I Don’t Want To Be An Ojakgyo

"The founding emperor always had an ambition to unite the continent. He always wanted more and more power to achieve his dream. The first emperor went to that black market and bought information that if he got the heart of a dragon, the being that cared for and protected all life forms, he would be able to get the power that he so yearned for. The emperor had just been a swordsman without any money or name for himself, so he had bought the information with the condition that he would kill the dragon and give them the corpse."

Hestia's throat seemed to burn–she drank a gulp of water.

"After a long and grueling battle, the emperor was able to get the dragon's heart in his hands. The emperor's body wasn't suited for the immense amount of power that the dragon's heart gave him when he ate it, so he suffered quite a bit afterwards. He wasn't able to generate his power on his own, but he was able to use magic through the heart that he had gained."

So that was why the descendants of the royal family were able to use magic but didn't possess any. I remembered how I couldn't feel any kind of magic from Hylli, nor the emperor that I had seen from far away.

I heard that they could use black magic through their family heirloom–did that meant that the heirloom was the heart of the dragon?

"Hestia, do you know how the Blanche family was formed?"

I suddenly remembered what I had wanted to ask her yesterday. Hestia pondered the question for a moment before speaking.

"The founding emperor had gotten his hands on black magic, known for its incredibly destructive qualities and its connection to death, so he wanted to possess white magic, the magic of life, for himself. So he had gone to catch the white dragon next."

I was intrigued at this new story, something that I had never read about from books. Apparently, all the books that Caradil had written had been banned and had been burned. So I couldn't find any more than what I had found before.

Her thesis, which had only survived because it had been forgotten in a corner, wasn't enough to sate my curiosity.

If I was able to move however I wanted, I would hold Hestia's face and give her hundreds of kisses, but I barely stopped myself.

"The white dragon, Blanchielle, didn't die easily. Even when she was trapped by the magicians, she didn't die. She had the power of life, after all."

White magic healed or revived people. White magic also had its destructive points too, but it wasn't as destructive as black magic.

"The confused, shocked emperor once again returned to the black market. Then, he learned that if he wanted to gain the power of the white dragon, Blanchielle, then he needed to gain it through Blanchielle's offspring. The emperor then gave one of his knights a title and handed the white dragon to him. And that was how the Blanche family was formed."

"The founding emperor was a literal piece of shit……"

Hestia's words were beyond shocking. First, I was shocked at the sheer brutality of the founding emperor. I barely resisted the urge to throw up. What was so important about power and titles to go down to the depths of morality like that?

I immediately understood the Blanche family's secrets now.

They were suffering so much because their bodies couldn't handle the power of life bestowed upon by the dragons.

The training did increase their healing abilities as much as they could, but they probably had to undergo the brutal torture and abuse to get the ideal body to handle all of the power that their body held. Too many people had suffered in the name of selfishness.

Moreover, the members of the family had to use their powers for the emperor and the soldiers, so they had to undergo even more pain and anguish in their pilgrimage.

I just felt bad for all of them.

I frowned and thought of everything that had happened in the Blanche family before thinking of another question.

"But why are dragons so weak? Even if they are a swordmaster, they'd be too weak to handle a dragon alone, right?"

"You know how the DuBois family is one of the founding families of the empire, right?"

"Yeah."

"The founder of the family had reached the peak of normal magic. Even if they weren't up to the levels of a dragon, they were incredibly talented. They worked together with the emperor to take down the dragons. He turned his back on the emperor and tried to help the Blanche family dragon, but Blanchielle had ended their own life much earlier."

The founding emperor had given Blanchielle's body to the black market, and the merchant used that opportunity to gain an incredible amount of wealth and later created their own guild. I couldn't help but be reminded of the guild that Yves had destroyed–the Lunaasha guild, which was so big that it had been impossible to know the true size of it.

All of the important characters in the novel I had read before were linked together in twists and turns.

I had recently learned that the novel I had read had been given to me to provide me with information. The novel's male characters, all disguised under the guise of a romance, seemed like victims of the empire than love interests for Hestia.

They didn't sound like hurt victims, either–instead, they sounded like they would eventually harm others.

Both Yves and Swan felt like they were moments away from exploding when I first met them, and Cory and Hylli in the other dimension were the same.

I could kind of guess why I had been brought over here. But that guess felt so nonsensical that I erased my idea from my mind immediately.

"How do you know all of this information?"

I knew that Hestia knew a lot of unofficial information through her connections, but I was surprised at how deep her information went.

When I told her how incredible she was, Hestia excitedly explained where she had learned all of this.

"There's a missing magician named Caradil Evgedin, but apparently she conducted a lot of illegal studies. There had been a journalist who had been close with Caradil before she went missing, but I kind of became close with them somehow. The reason why I think this information is true is because all of it explains the weird happenings in our empire. If we just follow the explanations that are provided in textbooks or history class, we just get more contradictions."

The origin of all this was Caradil. Once again, I felt angry at how such a genius had died after being strung along by the royal family like that.

I remembered watching her slowly die. My heart felt stuffy.

"Should I tell you something else that's interesting?"

I was briefly stuck in my happy memories with Caradil when Hestia spoke up again.

We gave up on writing notes a long time ago. The teacher finished explaining the lengthy contents of the chalkboard and was writing more on the chalkboard after erasing it, but we were too busy chatting.

The teacher glanced our way but just gave up and let us keep chatting. Sorry teacher.

Meanwhile, Hestia looked jubilant.

"Caradil claimed that Noirelle, the black dragon, is still alive and sleeping in the Augran Mountain."

"Ooh."

"To back up that claim, there was a lot of black magic detected near the area and that the founding emperor had sold off Blanchielle's body, not Noirelle's, to the guild. There are a lot of other pieces of evidence, but that's not important….."

To be honest, I had suspected this before. But it felt weird hearing all of this coming from Hestia.

I was just staring blankly at her when Hestia dropped a bombshell on me.

"Shushu, let's go there together. I actually wanted to mention it yesterday."

"What?"

"There's a suspicious location I know of in the Augran Mountain. I think it's the place that you reported about in your guild, but there's a high chance that the black dragon's, Noirelle's, home is nearby! If we take Cory and Hylli too, wouldn't we able to get there safely?"

I frowned and was about to reject it immediately when I suddenly remembered the last scene of the novel where Hestia was climbing up the mountain all alone. I thought it was just a coincidence as I smiled awkwardly.

Hestia's will to find the dragon lair was incredible. I tried to stop her multiple times before, but all of my efforts were in vain.

"Shushu, so is this how you get to the highest point in the mountain?"

I grabbed Hestia's hand and began walking in the opposite direction of where she was pointing.

She kept on doubting me as we walked, so I patted Hestia's shoulder a few times.

"I've climbed up these mountains multiple times a year for subjugations. Trust me."

I tried not to be too suspicious as we went up the mountain slightly before going down, again and again.

There had been mentions of taking Hylli and Cory with us because it was dangerous, but I had no intentions of going all the way up there in the first place. We just walked around the lower parts of the mountain as if we were on a walk.

The monsters were all mild-mannered anyway. They weren't going to attack.

"Kyaaaa!"

Hestia passed by a slime monster as we passed. Hestia screamed in surprise.

"It's okay. They're probably harmless now."

I held the slime in my arms and tried to calm her down. I put some liquid that slimes liked on a rock and made the rock shine. The slime immediately ate the liquid, and the rock began to shine brightly in the slime's body like a gemstone. The light shone through the liquid in the slime and shone even brighter, making the slime itself shine brightly. Our surroundings became brighter.

Hestia's eyes sparkled as she became less wary of the monster. When the slime turned its head towards my face and rubbed its face on mine, Hestia took the slime away from my arms and hugged it herself. Thanks to the shining slime, our surrounds became slightly brighter.

We held each others' hands and walked for a long time. We chatted about anything and everything as we did. The gentle bluish, jewel-colored light of the slime's light reflected off of Hestia's green eyes. Her long eyelashes also reflected the light, making her eyes look lighter.

The rustle of leaves and bugs moving sounded as we continued to chat. The crunch of the leaves sounded crisp, so I purposefully stomped my feet onto the ground. When I stared down at the ground as we chatted, Hestia and I were walking at the same pace so I wanted to make it a point to match our steps perfectly.

It was peaceful.

Hestia had sounded so desperate as she had climbed up the mountain herself.

If Hestia had walked this path alone in the original novel, that meant that she had done all that she needed to do even without my prompting, right?

I suddenly thought of Hestia in the original novel, no, the other dimension. The situation wasn't enough to keep Hestia compliant.

I looked at her profile and smiled proudly.

I felt like I was walking through the last parts of the novel with Hestia.

Anyway, if the dragon was in the mountain, why was she climbing up the mountain? To meet them?

I felt like there was a high chance that was the case. The highest part of the mountain that Hestia mentioned had been where I had felt something off and had found the note that time.

"So does that mean the power that had left me that note and had sent me to the other dimension was the dragon?"

"What did you say, Shushu?"

"The founding emperor always had an ambition to unite the continent. He always wanted more and more power to achieve his dream. The first emperor went to that black market and bought information that if he got the heart of a dragon, the being that cared for and protected all life forms, he would be able to get the power that he so yearned for. The emperor had just been a swordsman without any money or name for himself, so he had bought the information with the condition that he would kill the dragon and give them the corpse."

Hestia's throat seemed to burn–she drank a gulp of water.

"After a long and grueling battle, the emperor was able to get the dragon's heart in his hands. The emperor's body wasn't suited for the immense amount of power that the dragon's heart gave him when he ate it, so he suffered quite a bit afterwards. He wasn't able to generate his power on his own, but he was able to use magic through the heart that he had gained."

So that was why the descendants of the royal family were able to use magic but didn't possess any. I remembered how I couldn't feel any kind of magic from Hylli, nor the emperor that I had seen from far away.

I heard that they could use black magic through their family heirloom–did that meant that the heirloom was the heart of the dragon?

"Hestia, do you know how the Blanche family was formed?"

I suddenly remembered what I had wanted to ask her yesterday. Hestia pondered the question for a moment before speaking.

"The founding emperor had gotten his hands on black magic, known for its incredibly destructive qualities and its connection to death, so he wanted to possess white magic, the magic of life, for himself. So he had gone to catch the white dragon next."

I was intrigued at this new story, something that I had never read about from books. Apparently, all the books that Caradil had written had been banned and had been burned. So I couldn't find any more than what I had found before.

Her thesis, which had only survived because it had been forgotten in a corner, wasn't enough to sate my curiosity.

If I was able to move however I wanted, I would hold Hestia's face and give her hundreds of kisses, but I barely stopped myself.

"The white dragon, Blanchielle, didn't die easily. Even when she was trapped by the magicians, she didn't die. She had the power of life, after all."

White magic healed or revived people. White magic also had its destructive points too, but it wasn't as destructive as black magic.

"The confused, shocked emperor once again returned to the black market. Then, he learned that if he wanted to gain the power of the white dragon, Blanchielle, then he needed to gain it through Blanchielle's offspring. The emperor then gave one of his knights a title and handed the white dragon to him. And that was how the Blanche family was formed.""The founding emperor was a literal piece of shit……"

Hestia's words were beyond shocking. First, I was shocked at the sheer brutality of the founding emperor. I barely resisted the urge to throw up. What was so important about power and titles to go down to the depths of morality like that?

I immediately understood the Blanche family's secrets now.

They were suffering so much because their bodies couldn't handle the power of life bestowed upon by the dragons.

The training did increase their healing abilities as much as they could, but they probably had to undergo the brutal torture and abuse to get the ideal body to handle all of the power that their body held. Too many people had suffered in the name of selfishness.

Moreover, the members of the family had to use their powers for the emperor and the soldiers, so they had to undergo even more pain and anguish in their pilgrimage.

I just felt bad for all of them.

I frowned and thought of everything that had happened in the Blanche family before thinking of another question.

"But why are dragons so weak? Even if they are a swordmaster, they'd be too weak to handle a dragon alone, right?"

"You know how the DuBois family is one of the founding families of the empire, right?"

"Yeah."

The founding emperor had given Blanchielle's body to the black market, and the merchant used that opportunity to gain an incredible amount of wealth and later created their own guild. I couldn't help but be reminded of the guild that Yves had destroyed–the Lunaasha guild, which was so big that it had been impossible to know the true size of it.

All of the important characters in the novel I had read before were linked together in twists and turns.

I had recently learned that the novel I had read had been given to me to provide me with information. The novel's male characters, all disguised under the guise of a romance, seemed like victims of the empire than love interests for Hestia.

They didn't sound like hurt victims, either–instead, they sounded like they would eventually harm others.

Both Yves and Swan felt like they were moments away from exploding when I first met them, and Cory and Hylli in the other dimension were the same.

I could kind of guess why I had been brought over here. But that guess felt so nonsensical that I erased my idea from my mind immediately.

"How do you know all of this information?"

I knew that Hestia knew a lot of unofficial information through her connections, but I was surprised at how deep her information went.

When I told her how incredible she was, Hestia excitedly explained where she had learned all of this.

"There's a missing magician named Caradil Evgedin, but apparently she conducted a lot of illegal studies. There had been a journalist who had been close with Caradil before she went missing, but I kind of became close with them somehow. The reason why I think this information is true is because all of it explains the weird happenings in our empire. If we just follow the explanations that are provided in textbooks or history class, we just get more contradictions."

The origin of all this was Caradil. Once again, I felt angry at how such a genius had died after being strung along by the royal family like that.

I remembered watching her slowly die. My heart felt stuffy.

"Should I tell you something else that's interesting?"

I was briefly stuck in my happy memories with Caradil when Hestia spoke up again.

We gave up on writing notes a long time ago. The teacher finished explaining the lengthy contents of the chalkboard and was writing more on the chalkboard after erasing it, but we were too busy chatting.

The teacher glanced our way but just gave up and let us keep chatting. Sorry teacher.

Meanwhile, Hestia looked jubilant.

"Caradil claimed that Noirelle, the black dragon, is still alive and sleeping in the Augran Mountain."

"Ooh."

To be honest, I had suspected this before. But it felt weird hearing all of this coming from Hestia.

I was just staring blankly at her when Hestia dropped a bombshell on me.

"Shushu, let's go there together. I actually wanted to mention it yesterday."

"What?"

I frowned and was about to reject it immediately when I suddenly remembered the last scene of the novel where Hestia was climbing up the mountain all alone. I thought it was just a coincidence as I smiled awkwardly.

Hestia's will to find the dragon lair was incredible. I tried to stop her multiple times before, but all of my efforts were in vain.

"Shushu, so is this how you get to the highest point in the mountain?"

I grabbed Hestia's hand and began walking in the opposite direction of where she was pointing.

She kept on doubting me as we walked, so I patted Hestia's shoulder a few times.

"I've climbed up these mountains multiple times a year for subjugations. Trust me."

I tried not to be too suspicious as we went up the mountain slightly before going down, again and again.

There had been mentions of taking Hylli and Cory with us because it was dangerous, but I had no intentions of going all the way up there in the first place. We just walked around the lower parts of the mountain as if we were on a walk.

The monsters were all mild-mannered anyway. They weren't going to attack.

"Kyaaaa!"

Hestia passed by a slime monster as we passed. Hestia screamed in surprise.

"It's okay. They're probably harmless now."

I held the slime in my arms and tried to calm her down. I put some liquid that slimes liked on a rock and made the rock shine. The slime immediately ate the liquid, and the rock began to shine brightly in the slime's body like a gemstone. The light shone through the liquid in the slime and shone even brighter, making the slime itself shine brightly. Our surroundings became brighter.

Hestia's eyes sparkled as she became less wary of the monster. When the slime turned its head towards my face and rubbed its face on mine, Hestia took the slime away from my arms and hugged it herself. Thanks to the shining slime, our surrounds became slightly brighter.

We held each others' hands and walked for a long time. We chatted about anything and everything as we did. The gentle bluish, jewel-colored light of the slime's light reflected off of Hestia's green eyes. Her long eyelashes also reflected the light, making her eyes look lighter.

The rustle of leaves and bugs moving sounded as we continued to chat. The crunch of the leaves sounded crisp, so I purposefully stomped my feet onto the ground. When I stared down at the ground as we chatted, Hestia and I were walking at the same pace so I wanted to make it a point to match our steps perfectly.

It was peaceful.

Hestia had sounded so desperate as she had climbed up the mountain herself.

If Hestia had walked this path alone in the original novel, that meant that she had done all that she needed to do even without my prompting, right?

I suddenly thought of Hestia in the original novel, no, the other dimension. The situation wasn't enough to keep Hestia compliant.

I looked at her profile and smiled proudly.

I felt like I was walking through the last parts of the novel with Hestia.

Anyway, if the dragon was in the mountain, why was she climbing up the mountain? To meet them?

I felt like there was a high chance that was the case. The highest part of the mountain that Hestia mentioned had been where I had felt something off and had found the note that time.

"So does that mean the power that had left me that note and had sent me to the other dimension was the dragon?"

"What did you say, Shushu?"

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