Chapter 204 - North Korean rabbit

Chapter 204

Arpad could not tear his gaze away from the tears shimmering like transparent jewels at the corners of Hilia’s eyes.

Ever since he had died as a human and opened his eyes moments ago, Hilia’s expression had remained just like that.

With a few tears clinging to her reddened eyes, she forced herself to feign strength and stubbornness.

But moment by moment, she could not hold back the surges of weakness, sorrow, and despair that welled up. Arpad could discern all of it with exquisite clarity.

Hilia, struggling to contain her own emotions, clung to Arpad with anger and desperation.

As if letting go even once would mean the end, with a heartrending, fervent intensity.

It was a sight so lovable it was maddening.

Because every emotion she revealed and concealed now was entirely rooted in her affection for him.

Her sorrow, her vulnerability, her near-despair—all were because she loved him.

Conversely, the reason she overcame all these negative emotions and stood strong was also her love for him.

It was intoxicating.

The overflowing love, the wonder and emotion born from Hilia’s very existence, remained miraculously unchanged.

Because of this, after his heart had stopped and he opened his eyes, Arpad did not feel that he had undergone a great transformation.

Everything apart from her… seemed largely unchanged.

He believed so.

Come to think of it, he had felt a sense of alienation toward the sentiments of those around him since he was very young.

Even those as close as family, he could not accept as equals, or allow them past a certain line deep in his heart.

It merely felt like that sensation had intensified and expanded.

Perhaps, left as is, he could have accepted the situation without great dissonance or rejection, and lived a new life (a life as a dragon, not a human).

But Arpad realized anew that this would not be himself.

Because of a single being.

‘Hilia.’

If not for her efforts alone.

Hilia was utterly desperate.

Like an egg hurling itself against a rock, she kept knocking against Arpad.

It felt as if a large, thick shell had enveloped him.

The presence of this shell was so vast and intense that the ‘Arpad’ buried within it might soon be crushed and scattered.

Perhaps the great reptile posing before his eyes now was merely the remnant of one who had already met that fate.

Hilia was the one who sharply perceived this state, which even he himself had not noticed.

From outside the large, thick shell, she kept knocking and calling for Arpad.

A sound and impact so terribly faint.

But it distinctly reached Arpad, slumbering deep within.

“Yes. It is a threat. A threat to hand over all of my Arpad.”

“If you call it brainwashing, you could see it as brainwashing. And it’s also taking you away. From you. From that damned lizard!”

Though a feeble stimulus, Arpad could not ignore it.

Obediently, willingly swayed as she desired, he felt as if the thick shell was gradually crumbling and peeling away.

And at the final moment, when Hilia’s amethyst eyes, brimming with tears, filled his vision.

When the tears, as if melted from those beautiful eyes, dampened Hilia’s gentle eyelids and streamed down her cheeks to pool at her chin.

Arpad could not resist and leaned forward.

He caught the shimmering tear on her pale chin with his lips.

An impulse arose, an inability to bear the thought of such a transparent, radiant jewel falling helplessly to the ground and vanishing.

His lips touched her chin and cheek, drinking in the affection and sorrow she was scattering to the world.

Like a parched beast, urgently.

This was no simple tear.

It was akin to the crystallization of Hilia’s feelings for Arpad.

The tears his bride shed for him, the very essence of all that affection and emotion, were overwhelmingly sweet and shocking to Arpad.

The few drops did not merely moisten Arpad’s lips and tongue.

It was akin to how, even in moments of madness when he lost reason, Arpad could not help but respond to her scent and blood.

Hilia’s affection, its proof, had always saved Arpad.

Time and again.

From madness, from confusion, from anything.

Because she loved him, the world was finally bathed in spring light. Fragrance pierced his nose, and all other senses could exist.

Arpad realized anew.

Had he reached this stage, on the verge of becoming a dragon, without Hilia, the world would have been utterly bland and dry.

Because of her, everything could be different.

“!”

The shell that had tried to envelop and crush him of its own accord shattered into pieces.

Arpad finally felt a soaring sensation and awakening, as if roused from a dream.

Certainly, Arpad had been watching Hilia all along. Listening to her words, not letting go of her hand.

Yet, it was only at this moment that the sensations she gave suddenly embedded themselves vividly in his mind.

As if a blurred vision had cleared all at once, the trapped senses and emotions came pouring down over his head.

This was a kind of baptism.

One that returned him once more to being ‘Hilia’s Arpad’.

* * *

Artanus was bewildered. He had lived for ages from an absolute position.

Thus, there were few things that could genuinely unsettle him.

Let alone something that, beyond mere surprise, would horrify and drive him to despair—this was the first time.

Even the moment he watched his sole successor and hope, Arpad, meet death alone without a bride, he had not despaired like this.

- So that you, my successor, may repeat as many times as necessary until you find a bride and take my place.

It was the first intense, vicious flood of emotion he had felt since becoming a dragon. And they were utterly negative and dreadful ones at that.

After gathering all of Hilia’s tears and sharing a deep kiss, Arpad held his bride and glared at Artanus with hostile eyes.

“I have absolutely no intention of doing anything that would make Hilia cry.”

With a single sentence, Arpad shattered Artanus’s sole hope.

Artanus screamed aloud.

“Arpad!!!”

Even if he had bestowed most of his power upon his successor, a dragon was still a dragon.

The surrounding magical power resonated and moved with his will and emotion alone.

Arpad looked up at his ancient ancestor with provocative eyes and coldly retorted.

“So take your succession, your inheritance, and go figure it out somewhere else, you damned lizard.”

These were the words Arpad left behind, having discarded the power and stature of a dragon on the very cusp of completion, returning to being human once more.

Feeling the power he had bestowed upon Arpad return to him in an instant, Artanus screamed.

“Why are you so cruel! Now I must go to my bride’s side and rest……!”

Hilia, who had been sniffling with despair and sorrow, was the first to realize she had reclaimed Arpad.

No, it was practically no different from having snatched him back.

From none other than that great dragon.

The dragon’s screams continued.

“How can you be so cruel!”

As if having completely forgotten her own heart-wrenching tears moments ago, she swiftly changed her stance. She deliberately pulled the corners of her mouth into a sharp, mocking smile.

She poured all her strength into ridiculing the dragon who had tried to curse and use her at will, only to fail in the end.

Because resentment and bitterness had piled up enough.

She shot back scathingly.

“You were trying to shove Arpad into that place you wanted to abandon, while you slipped away, weren’t you? You damned lizard. So who’s being cruel?!”

Hilia spat out a few harsh curses at the end.

While agreeing wholeheartedly with her sentiment, Arpad whispered tenderly to her.

“That lizard bastard deserves all the curses he gets, but we must be careful now. Our child might hear.”

“Ah! I’m sorry, baby.”

Hilia apologized to the good, quiet child who had behaved so admirably amid the storm of events.

Holding Hilia protectively, Arpad coldly declared to the dragon.

“It’s as Hilia says. In the end, you merely tried to create a sacrifice to take your place. I refuse such treatment, and such a fate.”

A desperate scream echoed through the cavern.

“Kyaaaaah—!!!”

It was a cry of despair.

Even in this turmoil, Artanus was cradling Princess Istride’s remains with utmost care.

Arpad glared at that sight with hostile eyes.

Unlike Artanus, who was still alive, Istride clearly appeared to have met her death.

“If a dragon and his bride cannot hold hands even after death, though they shared life together… I refuse all the more. Because living like that would be meaningless.”

These words directly negated the life Artanus had barely sustained since Istride’s death.

The final plea of the woman he loved scratched at his mind anew.

“You protect them. Our child. The world where our child’s children will live on…….”

What sustained him was the justification of keeping her last wish.

And the end that would come someday.

The years spent bound to a vast seat, having lost his heart, were more cruel and dreadful than imagined.

And at the moment when the rest he thought he had finally grasped was shattered to pieces.

Artanus felt the madness he believed he had escaped centuries ago consuming him.

He had already overcome it.

The woman he loved and was loved by had freed him from the madness.

…Had she truly?

If so, why had she abandoned him in this excruciating pain and solitude?

Amid the cruel questions erupting like lava, the man left alone, trapped in a dragon’s exterior, screamed.

The man’s mind hurled itself into madness.

But unlike centuries ago, there was no woman in this world now to pull him out of hell.

* * *

“Kyaaaaah—!!!”

It was a sound too raw and savage to have been uttered by a being hailed as a great dragon, a pillar protecting the world, adorned with all manner of glorious epithets.

A mere beast’s roar, devoid of a shred of reason.

Ironically, it was not much different from the fragments of Gaspard that Arpad had dealt with in the city of Beneta moments before.

It was, in fact, a horrifying, vicious corruption and fall.

But there was one crucial difference.

“Wait, all the power that was transferred to you has returned now, right?”

“…That’s right?”

“If that complete dragon goes mad… what happens then?”

A shiver ran down her spine.

Romance, Fantasy,