The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 102

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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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The Ghost Bride of the Abandoned Prince — Episode 102

‘Ow! It hurts! Can’t you be gentler?!’
‘The spear is lodged too deep! You’re a Dragon! Can’t you use Pain Relief Magic or something?’
‘Argh, I don’t have the strength right now! I told you to be gentle!’
‘Come on, don’t fight. Aria, be a little more careful too.’
After their bickering, Odel and Aria resolved to treat the Dragon.
The Dragon grumbled, but it readily accepted help from these insignificant humans.
How much time had passed? They finally managed to extract all manner of weapons embedded in the Dragon’s body.
Odel pulled free the last arrow and gazed down at the heap of weapons accumulating below him. His brow furrowed involuntarily.
Four spears, two swords, seven arrows.
‘Madmen.’
This was nothing short of a hunt.
Odel clenched his fists and turned back to the Dragon. Having lost so much blood, it was breathing shallowly, wholly devoted to recovery.
Without Aria, he would never have thought to extract the spears or blades. If she hadn’t cast Recovery Magic immediately, the creature might have died from blood loss alone.
‘Ugh…… I’m at my limit now…….’
Aria, who had been pouring every drop of her mana into Recovery Magic, staggered. Odel rushed to steady her.
Her pale face had turned even paler, a sickly white.
‘You’ve done well, Aria. Chew on this.’
Aria chewed weakly at the medicinal herbs Odel offered her—herbs good for restoring vitality.
Once Odel had positioned her against the wall to rest, he returned to examining the Dragon.
Thanks to Aria, the wounds that had been bleeding freely were now closing somewhat.
Of course, that didn’t mean it was healed enough to stand just yet.
Squeeze—
At the sound of something being wrung out, the Dragon’s closed eyes opened. It rolled its enormous eyes about.
The bite-sized human that was Odel was wiping blood from its scales with a water-dampened cloth.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
‘Oh, you’re awake? Please wait just a moment. I’m cleaning away the blood now.’
At the Dragon’s rumble, Odel replied with a gentle smile. Though the Dragon’s eyes remained wary, it showed no murderous intent like it had before breathing fire.
The Dragon could not fathom this human, who labored with devoted sincerity despite its broken legs and beading sweat.
‘Are you a fool?’
‘Are you asking about me?’
‘Is there another fool here besides you?’
Odel felt wronged for a moment and glanced toward Aria, who was lying nearly unconscious some distance away.
‘I’m your benefactor, even so.’
‘Rumble-rumble-rumble! Who said you were a benefactor? I never asked for help!’
‘But you must know that without us, you might not have been able to receive treatment?’
‘Grrr, grr-rrgh……!’
Reluctant as it was to admit, the Dragon couldn’t deny the truth.
Having lost so much blood, it could not even cast Healing Magic on itself.
Left alone, it would have…….
The Dragon, briefly imagining its own end, blinked slowly and turned back to Odel.
Having wiped away the last of the blood, he brushed away the sweat beading on his forehead and breathed heavily.
‘……Why did you help me?’
When Odel turned with an expression asking ‘Is that again?’, the Dragon felt a sudden surge of emotion.
‘I tried to kill you! So why did you help me?!’
Though he was receiving aid, the Dragon could not comprehend this human. Normally it would have fled like that woman.
‘If you’re trying to extract something from me, you’ve miscalculated! I despise you humans! Don’t bother trying to get anything from me!’
‘……Are you finished speaking?’
The Dragon flinched at the calm voice but huffed and turned away. Behind him came Odel’s sigh.
‘When I see someone injured—or rather, an injured Dragon—I can’t just pretend not to notice. That would be wrong.’
The Dragon flinched and cautiously glanced back. It had expected anger, but Odel’s face was calm.
‘Besides, what would I gain? We were moments from losing our lives.’
Did that mean he was acting so foolishly despite knowing the danger?
The Dragon found him even more baffling.
‘Oh, the medicinal herbs are all gone. If only I had an elder brother…….’
Odel, applying herbs to the Dragon’s wounds, looked troubled as his supply ran out.
The Dragon decided to watch how far this strange human would go—and then caught an unfamiliar sound nearby. It was the presence of someone approaching.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
‘Dragon sir?’
Odel had also caught the presence, though at first he’d been puzzled by the Dragon’s hostile rumble.
They were definitely nearby…….
‘Brother! It’s brother! Dragon sir, please wait just a moment!’
The Dragon, its teeth bared, froze and looked at Odel. He was already smiling broadly as he limped away.
After he left, voices of humans conversing could be heard from a distance. They were clearly greeting each other warmly.
‘A strange one.’
‘The likes of him are rare in this age.’
The Dragon, murmuring alone, turned its cool gaze to the side. Aria, whom it had thought asleep, was now propped up on her elbows.
‘Weak as he is, that’s precisely why I notice him. He doesn’t know his own place, yet puts others first.’
‘…….’
‘Honestly, if it weren’t for Odel, I wouldn’t have helped that lizard either.’
‘You talk too much for a dirty witch.’
‘I mean that I won’t harm Odel’s companions.’
The Dragon’s eyelids flickered—it seemed the thought had not been entirely absent from its mind.
What, Dragon? Are you insane?!
Ah, brother. It’s fine.
At the distant voices of the party, the Dragon and Aria’s attention briefly turned toward the passage.
‘They are twins without equal. No matter how much of a Dragon I am, I won’t harm my benefactor’s family.’
‘Tch.’
The word “family” seemed to deflate the Dragon, and it turned away with a click of its tongue.
Relieved to have resolved the matter, Aria brushed back her hair. Just then, Odel returned, leading a bewildered Leon.
Their faces were indeed identical—they were clearly twins.
‘Dragon sir, this is my brother. His name is Leon.’
Watching Odel introduce his brother without a shred of caution, the Dragon was astounded.
‘Brother, this is Dragon sir…… Um, what is your name?’
Not fearless—simply naïve.
Exasperated, the Dragon looked between the ingenuous Odel and the wary Leon, then sighed.
‘Carserin.’
Aria and Leon stiffened at actually receiving a name, while Odel broke into a bright smile.
‘I am called Carserin. Know this, foolish humans.’

.
.

Slip—
Long eyelashes trembled as closed eyelids fluttered open, and the green eyes that had been resting there gleamed as they caught the sunlight.
“……What kind of ridiculous dream was that?”
Kaiser, who had been napping sprawled across the Imperial Palace roof, stirred as he recalled the vivid dream.
But like all dreams, the memory faded gradually as time passed.
Only in his mind…….
“Tch, that Lia. She really called me a lizard, didn’t she?”
Only the strongest impressions remained.
As Kaiser brooded alone over Lia, whom he normally found beneath his notice, he stopped kicking at the empty air and lay back at full length.
“I must have been spending quite a lot of time with those lot.”
If they show up in my dreams.
Though they looked a bit different in the dream than he remembered them.
“Lia had even less tact, and Lucian was…….”
Hmm? What was Lucian like?
He was certain Lucian had appeared, but now his face was blurred as though by fog. Two afterimages seemed to overlap…….
Kaiser racked his brain trying to recall Lucian’s face from the dream, but a forgotten dream could not be retrieved.
“Arghhhhhh! What the hell!”
All he could do was thrash about in frustration.
“Ugh, you’re so loud! What are you doing on that roof?! You’ll collapse the whole palace!”
At the shout from below, Kaiser stiffened. Lowering his head, he saw Lia venting her annoyance from the terrace.
For the past ten minutes, she had endured his stomping and anguished howls from above.
“Lucky for you! How dare you call me a lizard……!”
“Stop rambling. If you’re not fully awake, go wash your face!”
At the sight of her shutting the terrace door with a bang, Kaiser flinched.
“Tsk. Always grumbling at me alone.”
Why had he even dreamed of something pretty like that? Kaiser stuck out his tongue at the space where Lia had been, trying to suppress his irritation.
“Wait and see. I’ll tell Lucian everything.”
Though he doubted Lucian would side with him, the Dragon nonetheless felt the weight of his predicament.
How had a noble Red Dragon ended up here, tethered to these two, remaining in this wretched place?
“They don’t understand how important I am…… do they?”
As Kaiser muttered and grumbled to himself, he sensed an unfamiliar presence within his territory.
Since settling here with Lia, he had been spreading his aura widely to oversee every corner of the Imperial Palace.
Therefore, he could claim to know every servant’s presence that frequented the palace.
But now a foreign aura was detected.
Realizing the presence was lingering at the Garden’s boundary, not inside the palace proper, Kaiser’s eyes snapped open.
His pupils, sharp as a reptile’s, narrowed vertically, and he quickly pinpointed the aura.
“Oh?”
The presence was none other than Lirlis, Lucian’s fiancée.
She was exchanging a covert letter with one of the palace servants.
Soon the servant hurried away, and Lirlis herself looked around cautiously, checking whether anyone was present.
Moments later, Lirlis fixed a venomous gaze upon the Imperial Palace.
‘I’ll bring it back where it belongs. I swear it.’
Her voice was thick with killing intent. The direction of that intent was easy to divine.
As she departed, Kaiser fell into thought.
“Faster than I expected?”
When he’d secretly watched Lia and Lucian dancing in the Garden like a rat, he’d assumed she’d make a move eventually—but her timing was quicker than anticipated.
She was clearly planning to make a play for Lia.
“Should I just kill her now?”
She’s been pestering me with her schemes from the start.
‘But if I do, Lucian will be troubled. And Lia will nag me about it too.’
Kaiser’s face hardened coldly for a moment, but remembering Lia and Lucian, he let the killing intent fade.
“I’ll just tell Lucian.”
As he stood up thinking that would be best, a sudden thought flashed through his mind.
“What if I turned the crisis into an opportunity?”
Things had been gradually drawing closer between them since Lucian’s birthday. The problem was simply that nothing had progressed further.
Just as the Dragon watching them was growing impatient……a catalyst appearing might be exactly the stimulus they need?
“Hehehehe…… Not bad at all?”
Kaiser immediately abandoned the thought of going to Lucian and lay back down on the roof.
“Lia’s not one to fall easily, and if things go south, I can always step in anyway.”
Whether that woman would prove poison or gain, only time would tell—but certainly she would present a turning point.
Thinking thus, Kaiser let out a contented breath.

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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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