Chapter 1181: 168. A Dragon of the Mortal World

Why would a dragon know how to dance?

And human social dancing at that.

It was a question worth pondering.

Unfortunately, Muen no longer had time to think about it.

Boom!

A dull yet shocking sound struck Muen’s chest in time with the beat once again.

But it did not come from the drums. It came from the heels striking the stone floor.

Muen’s eyes widened slightly. Only now did he realize that Miss Dragon, who normally liked going barefoot, had somehow put on a pair of exquisite high heels.

The high heels were black, matching the equally black thorn-covered dress, yet they were crystal-clear and bright, as if they had been made from the crystal in a fairy tale. When Muen lowered his head without thinking, he could even see his own shocked face reflected in their glossy surface.

“Is it that strange?”

Under the absolute suppression of both strength and skill, the initiative Muen had sought was seized from him in an instant. His attacks vanished like clay oxen entering the sea, while he found it difficult to parry the other party’s attacks.

With a light push from her, his entire body moved away like an unfurled painting... and with another pull, he shrank back into her embrace like a mimosa leaf.

The dance steps froze there. Miss Dragon elegantly and coldly supported his waist, looking down at him from above as their eyes met.

Her face was still blurred and impossible to see clearly, but the faint upward curve at the corner of her lips was exceptionally distinct.

“You think that after learning so much about human languages, I would not understand a mere dance?”

“No... I feel like there isn’t really any causal relationship between those two things.”

Muen’s mind was in complete chaos, but he could still manage the most basic degree of thought.

If someone were a profoundly learned historian who understood most ancient languages, there was a high probability that he would not know how to perform some flashy dance, because in his eyes, it would have no value at all.

But Miss Dragon...

“Heh. You underestimated me. I know far more than you imagine,” Hamreign said coldly.

“Is... is that so?”

The corner of Muen’s mouth gradually rose as well... because it was twitching.

Even thinking about his lofty ambitions just now, as well as that utterly unrestrained fierce offensive, made his poor little heart twitch involuntarily.

Not good!

There was a flaw in the plan!

He had thought that the other party was the prey. Who would have known...

“Then next... could you be a little gentler?” Lost and helpless in the face of the unknown, Muen barely managed to squeeze out his most perfect smile. A man who had once felt troubled by his own handsomeness now desperately hoped that his looks could prove useful at this moment.

“No.”

—Naturally, they could not.

Hamreign’s answer was decisive and even carried a trace of mockery... This human actually wanted to charm a dragon?

Truly ridiculous enough.

Boom!

The drums sounded again.

Muen was pulled upright, and along with that rhythm, that beat... they danced!

At some unknown point, the Notata people’s music had stopped. Under the influence of some power, they lowered the instruments in their hands and stared in astonishment as those ancient instruments began moving on their own.

Invisible magic spread outward. The instruments seemed to be controlled by mischievous spirits and began producing sounds completely different from before!

If the Notata people’s music from earlier had been rough, inclusive, and possessed a kind of wild beauty—

Then the current music was surging waves, great billows, a tsunami!

And Muen... felt as though he had become a small boat upon the vast sea, swept away by the waves, battered by the billows, and swallowed by the tsunami!

None of his movements could obey his consciousness anymore. He seemed to have completely lost control over his own body and could only drift helplessly at the very center of the sea, the very center of the storm!

Yet, strangely, he would not drown.

Because Miss Dragon was still holding him.

She was like his only connection to this world. No matter how the heavens and earth spun, no matter how fiercely the wind and rain struck, he would not completely sink into the deep sea.

It was as though he were undergoing a baptism, an ascension. Yet when he was thrown high into the air, what awaited him was not a sacred and flawless paradise, but an even more miserable fall!

Spin.

Leap.

Spin.

Leap.

Muen felt that everything he had learned since childhood, the muscle memory carved into his body and bones, had been completely overwritten by another set of far rougher dance steps and rhythms. He had long since forgotten how his hands were supposed to move and how his feet were supposed to step.

Yet at this very moment, he did not need to know any of that at all, because everything had reached a higher level along with the rhythm of the music and the striking of those heels.

Under Miss Dragon’s guidance.

Although she was in human form, a dragon’s physical ability had long surpassed the limits of humanity. As they leaped, Muen gradually and fearfully discovered that this dance was also slowly surpassing the limits of humanity.

Spin, leap. Spin again, leap again. In the end, they were spinning and leaping in poses that humans could almost never complete.

Yet the dance steps could not become the slightest bit chaotic, because if he slowed down by even an instant, those slender high heels would follow in the next moment, fierce as a sharp sword being drawn from its sheath.

Muen felt that he was still wandering along the boundary between life and death. His body remained alive, but his soul had already entered the realm of death. Yet that figure of fire continued to hold him in a vague embrace, lightly hugging him. She was taller than him, and so she continued looking down at him from above.

“That’s all?”

During an interval in the dance music, she looked at his miserable state and sneered without the slightest mercy.

“It’s not over yet...”

Of course he could not admit defeat, so he could only grit his teeth and continue enduring the storm-like assault and “humiliation.”

“Heh.”

She laughed softly. She was disdainful. In her eyes, this was ultimately nothing more than the fragile last struggle of this human. Her slender, pale, jade-like hand casually lifted, as though placing him upon the tip of her finger and allowing him to spin without end.

All resistance collapsed pitifully beneath absolute “violence.”

In the end, his soul still could not escape and could only be completely imprisoned inside this body that continued dancing without pause.

The black thorn-covered dress fluttered as she danced, and he also fluttered as he danced. Unfortunately, he was not that elegant, noble, and beautiful butterfly. Instead, he was the... delicate flower whose deepest center the butterfly freely entered to gather nectar.

—In this dance, he had ultimately and completely become a marionette.

A pitiful delicate flower. A pitiful puppet.

...

...

The dance ended.

The entire place fell into a deathly silence.

That dance just now had been far too shocking. For the Notata people, who still remained in an extremely primitive state, it was no different from a “revolution” in dance.

But after only a brief silence, incomparably passionate emotion erupted across the entire banquet like a volcano.

What a dance!

The Notata people had never seen such an elegant, passionate, perfectly coordinated dance. It appeared to involve two people, yet they seemed like a single whole. This wonderful style of dancing they had never witnessed before stirred their emotions as well, making them cheer involuntarily!

“Jili-gulu!”

Amazing!

Subarashii!

The Notata people’s language remained obscure and difficult to understand, but the meaning was expressed with perfect clarity.

“It’s over...”

Everyone was happy. Only a certain blond man at the very center covered his face in shame.

“My lifelong reputation... is completely ruined!”

He had originally wanted to regain some dignity, yet in the end, he had been viciously humiliated by the other party even in a field he was skilled at. That feeling... if he had been some kind of masochist, he would probably already be in heaven right now.

Fortunately, he was not.

So he could only silently shed tears here and suffer alone!

“Jili-guala...”

At this moment, the little girl from earlier walked over once again. Her face was excited as she said something to Muen, holding a pottery bowl in her hands.

“What is this?”

“Wine.”

Hamreign still stood there quietly, giving no indication that she had just finished a wild dance.

“They said that offering wine is one of the ways they express respect and admiration. At every banquet, they offer wine to the most conspicuous protagonists of the feast. The person who receives the most wine, regardless of origin, becomes the honored guest most respected by the Notata people.”

“I see...”

Muen was deeply moved upon hearing this.

He had actually earned respect and admiration?

It seemed the dance had not been for nothing after all. Although being toyed with like a marionette throughout the entire thing had been deeply humiliating, surely the simple and honest Notata people had been moved to tears by his courage in daring to dance with a calamity!

Muen drained the bowl of wine in one gulp and looked smugly toward Hamreign...

Damn calamity, I haven’t lost yet... Huh?

“Jili-guala!”

“Jili-jili-a-guala!”

“Abula-jili-guala!”

“Guala-guala-a-buka!”

“...”

The instant he turned his head, Muen saw Miss Dragon surrounded by a large group of Notata people enthusiastically offering her wine.

At this moment, she seemed to have already become the protagonist of the entire banquet. Almost every Notata person displayed heartfelt respect and admiration toward her.

And over on his side...

Muen turned his head and looked. Although the little girl was offering him wine, her gaze was fixed tightly on Miss Dragon. Her bright, watery eyes were filled with respect... and impatience.

It was as though she were silently urging Muen to hurry up and finish drinking so that she could offer a bowl of wine to the truly heroic figure.

...So she had only come over because she pitied him?

At that moment, Muen seemed to hear the sound of something shattering.

Now was just like then...

Wait... no, this was not the time to dwell on that!

Suddenly thinking of something, Muen shuddered.

Miss Dragon was not some protagonist at a banquet, nor was she some dancer others could freely cheer on. She was a calamity. A dragon. It was already quite unexpected that she had danced with him at all. How could she possibly allow these humans to casually approach and treat her so lightly?

Looking at bowl after bowl of wine being shoved directly in front of Hamreign without the slightest sense of etiquette, Muen, who had just drunk an entire large bowl of wine, felt no warmth whatsoever. Instead, cold sweat instantly covered his forehead.

He hurriedly stood up and tried to stop them, terrified that this decisive killer who hated humans might suddenly lose control in such a situation.

“...Hm?”

But the moment he stood, Muen froze.

Because he saw that Miss Dragon had not lost control, nor had she become angry. After a brief hesitation, this calamity who hated humans and had slaughtered countless people actually accepted the bowl of wine offered by the Notata villager and tilted her head back, draining it in one gulp.

Such a large wine bowl somehow seemed small in her hands. With only a slight tilt of her head, without even a visible swallowing motion, all the wine inside disappeared.

That boldness left Muen stunned and also made the Notata villager offering the wine freeze for a moment... then become even more enthusiastic!

One bowl after another, the best wine in the village was continuously offered to her. Miss Dragon drank every last drop. Her alcohol tolerance also exceeded human imagination. Even after drinking enough wine to intoxicate ten thousand Celicias, she did not show the slightest sign of drunkenness.

“This wine... is too weak. It should have been distilled,” she even began commenting.

“Jili-gulu!”

After offering the wine, the Notata people began dancing on the spot as well.

The instruments moved on their own, producing pleasant sounds. The Notata people stepped to the beat, singing and dancing.

They held hands and surrounded Miss Dragon, singing joyfully and leaping happily. Muen could not understand their language, but Miss Dragon clearly could. She stood there quietly without joining in, yet she did not leave either.

Muen watched from the outside and was momentarily stunned as well.

Because he saw Miss Dragon... the dragon called calamity, death and doom, executioner, destroyer of kingdoms, standing obediently at the very center of everyone like a statue. Her molten-gold eyes no longer released any pressure. There was only the calm of someone gazing at something beautiful.

No rage.

No slaughter.

Only a gentle breeze entering her world, stirring her skirt and long hair, making them drift beautifully.

At that moment, Muen did not know whether it was merely his imagination, but the blurriness over Miss Dragon’s face also seemed to be scattered somewhat by the breeze. She no longer seemed so distant, no longer standing alone in a place no one could reach.

She was right there.

Among humans.

Within the mortal world.