Book 4: Chapter 27 |
Isha had long since noticed the issue with Leon’s identity—
that alone was already enough to shock the couple;
but what they truly hadn’t expected was that Grandmother Veronica had also vaguely sensed it.
Originally, Rosvitha still had another layer of worry.
That was: her relationship with her sister Isha was very close—close in the way of equals—so after coming clean to Isha, even if Isha didn’t accept it, Rosvitha could still try to persuade her;
but Grandmother was different.
Grandmother was an elder.
Her thinking might be influenced by the older generation of dragons, so Rosvitha believed that if Grandmother couldn’t accept Leon, then she truly wouldn’t accept him—no amount of persuasion would work.
the other two people in the Melkwei family had both known.
Thinking of this, Rosvitha didn’t even have time to marvel at how clever her sister and grandmother were.
Instead, she narrowed her eyes and looked at the strongest dragon slayer beside her with a gaze full of suspicion.
“I told you ages ago to put on a tail and you wouldn’t listen. Now my sister saw right through you, didn’t she.”
Female dragon… your obsession with tails is deep, Leon muttered inwardly.
“Th-that wasn’t why I got found out.” Leon protested. “Big Sis just said it—she noticed because of the ‘Chidori’ name.”
Still, getting his human identity exposed after so many years… just because of what he called a move… did feel a bit unfortunate.
No matter how flawless his disguise was, some habits formed since childhood would still leak out unintentionally.
For example, from the moment Leon first touched magic to the day he graduated from the Dragon-Slaying Academy, no one had ever told him that spell—channeling lightning into the palm—was called “Lightning Thrust.”
“When you taught Noya magic, to keep your daughter from noticing, didn’t you already change it and call it ‘Lightning Thrust’?” Rosvitha asked.
“Changing what I say is one thing. I was forcing myself to keep it straight-faced.” Leon replied. “But that night Constantine attacked, in that kind of tension, of course I wouldn’t catch myself. And besides…”
“And besides what?”
“And besides, ‘Lightning Thrust’ is such a flavorless name—only you dragons would come up with that.”
Rosvitha: →→ Isha: →→
Claudia: →_→
“Brother-in-law, so you’re not even pretending anymore?” Isha said. “We dragons name things directly—simple and clear—and when it gets to you, it becomes ‘flavorless,’ huh?”
“If you think dragon naming is flavorless, can you give me back the equally flavorless ‘Nine Gates of Hell’?”
“You’re sitting in front of two dragon leaders plus one soon-to-be leader, so if you’ve got any grievances or trash talk about dragons, you’d better go home and say it to me in private.”
Leon: “……”
Even though everyone clearly accepted his human, outsider identity… why did it still feel like he was getting grilled?!
Isha parted her lips, about to tease her brother-in-law some more—
but she seemed to realize something, and instead turned to the blue-haired beauty beside her.
“Senior—listening to you, it sounds like you knew my brother-in-law’s little secret even earlier than I did.”
Claudia lowered her blue lashes halfway, a faint smile on her lips.
She didn’t answer.
But that reaction could be taken as a tacit admission.
“Then how did you find out?” Isha pressed.
“How I found out, I’ll tell you some other time.” Claudia said. “Today you’ve already got enough heavy things to digest, and the full story of how I learned he’s human is even more explosive—I’m afraid it would scare you. So let’s wait a while before I tell you.”
“Even more heavy than this?” Isha asked.
“Of course.” Claudia nodded.
Isha turned back to her sister and brother-in-law. “What is it, what is it? About what?”
The couple silently covered their faces.
“About… that ocean-related business.”
Meaning it involved the sea dragon clan?
Isha was smart.
Since she’d guessed it was related to the sea dragon clan—and the crown princess clearly didn’t feel like elaborating—she stopped pushing.
They chatted about a few things from the past several years.
The topic inevitably looped back to the Empire—the one that had framed Leon into that situation back then.
“Speaking of the Empire, I heard there was quite a big commotion inside it recently. Like… a coup?” Isha said.
Resting her chin in one hand, the red-haired beauty looked at her sister with smiling eyes.
“And those two days, I sent messages to the Silver Dragon Clan, but I got replies saying you and your Silver Dragon Prince went out on patrol and wouldn’t be back for at least seven days.”
“During the days the Empire changed regimes, you two just happened to be away from home.”
“I’m not overthinking it, am I?” Isha said, smiling wider. “You two… the ones who turned the human Empire upside down—don’t tell me that was you?”
Rosvitha lowered her head in silence.
General Leon puffed his chest out proudly.
“That’s right—’twas I!”
He was way too eager to claim credit.
Seeing his hot-blooded idiot act, even Claudia gave a small laugh.
“Senior, don’t laugh. You were involved too.”
Claudia shrugged. “Mm. I was involved. It was fun.”
Isha raised her brows. “Senior went with you too?”
“Yeah.”
“And just the three of you took down the Empire?”
“Uh…” Leon hesitated. “Not just us three. There was an organization called the ‘Lionheart Society’—it was formed by some of my supporters—and also—”
The red-haired beauty tilted her head slightly. “And also?”
Leon scratched his forehead, struggled for a moment, then finally mumbled out—
“And also Constantine…”
Isha sucked in a cold breath, her vision going black as she toppled backward.
If Claudia hadn’t reached out in time to let her lean against her shoulder, the Red Dragon King might really have been furious enough to faint.
After she steadied herself, Isha complained half-jokingly,
“You even called Constantine to help, and you still didn’t call me? We can’t be relatives anymore. Little Luo, this man is no good—go home and divorce him.”
“Hey, no, Sis!” Leon rushed to explain. “Back then we didn’t know you’d already noticed my identity, so we didn’t dare call you.”
Isha rolled her eyes with a coquettish huff. “Hmph. Excuses.”
As expected of real sisters—even their eye-roll had the exact same energy!
The exact same tsundere vibe!
“But didn’t Constantine attack you and my Red Dragon Sanctuary before?” Isha asked. “Why would he help you deal with the Empire now?”
“Oh, it’s like this.” Leon said.
He briefly recounted the process—from his first duel with Old Kang to finally resolving the Empire’s mess.
After hearing it, Isha sank into thought.
“Turning an enemy into an ally… impressive.”
Leon blinked, then shook his head. “It’s not really turning an enemy into an ally. It’s just that we happened to have the same goal, so we cooperated. Fundamentally, Constantine still really wants to teach me a lesson.”
And when Leon thought about how he still owed Constantine an entire roomful of original magic, he felt even more exhausted.
He didn’t know how Old Kang’s memory was at his age.
If his memory was bad, then as long as Leon didn’t mention it—and nobody else mentioned it—maybe after a while Constantine would forget on his own!
“That so.” Isha said.
“Mm.”
Isha took a small sip of coffee, thought for a moment, then said,
“If this human–dragon war was secretly manipulated by the Empire and some of the Dragon Kings, then now that you’ve overthrown the Empire’s dark rule, it also means the war is moving into its ending phase.”
“But how exactly it ends—and who ends it…” She frowned slightly. “That’s the hard part.”
A world-shaking war that had lasted a hundred years wouldn’t end instantly just because one side’s regime changed.
There was an enormous amount of cleanup work to do.
And what Isha meant by “how it ends” and “who ends it” was the most crucial issue of all.
“As things stand, the Empire’s side is easier to handle, because Leon’s ideas represent the Empire’s next direction.” Rosvitha said.
“So if we want to confirm the final outcome of this human–dragon war, we still need someone who can speak with authority inside the dragon clans.”
“But dragons aren’t like the Empire.” Claudia said calmly. “Not long after the Primordial Dragon King sealed himself away, the dragon clans fell back into chaotic civil war.”
“Even though in the last hundred years, the intensity of the internal war dropped a lot because we had to resist external enemies…”
“Even so, there still isn’t anyone who can unify the dragons by sheer personal strength the way the Primordial Dragon King once did.”
Just as they were worrying, Leon suddenly felt someone staring at him.
A dragon slayer’s sensitivity to a dragon clan’s gaze was sharp.
He looked around without making it obvious.
In the end, through the floor-to-ceiling window, he saw someone standing across the street.
“What is it?” Rosvitha asked, and also followed the direction of his gaze.
Isha and Claudia did the same.
And the moment they looked, they immediately recognized the person.
“It’s that attendant we met last time at the Twilight Tower.”
…
Footnotes:
- tiān yī wú fèng“Flawless, without a seam,” meaning perfectly disguised or executed with no detectable gaps.
- bǎn zhe liǎn“Keep a stiff face,” meaning to force a serious, controlled expression on purpose.
- zhī zhī wū wūOnomatopoeic for hesitating speech—mumbling, stammering, speaking evasively.
- dào xī yī kǒu liáng qì“Suck in a cold breath,” a common expression for shock or alarm.
- yǎn qián yī hēi“Everything goes black before the eyes,” meaning sudden dizziness, overwhelm, or near-fainting.
- mò míng qí miào“Inexplicably / for no clear reason,” often used when something feels absurd or hard to explain.
- huà dí wéi yǒu“Turn an enemy into a friend,” meaning converting an opponent into an ally—sometimes temporarily.
- yì bǎ zǐLiterally “one handful,” used figuratively for “a bunch / a set / a whole lot,” as in “a whole lot of work.”
- wú dòng yú zhōng“Without showing it on the face,” meaning to act calm and conceal one’s reaction.