While Seymour went to the washroom, Lucis remained wholly absorbed in gazing at the jewels.
“Waaah…”
Just looking at the sparkling stones made him feel happy.
He was still too young to properly express his emotions, but his little chest felt warm, and he almost wanted to hum a tune.
Especially when he looked at the golden and purple gems, he felt as though he was reminded of someone’s eyes that had once gazed warmly at him.
Whoosh—
At that moment, a breeze blew in through the open window.
The fluttering of the white curtain made Lucis turn his gaze toward it.
Outside the guest annex window was a small garden. Between the little trees and flowerbeds stood a woman, looking straight at him.
“…?”
The woman’s long white hair swayed in the wind, reaching down to her waist.
“…Ma?”
As though entranced, Lucis rose to his feet.
The jewels rolled across the floor like pebbles, but he paid them no mind.
Flailing his short arms and legs, he barely managed to climb over the windowsill.
He pushed past shrubs as tall as himself, but by then, the woman had already turned her back and was walking away.
Lucis hurried after her, but no matter how fast his short legs carried him, the distance never closed.
“Haaah! Haaah!”
Panting, he spread his wings, ready to take flight—
—but in that instant of distraction, his feet tangled, and he stumbled.
“Ouchie!”
He tumbled hard onto the ground, but without even noticing the pain, he hastily raised his head.
The woman was already gone.
“…”
Lucis stared blankly at the spot where she had been. Then someone scooped him up. A cascade of white hair fell into his vision.
When he looked up with shining eyes, Irina was staring back at him, startled.
“Baby dragon…?”
Lucis’s face fell with disappointment. He turned his head back toward the place where the woman had stood moments before.
There weren’t even footprints left behind.
“…”
Why had she left in such a hurry, without even looking back?
Why had she run, as though being caught would be unbearable?
Feeling a sudden, nameless sorrow, Lucis buried his face into Irina’s chest.
“Lucis?”
At my call, Lucis lifted his head from Irina’s embrace and turned toward me.
His golden eyes were filled with unmistakable sadness.
“What’s wrong? Who made you cry?”
As I approached, Irina instinctively stepped back half a pace.
“…”
“…”
For a moment, our gazes met. Her eyes brimmed with suspicion and wariness directed at me.
“Mm…”
Lucis stretched out his hand toward me. At his wordless gesture—his wish to come to me—Irina hesitated, then finally handed him over.
I held Lucis gently and brushed my thumb across his forehead.
“Lucis, are you okay?”
Instead of answering, he squirmed a few times in my arms, like an animal fussing with its nest. Then he buried his head in the space between my chest and arm.
It seemed whatever had upset him was serious enough that he didn’t even want to speak.
I patted his back soothingly and looked at Irina, wordlessly demanding an explanation. She cleared her throat and finally spoke.
“He ran quite hard and took a bad fall.”
I had already noticed the marks of the tumble on his dress.
But Lucis was sturdier than expected, and since he hadn’t rubbed his knees or hands, it didn’t seem he was in pain.
It was his heart that had been hurt, not his body. But since he was swallowing it down all on his own, there was nothing I could do for now.
Does he need time alone?
I gently stroked his back and motioned to Irina.
“This way.”
I led her into the guest annex parlor and ordered the attendants to bring tea and refreshments.
Lucis was a clever child; he would come around on his own soon enough. But I couldn’t simply dismiss the person who had seen to his safety.
“Thank you. Because of you, I could comfort Lucis sooner.”
“…!”
Irina blinked at me in surprise.
When I raised an eyebrow, she hastily cleared her throat and turned her eyes away.
“What is it?”
“I never thought I’d hear you say thank you.”
In the original story, Seymour Mausoleum was not someone who ever gave thanks so easily.
But I wasn’t Seymour, and I had no intention of adopting his bad habits just to match his role.
“Are you trying to polish your public image now that you’re about to inherit the count’s seat?”
Her words were laced with thorns.
Given the history between the Mausoleum and Ishtar families, it wasn’t strange.
Just as the church ground its teeth at the Mausoleums, the Mausoleums had always schemed against the Ishtars.
Of course, the Ishtars weren’t ones to simply take it lying down.
They say more family heads of Mausoleum and Ishtar died by each other’s assassins than of natural causes.
Though to be fair, up until two hundred years ago, wars between nations had been so constant that dying of old age was rare anyway.
I didn’t bother with word games or fencing around the issue.
“What did you come to see me for?”
It wasn’t a coincidence that she had found Lucis.
There was no reason for the daughter of Marquis Ishtar to spend days in some remote frontier estate—unless she was waiting for someone certain to pass through.
For a sworn enemy of her family to wait alone in such a vulnerable place… if she weren’t one of the Empire’s top knights, she would have died a meaningless death by now.
It was reckless and foolhardy—but that blunt, straightforward nature was quintessentially Irina.
She pointed at Lucis in my arms and asked directly:
“That baby dragon—he carries the blood of the White Dragons, doesn’t he?”
“That’s right. A half-blood of Black and White Dragons. His name is Lucis.”
Since it was something I would soon reveal at the upcoming succession ceremony, I had no reason to hide it.
“Lucis? That’s his childhood name?”
I nodded, and she tilted her head.
“Unexpected.”
“What is?”
“I thought your family would have named him after the Black Dragon lineage right away.”
“…It’s tradition not to give a lineage name until one becomes an Adult Dragon.”
Recalling the events of the recent Black Dragon Council, I added that.
It must have been the right answer, because she gave a small nod.
“As expected of the Mausoleums. Always clinging to tradition and ceremony.”
“That’s the duty of our station—to mind such things.”
“No. Nobles exist to be examples to others. Tradition is a tool, not an end.”
Her line was sharp, uncompromising.
I found myself nodding faintly.
As expected—just like the game’s setting.
The Ishtars and Mausoleums were bitter enemies, and Irina and Seymour were natural opposites.
Gender, family, personality, fighting style—even their personal colors were polar opposites.
The ruthless lawless lord of Mausoleum, and the honorable knight of Ishtar.
It was the perfect rival pairing, designed from the start.
“So what now? Since half his blood is from your side, are you going to demand I hand Lucis over?”
Irina’s eyes settled on the little head nestled against me.
Without meaning to, I stroked Lucis’s hair protectively, blocking her gaze.
“….”
Her eyes grew peculiar as she watched me.
“You truly cherish that child.”
“He’s far too adorable not to.”
She narrowed her eyes, as though trying to read me.
But I only patted Lucis’s back in silence.
After a long stare, she finally sighed and shook her head.
“…I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She looked half-defeated, though suspicion lingered in her face.
“Just to be sure—you’re not planning to use the child politically or militarily, are you?”
“Well, even if I say no, any dragon born to nobility is inherently political.”
“That much is true.”
She tapped her fingers on the table for a moment before speaking again.
“Even if you want to keep him by your side, the Mausoleum Pact will be an obstacle.”
“Let me ask you—who exactly would invoke the Pact over Lucis’s existence?”
“Well…”
She couldn’t answer.
“Even if the Pact were broken—who would punish a dragon? Humans? Dragons themselves? Or the gods?”
“….”
“The Mausoleum Pact was a covenant born from the dragons’ remorse and repentance, meant as self-regulation. Do you really think they would harshly apply it to a clueless hatchling wandering the mortal world?”
If he were a pure-blooded Black Dragon, maybe.
But Lucis carried the blood of the White Dragons, who had birthed the Radiant Dragon.
The Black Dragon Council had already decided to watch over him.
Of course, Irina didn’t know that.
“If Lucis harmed others, that would be a problem. But as I said, I have no intention of allowing or encouraging such a thing.”
“…I see.”
She sighed again and finally sipped her tea—the cup she had kept untouched out of suspicion.
If I had been mistreating Lucis, or keeping him coldly for political use, Irina would have done anything—anything—to take him away.
After all, even in the original, she always wanted to save him.
In the story, Irina joined the protagonist after killing Seymour Mausoleum.
Her character was that of a “noble righteous knight,” and like many good people, she had a soft spot for children.
And if it was a child who shared her blood, she would risk her life without hesitation.
Though in the original, Lucis had no survival route at all.
It was precisely her failure to save him that drove her to abandon her family and live as a wandering knight.
Ironically, that was what led her to travel with the protagonist, saving countless others.
In the game’s ending, Irina earned the title “Knight of Salvation” and was granted the rank of countess.
At the investiture, when she later visited Lucis’s grave and found a white flower blooming there, she finally forgave herself.
“…Lady Ishtar.”
“Please call me ‘Sir.’”
“Sir Ishtar, then. I have a request.”
At the word request, her eyes narrowed.
Her gaze was sharp, brimming with hostility and suspicion—understandable, considering how often Seymour and the Mausoleums had wronged her.
“I want you to become Lucis’s tutor.”
“…His tutor?”
Her eyes widened in genuine surprise.
“Do you mean to teach swordsmanship to a dragon?”
“No. Not swordsmanship. Refinement, education.”
She frowned deeply.
“Refinement? Are you mocking me?”
To a knight who had dedicated her whole life to the sword, being asked by Seymour—well-versed in noble etiquette himself—to serve as a tutor in manners could only seem like mockery.
“No. I mean it. There are things you can teach that I cannot.”
Irina had the will and ability to do good, and also a conscience too strict to forgive herself.
If Seymour was the archetypal villain, Irina was the archetypal paragon.
That was exactly why I respected her—even as a fictional character.
If I ever had a daughter, I would want her to grow up like Irina.
“Please. Be Lucis’s teacher.”
Irina gazed at me with her violet eyes, then slowly shook her head.
“Sorry, but I must refuse.”
I had half-expected that, so I didn’t press her.
The trust between Seymour and Irina, between Mausoleum and Ishtar, was still far too thin.
“….”
But then her expression shifted oddly.
Her cheeks flushed, her lips pressed tight.
I followed her gaze—only to see Lucis had turned his head toward her, pouting with sorrowful eyes.
“Uuuh…”
Irina pressed a hand to her chest.
Watching her, I thought calmly to myself:
She’s caved.
Irina was weak to children.
And especially to a child carrying her own blood.
“Ahem. Sir Ishtar? I think I may have misheard your answer.”
I cleared my throat and spoke lightly.
“I’ll ask again—will you be Lucis’s teacher?”
There was only one answer Irina could give.
That was how Lucis gained the best possible tutor in character.
