“GRAHH!” The startled wyvern’s roar echoed in the air. Just what was happening? The wyvern was confused at the emotion it was feeling, but each passing second made the feeling stronger and its confusion drowned away. For the first time in its existence, the wyvern felt fear.

Vexing fear.

The creature in front of it was a powerless prey mere seconds ago! And now it had become something that induced a primal, instinctive fear in the wyvern. Confused and scared, the wyvern screamed again.

“GRAHH—”

The boy raised his head. The golden tint in the boy’s eyes pierced right into the wyvern’s soul and it came to an abrupt halt. The wyvern froze in its place, mouth wide open, wings spread in an odd position, and eyes sharpened into a glare.

“Lower your eyes, bug,” the boy said.

The wyvern gulped and lowered its head. Seeing this action, the boy nodded and stood up. He dusted the dirt off of himself and inspected his injuries. The wyvern thought that the boy looked conflicted about something, but wasn’t foolish enough to move. Instead, the wyvern banged its little brain against its skull and tried to figure a way out. Confused or not, for now, it just wanted to run away from the monster that had suddenly appeared in front of it.

After looking at himself for a few minutes, the boy sighed. A golden glow leaked out of his body and covered all the injuries. The boy raised his hand to his head and closed his eyes as if he was chanting something.

The wyvern once again felt a feeling it had never felt before. It was stupefied by the jarring phenomenon taking place in front of its eyes.

Mana all over the wyvern’s lair danced and swayed around the boy’s hand. As a sub-species of a dragon, the wyvern was naturally inclined to all facets of mana, and for mana to not be controlled forcefully but willingly was as logical as saying one is born as an adult and grows into a child.

“G-gar…” The wyvern’s voice leaked out. This time, it was the wyvern’s turn to be scared after mistakenly speaking up.

“Hah…” Luckily, the boy seemed to have ignored him. “I would be terrified if I were born in a world like this. The sheer amount of mana in the air is enough to make me scared.” Despite his words, the boy didn’t look scared. Instead, he looked amused.

The boy smiled again and sat down on the ground. Was he going to say something? Or was he inviting it to a conversation? Such questions popped into the wyvern’s mind as its fear and confusion were replaced by awe and reverence. Taking in a deep breath, the wyvern summoned its courage and opened its mouth.

“G-gawr!”

The boy looked at the wyvern with a soft gaze. “I will not harm you,” he said. “I have given up long ago. I belong nowhere… Your life, is not mine to take.”

“G-g…” The wyvern’s surprise just kept increasing with each thing the boy did. Despite being a creature descending from a different root, not only could the boy understand the wyvern, but he could also make the wyvern understand his own words!

“But, this boy’s life is not mine to forfeit either. Behave, and I’ll even entertain you. Try anything funny, and I will have to put you in your place.”

The wyvern furiously nodded at his words. For a while, it stayed quiet, recalling and processing everything it had just experienced. The boy didn’t interrupt it at all and sat idly. ‘This boy’s life,’ the being in front of it had said. Once the wyvern remembered that, it looked over the glowing places on the boy’s body. They were covered by the golden mana but were not healing at all.

Noticing the wyvern’s gaze, the boy smiled and said. “You are a curious fella, aren’t you?”

“Grawr…”

“What am I doing here, you ask… It seems I came here to find something perfect. If only I knew that perfection that could be replicated is not perfect anymore, I wouldn’t be here to look for a flower.”

Completely swept in his pace, the wyvern forgot its previous questions and raised new ones. “Grah!” It roared.

The boy tilted his head at the wyvern before continuing. “Of course,” he said. “Do you think a mere flower could be perfect when even gods come with their set of flaws?”

He stood up and stared at the sky. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew all over the forest.

A rose with a bluish tint draped down the air and settled into the boy’s palm. It was rough on the edges, asymmetrical and raw. Petals grew out with no order and even the tint on the metallic flower was randomly spread out.

It was truly the most beautiful flower Astolfo had ever seen.

It looked perfect.

“Look,” he said, and the wyvern leaned in. “There’s nothing ‘correct’ about this flower. It is incomplete, like everything in existence. Yet, there is no other flower like this. Only in its most complete incompleteness is this flower most uniquely perfect.”

The wyvern couldn’t exactly understand his words, but didn’t think he should say it out loud.

“Your perfection.” The boy continued. “Can only originate from you.”

The wyvern didn’t understand his words, but it felt like it had learned something anyway, and leaned further down towards the boy.

**

The purple glow of mana shrouded Ophelia as she closed her eyes and invoked a spell. Her body waved loosely before dissipating into the moonlight. Ophelia disappeared in plain sight and suddenly appeared on the outskirts of Dalwich forest.

“Damn it! The moonlight doesn’t go further!” Ophelia cursed and charged right into the forest. With her superior physique, a single jump was enough to cross rows of trees. Within seconds, she found herself deep inside the forest. After traveling a considerable distance, Ophelia came to a stop and raised her hand. Wisps of purple mana emerged from her palm and spread into the air.

A sweet scent took over the forest. Soon, soft sounds of giggles reached Ophelia’s ears as shining blobs of light loomed in the sky.

“Wow, wow!” the pixies exclaimed as they circled Ophelia. “Are you looking for somethinggg?”

“Yes,” Ophelia smirked and snapped her fingers. Before they could even realize it, a purple chain entrapped the pixies’ necks. With a wave of her hand, all the struggling pixies were dragged in front of her by the chains. “Now, tell me with no thoughts of mischief. Where is my son?”

The cold voice of the woman in front of them shook all the pixies’ will. “W-why…? Will you… kill a pixie…?” One of them tried to put on a brave front.

“Of course not. I don’t want to earn the forest’s ire. But I can sure make you wish you were dead.”

“Hieeek!” the pixies squealed as Ophelia wrapped her arm around one of them. “A boy, a boy came here!”

“Continue.”

“Yes, yes! Cute and innocent little boy!”

Her eyes sharpened. “Where is he?”

“Ah, ah, he was looking for that metal rose! Yes, yes. We showed him to it.”

Ophelia tightened her grip, and the pixie wailed in pain. “Ouch, ouch! Sorry, sorry, he was just so pure, we couldn’t resist! He fell off the cliff—”

She let go of the pixie and stammered backward. “Fell… fell from a cliff?” The shock turned into anger as the mana in the sky trembled with Ophelia’s rage. The pixies all shuddered as their mistakes dawned on them.

“If something happens to him, I will boil you and feed you to dogs, understand?”

The pixies nodded and pointed towards the cliff. With gritted teeth, Ophelia darted ahead again.

No matter how angry, she wasn’t one to lose her common sense. It was important to make sure she doesn’t make any problems with her mana and her steps and put her son in a tighter spot. Her every step was fleeting as the small purple light guided her through the forest. Finally, she reached the end of the cliff. Skidding to a halt, Ophelia concentrated her mana in her eyes and stared down the cliff. There it was, a gigantic wyvern leaning towards her son.

It was going to eat him.

“Hey! You bastard!!”

**

“Hey! You bastard!!”

The wyvern and the boy looked up at the sudden scream. There, a beautiful woman with waving black hair glared down at the wyvern with the most sadistic glare it had ever seen. It knew the woman was strong, but did not feel a droplet of the fear it had felt against the boy. In fact, the wyvern thought a worthy challenger had appeared.

“GRAAH!!” With a roar, the wyvern spread its wings wide and leaped backward.

“You are so dead, you fucking bug.” Ophelia scowled and jumped down. Instead of falling to the ground, she floated in the sky! A purple glow emitted from her eyes as she awakened a part of her dormant mana. With a scoff, the wyvern swung its wings ahead.

Scaly feathers left the wings and darted through the air. Midway through, the feathers transmuted into dreadful spears, all pointing towards Ophelia.

Blasé, Ophelia waved her hand to the side. Like an ocean, purple mana erupted from her hand and blanketed the approaching spears. All the weapons the wyvern had summoned fell limp on the ground. It was her time for a counterattack!

Ophelia clasped her palms together in a praying motion and spread her control over the mana in the air. The wyvern sensed danger and flapped its wings, but it was too late. Vines of purple arose from the ground and crept their way towards the evading wyvern at breakneck speed. The wyvern roared and a beam of fire escaped its mouth. The fire beam charged into the creeping vines, incinerating them before they could touch him.

“It’s futile.” A voice reached the wyvern’s ears. Before it could react, a blunt force smashed the top of its head and the wyvern fell crashing to the ground.

“GAAAWR!” it screamed in pain.

“Enough of you, bug. Now pay with your life!” Ophelia screamed and raised her arm in the sky. Suddenly, the mana in the air trembled as it rushed to her hand. As if all she had shown till now was child’s play for her, the mana formed a terrifyingly dense ball of purple. The winds, the trees, even the earth trembled in front of her force.

Ophelia swung her hand down and the ball of mana darted towards the fallen wyvern. As the ball touched the wyvern’s body, it felt a pain like none other. The ball twisted the wyvern’s entire being with its force before ripping through its tough body like butter and piercing into the ground. Feeling its soul leaving its body, the wyvern’s head limped to the side.

There stood the boy with a pained smile on his face. The tint of gold in his eyes was fading away and the brown hue of his hair started to disappear. As it stared at the boy with its dying eyes, only one thought entered its mind.

‘If this woman was so strong, just what kind of monster was that boy?’

“Astolfo!! Wh.. hap… u…”

The wyvern’s eyes lost its light…