Even though she got what she wanted, Ibi, who came out of Rohika’s room, was not in a good mood.

It was because of Rohika’s solid arrogance, treating people like dogs with her sweet voice.

In the slowly moving elevator, Ibi recalled the day she first met Rohika.

It was 5 years ago, in the prison-like orphanage of Bis.

“Hello, little one?”

That day, as soon as Rohika saw Ibi, she greeted her first with a bright smile.

Ibi’s first impression of Rohika was that she was sweet.

Stunning beauty that made her eyes widen, overflowing luxury despite restraint, and a deep eye smile that seemed to seduce.

Rohika Sedro’s charm had the same texture as the brilliance unique to something possessing poison.

But Ibi at the time didn’t recognize it, and foolishly entrusted herself to Rohika’s hands.

“You’re going to take me to Tienda, right?”

“My, why do you think that?”

“Because I sing the best here. I heard from the saint who came here before. They said they’re looking for girls who sing well, that they need such girls for Manyana to purify the water.”

Ibi answered Rohika, who was smiling, like this. In a low, subdued voice, despite her boast of singing well.

Nevertheless, Rohika, not losing interest, asked again.

“I see, you know well. Does Ibi want to go to Tienda?”

Rohika knew Ibi’s name.

Ibi thought it was because she had finished talking with the orphanage director, so she asked back in a half-resigned voice.

“If I go to Tienda, can I become a person of means too?”

“A person of means?”

“Someone who can at least fulfill one wish.”

Rohika’s smile deepened, finding it strange that Ibi, not yet fifteen, was saying such things.

But Ibi continued without minding.

“There’s someone I want to find. But I can’t find them alone. Of course, there’s no one to help me. So if I purify water in Tienda, then the world might move a little for me too.”

Ibi said this while looking at Rohika with empty eyes, and Rohika muttered as if intrigued.

“How curious, who has already stolen this poor child’s heart?”

Thinking back now, it was clearly mockery, but Ibi at the time didn’t even realize that. It was just desperation.

“That’s right, if you’re with me, you’ll become a very influential person. So shall we go together?”

Ibi believed those words. So she took that hand. Not knowing the hell that hand would bring.

Ibi still regretted that moment.

Of course, Ibi had no choice then. So whether she took Rohika’s hand or not, Ibi’s fate would have been the same.

Nevertheless, what Ibi regretted was her own naivety in believing Rohika then.

There’s nothing in this world without a price.

Everything happens only to those who deserve it.

So when luck comes without a price, beyond one’s station, one should be suspicious.

Because traps always have bait.

Even then, Ibi knew this. But she let her guard down.

It was because someone had taught her that sometimes kind things happen without a price.

‘Come to think of it, I had completely forgotten.’

Ibi, reminiscing about the past, suddenly remembered.

The person who softened Ibi’s wariness. The person Ibi so desperately wanted to find.

She had completely forgotten after so many things happened since coming up to Tienda.

That astrologer, who was kind to Ibi for the first time in her life.

The memory of that long-forgotten existence made a corner of Ibi’s heart ache.

But that feeling didn’t last long. Because as the elevator doors opened on the lobby floor of the tower, Dies, who was waiting in the hall, came into view.

Dies was waiting for Ibi. With his usual relaxed face, completely unaware of what Rohika had said to him.

Seeing the butler like this, Ibi laughed as if sighing.

The astrologer was still a grateful and missed person, but she had almost given up on finding them.

Her own situation, bound to the tower, was too urgent to wander searching for someone she didn’t even know was alive or dead.

Moreover, it was more important now to take care of the person beside her.

“How did the conversation…”

“It went well. She said I could do whatever I want.”

Ibi answered Dies’s question perfunctorily as she took the lead.

Then, smiling bravely as usual, she said to her friend who shared life and death with her.

“Let’s go to Bis. To do whatever we want.”

The sky beyond the valley was torn into thousands of pieces with a roar.

A shock that seemed to blind eyes and deafen ears poured down, but the border guardians endured, maintaining their formation.

For several dozen minutes, something fell from the sky with a sound, and the earth shook.

“It’s over.”

At that familiar sensation, Viscount Moren Arco, the deputy commander of the guardians, muttered while glancing at his pocket watch.

“Amanaser silenced in one hour and forty-seven minutes by the Commander-in-Chief’s solo engagement.”

As he said, everything seemed to be over, with the lightning and roars that had been striking the world gradually subsiding.

This is the eastern end of the lower continent Bis, the Eastern Border where the mad dragon Amanaser is imprisoned.

The guardians had just fought a battle to subdue Amanaser, who had awakened without fail after a month.

Of course, it’s not quite right to say the guardians fought the battle.

Only Commander-in-Chief Sion Laurel engaged in combat.

He fought at the very front, unbecoming of his title as Commander-in-Chief, and also befitting that name, he always won.

‘Seems like all their complaints have disappeared.’

Moren muttered, glancing at the expressions of the guardians in formation.

Recently, after the Commander-in-Chief returned from Tienda, the mood among the guardians had not been good.

The reason was the Commander-in-Chief’s unilateral action, treating the border guard duty lightly.

In fact, when the Commander-in-Chief, who was so vacant it was hard to tell if he was human or ghost, suddenly said he was going to Tienda, everyone wondered what was going on.

Being empty and insensitive is a common characteristic of the Laurel counts throughout history, but Sion Laurel was especially vacant among them, like a paper doll.

So even to the guardians who had guarded the border with him for years, he was not a superior or comrade, but an existence like a distant mirage.

Moreover, due to his closed-off nature of compulsively staying on the battlefield even after repelling Amanaser, there was even a joke that “Amanaser might be closer to the Commander-in-Chief than the Deputy Commander.”

But recently, that Commander-in-Chief returned from Tienda after causing trouble.

He got into a dispute with a candidate for Saint of the Manyana Tower, and threatened the nobles of Tienda, betting his duty and mission just to bury that one girl.

When the guardians heard this news, they naturally rebelled.

They are proud soldiers watching over Amanaser in this mountain hell for the peace of the continent.

Yet the so-called Commander-in-Chief had cheaply wielded their pride and mission.

Because of this, until just now, undisguised discontent had filled the battalion.

However, that cold atmosphere disappeared like burning as soon as the engagement between the Commander-in-Chief and Amanaser began.

The aftermath of the collision they caused overwhelmed everything.

The fierce battle, as if heralding the beginning of doom, was a punishment just to watch.

The mercilessly pouring impact and the fear imposed by transcendent beings reduced humans to insects, and further, was cruel enough to make one wish for death.

If they had directly faced their fierce battle without a valley in between, even the guardians might have gone mad long ago.

So the guardians were reminded anew of the truth they had momentarily forgotten while trying to maintain their petty pride.

The simple but absolute truth that Sion Laurel can do anything.

He is the guardian of the East and the conqueror of dragons, a god of war who alone stops calamity.

Everything in Tienda Bis owes its life to Sion Laurel.

So how could there be any taboos for this emperor?

In the end, the guardians recognized the Commander-in-Chief’s unilateral actions and arrogance as his right, and Moren Arco also agreed with the self-regulated military discipline.

‘If the complacent nobles come to their senses on this occasion, that would be good too.’

Moreover, Moren wasn’t very worried about the resentment of the Tienda nobles.

He thought it was rather a good thing, as the lazy nobles of Tienda would be reminded anew of why Laurel is Laurel, just like these guardians.

However, there was one thing that bothered him in his optimistic mind.

‘Ibi Ariate, was it?’

The purifier of Manyana who had a major entanglement with the Commander-in-Chief.

Moren thought everything else was fine, but he was concerned about the punishment the Commander-in-Chief had given to that girl.

The Commander-in-Chief had done a cruel thing to that virtuous girl.

It was obvious that the girl in trouble would resent the Commander-in-Chief for this.

Of course, such resentment couldn’t leave any scratch on the emperor.

However, what worried Viscount Moren Arco, an experienced married man, was the unexpected behavior that the indifferent Sion Laurel showed every time he was associated with Ibi Ariate.

Moren had seen it while assisting the Commander-in-Chief in Tienda.

His gaze that was fixed on Ibi Ariate and wouldn’t leave during the banquet at Laurel Castle.

The unfamiliar sight of him paying attention to his attire from early morning the next day to meet that girl.

And even the impatient back view of him waiting for someone at the tower entrance after the purification ceremony, and eventually going out to find them.

Truly presumptuous, but in Moren’s eyes, the Commander-in-Chief at that time looked no different from any other twenty-four-year-old young man.

Pretending not to be, but a little excited, like that.

So even at the purification ceremony, he wondered if there might be a good atmosphere with that purifier, thinking what a strange taste it was to fall in love while being called ill-mannered.

But just a few days later, the Commander-in-Chief twisted and broke that girl’s wrist with a merciless declaration, and thanks to that, Moren fell into deeper contemplation.

Has my young superior fully considered the aftermath he will bear from this?

Moren thought probably not.

Because he seemed not to know it himself.

The fact that every time he was associated with Ibi Ariate, his coldness and boredom subsided as if it were a lie.

‘But there’s no need to say anything unnecessary.’

However, Moren decided to pretend not to know everything he had seen.

Partly because he was afraid of offending the Commander-in-Chief if he misspoke, but mostly because the Commander-in-Chief and that cute-looking purifier were already headed for a definite rupture.

So it would be better to cover up this matter.

After all, it seemed unlikely that they would be entangled with that purifier anymore.

Moren, who as the Deputy Commander of the border had to observe and assist everything about the Commander-in-Chief, was satisfied with his conclusion.

Then he ordered the still waiting guardians to return.

Amanaser had already fallen, but nevertheless, the Commander-in-Chief would remain at that border for another fortnight. As he always had for the past 7 years.

So Moren left the Commander-in-Chief, who terribly liked to be alone, and retreated to Tardes Hall, the base of the guardians.

.

.

.

At the same time, Sion, who was in tatters, was sitting on the blackening ground catching his breath.

It was over.

But he couldn’t end it.

He had intended to cut off Amanaser’s breath for good this time, but once again, the border monsters had hidden Amanaser.

Having failed to settle things again today, Sion pressed his eyes with both hands and muttered as if complaining.

“It’s dazzling.”

He felt like his eyes were still flashing from the lightning exchanged with Amanaser.

So Sion kept his eyes closed, and only slowly got up when the afterimages disappeared.

Then he casually took off the honorable Commander-in-Chief’s uniform right there.

The Deputy Commander and guardians beyond that valley probably think Sion will remain at this border for another fortnight.

They must think he’s continuing the border duty, refusing to be with his subordinates because he terribly likes to be alone.

It’s true that Sion likes to be alone, but he had no intention of staying in such a terrible place.

So Sion, now in a light shirt after dropping even his grand medals, whistled with his fingers in his mouth.

Then a small dragon that had fled to avoid the lightning flew to his side.

Sion mounted the dragon’s saddle, leaving his uniform just like that.

‘Let’s go home and rest a bit first.’

Then he started flying, not towards Tardes Hall, the base of the guardians, but in the opposite direction.