CH 73

The longer a dragon stayed in its egg, the greater its body and strength when it hatched. That being the case, Girgantia remained under the protection of his mother, even though the condition for his awakening was already met. 

The dragon lord pressed a claw to her horn. The child she had birthed in her declining years did nothing but mess about. He seemed to have entered puberty despite not even being hatched; lately, he was prone to responding to her words with nonsense, giggling in amusement.

‘And I can’t even give him a good paddling since he’s in the egg.’

The dragon lord sighed heavily, but it was then that she was struck by an idea. She went up to the egg and began writing in midair with a claw. The letters she drew came alight and drilled right into the egg.

“Eh? What’s this?”

“The fist of love.”

Startled by the sudden invasion of something bright that pulled at his wings, Girgantia began to flail about in his egg. The light pulled at each of his four wings and constricted his movements, then lashed at his back. A ferocious wave of pain washed over Girgantia, and he felt tears well up at his first experience of ‘pain’.

“Thought you’d be safe inside the egg, eh? What did I tell you would happen when you mess with me?”

“You told me I’d be dead meat, Mom. I mean, Lord.”

The dragon lord stared at her answering egg for a moment before shaking a claw as she continued, “Bear in mind, that’s what you’re going to get whenever you spout rubbish from now on.”

After that, Girgantia suffered roughly another 3,000 rounds of beatings. 

Later on, after the incident when the Dark Ages arrived, the dragon lord placed her egg in the deepest of dungeons. And thus Girgantia fell into a deep slumber. When he woke up, he could tell that not one clansman that would respond to his call remained alive.

‘May as well just sleep again,’ Girgantia thought and rolled to his other side inside the egg. Dragons could not feel sorrow at the extinction of their kin, to begin with. ‘Who could break my egg open anyway?’

Only someone as powerful as the dragon lord would be able to hatch a dragon egg, but there was no way such a being remained in these lands. So what was left to do? Nothing but to sleep. But Girgantia’s resumed lazy sleeping was interrupted; he sensed humans entering the dungeon who then took his egg out with them.

‘Touring the world while lying inside my egg wouldn’t be so bad.’ He thought.

And so he was brought faraway only for him to be hatched by the touch of a human female, and then he was born into the world. But then the woman who hatched him all of a sudden used the very spell that was once used by his mother.

‘But my mom’s dead? Didn’t I hear the humans say that her bones still remain the deepest region of the Dark Mountain Range?’

Yet the sensation of the lashing he was getting definitely belonged to his mother, which was why he had ended up involuntarily crying out, ‘Mommy, I was wrong!’

‘I can take that much, alright. But…’ Girgantia turned his head to look at the woman grabbing the end of his spell-bound body, his tail while filling her hands with a blue light. The moment that cluster of blue light exploded and swallowed up his body, he was onset by a surge of pain like he was being cooked in oil. “Gaaargh! Agh! Agh! The pain! Stop! I was wrong!”

“As expected, the same as it was written. Listen up. I’m gonna kill you today, here and now, even if I die.”

Again, the woman in a maid uniform, burning with hostility toward him, placed her hands on his body that was writhing from pain. Her every touch caused sounds like popping oil to come out from all over the dragon.

‘What is up with this one!’

As seconds passed by, however, the woman began to bleed from her mouth. I knew it. It can’t be easy for a mere human to muster the strength to reduce a dragon to this state. But the moment Girgantia resolved to hang in there just a little more…

“The Last Bang is what it is, you muuutt!”

A blindingly powerful blue light engulfed Girgantia.

* * *

The dragon was entirely enveloped in holy power.

‘Who cares if I’m found out by Estian at this point.’

The saintess gnashed her teeth. God be damned, anyone laying a hand on the male leads is fricking dead. Fricking. Dead! I’m the only one allowed to touch my boys! They’re all mine! She panted furiously. Blood was flowing from her nose before she knew it, likely due to her unsparing use of holy power. 

Girgantia wriggled like a harpooned fish until eventually, everything stopped, and the holy power dissipated as well.

“Hah… hah…”

The saintess collapsed as her vision went faint. She felt all the strength rapidly leaving her body. ‘Am I going to die like this?’

Perhaps she was. After all, she had used the power she was supposed to use in the very end—according to the novel’s plot—here instead. Moreover, the saintess had most certainly died after exerting herself in the story. 

Even as darkness encroached upon her vision, the saintess turned her head to look at Kane, who was lying down with a relaxed expression. She felt regret at the sight of his disheveled figure and seemingly sleeping face. Although the saintess had not yet seen Estian, she had met Kane and even hugged him, but to think that was all… As the saying went, something is better than nothing. If she could at least get Kane…

‘I should’ve given him a deep smooch when he fainted a while back…’

That was the saintess’s last thought as she passed out, reaching out a hand toward Kane.