“I managed to get my hands on a dragonkin corpse and attempted to take it into myself. However, it turned out that I couldn’t turn the flesh from a corpse into mana...”
Streusel had then plotted to assassinate a dragonkin. Instead of killing her victim, she had taken them with her and consumed them for her dark magic.
“I ran into a problem at that point. The mana of dragonkin was too much for a human to bear.” She had suffered from symptoms similar to the kind of rejection reaction one had from consuming the flesh of monsters. “Still, I managed to overcome it eventually by strengthening my own mana. I started traveling from place to place, consuming flesh whenever I could get my hands on it.”
Eventually, she’d heard that the Dragon Duke was looking for a bride. She had entered the bridal selection and had manipulated events from the shadows. However, she had almost been found out by the duchy’s knights and then gone into hiding in a neighboring country. There, she had managed to deepen her knowledge of dark magic.
“I discovered that I was adept at the type of dark magic that let me manipulate people. It turned out that it was effective against dragonkin, so I used it to get close to the Dragon Duke.”
Streusel had infiltrated parties in high society and gathered information. There, she had learned about a former candidate for Van’s fiancée—Fenetra. She had used her powers and connections to make Van’s councillors her puppets and to attempt to assassinate me, the Dragon Duchess consort. The strange things about Van’s councillors—their unusually rebellious actions and the fact that their personalities had changed completely—had been Streusel’s doing all along.
How utterly vexing.
“And I take it that asking to become my concubine was part of your plan all along?” Van continued to press her.
“Of course. I needed to control the Dragon Duke if I wanted the stubborn dragonkin to fall into my hands, after all. It would be difficult without your assistance.”
Taking control of someone took a long time. Streusel needed to get close to Van to start that process.
“My desire is to tame the Dragon Duke like the animal you are. I want to take over the Dragon Duchy of Éclair and restore the Kingdom of Sacristain to its rightful place!” Streusel then shook her head. “No, that’s not quite right. It’s not just my desire. It’s also the desire of Princess Charlotte, the princess slain by the dragonkin!”
The air trembled upon the mention of her name. Van was furious.
“You know nothing about Charlotte!!!” he roared.
“I know everything about her. After all, we are both princesses of the Kingdom of Sacristain!” Streusel declared.
“Fool!”
I signaled to Van to calm him down. He nodded, seemingly having received the message.
“Still, I’ve been constantly tormented by an unexpected element in the way of my plans,” Streusel divulged. It seemed that I had been a stumbling block for her ambitions.
“Why didn’t you just capture Mille-Feuille like you did with Fenetra and take her place?” Van asked.
“I decided that it was too difficult to abduct her since her security was tighter than I had anticipated.”
Streusel had been planning to kill me, take the place of some other woman, and then get close to the Dragon Duke. But while she had been plotting all this, she had gotten word of our expedition to Diamant. Fenetra, who had been Van’s ministers’ favorite candidate for his wife, had been living in Diamant, so her plan had changed—she’d take Fenetra’s place and gain control of Van. Then, she would have free rein over the Dragon Duchy of Éclair.
Streusel had arrived in Diamant ahead of us. She had abducted the real Fenetra, hidden her underground, and then taken over the mind of Marquis de Noisette. She had succeeded in passing herself off as his daughter and had placed all of the house’s attendants under her spell. Since then, she’d been brazenly living as Fenetra.
“I heard that the Dragon Duke would be coming here alone, so I was shocked to see that you had brought your concubines with you.”
“Concubines? What are you talking about?” he asked. “They’re not my concubines.”
“Please, you need not hide anything. I already know.”
“You...”
Van declared that he would not be showing her mercy. Streusel’s ambitions would end right here, right now.
“I will blast you and your cursed flesh with my breath!” Van roared.
He’ll blow up this entire underground chamber if he does that! As if sensing my worries, Roche assured me that Van could launch breaths on a smaller scale.
“Prepare yourself!!!” he cried out.
“No, Dragon Duke, you prepare yourself.”
“What?!”
What’s going on? Parfeil and I braced ourselves as the ground shook with the sound of footsteps. Someone or something was about to enter this underground chamber.
“Guuuooohhh!!!”
More villagers with scrolls attached to their faces entered the great hall, weapons in hand. Their numbers were far greater than those we had encountered upstairs. Over a hundred of them had come, and they started attacking immediately.
“All of you, don’t forget that you can stop them by removing the scrolls on their faces! Do not kill them!” Van shouted.
Van and his knights were surrounded by masses of villagers and couldn’t make a move. Even so, Van managed to cast a barrier around us, preventing anyone from attacking us. Parfeil and my white squirrels exited the barrier and began ripping the scrolls off of the villagers. The attackers collapsed to the floor one after the other, but they were replaced by other villagers just as quickly. There was no end to them.
While we were preoccupied, Streusel began chanting an incantation. “I offer as sacrifice all the lives in this chamber to summon a Corrupt Dragon...”
A ghastly magic circle appeared on the walls of the underground hall. At this rate, she would complete her spell to summon a Corrupt Dragon.