up, full to bursting.
I stretched out an arm and smacked Varen’s backside—pat, pat—like I was too proud to stand it. The hardness only hurt my hand, but I didn’t stop.
His still-youthful face crumpled immediately.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh my, how admirable. My kid—when did you get this big?”
“I was always bigger than you.”
Varen shot me a resentful look. Then he lowered his head and brought his face close.
From a distance where our lips could meet at any second, he practically growled.
“Ceryl, I’m not a kid.”
Damn. The proud pats must have scraped his pride.
That was when a familiar voice rang out from the passage we’d finally opened.
“Varen!! Son!!!”
When I turned at the same time, Neira and several dragons came running toward us, pale as death.
In the blink of an eye, Neira closed the distance and fussed over her door-sized son like he was a small child.
She checked him in a flurry, then brushed off clothing that didn’t even have a speck of dust on it.
“Baby, are you hurt anywhere?”
“Pff—....”
At the word she used for Varen, laughter almost burst out. I covered my mouth with my fist and bit down hard, fighting it.
And Varen deliberately dropped his voice even lower.
“Mother, I’m fin—”
“My baby, don’t worry. Your mother is here now. I’ll protect you.”
When I stole a glance while holding back laughter, the rim of Varen’s ear had turned red as if it were on fire.
