Chapter 75-75- Regret

As night falls, a cold wind blows and thunder rumbles in the sky. It seems that a summer rainstorm in the north is brewing.

Entering the RV in the abandoned warehouse, Yvette was about to sit down and read a book when she heard a rapid knock on the window. She turned her head and saw Bingyu's face pressed against the window, looking a little anxious.

She walked over, opened the window, and said, "What's wrong?"

"No... it's gone!"

"What's missing?"

"Mr. Dugrabi, and... Jasmine and the others!"

Half a minute later, following the hurried pace of Bingyu, Yvette entered the air-raid shelter's lobby. The atmosphere inside was solemn. Upon seeing Yvette, Copper Skin approached and asked, "Miss Yvette, have you seen Jasmine, Soap, Roller, and your camel, Mr. Dugrabi?"

"They're missing?" Yvette had already heard roughly what happened from Bingyu.

"They left this morning and haven't come back yet." Tongpi's tone was filled with worry. "I'm worried they've had an accident."

"They must be in danger!" an old mechanical golem shouted. "We must go find them!"

"Yes, those children are precious family members of the kingdom. We must find them! Of course, Mr. Camel Beast is also one of our precious family members. He has lived here for many years, and we even raise sheep for him. He is also a member of our family." Copper Skin said solemnly, then turned to look at Yvette, "...So, Miss Yvette, do you know where they went?"

The kingdom's children's exploration teams used to roam within a two- to three-kilometer radius of the kingdom, making it easier to search for clues. But with the arrival of the black dragon, their exploration area suddenly became untraceable. Since Yvette was one of the few people who could communicate with the black dragon, the kingdom's residents were hoping she might hold some clues.

"I don't know." Yvette was silent for a moment, then shook her head. "But I know a few areas they've been frequenting recently. Maybe we can organize some people and go to those places."

"Thank God, at least we have a clue." Tongpi said quickly, "Then everyone, get ready to go!"

After Yvette reported a dozen possible locations, the search team was reduced to two people, equipped with flashlights, and set out to investigate. Since aberrant creatures were rare around Kux, the danger wasn't that high at night. Furthermore, the mechanical golems were made of iron, so the chances of them being attacked were low.

"Let's team up, Miss Kindhearted!" Bingyu said, "I have a motorcycle! It can just carry one person!"

Yvette nodded and walked outside with her, not forgetting to grab an umbrella. Then she said, "Our destination is the ruined military base. I will show you the way."

"Okay!" Bingyu nodded repeatedly, with a rare serious look on her face.

…

As expected, it started raining just over ten minutes after we set off. Dazzling lightning streaked across the night sky, illuminating the earth and the distant mountain ridges in a pale white.

Holding Bingyu's waist and listening to the sound of big raindrops hitting the umbrella, Yvette slightly adjusted the lighting technique and used it as a high beam.

Then, with the help of lights, the locomotive sped across the wet meadow, splashing mud, and gradually brought the dilapidated ruins of the military base in the distance into view.

"How did this place become like this?!" Bingyu screamed when she saw the ruins of the military base that looked like it had been bombed.

She had accompanied Jasmine and the others to explore the base. Although it was only once, she still remembered what it looked like here, with many towering building skeletons.

But now the base was in ruins, and everything had turned into torn pieces. If it weren't for the big hole on the ground, she would even suspect that she had come to the wrong place.

"There must have been a battle here. There are remnants of biological tissue on the ground, with obvious distortions. If nothing unexpected happens, it must have come from a mountain whale." Yvette dismounted from the motorcycle, holding an umbrella. She looked at the purple-red flesh on the ground and calmly analyzed, "There appear to be Dugrabi's tooth marks on it."

"They were attacked by mountain whales here?" Bingyu was shocked. "Then where are they?"

"Maybe he ran away, or maybe..." Yvette didn't finish her words, but Bingyu could hear the subtext in her words.

If they didn't escape, they were eaten by a mountain whale. Mechanical puppets aren't on the menu, and they might vomit them out if they eat them, but no aberrant would refuse dragon meat.

"How could this happen..." Bingyu said blankly.

"Let's search the surroundings first." Yvette shook her head and began to use lighting magic to illuminate the collapsed ruins nearby.

Ten minutes later, two survivors were found under a huge cement slab: Soap and Roller.

When they were attacked by the mountain whale, they followed the old people's advice and hid under an old metal table. They escaped, but they were too frightened and fell into a coma. After Bingyu called them for a while, they soon woke up.

"Where are Jasmine and Dugrabi?" Bingyu asked them.

"I... I don't know... Mr. Long, Mr. Long seemed to want to take us away, but I don't know what happened to him, and suddenly he started fighting with the mountain whale... We could only hide..." Soap said in shock.

"Jasmine is not with you?"

"No... She was somewhere else before. When the Mountain Whale came, I hid and didn't see her... Mr. Long might have seen her..." Roller said, his tone becoming more frightened. "Do you think Mr. Long might suddenly lose his temper and turn around to fight with the Mountain Whale? Is it related to Jasmine... Jasmine?"

Jasmine and the black dragon have a good relationship, which is a known fact in the kingdom. Therefore, in addition to the "tamer" Yvette, if the residents of the kingdom need help with something, they will often choose to communicate with Jasmine.

No one wants to think deeply about the possibility behind the black dragon that originally wanted to escape suddenly exploding and fighting with the terrifying mountain whale.

The night rain fell cold and dense, punctuated by heart-shaking thunder. With heavy hearts, everyone continued to sift through the nearby rubble, hoping to find the buried figures of Jasmine and Dugrabi.

After uncovering a large piece of debris, Yvette silently covered it up. She looked around, waited for a moment, and suddenly said to Bingyu, "You guys continue the search here... I'll go take a look around."

"Ah...oh." Bingyu nodded.

After Yvette flew away, she ran in the rain without an umbrella and came to the place where Yvette had just been, and carefully dug away the wreckage.

In the dark and damp mud, she saw only half of a mechanical arm and a dirty, hand-woven small wreath.

…

Standing in the pouring rain with an umbrella, she said she was checking the surroundings, but Yvette's destination was actually quite clear.

She flew in a straight line and arrived at the edge of a lake. Using the light of the illumination spell, she saw a huge, dark shadow huddled on the rippling surface of the lake, its head buried in the water, like a terrifying lake monster.

Sensing someone coming from behind, the black dragon raised its head slightly, glanced at Yvette, and then buried itself in the water again, as if trying to drown itself.

"Everyone in the kingdom is worried about you." Yvette landed by the lake. Her already slender figure looked even more petite and fragile against the backdrop of the huge black shadow.

The black dragon remained silent, as quiet as a sculpture.

Yvette added: "That's not your fault. It was the mountain whale that caused all this. No one will blame you."

The black dragon spoke, his voice low and accompanied by gurgling bubbles: "I... I failed to protect her."

Yvette shook her head: "Do you think you are strong enough to protect her from the mountain whale?"

The black dragon fell silent again, and the cold rain hit its wounds. Although those wounds were the result of magical attacks and were not infected, they still made the black dragon feel a stinging pain.

As the son of the noble Dragon King, he holds a high status in the Kingdom of Dragons. Even the Archons have to bow down to him when they see him. Although he has lived for nearly a hundred years, the biggest mistake he made was burning his father's collection of ancient books, which led to him being put in solitary confinement.

It has no friends in the Dragon Kingdom, and Jasmine is the only intelligent creature that can be considered its friend. So watching its friend die made it so autistic that it did not come back late at night and hid here alone to secretly be emotional.

After waiting for a while, seeing that the black dragon did not respond, Yvette suddenly smiled and said, "You don't have to be so sad. It's just an alchemical creation."

The tone of these words was calm, but Dugrabi could hear a hint of contempt in them. He suddenly became furious and wanted to say something, but then he heard the silver-haired girl continue, "Alchemical creations are all lowly, even worse than humans. You said that yourself."

Dugrabi was speechless. He opened his mouth and after a long while, he retorted, "...That's not right."

"Um?"

"I take it back... Dragons are noble, but other intelligent creatures, at least alchemical creations... are not lowly."

Yvette nodded slightly. It was almost impossible to expect an arrogant and aloof dragon prince to say something like "all beings are equal", but being able to get it to remove alchemical creations from the list of lowly creatures was a great progress.

"What do you think is the cause of what happened today?" Yvette suddenly began to ask questions like an examiner.

"I wasn't careful... I was too careless and let the mountain whale get close..."

"What else?"

"I... I'm sorry... If I had studied the techniques you taught me carefully, I could have killed those mountain whales directly and prevented such a thing from happening..." Dugrabi answered hesitantly, like a student who had made a mistake.

It now regrets it immensely. Although it doesn't know how powerful the spell the witch taught it is, just by looking at the terrifying number of runes, it can be guessed that it must be a terrifying forbidden spell that carries the witch's high hopes for it.

However, despite having such a precious technique in front of it, it had not made any progress in its learning process for a year due to its laziness. As a result, when it faced four passing mountain whales today, it could only fight and retreat, fleeing in a panic, and even until the end, it failed to kill any of them.

It thought that now it might not only feel guilty towards its friends, but also towards its dragon bloodline, its father's expectations, the witch's cultivation, and more importantly... itself.

After answering the question, the air fell silent again, with only the sounds of rain and thunder still echoing in the empty space.

After a long moment, Dugrabi seemed to have thought of something and spoke again, saying sincerely, "Please... please teach me magic... I will study hard this time... I beg you."

Holding an umbrella, standing in the heavy rain, listening to Black Dragon's humble tone, Yvette did not speak immediately, but the corners of her mouth rose slightly.

She thought that the investigation she had arranged had been quite successful. Not only had she seen the true nature of Dougrabi's character clearly revealed in a life-or-death situation, but she had also taught this rebellious little creature a lesson. Although this lesson was somewhat painful, for the arrogant and lazy Dragon Prince, accustomed to a life of luxury since childhood, it was invaluable. It was enough to make the little creature calm down, learn for a while, and master a cautious attitude in life - as a witch with a cautious nature, she believed this was extremely important.

As for Jasmine... well, who says that if you throw a wreath next to an abandoned puppet of unknown origin, it must be someone's corpse?

(End of this chapter)