Erin and Kolt were stunned at the sight of the young lady. She had a head full of pitch-black, silky hair and a gorgeous, black dress wrapped around her curvy body. Her delicate and elegant facial features were like works of art. The smile across her face brought a few touches of charm, so much so that even Kolt couldn’t help staring in a stupor. After all, this young lady was equally as beautiful as Erin. But unlike the latter’s soft, gentle, and moon-like aura, the former was more like a thorny rose in full bloom, where one couldn’t help but desire her, at the same time being worried about getting pricked by its sharp thorns.
Is that… Mr. Rhode?
Not only was Kolt bewildered, but Erin was also speechless. She sized up the ‘young lady’ before her and recognized some features of Rhode from her face. During her days in Grandia, Erin spent a lot of time with Rhode’s younger sister, so she wasn’t unfamiliar with this pair of siblings. And now, this young lady appeared to be the adult version of Rhode’s younger sister. Just that… The change of her overall charisma was too huge.
Rhode wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses that came from nowhere. His smooth and long hair spread out behind him, making him look like a smart, capable, and graceful woman. Frankly, if Erin didn’t know that Rhode had gone to prepare himself for this tea session, she definitely wouldn’t have guessed that this young lady was his disguise. While it was a bit of a stretch for protagonists in comics to turn into an entirely different person with just a pair of glasses, for Rhode to transform his charisma and aura into that of another person was totally unprecedented to Erin. But fortunately, she was mentally prepared. After being in a daze for a few seconds, she stood up, padded toward ‘Elizabeth’ to hold her hand passionately, and smiled as she spoke.
“It’s fine, Elizabeth. I was bored, anyway, so it’s fine.”
Despite not knowing who exactly this ‘Elizabeth’ in Rhode’s setting was to her in person, Erin spoke casually. She wasn’t a fool; she knew that she couldn’t possibly discuss with Rhode about his disguise right in front of Kolt. Besides, she also didn’t have a spiritual connection with him like his card spirits. That was why she could only do as he told her, at the same time figuring out his intentions. She believed that since he had done this, he must have prepared a countermeasure.
“Oh-no, you can’t say that, Erin. You have been busy all this while. Now that you finally have the time for a gathering, I don’t want to waste your time.”
‘Elizabeth’ revealed a gentle smile, extended her arm, and held Erin’s hand in return, before sitting down on the sofa intimately with her. Not only did Erin gasp in wonder at ‘Elizabeth’, but Angelina, who stood at the side, was also dumbfounded. Honestly, Angelina was stunned by Rhode once in the past. But now, she discovered that this master of hers was flawless in every way! He behaved just like Erin’s closest friend right now.
Facing the looks from Kolt and Angelina, Rhode, however, didn’t look uneasy in the slightest. It was Erin who felt a bit uncomfortable instead. Frankly, even though she knew this young lady was Rhode, the intimacy between them was, after all, the intimacy between a man and a woman. Now that the situation had turned into this… She felt a bit awkward because she wasn’t even as intimate with Lydia. And just as she was about to say something, Rhode winked at her, turned around, and looked at the man who sat across Erin.
“By the way, this is…? Are you two discussing something important?”
“He is Mr. Kolt, son of Matriarch Bronis of the night wyverns.”
Upon hearing the question, Erin gathered her thoughts and gave a serious introduction to Rhode. And after listening to her response, Rhode snorted, stretched out his fingers to push up his glasses, and scanned Kolt from head to toe. Aware of his gaze, Kolt bowed to her respectfully, not knowing who exactly this ‘Elizabeth’ who showed up all of a sudden was. But it seemed obvious that her relationship with Erin wasn’t ordinary. Although Kolt had never heard of this person being around Erin, it seemed like Elizabeth and Erin were indeed close with each other. The interactions between them were also natural as though they had known each other for a long time. Since he wanted to marry Erin, it was only right that he should be more polite to her closer friends.
“Oh? What is he doing here? By the way, Erin, I heard you lack manpower, so could it be that this fella is here to help?”
While sweeping a glance at Kolt, Rhode asked. And upon hearing his question, Erin and Angelina chuckled inwardly. Of course, they knew Kolt would be much more embarrassed after hearing this remark. After all, the night wyverns had no intention of sending troops to help Erin. And his daily trips to see Erin had nothing to do with that at all. But now that Rhode asked, Kolt had a hard time responding. If Kolt didn’t admit that he was here to help, he might piss off ‘Elizabeth’, and the gap between him and Erin might widen. But what if he admitted? Erin was a real piece of work and meanwhile, as the son of the matriarch, Kolt’s status wasn’t too low either. If he were to admit it, wouldn’t he be in trouble if Erin took his words to his mother?
“My sincere apologies. I came to discuss something else with Her Majesty Erin. It’s not for a trivial matter like that…”
“Trivial matter?”
Upon hearing Kolt’s answer, Rhode let out a grunt and stared at him with narrowed eyes.
“Erin has been busy all day working on this and you think it’s a trivial matter?”
“No, I mean…”
Faced with Rhode’s taunting, Kolt was dumbfounded and speechless. Honestly, he couldn’t figure out who this Elizabeth was. She definitely wasn’t one of the night wyverns—that he was certain of. After all, there were only so many of them, and even if they were old and dead, at the very least, they knew one another’s names. But Elizabeth was a name that he had never heard of. Despite that, he was really puzzled because he unmistakably sensed a dragon aura exuding from the young lady. This clearly explained that she was just like him: part of the dragon race. But if she wasn’t a night wyvern, which dragon race was she? Could she be a rule wyvern instead? She didn’t look like one.
“Oh, don’t make things difficult for him, Elizabeth.”
Gazing at Kolt’s embarrassed expression, Erin felt pleased. After all, this guy was really annoying. But due to his identity, she couldn’t beat him up like Lydia had suggested. At that moment, witnessing the awkward look on his face, Erin was instantly in a much better mood. The bitter and lingering annoyance that pestered her for days were wiped off cleanly. That was why she displayed a genuine smile and spoke.
“Mr. Kolt is just here to chase me. Right, Mr. Kolt?”
“Ah… Yes, that’s right.”
Upon hearing Erin’s words, Kolt finally arranged his thoughts. No matter what, he was still someone of a high identity and that was just a momentary lapse of judgment on his part. After he returned to his senses, he restored his usual calmness.
“Your Majesty Erin, I swear that I’m truly in love with…”
“Oh? For this kind of trivial matter?”
However, before Kolt finished his sentence, Rhode interrupted harshly. At that moment, Rhode crossed his arms and glared coldly at Kolt. Then, the corners of his mouth lifted into a taunting smile as he stared in disdain.
“So you’re here to chase Erin, huh… Interesting. In other words, your nest is prepared and ready for Erin’s acceptance?”
“That…!”
Upon hearing Rhode’s remarks, Kolt was flabbergasted. The expression that he struggled to restore earlier turned ashen instantly. On the other hand, Erin couldn’t help but stare at Rhode. It wasn’t that Rhode said something wrong, but he happened to mention one of the strictest and oldest traditions among the dragon race.
Dragon’s nest.
The dragon race was a female supremacist race, which was evident from the fact that most of the inheritors of the dragon soul powers were females, like the twin dragons, Erin, and Lilian, who all fell into this category. Rhode was an exception, but the root of it all was his body and soul that shared his younger sister’s power, which allowed him to inherit the power of the Void Dragon. Erin’s mother didn’t inherit the power of the dragon soul, so Ion, who stole the dragon soul power, was unable to kill her and could only imprison her in the underground prison and manipulate her as the converter of the dragon soul power. This showed just how powerful female dragons were.
However, among the dragons, it wasn’t their strength that made them the most powerful. As stated before, male dragons had a low status in the dragon race (at least relatively), and if they wanted to pursue the opposite sex, they would need to go through the trouble of preparing their nests for marriage. And for that, not only did they need to dig their nest large enough, but the nest must also be beautiful, magnificent, and have amassed enough wealth. That was why females among the dragon race occasionally roamed, while male dragons were mostly unseen. They were busy accumulating wealth.
It was just like those poor men in Rhode’s world who worked their butts off just to buy a high-rise apartment downtown and renovate it in order to be considered qualified to ask for a girl’s hand in marriage. Meanwhile, the otherworldly males weren’t much better in that regard. It was just that male humans were still luckier than male dragons. If their arrangement didn’t please the female, the worst that could happen was a breakup. It wasn’t strange at all to get a marriage certificate today and a divorce certificate tomorrow. In that high-intensity and high-paced society, even though it wasn’t a par for the course for couples to get married soon after meeting and get divorced shortly after marriage, it was still commonly seen.
Yes, the worst that could happen was just a breakup, which wasn’t really a big deal.
But for the dragon race, it was a matter of life and death.
Female dragons were extremely arrogant and picky, especially when it came to their peers. Of course, if it was another race that fell in love with a female dragon, there would be no problem. Because dragons had longevity and were near-immortal, any other race that fell in love with a dragon would die earlier than them. But it was different in the case of love between dragons because they would spend an eternal life with each other. It could also be said that once they married, the two dragons would be bound to the earth until the end of the world. And for that reason, the dragon race couldn’t be more picky when it came to settling down with a partner.
Of course, it was usually the female dragons that were entitled to pickiness.
In this context, before a male dragon built his nest and chased the target of his fancy, it was important to carefully consider whether the nest he built was to the other party’s liking. If the nest itself wasn’t to her liking, she might find the ugly, shabby nest insulting. In such cases, the female would be perfectly justified to kill the male!
That’s right; kill the male right away. Not even a trial was needed. It was an immediate death penalty.
And what left one speechless was that this kind of slaughter was a law that the dragon race recognized among themselves. In other words, even if the female killed the male, she didn’t have to take any responsibility. Because in the dragons’ mindset, if the male dragon was killed, it must be that he didn’t do a good enough job on his nest. It wasn’t the female being unreasonable. That’s right. They definitely wouldn’t recognize the concept of ‘unreasonable behavior’.
With such a ‘custom’, it wasn’t difficult to understand why the fertility rate of the dragon race was so low…
While Kolt’s pestering might seem like perseverance and ingenuity to humans, from the perspective of a dragon, he was just sending himself to his grave. He was also fortunate that Erin never agreed to his request. But what if she agreed to his marriage proposal, went to visit the nest he made, and killed him on the spot?
The night wyverns weren’t reasonable in the slightest because it was a tradition of the dragon race and one that defended females, so much so that the matriarch couldn’t refute no matter how much she loved her son. If she denied Erin’s right to kill her son, then she, the matriarch, could forget about keeping her role forever.
Kolt was bewildered because he didn’t expect this ‘Elizabeth’ to be so ruthless. He did, in fact, risk his life by chasing Erin, but it wasn’t because he was overwhelmed by love. On the contrary, he had done a thorough investigation of Erin and learned that she lived in the Country of Darkness since she was a child and never returned to the territories of the dragon race, which explained why she wasn’t knowledgeable of their customs. Not only that, but Erin was also gentle and kind, which was considered really rare (yes, really rare) among the female dragons. That was why Kolt had the audacity to keep pestering her. However, everything went well until someone threw a wrench in the works and he had to go back to the drawing board.
What surprised Erin was that Rhode was so familiar with the secret customs of the dragon race. This also explained why he showed up in the disguise of a young lady. If he had passed himself off as another man, according to the rules of the dragon race, he wasn’t allowed to speak to Erin in principle. It was the same as a slave in human society instructing a great nobleman, which was an utterly disrespectful behavior. But things were different since Rhode showed up as a female… And a female dragon at that. That was why no matter how close Lydia and Erin were, there was no way Lydia could have inserted herself into the matter as an archangel.
“Pardon me. May I know who you are? I don’t remember seeing such a beautiful young lady like yourself among the night wyverns…”
At that moment, Kolt had no choice but to dwindle his expression and examine ‘Elizabeth’ seriously. He didn’t know who she was and was really suspicious of her real identity. Because in this world, the only remaining dragon dependents were the night wyverns and rule wyverns. Kolt was sure that there was no dragon named ‘Elizabeth’ among the night wyverns. As for the rule wyverns, although he didn’t know much about them, judging from the dragon aura emanating from the young lady in front of him, he could tell that she wasn’t a representative of Order and rule. In that case, he was highly suspicious of this Elizabeth who showed up here.
Upon hearing Kolt’s question, Erin began to feel a little nervous. After all, the circle of dragons was really small. No matter how elaborately Rhode explained, it was true that ‘Elizabeth’ didn’t exist. As long as Kolt carried out an investigation, he would soon find out this truth. So then, what exactly would Rhode say?
“Me?”
After hearing Kolt’s question, Rhode raised a dangerous eyebrow. The corners of his mouth curled up slightly with a somewhat playful smile as he gazed at Kolt.
“How dare a male of the main plane interrogate me.”
“Ssss…!”
As soon as Rhode responded, the air in the surroundings changed drastically all of a sudden. The dark night sky and dazzling stars enfolded the entire parlor as a dragon aura exploded and proliferated from Rhode’s body. In an instant, the bright parlor was enveloped in a dark curtain, while multiple spots of starlight revolved around him like a river of stars. Not only that, but on his back, a pair of dragon wings was outlined and brought together by illusory starlight as it slowly unfurled.
Staring blankly at this scene, Kolt was baffled.
“Star Dragon?!”