Chương 136: 05. Great Dragon 2

I drew a breath of freezing, bitter wind and shifted forward slightly to secure my position. Below, Frank was still glaring up at me with the focused intensity of a man who, if I offered one more piece of nonsense, would memorize my face and personally deliver an arrow to it the moment I touched solid ground. Entirely fair. In his position, I'd be planning the exact same thing. I raised my head and projected my voice as steadily and clearly as possible.

"Margrave Frank! It's me—Cedric Rosa!" A ripple of commotion spread across the wall. Several guards had apparently only now managed to identify me on the dragon's back. Fingers pointed upward; faces turned toward Frank with expressions hovering between we must be hallucinating and if this is real, I want to go back to sleep. Frank didn't respond. He stood his ground, letter still crushed in his fist, expression dark enough to be used as wall mortar. I pressed on regardless.

"The contents of that bag are Her Highness the Fire Dragon Princess's personal compensation for the Black Dragon Pass incident! It is not a provocation, and it is not a declaration of war!" The moment those words landed, the commotion on the wall doubled immediately. Not because anyone believed it. Because the entire sequence of events sounded completely divorced from any recognizable reality.

A dragon nearly bombs a border into war, then flies over the fortress the next morning, drops a bag of money, and claims it's compensation rather than aggression. If I weren't personally participating in this event, I'd probably be on that wall cursing too. Predictably, Frank finally found his voice.

"Compensation?" He bellowed it upward, the sound striking heavy against stonework and morning wind.

"Cedric! You ride a fire dragon over Typhon Fortress, drop a bag of gold into my courtyard, and tell me this is compensation?!"

"... Judging strictly by the visual presentation, I admit it resembles something else entirely," I said with complete honesty.

"But please, my lord, hear me out."

"You had better make this good!"

"I share that hope entirely!" When I said that, Ignicia actually let out a low laugh beside me. Fantastic. She was finding this entertaining. I immediately pressed my hand against the scales at her neck and dropped my voice.

"Your Highness. Please."

"Mm?"

"At this precise moment, it would be highly beneficial if you didn't say a single word."

"Why?"

"Because the second you open your mouth, every crossbow on that wall is going back up." She made a deeply dissatisfied sound, a few sparks escaping with her breath. The garrison below immediately tensed again. My eye twitched. I raised my voice and hurried to cover the reaction.

"Margrave Frank! Inside that bag is an explanatory letter written in my own hand, along with compensation specifically designated for you! Yesterday I gave you my word that if circumstances changed, you would be the first person in the Empire to know. I am currently fulfilling that promise!" That finally produced a shift in Frank's expression. Not an improvement. A shift—from I want to kill someone to I want to hear the rest before I decide who to kill.

Under the circumstances, I counted this as extraordinary grace. He kicked aside the coins that had rolled from the split bag and fixed his eyes on me, gaze like drawn steel. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

"Then speak," he said coldly.

"I want to hear exactly what this performance is supposed to mean." Good. At least we were still talking. I allowed myself half a breath of internal relief while keeping my outward composure entirely rigid.

"First: Her Highness the Fire Dragon Princess acknowledges that the Black Dragon Pass incident involved her actions," I said.

"Second: this matter involves internal Dragon Kingdom disputes and eastern power entanglements. It was not directed at Typhon Fortress, nor was it a declaration of war against the Empire. I will provide full details via formal dispatch and in-person briefing later. But the most critical point right now is this—" I paused deliberately, drawing the attention of every person on that wall.

"This misinterpretation cannot be allowed to escalate further." High-altitude wind pressed down, snapping my cloak violently behind me. I held Frank's gaze and delivered each word with absolute precision.

"Your decision to hold your forces yesterday was correct. Because if any party treats this as a formal declaration of war now, the true beneficiaries will not be Typhon Fortress. Nor the Empire." That clearly landed. He didn't fire back immediately. That was enough. I pressed the advantage one step further.

"The contents of that bag are initial compensation. Not the entirety, but sufficient to prove there is no intention of evading responsibility," I said.

"And my remaining on dragonback rather than descending to the gate is not intended as disrespect toward you—it's to prevent any further miscalculation by the garrison. If you permit it, my lord, I will descend personally on my return and provide a complete, unvarnished account of everything." That was the exit ramp. Not just for Frank—for every soldier on that wall with fingers still too close to crossbow triggers.

The message was clear: This is not a negotiation, not a diplomatic tour, and certainly not a dragon invasion. It's an advance payment, accompanied by one still-living envoy, doing his absolute best to keep this disaster from boiling over. Silence held below for a moment. Frank's hand was still clenched around the letter, knuckles white with force.

He stared at me, then looked up at the fire dragon beneath me—which could, without much effort, treat Typhon Fortress as a light breakfast—and his expression settled into something as dark as pre-storm sky.

"Cedric." He finally spoke, voice dropped dangerously low.

"Yesterday you told me not to make a misjudgment."

"I did."

"And this morning you ride the misjudgment itself directly over my fortress to deliver money?" I closed my eyes briefly. The summary was so lethally accurate that attempting to deflect would only insult both of us.

"... I concede the optics are somewhat out of control."

"Somewhat?"

"If you insist, my lord, I can remove the qualifier entirely." Several people on the wall made sounds they barely managed to swallow before they became outright coughing. Frank didn't laugh. He just glared at me with the expression of a man seriously calculating whether to take down my final words while I was still in earshot. But in the end, he didn't give the order to fire. Because he knew my previous statement was correct.

Whoever pushed this situation one step further right now would only be serving someone else's interests—not the border troops holding this wall with their lives. He looked down at the sack, then at the letter, and finally back up.

"Fine." One word. But when it fell, the entire fortress visibly exhaled.

"I'll accept this bag." He looked back up at me, fury in his eyes entirely undiminished.

"Not because I trust this dragon. Not because I trust the Dragon Kingdom. Because since I trusted you once yesterday, I'll give you one more opportunity today to finish what you started."

"Thank you, my lord."

"Save your thanks." His voice stayed cold.

"If you don't return with something I can actually justify to my men, the next time you drop anything from a dragon's back—even if it's a mountain of gold—I'll treat it as siege ammunition." Very Frank. Entirely reasonable. I nodded once.

"Understood." He clearly wanted to continue the verbal assault, but even he seemed to recognize that extending this exchange would only push the entire scene further into theatrical absurdity. So he settled for slamming the letter hard against his adjutant's chest and barking:"Secure that! And get those crossbows angled down—nobody fires without my direct order!"

"Yes, my lord!" With that command, the heavy crossbows that had been holding maximum tension finally, grudgingly, lowered their trajectory. Not retracted. But sufficient. I knew this was the absolute best result available today. Anything more would be forcing a break. I was about to offer one final diplomatic closing when Ignicia tilted her head.

"Done talking?"

"Halfway done."

"Then you're done."

"Wait—" Unfortunately, dragons are not naturally inclined to process whatever follows the word wait. Her wings snapped down and her massive frame surged upward. Typhon Fortress's battlements, Frank's magnificently furious face, and the recently delivered compensation bag were all instantly left far below. I managed one backward glance before the freezing high-altitude wind hit me full in the face, making any final parting words—including take care not to die of anger, my lord—structurally impossible.

Only after Typhon Fortress had shrunk to a gray-black outline beneath us did I finally recover my voice.

"Your Highness."

"Mm?"

"If you had delayed takeoff by exactly half a minute, I could have concluded that exchange looking marginally more human."

"But weren't you finished talking?"

"By your definition, perhaps." I pressed fingers to my temples.

"For humans, the truly difficult part often isn't finishing what you say—it's staying afterward to manage everyone's facial expressions." She appeared to find this distinction entirely without merit, dismissed it accordingly, and continued flying north. I had assumed that the aerial compensation delivery at Typhon Fortress represented the peak of absurdity for this particular mission. I had, apparently, overestimated my own luck once again.

Because after we'd been flying for some time, Ignicia spoke with complete casualness.

"Next stop: Cliffhold Fortress." I blinked.

"Where?"

"Cliffhold Fortress." She said it as though reading from an obvious itinerary.

"To apologize to your king in person." I was silent for two full seconds. Then I couldn't stop myself from raising a hand to cover my face.

"... Your Highness."

"What now?"

"Do you perhaps harbor a fundamentally terrifying misunderstanding of the word apologize?" She made a disgruntled sound.

"I'm going personally. What's the problem?"

"The problem is catastrophic." I moved my hand and stared at the still-warm crimson scales at her neck, feeling the headache beginning its return.

"When you dropped a compensation bag on Typhon Fortress, they could at least comfort themselves that you were just passing through border territory. But if your next destination is flying directly to Cliffhold Fortress—if you circle above the capital and announce you've come to apologize to His Majesty—" I paused, offering the conclusion with absolute sincerity.

"That's not an apology, Your Highness."

"That's a dragon executing a flawless declaration-of-war posture before the diplomatic credentials have even reached the gate."