I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss, Vol. 4, page 20
“…Demon King. What do you mean by that?”
“This is, or was, a water dragon. Water dragons are weak to pollution—to human malice. Long ago, a water dragon that had been defiled by malice came to be known by humans as the fiend dragon. The true nature of the creature never changed, though. That miraculous water sprang from the dragon, didn’t it?”
“You mean the holy water didn’t come from the holy sword?”
“You know the sword doesn’t have the ability to generate water. It only purified the water drawn from the fiend dragon.”
Come to think of it, that’s true. No one can argue with him, but nobody completely believes him either. Only Lilia shrugs and mutters, “That’s a shame.” She must have known already.
“Fine. Demon King, we’ll believe you.” Baal hands down his decision first. Claude gives him a mystified look. “More accurately, we’ll believe in Aileen, who believes you.”
“…I see.” Claude’s tone drops ever so slightly, but this is no time to worry about that. They’ve reached a consensus.
“Then Master Claude, you and Master Baal keep the fiend dragon still. Lady Lilia and I will mount another charge.”
“Lady Aileen,” Lilia calls out, “I don’t think the holy sword will last much longer.”
“Make do with sheer willpower!” Aileen counters.
“Aileen.” Claude snaps his fingers, then opens his hand. When she looks closer, she sees a ring. It’s the wedding ring Baal took from her.
Baal sees it, too. He pats down the front of his kaftan, then yells. “Hey! When did you—?!”
“It already has magic in it. Thirty times as much as before.”
“Th-thirty…times…?”
She feels as if she can see a deep-seated grudge—or rather, “magic”—rising from the ring…or perhaps not. She nearly draws back, but Claude doesn’t give her a chance to refuse: He takes her hand and slips the ring onto her finger. Then he drops a gentle kiss in the same spot. “Give it your best, and don’t worry about watching your back. I’ll protect you.”
“Y…yes, of course!”
Claude’s words clear away any unease she feels. She turns back, fixing her eyes on the dragon. The strength of a hundred men is hers to command. With the power of love, there’s no way she can lose. “Let’s go, Lady Lilia!”
“What? No, talk amongst yourselves a little longer, or we could take a little break—”
This is getting tiresome, so Aileen grabs her by the scruff of the neck and hurls her at the dragon. The woman is complaining about something or other, but there’s no need to listen.
“Master Claude, Master Baal!”
Red and violet eyes flash. The fiend dragon gives a roar that sounds like a scream.
Caught in an enormous net of magic, the demon struggles, attacking in all directions. The sacred barrier contains the wild rampage. Lilia runs the shining holy sword through narrow gaps in it. “Really! What does Lady Aileen think I am?”
Evading all the fiend dragon’s attacks without turning a hair, Lilia makes a precise horizontal slash through the dragon’s middle. Aileen slides between the two halves and grabs Ares’s hand again. As if the dragon means to swallow Aileen as well, the wound begins to close around her. Lilia, who’s gone in behind her, slashes it open again and laughs. “If you don’t hurry, you’ll end up dying with me.”
“That isn’t even funny! —!”
A multitude of eyes have appeared on the inside of the gaping wound. Just as she thinks No—, the dragon gives another roar, freezing as if bound in place. Claude has begun his assault, drawing the dragon’s attention to the outside, while Baal focuses on containment.
“My, the demon king and holy king are doing surprisingly well, aren’t they?”
“—Let go of this thing, dragon…!” Aileen yells, hauling on Ares’s arm. “If you eat someone like him, you’ll make yourself sick to your stomach!!”
Just then, as if all their struggles had been some sort of illusion, Ares slips free. She tosses him out, then makes her escape from the howling fiend dragon’s interior.
In what seems to be a final show of resistance, the fiend dragon’s entire body begins to glow. The attacks are completely indiscriminate now. A light ray slips through the barrier and blows the harem’s clock tower away. However, Claude has struck the dragon in the back of the head, and that mist-like form is gradually coalescing into the shape of a dragon again. The demon is returning to normal.
When dragon feet appear on the ground, Lilia skewers one of them with the holy sword, pinning it in place. It turns out that was the final gasp because the sword shatters right after.
“Now, Lady Aileen!”
All those red eyes come to bear on Aileen. She meets them squarely. Claude’s barrier is at her back. She has nothing to fear.
“Be a good little one and go to sleep!”
Pouring all the power she has into her attack—Claude’s magic from the ring combined with the power of the sacred sword—she slashes at the top of the dragon’s head.
There’s a light, audible crack, as if a shell just broke. Then the mass of miasma crumbles away, flaking off like caked dirt.
Aileen felt a clean hit land. Right then, a burst of light appears right in front of her.
“Aileen!”
The last thing she sees is a world of white blasting away all impurities. However, as she falls backward, she knows the arms that catch her are her husband’s.
The fiend dragon is no longer in the sky. Listening to the distant cheers as if they’ve nothing to do with her, Serena checks the sheaf of documents one more time, then hugs them to her chest and leaves Ares’s mansion.
I told Prince Cedric to make a quick exit. I didn’t expect Sahra to be here, though.
Foolishly straightforward, the Daughter of God had returned to her own room, packed up her things, and tearfully begged Marcus—who’d been passing through—to let her go. She doesn’t know what they plan to do with her, but apparently Cedric had been the one who convinced her to go with them. That second prince is constantly plotting something or other… Although it’s possible that Lilia was pulling the strings.
“……”
Your power.
Remembering what she’s been told, she clenches her fist and opens it again.
If I can’t do anything personally, there’s no point.
In other words, she’s still herself, and nothing has changed. The wound on her arm is just a cut; it will probably heal up soon. She’s been put through plenty of awfulness, so she’s going to make sure she gets her just reward. Of course, she’ll be charging separately for the Queendom of Hausel guard duties.
In the end, the one to use the holy sword and defeat the fiend dragon had been Lilia or Aileen. She hadn’t been involved at all—or so she thinks.
“…?!”
“Don’t make a sound.”
Someone has grabbed her hair, set a knife against her throat and dragged her into the bushes. As everyone else is rejoicing over the now-empty sky, this man’s face is gloomy, and he’s wearing an unpleasant smirk. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“General…Ares…”
His looks have changed so drastically that it’s taken her a moment to recognize him. With the tip of his knife at her throat, Serena looks around. Ares, and—one, two others. They’re all men who were devoured by the dragon. They’re grimy, and there are no bright futures waiting for them now.
“General Ares, this woman has the account book! The one with the record of bribes and contraband weapons from the Queendom of Hausel.”
“I don’t care. She’ll be a souvenir. A present from us to the Queendom.”
Serena had assumed she’d be used as a hostage while they made their escape, and the unexpected remark makes her eyes widen.
Ares puts his face right up to hers. “You’re the one who repaired the holy sword, aren’t you?”
You won’t be able to go back.
The words she heard on the clock tower echo in her mind.
“I’ve never heard of the ability to amplify others’ power. If I’ve got you, the Queendom of Hausel is sure to treat me as an honored guest.”
“…And Lady Sahra? What about her? She’s your wife and the Daughter of God—”
“Enough about that woman! Never mind her. You’re worth more now.”
Sahra. She certainly hadn’t liked her. The girl had manipulated people by acting cute, thrown her weight around, and gotten an inflated ego over being worshipped as the Daughter of God.
However, when she’d run from this man because she didn’t want to die, she’d made the right choice.
“I could make you my wife, if you want.”
“No thank you!”
Slipping a small knife out of her sleeve, she slashes through her own trapped hair. She’s caught him off guard; now’s her chance to make a break for it. She doesn’t have the power to fight several people head-on and win, especially not if they’re trained men.
But Ares reacts faster. As if he’s predicted her movements, he strikes her back with the hilt of his sword, then sweeps her feet out from under her.
“Agh…!”
“Don’t struggle. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to. Your body’s fluids are valuable.”
She’s collided with the trunk of a tree, and she sinks down. Her ankle is hot where he tripped her. She may have sprained it. Her back hurts, and after ramming into that tree, so does the rest of her.
“I won’t waste a single drop of blood. Or any tears.”
It’s a purely physiological response, but her eyes have begun to well up. When he sees that, Ares smiles. He grabs her chin, tilting her face up, and licks them away. It’s disgusting. She grinds her teeth in frustration. Don’t cry! Crying won’t help, and you know it.
No one will save her. She’s the only person she can rely on. It was the same when her cousin hit her, and even when she’d obtained the demon snuff— She must have been born unlucky when it comes to men. The thought actually makes her smile.
“You know, you’ve got a pretty face,” Ares says out of nowhere. His eyes look exactly like the ones her uncle once turned on her. “If your fluids can work miracles, what would happen if I put a baby in y—?”
She can’t move very well, so instead she spits in his face.
“There, have some fluids. Be grateful and lick that off.”
“You bitch—!”
He slaps her across the face. Then he rips her bodice open. She gives a short, sharp laugh. Everything men do is simpleminded. She clenches her fists. She isn’t scared. Make him angrier, she’s not scared—if he’s angry he’s sure to get careless—she’s not scared, it doesn’t matter if nobody comes to save her, she can fight.
But for how long, all by herself…?
“Serena?”
That voice is painfully out of place here. She sees a stupid-looking face.
Of all people, she thinks, just as the weight that was bearing down on her vanishes. She hears a groan, and the men who were keeping her pinned sink to the ground.
“—What are you people doing?”
Auguste has taken down two men just like that, and he straightens up slowly. He seems like a different person. Ares, who had apparently put some distance between them on reflex, draws his sword and levels it at him.
With a gasp, she remembers: Auguste has never won against Ares in hand-to-hand combat.
“Don’t! You can’t beat him!”
By the time she tries to stop him, Auguste is already in motion. Flawlessly, the tip of his sword precisely darts toward Ares’s neck. Ares evades that strike, but Auguste drops into a crouch and lashes out with a kick, which catches his opponent in the side. Ares goes flying, and as he rolls over the ground, Auguste stabs his sword down right next to his face.
The entire battle lasted only a moment. Ares is stunned, unable to grasp what happened.
“…They tell me you’re an important witness.” Auguste’s voice is flat; all of his usual cheeriness is gone. “But if you ever do anything like that to Serena again, I’ll kill you.”
Yanking his sword out of the ground, Auguste mercilessly strikes the side of Ares’s head, and Serena’s eyes squeeze shut. When she opens them and sees how still Ares is lying, she turns to Auguste nervously. “Did you…kill him? You can’t have…”
“He’s alive; I just knocked him out. Um… Serena.”
When Auguste turns to look at her, a shudder runs through her. Seeing it, he hastily scrubs his hands on his clothes as hard as he can. Once they’re clean, he slowly holds them out to her. “Um… Uh, your hair.”
“……”
“A-are you o—?”
“I am obviously not okay! And you’re late!”
When she yells at him, Auguste looks stunned, then flustered. “I-I’m really sorry! I was late, wasn’t I?! I’m sorry!”
“How are you going to make it up to me?! My hair— I’d grown it out so nicely… Lend me your jacket!”
“Yes’m!”
“I can’t get up, I can’t walk…!”
“I’ll carry you on my back! So, um…”
The world is warping. Even so, she can clearly see Auguste’s thoroughly troubled face. “Don’t cry. I won’t know what to do if you—”
Irritated by his total lack of consideration, she smacks her forehead into his shoulder. She’s certainly not clinging to him. She’s also not crying. She just has dust in her eyes. Apparently her tears are expensive; there’s no way she’d just give them away for free like that.
But she’s sure this man would never say her tears were valuable.
Auguste freezes up for a moment, but then he puts his arms around her and holds her close.
See? He can do it if he tries. The thought relieves her, just a little.
Every morning, the first thing she should see when she wakes is her husband. And so, when her eyes open, she isn’t quite sure where she is.
“—leen, Aileen…!”
“Master Claude… Is it morning already…?”
Claude blinks. He looks around. “Morning… It, uh, might still be morning.”
“…Of course, the fiend dragon!”
As everything comes rushing back, Aileen leaps from Claude’s arms. Then she blinks.
The sun is high in the sky, and a beautiful white dragon gleams in its dazzling rays. The stunning creature is just a little larger than a human, and as soon as their eyes meet, the dragon ducks behind Claude to hide from Aileen.
However, being larger than Claude, it’s adorably failing to stay behind cover.
“…Master Claude. That dragon…”
“Yes, this is the fiend dragon. Or rather, the water dragon.”
Dazed, Aileen looks around. Apparently, she was only unconscious for a moment.
Baal is close by, with Roxane at his side, and they’re both looking at her with concern. The others aren’t around, but the sky holds no trace of the fiend dragon.
It’s over. The moment she realizes, the fatigue hits her and she collapses back into Claude’s arms. “Th… This was just as exhausting as last time.”
“Guests from Ellmeyer.” Slowly, Baal steps forward. Roxane takes her place beside him, and behind them, their citizens kneel.
Claude begins to pick her up, but Aileen stops him and gets to her feet on her own. This is diplomacy.
The king of the neighboring country bows his head to them. “You have saved our kingdom, and we thank you. I hope we will remain good neighbors.”
“We couldn’t ask for a more welcome proposal,” Claude replies.
“We would like to express our gratitude somehow. Granted, we do have a kingdom to rebuild, so we won’t be able to part with anything valuable.”
“Master Baal, you shouldn’t say it like that.” Roxane frowns, reproaching him.
Claude smiles at her. “In that case, it just so happens I have a request for you. Provided Queen Roxane doesn’t mind.”
“…Me? Might I ask…?”
“Could you let this little one—the water dragon—live in the harem?”
The request is completely unexpected, and Baal’s eyes fly open. Aileen blinks, looking back and forth between Claude’s profile and the hiding water dragon. Roxane’s eyes are wide; she sounds bewildered. “…Let this live in the harem… You mean you would like the dragon to be a consort?”
“Wait a minute, it’s a female?! Wait, more importantly— Make it a consort?! You want us to marry that?! What brought this on?!”
When Baal points at the water dragon, she curls her tail up as if she’s embarrassed and buries her face in her sharp claws. She’s actually pretty cute.
“She says that while she was visiting you every night, she developed feelings for you.”
“We don’t understand this at all! Or rather, we don’t even want to…!”
“You talked to her every night, didn’t you? About how unrequited love was painful, and how you were lonely all by yourself.”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?!”
Baal screams into the sky, then crumples to his knees. The dragon’s long whiskers twitch, and she watches Baal, looking flustered.
“It made her sympathize with you.”
“That’s…just…ridiculous…”
“She says that, if it’s your kingdom, she doesn’t mind ensuring it never runs out of water.”
Startled, Baal looks up. Aileen hasn’t been able to interrupt this preposterous development either, but she finally understands what Claude is trying to do.
In this arrangement, as long as Ashmael remains a good neighbor to the demon king, they’ll never lack for water.
Once she realizes this, the king’s principal consort doesn’t hesitate. “Very well. I will welcome her into the harem as the holy king’s consort.”
“Roxane?! Listen, even we aren’t up to making children with this!”
“Resign yourself.”
“You… What…?” Baal totters.
Ignoring him, Roxane looks up at the water dragon, who’s still hiding behind Claude. “Lovely dragon princess. You are like a daughter to the demon king, the crown prince of Ellmeyer. I am the principal consort, but no doubt that rank would be insufficient in this case. In order to ensure that you remain a consort of this kingdom for a very long time—I will create a new title for you. You shall be the one and only holy dragon consort. You are welcome to live anywhere you wish in this harem, nay, in the kingdom.”
