Morning sunlight filtered through the curtains of the guest chamber, falling across the white sheets where Yuuta lay asleep. His breathing was steady, and his face had finally relaxed after the exhaustion of the previous night.
Bandages covered his injured palms. Although Erza had healed most of his wounds, some cuts remained, reminders of the hours he had spent searching the academy grounds.
A silver ring rested on his finger, glowing faintly in the morning light.
Erza sat beside his bed, her chair pulled close enough that she could see his face without moving. She had been there since the guards carried him inside, remaining silent while the palace doctor treated his injuries.
She had already tried removing the ring.
At first, she had simply pulled at it, assuming the band had tightened around his finger. When that failed, she tried twisting it free and eventually conjured a blade to cut through the metal.
Nothing worked.
The ring neither moved nor showed the slightest damage.
More troubling was the matching band on her own finger, which emitted the same gentle light.
Erza stared at the rings for a while before turning her attention back to Yuuta.
He remained peacefully asleep, completely unaware of what had happened.
Meanwhile, the Headmaster's office was anything but peaceful.
Elena sat at a small table near the window, her little legs swinging beneath her chair as she concentrated on the board before her.
Across from her sat a professor specializing in cognitive development.
He had spent the past hour testing her with puzzles, strategy games, and exercises normally reserved for children several years older.
Unfortunately for him, Elena had solved every challenge.
She moved the final piece across the board and looked up with a cheerful smile.
"Is this all? Elena wants more. This one was too easy."
The professor stared at the completed puzzle before turning toward the Headmaster.
"She is extraordinary," he said.
"I have never seen anything like her."
The Headmaster acknowledged his words with a slight nod, though most of his attention remained on the large conference screen positioned above his desk.
Seven families were waiting on the other side.
They were wealthy, influential people accustomed to having their demands taken seriously. Some had supported Morning Star Academy for generations, while others possessed enough connections to make life difficult for almost any institution.
And every one of them was furious.
The man with the greedy eyes spoke first, his face red, his voice sharp.
"Headmaster, what is the meaning of this? We received rejection letters. Rejection letters. After you promised us scholarships. After you told us we would be admitted."
A woman in a designer suit leaned forward, her face tight with anger, her hands flat on the table before her.
"We gave you our family heirlooms. We trusted you. And you send us rejection letters without explanation? This is not how you treat families who have supported this academy for generations."
A third voice joined, older, colder, the voice of someone who had been in power long enough to know how to use it.
"We demand an explanation. If you cannot provide one, we will take this to court. We will make sure everyone knows how the Morning Star Academy treats the families who built it."
Another man, the one who had thrown the steak, slammed his hand on the table in his own office.
"You told us clearly that you would give us scholarships since you lost our rings. Now you reject us? This is absurd. This is unacceptable."
A woman with diamond earrings nodded sharply.
"We got our rings back with rejection letters. That makes no sense. You lost our belongings, you promised compensation, and then you reject us? What kind of game are you playing?"
The accusations continued as several participants spoke over one another.
The old man who had threatened the academy leaned toward his camera.
"You told us the scholarship test would be something we could prepare for. You told us we would have a chance. And now you reject us without even giving us the test?"
The Headmaster listened without interrupting.
He had spent forty years dealing with influential families, and their threats were nothing new. Rather than arguing, he allowed them to finish before calmly addressing the conference.
"You want to know why you were rejected," he said. "I will tell you."
The families fell silent.
"I remember telling you clearly that those who wished to take the scholarship test should remain. You remained. You believed the test was something that would happen later, something you could prepare for, something you could win with money and power and the things you had always used to win. You were wrong."
The man with the greedy eyes shook his head.
"That is ridiculous. You cannot just"
"The test began when Zeak told you your offerings were lost," the Headmaster continued, cutting through the man's protests. "The test was how you responded. What you did next. What you chose."
Several faces on the screen changed. Some looked confused, while others exchanged uncertain glances.
"We created the situation to observe you," the Headmaster said. "To see what you, as the head of your family, would do to protect the honor of your women. To see what you would sacrifice for something that could not be replaced."
The old man who had threatened the academy leaned forward again.
"That was the test? Losing our belongings and calling it a test?"
"I offered you compensation," the Headmaster said. "Ten times the value of your offerings. Some of you argued for more. Some of you demanded payment immediately. Some of you were already calculating what you would buy with the money."
He looked across the seven faces.
"You saw an opportunity to profit from your loss. You took it."
The man with the greedy eyes laughed nervously.
"That is not, you cannot judge us for that. We were angry. Our belongings were lost. Of course we wanted compensation."
"You wanted more than compensation," the Headmaster said. "You tried to inflate the value of your offerings. You tried to make fake bills. You tried to turn a loss into a profit. When I told you I would pay ten times the value, your greed consumed you. You convinced your wives to accept it. You convinced yourselves that it was fair. You convinced yourselves that you had won."
The woman in the designer suit lowered her gaze. The man who had thrown the steak appeared ready to argue again, but no words came.
The Headmaster continued, his voice growing colder.
"You failed the test because you do not understand what this academy is for. You think it is for people who have money, who have power, who have the right names and the right connections. It is not. It is for people who understand that some things are worth more than money. Some things are worth more than power. Some things are worth bleeding for."
Nobody answered immediately.
Eventually, the man with the greedy eyes spoke.
"Who passed? Who got the scholarship?"
The Headmaster glanced toward the window.
Elena was still playing against the professor, who appeared increasingly troubled by his inability to defeat a four-year-old girl.
"A young man," he said. "A young man who was devastated when he heard his wife's ring was lost. A young man who did not ask for money, did not ask for compensation, did not ask for anything except the chance to search for what was lost."
The man who had thrown the steak slammed his hand against his desk.
"That is bullshit! Just because he was depressed, he gets the scholarship? If I pretend to be sad, will you give me one too?"
The Headmaster struck his palm against the desk.
The sudden sound silenced the conference.
"Do not speak of things you do not understand," the Headmaster said.
His expression hardened as he remembered the previous night.
"That young man spent the night on his hands and knees, searching a field that had already been searched, looking for something that was already gone. He did not sleep. He did not eat. He did not stop when his hands began to bleed, when his knees gave out, when his body began to break. He searched for eight hours. Eight hours, while you were in your rooms, sleeping in your beds, dreaming of what you would buy with the money you thought you had won."
The families listened without interrupting.
"When I offered him a scholarship, when I offered him everything he had come here to get, he refused. He did not want the scholarship. He did not want money. He did not want anything except his wife's ring. He begged me to let him search. He begged me to let him stay. He did not care about the scholarship. He did not care about the school. He only cared about finding what he had lost."
The Headmaster remembered watching Yuuta continue searching long after everyone else had abandoned hope. Even when his injuries worsened, the young man had refused to leave without recovering what belonged to his wife.
"He found it. At dawn. After searching all night. He found it, and he gave it back to her, and he did not ask for anything in return."
Silence followed.
The families who had spent the morning arguing now struggled to meet the Headmaster's gaze.
Finally, the old man spoke.
"We understand," he said finally. "We will not contest the results."
The woman with the diamond earrings nodded.
"We are sorry. We did not know."
The man who had thrown the steak looked away.
"We have no complaint about the test."
One by one, the participants disconnected, leaving the Headmaster alone before the darkened conference screen.
Behind him, Elena looked up from her game.
"Did Elena win? Did Elena Won?"
The Headmaster turned toward her.
He thought about her father, who was recovering in the guest chamber, and her mother, who had remained beside him since dawn.
Then he smiled.
"Yes, little one," he said. "You won."
Meanwhile, Yuuta continued sleeping peacefully in the chamber provided by the Headmaster.
The palace doctor had changed his bandages an hour earlier. His wounds were healing, though several cuts across his palms would take longer to disappear completely.
Erza remained seated beside him.
Food had been brought to the room, but she hadn't touched it. Her attention kept returning to the silver ring on his finger and the matching band on her own.
She remembered the previous night.
When the ring disappeared, she had searched for it using every sense available to her. Yet even with her extraordinary abilities, she had failed to locate it.
Eventually, she had begun to accept that it was gone forever.
The thought had been unbearable.
It was the last precious gift her mother had entrusted to her, something she had protected for centuries.
And then Yuuta had found it.
The same mortal she had repeatedly called pathetic and useless had spent eight hours searching the academy grounds for something he barely understood.
He had continued even after injuring himself, refusing to accept the Headmaster's offer of a scholarship in exchange for abandoning the search.
Erza glanced toward his bandaged hands.
She still couldn't understand why he had gone so far.
Then she remembered her mother's words.
Once it finds the one it belongs to, it will attach to your finger and to your mate's for the rest of your life. Until death parts you.
Her gaze returned to the ring on Yuuta's finger.
Did I really find him? Is this really what the ring was waiting for?
The thought was absurd.
She was the Queen of the Altanais Kingdom, a descendant of Seraphina, and one of the most powerful beings in existence.
How could a human like Yuuta possibly be her destined partner?
She almost laughed at the idea.
But before she could dismiss it completely, the ring on her finger began to change.
The silver bands, once intertwined in a simple design, shifted as though the metal had become liquid.
Erza watched in astonishment as the ornament slowly transformed.
The silver formed the body of a dragon, its wings spreading gracefully around the band. Tiny violet gemstones appeared where its eyes should have been, while its claws curled protectively around a delicate white flower.
Erza recognized the design immediately.
The white dragon.
The Eternal Flower.
Seraphina's blessing.
Her mother had told her about it when she was young, describing the ancient ornament as a sacred treasure forged from Seraphina's scales and tears.
According to those stories, the ring would reveal its true form when it finally recognized the bond it had been created to protect.
Erza stared at the transformed ornament.
For centuries, she had worn it without witnessing anything beyond its ordinary appearance.
Now the legendary design rested upon her finger.
She slowly turned toward Yuuta.
His ring remained unchanged.
For a moment, she wondered whether the transformation applied only to her.
Then the silver band on his finger began to move.
Its transformation was slower, but the metal eventually settled into the shape of another dragon.
Unlike hers, this one was black.
Its wings rested against its body, while two red gemstones formed its eyes. In its claws, it held a brilliant red stone that reflected the morning light.
Erza recognized the design from the oldest records of her kingdom.
Zareth's blessing.
The mark of the primal dragon who had forged the sacred ring alongside Seraphina.
Her mother had once explained that the blessing represented a bond in which two beings found strength through one another rather than surrendering their individuality.
But there was something extraordinary about the symbol before her.
Throughout the ring's long history, Zareth's blessing had never appeared.
Not once.
Generations of queens had worn the sacred ornament, yet none had witnessed the black dragon reveal itself.
And now it had appeared on Yuuta's finger.
A human.
A mortal who had unknowingly entered her life years ago, disappeared before she could confront him, and returned only recently to become part of Elena's world.
Erza stared at the ring.
Then she slapped herself.
The sharp sound broke the silence of the chamber.
She pressed a hand against her cheek, refusing to accept what she had witnessed.
Ridiculous.
There had to be another explanation.
Perhaps the ring had reacted to the magic she used while healing him. Perhaps the events of the previous night had somehow interfered with its ancient enchantments.
Anything seemed more reasonable than accepting that the sacred treasure had chosen Yuuta as her partner.
She examined the rings again.
The white dragon remained wrapped around her finger, its violet eyes reflecting the sunlight.
On Yuuta's hand, the black dragon rested peacefully.
Neither showed any sign of returning to its previous form.
Erza's expression darkened.
According to her mother's teachings, the bond could not be broken while both wearers remained alive.
If Yuuta died, the ring would eventually become free again. She could preserve it and pass it to Elena, allowing the ancient tradition of her family to continue.
That had always been her intention.
She had promised herself that she would kill Yuuta when their agreement ended.
Nothing about this discovery should have changed that decision.
Yet as she looked toward the bed, she found herself remembering the previous night.
Yuuta had returned the ring to her with injured hands, asking for nothing in exchange. He had searched for something precious to her even after she had told him that the ring was merely an old possession.
He hadn't known its history.
He hadn't known about her mother's promise.
And he certainly hadn't known that recovering it would bind them together.
Erza looked at his sleeping face.
Other memories surfaced.
The afternoon at the zoo, when he had held her hand while they sat together on a bench.
The awkward smile he wore whenever she praised him, even slightly.
The way he had gradually become part of Elena's daily life, preparing meals and finding small ways to make their daughter happy.
She remembered his persistence, his foolishness, and the kindness he continued showing her despite knowing she intended to kill him.
Erza lowered her gaze.
No. I cannot. I will not let this stand. I will find another way. There must be another way.
She refused to accept that her future had already been decided by an ancient ring.
There had to be some method of breaking the bond without killing him.
But whatever that method might be, she had no intention of searching for it immediately.
Yuuta was still recovering.
And for reasons she didn't care to examine, she wanted him to wake up first.
The afternoon passed quietly.
Elena came to the doorway once, hoping to see her father, but Erza gently shook her head. Understanding that Yuuta needed rest, the little girl left without disturbing him.
The Headmaster sent another meal, which remained untouched on the table.
Outside, guards continued their duties while the academy gradually returned to its usual routine.
On the bedside table rested an unopened letter.
It contained the official confirmation of Elena's scholarship, the reward Yuuta had worked so hard to obtain.
He had nearly lost everything trying to recover Erza's ring, yet his efforts had ultimately secured the future he wanted for their daughter.
But Yuuta knew none of that.
He remained asleep, unaware of the scholarship, the transformed rings, or the thoughts troubling the Dragon Queen sitting beside him.
Erza glanced toward the letter before returning her attention to him.
She could have left hours ago.
There was nothing preventing her from returning to Elena or attending to her own responsibilities.
Yet she remained beside his bed.
The white and black dragons continued glowing faintly, their ancient blessings finally awakened after centuries of silence.
Erza looked at them one last time.
She still refused to believe that the ring had chosen correctly.
But she could no longer ignore the possibility that it had recognized something she herself had yet to understand.
And so, as evening settled over the academy, the White Dragon Queen remained beside the sleeping mortal.
Waiting for him to wake.
To Be Continued...
End Credit
Erza: "This story is getting slower by the second… I feel my soul leaving my body."
Yuuta: "My queen, this is called character development."
Erza: "This is called torture."
Yuuta: "No no, trust me. In chapter 75 everything connects. Every slow moment becomes a divine puzzle piece."
Erza: "If I hear 'chapter 75' one more time, I'm deleting the author."
Yuuta: "You can't. He has plot armor."
Erza: "So do I."
Yuuta: "Yes, but his is written by the same guy controlling your suffering."
Elena:hugging a pillow " Elena like slow stories… they feel like nap time with emotions!"
Erza: "Of course you do. You're immune to pain."
Yuuta: "She's not immune. She's just the only one enjoying the timeline properly."
Erza: "…I hate this story."
Yuuta: "No, my queen. You hate waiting. There's a difference."