There is a story about blind men and an elephant.
To summarize, three blind men were made to touch specific parts of an elephant and asked to explain what an elephant is, but all their answers were different.
The lesson that story gives is that you cannot judge the whole from just a part.
However, there are things that are clear enough to realize the whole even having seen only that part.
In Ferda's case, right now, at this moment, it was Valdrova's beauty.
All that was visible to his eyes was merely her chin and lips.
A chin line clean and clear like porcelain stole Ferda's gaze.
The lips resting atop it were red and glossy like an apple kissed by morning dew.
Just seeing that lower face, Ferda could tell.
That the person who would become his partner was a woman.
And that she was a peerless beauty the likes of which he had never seen even once before.
As such information flowed into Ferda, he did not know what emotion he was feeling.
That was why he simply kept staring at her lips.
Engagement wine flows between Valdrova's lips.
It slowly flows through the narrow gap and finally empties the cup.
At that moment, Ferda felt an anomaly within his body.
The fear of dragons engraved within Ferda's body was disappearing.
-Mortals shall become one by stepping out of the unknown and washing away fear.
It was exactly the phrase Ruri had spoken.
The primal fear toward dragons was vanishing.
'She really made a lot of preparations for ordinary humans.'
The core of this engagement ceremony is precisely to enable them to face each other.
That was why Ferda could feel it once more.
The anticipation she had harbored and the pain she felt when it was frustrated.
As Ferda gazed steadily, the helmet modeled after a dragon's head shifted slightly toward Ferda.
The eye holes glanced this way then whipped away.
'I stared too much.'
Ferda turned his head and stood still.
"Next, we will have the reading of the vows toward each other."
Ruri handed the baton to Ferda with a face that looked like she couldn't be more displeased.
Valdrova waited quietly with her head bowed.
Ferda slowly exhaled, turning the tremor of his vocal cords into a clear sound.
"You do not know me well."
It took Ferda a day to write this sentence.
That much, the opening phrase to express his feelings was terribly difficult for Ferda.
"But I know you."
And the answer born from that was,
"You gave me your heart. Through your heart, I peeked at you and learned."
Expressing his everything to her honestly.
"I saw you betrayed countless times, slandered countless times. They hated you countless times."
Clatter.
Each time Ferda recited a vow, the armor flinched.
"Yet you nobly fulfilled your duty. You did not turn your back on what you wanted to love, and loved to the end. That nobility of yours set me right."
He thought that was the best choice.
"So I vow here. Just as you gave me your heart, this time I shall offer you my heart. My king, my everything."
That was the end of the content written in Ferda's vow.
"This wasn't in the vow document, however......."
But Ferda's words did not end there.
He raised his head and looked at Valdrova.
Meeting the eyes of the dragon head, he bowed his head deeply.
Clatter clatter.
She, clad in armor, was fidgeting with her hands politely clasped together.
"It is an immense honor to be engaged to a beauty like you."
The iron helmet heaved greatly.
Ruri looked at Ferda expressionlessly.
Only her hands and feet were curling up, no, twisting.
"Now the prospective bride's vow readingâ."
Ruri's words cut off.
It was because Valdrova's hand signaled to stop.
"Why is that?"
-.......
Valdrova did not answer.
Instead, she turned her back and started walking away.
Thinking she might have prepared something, he quietly watched her actions.
Thus Valdrova returned to her lair.
Thudâ.
And shut the door tight.
"......."
Valdrova who returned without reading.
Ferda and Ruri staring at the firmly closed door.
"......The engagement ceremony is concluded."
Just like that, the ceremony ended.
There was no reading of Valdrova's vow, but since everything necessary was done, there was no need to cling to it.
"Then let's go back now."
Ruri called out to Ferda like that.
But there was no returning answer.
In the unilaterally ended situation, he merely gazed at the iron door with a serious face, as if possessed by something.
"Lord Ferda?"
Ruri asks him once more.
Ferda, who had been deep in thought as if seized by something, opened his mouth again.
"Sorry, but would it be alright if I went into seclusion for about three days?"
"Seclusion?"
"Literally meaning I won't eat or drink and will spend time alone. It means don't interfere."
Declaring he would shut himself in his room, forsaking food and drink.
That's how it sounded to Ruri.
'The shock must be considerable.'
The reading of vows each to the other.
But the reading was done by only one side, and the other party went inside the iron door.
So Ferda must be embarrassed, no doubt.
"Understood."
The crescent-moon-like smile on Ruri's lips wouldn't fade easily.
"As expected of my Lord. With this, the initiative has passed to you, my Lord."
Ruri entered Valdrova's lair and applauded her.
Valdrova had returned to being a dragon.
She was coiled up with her head buried under her wing.
Valdrova, who had kept ruining the engagement ceremony, but her decisive action held great meaning for Ruri.
"I never imagined it was such a tactic. A unilateral hit and run, at that."
-.......
"Making him directly read such cringe-worthy words to embarrass him, then ending it unilaterally. The other side's momentum was surely broken."
-.......
"......But it doesn't seem that was your intention."
Ruri's expression, which had been genuinely delighted, gradually turned expressionless following her silence.
Valdrova, who had been hiding her face under her wing, lifted her head.
-I...... wanted to read the vow too. As one welcoming a partner.......
"......I understand."
Ruri averted her eyes to a place she had been deliberately avoiding.
There were traces of no small preparation there too.
She knows how many pages of paper Ferda crumpled and threw away to write his vow.
'It was 10 sheets.'
The result made that way was a 1-sheet vow.
Not too much, just the right level.
But the vow Valdrova wrote was.
'A full 20 sheets.'
Even that was 20 sheets packed tight front and back.
The number of paper sheets sacrificed just to write that exceeded 3 volumes.
Pure maiden sentiment unbefitting the notorious Duke King.
It was just the level to be troubled if someone other than her fiancé saw it.
But Ruri had been Valdrova's attendant for hundreds of years.
This was a level that could be dismissed with a single sigh.
"You liked it that much, so why didn't you do it at the start?"
-That's.......
Valdrova's mouth moved.
-I couldn't see.
Ruri tilted her head.
"What do you mean you couldn't see?"
-Meeting those eyes...... I had no confidence to speak.
She spoke a shy girl's lines with a ferocious dragon's face and voice.
-Gray hair, sharp eyes that seem to pierce through me, and a gentle voice.......
"......."
-Looking at that, my mind just...... went completely blank and I couldn't do anything.
"......This Ruri's mind also went blank."
-Do you understand my heart too?
Ruri wanted to puncture her eardrums and vomit blood right then.
"Anyway."
Feeling like she'd scold her again if she heard more, Ruri changed the subject.
"From now on, the prospective consort will begin the role of the lady of the house. He will manage this castle and the subordinate territories."
-That...... I am well aware of.
"And humans, once they gain power, begin to change."
-.......
Power.
At those words, Valdrova, who had been elated, also calmed down.
Third Prince.
The Third Prince who died by her own hand was still tormenting her.
It was decades ago, but to her who had lived an eternity, it was like yesterday.
"That is how mortal beings live flowing along time. Please always be prepared to be disappointed. My Lord, Great Ruler."
-I understand.......
Valdrova's gaze turned to a distant place, sinking into deep thought.
The pure girl who had faced a human returned to being an immortal.
Pouring cold water on a joyous day wasn't exactly pleasant for Ruri either.
'But it's necessary.'
Just as even a war hero passing through the Triumphal Arch must realize they are but a mere human.
She must also know that what she cherishes and loves will someday change or disappear.
That was the best advice Ruri, as a dragon spawn and Valdrova's loyal subject, could give.
Having finished the engagement ceremony, Ferda immediately entered seclusion.
Unlike Ruri, who thought he was shutting himself in his room from shame and shock, Ferda needed time alone.
'This emotion I felt while looking at her.'
When Ferda was actually writing the reading script, he just wrote down his thoughts as they came.
But as he came to speak it directly, Ferda felt something that had sunk to the bottom of the water rise up.
To the point of adding an extra remark not in the reading script at the end.
'Why did I do that?'
Ferda knew.
That if he said such things, she would certainly be flustered.
That it could ruin the ceremony too.
'But I had to do it.'
It was based on an impulse that wasn't rational.
An impulse rose that if he didn't speak now, it might be too late, and Ferda was led by that impulse.
In the end, he flustered Valdrova, and the engagement ceremony didn't flow as planned.
'Why?'
Ferda closed his eyes, holding that question.
He ruminated on his five senses, drawing up what he had seen and felt at that time.
Ferda repeated it dozens of times so as not to jump to conclusions.
And finally reached a conclusion.
'As expected, it was then.'
At her appearance briefly seen as she downed the engagement wine, Ferda's soul flew away.
The emotion at that moment made him momentarily not himself.
Not Ferda the Archmage, but a single man, Ferda.
'But what do I call this?'
To find that out, Ferda recalls only that peak moment of highest exaltation.
He just repeats and repeats solely to obtain that answer.
At that moment, Ferda felt a wriggling.
A sensation of rough rotation within the circle already made below his danjeon.
The driving force grew larger and larger, and his chest heated up more and more.
'The Red Circle is moving.'
It was a rapids flowing uncontrollably fast.
At the same time, a rough torrent fierce enough to devour him.
'This is dangerous.......'
Instead of finding that answer, Ferda focuses on sensation.
The choices given to him were two.
Distract himself to suppress the Red Circle's movement.
Or concentrate on that emotion and agitate it further.
'Suppressing is best.'
Agitating it is no different from holding a knife to his throat, a dangerous choice.
That was the same for Ferda who had been an Archmage.
'But to create dignity befitting Duke King Valdrova.......'
He must take the risk and adventure.
That was Ferda's resolve in setting foot in Valdrova's territory.
'Let's try.'
Ferda concentrated his mind on a single point.
Creating a second circle is similar to creating the first circle.
But the vague difficulty of when making the first circle is gone, so it's described more easily.
'The problem is there's not enough mana to stack up that much.'
Piercing a circle is like breaking an egg.
To go to a new world, one must prove it by breaking their own shell.
What's needed for that is a hard beak and strength.
Mana and mental strength play that role.
Ferda had both those conditions met.
'First, concentration.......'
Ferda closed his eyes and took posture.
He drops his consciousness deep down inside.
At the same time, his five senses grow faint.
The sound of his heartbeat, the flow of time felt on his skin, all disappear.
Finally, there is nothing that can disturb Ferda.
Only pure consciousness remained to him.
Ferda drew a line in his heart.
That line became a guide, and the surging mana moves following the drawn line.
Not going against the mana's nature, naturally guiding it to a new place.
A stream made from a great river grows larger, and finally becomes a new circle-shaped shell.
'Overlay it like that.'
Another circle wrapping the created circle.
Slowly shaping its form, he distinctly grasps the circle's shape.
Through a long 48 hours, focusing only on shaping, Ferda completed it perfectly.
Two circles turning in Ferda's danjeon.
Ferda became a 2nd Circle mage, a Spell Blower.
"Hmm......."
He became a 2nd Circle mage in just a few days, but Ferda wasn't satisfied.
'The emotion has been resolved.'
Because a new path opened and he became 2nd Circle, Ferda's emotion was resolved.
That ticklish emotion became part of Ferda, and the thrill felt when recalling that memory also disappeared along with it.
'This is the Red Circle's drawback, isn't it.'
It craves greater stimulation, and stagnates when stimulation disappears.
So one must become either a monster devoured by emotion, or something that amounts to nothing.
'Just feel it again.'
Though regrettable he couldn't find that answer, there was no impatience.
The moment he faces her again, this emotion will surge up once more.
Such conviction arose.
Ferda smiled.
"When you said you'd shut yourself in, I expected it...... but you've already reached 2nd Circle in that time?"
"It turned out that way."
A mage who reached 2nd Circle within three days.
It's only been a month and a bit since he came here, yet he went from ordinary person to 2nd Circle in an instant.
'Abnormally fast growth.'
Even though he's merely a 2nd Circle, his growth rate alone is awe-inspiring.
"So this is where I'll work from now?"
"Yes. Strictly speaking, you only hold authority as acting regent, though."
Where Ferda and Ruri stood was the Duke King's Office.
Decorated with brown old wood, everything optimized for office work, yet simultaneously a space exuding that person's dignity.
When Ferda first set foot there, it was to the extent he mistakenly thought a king would surely be before him.
Ferda, feeling that atmosphere, asked Ruri.
"So what do I do from now that I'm officially the fiancé?"
"As I said before, it's personnel appointment. Since the Duke King is starting activities, those positions must be filled."
"Right, I heard. But can I decide that unilaterally?"
"Of course Lord Ferda cannot."
Ruri held up what was on the table and spoke.
"But this is possible."
It was the Duke King Valdrova's Royal Seal.
The Royal Seal carries authority no different from that person herself.
There's a reason they say to treat the Royal Seal like the king.
"Personnel appointment, huh......."
If told to pick someone right now, most would ask for time.
At least two days of leisure to think slowly was best.
"......Yeah, there is."
But Ferda's pen moved without hesitation.