“…What exactly do you think the Contractor’s Gem is?”

He added with a sigh.

“Janet asked me to look for you too.”

“Janet did?”

“She went to stoke the fire in your bedroom fireplace at dawn and found you missing. She asked me to find you.”

“…”

“Stop making Janet worry so much, Leah.”

“No, I was just planning to practice quietly and return before morning… But she asked you specifically to find me?”

“Janet was also the one who came running to me earlier, begging me to save you.”

“Really?”

Leah blinked at this new information, then smiled.

“Janet must trust you a lot.”

Helix looked down at her. He remembered what Janet had said before he left.

‘Please take care of Lady Leah. She pretends to be fine, but she must have been so frightened.’

Helix nodded. When he saw Leah engulfed in flames, he himself had been gripped by maddening terror—how much worse must it have been for her who experienced it directly?

‘When you’re scared, Leah, you get angry.’

Thinking about it, she had been that way since the North. Even while trembling, she would get angry and use that fury as fuel to defeat monsters and practice magic.

‘You push yourself harder, thinking if you become stronger, you’ll be less afraid.’

Helix loved this strong side of her too.

His heart raced when he saw her standing tall and enduring with her frail body, filled with the determination to face whatever came. When he thought about this woman being on his side, his heart beat even faster.

‘But you’re not just a strong person, Leah.’

The suppressed fear that remained within that strength was also lovable—how her vulnerable side would suddenly emerge, showing her tender flesh.

When he soothed and caressed those fears and anxieties, she would lower her guard only for him and entrust him with all her vulnerable sides.

‘So how can I not comfort you?’

Helix cupped Leah’s cheeks with his large hands. His warm fingers burrowed into her wet hair.

“Leah, it’s all yours.”

Leah, who had been trembling without realizing it, stopped shivering and looked up at Helix. He repeated:

“The fire magic and the mana that forms it—it’s all yours.”

“…”

“There’s nothing to fear.”

Her lips parted, then closed again. Helix waited patiently. When her lips finally opened again after a while, they were trembling.

“…He said he would destroy me with what he gave me.”

“He will never be able to do that again.”

At Helix’s assertion, Leah asked, “Why? Because you’ve regained your Guardian powers and filled me with different mana?”

“That’s part of it… but not all. From the beginning, that dragon was being unreasonable.”

“Unreasonable?”

“Yes.”

Helix explained.

Drawing magic from dragon mana was Leah’s ability and effort. Claiming ownership of both the blossomed magic and the mage who wields it just because he provided mana was an outdated notion from ancient times when dragons selected humans they liked and created them as mages from start to finish.

“So how should I explain this…”

After pondering, Helix summarized:

“It’s like someone randomly giving you one gold coin and then coming back much later demanding all your assets.”

***

Money analogies really did help people understand perfectly. Leah immediately got it.

“That Imperial Prince is nothing but a loan shark thug!”

Helix chuckled at her conclusion.

“A lizard, a loan shark, and a thug? The dragon’s reputation would weep.”

“It’s his own fault for tarnishing that reputation. If he had just been cute and nice like our Chirpy, he wouldn’t be treated this way.”

“…I’m not sure Chirpy is nice.”

“But he’s cute, right?”

“I’ll have to think more about that too.”

Happily wagging his tail, kwang-kwang. Silver human, did you see Leah today? She was very pretty again today. Leah gave me delicious butter cookies, but I think I dropped half of them. I was devastated—my crying face might have been a little cute.

“You know, Helix, I wasn’t too fond of being the Dragon’s Holy Maiden.”

Helix looked down at Leah, waiting for her to continue.

“Still, I should raise Chirpy properly. I can’t let him become a thug like Archaik, right?”

“Hmm… that doesn’t seem right.”

He shook his head.

“You’re too soft on Chirpy. For proper discipline, I should participate too.”

“I think you’d be too strict.”

“That’s a misunderstanding. Look at your physical strength after training with me.”

“Ouch. Attacked with facts.”

***

While bantering, Leah leaned against Helix’s shoulder and dozed off. When she opened her eyes, the dawn stars were appearing.

“Awake?”

“Yes.”

Leah rubbed her head against his shoulder before lifting it. Turning her gaze, she saw the quiet lake in the darkness.

‘The moonlight is still…’

The pale dawn moonlight reflected on the half-frozen surface, illuminating their surroundings. She turned to look at Helix.

Under the moonlight shattered across his silver hair, shadows played on his sculptured face. That face looked down at her with worried eyes.

“The wind is cold. I should have woken you earlier.”

Helix wrapped her in his cloak and lightly touched her cheek, as though gauging her temperature.

“You’ve been giving me warm mana the whole time anyway.”

“It still never seems enough.”

His large, warm hand caressed her face slowly, like touching an ice sculpture, afraid it might melt under his fingertips.

At his touch, more careful than usual, she looked up at him with clear eyes. Helix’s voice trembled slightly.

“…Earlier, I thought I was going mad.”

“…I was scared too.”

“…I know.”

Helix replied softly, embracing Leah. With her face pressed against his chest, she let out a deep sigh.

“But when I’m like this, I’m not scared.”

“I could stay like this for a day, even all day.”

“…My stamina isn’t good enough for that.”

“I can make it good enough.”

Leah laughed and pulled away from his embrace.

“It reminds me of when you first taught me magic. You kept saying things like ‘I’ll make it possible’ and ‘You’ll get it with practice.'”

“Back then, I was transferring mana to you little by little.”

“I was completely shocked just by the mana transfer, but I can see how you would have thought that amount was small.”

Leah wrinkled her nose and smiled.

“Earlier when you opened your Guardian powers to me? I feel much stronger now.”

She extended her right hand toward the lake. She felt certain.

‘Even my wind magic was much stronger and more effective earlier.’

Yes. This magic was hers. No matter who or how it was initially triggered, this fire magic now belonged to her and Helix who had built it together.

‘It’s mine.’

In her man’s embrace, Leah thought with conviction. Whether it was the doomed Trow or some lizard trying to take it from her, she wouldn’t let them.

Her eyes blazed with determination. Leah shouted powerfully:

“Fireball!”

Whoosh!

Even Leah herself was startled by the fire she created. The flames that ignited instantly burned blue on the ice without extinguishing.

“Wow…”

Leah quickly extinguished the flames and looked down at her hand.

“Wow, my goodness.”

Looking alternately at her hand and Helix, Leah murmured:

“Helix reassembled me with mana…”

“It’s not quite reassembly.”

Helix turned his gaze away, slightly embarrassed.

“Your body has just reached a purified state, improving mana flow and utilization. It’s about removing impurities in mana properties and balancing them.”

“Huh?”

That sounds like something with endless applications.

A thought flashed through Leah’s mind as she listened to Helix.

“Helix. If it removes impurities…”

Leah’s eyes sparkled.

“Poisons are impurities in the human body too, right?”

Helix also realized it and paused. Leah met his gaze.

“We might be able to drive out poisons or drugs from patients with a mana shower!”

Helix nodded firmly and took her hand.

“We should go to the laboratory.”

***

“…Why are you here at this hour?”

The chief physician greeted Helix and Leah with a sleepy face. The sun was just rising.

“I need to check something quickly.”

Leah said as she entered the laboratory.

“Must be quite urgent.”

A junior researcher who had been dragged out of bed grumbled to the chief physician. The physician gestured for him to be careful with his words and stepped forward.

“What do you need to check?”

“Take me to the patient in the best condition.”

The researcher was internally annoyed by Leah’s straightforward command.

‘Being a noble lady doesn’t mean she can come at the crack of dawn demanding to see patients. Is she a doctor?’

Senior researchers often said:

‘If Lady Leah Piert hadn’t been sickly, this laboratory and many of the Piert Trading Company’s medicines wouldn’t exist.’

‘Her very existence has made an enormous contribution to the medical advancement of the Kingdom of Peiren.’

But the junior researcher found such praise irritating.

‘By that logic, shouldn’t the Piert ducal family who established the laboratory to save her receive more praise?’

‘That’s true, but it was Lady Leah who proposed keeping medicine prices low and cosmetic prices high. And she worked as a cosmetic model in social circles to ensure funding for the medicine side.’

‘Aren’t you seeing her too favorably? Wasn’t that just because she wanted to be popular in social circles?’

The researcher followed Leah and Helix with a skewed perspective. He also found it annoying how closely she stayed to that tall man.

‘Isn’t everyone too generous just because she’s the ducal family’s only daughter and beautiful?’

The Herbalist Guild members seemed to respect this Helix fellow. But the researcher was also irritated by this man of unknown origins having free rein in the laboratory.

It was ridiculous how senior researchers would exclaim “Ohhh!” in shameless admiration whenever Helix touched anything.

‘And it’s not just that man.’

The researcher thought of Karai, who had settled in the laboratory. With his cheerful face, he would flatter and perform antics whenever he saw Lady Leah Piert.

‘Why on earth is someone like him in our laboratory?’