Elqueeness [EN]: Chapter 219

219. I Must Be Crazy!

The moment of impulse is fleeting, but regret lingers. Grabbing my head with both hands and groaning wouldn’t undo what I’d done; the milk had already been spilled, and the ship had sailed. Except, unlike those situations, I *could* fix them with my own power. It was depressing that I could solve problems as irreversible as idioms, yet I was helpless in the face of this current mess.

The bead, now dull and black, remained stubbornly silent no matter how much I glared at it. Usually, Lapis wouldn’t tolerate me unilaterally cutting off communication, but this time, he wasn’t responding. It seemed he didn’t want to talk anymore either. He was doing it on purpose, I was sure of it. As expected of a millennia-old dragon, he knew exactly how to torment me most effectively.

Why *did* I cut off the communication like that? The more I dwelled on my foolish decision, the more I sighed. I was also upset that I was the only one suffering when my anger hadn’t even subsided.

‘Why are you my friend!’ Just thinking about it made my stomach churn. Of course, we were in a contractual relationship, and we hadn’t known each other for very long. But I thought we had become quite close during that time. Was I the only one who considered him a friend?

I knew that Lapis wasn’t particularly considerate or altruistic. He openly declared that he wouldn’t do anything unless asked, so how could he be? But I thought that was just his nature, not because he didn’t think we were close enough. The fact that I even entertained the thought that he *wouldn’t* consider me a friend was even more shocking.

‘(Since we have a contract) I will only cooperate when requested.’ That’s all our relationship was to him. What a bleak outlook!

I’m the one in a difficult position, so I’ll have to back down, but I don’t think my anger will subside no matter how many times I think about it. Trying to appease him with such a grudging heart made me feel even more twisted inside. I don’t know if I can endure his annoying nagging and sarcasm in this state. Ah, why did things have to come to this? I should have been more patient back then!

—Your Majesty, are you alright?

As I grabbed my head again and groaned, the spirits nearby crept closer. My display of regret, anger, and renewed regret seemed very unsettling to them.

Sikel tried to comfort me by nuzzling his head against me, so I patted his head. Thanks to him, I was able to escape my spiraling thoughts and start thinking about more proactive solutions. The question was whether to apologize in person and talk to him face to face, or to send Sikel and have him re-establish contact. Going in person would be much more effective, but if I only sent Sikel, he would definitely ignore him! Still, my last shred of pride urged me to do the latter. Furthermore, it would be very satisfying to make him pay for the mana used to materialize Sikel. It would be like making the other person pay for the call. A very expensive international call, at that. And this is a fee that will be charged no matter what.

“Sending two would double it, right?”

Thinking that, I grinned and wanted to play a prank. I immediately materialized two Sikels on the spot. But the amount of mana required was less than I expected. It would be a reasonable amount for Isana, but it was nothing to a dragon like him. It was like a bus fare of 30 won [Korean currency, a very small amount] or 3,000 won [still a relatively small amount] not making much of a difference to a rich person with overflowing money. I didn’t like that, so I added two more, but it still wasn’t enough to burden him.

Feeling the still abundant mana even while supporting four Sikels, I had a vision of Lapis’s annoying face mocking me, saying, ‘Is that all?’ Thanks to that, what I had started with a light heart gradually turned into stubbornness. From four to six, until it was a multiple of that. I almost obsessively didn’t stop. From the fifth one onwards, there were no more Sikels nearby, so I had to call them from the Spirit Realm, but that didn’t stop me. It was also fun, so I was absorbed in it without realizing it.

When I suddenly came to my senses, there were already forty Sikels filling my surroundings. I was dumbfounded when I realized that. Not because I felt sorry for Lapis, but because I was dumbfounded by his still undepleted mana. This amount would have caused a human to go into cardiac shock and stop breathing. Even for a dragon, it was definitely a challenging level. But Lapis’s mana was still abundant, as if he were an exception. It seemed like he could easily summon the same amount of Sikels again.

What kind of dragon *is* he? It’s as if his flesh and blood are all made of mana, and I doubt whether he’s even a species with a physical body. I should have expected it when I heard that he had summoned the previous Elquines [a powerful spirit] hundreds of times. Even for a dragon, summoning a Spirit King, especially one of a different attribute, wouldn’t be that simple, but he summoned them as if he were going for a stroll in the neighborhood, which was strange. For the first time, I understood why he had praised himself so much. No, he was actually being humble compared to his abilities.

I never thought the day would come when I would describe Lapis as humble. I couldn’t close my mouth because I was so dumbfounded, but it was really true. Now that it’s come to this, my overflowing enthusiasm for messing with him has subsided. But I couldn’t give up easily either.

“…Should I just reverse summon them all?”

Even he would be a little affected by that, right? As a Spirit King, I’m reluctant to reverse summon perfectly fine spirits, but if I set my mind to it, I can do it. I felt like I had deviated quite a bit from my initial purpose, but now I was almost resigned to whatever happens.

“Why don’t you try a more elegant method of assassination?”

If I hadn’t heard the voice that followed, I would have really carried it out. The unexpected voice made me flinch as I tried to reverse summon with great vigor. I turned around and saw a long shadow stretched out as if something was leaning against a nearby tree trunk. I quickly recognized that it was a human figure. Someone was watching me with their arms crossed.

I didn’t feel any presence, but the fact that there was someone there made me instinctively wary. The sky, filled with dark clouds, didn’t even allow the faint starlight to pass through, so the surroundings were as dark as if they were filled with ink. Perhaps because of that, it was strangely difficult to recognize the other person’s appearance, even though they weren’t that far away.

“…It’s not him, is it?”

No. It can’t be. There’s no way he, who had decided to tease me, would bother to move his precious body for something like this. Of course, I know that he’s the only answer in terms of timing, but my emotions desperately denied the rational judgment.

“Him?”

Whoosh.

Just in time, the wind scattered the dark clouds, and the moonlight that had been trapped between them peeked out a little. Thanks to that, the visibility improved a little, and the figure, which had been nothing more than a black mass, slowly revealed its appearance.

A tall height and red eyes burning like the sun. The hair that was ruffled by the faint breeze had a deep blood-red color. His already flamboyant face contained the soft moonlight and felt almost bewitching. No matter how many people in the world have the same face, there wouldn’t be another person who looked like this even if you searched the entire dimension. I finally had to admit it.

“Lapis.”

* * *

The dark clouds, which had been swelling with water spirits, began to pour down rain in earnest after midnight. Originally, it was only supposed to be a light drizzle that would slightly wet the ground, but it had turned into a heavy downpour, influenced by the Sikels that had gathered. Judging by the momentum of the rampaging spirits, it seemed like it would continue to fall steadily until tomorrow morning.

“It’s humid.”

Ignoring the grumbling sound about the humid air, I carefully opened the closed door. The place I entered was the room where Cecil was fast asleep. Kaitain and Endil, who were sitting next to the bed, smiled when they found me, but their eyes widened when they saw the person following behind me. Endil had a wary expression towards the person he was seeing for the first time, while Kaitain’s face showed surprise and joy at finding someone who shouldn’t be here.

“Lord Lapis?”

When he called his name in a confirming tone, the man behind me—Lapis—sent a light greeting instead of answering. Perhaps because they had already met, he was a little more friendly.

“How did Lord Lapis get here…? Did you come after receiving a message from El-nim [El’s honorific]?”

Kaitain quickly got up and stepped forward to welcome him. Endil also stood up in an awkward posture. Lapis shrugged his shoulders and gave me a strange smile.

“I came because of this guy. I value my life, too.”

“Yes? What do you mean by that?”

“He tried to kill me.”

“Y-yes?”

…I just had a thought, but it’s clear that that guy was born to torment me. Watching Kaitain’s bewildered gaze towards me, I covered my forehead with one hand. He’s bringing up things that are already over to embarrass me. I appeased him, but he’s still turning me inside out.

“Are you going to keep doing this? I apologized!”

“You almost killed someone and all you have to do is apologize? That’s a very convenient way of thinking.”

“I, I didn’t try to kill you, did I?”

“Oh, really. You just wanted to test how far my mana could withstand, right? You probably didn’t realize that even I would become a cripple or die if dozens of Sikels were reverse summoned. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that ignorance can be a sin.”

“……”

“Don’t go around making contracts so carelessly in the future. Unless you want to cause all the dragons to die a miserable death.”

I gritted my teeth involuntarily at the sarcastic words. I was angry, but the fact that I couldn’t refute it made me even more annoyed. Why did he have to show up then! No, if he hadn’t come, I wouldn’t have stopped, so it’s better that he came before I did something worse.

Sending a resentful gaze, Lapis also stared back without giving in. Over his annoyingly smiling face, the murderous face he had when he first appeared in front of me overlapped.

“Lapis.”

The figure, which had been motionless like a decoration, became lively as if a spell had been broken the moment I called his name. He straightened up from the tree he had been leaning against and began to move. With each step he took, the shadows that had been covering him were removed as if peeling off a skin. When he reached in front of me, his appearance, illuminated by the bright moonlight like a spotlight, was completely revealed. His presence, which was so clear that I couldn’t even pretend that I had misseen him, completely dominated the surroundings. Thanks to that, I had no choice but to realize it again. That Lapis had really come.

‘Why is this guy here?’

Of course, I was sure he was angry because the communication had been cut off like that, but I never thought he would come all the way here in person. I was so dazed by the unexpected situation that I didn’t even think about dealing with the evidence of the crime (?) that was filling the scene. Only the dozens of Sikels who had been summoned without any fault were sweating profusely because they were empathizing with my emotions. Lapis’s eyes flashed dangerously as he looked back at them.

“…You have a talent for making me feel dumbfounded sometimes.”

With those words, the appearance of the swarming Sikels disappeared at once. He had canceled the summons and sent them all back to the Spirit Realm. He even tried to get rid of the mana that was maintaining me, so I quickly had to bring Isana’s mana.

“Ah, this is a bit much!”

“What is? Too much? Is that what someone who played with someone else’s mana should say?”

“B-but it didn’t have a big impact on you, did it?”

“Why didn’t it have an impact? My strength was draining from my whole body, do you think that’s okay? And I heard that you were even trying to reverse summon me? I didn’t know you wanted to kill me.”

The low, threatening gaze made my shoulders flinch involuntarily. I had forgotten in my anger, but when I thought about it, I had done something quite dangerous. Summoning spirits indefinitely without even calculating the total amount of mana. It was a good thing he endured it, or I would have almost killed him. It was something that I couldn’t even complain about if he demanded that we break the contract, let alone just recover the mana.

But there’s no result without a cause, right? I know it’s my fault, but since the other person is Lapis, I didn’t want to apologize willingly. I wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t for Lapis in the first place!

“T-that’s not what I was trying to do! I was just amazed by how much mana you had, so I didn’t even realize…”

“So you tried to reverse summon me? Do you think I would be safe if that much mana flowed back at once?”

“But you didn’t do it!”

“Say it right? It’s not that I didn’t do it, but that I ‘couldn’t’ do it because I talked to you.”

“T-that’s…”

I couldn’t say no, and the conscience I had buried was slowly raising its head. No matter how much I tried to make excuses, what I had done was not something that could be tolerated. I just opened my mouth, and I finally couldn’t overcome my guilt and surrendered.

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s enough. Tell me honestly. Did you cause the mana to backflow last time on purpose too?”

“Last time?”

“Don’t you know? You dared to make me bleed and you forgot?”

I wondered what he was talking about, and then I remembered the time I was attacked by the priests of the Demon God. I had covered the fallen Isana and was hit instead, and a considerable amount of mana had flowed back. I vaguely knew that Lapis would have suffered internal injuries, but it seems he really vomited blood back then.

“No! That was a really dangerous situation!”

“Anyway, I feel like my lifespan is shortening every day because of you. I won’t give you any mana for the time being. Try to live well with Isana’s measly mana.”

“Kuh-heuk!”

Just thinking about that moment still makes me shudder. If someone had watched how much effort I had to put in to appease him afterwards, they wouldn’t have been able to watch without tears. I was so busy trying to figure out Lapis’s angry mood that I couldn’t even protest, let alone get an apology for the fact that he had hurt me. It was like trying to get revenge clumsily and not even getting my money’s worth.

Still, I was surprised that Lapis didn’t just go back and followed me. No, to be exact, he asked to see Cecil first. I don’t know what kind of change of heart he had, but he seemed to want to check Cecil’s condition himself since he had come all the way here. It was a request that I had no reason to refuse, so I readily guided him.