147 – World after Defeat – 2
“My dear, what is in that room?”
In response to Charlotte’s curious question, the boy turned his head and looked at where his finger was pointing. Charlotte’s fingertips were pointed at a certain wooden door.
The boy who confirmed it replied as if it was nothing special.
“Ancient Dragon’s Ring. It is a cursed artifact that takes the life of the person who wears it, and makes people rapidly weaken and die just by being near it. I brought it to see if it could kill me, but it didn’t work on me. He said.”
“If it’s just a ring that will kill the wearer, wouldn’t there be a reason to keep it so far away from other weapons? The fact that you used that ring and isolated it even in solitary confinement, there must be a reason for that. that would be it.”
“You’re quick-witted. That’s right. I isolated it on purpose.”
“I’m asking what the reason is. Now, answer me.”
“There was always a problem with the weapons next to him. It was like he went on a rampage by himself, or the suppressed power was released on his own. It was annoying to clean things up every time. It’s not, but I’m sure the frequency of runaways becomes much more frequent when I’m with him.”
Charlotte listened to the boy’s answer and let it go in one ear. In fact, asking about the ring’s function was only for nominal reasons.
After realizing that the weapon in that solitary cell was a ring, Charlotte was determined to get the ring from the boy somehow.
Although it’s not a wedding ring in the true sense, what is it? Whatever the meaning implied in it, if the recipient wears it on the ring finger of their left hand, it will in fact be no different from a wedding ring.
The boy looked a little troubled, but soon accepted the request. It was because he believed that no matter how cursed the ring was, Charlotte could overcome it.
“Keuhuk…… Cool! Cool!”
“Charlotte!”
Although it was a false belief.
Immediately after Charlotte put the ring on the ring finger of her left hand as if showing off, her body trembled and a large amount of blood poured out from her eyes, nose, ears and mouth.
If the boy hadn’t removed the ring quickly, Charlotte’s life would most likely have ended there. Even after taking off the ring, Charlotte couldn’t come to her senses for a while.
After confirming that Charlotte was safe, the boy sighed and put the ring back in the solitary confinement. And he preached a sermon.
In the end, Charlotte had to be content with receiving another piece of armor instead of the wedding ring she longed for.
That was the first encounter between Charlotte and the ancient dragon ring.
The Elder Dragon Ring, as the name suggests, was an artifact said to have been made by carving dragon bones. That was the reason why the color of the ring was slightly yellowish.
Nothing is known about how the dragon was caught and how its bones were processed. Not to mention, I didn’t even know the name of the ring except the lord.
Until the boy appeared, it was simply called the Cursed Ring. Because no one dared to mention the name of the cursed object.
It was because all the people who wore the ancient dragon ring complained of extreme headaches without a single exception and died with blood pouring out of the seven holes in their heads.
In addition, even if you just carried the ring without wearing it, the human body would rapidly become thinner and at some point collapse and die.
The rate at which the ring weakened a human was truly incredible, and even the strongest warriors could not exceed an hour.
With the situation going like that, it was only natural for the ring to be shunned for being cursed.
Rumors about the ring, which was said to take away human life just by wearing it, spread all over the place, mixed with the exaggeration that it would bestow enormous power to those who endured death and succeeded in suppressing the ring.
And, there was no way that the boy who had been searching the continent for all sorts of ways to commit suicide would miss the news about the ring.
The boy went to the city where the ring was kept and confidently declared that he would take the ring to the lord there, and the lord sighed and gave permission to try if possible.
The lord, struggling with what to do with the corpse that was to be added this time, was shocked to see the boy who returned with an ancient dragon’s ring on his finger, looking limp.
After that, as soon as I confirmed that the boy was fine, he told me to take care of it and gave him the real name of the ring that had been passed down from generation to generation, and at the same time handed over the ownership.
The boy who suddenly became the owner of the ring said that he was dead this time too, and roughly stuck it somewhere in his magic tower.
It was only after the boy met the dragon as part of a suicide attempt that he learned what the artifact was.
“My dear. Do you remember the ancient dragon’s ring?”
“Of course I remember. Why all of a sudden? To try to wear it again? I’ll tell you in advance, but I can’t.”
“I personally came to tell you what I learned while studying the dragon’s mana extracted from your memories, but I’ll have to punish you for making such useless assumptions.”
“……What did you find out?”
“The artifact you called the Elder Dragon’s Ring was not a cursed object that killed nearby humans.
After the boy met the dragon after a long search of 8 years and thoroughly enjoyed its breath, Charlotte read all the dragon-related memories from the boy’s head.
Only then did he realize the real reason behind the ancient dragon’s ring.
This ring was said to have the same eyes as a dragon’s.
It deals with pure mana itself, and the eyes are the same as those of dragons, which are said to inhabit a high-dimensional space where ordinary humans cannot even breathe.
In the process of having eyes, the brain, which had a higher level of thinking, was overloaded, and people died as a result.
The reason people died just by having it was because of mana, the innocence itself leaking out of the ring. The reason why the weapons near the ring were rampaging was also the same.
Charlotte had tried and failed to put on the Elder Dragon’s ring even after her first attempt, and the number of failures was now approaching double digits.
When Serena received the wind shear, the boy did not hesitate at the request of the ancient dragon’s ring.
If Charlotte had been a little stupider, if she had been a little less strong, she might have forced the ring on her finger and tried it until she died.
Charlotte was too smart for that, too strong to ignore the death warnings of her instincts. Even knowing that death was the sure path, I couldn’t throw myself at it.
However, it was different now.
“Whoa…”
Charlotte let out a long sigh and lifted up the rough-looking ring. It was the perfect size for the ring finger of my left hand, as if I was forcing myself to wear it.
The ring was carefully placed on the finger. From the moment I first saw this ring until now, I hadn’t even considered any other finger other than the ring finger on my left hand.
Immediately, an excruciating pain came to my head.
“Sigh, sigh…!”
Charlotte gripped the armrests of the throne with a headache that felt as if her entire head was being squeezed. gritted it His face turned red, and blood flowed from his eyes instead of tears.
My brain screamed and urged me to quickly throw off the ring. Charlotte ignored all the warnings and focused on enduring the pain.
How much time had passed in that state, and after confirming that the pain had begun to subside little by little, Charlotte sighed heavily.
I tasted blood in my mouth. It must have been that he had bitten off his tongue unconsciously, and somehow the length of the flesh inside his mouth was a bit shorter than usual.
The ring was still on the ring finger of his left hand.
It meant that he was able to control the ancient dragon’s ring.
Charlotte, who used recovery magic on her body, stared at the ring finger of her left hand with a hard face. It was a happy thing, but laughing was a luxury now that the boy had been kidnapped.
“Dragon’s vision, Ra…”
What would be different if he had pupils with the same properties as dragons? Charlotte felt the change as soon as she was able to control the ring.
‘see.’
The world Charlotte sees has completely changed. Blood-red red eyes stood out. A method of reading the surrounding mana was engraved in the pupil.
It felt as if all the mana floating in the air existed to follow Charlotte’s orders. The body, still in pain, rose slowly from the throne.
He spread his right hand with the palm facing up, and created a small fireball on top of it. It was very basic magic, the basis of all magic.
Then, Charlotte’s pupils read the flow of mana spreading around the fireball.
It was essentially different from the clumsy act of grasping magic with the eyes or analyzing it by looking at its appearance.
Everything the fireball possessed was contained in the pupils.
Where mana is absorbed and where it flows, where and how much mana is consumed, and even what form mana draws inside the fireball.
Charlotte extinguished the fireball with a wave of her hand. And it created a fire spear that rotates clockwise, higher than that.
The same thing happened this time too.
The internal structure was perfectly visible. Until now, if I had known only with the knowledge in my head, now I was at the stage of gaining enlightenment at the level of instinct.
The Dragon’s Eye, which contains magic, found a way to maintain the flame spear more efficiently. Charlotte immediately put the method into practice.
The mana was moved, the circuit was changed, and the internal circulation structure was replaced. I didn’t even have to remember that. Because everyone already understands.
When the work was finished, the flame spear had been transformed into magic with twice the power and four times the efficiency than before the modification. It was truly a phenomenal achievement.
Charlotte whirled the flame spear in her hand. Even if there is magic that I have never seen before, I thought that it would be possible to copy it intact as long as I put it in my eyes.
“…that’s really amazing.”
That Charlotte admired for a moment, so it was worth guessing the surprise brought by the dragon’s eyes.
Charlotte was also a person who could be confident that she had reached the limits of humanity in the field of magic, but now she realized how ignorant she was.
If Charlotte before getting the eyes was simply a human running at high speed, after getting the eyes, Charlotte was a wizard who could teleport across dimensions. He was radically different from his former self.
Maybe this is how I feel when I open my eyes for the first time after living blind for the rest of my life.
“However, it’s still a long way off.”
After uttering such a murmur, Charlotte clenched her fist and shattered the spinning flame spear in her hand. Embers popped up on the red carpet that covered the road to the throne.
Charlotte had no intention of being satisfied with just eyes that read the flow of mana.
that year.
The year that took away his wife.
The year that gave me a terrible sense of helplessness and the scars of defeat.
In order to tear apart the bitch who dared to touch her husband and return the pain she suffered a thousandfold, just one eye was not enough.
“……Ugh.”
For an instant, Charlotte, who was about to take a step, turned around. Ugh, with a short moan, Charlotte swayed sideways, putting her hands on the throne for a moment.
A trickle of blood flowed from his nose.
Although they succeeded in controlling the ring, it was true that it was still incomplete. More research and more effort were needed.
It has all the necessary materials.
The brain needed for research was stored in Charlotte’s head with perfect performance. What triggers do you need to make the effort? It was a level full of chaos.
After suffering a disastrous defeat by Olivia and hearing the boy’s final words before being dragged beyond the black subspace, Charlotte’s goal was set.
dragon subjugation.
I planned to catch them randomly and study them to get their full power.
He reached this level simply by wearing a ring made of that bone, but what a great achievement he could achieve if he studied a whole dragon.
It was a method that the former Charlotte would not have even attempted. Since dragons are extremely sensitive to mana, they will return to rarity as soon as the search magic directed at them is detected.
It was also for this reason that the boy did not seek help from Charlotte, but spent eight years scrambling to find the location.
But now it was different. Charlotte had dragon eyes that allowed her to see a world like them. Even if he ran away with Rare, it would be enough if he followed him.
“I will definitely bring it back, so wait for it. Dear.”
A bleak cold air spread around Charlotte who made such a resolution.
