Cail Aleret’s escape from Jella led him straight to the northern castle.

As soon as Cail arrived at the northern castle, he set up a magical barrier and hid himself thoroughly so that no one could find him.

Here, she would never be able to find him.

Even if she came all the way to the north, she wouldn’t be able to discover him hidden in the barrier and would just go back…

“Ah.”

A sudden thought made Cail let out a short exclamation.

Then his face contorted as he burst into cold laughter.

“Ahaha! Haha!”

After laughing for a while, he squinted his eyes and muttered.

“As if she would ever look for someone like me.”

What delusion had he been having?

For that brief moment when her hands held him, they felt so warm like in the old days that he momentarily deluded himself.

That she would be worried about him. That she would come looking for him…

“Having shamelessly gone against her wishes, I am nothing but a sinner…”

Cail twisted his lips painfully.

She was a kind person.

She never got angry despite his numerous mistakes.

But this time, even she wouldn’t be able to help but be angry with him.

How could she not be angry? He had saved the dragon she had wanted to eliminate by giving it his own heart.

By now, she probably knew everything—that he had gone against her wishes and made a contract with the dragon.

Having been caught committing such a grave mistake that could turn concern into anger, she must truly be furious this time.

Despite this, he felt utterly pathetic for only being concerned about showing his hideous appearance in front of her.

As if he wanted to appear as a man before her. How presumptuous.

‘But…’

Cail painfully closed his eyes tightly and then opened them as he thought.

‘How could I not care?’

Long ago, when he was her knight while she was the Emperor. Everyone said the same thing. That Her Majesty kept him by her side because she liked his face and body.

Even the Pope of the Holy Kingdom, with his broken personality, said so when they first met.

That his face and body were to her taste.

She always said he was kind and innocent, but in truth, Cail Aleret was a shrewd man with a dark interior.

While pretending otherwise, he secretly cared about this fact and wanted to remain as the person she liked most in front of her.

Despite this, contrary to people’s assumptions, he never became anything more than her loyal knight.

But now he had disobeyed her wishes and was no longer even a loyal knight, and he had shown her his once-handsome face now hideously transformed, covered in black blood vessels.

Now he truly was nothing.

He could not be anything to her.

This fact kept pushing Cail into despair.

And these emotional changes caused the residual magic accumulated in his body to act up, stirring his physical form.

Cail’s body had been harboring residual magic for a very long time.

This was also the reason he was able to accept Helasio into his body after her death.

So, long ago.

Not long after Cail Aleret had just become the Emperor’s knight…

***

After Her Majesty’s friend visited the imperial palace, the afterimage of the two people tormented Cail for quite some time. That man who casually touched her noble body…

Cail stared at her sleeping face and thought.

How could he?

How could he so casually touch that precious body?

He too, long ago, just once. On the day he first met her when she was still a princess, he had dared to touch that precious body.

Though many days had passed, the sensation from that day still lingered at his fingertips, unforgotten.

Cail unconsciously reached out his hand toward her clear cheek, just as that man had done, but suddenly flinched as if caught stealing and clenched his fist.

‘What am I doing…’

His heart sank coldly. He tightened his clenched fist.

He was supposed to protect her, yet here he was having such disrespectful thoughts.

But even while feeling self-loathing, Cail kept forgetting his duty and found himself stealing glances at her sleeping form.

The night was the only time when he could take in her image all to himself.

This fact always evoked a strange sense of fulfillment in him.

In the Emperor’s bedroom, where neither Her Majesty’s fiancé nor her longtime friend could enter, Cail guarded her through the long nights.

Even knowing that she was a strong person who didn’t need protection, he stubbornly insisted on protecting her.

The day Cail noticed the dragon parasitizing her heart was also one of those many nights he spent guarding her.

It was such a uniquely quiet and silent night that he could hear each breath of her sleeping form vividly.

Suddenly, he noticed her brow slightly furrowing at a small groan that broke the silence.

Through this very subtle change, he realized she was having a nightmare.

“Your Majesty…?”

He called her carefully, but she didn’t wake up.

He had been taught how to defend against enemy intrusions, but not how to stop nightmares.

As Cail hesitated, he noticed a black energy fluctuating near her heart.

Cail instinctively reached out his hand.

[Aaaaaaaargh!]

His thick hand snatched the fluctuating black energy.

The black energy gradually condensed into the form of a black dragon in his grasp and struggled.

“…?”

Cail’s eyes widened at the astonishing sight. After struggling for a while, the dragon glared at Cail and snapped.

[What’s this, human! How did you find me? Are you perhaps a successor of Hersha?]

“…”

Cail stared blankly at the dragon speaking incomprehensible words. Having lived as a slave traded from hand to hand since the beginning of his memories, he didn’t know what Hersha was or what a successor meant.

But one thing he did know. That this creature was causing Her Majesty pain.

As this thought crossed his mind, a cold killing intent filled Cail’s eyes.

The dragon Helasio also noticed his killing intent but scoffed lightly.

[Hmph. Give it up, human. You can’t kill me anyway… Argh!]

However, contrary to his arrogance, when Cail tightened his grip, Helasio choked and coughed painfully.

“It seems I can at least make you suffer even if I can’t kill you.”

Seeing this reaction, Cail muttered indifferently and twisted the dragon’s neck.

[Sa-save me…! Kahk, kahk, save me! Kuhuk…!]

Helasio struggled in Cail’s grip and begged for his life.

Then, when Cail loosened his grip slightly.

[Kugkh. Y-you brutal and violent man!]

Helasio, able to breathe again, quickly escaped from his grasp.

It was also the first time Helasio, who had lost his physical form and been sealed hundreds of years ago, met a successor of Hersha.

In the very distant past, now a blur in his memory, the ancient dragon Helasio had lent his blood to a dying human, and the clan in the north descended from that human was called ‘Hersha.’

They formed a kingdom in the northern lands, and among them, the direct lineage that strongly inherited Helasio’s blood was called the ‘successors.’

Beings who inherited the dragon’s blood and could sense the dragon’s existence.

If Helasio had been a more thoughtful dragon, he might have understood why Jella had found and kept a successor of Hersha by her side.

But the simple-minded Helasio was only focused on venting his anger at Cail, who had treated him so disrespectfully.

[I shared my blood with your ancestor, and yet you dare lay hands on me, showing no gratitude!]

Helasio shouted and fumed, but Cail looked at Jella’s face and asked in a stiff voice.

“Why is Her Majesty like this?”

[You insolent fellow. Do you think I’ll tell you so easily?]

“…”

At those words, Cail stared at Helasio.

And a little while later.

Helasio, with a large bump on his head, answered Cail’s question diligently in a servile voice while sobbing.

[It’s because excess magic keeps accumulating as residue. Her innate magic is too great, and with me here too…]

“Is there any way I can help her?”

[…I think someone like you could take some of it away.]

Helasio said, rolling his eyes.

[Since you’re a successor of Hersha, you can read my energy. My energy is mixed in with Jella’s magic. So you should be able to remove the residual magic from Jella’s body.]

“So, what’s the method?”

[The easiest way is through contact.]

At those words, Cail’s face stiffened with a start.