Chapter 205
I Married the Dragon I Killed
Chapter 205: An Impassable Wall
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An Impassable WallChapter 205. An Impassable Wall
Olivia blinked like a fool.
No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn’t understand it.
Weren’t two high-ranking nobles conversing, not just two young ladies chatting?
Going around and around, somehow maintaining decorum while fighting—that was their way.
Olivia had naturally arrived expecting such a confrontation, and she intended to fight to the end.
Yet she crumbled from a single sentence just now.
“Did you call me because you want to become beautiful and intelligent like me?”
Is that all?
Could there be a hidden motive to strike a blow?
She tried to think that way, but she couldn’t figure it out at all.
The more information accumulated, the more her form turned into a mass of contradictions.
“A dragon like a thoughtless young lady…?”
Even a stubborn dragon like Storeus calls her childish, but in reality, she is not a child.
Her words always contained messages that only dragons understood.
Olivia’s head spun faster than ever.
What if that childish behavior is a strategy to make her lower her guard?
What if “that’s all” is a lie, a move to make her lower her guard?
What if the moment she inquires into her intentions and shows favor, she goes for her throat?
She kept building countermeasures.
The more complicated her thoughts became, the more horrifyingly those horns gleamed.
— Are you feeling warm?
Everything stopped with that single phrase.
Her emotional agitation dampened her armpits and her forehead.
The makeup in her sensitive areas threatened to melt.
— I apologize. I have had a constitution prone to sweating for a long time……
— Wait a moment. Ruri.
Ruri handed Olivia a glass of ice water.
Wind spirits surrounded her, cooling the air.
Olivia drank the iced water and cooled her head.
Just as she tried to think again,
— I am sorry.
— …Yes?
The dragoness apologized.
— I heard a Princess was coming, so I chose a suitable place, but my thinking was shallow. I didn’t think you would be sensitive to heat.
— It is not that. It is partly because this girl was overly nervous, so please pay it no mind.
— You were nervous. Mmm……
Valdrova showed signs of contemplating something.
The message launched by the silence became another information bomb tormenting Olivia.
Then she looked toward her attendant.
The attendant simply remained motionless with her eyes closed.
Yet that alone must have been enough conversation, for Valdrova acted immediately.
Valdrova took off her mask and revealed her face.
— Will this…… ease your tension……?
And she threw all her conjectures into the trash.
The face hidden behind the mask was unexpected for Olivia.
It was an extremely gentle face smiling awkwardly.
Round eyes and lips bright as cherries showed shyness.
She was one of the most beautiful women Olivia had ever seen.
If she were merely beautiful, Olivia would not have been so surprised.
Because it was an impression completely unfitting the dignity of a dragoness.
Every time she saw those horrifying horns, she felt a knife at her throat, but seeing her face, that knife could not be felt.
Despite the overwhelming aura unique to dragons, one wondered if this woman truly was a dragon.
— Has your tension eased a bit now?
— …Yes.
— That is a relief.
Valdrova smiled radiantly, obtaining one more piece of information.
That she was a woman whose expressions were easy to read.
— I was genuinely curious about how one could become beautiful and intelligent like you.
Perhaps because of that, Olivia was now the one having a hard time.
She was sure that, without her long-honed social skills, she would have stuttered inelegantly.
— There is nothing special. Since I am slow-witted, I do not know what part made you feel that way, and I am faltering like this, so how can I be called intellectual?
— Mmm, that…… what was it……? Was it “to embody the divine appearance”? How can one say something like that?
— It is not a phrase I created. It is embarrassing, but it is merely a quote from a famous philosophy book.
— Isn’t philosophy about making iron?
— The dictionary definition is the academic discipline of deeply exploring the world and human life. But as Your Highness says, it is like making iron. Forging the mind ceaselessly, tempering it into a tool.
Valdrova’s golden eyes shone.
— I see. If I read that book, will I also be able to speak intelligently?
— Of course.
— Philosophy…… wait a moment. Ruri.
She gestured, asking for something to write with.
Ruri replied in a low voice with a tinge of displeasure.
— This girl will remember it.
— But…… no, that is not the attitude of a learner, is it?
…..
What Valdrova said was what Ruri had once said.
Ruri, not expecting it to be returned to her this way, maintained a professional expression with effort and handed her paper and a pen.
— Could you perhaps recommend what books to read?
There was no longer a dignified voice.
Olivia answered.
— It would be good to read the light Meditations and the Dialogue Records. The Meditations contain many thought-provoking questions, how the philosophers thought, and yield answers, so you will find them interesting to read.
— I see. Meditations and…… Dialogue Records…… That…… Could you tell me what that means as well?
— Of course.
Olivia explained step by step.
When she made a face of difficult comprehension, she explained once more, unraveling it until she understood with certainty.
It was a truly bizarre situation.
Teaching the dragoness everyone feared.
She was definitely conversing with a dragoness, yet that unique pressure had vanished.
It felt like talking to a child.
So she was frightened at the same time.
If this situation truly held no hidden motive.
Or if she hadn’t realized it even now.
Rather, Olivia’s mind went blank.
She was being dragged along helplessly at Valdrova’s pace.
When a brief silence arrived, Olivia spoke reflexively as she watched Valdrova write.
— Your handwriting is extraordinarily beautiful.
— Right?!
Valdrova’s face lit up as if the sun had risen.
— I practiced so much. Writing characters is easier than expected, but writing well is truly difficult.
— But, is there a need to do such things deliberately?
She quickly recovered what might have sounded like a rude comment.
— With my meager knowledge, I think it would be better for a proxy to do it rather than Your Highness taking on such trouble, so I dare to ask.
— Mm, that’s true.
Valdrova agreed as well.
Where would she use such handwriting after learning it?
She hadn’t tried to learn it particularly, nor did she have an interest.
— I wanted to show these characters to Ferda. I thought that if I showed him beautifully written characters, he might like it……
— Is that all?
— That is all.
She laughed like a fool.
— Because that is everything to me right now.
— Is…… that so?
— So I kept wanting to learn more. If I learn like this and become intelligent, I thought being by Ferda’s side wouldn’t be embarrassing……
Valdrova looked at Olivia again.
— So I also wanted to talk.
…..
No matter how she thought about it, it made no sense.
Why would a dragon try to look good for a mere human?
That such a petty, bourgeois idea existed in a dragon who had lived since the primordial age was unbelievable.
She met her eyes once more, involuntarily.
Slit pupils vertically inside golden irises.
What was felt was pure admiration.
Exactly like when the children of the Empire looked at her.
It was Valdrova who shyly looked away.
— I want to learn even more from now on.
— If Your Highness wishes, this girl will teach you anytime.
— So……
Valdrova’s face gradually flushed red.
With trembling lips, she carefully drew out her words.
— Olivia…… can you be my friend too?
Olivia responded to that question.
— Of course, Your Highness.
After finishing the tea party with Valdrova, Olivia came out.
She had excused herself saying she needed to go discuss diplomatic matters with Ferda.
In reality, it was not such an urgent matter.
Given that leaving first could be considered rude, Olivia rarely said she would depart first.
Yet she did.
Being in the same room as Valdrova was far too difficult.
When outside, Olivia always smiled radiantly and concealed her emotions, but now only a subtle, awkward smile remained on her face.
What was shaking Olivia so deeply was a word of two syllables.
“Friend……”
A word all too familiar in high society.
“What is a friend?”
Yet for Olivia, it was an infinitely distant word.
Beyond merely knowing each other, someone who stays by your side in joy and hardship, respects each other, gives and receives help… was it that?
“……Could I have made a friend?”
Suddenly, she remembered the first time she was slapped.
The one who took that bold action was the first wife of Crown Prince Alexander Arken.
Although she was a detestable blood relative, she was a righteous woman.
When she married formally and entered the palace, she tried to mitigate the tragedy Olivia felt and genuinely attempted to get close.
Olivia had also harbored the hope of being able to consider her an eonni.
That became her first and last opportunity to make a friend.
Hope was always cruel to her.
It did not take long for the first wife, who always smiled and joked, to come to hate Olivia.
With mascara running down a ghostly face, she approached and slapped Olivia’s cheek.
— You bitch…… Because of you……!
Receiving only incomprehensible hatred, the first wife vanished forever.
Later, she learned why she had been so angry.
The problem was that, despite sleeping with Alexander many times, she could not bear a child.
Because her body could not conceive children, she was singled out, and eventually, it was decided she would be deposed.
She could not help but be angry.
Because the problem was not her, but Alexander.
She learned that the only woman Alexander saw as a woman was Olivia.
Since she could not slap the man who would soon be Emperor, the arrow turned toward the innocent Olivia.
Olivia felt a terrible sorrow for the Crown Princess.
Yet she felt no pity.
Such resentment resonated ceaselessly even in places where she could not hear.
If the Princess did not exist, the person I like would look at me.
If the Princess did not exist, my fiancé would cherish me more.
“They are only excuses.”
Olivia thought they were excuses of lazy people.
She considered them fools who only hated and raged, trapped in the past.
Would things truly change if I were not here?
If I do not have it, I create it; if it is not there, I cultivate my strengths.
Olivia had always lived that way.
She never neglected the strengths she possessed, and if there were lacking parts, she made efforts to develop them even sacrificing sleep.
That was how she reached the position of Princess that everyone envied.
She never doubted that she was right.
At least until today.
— Can you be my friend?
The moment she heard those words, Olivia felt in Valdrova what she herself lacked.
— I like you, a pure person.
The words she said upon meeting Ferda for the first time overlapped.
She was an incredibly pure person.
Speaking indirectly was difficult, hiding emotions was difficult.
Yet, she was careful not to bother anyone, and if there was something she liked, she loved it without reservations.
She was immature, but that immaturity could not be mocked.
Because no matter how many thousands of masks Olivia created and wore, she could never act with that true nature.
“So this was what it felt like.”
Olivia clenched her fist tightly without realizing it.
She could understand a fragment of what the first wife had felt.
Looking toward a realm that can never be reached, no matter how much effort is made.
That it was this painful.
That frustration was boiling in Olivia’s chest right now.
Olivia felt jealousy toward someone for the first time.
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