Chapter 50: What a small fry~

Von Brunswick dismounted from his horse.

His boots stepped on the stone floor of the ruins, stirring up a layer of dust.

He looked at the girl before him—

Silver hair, silver eyes, wearing a bright yellow shirt, barefoot, holding a sword longer than her arm in her hand.

Her silver hair was blown by the wind, the tips sweeping across the eye patterns on the stone pillars.

“It seems you’ve completely degenerated into a dragon.”

He folded his riding crop and tucked it into his belt.

“Miss Orlando.”

Olivia hefted the sword onto her shoulder.

The blade almost caught on her collar again; she tilted her head to avoid it.

“Heh. You still have the nerve? You abandoned me, you think I wanted that?”

“You despicable—”

“What, what do you want to say?”

Olivia tilted her head, her silver hair sliding off her shoulder.

“Lizard? Or… big bug?”

Von’s mouth twitched.

In the past two years at the Royal Dragon Slayer Corps, they called dragons “big bugs” among themselves.

Not an official term, but a derogatory nickname over drinks.

“Killed a few big bugs today,” “Big bug scales sell for a good price.”

“Mr. Orlando… no, miss. Anyway, you’re a different person now, no one can recognize you, and I can easily explain to the Emperor. How about we make a deal?”

Olivia didn’t speak.

“You can live in human cities under a different identity. Be best friends with Elenora, I don’t mind—that way you two can be together like before.”

He paused.

“But this isn’t free~.”

“You will be my maid.”

The ruins were quiet for a moment.

“Hmph.”

Olivia snorted through her nose.

“Dream on. You want Elenora and something else?”

She took a step forward.

Her bare foot pressed onto the stone slab, leaving a faint footprint in the dust.

Her right hand clenched into a fist—

A very small fist—

And then she punched it into Von’s chest.

A dull thud.

Von stepped back.

Olivia’s fist still pressed against his chest, her silver pupils slightly widened.

That punch used seventy percent of her strength.

Dragon strength was different from humans.

Seventy percent of a silver dragon’s power was enough to send an adult human male flying.

But Von stood his ground, her fist against his chest, unmoving.

“Truly a scumbag.”

She withdrew her fist and shook her hand.

“And a small fry.”

Von Brunswick calmly straightened up.

He reached out and brushed the spot on his chest where her fist had hit—

A small crease remained in the gold embroidery.

He smoothed it out.

“You seem full of energy.”

He looked up, a grin curling at the corner of his mouth.

“Lady Dragon.”

“But have you forgotten who I am?”

He lowered his right hand from his chest.

His five fingers closed into a fist.

A gray-yellow light flickered between the gaps—

Earth magic.

Karl Von Brunswick, captain of the Royal Dragon Slayer Corps, an earth-attuned magic user.

Rock elements wrapped around his knuckles, spreading outward from the skin surface like a thick, gray-yellow glove that kept growing.

“Captain of the Royal Dragon Slayers.”

He stepped forward.

His fist swung out—

Aimed at her abdomen.

The fist, wrapped in earth magic, was far heavier than her seventy-percent-strength punch.

Olivia saw the gray-yellow fist growing larger in her field of vision.

But the fist was too fast.

She had stepped forward to hit him, and now there was less than an arm’s length between them.

The fist struck her abdomen.

Her stomach felt as if someone had grabbed it from the inside and wrung it hard.

Her body bent like a boiled shrimp, silver hair slipping from her shoulders and dragging across the stone floor.

She staggered back.

Her bare foot stepped on a loose stone slab, and her ankle twisted.

Her body fell backward.

The back of her head struck the base of a stone pillar.

The eye pattern carved into the stone pressed against her occiput.

Silver blood seeped from her hair and trickled down the eye pattern on the pillar—

From the pupil, over the eyelid, past the corner of the eye.

The blood soaked into the engraved lines, and one by one, the lines that had slept for too long began to glow.

Von Brunswick stood before her.

The gray-yellow earth magic still wrapped around his fist, like a living rock in the afternoon light.

“Really can’t take a hit.”

He looked down at her, curled up at the base of the pillar.

Her bright yellow shirt was crumpled, her silver hair spread across the stone floor, blood from the back of her head flowing down the carved lines of the pillar.

Her bare feet, soles covered in dust and debris.

“Little silver dragon.”