Chapter 11

“What’s the Imperial Palace?”

“Where you belong. Where you are going to live from now on.”

“Where I’m going with Adele?”

“Yeah. I don’t know who she is, but where she’s going with you.”

“And Adele doesn’t have to cut the grass there?”

“What are you going to cut the grass for?”

Jenson frowned.

“You make hay.”

“So, why make hay? In the palace? Why? What are you going to use it for?”

“To feed the cow.”

“It looks like Adele raised you like this. She ruined the kid very well.”1

“Don’t speak ill of Adele.”

People in strange clothes last time made him upset because they didn’t allow him to return to Adele, but this black man didn’t make him upset that much just because he could take Adele.

“Your Majesty, who knows nothing yet. Listen to me carefully. Now the palace we should go to is much bigger, more beautiful, and much cleaner than this place. There are no cows and no chickens. No hay, of course. You don’t have to do that. It’s just a place where you can wear pretty clothes , a crown, and be polite.”

Pretty clothes.

Of all the many words the black man said, that word stuck in Sigmund’s ear.

Pretty clothes. Pretty shoes. Glittering jewels. Can Adele have them all?1

“If I go to this place called the Imperial Palace, do you have jewelry? Something shiny.”

“Of course, it’s full and overflowing in mountains.”

“Can you give Adele pretty clothes and shoes, too?”

“There’s plenty that you could choke on the dress, jewelry and shoes.”

“No hard work?”

“Of course not.”

“No one else bothers me?”

“Who’s going to trouble you. Your majesty’s friend.”

“Friend?”

“If you’re close with someone then you call them friend.”

“I’m going to marry Adele.”6

“Your Majesty?”

Jenson had a blank look on his face for a moment.

He looked like he was wondering what he heard.

“Excuse me, Your Majesty?”

What did this winged little boy just say?

Marriage?

Marriage?!

How did an unidentified person named Adele tame this dragon?

Marriage?

Dragon’s bride is the emperor’s wife, or the empress.

She is the most noble woman in the empire.

There are hundreds of daughters of nobles who are still educated and nurture beauty to become empress.

Now that the Emperor has awakened from the egg, the rumour will spread quickly in the capital, and countless beautiful nobles will seek opportunities.

Now the emperor seems so small and stupid, but the dragon’s growth is fast.

Maybe we don’t know about now, but he’ll be an adult in a year.

Then he’ll be haunted by the beauties who will propose every day, Adele? He’s going to take this village girl, who doesn’t even have a proper name, as a queen?4

Is that possible?

No emperor can do everything he wants.4

This is especially true in the case of the queen.

But there is no need to say that in advance to counter the planting of this little emperor.

“Well, there’s nothing you can’t do if you want to. It’s your empire anyway.”

Jenson said with a ridiculous laugh.

Jenson, the Magician of the Imperial Palace Temple. There is no person who doesn’t know the name of Grand Duke Ernes, but few people know Jenson’s name..

It’s because the palace temple is a bit exclusive.

There’s nothing Jenson does there.

He can’t probably say that boring days were a part of his daily routine.

Jensen’s original personality wasn’t mischievous, and he didn’t pursue anything interesting, but 10 years after he was trapped in the Imperial Palace, he got into this shape.

When anyone is stuck in that boring place for 10 years, they find out if there’s anything fun or not.

Because the environment is supposed to change people.

It was good when he took a wizard class.

Being a magician requires him to travel through the entire kingdom and collects and records strange and rare things.

But! Of all things!

The problem was being talented.

After passing the test with the best results in the year’s wizard test, he was named the successor of the Magician of the Year.

Wandering the kingdom and collecting rare things?  record?  He couldn’t even dream of such a thing, and he was trapped in the Imperial Palace temple, so he spent 10 years reading and translating strange chronicles into uninteresting old books.

His youth went in that lonely temple.  Damn it.

When Jenson was asked  exactly what he have been doing for 10 years, he took care of an egg.

An Egg

A giant egg.

A giant egg that haven’t hatched in 300 years.

He wondered how the hell did it come about and did not budge for three hundred years.

He was amazed to see it roll in secret, and even hit it with a hammer.

He’d hit the egg with a hammer because it wouldn’t hatch.

Believing that if it were dragon, it wouldn’t die just to the point where the egg was broken, he  hit the egg with the hammer, but it didn’t even crack.

Hard enough to tell whether it was an egg or a stone.

He’ve been keeping the egg that hasn’t  hatched for more than 10 years, and have done all sorts of things to amuse  himself.

Sing a song, read a book, load it on a cart and take a walk. The reason why he did all sorts of things to the eggs was that time went by a little faster.2

However, 10 years after taking over the eggs, the eggs changed. The egg, which had not been moving at all, began to shake.

Little by little, he realized that the time of hatching was approaching as he watched the vibration grow every day. After 300 years, the owner of the kingdom was born.

When Dragon awoke from the egg, the upbringing was to be taken over by Jenson.

Originally, it was a set law for an expert magician to take charge of the education of a newborn dragon.

It was also because it wasn’t possible to deal with a dragon without having mana as powerful as an expert magician.

According to historical records, the dragon, which was hatched from an egg, looks like a child in a completely blank state, absorbs the energy around it and grows rapidly.

It takes about a year to become a adult figure in youth.

During that year, they have to teach them the civilization of the human world and the history of the past dynasties.

The most important of them is to teach the dragon how to control his own madness.

Dragons are inherently violent and fierce.

According to historical records, the Dragon Emperors were all fierce, and when they were a little angry, they destroyed a small city in one day.

It’s a species that can’t control anger.

So for dragons, ‘humanity’ education was more important than anything else.

Born in an egg, the dragon imprints its first partner.

This is because they’re very attentive to the words of the imprinted partner.

So when the dragons of all time hatched from the eggs, there was always the Grand Duke who would rule the kingdom with him.

The Grand Duke is the one who was chosen from among the humans who succeeded the dragon’s blood.

All the emperors that followed, including the first emperor, had concubines.

Many children were born to them, but it was rare for them to inherit the dragon’s character.

Those rare minorities and those born with basic mana were all candidates for the Grand Duke, and the one with the most outstanding qualities became the Grand Duke and became the Dragon’s political partner.

The Dragon Emperor rules, and the Grand Duke rules beside.

The empire was always this way.

The current Grand Duke is a man named Ernest.

Three hundred years ago the blood of the Dragon was diluted as sons of the last emperor gave birth to children, and the half blessed child had sons, and the Lord Ernes had an insignificant amount of mana.

But since Ernest had the most powerful mana among the existing dragon’s blood descendants, Ernest has been chosen for the position of Grand Duke since his boyhood.

Grand Duke Ernest and Jenson were supposed to be Dragon’s political partners and mentor, respectively, but both ended up drinking water.

The eggs, which suddenly disappeared, hatched in such a ridiculous place and wasted more than 15 days of precious time.

For dragons, a full moon of time is fatal.

During that time, the most important personality for the dragon would have already hardened.

The dragon’s personality almost completes within the ten days after waking up from the egg.

He found it too late.

As much as Grand Duke Ernest, Jenson kept looking for the egg.

No. He’ve been singing.

For ten years, he continued to sing using the magic bond he had formed with the egg.

But he didn’t respond to the call of this damn dragon kid.

“You’ll learn from me in the future, but you’re called the emperor because you can do whatever you want.”

“Marrying Adele, too?”4

“Sure. No problem.”

“Then shall I call Adele? Shall we go now? To the palace?”

“No, no, not now. How do I get there now? How far is the palace? And it’s raining.”

“Flying. We can fly.”

“What about the lady? What about Adele? Adele, can she fly?”

“No.”

“Look at your wings, they’re fastidious, aren’t they?”

“…”

Sigmund fluttered his work wings at Jenson’s words.

As Jenson said, Sigmund’s wings were really small.

“You won’t be able to fly the lady with that wing, will you? And so do my wings. I can fly alone, but I can’t fly with anyone.”

“Then…..go on foot?”

“Listen to me. Sigmund? You said your name is Sigmund, right?

“Yes. Sigmund.”

“Yes, Sigmund. You know the bad guys you met? Dressed in odd clothes.”

“They’re looking for you now. If they find you, maybe Adele will be in big trouble.”

“If you bother Adele, I’ll burn you all.”1

“Don’t say anything scary.”

No matter how cute this kid is, he still is a dragon.

That’s why it doesn’t sound like a joke.

“Don’t you think Adele will be sad if you burn people?”

“Is Adele… sad?”

“Is Adele a person?”

“Yes.”

“A person is sad when another person  dies. So will Adele. If you set someone on fire, Adele would be so sad that she would cry. You want to make Adele cry?”

“No. Adele, she can’t cry. She won’t cry.”

“So if you don’t want Adele to cry, you shouldn’t burn people. As you please.”

“Never.”

Sigmund nodded.

Sigmund must not hurt people. Adele hates it then she’ll cry.  He put those words in his mind.