Chapter 23 : I’m sorry I didn’t know (3)

Thud! Thud!

With the tip of her tail pounding against the floor of the Demon King’s Castle’s central hall in a steady rhythm, the black dragon Olivia ground her teeth in visible irritation.

Thirty minutes.

A full thirty damn minutes.

That was how late Dante was.

He should have woken her up ages ago.

What the f*ck was he doing, lying around like some lazy b*stard and daring to ignore his godlike master’s wake-up time? Should I just f*cking eat him or what?

Though she swore like this, the real reason Olivia was so furious wasn’t simply because Dante was late.

No, the thing that truly gnawed at her heart was the fact that he had prioritized something else over her. In other words, she was pissed off because she had been pushed down in his mental priority list.

Even when she slept, when she ate, when she worked on documents, and even when she did the smallest of things that others wouldn’t even notice—she always thought of him. She spent every moment thinking about his smile, worrying whether some unknown pest of a woman might cling to him…

‘Why the f*ck am I not number one in your heart?!’

Right now, Olivia was seething with such intense jealousy that it was practically consuming her from the inside.

And the object of her jealousy? None other than Dante’s work.

Ah, what a pathetic dragon she is!

“──You f*cking b*stard!!! Why the hell aren’t you coming?!”

…Okay, I take that back. I’m sorry.

Bang!!!!

Slamming her tail hard against the floor, Olivia clutched her head with her front paws.

And still, the castle didn’t fall apart. Talk about top-tier construction work.

[Demon King’s Castle: K… kill me… just kill me already…]

With a sharp snap of her fingers, Olivia cast Polymorph, flipping her long black hair back over her shoulders as she began to stride forward.

Yeah, just waiting around like this didn’t suit her personality.

For someone with patience as vast as the sky and as deep as the sea, her tolerance had already snapped.

(To be precise, she had waited exactly 20 minutes.)

“That ungrateful, disrespectful s*ave…”

Just wait till I catch you. I’m gonna keep you next to me all day and kiss you until your lips swell.

Smirking unconsciously at the thought, Olivia kicked open Dante’s door.

Bang!!

“Hey, you f*cking bstard!! The sun’s already up in the—what the f*ck? He’s not here?!”

Ah, f*ck. This is so embarrassing.

Scratching the back of her head awkwardly, she made her way to the garden at the back of the castle, where Dante often went.

Ugh. Probably tending to the flowers again, obviously.

“Hey! Why the hell didn’t you wake me u───!”

But the moment she turned the corner, pushed open the iron gate to the garden, and shouted at where she assumed Dante would be…

Olivia’s crimson eyes widened in shock.

Her unfinished sentence echoed hollowly through the garden.

Or rather…

The half-destroyed garden stood eerily silent, completely devoid of life.

“───”

Olivia’s crimson eyes sank low.

Yet she didn’t say a word.

Even though she noticed right away that the garden Dante treasured had been wrecked—clearly torn apart by a sudden and violent gust of wind—she didn’t express a single emotion.

She merely narrowed her vertically slit pupils into even thinner lines.

Olivia quietly scanned her surroundings.

Her eyes—cold, noble, and predatory—were like a beast tracking the movement of prey before the pounce.

And then, something glimmered among the overturned piles of dirt, catching her eye.

“…Ha!”

Picking up the object—something that looked like fish scales—Olivia let out a small laugh.

The corners of her mouth twisted upward.

How dare they.

How dare they.

How dare they touch what is hers.

“───Some lowly f*cking fish-blooded scum dares to do this?”

Olivia’s crimson eyes glinted with danger.

[Bacalion’s POV]

A few days ago, the contents of a routine report sent by one of his loyal subordinates could be summarized like this:

– A mysterious black dragon attacked the Achaia Empire.
– Upon investigation, the black dragon was identified as the newly crowned Demon King of the beastmen and demons’ nation, the Leprechaun Empire.
– The attack seemed to be triggered when the Emperor of Achaia, Mars, threatened the life of a boy sent as an envoy to deliver their intent to reject the tribute, thereby enraging the black dragon.

Bacalion—the proud first son of the Blue Dragon Lord, and the guardian dragon of the Achaia Empire—was absolutely livid when he heard the report.

Dragons, by nature, don’t get along well even with other dragons outside of their kind (Black, Blue, Red, etc.), and among them, the Blue and Black Dragons were particularly infamous for being like oil and water.

Long ago, during territorial disputes, the Blue Dragons were driven out and forced to live in the cold, lightless depths of the sea—a humiliation they would never forget.

Over time, forced to adapt for survival in the deep sea, the Blue Dragons underwent involuntary evolution. Now they bore odd traits unlike normal dragons—webbed limbs for swimming faster, glowing horns that lit up in the dark…

Generations of accumulated wrath and madness toward the Black Dragons ran so deep that no other dragon would even dare to mention it lightly.

And now a Black Dragon had dared to attack the empire under his protection?

Tearing open the palace roof with its bare claws?

This was a direct insult to the entire Blue Dragon lineage. A declaration of war.

And Bacalion? He was more than ready to accept that challenge.

So, as a message—a warning—he kidnapped the boy the black dragon had sent as an envoy.

Anyone chosen personally by a black dragon to act as an envoy must mean something special to them.

Especially given how possessive the Black Dragon species was—if anything they considered “theirs” was touched, they would fly into a frenzy.

As an added insult, he even made sure to leave behind one of his own shimmering scales.

Yes, to put it plainly—it was a trap.

He wanted that furious black dragon to follow the trail to this place.

And once she did—he would rip her throat out and finally avenge the Blue Dragon kin.

After all, Bacalion was second only to the Dragon Lord in strength.

And here, in the ocean—the Blue Dragons’ domain—he held every advantage.

A lone black dragon unfamiliar with underwater combat? An easy kill.

White hair, golden eyes, black horns that marked him as a demon, a residence in the Demon King’s Castle…

With these features described in the report, Bacalion flew straight to the Leprechaun Empire and abducted the boy matching that appearance.

He even made a mess of the garden on his way out—ruffling his scales, literally and figuratively.

───Unaware that this boy wasn’t just a political envoy but Olivia’s heart and soul.

Blinded by youth and the heat of vengeance, Bacalion didn’t even consider doing proper intel before setting the trap.

Whooooosh──!!!!

Unlike Olivia—who held back for his sake—the blue dragon flew like a maniac without a hint of concern. With tears and snot streaming down his face, Dante sobbed internally, unable to even scream.

You Blue B*stard!!!

It’s so f*cking cold…