I’m Going to Change My Husband With a Predatory Marriage - Chapter 28

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 28

‘A dragon who fell for a princess at first sight, raided the wedding procession, and abducted her as his bride.’
This was an extraordinarily famous tale.
One I had exploited in my marriage to Arpard.
And before my regression, the legend that Evangeline and Ludwig had utilized—the story of the dragon Artanus and Princess Istrid—was fact and history.
The existence of Arpard standing before me now was proof of that.
His descendant, bearing the dragon’s bloodline in thick concentration.
Yet beyond the founding tale of House Istrid, stories of dragons abducting princesses and knights rushing to their rescue were commonplace.
Not only on Earth, but in this world as well.
However, most people rarely questioned such things.
‘Why do dragons always abduct princesses?’
In most tales, the reasons divided into two primary categories.
First, to take them as wives.
Second, to devour them.
But I knew these two reasons actually stemmed from the same source.
Because of the existence known as ‘the dragon’s bride.’
The dragon’s bride was a being who could make a dragon’s power and body far stronger.

“As if a part of the dragon that should have been whole from the beginning had been torn away and separated.”

Thus each dragon sought to claim their bride in different ways.
Some took them as companions, spending their lives together.
Others consumed them.
The methods were polar opposites, yet the dragon’s desire for a bride remained identical.
Desperately so.
To the point of losing reason.
Even as Artanus turned an entire nation into an enemy and waged war for years, he never abandoned Istrid.
He could not.
‘Which meant Princess Istrid was that important to Artanus.’
The side effect of the bride’s power was that it could drive even a dragon to lose reason and become nothing but a beast.
Then what could the bride possibly mean to half-breeds who could not overcome dragon blood?
Especially to one who might go mad and die at any moment?
I already sensed the answer.
Because I had witnessed Arpard completely consumed by madness.
In my first life, if the Emperor’s blade had not severed his neck before he could kill me, Arpard surely would have.
Dominated by madness, acting on pure instinct as a beast, he would have devoured his bride.
Tension and dread stretched taut as a bowstring pulled to its limit.

* * *

I learned this truth long after I met Arpard in my first life and witnessed his death.
It was in the third cycle—the life immediately before this one.
Even for someone who has experienced death three times, that moment remains vivid and unbearably traumatic each time.
Yet there were moments burned into my memory as vividly as death itself, perhaps even more so.
Those were the moments I spent with ‘that man.’
‘Gaspard, the Mad Archmage.’
He was peculiar among those who followed Evangeline.
Unlike the others, he had not fallen for her abilities, her charm, or her uniqueness.
‘He allied with Evangeline purely for personal gain.’
In essence, he was a mad scientist of sorts.
The type of scientist from dramas and films who conducts all manner of insane experiments on human subjects.
Replace the scientist with a mage and the scientific experiments with magical ones, and you have Gaspard.
And the field in which he was most obsessed was none other than dragons.
He desperately wished to create a dragon with his own hands, and the Imperial Family, bearing dragon bloodline, were the test subjects he craved most intensely.
‘That is why Gaspard cooperated with Evangeline in exchange for Arpard’s corpse.’
This is precisely why I could never suspect that Evangeline harbored affection for Arpard.
She handed over his corpse to the Archmage each time to secure his cooperation.
And what the Archmage received from Evangeline was not merely Arpard’s body.
It also included human subjects for his magical experiments.
Most of the test subjects Evangeline provided to the Archmage were death row inmates.
And I was among them.
Evangeline had me secretly extracted from the Imperial Palace Prison, where I was imprisoned on charges of adultery and treason, and delivered me to the Archmage as a test subject.
Gaspard cackled with glee and treated me with particular care among all his subjects.

“Please, please stop! It hurts so much!”
“I can’t help it. Eva specifically instructed me to treat you especially well.”

The change that came during those endless days of cruel and agonizing experiments was purely by chance.
When I fled from the pain, unable to escape outside, I instead stumbled into a far more dangerous place.
It was there that I encountered Arpard. Or more precisely, I encountered what ‘had been’ Arpard.
Across multiple lifetimes, I had met Arpard several times—as Prince Arpard, or as Gerald, the Mercenary King.
But this was the first time I had seen him as a corpse transformed into a living, moving monstrosity.
Though I knew Arpard’s face, I did not realize at that moment that this creature had been fashioned from his corpse.
His body had been grotesquely warped beyond recognition.
His entire form was covered in black scales, and a single incomplete wing protruded from his back. His fingernails and toenails had grown like hooks, gouging through brick.
The creature—a hybrid of dragon and human—was nothing but horrifying.
Chained and devoid of reason, the monster lunged toward me. I was certain I would die without resistance.

“Krraaaagh!!”
“Kyaaaaaagh!!!”

But I was wrong.
I remained alive, and the creature fashioned from Arpard’s corpse held me fast, its crimson eyes fixed upon me.
A beast no different from an animal, stripped of all reason.

“…?”
“Grrrrgh….”

And in the next moment.
The creature began to lick the wound on my knee from where I had fallen.
I understood quickly enough.

“It’s drinking my blood?”

The creature licked my blood as though it were divine nectar.
When it realized there was no more blood to lick, it attempted to bite my throat and drink directly from the wound.
It was the Archmage who stopped it.

“Tsk! That won’t do! Eva specifically asked me to keep this specimen alive and return it!”

The Archmage’s magic sent the creature fashioned from Arpard’s corpse flying, crashing directly into the wall.
Gaspard, the Mad Archmage, tilted his head in confusion.

“Hmm? But why didn’t this specimen kill it? It tore apart everything else that came near it.”

And from the results of countless horrific experiments, Gaspard was able to draw a conclusion.

“That’s right. It was because of your unique constitution! Your blood and flesh strengthen the dragon’s power and compensate for its incompleteness.”
“That’s why the unstable hybrids have no choice but to desire your abilities, even if it means devouring you.”
“Ah. My hypothesis was correct. Princess Istrid was a special existence. Just like you! That’s why such a massive being as a dragon needed her.”

He cheered and used me as a subject for all manner of experiments for half a year.
The nickname he gave me was this.

“The Dragon’s Bride. There is no epithet more fitting for you than that.”

To the Archmage obsessed with dragons, I was the perfect specimen.
He was always lamenting.

“Ah. I wish I could see what would happen if I could bring you together with Prince Arpard while he was still alive. It’s truly a shame.”

And when Evangeline demanded my return, saying she needed to execute me publicly, he even resisted.

“I haven’t finished the experiments yet! Just give me a little more time!”

Yet because he wanted to monopolize the experimental results, he never revealed the truth about my constitution to Evangeline.
Thanks to that, it took half a year before I returned from the Archmage’s Tower to the Imperial Palace Prison.
Perhaps he would have refused to return my corpse after my death.
Since Evangeline executed me immediately after reclaiming me, I never found out what came after.
My third life was truly a horrible existence in every way.
Among all of it, the half year at the Archmage’s Tower was especially dreadful.
If anything could be called an advantage, it would be that I learned what abilities I possessed as the “Dragon’s Bride” and how to use them.
No, thinking about it again, it doesn’t seem like an advantage after all.
From that experience, I came to understand that I, as the “Dragon’s Bride,” was an extremely useful existence to the living Arpard.
But at the same time, I could not help but learn one crucial fact.

“When a dragon meets his bride, he seeks to claim her to compensate for his own incompleteness.”
“There are many methods. If we’re talking about the most primitive and violent method, then surely… it would be to devour her.”

Gaspard would mutter on and on, regardless of whether I wanted to hear it or not.
About the ecology of dragons he had discovered.
About my abilities as the Dragon’s Bride.
Even hypotheses about how those with dragon blood would behave toward me.
Each time, I would feign horror while playing along.
While conversing, his attention would be diverted, and the experiments would pause.

“So all dragons want to devour me the moment they see me?”
“Not all of them. Look at Princess Istrid—she didn’t die, did she? I’ve even seen her descendants.”

At Gaspard’s words, I murmured while gazing at Arpard’s corpse, pinned to the wall like a butterfly specimen.

“The Imperial Family.”
“Exactly. The Imperial Family. Noble bloodlines who inherited the lineage of the great dragon.”
“Then would they also try to devour me if they saw me?”
“They might. But not all of them would want to consume their bride, I’m telling you.”

He whispered in a low voice.

“Or they might want to mingle their bodies with yours instead.”

* * *

And now, standing before my eyes was a man who carried dragon’s blood more richly than any since the founding Emperor in the Empire’s three-hundred-year history.
Arpard, alive.
His reptilian eyes gleaming crimson.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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