## Chapter 318 – The Monarch of Monsters (20)
“Your Majesty…?”
“There’s one last place I need to go.
You all should leave first.
Take Yui with you.”
To the question from a Henia who was waiting for her when she returned to the lobby, Vivian brushed her off, doing her best to maintain a calm voice.
“We… we shall obey…”
The Henia, now aware that Lily hadn’t returned with her, wore a look of pity before leaving Vivian with those brief words and retreating.
Now that her orders had been delivered, all the Henias would evacuate from Floraz and return to the Enic nest in the Academy through the pre-made secret tunnel.
But before that, Vivian had one last thing to do. She trudged through the now-empty Floraz, everyone else having already left, and walked forward with heavy steps.
She descended the stairs leading to the underground warehouse, passing the abandoned supply boxes piled here and there.
And then, Vivian arrived in front of a wall that seemed impossible for anyone to open.
‘Candlestick…’
As she fiddled with the candlestick attached to the wall, it clicked and rotated, revealing a hidden secret door.
“Have you been doing well…?”
Vivian’s expression briefly brightened as she discovered her beloved baby, the second newborn Enic, inside. But soon, her expression froze in incomprehension.
It was because of a presence quietly watching the Enic beside it.
“Greta… you…”
An enigmatic expression, as if she wasn’t thinking about anything.
Or perhaps an expression that suggested she was thinking too deeply about something.
Vivian, suppressing the sudden chill that ran down her spine at the sight of Greta quietly observing the Enic, approached her and grabbed her arm.
“Why are you here…?
What about the Henias…?
More importantly, how…
How did you get in here…?”
“Human.”
A clear yet chillingly cold voice.
“Enic.”
Although there seemed to be no malice, nor any particular emotion, in that voice, Vivian’s hand trembled as she gripped Greta’s arm.
“Greta… I don’t understand what you’re saying…
Okay… let’s get out of here…? Let’s go out together…”
“Why together?”
This underground place was supposed to be safe, and although they might not see each other for a while, she thought they would meet again someday.
She had only come to say a temporary farewell to her baby.
“Traitor human?”
For some reason, somehow, and without knowing why, Greta’s every word, uttered in this unexpected place, caused Vivian’s expression to reveal a blank feeling, as if overwhelmed by the incomprehensible being before her.
What kind of being could make her feel so weak?
How long had it been since she, with her unique confidence and almost arrogant pride, had felt such contradictory emotions?
It was like facing ‘the world’ itself, a cosmic horror.
It was absurd to feel that from a mere young girl, but her instinct, which made it impossible to even twitch a finger, was telling her that the being before her was dangerous.
Unable to suppress the feeling of being sucked into the vertically slit pupils, the golden and orange eyes that occasionally flickered, Vivian was left speechless and slumped to the ground.
She might have felt better if she had killed Lily with her own hands.
Even if it was sad and painful, it was just a small vortex of emotion that she could control and rise above.
Now, she felt as if she had been thrown into the middle of a stormy sea, into a vast, empty universe.
“Vi… Vivian… Gre… Note…?”
“How… how do you…”
“Know. Everything. What happened. What will happen.
Vivian is… Vivian…
Grenote’s descendant…”
“Who… who are you…?”
“Saurah.”
“Saur… ah…?”
“Humans. We, call us ‘Dragons’.”
Greta’s mere whisper of a sentence.
With it, Vivian’s eyes shone brightly as if the world was turning upside down, and her body, losing control, slowly crumbled to the floor.
.
.
.
Long ago, in the distant past.
There were humans who dreamed of freedom, peace, and a comfortable life.
Humans, desperately enduring the dangerous lives given to them, continued to fight, dreaming of a dawn of hope that would come someday.
“Arise, suffering brothers and sisters.
Today we rise, and our descendants will inherit that dream.”
Countless humans threw away their lives like straw, staining the ground with their blood alongside the monsters.
The world was enriched by the plants that grew nourished by their corpses, and the animals that ate them.
But as a result, humans advanced and advanced again.
Humans, running towards a noble goal, a dream that could not be achieved in their own generation, continued to sow their blood without stopping their advance.
But the more their blood flowed, the greater the sacrifice, the more the humans who had advanced to the center of the continent seemed to hit an inevitable wall.
“We can’t go on…!! The sacrifice is too great…!!
At this rate, we won’t last another month…!!”
“Are you suggesting we abandon the mission entrusted to us…?
It is the hope entrusted to us by our ancestors…!!”
“But we can only achieve it if we are alive!!
The opponent… the opponent is a Dragon…!!
At this rate, all the warriors will die…
Who will protect the women and children?”
The ultimate barrier they faced, the supreme being threatening humanity’s survival.
Humans, facing the Dragon, could no longer bear the sacrifice.
Now, trapped in the center of the continent, unable to even return to where they came from, the storms of the world and the monsters were ruthlessly crashing down on them.
Eventually, in the wilderness where the humans, unable to move forward or backward, had settled, waiting only for the day they would die, all the stories began.
“Here’s some gruel.
I put a little more grass in it today…
Please eat this and gain some strength…”
A beautiful, blonde-haired country girl gently wiped the sweat from her face and offered a bowl of gruel. The old man tried to express his gratitude, but coughed, then gently pushed the bowl away with a bitter expression.
“Thank you, miss… cough…!!
But it would be better if you ate this…
I don’t think I have much longer…”
“I’ve already eaten.
It’ll be alright, so please don’t say things like that.”
The old man’s words, that he clearly didn’t have much longer to live, were probably true, but the girl, who insisted on offering the gruel to the old man, simply got up, gently clutching her empty stomach.
The girl left the old man’s side to do other work while he ate.
The girl, carrying a basket of laundry on her head to do the piled-up washing, headed to a small stream just over a hill.
When the girl arrived at the river and was doing her laundry in the cold water without complaint, blowing on her freezing hands.
She made eye contact with a bloodied man who appeared from the forest on the opposite side. Without realizing it, she splashed across the cold river and tore her clothes to treat him.
“…….”
Although the man didn’t say anything as he looked at her, perhaps because he had suffered so much, the girl could tell that the emotion in his eyes wasn’t just wariness and anxiety. She silently helped him, just as he was silently receiving her help.
After the first aid for the wounds was finished, the man ignited a small flame on his hand to warm her body, which was shivering from being wet after crossing the cold river.
The girl, seeing the man cupping his hands and drinking the river water as if he had come to drink, asked him a question full of curiosity.
“That’s amazing… how did you do that…?”
“……”
Although he was silent again this time, the girl smiled without any disappointment.
What matters to people is what they can do, not what they don’t do.
That’s how their first meeting went, and before they knew it, time had passed to the following week.
The girl arrived at the river again with her laundry and was washing it in the cold water when.
The man, who had appeared from the forest on the other side again, reached the river with weak steps, and the girl crossed the river again to treat his wounds.
But today, the man’s wounds seemed to have increased more than last week, and she felt pain as if her own body was wounded.
“Are you a warrior from another village…?
Fighting… it must be hard, right…?”
The girl, who had heard that the direction the man was coming from was the site of recent fierce battles, stroked the man’s wounds as if she knew.
But the man, who didn’t even wince and just stared at the girl, nodded as if responding to her words for the first time.
The girl, overjoyed, shared the gruel and some alcohol she had brought just in case.
Sitting around a bonfire that the man had summoned from the air. For a while, a time of one-sided questions and nods, sometimes shakes of the head, continued.
When that time was over, the beautiful and kind girl, who always wore a pretty smile, showed a dark expression for the first time and sent him off into the dark forest on the other side.
Even when she returned to the village and spent a peaceful time with her family, a subtle emotion, as if weighed down by a heaviness in her heart, dominated her mind.
“That guy is so tough…
I almost got bloodied for touching him wrong, you know?
I almost didn’t make it back alive today…
But somehow, I made it back like this!!”
“I’m glad you came back safely, honey…
But you should have seen how well our daughter was doing…
We should have her married off soon…
Hey, is something wrong?
Are you feeling unwell?”
No matter how many good deeds she did, even when spending a peaceful time with her family, her heart was never at ease.
“No… it’s nothing…
I’m just tired…
I’m glad you’re safe, Father.”
After that day, the girl went to the river every day with various excuses, looking for someone.
But no matter how long she waited, the person she was waiting for didn’t appear.
And finally, a week after the last time she met him.
Her life changed from that point on, and she could never go back.
“Flansina… your father… sob…”
