“Kyaak!”

With a loud scream, she collapsed. She was trembling, unable to do anything with the still-wriggling blood clot, her hands dripping with red blood.

“W-why… why…”

“Why do you need such a thing when I am here?”

“Why, why did you kill it… why? This child didn’t do anything…”

“You gave it a name. You said it was a friend.”

Litania’s expression changed. She was looking up at Orbis with a face he had never seen before.

“Just because of that?”

Tears flowed from her pink eyes and fell with a plop. Litania carefully cradled the now motionless blood clot in her arms.

The pink diamond Orbis had gifted her was now stained with the blood of the furry creature.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“…?”

“Using strange magic to keep me from leaving, watching me all day, not letting me meet anyone, not letting me talk to anyone… I, I just wanted to talk to someone else for a little bit.”

“That was not a person.”

“How could you do this!”

The thorn in his throat that he thought had disappeared stabbed him again.

It was strange. Shouldn’t that thing disappear when torn apart?

Whenever he removed something bothersome, the discomfort always subsided quickly. That’s why Orbis never had reason to be angry.

He had done so this time as well, so there should be nothing left to bother him.

‘Ah, yes. That look.’

The look in her eyes was different. It was not the pleading look of fear she had given him until now.

Two eyes filled with intense hatred were directed at him.

“I am not a toy.”

“You are my bride.”

“You don’t see me as a wife! If you respected me even a little… if you loved me, you couldn’t do this.”

Love. Respect.

Words he had heard somewhere before. Expressions of emotion he thought weren’t difficult to imitate and considered trivial.

“Litania, I love you.”

Wasn’t he using honorifics to show respect, calling her name affectionately?

He gently caressed her cheek, kissed her, and gave her jewels.

He had changed the harsh environment of the dragon castle to make it livable for her.

So wasn’t he loving Litania?

“What kind of love is this! How can you call this love!”

He had bestowed upon her all the love he had seen and learned, yet she was angry as if she had not received any love at all.

“It’s horrible…!”

He had given her everything he could give, yet she pretended not to have received it.

Orbis felt upset. He didn’t like her gaze or her tone.

Litania was his bride. They were one, so Orbis could not kill her no matter how irritating she behaved.

“How could you… gack!”

Slurp. As Litania’s mouth closed, red droplets of blood seeped through her lips.

She covered her mouth, looking at Orbis with disbelieving eyes. Eyes full of fear, anger, and despair.

‘After all I’ve done for you.’

He had tried so hard to keep her from dying, turning back time over and over.

How dare she call it horrible.

“Mmph, mph…”

“If I make it so you can’t speak, you won’t be able to make wishes, will you?”

He would make it so she could never again say things like wanting to leave Orbis.

Litania glared at Orbis, trembling as she clutched the cold blood clot.

Yes. He didn’t like that look in her eyes either.

“Mmm!”

The light faded from the pink eyes that had been clearly focused on him. Her fragile body fell to the side, twitching.

“I should have done this from the beginning.”

“Umph, mm…!”

“Litania, my bride.”

Orbis gently lifted Litania’s body. The cold blood clot fell from her hand and rolled on the floor.

“Stay by my side.”

Orbis brought his lips close to Litania’s lightless eyes and breathed into them.

Her eyes slowly closed.

And that night, Litania died.

‘Why?’

Orbis was dumbfounded as he looked at her cold corpse.

He had made it so she couldn’t speak or see, so why had she died?

Does the wishing stone grant wishes just by praying?

Orbis grew anxious. Something was going wrong.

If Litania’s wishes could come true just by her earnestly desiring them, he had no means to keep her by his side.

‘If restraining her actions is useless, then…’

He would have to control her mind as well. But how?

‘How do I control a human’s mind?’

Until now, Orbis thought there was nothing he couldn’t do. He was the dragon god with the most powerful authority in this world, so it wasn’t entirely wrong.

But he wasn’t omnipotent.

He could make flowers bloom in wastelands and turn mine diamonds pink, but controlling a person’s mind was impossible.

Dragons don’t understand human hearts.

Dealing with something unknown was beyond his abilities, no matter how much of a dragon he was.

‘She said she was lonely.’

She always answered him halfheartedly, yet she spoke so kindly to that furball. Orbis heard Litania’s cheerful, chattering voice for the first time then.

‘Should I let her meet humans?’

Perhaps limiting the place to the dragon castle was the problem. Humans should live among humans, shouldn’t they?

‘Yes. This time, I’ll have her grow up in the imperial palace.’

His heart, which he hadn’t seen in a long time, was about the same size as the blood clot rolling on the floor.

Thinking how nice it would be if Litania would touch his heart so preciously, Orbis closed his eyes.

Crack.

A very small crack appeared in the dragon castle.

This time, Orbis turned back time a bit further.

For the first time, he left the dragon castle and headed for the imperial palace.

“I am Orbis, your dragon god.”

The imperial ministers were in a panic. The emperor, though frightened by the sudden appearance of the dragon god, faced him with hope, realizing that he had come to seek him out for the first time.

“Dragon god, for what reason have you come to see me?”

“Let Litania grow up in the imperial palace.”

“Litania…?”

“Your daughter who will be born soon.”

The emperor’s illegitimate child. Because her mother was a maid, she had been driven out of the palace and grew up struggling. Then, in the year she became an adult, she was suddenly called back and sent to the dragon castle to become the dragon’s bride.

She must have been confused by too many sudden changes. That’s why she said she wanted to be friends with that furball.

‘Let’s give her a family.’

Children raised in harmonious families are more likely to have good social skills and healthy personalities. Perhaps Litania’s fear of him stemmed from problems in her growth environment.

‘Different from last time.’

The emperor, unable to refuse the dragon god’s request, allowed the maid to give birth to the child within the palace and made the newborn child a princess.

Litania grew up healthily among her half-siblings. Although she wasn’t close to all her siblings due to her mother’s status, the emperor’s special care allowed her to grow up mingling with siblings she got along with and share affection.

“Vapor! I told you not to steal my prey!”

“Ah, what can I do if elder sister is so slow?”

And so, peaceful times passed.

“By the way, elder sister, there’s a widespread rumor that father is going to marry you off?”

“Ah, I don’t want to…”

“It can’t be helped. It’s a princess’s duty.”

“I know. But I hope the groom is handsome.”

Orbis can’t forget the face of Litania when he met her again, grown up as a beloved princess in the imperial palace.

“I greet you, Dragon God Orbis.”

Her face, which had been pale, turned red like a plum, as she lifted the hem of her dress with both hands and greeted him with an adorable expression. Her trembling voice. It was the first time he saw Litania’s face looking at him with eyes full of affection.

“I look forward to our future together, my bride.”

“Haha. Me too.”

Her laughter was truly clear.

The princess who grew up loved was completely different from those gloomy and timid girls before. Litania neither feared Orbis, nor hated him, nor screamed, nor turned away shaking her head, nor refused waving her arms.

“With this, the union between the dragon god and the imperial family is complete.”

It was the first wedding he had ever held. Throughout the wedding preparations, Litania sent letters to Orbis, so he kept the gates of the dragon castle wide open for the emperor’s messenger to come at any time.

“Orbis, when we marry, do I have to go to the dragon castle? I don’t want to be far from my family.”

“Then I shall live here.”

It was customary for a married princess to live independently, but because her partner was the dragon god Orbis, Litania was exceptionally allowed to take one of the palace’s detached palaces as their newlywed home.

Orbis lived with Litania and enjoyed their honeymoon. He left the fully opened dragon castle abandoned. As humans increasingly entered and exited the dragon castle, monsters gathered. The borders collapsed.

Litania’s siblings headed to the borders to wage war to drive out the monsters. Orbis did not go.

He had to stay with Litania.

“Orbis. Vapor, my younger brother…”

The prince had perished. They said even skilled knights were torn apart by monsters.

Orbis didn’t particularly care. As long as Litania didn’t die, it didn’t matter, did it?

Sometime after that, the crown prince, covered in blood, returned from the battlefield and came to see Orbis.

“Hey, dragon god. Go to the dragon castle and drive out the monsters!”

“I have no particular desire to return there.”

He had no good memories of the dragon castle. Litania always lost her life there. The newlywed life spent together in the imperial palace was quite enjoyable.

When things are pleasant and comfortable now, why bother looking into past wounds?

This time, he would surely stop her wishes and be together forever.

“Damn it, and you call yourself a dragon god?”

The enraged crown prince drew his sword and pointed it at Orbis. Litania screamed.

Because Orbis had ripped open the belly of the insolent human who dared to defy him.