His Breeding Obsession

Soon enough, Mirania spoke again,

“Dismount. I don’t want to exhaust my horse.” 

The horse carrying them both began to pant.

 

She stroked the horse’s muzzle with one hand, and it reared up, breathing hard.

 

It moved its head from side to side, rubbing its head against Mirania’s hand as if it enjoyed her attention.

 

Grecan’s eyes grew cold.

 “That hand is too popular.” “There you go again with your useless tirade…” 

His hand tightens, and his body heaves upward. Mirania’s eyes widened.

 

The floor had quickly descended beneath her. Milania’s eyes widened in realization.

 “…?” 

They were in the sky.

 

Grecan held Mirania tightly in his arms and began to move.

 

‘Magic… flying magic.’

 

No way. Surely Grecan’s magical abilities were at zero. 

 

‘How could he be so skillful?’

 

When Mirania continued to stare at the ground, Grecan grumbled, thinking she was worried about the horses.

 “Let them go, they’re Hakan’s, they’ll find their way.” 

A road. There’s an ocean between the continents. 

 

No, from a horse’s perspective, the first continent might be more habitable than the second ravaged ones…

 

‘This is not the time for such thoughts.’

 

Grecan flew over the ocean, the territory of the Water Dragon.

 

‘I wonder what the water dragon will do.’

 

Mirania strained her eyes to see what Grecan would do.

 

As she scanned the still, calm waters, she recognized his unusually steady flight.

 

‘Interesting.’

 “When did you learn magic?” 

As she remembered, Grecan had no magic.

 “If I want to break something, I have to use the power they hold so dear.” 

The corners of Grecan’s mouth twitched with bitter arsenic.

 

His hatred for humans was as hard as a diamond.

 “So much for the precious, invaluable, and not so difficult.” 

Mirania’s eyes closed and opened slowly. In amazement.

 

Learning magic was not an easy task, so Grecan’s words didn’t make sense at first.

 

Sensing her emotion, Grecan said proudly,

“I can use an auror.” 

A quick glance around, but the sword was nowhere to be found in the air above the sea.

 

As if he couldn’t help himself, Grecan gripped Mirania’s broom like a sword.

 

The pole-like handle of the broom pointed toward the moonlit sky.

 

A streak of black energy began to emanate from it, and soon it took the form of a sword.

 

An aurorblade of unbelievable clarity.

 

It was a blade that even swordsmen with thirty years of training could not reach.

 “…” “…” 

Grecan looked at Mirania with a questioning gaze.

 

The three great powers of humans. Magic. Swordsmanship. Technique.

 

Magic and swordsmanship he had taken, and the use of technique he had replaced with the beasts.

 

Mirania understood perfectly well how Grecan had gripped and molded the continent.

 

Before she knew it, they were flying across the ocean.

 

Mirania realized, a moment too late, that the water dragon was eerily quiet. 

 

‘Had it changed habitats?’

 

It didn’t take long to realize that the water dragon hadn’t gone anywhere.

 

Just as it was about to open its snout at the intruder, it paused with its nose out of the water.

 

Its giant nose twitches. 

 Flinch— Swoosh! 

The water dragon scrambled like a chicken on fire and plunged headfirst into the depths.

 

It was as if it was fleeing from Grecan. 

 

A divine water dragon, a guardian of the sea. 

 

Mirania was stunned.

 

‘Huh?’

 

She looked at Grecan, expecting an answer, but instead, she said only one thing.

 “You’re a monster.”  

Shortly after returning to the palace, Mirania’s anger rang out in the quiet of the morning.

 “You are so arrogant, this is why you’re no better than a madman!” 

Mirania was locked in her crystal chamber. She was furious as hell.

 

Realizing that more than a dozen people had died since she had left the palace.

 

Among them was a servant who had been telling tales from more than a hundred years ago because he liked the way it made him look.

 

No matter how cute or angry or pitiful Grecan pretended to be, she didn’t seem to notice.

 

‘Even when I witnessed with my own eyes what he did to Chera, Leverianz, and Vanessa, I was not this angry, and it was not because I glossed over it, for he did not truly harm them.’

 

But this time, in his latest atrocity, someone actually died.

 

Six hours ago.

 [Did he say dead?]

 

Mirania asked without question as a new servant entered the room, not a familiar one.

 

‘Where is the old one?’ 

 

The servant answered nonchalantly,

‘Dead.’

 [He, not that…]

 

The new servant was puzzled by Milania’s frosty questioning, but also fearful of what this might bring upon him.

 

Mirania persisted, and succeeded in getting him to listen.

 [He paid for his failure to perform his duties with his life.]

 [Mirania left the palace and failed to do anything about it. There is no greater oversight than that.]

 

As she left the palace and headed for the First Continent, the soldiers and servants who were guarding the palace that day, including the guard who guarded the Crystal Chamber, died.

 

The slender servant who had been her favorite to listen to and admire her stories, the one who had told her the funniest things, had died.

 

What Mirania couldn’t understand was not the outcome of death, but the why.

 

Why did they die?

 

Why did Grecan kill them?

 

Mirania loved the forest and was one of the few beings who knew the value of each life.

 

She rarely took a life, no matter how disrespectful it was to her.

 

It was Grecan and Leverianz whom she had most intensely wanted to kill in her life, and she had failed to kill them.

 

But Mirania could not understand Grecan.

 [From the beginning. I watched Mirania climb over the walls of the palace. I thought she was a burglar cat. She was good at it. Even though she was weak.]

 [I feigned ignorance on purpose so Mirania could escape.]

 

What Grecan said on the way back from the witch castle drew her deeper into the labyrinth.

 

‘He knew I was leaving, so why did he kill the men for not being able to stop me.’

 

There was only one conclusion.

 

‘He must have done it because he was angry. This was unacceptable.’

 

What had happened to his mind to make him treat life as worthless?

 

A mixture of confusion and fear made my mind more complicated than a tangled thread.

 

‘I don’t know where to begin to make it right.’

 

Her complicated feelings turned cold toward him.

 

It was too complicated to look him in the face and talk to him casually.

 

No matter how calm she tried to be, she knew she would be laughed out of the room with her ridiculous behavior, so she didn’t even look at his face.

 Bang! 

The pounding on the door was relentless.

 

Mirania turned her back to the door.

 “Mirania, what’s wrong, all of a sudden?” “…” “Mirania?” “…” “Mirania, Mirania… Mirania.” 

For the fifth time in as many hours, Grecan paced in front of the door.

 

After being treated like a nonexistent person by Mirania time and time again, he first panicked, then pleaded, and then became angry with himself, stiffening and exuding cold energy.

 

Then he starts banging on the door again, frantically.

 

Mirania ignored him the entire time.

 

If he entered the room without permission, she would never see his face again.

 

Two days passed, with no change in the extremely uncomfortable atmosphere.

 

The air in the palace, whose magnificent beauty remains precariously intact on the second ravaged continent, has become as sharp as walking on thin ice, thanks to Grecan’s aura.

 

The palace’s master’s change of heart was enough to kill the palace’s servants.

 

Mirania ignored their anxious gazes and Grecan’s piercing aura.

 

The tense relationship that seemed to be on the verge of breaking had been severed with a bang in less than three days.

 Boom! 

The crystal door shattered. Mirania, who was looking out the window, turned her stern face toward him.

 

The thick door, beautifully patterned with crystals, lay cracked and shattered at Grecan’s feet.

 “You sneak in.” “…” “I take it you don’t want to see me anymore.” 

Mirania muttered coldly, and Grecan shook his head in disbelief.

 “I didn’t enter.” “…” “I didn’t even step inside. I just wanted to see your face.” “Did you think that pun would work? My warning fell on deaf ears.” 

Clicking her tongue, Mirania’s expression was as unbreakable as a frozen lake.

 

She was truly thinking about turning her back on him, and when he realized it, he became contemplative.

 

He shook his head.

 

Mirania turned her head. Grecan was kneeling in front of the doorway.

 “Don’t do something useless.” 

The voice was cold, and Grecan shuddered and shook his head.

 “What’s the matter, Mirania? I can’t stand it, and if you want to torment me to death, go ahead.” “…” “If you don’t, tell me. I’ll listen to anything, I promise.” 

‘He sounded so nice. How could he be so horrible?’