Chapter 7
Maya quickly sat down on the sofa the Grand Duke had indicated.
“That’s a good idea.”
That was true. If they were going to talk for a long time, there was no reason to stand.
Her legs were fine, but the sofa was more comfortable. There was no need to go against the conveniences of civilization.
The sofa was twice as soft as the bed in House Pendragon.
I’m looking forward to the bed tonight too.
She was already curious how soft the bed would be.
“Do you know what kind of power those who inherit House Pendragon possess?”
The question came first.
It was one Maya already knew the answer to.
“If we awaken, we become Swordmasters who surpass human limits. We inherit the power of the White Dragon.”
“You know it well.”
He seemed surprised.
Well, Maya herself hadn’t fully understood it either until she awakened and experienced it firsthand.
“Then… have you heard of the curse of the Black Dragon Beyaden, who once joined the White Dragon Pendragon in defeating the Demon King?”
A curse? The only thing she remembered was the prophecy about the Demon King.
“No, I haven’t.”
“The prophecy was originally passed down through the head of the family. I expected House Pendragon now would no longer know about it.”
He spoke in a roundabout way, but the meaning was this:
This family is such a dysfunctional mess that they don’t have time to care about anything like that.
“Pfft.”
Maya had summarized it bluntly, and he had found the key point.
The Grand Duke coughed for a while, apparently choking on his breath, then began speaking about the forgotten legend.
The White Dragon Pendragon and the Black Dragon Beyaden descended to the land and defeated the Demon King who ruled over the territory of the present Empire. The Demon King, having lost his home, raged and placed a curse on them.
I will divide you so that in the end you can only kill one another. Only destruction will remain.
“The Demon King’s curse was said to return with the Demon King himself, so the two dragons made their own countermeasures. They made sure their heirs, who carried their blood, would awaken together with the curse of the Demon King.”
What she heard for the first time was truly shocking.
Tristan Beyaden revealed his weakness to Maya without holding anything back.
“Maya Pendragon. I needed an awakener from House Pendragon in order to break the curse placed on me.”
Her heart pounded.
That look in his eyes—the gaze of someone who truly needed her.
The moment she saw his desperate eyes, she felt a thrill as if she were the most important person in the world.
“That person is you.”
A shiver ran through Maya’s body.
She clenched her fist to steady her excitement and realized her face had gone warm.
Calm down.
The Grand Duke and the Emperor were different people, but hadn’t she once fallen for the same words before? Back then too, she had been so easily swayed by the fact that she was needed.
She needed to regain her reason.
Not everything had been explained yet either.
“But unlike you, I haven’t awakened yet.”
“I’ve heard that you train diligently. As for that man who is your older brother, I have no hope for him.”
Realizing MacGuire’s true nature made her like the Grand Duke even more.
And not only that—
He knew I trained.
The more she thought about his words, the more her heart tingled.
The Emperor had only called her after she had awakened.
The fact that Maya would become an awakener was a future only she knew.
A woman wielding a sword was still something many people envied, despised, and looked down on.
Her abilities had always been denied and doubted.
“But I believe you can awaken.”
Yet there was not a trace of doubt in those blue eyes.
The man before her had truly placed his future in Maya’s hands.
Even though he knew more about her unknowns than about her.
“Losing hope is something I’m used to.”
The eyes that shimmered before her were different from the Grand Duke she had met before dying, yet they still held expectation.
I don’t want to disappoint that hope.
Grand Duke Tristan had chosen her even though she had not awakened yet and even though there was another option in MacGuire.
Maya was weak to anyone who truly needed her.
Still, there was one part of his story that bothered her.
“But when you say ‘our’ curse, do you mean I have one too?”
“That is correct.”
Even after awakening, she had never noticed anything like a curse. Maya thought back on her life before regression.
“It was originally secret information passed down only through the head of the family, so you would not have known…”
She still had no clue.
“The one who inherits both the swordsmanship and the dragon’s consciousness needs a contract partner to help preserve human reason.”
What Tristan said next was even more surprising than she had expected.
A contract partner was exactly the offer she had planned to make to Tristan.
“If the one who carries Beyaden’s power cannot become your contract partner, you will gradually lose your humanity.”
So it wasn’t simply the Emperor’s fault. It was because she had been searching for the wrong contract partner.
Maya let out a dry laugh.
“For half a year, I will help you preserve your human reason.”
For hundreds of years, no awakener had appeared, and the peaceful world had made House Pendragon complacent.
They had failed to properly pass on the prophecy, and drowned themselves in honor and wealth until they lost their true purpose.
And so when the real awakener, Maya, finally appeared, all she could instinctively know was that she had to find a contract partner.
Was the Grand Duke what I needed in my last life too?
Realizing that the key had always been in the Grand Duke’s hands left a bitter taste in her mouth.
…If I was that desperately needed, why didn’t he come himself?
Why didn’t he come to meet me?
Why?
“Why didn’t you come out yourself?”
The words left her mouth before she could think.
“Why didn’t you come to take me yourself?”
What made her resent Grand Duke Tristan was imagining how things would have gone if she had met him and made a proper contract.
They still hadn’t even discussed the contract itself, and yet he obediently followed her words.
He forgave her rudeness and continued to check on her with that handsome face. He truly seemed like the makings of a perfect ruler.
She knew it wasn’t the Grand Duke’s fault. He had definitely sent the proposal and waited for her.
Even so, she couldn’t stop herself from resenting him, because the more she thought about it, the more she regretted never meeting Tristan before.
This is unfair.
Did life have to become so tangled?
When would she finally be happy?
Suppressing the feelings that surged up all at once, Maya bit her lip.
“…I’m sorry.”
The more she stood before the Grand Duke, the smaller she felt.
Because he was such a perfect person.
“It is nothing. I understand that it is a surprising story.”
Fortunately, he didn’t seem troubled by Maya’s shifting attitude.
“The reason I couldn’t come out myself is… because I cannot easily leave this place. That is also why I waited until evening to meet you today.”
Tristan lifted a hand and pointed to himself.
“Maya Pendragon. I am under a curse that forces me to live part of each day in the form of a boy.”
Maya’s guess had been correct.
“The time I can remain in my own body is inconsistent, and roughly amounts to about three hours.”
At first, even after changing, he had no way of knowing how long he would remain in that form. Every day was different.
What he eventually realized was that after a transformation, he could only stay as himself for a couple of hours.
The curse had activated on his twentieth birthday.
It was only natural that he had withdrawn from society.
He never knew when he might revert into a boy, so he had to live with constant caution.
At least House Beyaden was fortunate that every head of the family had valued the prophecy.
Beyaden had faithfully preserved the tradition of secretly raising an heir before the age of twenty, in case the curse appeared.
Because of that, far more people did not know Tristan’s face than did.
Tristan had diligently followed the prophecy and investigated House Pendragon.
At first, honestly, his expectations had been low.
The House Pendragon that once defended the Empire alongside them and drove away the Demon King had been reduced to nothing.
The actual heir, MacGuire, was a gambling addict, and the parents were pathetic people buried in debt.
But Maya Pendragon, whom he met in person, was surprisingly consistent.
She stated her opinions immediately, and even when discussing topics that ordinary people would hesitate over, she showed no resistance at all.
He had thought he would never believe someone who said she spent more than half the day living as a boy.
And yet the ruthlessly cold objectivity in her words, and the way she called herself useless, remained vividly etched in his mind.
It bothered him that someone so honest truly believed such things.
It bothered him because of the grief in her voice when she asked,
“Why didn’t you come out yourself?”
And because there were traces of emotion in her gaze that she herself had not noticed.
The rumors about her exceptional swordsmanship were few, but the moment Tristan heard of Maya, he instinctively knew.
Maya Pendragon would be the awakener who broke his curse.
Maya did not argue with a single thing he said.
Instead, she nodded as if it were only natural.
There was no need to persuade her at all.
And she didn’t seem like she doubted him either.
Honest, pitiable, and astonishingly reliable.
“So how should I break your curse, Grand Duke?”
Could words like those and their opposites all suit the same person?
“After a contract marriage…”
Even Tristan, who had spoken so calmly, carried an emotion in his voice that even he did not seem to understand.
“You need to… share my bed.”
It was an unexpected variable.
