Taking that positive sign, I continued. Watching Neira closely, I deliberately emphasized words I knew might reach her.
“Please help your son avenge Ordin. Varen can’t do this alone.”
“.......”
“Neira, if you don’t help him, Varen won’t be able to win this war. So please—get up.”
At last, Neira’s body, which had been frozen cold, twitched. Her chest rose and fell sharply as she released a long, trapped breath. Light returned to the dragon’s eyes that had seemed no different from stone.
“Ordin’s... revenge....”
“Yes. The one who killed Ordin, kidnapped Varen, and threatened Kaldrok—it’s all the same human.”
“...Who is it.”
“King Laskar.”
Still staring at the ceiling, Neira rolled only her eyes to look at me.
The gaze that had always been cold whenever it met mine now boiled with heat.
“Laskar... the king....”
“He’s the king of the humans. He’ll be in the middle of the capital, where troops are concentrated, so we can’t just charge straight in.”
“...The capital....”
“We need a plan. We need a dragon who can advise Varen.”
I watched Neira with tense eyes. To strike King Laskar would require meticulous planning.
And to build that plan, we needed Neira—or rather, Neira’s ability.
Without needing me to say more, Neira slowly closed her eyes. Then she began repeating very slow, deep breaths.
After a while, when her eyes snapped open again, there were no pupils in them.
“...Kill the king? Absurd. Do you want dragons wiped out because of that?”
The voice that came from Neira’s mouth was that of a crotchety, gravelly old man. Before I could respond, Neira closed her eyes again.
Beneath her thin eyelids, her eyes moved busily, as if searching for someone.
“...That’s why I said we should have killed him earlier. What’s there to fear about a mere human....”
The next voice was gloomy. But it didn’t even finish speaking before Neira shut her eyes once more.
Several dragons passed through Neira’s body in turn. She exercised her unique ability again and again until her strength was exhausted.
And so, for several days, I remained in Neira’s bedroom. Whenever I nodded off and woke again, a voice I’d never heard before would be muttering to itself.
“Are you insane? Why provoke that vicious lot....”
“Hah, Ordin, you brat. I knew it would come to this.”
“No, no... we should flee Belzena and run....”
Sometimes, multiple voices conversed through a single mouth.
How much time passed? Dozing in a chair, I woke with a strange feeling.
Neira, who had been lying still like a corpse, was now sitting upright on the bed. And she was staring straight at me with eyes filled only with white.
A chill ran through my entire body. Not just because that gaze was grotesque, but because of an instinctive sense that I had finally found the one I’d been waiting for.
“...A human in Dravergh’s bedchamber.”
A rough-textured voice spoke calmly. I straightened my posture and gave a small bow toward him.
“My name is Ceryl Aylos. I’m helping Dravergh.”
“An Aylos helping Dravergh.”
“Well... that is... I am an Aylos, but....”
Honestly, this damned Aylos surname tripped me up every single time.
I was struggling with how to explain when he answered someone other than me.
“...Very well, Ordin. If it’s your word, I’ll trust it.”
At that name, my heart dropped hard. Without realizing it, I half rose from my seat. Stepping a little closer, I asked in a trembling voice,
“You can... talk with Ordin?”
“Ordin still lacks strength. He can’t come this far yet.”
“Ah....”
I let out a disappointed groan and slumped back down.
But I quickly wiped my face and pulled myself together. He’d said “yet,” which meant I’d be able to speak with Ordin before long.
Right now, this was the moment to seek advice from the right person I’d finally found. I had no idea how long the weakened Neira could keep ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) this soul anchored.
Just as I steadied my nerves and was about to speak, the bedroom door slid open. Somehow sensing it, Varen had arrived.
Without even giving me time to greet him, Varen sat down on the edge of the bed and took Neira’s hand, pressing a light kiss to the back of it.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Lord Dorban Dravergh.”
“So. You are Dravergh’s child.”
Neira’s ability was not limitless. The more recently a forebear had returned to the Primeval Flame, the easier they were to summon.
Because of that, it was nearly impossible to call forth ancestors from the distant past—those who had lived in the era when humans and dragons coexisted and aided one another.
With Varen’s help, I had pulled out and read every Dravergh historical record. That was how I found a name that had interacted with humans relatively recently.
Varen released his hand and asked in a respectful posture,
“I’ve heard you were the last to have dealings with a human king. Please tell us how we should kill him and end the war.”
Neira’s face, smooth and unwrinkled, somehow felt dignified. Her all-white eyes curved gently.
“This young dragon wants to kill a king?”
I couldn’t help glancing at Varen.
No matter that he was an ancestor—Varen’s pride seemed pricked by those words, and one corner of his eye twitched. A reaction that betrayed his youth.
“Child, you cannot kill the human king.”
It was a gentle but firm voice. With that single sentence, our resolve was cut cleanly, and both Varen and I fell silent.
But Dorban didn’t stop there. He left us with words like a riddle.
“The human king can only be killed by humans.”
“...What?”
“Receive help from humans.”
With that, Neira slowly closed her eyes. The upper body she had barely been holding upright slumped, and Varen caught her steadily.
We laid Neira back down comfortably and checked her condition. She was pale, but her breathing was even—she seemed to have fallen asleep.
Only then did Varen let out a long sigh of relief. He looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“Help from humans. Sounds like he meant you, Ceryl.”
Lost in thought, I shook my head.
Dorban and I had already exchanged names. If he’d meant me, there would have been no reason to refer to me as “humans.”
More importantly—
“Dorban said ‘humans.’ Not just one.”
“...That’s ridiculous. Other than you, is there really a human who would stand with dragons and attack the human king?”
We had finally received advice from the ancestor we’d been waiting for, but Varen didn’t seem pleased. He voiced his dissatisfaction repeatedly.
I calmly retraced everything in my head—what I’d experienced since arriving in this world, the knowledge I’d recently gained from dragon texts.
And the original story I’d only read halfway through.
From that flood of information, the answer surfaced, and I let out a hollow laugh. Before I knew it, I smacked my own forehead.
Even if my original sense of self had faded, how could I forget this?
“There are. Humans who’ll stand on the dragons’ side. A lot of them.”
“A lot? Who are they?”
Standing up for the first time in days, I stretched my stiff body. Then I lightly tapped Varen’s crown, telling him to stop overheating.
“The Rebels. A human army whose goal is dragon victory and the liberation of monsters.”
Once, I’d been mistaken for a Rebel and nearly killed by Jed Kardo. It had only been a few months ago, yet the memory felt strangely distant.
I rubbed my chin, sinking into thought. How could I find information about the Rebels?
If luck was on our side, we might find a dragon secretly in contact with them. If not, we could run into the exact opposite situation.
Someone who knew about the Rebels and could be trusted...
“Why should I do that.”
The sharp voice cutting off my thoughts was Varen’s. With eyes gone cold, he stared at the bed where Neira lay.
As if recalling his father, who had died at human hands in that very place.
“You want me to join hands with humans? Even if it’s Dorban’s advice, I don’t like it.”
“...Varen, I told you. You can’t just charge in alone.”
I dropped down beside him and took his hand. The blue eyes that turned back to me wavered.
“Why don’t you trust me? I can destroy a fortress on my own.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. It means we can’t act recklessly. We don’t even know where Kaldrok’s child is being held. Not just that child—other monsters could be captive too.”
“Then I’ll kill the king and save them.”
“I know what you want to do, but what we need is information. We don’t even know what weapons King Laskar has. Any operation that puts you at risk, even a little, is unacceptable.”
“I’d rather I be at risk than take a human’s hand.”
“What kind of—hey, what good is killing the king if something happens to you? What would any of it mean then?”
Careful not to wake Neira, the argument continued in hushed voices.
