LGT Chapter 3

As soon as they arrived at Rea, the dragon, once again engulfed in mana and forcibly summoned to the royal palace, gave a cold smile. His golden eyes flickered quietly as he glared coldly at the human in the room.

“I told you to summon me only when you’ve come up with your wish, didn’t I?” The dragon looked at the prince with an indifferent expression. Being summoned again left him in a foul mood. Sensing the dragon’s irritation, Mikhail quickly spoke.

“…I’ve thought of my wish.”

“Is that so?”

Well, then. The dragon immediately let go of his anger. After all, it was he who had told him to speak once he had a wish, and the sooner he heard it and granted it, the better. The dragon slowly reclined back into the soft sofa. The tea he had been drinking was still on the table, but it had grown cold.

The dragon gently touched the smooth surface of the teapot with his slender index finger. Immediately, there was a soft hiss, and steam began to rise as the tea reheated, causing the lid of the teapot to rattle. He poured a little into his cup and brought it to his lips.

Mmm, delicious. The dragon smiled slightly.

“Go ahead. Whatever it is, I’ll grant it.”

Since he had come out for the first time in a while, the dragon decided to enjoy the occasion. Even if the prince had asked for the kingdom to be made his own, the dragon would have handed it over without a word. However, the wish the prince made was quite unusual. In all the eons the dragon had been granting human wishes, he had never heard anything like it.

“I… want to find a corpse.”

A corpse? The dragon frowned deeply, looking at the prince who sat on the sofa in front of the table, hands clenched on his knees.

“What do you need it for? No, no, I’m not interested in the purpose.”

Hmph. The Gold Dragon stared at the human before him in silence for a moment. Mikhail, having made such an odd request, calmly awaited the dragon’s response.

The dragon decided that he should educate this young human on what sort of wishes should be asked of a dragon. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the kind that came once every few hundred or thousand years. It would be a terrible waste to use such a precious chance on such a trivial matter. The dragon had both pride and responsibility regarding his power and knew far too well that it should not be spent on something like this.

Mikhail Luth Ihnath, seeing the strange expression on the Gold Dragon’s face, opened his mouth once again to explain.

“I just want to find the body and give it a proper funeral—”

The dragon responded coldly.

“I already told you I’m not interested in the purpose.”

With a brilliant flash in his golden eyes, the Gold Dragon swiftly cut the prince off.

“I suppose I’ll have to remind you of the scope of wishes I can grant. If you wanted to become a Sword Master, I could raise you to that level with just a wave of my hand. If you wanted this kingdom, or even this entire continent, it’s the same. You, a mere human, are being granted the golden opportunity to ask anything of this noble being, right here, right now.”

The dragon’s eyes, as if molten gold had been poured into them, burned brightly. His beauty was so overwhelming that all the precious and valuable things in the royal palace seemed to pale in comparison.

For a moment, the prince froze, stunned by the inhuman spectacle before him, and stared at the Gold Dragon.

“Is there someone you love? I can cast a spell that will make them gaze at you and only you for the rest of their life. Do you want wealth? The most in this entire continent? Then I shall fill this room with jewels and gold coins.” 

Mikhail looked down at his clenched fists.  

***

Adrian’s foolish voice echoed in his ears. The boy, who had been scouring the mountain claiming to gather herbs, called Mikhail’s name as if he’d discovered something at the edge of a cliff. When Mikhail, who had been searching elsewhere, turned his head at the sound, his eyes caught Adrian’s body slowly falling over the cliff’s edge.

Grab him. Mikhail’s body had already started running toward the cliff. Fortunately, Adrian was clinging to a crack in the cliff with a grimace. That was the only good news.

Mikhail didn’t care that his school uniform was getting dirty as he lay down at the edge of the cliff. Forcing a smile to reassure Adrian, he stretched his arm out as far as he could. Though it didn’t seem close enough, if he could just grab his hand, he would be able to pull him up.

“Grab my hand!” Mikhail shouted. Adrian, hanging at the cliff’s edge, stared blankly at the outstretched hand. 

“Grab it!” 

Sweating profusely, Mikhail lowered his arm even further, trying desperately to grasp Adrian’s hand. He moved his fingers as close as possible, but they didn’t reach. Adrian Heather’s fine blonde hair fluttered in the wind, revealing his pale forehead and sharp nose. 

Adrian’s expression was now visible. He was smiling slightly as he looked up at Mikhail. At that moment, Mikhail felt the blood drain from his entire body.

“…Adrian?”

And then, Adrian lightly let go of the hands that had been gripping the edge of the cliff. 

***

The dragon was a legendary creature, one that only appeared in the founding myths of the Kingdom of Lusstavaran. Every citizen of the kingdom had grown up hearing tales of the dragon that steadfastly protected their land. As a member of the royal family, Mikhail had been even more exposed to the legends and stories of the dragon—each filled with both cruelty and beauty.

For this reason, the prince now sat upright on the sofa in the drawing room, suppressing the trembling of his clenched fists on his knees. Yet, despite his fear, his resolve remained unbroken.

“I don’t need them.”

Mikhail suddenly lifted his head. What did he say? Ignoring the dragon’s displeased expression, the prince continued.

“I can achieve everything you’ve mentioned with my own strength. And… I don’t want to obtain something so precious with just a wish.”

With that, the prince slammed his clenched fist down on the table in the drawing room with a loud bang. The dragon, watching this display, thought, How dare he? Yet, curious about the prince’s story, he refrained from showing his anger.

“My wish is to find the body of Adrian Heather. There is no other wish.”

Hearing Mikhail’s specific request, the dragon lowered his stunning golden eyes and took a sip of tea. The temperature was just right.

He hesitated. Adrian’s body didn’t exist on this continent. It was within the “impossible” realm, something the dragon had deliberately left out of the scope of the wish. Everything that existed in the world belonged to the dragon and was under his control, but things that didn’t exist were beyond his abilities.

This meant that the dragon couldn’t grant wishes for things that didn’t exist on the continent. For example, bringing the dead back to life, inventing a technology even the dragon didn’t know, or, as in this case, searching for the gaze of someone who wasn’t dead.

I wonder if the mandrake I planted in my lair has fully grown by now?

Of course, there was a way to bypass this.

“You’ll regret it,” the dragon said, placing his teacup down with a soft clink. Mikhail responded immediately, “No, I won’t,” with a determined look in his eyes.

“After his death… I sent soldiers to comb every inch of the forest, including the cliff. Every rock, every tree, every blade of grass. I even brought several wizards renowned for their tracking skills. Yet, we couldn’t find a single trace of Adrian—not his footprints, not even a drop of his blood. It was as if he had never existed in this world.”

Of course not. No human could track the dragon’s teleportation magic. The dragon inwardly groaned. Never before had a human pursued him so blindly in any of his past games. In all the games the dragon had played with humans, those who had been caught up in the dragon’s machinations—though deeply saddened by their losses—eventually moved on. 

But that was all. No matter how long they grieved, humans always kept walking forward. The existence of the dragon became a faint, almost forgotten memory in their short lives.

The dragon closed his eyes and began to draw upon his power. His golden hair slowly lifted, and the clothes he wore billowed in the warm breeze he summoned. Golden wisps of light swirled around him, embracing his body and flowing with an almost fluid grace. His golden eyes, now glowing as brightly as two moons, flickered as he stared into the distance.

With a soft whoosh, his hair settled back, and his once-distant gaze now focused on the prince.

“The contract is sealed. We depart immediately.”

“…Have you found him?” Mikhail placed both palms on the table and leaned forward, anticipation radiating from him.

Ha, the dragon chuckled softly, calming the prince.

“You’re impatient. Everything has its procedure,” he said. In truth, there was no such procedure. That was just a distraction. The dragon needed more time—about a month—for the mandrake in his lair to fully mature. Until then, he was willing to humor this child’s little game.

“So, where do we go?” the prince muttered quietly, as if unable to contain the question, now that he finally believed he might find what he was looking for.

“To the cliff where the human fell,” the dragon replied.

The prince’s face tightened, as if to say, I knew it, and with a determined expression, he nodded firmly.