The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 242

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 242

Sion bit his own lips. Rita watched him and realized that the prince hadn’t been complacent, thinking Jurlene would naturally follow along.

Then why hadn’t he suggested they leave together?

Because he knew about Hecate’s last words? To avoid burdening her?

There was no time to think deeply about it. She bluntly threw out the truth.

“Jurlene cried today.”

“…!”

“She said she didn’t want to be left alone after everyone departed. But no one asked her to come along, and she cried saying that even you, Prince, didn’t say a word about it.”

Sion’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open. He asked back in a trembling voice.

“Jurlene… was troubled by such thoughts? Is that really true?”

“Once we leave, we may never meet again. Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

At her warning, the prince’s gaze deepened. He took a deep breath and spoke as if pouring out his heart.

“Thank you for telling me.”

The prince immediately turned around and headed toward where the village chief and Captain of the Guard were together. After saying something to them, he wrapped himself in aura and ran toward the direction of the Witch’s Cottage.

Rita glanced at his retreating figure with relief, then extended her arm where the Black Dragon’s tail was coiled.

“Let’s go, Gid.”

-Groooo.

The Black Dragon let out a low rumble and was enveloped in black energy.

The terrified people looked up at the massive Black Dragon appearing to cover the night sky and showed expressions of relief.

Rita climbed onto his extended front paw and grasped his index finger. With a beat of his wings, the monster’s massive body took flight.

Facing the wind rushing between his pillar-like fingers, she spoke to him.

“Gid, fly northeast. When you see the marching Inquisition Unit, stop and circle in the void.”

Bombing the ground from within the flying Black Dragon’s grasp would make the battle easy to lead. Rita planned her strategy and reviewed it while muttering like a sigh.

“I should have saved a music box.”

Even shooting things that merely resembled humans sometimes gave her nightmares.

Her first kill. The deafening explosion that tore eardrums and the screams of “murderer” and “monster.” Weapons aimed at her. The trigger pulled against Elders who had once been close. Eyes filled with betrayal. Her Comrade bleeding with one eye lost. Her heart pounding madly. Her ears going numb.

This time she was even planning to shoot and kill several real people, so she would definitely hear hallucinations.

Having made her decision, she had no intention of avoiding or hesitating for such reasons, but she couldn’t help worrying about the aftermath. Especially since she would be among the founding fathers who needed to show a mysterious and strong image, not colleagues who understood her seizures and strange behavior.

And the Black Dragon, who had been focusing all his attention on her, heard the small murmur that flowed away buried in the wind.

The dragon flew silently without showing any sign to Lillieta. The distance that would take an hour on foot for the forest troops was covered in 5 minutes.

A pitch-black dragon floating in the night sky should normally be difficult to spot, but not when they already knew a dragon existed and could even hear the sound of wingbeats while marching quietly without engaging in battle.

“Oh, there, over there!”

“A monster has appeared in the sky!”

“It matches the information we received! It’s a Black Dragon!”

“It’s a Black Dragon! A Black Dragon has appeared!”

“Prepare for battle!”

The Inquisition Unit became chaotic all at once. Lights flashed everywhere as barriers were created, and within them Priests clasped their hands together while knights and Mages raised their bows and staffs.

Overwhelmed by the massive Black Dragon’s appearance, they failed to notice the Woman hidden in its grasp.

Rita looked down through the Black Dragon’s finger gaps and assessed the enemy.

Who was giving orders, who was commanding? Who was at the center of the barriers and who possessed more aura?

She determined the sniping order and transformed her magic gun. Expansion mode. The magic circle inside the magic gun absorbed the user’s Oaths and activated, forming faintly glowing expansion parts. A golden cylinder sprouted from the silver revolver’s barrel, extending the gun barrel, and a stock clicked into place at the rear.

“Block their attacks, Gid. You can fly to avoid them too.”

After speaking to the Black Dragon, Rita shouldered Silvergrass, now transformed into a sniper rifle. The moment she brought her eye to the scope.

Simultaneously with the Inquisition Unit’s first attack shooting up into the night sky, black flames poured from the Black Dragon’s open mouth.

“Gid?”

Rita startled and lowered her magic gun, looking up at Gid. She tapped his pillar-like finger and called to the dragon.

“Wait, Gid, stop! I said to block, not to breathe fire—”

Thud, her body tilted and shook. Rita nearly bit her tongue and stopped speaking. The Black Dragon was circling the night sky, raining fire below.

Rita was horrified when she confirmed through the swaying narrow view between the dragon’s fingers that the forest had caught fire.

“Stop! Gid, stop it!”

There was a reason she had excluded the dragon’s breath from her strategy. She had considered several factors and eliminated the option of the Black Dragon breathing fire against the Inquisition Unit.

First, the location wasn’t an open clearing in front of a cave like before, but dense forest. If the flames spread wrong here, there was no telling what disaster might occur.

Snow was mainly accumulated on the ground, and being winter, both the trees and air were dry, and they were mostly coniferous trees that burned easily.

If a forest fire spread widely on the wind, even the cave people who needed to escape would be in danger, and all the monsters scattered throughout might be startled and come rushing out.

Second, breathing fire seemed to severely drain stamina and corrupt magic power, increasing the monster’s appetite.

To conserve magic stones for food as much as possible, and to minimize variables when understanding of the monster’s ecology wasn’t perfect, it was right to keep the Black Dragon’s breath as a last resort.

Third, she wanted to avoid massacring the opponents since they were human.

No matter how she had classified them as enemies, they were people, not monsters or beasts. She preferred disruption over slaughter.

If it were a situation where letting even one enemy escape would endanger her allies, it might be different, but right now they hadn’t even reached the cave. She couldn’t be certain whether the cave people were preparing to flee or just staying put.

So it was fine to let them live.

There were 600 of them. Were they all fanatics who believed heretics must be killed?

There would be those who served reluctantly to make a living, and people who had no choice but to follow orders from above for various reasons.

Perhaps some didn’t agree with the idea that the cave people were heretics. They too had families and people waiting for their safe return.

She wasn’t making the comfortable excuse of not wanting to kill people during battle. She simply wanted to end the fight with as few deaths as possible.

As long as she herself was human, it was a natural feeling.

Even in the Ash-covered Era, Beacon’s main enemy had always been monsters, not people.

Though she had fought people many times, killed many while being betrayed, clashing, and preventing corruption, fundamentally people were still their protection targets.

Humans are strong because they can form societies and care for others. So humans must not abandon that strength. Even to achieve victory, humans must care for each other.

That belief, established through countless experiences, worries, and anguish since childhood, remained unchanged. It was always better to save lives that could be saved.

So Rita had decided to snipe mainly commanders, aiming to collapse the command structure.

With commanding officers gone and a massive dragon looking down from the sky, there was a high probability the unit would collapse as they fled one by one in terror.

If they fought to the end or became a threat to the cave people, she would shoot without mercy, but she didn’t want to shoot fleeing backs of those running for their lives.

‘But if he sets fires like this…!’

Almost all of them would die. Even those trying to escape would burn to death or become prey to startled monsters. It was more death than necessary.

“Gid, stop! I told you to stop!”

Rita shouted from within the dragon’s grasp, then felt hot air entering with her breath and closed her mouth.

Before she knew it, the ground was a sea of fire. Gid wasn’t listening to her.

Why? How could this be?

More pressing than questions about the reason, subtle feelings of betrayal, and anxiety about the monster’s instincts was one thing.

How to resolve this situation.

Judgment and action occurred almost simultaneously. She extended the muzzle of Silvergrass, now a sniper rifle, between the dragon’s fingers. And she gathered a large amount of Oaths while processing them into a different nature.

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