Synopsis: Fruys is once again a bright and beautiful dragon
…·:*¨¨*.·:*¨♡¨*:·. 35 .·:*¨♡¨*:·.*¨¨*:·…
Fruys's recovery speed left me dumbfounded.
When I woke up the next morning, Fruys's terrifying wound had already become a scab, and then on the third day, he was back on his wings and could even leisurely take me out to fly.
I might have just wasted my time worrying about this guy.
Speaking of things to worry about, our spies received intel that the lords of the fiefs next to Lord Cavendish's territory were temporarily forming a coalition to annihilate me.
There had always been a delicate balance of power between the three fiefs, and the fact that we were occupying Lord Cavendish's land must have made these lords feel very uneasy.
With both of them having two high-level sorcerers each, their combined forces was something we could not underestimate. Thus, I could not help but be worried sick when I read the reports from our spies.
I was still brooding over this while I strolled along the seaside with Fruys—his tail thwacking the ground and sending large pieces of sand and stone flying with every step.
"What are you fretting about this time?" he asked.
I hesitated for a moment but nonetheless decided to share the present state of affairs with him.
Sure enough, Fruys gave me a look of disdain: "If it's a fight, why would I be afraid of them?"
I didn't know his identity, his history, or his past experiences, and I had very little overall knowledge about dragons as a race. All I knew was that Fruys tended to dismiss all my concerns and problems as trivial—and yet, he was still injured last time.
As far as I knew, Lord Ansai's black dragon was not as rampant as Fruys. Rather, he was experienced, in the prime of his life, and renowned across all of Finanse. Fruys might be considered a youngster that just entered the spotlight compared to him.
I was very annoyed at his arrogance, but I didn't know what I should say.
"Fruys!" I could only call out his name and lift my head to stare at him.
"What? You don't believe in my ability?" Fruys gently pressed the bottom of his snout to my forehead, and as he spoke ice-cold air blew apart the hairstyle that Anna had painstakingly arranged for me.
"Fruu…" My voice softened. I think he understood what I wanted to say.
In the end, Fruys's attitude was as lazy and careless as ever.
There was a rare trace of lightheartedness in his voice. "I'll take care of it, so don't worry. However, in exchange, you'll have to give me all the magic crystals that you get."
To make use of sorcerers, it was necessary to supply them with magic crystals which could be looted in large quantities from every magic tower. The ones that were taken from Lord Cavendish had all long been casually seized by Fruys—nobody dared to fight over stuff with him.
It must be because everyone knew that I spoiled him, I think. One couldn't blame Fruys for this.
…·:*¨¨*.·:*¨♡¨*:·. 36 .·:*¨♡¨*:·.*¨¨*:·…
This time, the military campaign could be said to have caused more worry than it was worth. Almost as if to intentionally prove how strong he was to me, Fruys rushed ahead at the very frontlines and consecutively used multiple wide-area ice-type spells.
Andy, the acting commander, and I were standing next to each other and didn't command our troops to charge. Just like me, he was watching Fruys's figure. He quietly mumbled, "The guy is way stronger than the time we fought Morgan."
This wasn't an illusion. I stared helplessly as he froze over half a city with a single ice breath.
I recalled something Fruys told me about the times he went out to play in his youth. One time, he incidentally bumped into the lord of a city who was secretly selling dragon eggs to serve as house pets, and he froze over their entire town in a fit of fury.
When I thought about it now, he really shouldn't have let his emotions affect his actions like that. Good humans still exist after all, and the city's innocent citizens shouldn't have paid for their lord's misdeeds.
At the time, I didn't take his words too seriously, since some parts of stories are always a little exaggerated. Fruys might have also just been inflating his capability, but now I realized that he hadn't been spewing hot air at all. Freezing an entire town should be a walk in the park for him.
…·:*¨¨*.·:*¨♡¨*:·. 37 .·:*¨♡¨*:·.*¨¨*:·…
After the battle ended, Fruys flew off with all of the magic crystals and was holed up in his small, private treasury for three days.
I was very worried about him, so whenever I didn't have anything to do I would loiter a bit in front of the room during that time.
Towards nightfall on the third day, the door of that small treasury finally opened.
The twilight of the setting sun illuminated the figure that walked out—a slender yet powerful neck, apathetic and cold eyes, and a body armored with scales the same color as his eyes, that is, a pure and luxurious ice blue with a crisp, silvery radiance that seemed as if it was reflecting the fresh snow of the Gies Mountains. He was someone I almost could not recognize.
The dragon spread his wings and flapped them before taking off. With those massive wings covering the sky, his silhouette looked like the illustrations of dragons in ancient times.
My head was tilted back as I blankly watched him soar into the skies above. However, he swooped down all of a sudden, snagged me up and threw me onto his back, then once again hurtled into the air.
"Fruys!" I called out to him while clinging to his neck. "If you keep on doing that, you'll frighten me to death one day!"
But a 'hmph' was all Fruys responded with.
I felt like this snort of his sounded more domineering and self-confident than ever before.
Author's note:
Short stories are easier to write. Recently my mood hasn't been good, and this piece of work is rather warming, so I wanted to write about our angelic little lord and his Fruu to put my heart at ease. I haven't forgotten about 女神 or 景后 (TL: the author's other works) at all.