Chapter 51

"It's about time I went back," said Bernaludos.

Xiaoman raised her face from the pillow.

The Dragon King leaned against the table, stretched out his long legs, his blond hair and young face shining brightly under the light.

After tomorrow, Lielie will naturally return to the tribe and continue her original life. Xiaoman suddenly learned at this moment that Bernaludus was also about to leave, and she was actually a little reluctant to let him go.

Although he speaks very directly and never seems to care about the opinions of these "youngsters" when arranging things, it is not actually like that. Compared to a teacher, Belu is more like an older friend of the same level. He has a strong aura but is not so unattainable. He is more like an elder than a close peer.

He found a very strange position for himself, with a strong presence in the cubs' social circle. I think Lielie would have a similar view of him. When he talked about the trip with his mother-in-law after returning home, he would probably describe him as "a big brother who is very big, golden and shiny, and a great eater."

Anyway, it is not bad to have such people around. Maybe the teacher feels the same way.

"What do you think? I will hold your hand all the way to the end and guarantee that I will hand you back to that guy in one piece?" Bernardus met her gaze and deliberately raised his eyebrows.

Xiaoman shook her head.

He stood up and walked to the bed, pulling a chair over. Then he rubbed Xiaoman's head, and his tone became a little softer as he lowered his voice.

"I want to stay with you for a few more days, but the old and young people in the tribe are urging me to go back. Being a king has no benefits, but it brings a lot of troubles."

"But since he wants you to complete the journey safely, I will do it. Go to sleep, and when you wake up you will receive the final reward."

Bernardus said. He had used appropriate words to cover up the nature of "return", so this was not a lie.

"You will be busy for a long time." Xiaoman thought of the story he once told her about his teacher.

"Your life span is too short. A few decades is just three or four generations," Bernardus accused unhappily.

"...If I can live to complete my goal, I will ask the teacher to reserve a room for you." Xiaoman promised.

"Okay. I want the biggest one." The dragons always have a clear conscience when asking for things, without any guilt.

When he spoke of the "return" called farewell, there was a faint smile on his face, not gentle at all, revealing his indifferent attitude towards his own life.

But he still sat down beside Xiaoman's bed, making it clear that he would watch over her and let her sleep peacefully, and with words and actions, he filled the cub's heart with a little hope that they might see each other again in the future.

With him here, Xiaoman closed her eyes peacefully, accepting the safe shade of the dragon's wings for what would probably be the last time.

She fell asleep quickly and didn't know when Lielie came back.

The Dragon King lowered his eyes and looked at Xiaoman, seeming to be critical of why she had not gained any weight in all these days. Compared with her orc peers, she had neither plump cheeks nor rosy skin. She looked like an unhealthy cub.

"… He was obviously eating meat well. He didn't stay up late to study. Could it be that someone picked it up and it looked like that?" he muttered.

He bent his knuckles and moved them left and right, gently pushing aside the strands of hair in front of his forehead in a very childish way, revealing a whole patch of uncovered skin.

Then, without blinking, the Dragon King cut the skin on his wrist.

He raised his wrist and placed it on the sleeping Xiaoman's face, then slowly clasped his five fingers together, letting the hot dragon blood fall into a trickle.

Even the color of the dragon blood is closer to the bright and permanent mineral pigment, showing a fascinating red, with a brilliant color and a mixture of faint gold that is hard to capture visually, which is inexplicably extremely tempting. If there were not only two of them present, I am afraid that a drop of blood would cause everyone to instinctively rush to grab it, even if they bleed to death in the fight.

The blood kept dripping on the girl's forehead. It did not disperse everywhere, but just disappeared like clouds seeping into the mountains.

It's dawn.

As the last person seen by the city lord before he "disappeared", Xiaoman discovered that the hotel he was staying in was not surrounded at this time. After going out to inquire, he found that Flora City was not blocked at all. People were unaware of it and were still immersed in the festive and comfortable atmosphere.

This is so weird.

The award ceremony was even going on as usual. Xiaoman suppressed his doubts and went there calmly.

——In the past night, the Mithril City, the Sanctuary, and the Flora family, whose surname is the city, held talks. Even the Bronze City, which had a marriage relationship and was considered the paternal line of the deceased city lord, intervened.

The point of the matter is no longer who killed Eleritna, but that this is obviously a follow-up to the demonstration against the temple using the corpse.

"Pan" is quite powerful among the younger generation. Judging from the fact that she can skillfully use external spells to fight at this age, the bigwigs can probably guess her master. However, her level has been figured out. Judging from her performance during the competition, the person who destroyed the spell ban in that area might be her, but she could never have dismantled the cemetery of Mansa Jino in the Bronze City into that state, let alone manipulate corpses.

According to Mithril City, why would she go to all the trouble to personally participate in the competition and compete for ranking? She could just go and kill the emperor directly.

Therefore, out of fear for the missing Lazarus and the protective attitude shown by Her Excellency Yorutina, the pedestal of the Mithril City, "Pan", who was suspected of murder, was temporarily excluded from the scope of investigation. She was mainly observed first, and no measures were taken to take her away for questioning immediately.

The focus of the discussion is still on the culprit of the subsequent events.

The funny thing is that the representatives of the four forces are not stupid, so no one suspects that it was Lazarus who did it. Although the lich has been on the high bounty list of the Temple for many years, the Temple and the Holy City are actually aware that the opponent should be regarded as neutral in terms of character, which means that he is not afraid of being provoked, but as long as he is not provoked and tested first, Lazarus has no tendency to attack the Temple and the various forces.

There are other ways to prolong life in the world, but Lazarus chose to usurp the laws of life and death, thus rebelling against the gods of the temple. The temple, which is based on faith, has to hold an irreconcilable attitude towards him.

However, since this lich has always been very distant from the Seven Cities, and has only shown up in a low-key manner over the past few hundred years when materials are needed, he does not get involved in power struggles and rarely causes catastrophes that kill lives. There are even cases where he would help control plagues when he passes by. No matter how you look at it, he is a very peace-loving and non-troublemaking type of person at this level. As a result, most of the high-ranking officials of the Temple, except for some radical ones, believe that there is no need to attack him.

Now that Lazarus has been ruled out, who are the remaining candidates...?

The representatives of the Bronze City and the Flora Family all had the same question. The representative of the Holy Temple was also puzzled and turned a less obvious questioning look to the representative of Mithril City.

Before the next step of the incident, the Mithril City was far from enough to dispatch two pedestals, so the first ones to come were Yolutina, who took over, and another disciple of the pedestal, the princess who joined the spellcaster camp.

The former still lowered her eyes to hide her dragon eyes which always looked a bit aggressive because of her appearance, and she smiled faintly.

Her Royal Highness was wearing a robe that was almost dark blue, but the edges and patterns were bright ice blue. The element of wind caressed them, making the fabric shine more brightly than the glaciers imitated in the secular world with lights and crystals.

This color combination itself is enough to show her distinct personality, just like her eyebrows and the lush red scales at the corners of her eyes that have never aged since she entered the ranks of spellcasters.

"If there is no sufficient suspicion among the 'known' candidates, then the 'unknown' and the next conspiracy will have to wait. So I think it is a waste of everyone's time and wisdom to speculate here."

"I suggest that we save this for now and go back to deal with the follow-up as quickly as possible to maintain order in Flora City. If a similar incident occurs, we can gather together again. So - do you have any opinions?"

Her Royal Highness the Princess said this, looking around.

Her change of camp did not mean giving up the royal power that belonged to her by birth. Otherwise, how could she arrange the exchanges between the nobles and relax the entry inspection procedures of Flora City with just one word? The Flora family and the Jino family quickly expressed that they had no objection to this disposal plan.

The representative of the temple said slowly, "Of course, no problem. Since the evil man has not shown up, let's get our child out of trouble first."

Her Royal Highness smiled gently and sincerely: "Of course, Mr. Taloya has suffered an undeserved disaster. With his piety and perseverance, the Father of Starlight will definitely give him the best comfort and compensation. We have arranged the best hospitality to calm his nerves. You can pick him up at any time."

"That's great. Thank you." The temple representative nodded.

The conversations between the four forces will be included in the comics and presented to readers, but Xiaoman is the protagonist of the show and she cannot see these.

All she saw was that the award ceremony was held as usual, except that the city lord's appearance was slightly delayed. Another middle-aged noblewoman with facial features somewhat similar to Elerytna's, but dressed and looked completely different, came out, apologized with a smile, and announced that the city lord had been temporarily summoned to the temple and had left overnight, and appointed her equally famous relatives to present the awards on her behalf.

Every prominent noble has a lot of fake titles to show off, which are enough to deal with ordinary people temporarily. The award ceremony was carried out in a dignified manner, and when Xiaoman came on stage, the noble lady pulled her aside and praised her for a long time, saying that she was a clear-headed person for giving up her rights after getting the ranking, and that she would definitely have a bright future.

Yuan Qian looked at Xiaoman, who was trying to keep her composure amidst all the exaggerated compliments, but whose expression seemed a little empty, and secretly felt embarrassed for her.

After all, this kind of pretentious and unspoken compliments is really hard to resist! At least Yuan Qian is very glad that he is a marginal person at home, and he is never the one who is dragged by prestigious elders to be praised by a group of people.

Come on, Xiaoman, if you can get through this last game, you can leave the old map and start a new branch. He silently encouraged Xiaoman.