Chapter 3 Part 2

The sea, which should’ve been below them, was above. The sky, which should’ve been above, was beneath them.

She couldn’t look away from the stunningly inverted landscape.

“This is the Otherworld. You could call it a dragon’s nest.”

At his explanation, her gaze drifted down to the dragon’s scales beneath them.

Reflecting the glimmer of the sea, its scales sparkled like thousands of diamonds.

Melissa reached out, entranced, and brushed her fingers over them. She had expected a chill—but instead, heat and solidity flowed through her hand.

Watching the sun disappear over the flipped horizon, tears welled in her eyes.

To witness something so beautiful while everything else in her life was falling apart—

It felt like a cruel blessing.

So overwhelming that all she could do was cry.

Alexander watched her for a long time.

In those flickering blue eyes, he could still see the child who once smiled, calling a roadside weed her friend.

And now—

She had grown into a woman, touched by a quiet melancholy and sharp intelligence.

“What sadness brings your tears?” he asked suddenly.

Melissa turned to look at him.

Golden eyes tilted close—so close they were nearly touching.

His irises caught the light from all sides, glittering like dragon scales.

But like the dragons, behind their beauty lay something dim and somber, casting a faint shadow in their depths.

He saw tears and mistook them only for sadness.

Was that what made her feel pity for him?

Melissa realized it then.

She had been feeling sympathy for all the darkness within him.

How presumptuous.

In a voice barely louder than a breath, he whispered,

“Shall I comfort you?”

She froze.

He’d said shall I comfort you,

but somehow—

it felt like please comfort me.

The moment his breath brushed against her lips stretched like eternity.

Her heart pounded.

Just as their eyes met above lips that were drawing dangerously close—

“I don’t need it!”

Her voice shot out like a crack.

She pushed him away.

He reeled slightly, and the earring dangling from his ear swung with the movement, catching the light.

Melissa clutched her chest, still thudding wildly, and stared down at the dragon scales beneath them.

Even in that moment, she couldn’t help worrying if her voice had come out too harsh.

“…If you ever do need comfort, just say the word,” Alexander said with a soft smile.

“You’ve always been alone, haven’t you?”

“…”

“If you ask me for comfort, I won’t refuse you.”

Before she left for the capital—

long ago, when everything still felt so distant—

Melissa had once approached him and spoken first.

“It’s late, but… congratulations on mastering the dragons.”

Even though she’d accomplished nothing herself, her eyes still glowed faintly with the same hope from her childhood.

It grated on him.

But now—

She no longer smiled.

Perhaps she’d grown enough to recognize unhappiness.

A hostage with a cheerful face would’ve been too foolish to even consider worthy of attention.

“You don’t smile anymore, I see.”

The sudden sarcasm had been meant to wound—to leave a scar right there in her wide eyes.

He couldn’t even say for certain why he’d said it.

But maybe… maybe it was because even as a knight, he felt this anxious.

And yet this girl, with nothing to her name, still looked a little too happy.

Still stood there—too upright, too pretty.

It was sickening.

“I’m sorry… I was so, so arrogant. Please forgive me.”

Just as he’d intended, the girl had taken the hit.

But before long, with eyes still shining, she said again:

“But I still think about my grandfather all the time. Because I know I’ll see him again someday. I still imagine turning into a bird, too. With wings… I’d go anywhere I want.”

He’d meant to taunt her for no longer smiling, and yet she’d smiled even more radiantly in return.

He thought, honestly, she was absurd. Utterly unreasonable.

So each time he visited the manor, he’d ignored her, choosing instead to observe her descent into despair.

It was a nasty habit.

He knew that.

It wasn’t even that he enjoyed it—but he couldn’t stop.

When Melissa teetered atop the dragon, he snapped out of his thoughts and reached out to hold her waist.

“I’ll help you keep your balance.”

She tried to wriggle away at first, but with just a little persuasion, she quickly relented.

Holding her close, he thought:

They’d stayed in this other world too long.

It was something he would have had to show her eventually, yes.

But not yet.

Truthfully, it felt more like he had seen far more of her than she had of him.

It was time to return.

As he gently lifted her body in his arms, he mused dryly to himself,

‘So you are afraid.’

When he reached into the air again, the open portal reappeared before them.

The dragon still in flight, they were carried seamlessly back through the gate.

In the blink of an eye, they were once again in the bedroom.

He hadn’t let go of her yet.

And in a breath, he said,

“I said I’d see how desperate you were, not that I’d let you go if you jumped.”

“…What?”

She looked indignant.

Ah, so you do make that kind of face, he thought, chuckling softly.

“A festival will be held soon. The hunting grounds will be open too. If you catch even one rabbit or something there…”

“…”

“I may consider reevaluating things.”

Without hesitation, he stepped back. Then, just as before, he pressed a kiss to her cheek and vanished with a word for her to rest.

Melissa remained there, simply rubbing her own wrist.

She couldn’t shake the thought that he was far more willful than she had imagined.

Truly—absolutely—willful.

***

After stirring things up and going off as he pleased, Alexander didn’t show himself again for nearly ten days.

“He can count the number of days he actually works in the study on one hand. He’s all about fieldwork. Not just the land—he’s got the skies to manage too, remember?”

Boris often grumbled like this unprompted, most of it amounting to complaints about Alexander. It was as though he wanted Melissa to hate the man, constantly throwing jabs at him.

Melissa didn’t particularly mind it.

She could tune out the griping easily enough—and somehow, there was an odd familiarity in Boris’s grumbles.

After exploring the estate a fair bit, she began frequenting the annex library.

Of course, even in the library, Boris’s criticisms of his master didn’t let up.

“Truth is, the Lord has absolutely no interest in books. It’s in his nature… Unless it’s about tactics or military theory, he won’t go near it.”

So he does read something, then.

Yet Boris seemed determined to dig out flaws no matter what.

“Sir, that’s a bit harsh,” Melissa gently rebuked, only to frown as she picked up a stack of papers titled ‘Dam Construction and Water Supply Efficiency in Arid Regions Using Half-Dragons’.

Wasn’t this a book?

“And what about buying up loads of books just to show off, even if he doesn’t read them? You should see how giddy the scholars get—it’s enough to make your blood boil.”

Boris clearly didn’t have a great relationship with the scholars. He shook his head with a clenched jaw.

“He spares no expense when it comes to showing off, and he treats your body like a tradable item. He’s shallow to the bone. Utterly the worst.”

“…Would you say he’s like that in romantic relationships as well?”

Melissa asked as if it were nothing, but she couldn’t stop the tremble in her voice.

“Romantic relationships, huh…”

Boris hesitated a moment, unsure how to answer. His lord certainly treated people like rags when it suited him, but only in attitude. The moment things even hinted at getting serious, he’d always retreat with a smirk, taking only what benefited him.

‘There’s not a single damn thing I like about him,’ Boris thought, settling on a vague response.

“He’s not what you’d call earnest.”

“…”

“Doesn’t seem to have any intention of marriage either. Says he’ll conquer land first, then adopt an heir later.”

“Isn’t marriage the most peaceful way to gain land?”

“Because what he wants isn’t just an alliance.”

Alexander Bergritz, once loyal to House Bergritz, now sought to be the undisputed ruler of lands that had since declared their independence. That was why he aggressively waged territorial wars.

‘So it’s not just me he acts that way toward…’

Melissa swallowed a sigh.

He was tempting her because he needed something.

Looking back, there had never been a shortage of people—men or women—around him.

She had no right to feel this bitter, but somehow, she did.

Ashamed of herself, she let out a dry laugh and reached a conclusion:

She couldn’t trust him.

To put it bluntly, aside from that childhood encounter, there wasn’t much between them.

And her feelings for him weren’t a good enough reason to place her trust in him.

Nothing had changed.

She still had to find and kill the dragon.

Her hands trembled just thinking about it.

But just the thought that Bright held her grandfather’s life by the throat was enough to make her impatient.

No, actually, the true root of that impatience lay deeper.

“If you ever need help, just say the word.”

Because no one had ever spoken so gently to her before.

“You’ve been alone all this time, haven’t you.”

That look in his eyes, the one that seemed to understand—it kept flashing back to her.

That was the reason she was shaken.

She tried to pull herself together.

And to do that, first…

‘I need time alone.’

The day she touched the dragon, Melissa had definitely felt something strange.

A sensation not quite like the magic Bright had used, but still eerily similar.

When Alexander opened the portal again to return, there had even been a sharp pain that surged up from her hand.

‘Remember this feeling.’

‘My spell will help you.’

Just as Bright had said. This spell would help her.

In fact, when she had been alone in the bedchamber, she had reached into the air—just like Alexander—and tried to recall that sensation.

But all that happened was a faint glow on her hand. Nothing more.

She could feel something was missing.

“That’s not a book—it’s a thesis.”

Melissa had kept her eyes fixed on the bundle of papers she’d pulled earlier, and Boris, misunderstanding her focus, casually chimed in.

He didn’t seem to notice her trembling hands as he continued gruffly.

“It’s by that scholar Gloria. Said he was too embarrassed to show anyone, so he stashed it here after graduating the academy.”

“I’m curious.”

“Probably just full of things everyone already knows. I’ve read it. That guy’s obsessed with dragons—claimed it was about dams, but he just blabbered on about dragons the whole time.”

Boris paused mid-rant, blinking.

“But… miss, you know more about dragons than most, don’t you?”

Melissa had indeed read every dragon-related text available at the Bergritz estate, though the material had been scarce.

But how did he know that?

When Melissa looked up at him in confusion, Boris seemed to sense something off and waved a hand.

“You were always holed up in the archives, weren’t you? Even if it was just the estate, it’s still Bergritz—of course there’d be a lot about dragons.”

“Ah.”

Melissa grew shy, brushing her fingers over the spine of the thesis as if caught with something private.

“I only know a little. But when it comes to common knowledge about Tavalon, I’m still lacking. Can I read this?”

“Of course. Gloria may’ve hidden it, but if it’s in the library, it’s there to be read.”

As Boris grinned, Melissa returned a small smile and slowly began flipping through the pages.