“Why did you bother to come here, vampire? The world’s annihilation cannot be stopped,” the dragon said. “Everything in the world belongs to me. Don’t you dare destroy it. And you’re a part of my world, too, so I’m not losing you, either, you dumb dragon… Ugh, I don’t think any of what I’m saying is getting to her.” The body of Rinne Irako housed a very different entity. Having gone berserk, Rinne’s inner devil came to the surface, while her own consciousness had faded somewhere deep. There was no telling if she had any awareness of what was going on, but Mari kept trying to talk to her despite that. “Looks like I’ll just have to save you.” Mari was going to stick with Ryuunosuke’s reckless plan until the end. It might be suicide—a suicide in which the world would die with her. Not a bad way to go out. She’d assumed her life would end like this anyway. “Your conceit is laughable, vampire.” The dragon made a move. “You, saving me? What nonsense.” It lifted its right gauntlet, which had become so enormous that it was dragging on the ground, then aimed it, ready to fire… “Ryuunosuke?!” Mari swung her polearm and blocked the dragon’s attack with the ax edge. The ground shook from the thunderous impact. Without a shadow of doubt, the dragon’s target had been Ryuunosuke. “Rinne…” Ryuunosuke had not moved from his spot even as the shock wave of the dragon’s attack hit him. He was only spectating. “There can be no salvation for the world, which defined us as destroyers who need be excised. A world that branded you a sinner for merely existing deserves to be annihilated. That is only logical, is it not?” the dragon asked. “You’re not Rinne anymore. She’d never raise her hand at Ryuunosuke.” Mari had no doubt that her rival Rinne loved Ryuunosuke as much as she did. She needed no further proof that the creature in front of her wasn’t Rinne. “If you’re not her, I definitely won’t let you lay a finger on Ryuunosuke!” If the dragon was targeting Ryuunosuke, Mari had to move it safely away from him. Ryuunosuke was both central to the battle strategy and to Mari. Yet she couldn’t put too much distance between herself and the boy, or the soul linking effects would weaken. Mari decided to take this battle…to the sky. “Raaargh!” Mari spun her polearm around and picked up Rinne with the butt end. “So heavy…!” The density of Rinne’s body broke the laws of physics. Mari’s joints cracked under the weight. “Hup!” Mari kicked the halberd scythe, bouncing the dragon upward. She then stuck the pointy end of the weapon into the ground and vaulted at the dragon, kicking it skyward. The dragon didn’t resist this. Once in the air, it simply opened its wings. “Got you where I want you!” Mari grew one wing, then another, and another, until she had four. She spread them out and flew in pursuit of the dragon. Her flying capabilities were enhanced by the soul linking and having had real blood. Without the ring’s boost, she wouldn’t have been able to fly with Ryuunosuke all the way from the park near his house. Mari overtook the dragon, but as soon as she was ahead of it, it pointed a gauntlet at her. The transformed piece of armor was in turret mode, glowing from the inside ominously. Mari knew the name of that weapon. “Fafnir?!” A black beam of dragon breath shot into the sky, piercing the clouds. “You gave me a scare there, but at least you can’t pull that off again for a while…” As she was saying that, the dragon lined up with her, aiming the jaw-turret at her once more. Mari saw energy gathering inside it again. “You can’t shoot it again so soon after the first one, right?” The darkness within the turret rapidly intensified. “Seriously?!” “Rrrrrraaaaaaaaarrrgh!” The dragon unleashed another beam attack, roaring. This time, it grazed one of Mari’s wings, which burned to ash. Mari was fine, though. The beam shot past her, hitting a mountain in the distance. “Whoa…” There was a flash of light, followed by a shock wave and the loud boom of a terrifying explosion as half of the mountain was blasted away, the trees on the remaining, smoldering part of it flattened. There was a tremor like an earthquake. The shock wave knocked back Mari slightly. “How can you have this much firepower…?” In berserk state, the dragon heart generated limitless amounts of heat. The dragon wasn’t finished attacking. It raised its gauntlet, pointing it at the sky. “Another shot? No…” Having fought Rinne before, Mari recognized the switch from Fafnir to Gram. The dragon used the remnant heat from the last shot to transform the gauntlet into a sword no less than a hundred meters long. It swung that ridiculously long sword downward. Mari dodged to the side and saw the dark beam scorch the ground barely meters away from Ryuunosuke. “Ryuunosuke…!” “I’m fine!” he shouted back from the ground. Ryuunosuke hadn’t moved from his spot. He was watching the aerial battle without fear or worry in his eyes, but on closer inspection, his fists were clenched so tight, his fingernails were digging into his skin, making it bleed. He’d asked Mari for help and entrusted the fighting to her, but that left him feeling pitifully powerless. What he was fighting with were his emotions. After multiple beam shots, the dragon’s gauntlet finally stopped glowing, going into cooldown mode. Still… “You’re too overpowered!” Mari grumbled. The dragon had excellent flying ability and attacks with insane range. When Rinne wasn’t berserk, she could shoot beams powered by the heat of her dragon heart, but not in close succession since the shots cooled her back down and she needed time to charge them, too. In berserk mode, though, the dragon heart was a source of infinite heat, making rapid, consecutive beam attacks possible. Even immediately after the shots, there was plenty of leftover heat to utilize in battle. Then there was the matter of the destructive power of the dragon’s attacks. If one shot could blow away a mountain, Mari had to do everything and anything to prevent the dragon from firing down at the ground, or Ryuunosuke would be done for. This meant that Mari had to keep her position above the dragon, even though she wasn’t as good a flier. She wasn’t as strong, either. In this battle, she was without question at a considerable disadvantage. “Whatever. I’m not going to cry about this being unfair.” Mari told Ryuunosuke he could leave this to her, and she wouldn’t disappoint him. She kept her promises. When a mythical girl went berserk, there were three main phases. At phase one, she lost the ability to deactivate her factor powers and physical features. At phase two—which Rinne was at—she lost her powers of reason. Her own consciousness would fade while her inner devil took over. At phase three, the final stage, the mythical girl would become a force of destruction. The damage she would be capable of depended on her factor. In the dragon factor’s case, what happened was very simple—the dragon heart would enter a critical state and cause a massive explosion. This had to be prevented at all costs. “I’ll stop you before it gets to that, I swear.” Mari lunged at the dragon, swinging down with her halberd scythe. The blade sliced deep into the dragon’s gauntlet, breaking its heat-discharge functionality. This hindered the Gram and Fafnir attacks, at least temporarily. Being so close to the dragon, Mari was getting burned by the heat emanating from it, but her skin kept regenerating. She didn’t show her pain, attacking repeatedly until she and the dragon became locked together, spiraling down to the ground. Just before hitting it, they sprang away from each other, landing a short distance apart. “Surrender, vampire. Like me, you must desire the end of this world. Allow me to deliver it.” “I want many things, but the apocalypse isn’t one of them.” “You and I are of the same kind. How can we disagree? If the world wants us dead, we must kill it. It is a basic self-preservation instinct.” “Thanks for the lecture. Do all the devils inside mythical girls have a last-boss spiel like that? Anyway, why were you trying to kill Ryuunosuke?” “I wished to free myself from my shackles.” “Shackles? What?” “His existence shackles ‘me.’ He binds me, through the lingering love ‘I’ feel for him. As long as he lives, ‘I’ cannot give in to the lust for destruction, but I must destroy the world for ‘my’ sake. That is why I must… I must kill him first…” “Your eyes…” The dragon’s eyes were brimming with tears. The heat of the dragon’s fury was evaporating them before they spilled out. “What is this? Tears?” Surprised, the dragon wiped its already dry eyes. I get it, thought Mari. I get it, as another mythical girl. We curse the world, we curse our fate, and we wish we’d never been born. We grow up hating ourselves. But he—he isn’t like that. “Ryuunosuke is our polar opposite. That’s what made us fall in love with him…,” she said, partly to Rinne, partly to herself. Ryuunosuke was steadfast in his desire to help everyone. The mythical girls were his opposite. It was this extreme difference that attracted them to him. The dragon and the vampire got along like a cat and dog, but they had their love for Ryuunosuke in common. When it came to him, they understood each other. “Listen, Rinne,” Mari said, stressing her rival’s name. Understanding Rinne’s feelings only made her annoyed. “You hate this world, but this is the world he lives in,” she said sharply, trying to get her point across. Mari completely understood what Rinne was feeling, and that’s why she could be sure what Rinne was doing was wrong. “Now, you idiot, prove you’re worthy to see your crush again!” Mari dissolved her Bloody Maiden weapon and jumped far back. She was preparing for the final showdown. This hopeless idiot had to be saved from herself, but it wasn’t Mari’s job to do that. She’d only set the stage. She wanted to accomplish the setup perfectly. “Nosferatu, full release!” At her command, the limiters on her Valkyrie Dress’s enhanced Reginleif blood weapon, Nosferatu, became disabled. Factor abilities couldn’t be used constantly—utilize them too aggressively, and you’d run out of factor power, rendering you unable to fight. Removing the limiters on your factor greatly increased your strength at the cost of skyrocketing your power consumption. A mythical girl couldn’t fight very long in their unrestrained state, so it was a last resort tactic. Mari wouldn’t have much time left before she depleted her energy, but then again, Rinne’s time was running out, too. Mari had to settle this quickly. Suddenly, there were blades all around the dragon. “?!” Crimson weapons—scythes, swords, axes, guillotines—floated in the air around it. The dragon was taken by surprise, trapped in a cage of blades. This was… “Gungnir, the Torture Chamber!” The blood weapons began to rotate, swishing through the air. Each of them capable of slicing through an armored tank, they flew at the dragon all at once, spinning at a thousand rotations per minute. Mari’s plan was simple. As long as the dragon’s head was still attached to its torso, it would be able to recover using the dragon-factor regeneration ability. So Mari was going to slice off the dragon’s limbs with her master move. Centrifugal force broke the weapons into pieces. They turned into blood fog that was too thick to see what had been left of her opponent. When it came to overall battle ability, the vampire factor was top-rated, and Mari Vlad Abara was the strongest vampire mythical girl known to history. Not only did she possess a natural talent, but she’d also undergone spartan training to bring out the most of her abilities. She never doubted her strength. Mari had this to say about the dragon factor. “You’re a monster…!” The dragon emerged from the blood fog. “Are you finished?” Its wings were in tatters, but it had no noticeable wounds on its body. It must have wrapped itself in its wings for cover, sacrificing the ability to fly to prevent significant damage. “How freaking tough are you to resist that slaughterfest?!” Mari’s master move had failed. Her shoulders slumped, and she sighed. After that attack, without any limiters on her powers, she didn’t have much juice left. She was out of options… “I really didn’t want to do this…” Could Mari have it in her to pull off another attack? She extended her arm in front of her, spreading her fingers open with her palm facing upward. She had one last ace up her sleeve, and she was going to use the very remainder of her power for it. “Bloody Mary!” Mari snapped her hand shut. Nothing happened. No bloody stakes appeared, no blades, nothing. But it would be a mistake to assume Mari’s skill had not taken effect. “Bwah!” The dragon suddenly covered its mouth, coughing up blood. “What…is this…?” It stared at its bloodied hand in confusion. “Don’t know what I did to you, huh?” Having used two special moves without limiters, Mari ran out of power. Her Valkyrie Dress disappeared with no energy to sustain it. Mari was back in her school uniform. She had already won when she used Gungnir. Bloody Mary was its secondary effect, which could only be activated when factor limiters were disabled. When the Gungnir weapons dissolved, Bloody Mary morphed the copious blood mist breathed in by the target into sharp awls, which elongated, piercing the target’s organs. “You’re tough on the outside, but vulnerable on the inside. This line of attack was so easy to figure out, but not for an all-brawn-no-brain devil, I guess. Rinne wouldn’t have fallen for it, breathing in the blood mist.” Mari was on her last legs, her eyes unfocused, but she smiled victoriously. She’d known from the start that even if her Gungnir failed to deal any external damage, the dragon would be unable to defend itself from internal damage. The dragon stopped moving. Then it dropped to the ground, falling to one knee. “This body…will not obey me…?” it said, stupefied. Mari had targeted the dragon heart. It would explode only when triggered by internal processes, not from taking direct physical damage. The vampire reckoned that injuring the dragon’s most important organ would result in all its energy being directed to regenerating it, temporarily incapacitating the dragon. And it’d gone according to plan. “Over to you…Ryuunosuke…” “I got this.” Mari slumped onto the ground, falling unconscious after exhausting her factor powers and pushing herself past her limits. “My turn!” Ryuunosuke broke into a run. At last, the waiting was over. It was his turn to jump into action. That was all the boy was thinking about. Not for a moment did he fear Mari would lose or make a deadly mistake. She told him to leave the battle to her, and he fully trusted in her capability. Finally, his turn had come. Being able to only watch as Mari fought had been agonizing for him. Ashamed of his powerlessness, he’d been grinding his teeth until one cracked. “Rinne!” he called to the kneeling, motionless dragon, which was surrounded by heat haze. Hot air currents were pushing Ryuunosuke away. As he got close, his skin began to burn. Mari was fighting in this furnace?! But I have to keep going to reach Rinne… Ignoring the heat as best he could, Ryuunosuke pushed on to get closer to Rinne. Every time he got nearer, his eyes would dry up, and his skin would burn. His body would auto-regenerate, though, thanks to him sharing the vampire factor’s restorative ability through his soul link with Mari. His plan was simple—touch Rinne’s Stigma to soul link with her and end her berserk status. He focused his eyes on the mark. He was almost there. Just a little farther… Ryuunosuke’s ring activated, and light enveloped his left arm. He reached toward the Stigma, which was glowing red. “Aaaaaaarrrrrgh! It burrrrrnnnnsss!” That heat was too much even for the vampire factor’s auto-regen. Ryuunosuke’s skin blistered, exposing the flesh underneath, which was scorched all the way to the bone, and searing his nerves. All that was left of his left arm was its outline, made of light created by the Sacred Sealing Ring, which kept glowing just as brightly as before. The pain was driving Ryuunosuke crazy, the deadly heat making his self-preservation instinct scream to run away. But if he did run away, it would be all over. He had to suppress this desperate urge to escape, withstand the pain and the heat. It hurt so much, Ryuunosuke felt like he was going to pass out, but then the same pain brought him back to his senses. It was torture for his brain. “Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Ryuunosuke couldn’t help screaming. He could only bottle up his suffering for so long. He kept trying to reach for the Stigma but couldn’t. It was as if there was an invisible wall between him and Rinne, shutting him out. She was so close to him, yet so far. Even as the pain from his burned right arm was threatening to drive him insane, Ryuunosuke sensed that the heat coming from Rinne was fueled by rage which had long lain dormant, by her anger at the world, by her indignation at the injustice she’d met with. “Do not touch me…! I will… I will kill you! I will not let you…do this to me…!” Rinne’s devil shrieked. Ryuunosuke, with his ring, which could suppress the evil entities within mythical girls, was the devil’s archenemy. On top of that, Rinne’s devil saw him as a shackle preventing it from running rampant—he had to be killed. “What idiot would stop at this point?! There’s no going back!” Ryuunosuke yelled back. “A world that brands one a sinner for merely having been born, denying them the right to live and sentencing them to death, is devoid of meaning! Do you deny it?! I have not done anything to deserve this death sentence, and so I shall condemn this rotten world to death instead! I am doing this for you, too! I love you with all my heart! Why can you not see it? Why do you reject my love?!” “What sort of twisted logic is that?! It’s making my brain hurt! You don’t even know what life is about, edgelord! You’re not Rinne! She’d never give me this dumb doom talk!” “If you care about ‘me,’ then die! That is all I am asking! That is all I want! How do I make you understand? I love you! So please die for me! I wish to give you the sweetest of deaths!” “You’re making zero sense! If you love someone, you don’t want to freaking kill them! Do you have any brain at all?!” The dragon was radiating such ferocious heat… “I will have you answer one question.” …yet its voice was chillingly cold. “The question I asked you that night. You pretended not to hear.” Ryuunosuke shuddered, forgetting all about his pain. “…” He knew exactly what night she was talking about. He remembered her asking him a question as he felt her warmth against his back. He didn’t answer her then, not wanting to hurt her feelings. He didn’t want to tell her what he really thought, nor lie to her. He chose the third option, which was to pretend he didn’t hear her. “Do you think some people do not deserve to live?” Just being a mythical girl was a death sentence. Every day brought Rinne closer to her execution. Knowing that, Ryuunosuke hadn’t been ready to answer her that night. He’d pretended not to hear, but she’d seen through his weakness. “Do you think some people do not deserve to live?” The dragon repeated Rinne’s question. “I think…” That everyone deserves to live. All humans are equal, and their lives have equal value, equal importance. We should accept everyone, as fellow members of Mothership Earth. Of course not! It wasn’t the world Ryuunosuke was trying to save. It was Rinne. It just so happened that saving her would save the world as well. And he couldn’t save her by telling her he thought nobody deserved to be killed. He had to shake her to reach her. Ryuunosuke took in a deep breath, the hot air burning his lungs, his mouth dry as parchment, and shouted the reply he’d been too scared to give her that night. “Some people deserve to die!” That was his honest opinion, which he’d normally keep to himself. He’d finally made up his mind to tell Rinne the truth rather than a pretty little lie that might make him sound like more of a bighearted person than he really was. He’d sensed the agonizing heat coming from the dragon was an expression of long-suppressed anger and despair that Rinne had to endure this whole time. He wanted to save her from that world of pain. “I believe there are people who deserve to die! People this world would be better off without! It’s sad, but some people are beyond redemption!” Not every life was equal. Not every person was equal. Their value varied from one to another. “The value, the importance of a life depends on a person! Everyone thinks that; they just don’t say it out loud! They don’t want to come off as cruel, so they pretend to value everyone the same, spouting the same Goody Two-shoes nonsense so that nobody would point a finger at them! But everyone understands this game! There are lots of people nobody cares about, because most people care only about themselves! They don’t care if others live or die!” Mythical girls, who had the power to destroy the world, certainly didn’t have many people’s sympathy. “But you know what, Rinne?!” This was what he’d wanted her to hear the most. “You’re not one of the people who deserve to die! At least, that’s what I think!” He noticed the dragon’s petite shoulders twitch. Ryuunosuke wasn’t used to shouting, and his voice was breaking. It didn’t help that his throat had been so dried by the hot air, its membranes were breaking, leaking blood. But he had to keep talking to Rinne. She might be the gravest danger the world had ever known, but she’d become someone who mattered a lot to Ryuunosuke. The soul linking ritual wouldn’t work without the consent of both parties. Rinne had gone berserk, and her consciousness was locked somewhere deep, so she couldn’t give her consent. Still, Ryuunosuke had faith. His belief that he could reach Rinne somehow was based only on his naive trust in her. “You don’t deserve to die, Rinne! A person like you shouldn’t be put to death! You’re strong, beautiful, and lovely! A bit silly sometimes, but that only adds to your charm! You can be overbearing, but at the same time, you’re nervous in social situations! You can be arrogant and proud, but you’ll do everything for those you care about! This is the person I know you as!” They’d only been together briefly, but already, Ryuunosuke couldn’t imagine the world without Rinne. “I swear…” Ryuunosuke did other people’s work for them, saved the bullied from their bullies, took anemic students to the nurse’s office, and helped people carry heavy bags. To him, saving a life or saving the world was the same kind of a good deed. Not to say he didn’t attach much value to the world or human lives, but in his eyes, helping was always important, whether it was simply everyday help, or something as extraordinary as rescuing a person or saving the entire world from destruction. It was just in his nature. That voice he knew but didn’t, the scene he’d never seen before but felt was all too familiar, his sense of duty—he became convinced everything was connected, and part of the destiny that had led him up to that day. “I’m going to…,” he shouted, and the dragon reached toward him. She loved him. The girl was truly in love with the boy, and that’s why her devil had to kill him. It would kill him because of love, because of the girl’s bond with him. The boy’s existence was very unfortunate from the devil’s point of view. Dying would bring the boy salvation, so it would be for the best anyway; that much was clear. The devil and the girl were two sides of the same coin. Killing the boy would also be the best for the girl. She didn’t want to kill him. She loved him; she adored him. She loved his eyes. So he had to die. She loved his hands. So he had to die. She loved his voice. So he had to die. She loved his cooking. So he had to die. She loved how kind he was to everyone. So he had to die. She loved him for saving her. So he had to die. She loved him for treating her with care. So he had to die. She loved his warmth, his smile, every single cell that made up his body, all of him, from the top of his head down to his toes. So he had to die. He was too good for that world. She wanted to share her life with him. Even his shortcomings seemed like virtues to her. She didn’t know the difference between affection and all the different levels of love, but she had no doubt that she was in love with him. He was so incredible; she loved him so much. So he had to die. He had to be set free from this twisted world. That was what she’d decided. “That’s why! I’m!” He kept shouting at her, even though he must have known he couldn’t reach her. Not with his voice, not with his hands. She couldn’t respond to him anyway. She wouldn’t. There’d be no miracle. The chance of her responding was exactly 0 percent. It was impossible, ridiculous to imagine. Inconceivable. That was how mythical girls worked—going absolutely berserk made it impossible for them to engage with anyone. The devil would kill the boy, then destroy the world. It would write the final chapter in this world’s story. Ever since the first appearance of a mythical girl in this world, never had one been saved after reaching the second phase of berserk status. There had been no precedent, and none would ever be established. An evil force of destruction, a calamity threatening humanity, could not hope to be saved. “Going to!” The devil reached toward the boy, not in response to his voice, but to kill him. “Save you!” The boy’s voice was drowned out by the cracking of his bones burning to ashes. The dragon had fired its gauntlet at him, blasting away his upper body. “What a fool,” the devil said mockingly. It heard the crackling of a burning human body; it smelled the stench of burning hair. Nothing was left of the boy from the waist up. The open wound wasn’t even bleeding, having been cauterized by the hot beam. “Death renders everything meaningless.” The boy had no way of dodging the dragon’s attack. It was impossible to survive it. The shackles of love had been broken. Rinne’s only wish had become impossible. The world was as good as dead. A miracle didn’t happen. Of course it wouldn’t have. And so the fate of the world had been sealed. “What is this…?” Something odd was going on with the mutilated remains of the boy—flames rose from the waist, scattering softly like feathers to reveal Ryuunosuke’s body being remade. For a moment, the flames formed the shape of wings behind him, and then they vanished. Ryuunosuke was alive and well. “Even soul linking with the vampire would not give you regenerative ability this strong… It should have been impossible for you to recover…” Ryuunosuke hadn’t been saved by Mari’s healing powers. The dragon and vampire factors possessed miraculous vitality, resistance, and regenerative ability, but they weren’t immortal. If they lost the entire upper part of their body, they would die. But then how could this boy still be alive? Was he immortal? “Impossible… Impossible… Impossible! He cannot have this ability…” There was a mythical winged creature that transcended death, that could rise from the ashes reborn. The Fourth Factor… “…” The boy was looking at the dragon with vacant eyes. The girl, or rather, her devil displayed an emotion other than rage for the first time. It was fear. “No… You had already been wed to another before the dragon…” Light returned to the boy’s eyes. “I’ve come to save you, Rinne!” For a moment, the devil was caught off guard, and Rinne’s consciousness made it to the surface. She wasted no time, grabbing the boy’s hand and pressing it to the Stigma on her chest. “I grant you permission to touch me, Ryuunosuke.” It was supposed to be impossible for him to reach her, but he had. “Help as many people as you can, for the both of us.” He heard a voice but couldn’t remember who it belonged to. A scene he’d never seen before flashed in his mind. As long as that voice kept whispering to him, he would continue to help others, even if it meant putting his life on the line. He began saying his very own pledge. “In sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, for richer and for poorer…” The pledge of soul linking. “…even if the whole world turns against us, I will always be your ally! Together, we will survive!” “Stop…” Ryuunosuke ignored the devil, speaking to Rinne. “Do you vow—” “Stop!” “—to share your life with me?!” he shouted. “Nooo!” His hand was on Rinne’s mark. “I do!” Rinne replied. “Rinne…!” “Ryuunosuke!” The glowing Stigma shattered. Meanwhile, the light of Ryuunosuke’s ring turned into little drops, which grew into a surging wave, washing Rinne clean of her sin. “Stop it! No, no, noooooooooo!” the devil shrieked. Its voice, which Rinne had heard for as long as she could remember, grew quieter and quieter. Her Stigma finished dissolving, and a Sacred Sealing Ring formed around her finger. The soul linking was complete. This time, it didn’t suppress the devil—it erased it from existence. The girl and the world had been saved. The girl’s dragon horns, wings, tail, and armor broke off and disappeared. Still surrounded by speckles of light, Rinne embraced Ryuunosuke to stop him from collapsing. “Thanks, Rinne. For coming back.” “Thank you for saving me.” She was no longer giving off fierce heat, but she felt warmth in her heart. Every day, hour, minute, and second she’d spent with Ryuunosuke made her love for him grow. Her love for him was probably going to keep growing even stronger. The dragon embraced her chosen human, showing him her love. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, not so hard!” Ryuunosuke protested, laughing and hugging Rinne back. She had so much love for him, it was probably impossible to express it in just one hug, but it would do for the time being. She’d communicate her love to him little by little over time. “…”
Chapter 13
27 min read