Chapter 58
A new day dawned.
The sun, which had only shone faintly through the night, now rose with brilliant strength.
Trees stretched their leaves wide, and animals woke up, arching their backs in lazy stretches.
“Hey, Chad! Wake up already!”
In front of a small hut in Ludwig’s Demon King’s Domain,
a young demon boy stomped his feet impatiently.
He was small, clearly still years away from adulthood, with horns barely as long as a finger joint.
The boy shouted anxiously through the closed door.
“Chad, get up! You’re going to be late again!”
Both boys worked as servants in the Demon King’s castle.
It hadn’t even been a full month since they’d started.
Ludwig’s castle had always had very few workers.
But now that the domain was making money and had more food, Gruve, the head butler, had suggested hiring more help.
They chose young demons who weren’t much use on farms yet.
Since their work on the farm was limited, it made sense to have them run errands in the castle for a salary, helping the local economy.
“Hey! Chad! Do you want Head Butler Gruve to yell at you again?”
Gruve was a terrifying figure to all servants.
Unlike servants in other castles, who were often beaten by their masters, this kobold never raised a hand against them.
Instead, when someone messed up, he’d call them over and scold them in a calm, icy voice.
That was somehow scarier than being beaten. Servants of every race trembled before him.
Bang! Bang!
“Hey!”
The boy kept banging on the door, but there was no answer.
He was panicking now.
What do I do? Should I just leave him?
But what if my friend gets fired?
No… what if it’s worse than that?
The boy’s imagination ran wild as he remembered what the older servants had told him.
‘If you cause trouble in the castle, you’ll get taken away as one of Richmond’s experiments!’
It was a lie meant to scare them, but this boy believed it completely.
He started sweating nervously.
“Chad! You’re gonna end up a skeleton at this rate! Do you even know what time it is? It’s already…!”
He was about to shout a random time to scare Chad into running out.
But then—
Whoooosh!
“Huh?”
The boy froze in shock.
A shadow passed over him, stretching across the bright blue sky.
It was a sight the locals had become used to.
A pair of wide, sharp-edged wings.
A sleek, streamlined body with a long neck and tail.
And that distinctive whooshing sound of powerful wings cutting through the air.
“A-a Gold Dragon!”
In this land, the dragon’s presence was as revered and mysterious as Ariella herself.
It was the effect of myths passed down by word of mouth among the people.
“This is bad!”
The boy, suddenly panicked, pounded on the door faster.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Chad! The dragon’s out on its morning flight!”
The effect was immediate.
There was a loud crash from inside, the sound of something falling over, then—finally—the door burst open.
“What? Really?”
Chad stumbled out, his shirt buttons mismatched in his rush.
“Whoa, it’s true!”
Everyone knew that every morning, at the exact same time, the gold dragon would fly out of the castle and head north.
Because of this, even without a clock, people could tell the time.
“It’s already eight o’clock?!”
“Yeah! If we run now, we might not be late!”
The two boys bolted, running as fast as they could.
Far above them, the gold dragon hatchling continued its powerful flight, soaring beyond the horizon.
But no one knew where it went each morning.
No one knew what it did for those ten minutes before returning.
The only thing the villagers believed—
Was that the gold dragon circled above the Demon King’s Domain each morning to bless and protect them.
No one knew who started that rumor, but it had taken root in everyone’s hearts as truth.
It filled the people with reverence for the dragon, and hope that their land would continue to thrive.
That, at least, was a good thing.
“Hah… hah…!”
“We’re here!”
About ten minutes later, the two boys skidded through a side gate of the Demon King’s castle.
The guards chuckled as they passed.
Most of them were new faces, not the same soldiers who had been stationed there when Ariella first arrived.
“Hah! Barely made it again, huh?”
“You kids should come earlier! Guess you’re scared of Head Butler Gruve after all!”
The boys barely managed a greeting as they dashed through the gate.
“Phew, we made it!”
“Hah… hah… hah…”
Just then, the gold dragon returned from beyond the horizon.
It landed gracefully on the castle’s watchtower, folding its golden wings.
The guards looked up with admiration.
“Safe and sound again, as always.”
“Still… where does he go every day?”
The soldiers had a theory.
“Someone said he flies toward the border of the Demon King’s Domain.”
“The border?”
“Yeah, you know. The area where we keep clashing with the orcs.”
“You’re kidding. He flies all the way there and back in ten minutes?”
The guard stared in awe.
The hatchling’s incredible speed was one thing, but what was it doing in that barren, empty land every morning at the exact same time?
While the castle soldiers were wondering about the dragon’s morning habits…
Gruve, the head butler, was troubled by another of the dragon’s strange behaviors.
“Lady Ariella! Please, I beg you!”
“Again? Ugh, this brat…”
“The hatchling won’t listen to me. Please, you have to handle this!”
Ariella sighed, setting aside the documents she’d been reading.
She stood up and followed Gruve.
A short while later—
“Hey!”
They arrived at the watchtower where the dragon spent most of its time.
“Oh! Ariella! You’re here!”
Flap! Flap!
The dragon fluttered over excitedly, but Ariella’s face was stern.
Seeing her expression, the dragon hesitated nervously.
Ariella held out her hand.
“Hand it over.”
The dragon glanced away, trying to act innocent.
“…What?”
It was obvious from its posture and expression.
“Don’t play dumb. Give back what you stole from Gruve. I told you before—don’t take things that belong to someone else.”
“But nobody was guarding it!”
“Just because Gruve wasn’t in his room doesn’t mean his things are up for grabs. By that logic, whenever Ludwig steps out, I get to be Demon King, right?”
“…That could be true!”
After a bit of back-and-forth, the dragon finally turned around and trudged toward the corner of the tower.
Its tail drooped, and even its rump seemed less lively than usual.
There lay a pile of “treasures” it had collected from all over the castle and surrounding lands.
Figures. A dragon will always be a dragon. If it looks shiny or valuable, it grabs it.
The morning flight at 8:00 wasn’t the only time the dragon flew.
It often wandered the skies whenever it felt like it, swooping down to pick up anything that caught its eye—pretty, curious, or seemingly valuable.
Of course, many of those things already had owners.
Some of the stolen items Ariella had retrieved so far included:
Her own white-feathered pen, Gruve’s pocket handkerchief, a brass ornament from Richmond’s lab door, and even Ludwig’s discarded clothes.
This thing’s like a crow. Unbelievable.
Today’s stolen item was a file of documents Gruve had been managing.
“Whew. Thank goodness.”
Gruve snatched the file back and glared at the dragon, who avoided his gaze sheepishly.
Most of the castle staff respected and feared the dragon, but after so many of these incidents, Gruve now saw it as nothing more than a mischievous brat.
“Why did you take this, anyway?”
“Because Gruve always carried it so carefully! I thought it was something important!”
“It is, but it’s useless to you.”
Ariella rolled up her sleeves, ready to teach the hatchling a lesson this time.
But then—
“Lady Ariella!”
A cheerful voice called out to her.
It was Philly, just back from the Fairy Forest.
And this time, she hadn’t only brought herbs.
She had also completed another important task Ariella had entrusted to her.
“I’ve arranged the three-way meeting! Between the Demon King’s Domain, the Ents… and the fairies!”
