CH 72

Mommy?

Everybody on the scene froze at the unexpected outburst. Mommy? Was that dragon’s mother here? 

All eyes roved everywhere across the audience room, but, naturally, there was no other dragon to be found. Meanwhile, the light that had appeared in midair ensnared Girgantia’s wings and the beast immediately dropped to the floor.

“Gaaargh!”

Girgantia lay on the floor with his wings fixed in place like a specimen on display. It flailed about, causing another thick cloud of dust to rise. The dragon gouged out the floor with its frantic struggling, sending fragments of marble shooting toward Cecile.

“…!” Shutting her eyes tightly, she braced for the impact of the oncoming debris, but in that instant, a pair of sturdy arms latched onto her waist and pulled her back.

As the marble fragments barely grazed Cecile’s hair and smashed into the wall with a loud bang, the force of the pull on her waist made the book in her hand clutter to the floor. The sight of the now crumbling wall, destroyed by the collision, sent shivers down her spine. Had Estian been even slightly late in pulling her back, her head would have been destroyed instead.

Just as Cecile realized what danger she had escaped, a relieved sigh left Estian’s mouth. 

Cecile turned at the sound to look at him and could tell the moment their gazes met: ‘I’m dead!’

Seeing the look in his eyes, she knew that he would not have stayed quiet if they were in a slightly less perilous situation. Estian raised his hand. No way is he going to hit me, is he? He had never once done such a thing before. Startled, Cecile closed her eyes hard; however, he only raised his hand to gently dust off the dirt in Cecile’s hair. He said, “I think I need to have a long talk with you after taking down that dragon.”

“Will you get mad?”

“Obviously,” Estian replied, and his obviously angry tone made Cecile shrink in on herself until she saw an injury on one of his cheeks. Seeing blood well up only now, it seemed to be inflicted when he was protecting her from the marble flying at her moments ago.

“Your Majesty, you’re bleeding!” Cecile exclaimed and reached out toward his face, but Estian flinched away. The moment he heard the word ‘blood’ he hastily avoided her hand as if he did not want to feel her touch. Cecile’s had was left hanging in midair, lost and hesitant. 

“Don’t touch me with your hand,” Estian uttered, causing Cecile’s expression to freeze, which in turn made the former feel bewildered. Just as he was about to speak again, she suddenly lunged forward to embrace his neck and pull him in. Caught off guard by her completely unexpected action, Estian’s face was drawn close to Cecile’s. In the instant he was going to ask what she was doing, her lips darted past his cheek. When she drew away from him again, her lips were smudged with the blood and dirt that was on his cheek.

“What have you done!” Estian shouted, aghast.

“As you asked, I didn’t touch you with my hand! Only with my lips!”

“…”

“I’ll have to wipe it off, of course! You can scold me twice as hard later!”

“…”

“Uh… three times as hard?”

Estian’s continued silence made Cecile sweat. Should I have called out ten times? As lines of cold sweat ran down her forehead, Estian took her into his arms and whispered, “I won’t get angry.”

“…?”

“I’ll pretend nothing happened with that.”

Then he adjusted his hug around her. Tania, who had been watching them from the side with sparkling eyes, thought, ‘I’d expect no less from these two. So passionate, even in this situation!’

Noticing Tania’s gaze, Cecile realized what she was doing in front of a dragon and snapped to her senses. “Let me down please!”

“Where do you think you’re walking with a hurt foot? Be still for a moment. I’ll finish it once and for all.” Holding her up, Estian took up his black steel blade again. 

Forced to the ground by Cecile’s spell, Girgantia could only squirm like a beast caught in a net, but nevertheless, slaying a dragon was no easy feat. As Estian approached the beast, Tania too went forward with fists clenched hard. But when the two drew near, Girgantia’s body was suddenly covered by a blue light—the dragon let loose a scream. “Gaaargh! It hurts! What is this?!”

The unknown woman once again roared from the other side of the clouds of dust. “The Last Bang is what it is, you muuutt!”

* * *

Girgantia wanted to cry. The light constricting the dragon’s four wings scattered back into the air and then powerfully lashed its back.

“Ack!”

This tear-inducing ferociousness… it was definitely Mom! Due to the nature of the dragon race, Girgantia was fully self-aware from the time he was an egg. Naturally, the one he talked with most often was his mother, the dragon lord.

“Girgantia. What’s 1 plus 1?”

“11!”

The baby egg’s answer led to the dragon lord lashing the innocent cave wall with her tail. The wall fell apart with a rumble, its broken pieces crushing the other monsters beneath the destroyed area, but being the merciless creature she was, the dragon did not spare even a glance toward them as she glared at her egg.

“Why, I’ll squash you underfoot,” she threatened.

“I was wrong, Lord. The correct answer is 2.”

“I’m gonna ask one more. Answer within 3 seconds. When a is an algebraic number not 0 or 1 and b is an algebraic number not rational, is a^b a transcendental number?”

“Yes, it is a transcendental number.”

The dragon lord nodded at his quick answer. Darned little rascal, fooling around when he can do it.