Chapter 10
After confirming that the surroundings had quieted down, Claude opened his mouth.
“You’re quite good at playing along. You could be on stage.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
“Of course, it’s a compliment.”
Claude tilted his head and smiled.
“By the way, are you alright?”
“Yes?”
“Your emotions seem quite deep. Especially that young man, he seemed to have an inferiority complex towards you.”
Leoni inwardly clicked her tongue at his sharp observation.
“I’m fine. He’s not the type to be brave enough to actually report it. I’m more worried that you’ll be bothered.”
“Me?”
Leoni nodded at him tilting his head.
“Didn’t the Cooperation Bureau specifically instruct you? That foreign mythical creatures shouldn’t harm imperial citizens.”
“Ah, right.”
Claude tapped his chin with his finger, a dubious expression on his face.
“There were a lot of things they told me to sign.”
All mythical creatures entering the Empire take an oath not to harm imperial citizens.
The reason such an oath is effective is because the dragon staying in the Empire is protecting it.
Simply put, it meant, “A dragon is standing right behind the Empire, so behave yourselves.”
“Honestly, it must feel like a meaningless law to a fellow dragon, but still…”
“Ah, don’t worry about that.”
Claude chuckled.
“How can I not even pretend to abide by it if I want to score points with my partner?”
“…”
“To look good to you, I can’t do things like this.”
That’s not what I meant….
Speechless, she stared at him, their eyes meeting in mid-air. A chuckle escaped Leoni’s lips.
“You’re finally smiling.”
“Ahem, ahem. Am I?”
Leoni cleared her throat as soon as she felt his pleased gaze. Claude pretended not to notice and asked,
“Was that child family?”
Family… A simple question, but awkward to answer with a straightforward yes.
“A relative. Helen’s son. He’s taken the Cooperation Bureau exam five times, and it seems he failed again this year.”
“Oh dear. Studying for a long time is a common thing, but he needs to refrain from projecting his victim complex onto others.”
So you heard everything.
Leoni, embarrassed that he had overheard her unpleasant family matters, rubbed the back of her neck.
“Then I’ll be going now.”
He had already taken off his apron and was picking up his jacket hanging by the entrance. Leoni looked at him with puzzled eyes.
“Yes? Are you leaving?”
“Yes. It’s late, so it would be rude of me to stay any longer.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he snapped his fingers. Just like in the storage room, blue flames erupted in every corner of the entrance.
Then what about the jewels?
Leoni hurriedly stopped him as he reached for the doorknob, looking as if he were about to leave.
“What about the item?”
“Next time.”
Claude answered shortly.
“We have plenty of time to see each other in the future.”
“…I’d rather not see you if possible.”
At her somewhat blunt reply, Claude shrugged and looked up.
“Even if you don’t want to see me, you’ll have to continue to do so. If you want to unravel the secrets of that room.”
“…”
“The magic circle isn’t going anywhere, so I assume you won’t run away.”
“I can’t guarantee that.”
“Is that so?”
That was it. Claude’s expression didn’t change much.
That was unexpected.
Until he mentioned taking collateral, she thought her life was over, but he was unexpectedly docile.
Leoni eyed the dragon slipping his arm into his jacket with suspicion.
‘If it were me, I would have tied you up somehow.’
There would be plenty of ways. Well, she didn’t know for sure, but maybe a curse or something.
Of course, she had no intention of actually running away. What human could escape a dragon’s grasp?
Running away was pointless. Claude must know that too.
Even considering that, he was too lenient with her.
Leoni glanced at the small window on the front door. The rain was still falling outside.
“Take this.”
Out of courtesy, she pulled out a black long umbrella from the umbrella stand and handed it to him.
“Thank you.”
Claude, taking the umbrella, smiled. Then he opened the door and slowly descended the rain-splattered stairs.
Without opening the umbrella.
“…Sir.”
“Yes?”
“Your clothes are fine.”
It was so subtle that you wouldn’t notice unless you looked closely. But clearly, tiny water droplets were bouncing off his clothes.
For a moment, she wondered if it was waterproof, but the situation was obvious.
‘Magic.’
The magic Leoni knew so far was a bit more… grand in scale. Mostly things like breathing fire or collapsing the ground, things where power was important.
But Claude’s magic was far from the magic in books.
Like when he used wind as a duster earlier, and now this delicate magic.
‘Wait a minute.’
A thought suddenly struck her.
If he could use this kind of magic, he wouldn’t have needed to enter the house in the first place, would he?
Claude, seeing Leoni’s expression, leaned on the umbrella like a cane and grinned cheekily.
“So it seems.”
This dragon?
Claude’s eyes curved softly as he looked at her dumbfounded expression.
“It was a pleasure. Please invite me again next time.”
“…I didn’t enjoy it.”
A sullen remark, born of the feeling of being tricked, popped out.
Bang!
Simultaneously, the green front door slammed shut as if it had never been open. That was the greatest act of defiance Leoni could muster.
Claude was left alone at the bottom of the stairs.
“Oh dear, how cruel.”
He stopped where he was and looked around.
The residential area, quiet late at night, was filled only with the sound of rain. Seeing the streetlight in front of the house flicker, Claude snapped his fingers.
The light, which had been blinking as if about to go out, disappeared, and the streetlight glowed softly as if nothing had happened.
He clutched the umbrella in his hand preciously and smiled faintly.
“I rather liked you.”
-
Winkelheit
Theodor Winkelheit. Who was he?
There’s a common misconception that researchers are cooped up in their rooms, solely focused on their research, but Theo was someone who spent more time outside the lab than in it.
‘Leoni, shall we go to Daddy’s lab today?’
Leoni was born when the world’s fascination with the appearance of mythical creatures had subsided a little.
Theo took his young daughter to the lab as if it were his own home.
‘Theo, what’s this? Ah, your daughter? She’s so tiny. For humans, is this about thirty years old?’
Around the time when humans and mythical creatures were just beginning to acknowledge and interact with each other.
Mythical creatures, whom ordinary people still had difficulty encountering, frequented the lab.
Leoni grew up listening to all sorts of fascinating stories there.
Legends about mythical creatures, recent academic trends, and the ideal direction for humanity, and so on.
It was a difficult story for an eight-year-old to understand, but Leoni loved spending time with her father.
Therefore, Leoni’s feelings towards Theo were complicated.
Sometimes he was a father to be proud of, and at other times, he was a criminal condemned by everyone. He was the one who plunged her life into ruin in an instant, and at the same time, one of her few sources of pride.
Until just three days ago.
“Crazy.”
Leoni, who was organizing documents alone in the archives, banged her head against the wall.
Crazy criminal. Crazy father!
“Crazy, Theodor Winkelheit!”
I won’t let you get away with this. No, wait, even if I don’t let him get away with it, what can I do?
He’s already dead. No matter how hard she tried, there was no way to defeat a dead person.
Leoni trembled, unable to control her rising anger.
Not only did he borrow something from a dragon, but he used her as collateral.
‘Dragons cherish their treasures. You have to be careful not only about touching them, but even looking at them.’
Was that something a father who said such things would do?
‘Not only did he borrow something, but he used me, his daughter, as collateral?’
She thought the stupidest thing Theo did was cause a dragon’s death, but she didn’t know there was something even more shocking waiting for her.
The reason was obvious.
‘It must have been for research purposes.’
She knew that Theo sometimes went a little crazy when it came to research, but she didn’t know he would even sell his daughter.
Leoni sighed.
“Where am I supposed to find the lost item…?”
She was at a loss as to where to begin.
The only possibility was the secret space she found in Theo’s room.
‘I think I need to break through that wall first. To undo the magic, I have to ask a mythical creature.’
Which meant it would cost a fortune.
Just as Leoni inserted the last document, a sigh mixed with a complaint escaped her lips.
“What on earth were you doing outside?”
“I think that’s the question I should be asking.”
A long shadow fell on the bookshelf opposite her. Leoni flinched and recoiled.
“Henricks…”
Turning around to check who it was, she saw a familiar face, as expected.
“You left early on Friday.”
As always, his neatly styled silver hair, not a strand out of place, caught her eye first. Then, his spotless, transparent glasses.
His obsessive personality was evident in his crisp shirt, which looked brand new, and the buttons fastened all the way up to his neck.
Henricks lowered his long eyelashes and asked,
“Did you have somewhere to be?”
“Yes?”
She thought she had misheard, but she hadn’t. He was pointing out that Leoni had left work earlier than him on Friday.
‘He didn’t usually care about things like that, did he?’
Henricks was fastidious, but only when it came to work.
Counting the spaces between letters, nagging about following formats. Silently mocking her if she asked questions already in the manual.
At least as long as she did her work, he didn’t nitpick about other things.
But he’s nagging her about leaving work earlier than him?
Leoni’s lips twisted wryly.
“Yes, that’s what happened. Because I finished all my work.”
“Is that so.”
Contrary to her expectation that he would frown, Henricks simply nodded calmly.
A few seconds of silence followed.
‘What?’
Her head was already bursting with complications.
It was always like this.
Whenever he happened to make eye contact with her, he would frown as if in disgust. As if he had encountered something dirty.
“Um, Henricks.”
She didn’t want to talk to him, but she couldn’t just stand there facing him forever.
“Do you have anything else to say? If not, could you please move?”
“Ah.”
The broad chest blocking her way flinched. Only then did he open his mouth.
“Did you, by any chance, yesterday…”
Leoni immediately noticed the difference. Low and cool, but not as sharp as usual.
“Yesterday, that is…”
“Yes? I can’t hear you well.”
Because of his uncharacteristic hesitation, his voice was hard to hear. Unable to bear it any longer, Leoni took a step closer.
“….!”
At that moment, Henricks flinched and backed away. He even covered his nose with the back of his hand.
Leoni was dumbfounded.
