Chapter 326

[The situation isn't as complicated as you might think, so there's no need to worry overmuch.]

Minerva's voice came through to me sounding even more relaxed than usual, cutting through my bewilderment.

She told me not to panic, soothing me, and then offered some practical advice.

[Still, just to be safe, it would be best to put the question plainly to the past me. What you'll want to ask is….]

"…So you're saying you can't turn back into a human at all? Can you walk me through what's going on?"

She blinked at the question and gave her answer.

[Mm. It seems much like when I was in human form before — I yearned to return to my true shape and simply couldn't. And on top of that, I never understood why I'd taken on a human form to begin with, or how….]

"Mm."

[I see how it is.]

At that, the Minerva inside me let out a small sigh.

[This is going to be a touch embarrassing to admit, but there's no helping it — without saying it, the explanation won't make sense.]

[That this world is the past I remember and yet also another world — that much I needn't spell out for you. Just as a scar appeared on my horn where there had never been one before, events that occur in this world affect us across time as well.]

Right around that point, I caught onto something — she wasn't actually relaxed at all.

She was deliberately slowing her words, drawing her breaths out, calming herself down. Like someone trying to rein in agitation.

[And it seems the effect hasn't been limited to my horn.]

I asked what she meant, and she answered.

[The way the past me looks at you is plainly different now from before. More than it used to be… how should I put it… yes — more openly so, more honest with her instincts.]

She kept her voice even as she went on.

[I suspect the past me has come to feel something for you sooner than she did originally. And that's why the influence is reaching all the way to me.]

What?

[I'm having trouble keeping my own emotions in check.]

Trouble keeping her emotions in check.

I flinched in spite of myself, and she gave a small laugh at my reaction.

[Don't go fretting over it. I'm not the same kind of being as a human — reining in my emotions and steadying my own heart is no real trouble at all. I'd thought there was no need, so I'd seldom actually done so, but if it's serious enough to affect my thinking and behavior to this degree, that's another matter. It won't take long, either. …So there's no need to worry.]

"Wait — what are you—"

[Hm? What are you, what? Surely you don't mean to question me?]

The past Minerva latched onto what had slipped out of me, sharp as anything.

[…You aren't telling me you doubt my word, are you? Are you saying this Minerva would deal in falsehoods with a mere human?]

This was going to make me lose my mind, seriously.

Calming her down had to come first.

"No, that's not what I meant. It isn't that I don't believe you, Minerva — I just wasn't expecting any of this, so I was trying to figure out what to do next."

The low growl rolling in her throat died down at once.

She swallowed the sound back and nodded.

[Mm, true enough. Caught off guard as I am, it stands to reason you would be too.]

"…Yeah, thanks for understanding."

Thankfully, my excuse seemed to settle her well enough.

In hindsight, the way she'd suddenly bristled almost felt like a deliberate tactic to make me shut my mouth — but that wasn't what mattered right now.

Minerva, you really are all right?

[Of course. When have I ever given you anything but the truth?]

The lingering smile in her voice was meant to put me at ease, and I just nodded quietly, as if to say I understood.

[Right. Let's pick up where we left off, then. Where had we gotten to? Mm….]

You'd just said the past you is moving faster than your original timeline.

[Ah, yes. That was it. Let's go on. There are any number of reasons the past me might have come to hold you in her heart sooner than before.]

[The fact that you're so strong that even in a contest where our lives are on the line, it is even.]

[The fact that I was looked after, when I lost my power and turned human.]

[The fact that we joined hands against Venus and Juno and fought side by side.]

[…And the fact that she saw you transformed into a dragon.]

The dragon thing? What about it?

The earlier reasons made sense well enough, but the last one wasn't quite landing for me.

I might have brushed past it as nothing in particular, except that the small hesitation she'd given right before saying it caught at me.

[Mm.]

She paused for a beat, then cleared her throat.

[Don't take this the wrong way. I'm not sure whether I ever told you this before… but from my standpoint, the form you took could be called a strikingly fresh, young dragon.]

I nodded at her explanation.

It came back to me — she'd told me before that the form I'd taken was somewhere around a hatchling just crossing over into a fully-grown dragon.

[And whether you realize it or not, your form is exceedingly, exceedingly attractive.]

She underscored it again.

[Exceedingly.]

"Uh…."

All I could do was nod, vaguely uncomfortable.

While I was still trying to find my footing, Sbeungali — who'd been quiet for a while — slid in a joke.

[Well then, why not try a little honey trap and seduce her?]

I was about to snap at him to cut the nonsense when Minerva answered in dead earnest.

[Do that and there'll be real trouble, so don't.]

It was rare to see Sbeungali so thrown that he shut his mouth right away.

She picked up without missing a beat.

[In any case, by the looks of it, the past me is plainly running some petty little scheme. She'd been thinking she had a long stretch of time with you ahead, and then out of nowhere you said the whole business could be wrapped up in under a week. That's why she came out with something so unlike her.]

She let out a small laugh, as if she found it endearing.

[There's no need to humor her. A stubborn child needs both the carrot and the stick, after all.]

"…All right, Minerva, let's try this."

Half-believing her, I went along with it and repeated what she whispered to me.

"The closest one to us is where Venus is. If we push, finishing the preparations to get there takes three days; at an easy pace, a week is plenty. Su-yeong and I need a bunch of small things, starting with provisions. And that region is supposed to be sweltering and humid, so we'll need to pick up different clothes too."

[Mm, of course. The human body I lived in really was sensitive to changes in temperature.]

…Can I really say this out loud?

I'd hesitated, but the certainty in Minerva's reply was what finally got me to say it.

"So — if you can't turn human again within that week, Minerva… for now, Su-yeong and I will head out to deal with Venus on our own first."

[…I beg your pardon?]

She turned and stared at me, as if certain she must have misheard.

For a single instant, her scarlet eyes flashed a deeper crimson.

[Are you, this very moment, telling me you mean to leave me behind?]

"Don't take it the wrong way, Minerva. It absolutely isn't that you'd be a hassle."

The massive dragon just looked at me in silence, as if waiting for me to explain myself.

The faint sound of her breathing carried unusually clear.

"Think about it — when you became human, the toll on you was really brutal, wasn't it? Who's to say the same thing wouldn't happen if you turned human a second time? And if that's how it played out, neither Su-yeong nor I would be able to look you in the eye."

[Well, yes, but….]

"It's not that you'd be a hassle. But like you said yourself a moment ago — if I pushed you to come when you shouldn't, you'd be the one suffering for it. There's the human-settlements problem too. And… honestly, the more I think about it, the more it feels like you keep getting dragged into hardship because of me. That's the very thing you hate most, isn't it? Getting caught up in someone else's affairs."

[……]

"For that one week, Su-yeong and I will work hard on figuring out a way ourselves too. Last time it only took ten days, so we might find an answer even faster this time."

Minerva said nothing.

She stared at me for a long while, then slowly lowered her head and drew herself into a curl.

[…Do as you please.]

She muttered it without any strength behind the words, and gave a low, sullen growl.

[I intend to take some sleep, so don't disturb me. Not for any reason.]

There was no way to read it as anything other than her sulking, and a wry smile crept onto my face in spite of myself.

The Minerva in my shadow just clicked her tongue, as if she found the whole thing ridiculous.

[Smaller-minded than a wyvern. The title of worst of the Seven Calamities must be weeping.]

She muttered the lament, then said with finality:

[At any rate, now that you've put it like that, she'll turn human again just to come along. She turned human and couldn't turn back in the first place purely because of her own state of mind, so there's nothing more to worry about. She'll likely manage it soon enough.]

I nodded and started walking.

What I'd said about needing preparations for a long journey hadn't been a lie.

With the nearest village left a wreck by the earlier fight with Venus and Juno, we'd have to go a much greater distance for supplies.

"Oh — Minerva, on that note."

Once we'd put some distance behind us, a thought struck me and I asked her.

"You said you were reining in your emotions and steadying your heart yourself. That you'd be back to normal soon, so I shouldn't worry."

[Yes, that's what I said.]

"Mind if I ask what exactly it is you're steadying?"

She answered as if it were nothing in particular.

[When I look at you, all sorts of urges rise in me. The two strongest are these.]

"Two of them?"

[Yes.]

Honestly, after going through situations like Ye-seul's, I was prepared to take whatever she said in stride.

I really, really was.

[First and foremost, I want to mate with you.]

"Cough—"

The sheer bluntness of it caught in my throat and made me choke.

Before I could even get clear of the shock, she went on in that same unbothered tone.

[And when I look at you, I'm overtaken by a maddening hunger.]

"……"

While I was still at a loss for words, she murmured it again.

[Yes. I'm dreadfully hungry. Even though there's no reason I ought to be.]

"…That whole steadying your heart thing. Please — see it through, properly."

It was all I could think to ask, in complete earnest.

"My — my lord… my master…."

Tears of blood streaming from both eyes, Landschi looked down at the small child cradled in his arms.

After being swept up in the breath that had erupted from the mouths of those two loathsome dragons, he had spent days searching like a man possessed before finally finding his master, and even through the tears of blood, he couldn't hide his joy.

The child — whose face held only holes where features should have been — worked his mouth open and got the words out with great effort.

"Those — damned… things… I'll kill, every last one of them…."

"Yes, of course you must. The ones who reduced you to this — I, Landschi, shall slaughter every last one of them."

Cradling Milited against his chest, Landschi rose carefully to his feet.

Off to one side, the hearts his master would use to recover his vital strength were heaped up — quite literally a mountain of them.

"First, please — see to your sacred body, my lord."

Without so much as an answer, Milited hurled himself at the pile of hearts and began tearing into them.

A sound like insects gnawing through wood rang out, and not long after, smeared head to foot in blood and filth, Milited had managed to claw his way back into something like his proper form.

"Krgh — the rest of them… how did they fare?"

He'd taken on only the rough outline of a shape, and he kept tearing into hearts and chewing them down as he asked.

Bowed low to the ground in deepest deference, Landschi listed off the losses Minerva had inflicted.

"That bitch ought to be torn limb from limb — did exactly as she pleased. Worthless slut, bewitched by a human."

Milited spat out the chunk of meat he'd been chewing and muttered in a voice savage enough to draw blood.

Through his head, an endless procession of agonies he meant to visit on Minerva, Yu Ji-hyeok, and Han Su-yeong was rolling past, one after the next.

"We need to bring Venus and Juno together. And find Margo, too. Hint to him that he might be next on the chopping block himself, and he'll come scurrying out fast enough."

"Yes."

"Sbeungali… he was sealed away, wasn't he? Then we'll need to wake him quickly too."

With some measure of his strength recovered, he gave a small, leering smile.

"Arrogant little things — no matter how strong they think they are, what could they possibly do against five Seven Calamities…? Just you wait. I'll hack off the limbs of both that man and that woman, and throw them in a pigsty. And later I'll have them stuffed and mounted, kept on display as objects of ridicule for ages to come… Minerva — that bitch's skull I'll hang in the banquet hall, and…?"

Mid-sentence, Milited heaved and threw up something tangled up with the meat he'd been chewing.

"Mm, I'm afraid that won't do."

"What—!?"

The instant he saw the arm jutting out of his own belly, Milited recoiled in horror and tried to twist away — only for a hand to clamp over his mouth and lift him bodily into the air.

"Khrk — Landschi…! What are you doing!"

He thrashed and screamed in desperation, but only silence came back.

At some point, Ahriman had taken on Landschi's form, and was looking down at him.

"That kind of move, I cannot permit, Milited. Gather Margo, wake Sbeungali — no. That won't do."

"Khh — ahh…!!!"

Nowhere near full strength yet, Milited let out an agonized scream and began to plead.

"All right — all right! I'll do whatever you say! So please… let me down!"

But Milited's pleading drew no response from Ahriman at all.

It only began to work the hand it had buried in his belly, swirling it around.

"You — you…!"

"To be honest, I'd grown thoroughly sick of cleaning up the snarled-up mess that time and balance have become."

Ahriman said it almost like a sigh, in a heavy, melancholy voice.

It still wore the form of the man who served as Milited's closest retainer.

"And if you go pulling something like this on top of it all, picking up the pieces becomes truly difficult, Milited."

"Aaaahh…!"

"It's about time to put this whole situation in order, Milited. Almost there now."

Ahriman slowly began to draw the hand out of his belly.

Clutched in its hand was a piece of Milited.

Enough to send Yu Ji-hyeok and Han Su-yeong back to their proper time, and enough besides to give Yu Ji-hyeok the power of Milited.

"You — don't tell me…!"

"I can't let someone like you ruin the work, Milited. The time has come now."

"No — you can't do this…!"

An ominous foreboding ran through Milited and he shuddered, while Ahriman only murmured quietly.

The voice was as melancholy as ever.

"It's also about time for one of the Seven Calamities walking this era to be culled, my kin."