Chapter 39
Sian tilted her head in confusion.
“…Oh, I see…”
The Crown Prince showed the same reaction as when Carl had whispered to Michael earlier.
Nathan didn’t convey the Crown Prince’s expression. However, from the Crown Prince’s lowered voice, Sian could tell that he had understood something from Michael’s hand signal.
What is it, what on earth is it? What exactly are these men understanding about me?
A sudden ominous feeling swept over her. Sian began glaring at Carl, but he turned his head at an odd angle, only looking at Nathan. It was an attitude that anyone could see was feigning ignorance.
There’s something going on. Sparks were about to fly from Sian’s eyes.
“The woman’s name is Sian, brother. She’s the savior who rescued me when I was on the brink of death, and a clever mercenary who’s been of great help in getting us to the temple.”
“…A female mercenary?”
As Carl introduced Sian, the Crown Prince asked with an interested tone.
“I apologize. Please continue your conversation without minding me…”
Sian bowed. For a mere mercenary to not only attend a meeting between the Crown Prince and a Prince but also to interject into their conversation carelessly, she would have no defense if a roar of anger erupted.
However, the Crown Prince’s response exceeded Sian’s expectations.
“Why did you have such a particular reaction to the mention of dragon hunters, Lady Sian?”
“Since when did she become ‘Lady Sian,’ brother?”
Carl interjected sulkily, interrupting what was almost a kind, gentle form of address, far from anger.
“She’s a woman, so ‘Lady,’ her name is Sian, so ‘Lady Sian.’ What’s the problem?”
The Crown Prince’s answer was quite logical. Carl, having picked a needless fight, closed his mouth, having nothing to say.
Unexpected, or perhaps formidable?
Sian thought as she awkwardly scratched behind her ear.
“I understood that the lineage of dragon hunters had been cut off long ago, so I was startled to hear the Crown Prince of Igrion utter such a disrespectful existence. That’s why I inadvertently made a sound.”
Sian explained calmly with a very respectful attitude she had never shown to Carl. Carl, already irritated by the Crown Prince’s kind and friendly “Lady Sian,” became even more displeased and sulky at Sian’s polite demeanor.
“You seem to know quite a bit about dragon hunters, Lady Sian.”
“That’s not exactly the case, but…”
Her nose bridge wrinkled involuntarily. She should have pretended not to know, but hearing that word made her feel on edge with an ominous premonition.
I’ve gone and aroused more suspicion by meddling unnecessarily.
Sian glanced at Carl. He had been constantly curious about her identity, repeatedly asking if she was a dragon’s master or a defrocked priest.
“Do you know of someone called Revenant?”
Just as Sian looked at Carl, anxious that he might start probing her identity again under the guise of courting, she froze at the Crown Prince’s next words.
Revenant.
Sian’s eyes trembled at the name she had forgotten for so long.
Of course she knew. But she had to pretend not to.
However, it didn’t work.
“It seems you do know.”
As the Crown Prince spoke, Carl also looked at Sian with a grave expression.
“Who is this person?”
“It’s the one my uncle recommended for your search party. Said to be a retired dragon hunter.”
Upon hearing the Crown Prince’s answer, Carl looked at Sian again. Sian’s gaze, fixed on Nathan with tightly pressed lips, had become fiercer than he’d ever seen before.
“…A person of very bad character.”
Her expression was completely unmanageable. Sian gave up trying to pretend not to know and candidly revealed the truth.
“The Marquis recommended that person for Your Highness’s search party?”
“How do you know this person?”
“It’s not a ‘he,’ it’s a ‘she.'”
“What?”
“…Huh.”
Carl and the Crown Prince reacted almost simultaneously. Michael looked at Sian but did nothing more.
“Before… before I became a mercenary, I knew her… no, I knew that person.”
Sian continued speaking with an uncharacteristically serious face, without a trace of humor. Her voice naturally became quieter. Carl furrowed his brow at Sian’s reaction, her voice dropping as if there was something concerning her.
“Don’t tell me you were a dragon hunter?”
The dragon’s ecology she knew so well, her suspicious behaviors.
He had sufficiently suspected that she might have done work related to dragons, such as being a dragon’s master or a defrocked temple priest, but dragon hunter was a direction he hadn’t even considered.
To a dragon’s master, who is chosen by a dragon to spend a lifetime together, dragon hunters are despicable beings. Especially to the imperial family, who take pride in the glorious founding myth of the dragon.
“I swear by the name of the great founding dragon, Yggdrasil, I was not. I am not.”
“…”
Sian, having fully anticipated such suspicion, denied it more firmly than ever before. Her sharpened blue eyes revealed an unquestionably serious sincerity.
Carl closed his mouth, showing a troubled expression at Sian’s answer, which didn’t seem to be a lie. Even if Sian had been a dragon hunter in the past, it would be difficult to admit it readily in front of a dragon’s master.
Despite knowing this full well, Carl wasn’t sure if he believed the shadow that had suddenly fallen over Sian’s blue eyes because he wanted to believe her, or for some other reason.
“I found out that woman was a dragon hunter… much later. Long after we had formed a relationship. When I found out, we had a big fight and parted ways.”
Sian clicked her tongue lightly and sighed heavily as if recalling a painful memory.
“Whether you believe me or not is up to Your Highness to judge.”
I can’t help it if I’m misunderstood.
Thinking this, Sian raised her head and faced Nathan’s expressionless form head-on. Carl, pushed to the side by Sian’s gaze, twitched his eyebrow.
“…I was the one who asked, so why are you emphasizing it more strongly to someone you’ve just met?”
“Well, isn’t it because His Highness the Crown Prince is more powerful than Your Highness?”
Sian retorted as if Carl was asking something trivial. Carl’s eyes narrowed.
“…Materialist.”
“Call it a flexible personality.”
Sian ignored him. Carl, pushed to the back burner because of the Crown Prince, muttered something, his lips moving.
“Could you tell us what you know about her, Lady Sian?”
The Crown Prince, who had been silently observing the situation for a while, spoke up. He seemed to have decided to believe Sian’s words that she wasn’t a dragon hunter. The Crown Prince’s calmly settled voice was as gentle as if addressing a precious lady.
“I don’t know much. We just traveled together for a while because our goals aligned. Revenant is extremely skilled with a curved, sharp blade, and as a dragon hunter, she knows dragons very well. Where their vital points are, where to cut to kill them painfully.”
Sian was speaking calmly, recalling her memories, when suddenly another thought struck her.
…Come to think of it, that hidden blade Antonio used to stab Carl. The living dragon bone that had become hard to find even in the black market. It felt like the ends of a tangled thread were pointing in one direction.
“That woman could certainly…”
Sian unconsciously muttered seriously, her gaze fixed on the floor, lost in thought. At Sian’s murmur, Carl tilted his head.
“Sian?”
When Carl called out, Sian jerked her head up and looked at Nathan.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince. You said Idelin’s scales were found on Dragon King Elena’s corpse, right?”
“Why do you ask that again?”
“It’s ‘corpse,’ not ‘nest,’ right? By any chance, was the Dragon King’s body in a terrible state, severely mutilated?”
Sian asked with strong conviction, as if she had seen Elena’s corpse herself.
At first, Carl frowned, not understanding Sian’s intention, but then—a hunter who knows dragons’ vital points very well, a mutilated dragon corpse.
Reversing the clues Sian had asked about, Carl too quickly realized what she was suspecting. A chill ran down his spine. It felt as if the blood was draining from the top of his head.
“Surely not, Sian.”
His side began to throb with pain. Carl unconsciously grimaced, clutching the area where his wound had been. His complexion turned pale in an instant.
“Your Highness, are you alright?”
Seeing Carl’s face turn ashen in a moment, Michael stood up abruptly.
“What do you know to ask such a thing?”
“Please answer first.”
The Crown Prince, who had gently requested information from Sian earlier, now realized that she didn’t fully trust him. He was trying to gauge Sian’s thoughts without giving the answer she knew.
Sian raised her eyes, not getting caught up in this battle of wits with the Crown Prince. Although Nathan’s expression didn’t change, the heavy silence that followed made it clear that the Crown Prince was deliberating.
“Do you think it was the work of the dragon hunter called Revenant?”
After a long while, the Crown Prince posed an ambiguous question. It was a question very close to an affirmative answer.
The Crown Prince’s voice alone betrayed his perplexity, unable to shake off the question of how Sian knew about Elena’s corpse, which she hadn’t seen.
“I’m not just suspecting assassination.”
Carl bit his lip hard at Sian’s words. Michael, unaware of the situation, looked back and forth between Sian, Carl, and Nathan, his expression also turning serious.
“Some pieces of Elena’s bones will have disappeared.”
Carl finally let out a groan. The pain that had throbbed in his head when Sian had taken out the living dragon bone from the box felt vividly real.
“Surely that’s not Elena’s…”
Carl’s voice trembled greatly at the terribly horrific hypothesis. In contrast, Sian’s voice was infinitely cool and calm.
“…It seems highly likely.”
