âMom bragged about driving five nations onto the path of destruction and having twenty-five men in her clutches during that time.â In what amounted to a tenth of the time sheâd spent as an elf, the dragon lord had achieved countless things as a human. Thatâs why dragons believed their time was most efficiently spent as humans.
âTwo eyes, one nose, and one mouth. Looks like I did change properâEh? Iâm making sounds?â Since a polymorphed Girgantia took on the appearance heâd have if heâd been born as a human, he was able to maintain his form easily. Heâd even begun speaking with his voice instead of using telepathy. As he stared at his reflection, he remarked, âSo, this is what I look like when I become a human.â
Girgantia felt awkward as he inspected his new look, patting himself all over his body. In truth, he still wasnât able to comprehend the aesthetics of humans, so he was curious as to what impression he made by human standards. Snapping out of his amazement, he realized heâd been staring in the mirror for too long. âOh, nowâs not the time for this. First, Iâve got to wear clothes like humans doâŚâ
âCommoner clothesâŚâ But what clothes could he choose from? At the very least, he recognized that ordinary folk didnât wear the same attire as the emperor or the knights. Just as he found himself in a pickle, he spotted a magazine Tania had haphazardly chucked after reading. Flipping through it until he reached a page the handmaiden had marked, he grinned, âOkay, I should go with this then.â
* * *
A small iron door in the corner of the villa was pushed open with an unpleasant creak. Some of the villa attendants came walking out with their hand full of a bunch of cloth.
âWill it be fine not to burn these?â one attendant worriedly asked the other.
âWhat can we do? The incinerator is broken and weâve got a ton of work to do. It canât be helped even if we just throw them away,â the other replied with a sigh.
âBut still, the instruction was to burn everything that was used once by His or Her MajestyâŚâ
âWho has time to follow such rules now? Besides, whoâd follow us to the dump to check? Letâs just dump them here and hurry back. We still have plenty of work ahead of us.â
âWell, I suppose it canât be helped.â
The attendants threw the bedding into the garbage dump outside and swiftly returned to the villa. A long while after they had left, the grass behind the dump swayed as a woman cautiously emerged. The woman wore a wide-brimmed hat that obscured her entire faceâit was Yuliana.
Hurrying over to the garbage dump, she began searching through the bedding the attendants had thrown away. A few minutes later, she found what sheâd been searching for. Triumphantly, she held a long thread of platinum blonde hair.
âItâs just as the book describedâŚâ she murmured. The former princess thought she was hallucinating when a mysterious book appeared containing a method to kill Cecile. She thought sheâd been driven mad from her hatred. However, as she read the book, she began to doubt her eyes as the instructions were far too detailed to be a mere delusion.
That night, Yuliana scoured through the pages over and over, thinking how nice it would be if reality truly played out as the text dictated. After falling asleep while hugging the book, there was no trace of the book to be found when she awoke the next day. âWas it all a dream?â There was a simple way to ascertain whether the book had ever really existed. She merely needed to act as what had been written in the book.