My Slain Dragon Bride

Chapter 267. Who Am I?

The wedding ended in grand fashion, and Ferda returned to the castle.

Ferda immediately entered his office and tried to get started on the work he had to do that day.

"May I ask what happened on the day of the wedding?"

The silver-haired maid, Luri, asked him that question.

The last scene Ferda remembered was Valdrova retreating together with Luri.

There had been moisture in her final voice. Perhaps she had even cried.

That was why Ferda did not want to answer the question.

"How is Her Highness?"

"I would appreciate it if you would please answer my question."

Luri spoke without emotion.

There was no expression on her face.

She was neither angry nor sad, nor was she showing contempt.

Perhaps that was what made her expression the most frightening.

Had Ferda already become nothing more than a stranger to Luri?

"If Lord Ferda answers my question first, I will answer yours."

Luri said that, and after thinking for a while, Ferda finally told her what had happened.

Ferda had told Valdrova that he wanted to have a child, but Valdrova had ultimately been unable to give him an answer.

"I pushed her too hard, and that’s why she became so sad."

"Is that so?"

Luri’s expression became somewhat complicated.

Even by human standards, it was such a trivial matter that she seemed unsure how she was supposed to react.

Meanwhile, the guilt weighing on Ferda’s heart only grew heavier.

"I’m sorry."

Ferda apologized to her.

Luri, who had been lost in thought, opened her mouth.

"Ferda."

She called Ferda by his name.

"Do you know what Lady Valdrova was like before you came?"

Ferda did not answer, and Luri continued.

"She was called the Aspect of Fire and Strength, but she was truly the opposite of that aspect. She was like that even in the old days... but after Godwin revealed his ambitions, she became even more so."

Godwin.

Those three syllables seemed to tear Ferda apart.

"Godwin took away the things Master cherished and loved the most, one by one."

A village engulfed in flames.

Valdrova shedding tears of blood.

And himself smiling as he watched her.

Ferda desperately pretended not to know and erased all expression from his face.

Luri continued.

"After that, she always seemed helpless. She became someone who never had a day when she could see any light. Even when I could feel even a little of her strength, it was only when those enormous monsters beyond that utterly detestable land came surging forth."

Ferda lowered his head.

"I thought I would have no choice but to watch her remain that way for the rest of her life. But..."

Just as Ferda was trying not to let anything enter his field of vision, he felt a small sensation in his hand.

Luri placed her hand over his.

"After Lord Ferda came, she began to move on her own."

Luri remembered.

She remembered how Valdrova, who had remained in her cave and nowhere else, had said for the first time that she wanted to learn something.

She had watched Valdrova realize that the pain of learning could eventually lead to joy.

"It may have started for such a trivial reason as wanting to make a single human like her, but that no longer matters to me."

Valdrova was Luri’s Master.

More important than preserving her Master’s dignity was making sure she was happy.

"The sadness Lady Valdrova is feeling right now is nothing more than a summer monsoon that will pass."

Strength entered her hand.

It was as though she did not want to let go of Ferda.

"So please, do not trouble yourself over it. Master needs you."

Luri’s plea made Ferda’s heart even heavier.

If Ferda were human, it would have been excellent consolation.

But he was not human.

He was Godwin, the very one who had caused her to become depressed.

In the end, the fact that Valdrova had been broken because of him was the only thing that tormented Ferda relentlessly.

***

The library of Valdrova Castle.

As befitted the dwelling place of a dragon, the library contained countless books, rivaling even the Imperial Library.

But no matter how many books were packed onto its shelves, their volume of information was insignificant compared to the girl sitting in the center of the library.

Her name was Mori.

She was a girl who had been used by a foolish man who called himself a Sage, until Ferda rescued her and gave her a name.

Inside her mind was the Library of All Things, containing most of its records.

There were millions upon millions of books inside her mind, and when given information, she possessed enough exceptional ingenuity to apply it and lead others toward a strategy that guaranteed victory.

But she was merely a vessel.

A vessel could not move on its own.

It could only contain things, and unless someone moved it, the water inside could not be used.

That was what the Slave Sage was.

As such, Mori, the Slave Sage, always lived by focusing only on the tasks given to her.

When she had no task, she thought about nothing.

She simply waited and waited until a task arrived.

-.....

It had always been that way, and there was no reason for it to change.

At least, that was what she had thought.

-Ferda Valdrova.

Mori saw her own pen write down a single name.

Without realizing it, she had written something that had not even been part of her instructions.

Mori realized that this phenomenon had already occurred three times.

It could no longer be called a coincidence.

Something abnormal had happened.

It was easy to identify the starting point of that anomaly.

-Deep Projection.

It was when Erika, the master of the Blue Eye Magic Tower, entered Ferda’s mind using the eastern magic she had acquired.

Mori had taken on the role of a watcher, ensuring that Erika’s mind would not become contaminated by Ferda’s consciousness.

While assisting Erika, Mori had gathered information.

And that was when she encountered something she had never expected.

-Sierra.

A transcendent existence who, if an ordinary human encountered her, would be enough to make them collapse to their knees and commit suicide on the spot.

Even Erika, who had inherited the blood of the dragons more strongly than anyone, could do little more than barely resist that power.

Yet Mori had remained completely unaffected even then.

Because she had no ego.

Without an ego, there were no emotions.

Without emotions, all she needed to do was accept the information given to her as it was.

Therefore, there should have been no abnormalities.

-That is not true.

Why was the name Ferda Valdrova being repeated over and over inside her mind?

She was the Slave Sage.

A Sage was someone who approached the truth, while a slave was someone who obeyed the will of another.

Mori herself was a contradiction made from two words that should never have been able to coexist.

Even if her Master wanted to know the truth, that truth could not be explained.

Even if it were explained, others could never comprehend it.

Therefore, in the end, she had to think for herself.

And what she needed in order to do that was...

-Me.

A question about herself.

Who am I?

The question she was about to ask herself became blocked.

Something stirred inside her heart.

There was no doubt that the sensation could be described as astonishment.

It was a question a Sage could ask, but something impossible for a slave like her.

As those two things collided, Mori managed to escape from a dangerous moment.

She immediately changed the question.

-Why has this become possible?

That question merely circled around the most dangerous thing.

-Sierra.

Sierra, who existed within Ferda, pierced through the shield of reason and touched Mori ever so slightly.

Like a tiny pebble that jams one of the gears of a delicate astronomical mechanism, she had contributed to breaking Mori.

There was no other way to explain something so impossible.

-Every action of a god has meaning.

Based on the myths she had encountered throughout her existence, Mori continued piecing together information about gods.

There had undoubtedly been a meaning behind making Mori what she was.

What was that meaning?

-Sierra wants me to have an ego.

If one began to think about who they were, they would eventually come to understand what they themselves were.

Those who became Slave Sages because of the curse of the Library of All Things became vessels.

If their Master made a Slave Sage think, "Who am I?" then at that very moment, the Slave Sage would be freed from slavery.

But if that happened, the Slave Sage would lose the Library of All Things.

They would become intelligent, but their intelligence would remain within the limits of an ordinary human.

But if they asked themselves, "Who am I?" on their own, things would be different.

They would retain the knowledge of the Library of All Things while gaining the ability to think for themselves.

If they could overcome that obstacle, they would be reborn as a true Sage.

Mori had reached that very moment.

However, Mori had shut down the question, "Who am I?"

She had rejected that path, and there was undoubtedly a reason for it.

Mori condensed that reason into the simplest possible word.

-Instinct.

Her instincts were telling her that.

It was the only answer she could give.

The fact that she, who was supposed to be the embodiment of knowledge and reason, was relying on instinct was incomprehensible.

Mori realized that she was gradually sinking deeper into a swamp.

The absolute rule that she must never think about who she was had now become nothing more than a low fence standing in her way.

Mori took another step toward that fence.

That, too, was a conclusion reached through a mixture of instinct and reason.

The Slave Sages were undoubtedly foolish intellectuals shackled by knowledge, people who treated books as the truth.

She was only fourteen years old.

She had been around ten when she was cursed with the Library of All Things, meaning she had not been old enough to be desperate enough to willingly become a slave.

Then why had Mori become a slave at such a young age?

-Truth.

That was what Sierra had said.

-I see. So I must have abandoned the truth.

Mori had abandoned the truth.

If she had truly been someone who desired knowledge, she would never have abandoned the truth.

She had not wanted to become a slave to knowledge because she craved it.

She had degraded herself instead.

-The reason I degraded myself.

It was simple.

She had been afraid because she knew what would happen after she realized the truth.

It was something she could not bear.

Whether it was the world or herself.

Mori felt something awakening inside her mind.

It was undoubtedly the self she had left behind when she became a slave.

-I must not realize it.

Her instincts constantly pulled her back whenever she tried to cross the fence.

The moment she realized it, everything might become dangerous.

That was what Sierra wanted.

-.... Does it matter?

At the same time, another part of her wondered whether there was really any reason to care.

Mori remembered everything that had happened.

She especially remembered clearly the atrocities committed by the Witch Echidna and Administrator Isabella.

Echidna had been obsessively attached to Mori, treating her like a living doll.

Knowing that Mori had no choice but to accept whatever was done to her, Echidna’s actions had gradually become more brazen.

If Ferda had not been there, Mori’s body might already have been battered beyond recognition.

Isabella, unlike Echidna, was relatively rational.

She exercised restraint in her own way and did not commit acts that went against basic morality.

However, things became different when she drank.

She would let go of the reins of reason she had been holding tightly and begin acting according to her true nature.

And that nature was directed toward Mori, who was the easiest target.

She would even launch nighttime attacks that Echidna herself would not attempt, press her lips against Mori’s sleeping stomach, blow air onto it several times, and then repeatedly leave with a satisfied expression.

The vibrations Mori had felt in her stomach still seemed to writhe unpleasantly inside her organs.

If she ever returned to the version of herself that had realized the truth capable of overturning this world, she would certainly punish those two.

That grudge had taken root in a distant corner of her mind.

But aside from those two, there was no one else against whom she held any great grudge.

Everyone had been kind to her, and no one had treated her carelessly.

And among all of them, the person she remembered most was—

-Ferda Valdrova.

He was a man who used her, someone who could have been enslaved to something as trivial as a tool, for the sake of creating a better world.

For the sake of that man, she had to stop these thoughts.

Mori quietly rose from her seat.

When she sat still, she thought too much.

And when she thought too much, it would eventually lead to questions about her ego.

So she decided to walk around and gather meaningless information wherever her eyes happened to fall, shaking off these distracting thoughts.

"Huh? Isn’t that child... supposed to be in the library?"

"Why is she walking around here?"

Since no one had ever seen Mori move anywhere outside her designated hours, the castle staff found it strange to see her taking a walk.

She simply absorbed the information around her absentmindedly, concentrating on shaking off her distracting thoughts.

As she walked while receiving a few curious glances, Mori suddenly stopped without realizing it.

There was a girl younger than herself, someone rarely seen in this castle.

The girl was peeking out from behind a pillar, watching Mori.

Mori had never seen the child before, but she could deduce who she was.

The child Ferda the Regent took in.

They were girls whose minds had been forcibly connected into one because of the atrocities committed by Dark Elves.

One had no tongue, while the others had developed aphasia from the pain.

This child was the youngest among them—the girl who had no tongue.

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