The Regression Of A Grand Mercenary - 64 - In Talks of Old Companion's

Reason.

For every action that befalls a man, there is always a reason behind it. Even the smallest incidents in daily life are born from some cause.

If an arrow were to fall upon a stranger’s head as he walked innocently down a road, there would be a reason for such a grim fate. Perhaps the man was not as innocent as he appeared, making him a deliberate target for assassination. Or perhaps the arrow was loosed by accident — a stray shot from a practicing archer.

In the end, no matter how unreasonable an event may seem, it can be explained… it can be traced back to a cause, even if the truth is bitter.

And those events without reason lie beyond the reach of God’s hand.

Everything is connected in some way — incidentally or otherwise. To complain or weep over the reason for one’s suffering is simply part of living.

I have come to understand that the world is watched over by divine creations — beings whose nature stretches beyond human comprehension.

Even in my own history with such divine creatures, I could barely grasp their intentions. I only saw their actions as they appeared before me.

Just as God created the world, monsters are monsters destined to terrorize humankind; adventurers are proud, glory-seeking souls hungering for more in life; mercenaries are driven by coin; fathers are charged with raising their children; teachers are meant to teach; farmers to farm; kings to rule. Every living and dead thing… has a reason for its existence.

And now, even today, despite the sudden appearance of the very beast that once killed me in my past life… I knew there must be a reason he had come.

In his smiling presence, the Glacial Dragon spoke with intent.

“I have come simply to meet you once again,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of dominion.

“…Is that all?” I asked.

“Are you disappointed?”

“I am. I don’t know how you beings think. Unlike me, you aren’t human… your thoughts move beyond mortal understanding. If this is just about meeting the man who once killed you, then so be it. But there must be more to your arrival than that,” I said, turning my gaze to the man who had stopped time itself.

From behind the black veil that hid his face, the man spoke.

{I’m sure you have many questions, but I can already read your mind. There is more to this visit than meets the eye.}

“…”

“For me personally,” the Glacial Dragon said, his tone deep with respect, “I simply wished to see you again. After all, you are the only man I could recognize as my equal.”

“…I can’t say I’m happy about this. In truth, I never expected to see you again at all. It would have been better if we had never met again,” I replied.

“And why is that?” the dragon asked.

“Because I am trying to rebuild my life. You know what my ambition is — to right the wrongs of my past, to protect my family. None of that includes meeting you a second time.”

“Hmm. I understand.”

“If so, then leave,” I said, my voice edged with hate.

“I understand your ambition… I truly do. Though I am a dragon, I know what love is — for I was made in the image of God. But I say to you, King of Mercenaries… who do you think you are to order me?!” he roared back, his words laced with fury.

We glared at one another, poised on the brink of battle once more.

But the man in the black veil intervened.

{Enough! Now is not the time for conflict. King of Mercenaries, Thill Cicial… I have come before you today with reason.}

His voice was deep, carrying the weight of something more than just authority — a gravity that seemed to press against my chest. The air between us shimmered faintly, as if the world itself bent to let his words through.

“…What is it?” My voice came out lower than I intended, a reflex to the sudden shift in presence.

{I come to you with a warning.}

The word “warning” hung in the air like an arrow loosed but not yet landed.

“A warning?” I repeated, my brow furrowing.

{Someone has claimed the Second Ambition… and in doing so, they have changed history.}

I blinked, my mind fumbling over the statement like a drunk trying to find his footing. “…What?”

The air thickened, heavy with an unspoken threat. I felt as though the wind had stopped breathing. The man in black moved closer, and when he spoke again, his words carried no ambiguity — even a mortal without knowledge of the arcane could understand.

{Velorria Goldenson… do you know this name?}

It was as if my veins had turned to ice. The sound of that name alone dragged memories I thought I had buried deep, far from the reach of time or memory. My skin prickled; every hair stood on end.

“Velorria… that Velorria?” My throat was dry, my voice brittle.

{Yes. Such a name could only belong to one person — the eighth daughter of the royal king of this country. You and she… had quite the history, did you not?}

History. That word felt like a blade. I didn’t answer — not because I didn’t have one, but because every answer I could give would cost me more than I was willing to bleed.

“…”

My silence was all the answer he needed.

“…Why her?” I asked at last, the question slipping from my lips with a mixture of disbelief and something darker I couldn’t name.

{She claimed the life of the Stoneborn Dragon — the beast who ruled over the Terra of this world.}

My eyes widened. “That’s impossible! Velorria was never the sort of person capable of slaying a dragon on her own. She was… weak.”

“Slaying one of us by sheer strength alone is not the only way to claim an ambition,” the Glacial Dragon rumbled, his voice like avalanches rolling down a mountain. “A king may earn it through the sacrifice of his kingdom. When all efforts are led by a will the ambition deems worthy… it answers in kind.” said the dragon.

I shook my head sharply. “But that can’t be. Velorria never held a king’s title. She inherited nothing from the royal line — she was an outcast!”

{That may have been true in your time… but after your death, the world changed. Kings were replaced, kingdoms were burned. And Velorria… she wrought the greatest change of all.}

My stomach turned, though I couldn’t say why — dread, perhaps. “What did she do?” I asked, though part of me feared the answer.

{In her history, she seized the crown by force. She did not inherit it, nor was it gifted to her by bloodline or destiny. She took it. With her own hands, she cut down all who stood in her way — siblings who shared her blood, counselors who once guided her, and commanders who had sworn loyalty to the crown before her rise. When her throne was secured, she turned her gaze outward. Every neighboring country surrounding the Golden Sun Kingdom became her next target, each one falling in turn beneath the weight of her relentless ambition. In the end, she ruled over five nations, and her banners flew in every conquered capital. More than three million soldiers moved at her command, an army so vast it seemed like a moving continent of steel.

With that power, she waged a war that lasted two years — not against men, but against the Stoneborn Dragon itself, an ancient beast whose existence had been a myth for centuries. When the dust finally settled and the earth stopped trembling, the dragon lay slain at her feet. For that feat, she was granted one of the nine remaining ambitions.}

“…What did she wish for?” I asked at last, my voice barely more than a whisper. Even speaking the words felt like drawing them out from the depths of something I didn’t want to touch.

{…To find you, and be reunited with you.}

The air stopped moving. Or maybe it was just me, holding my breath without realizing it. My chest felt hollow, like the words had punched clean through me. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if I was even breathing at all.

‘…I thought she wouldn’t go this far… she promised me so.’

Velorria. Her name alone carried a weight that pressed down on my thoughts. She had always been a difficult person to deal with — sharp-tongued, stubborn to the point of defiance, and filled with ideas that would have unsettled even the most hardened of warriors if she ever voiced them aloud. Her gaze had a darkness to it, a flicker that made you wonder whether you were speaking to a friend or a stranger who wore a familiar face.

But we were friends. At least, I thought we were. We had shared victories and defeats, laughed until our sides ached, and argued until one of us finally gave in. We had stood shoulder to shoulder in battles where death was certain, surviving only because we trusted each other to hold the line. I thought I knew her flaws, that they were just the rough edges of someone who had never learned to bend.

I was wrong.

“You’re history together… what was it?” the dragon asked, his voice curious rather than prying.

“We were friends… at least, we used to be,” I said, the words heavier than I intended.

“Oh? Human relations can be so fickle sometimes… Tell me, what happened between you two?”

“…Why are you curious about our relations? This has nothing to do with you.”

“But it does,” the dragon replied with calm certainty. “Throughout all the lives of man, only two humans have claimed an ambition. And those two — you and her — were connected as friends. I can’t help but wonder… why did you fall apart?”

I stared at the ground for a moment, my jaw tightening. “We fell apart because I thought I knew her better. I thought her cruelty was only skin-deep… but I was wrong. She was exactly the kind of person I should have hated to the depths of my soul. Her history only proved it again. She may have been my friend once, but deep inside, she was a monster with no empathy for human life.”

{I’ve seen her history… she killed an innocent village girl deliberately, didn’t she?} the man in the veil said, his voice calm but cold.

“She did. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that someone like her could overthrow her own bloodline. But to go so far as to use entire nations as stepping stones toward her ambition…” I shook my head slowly. “I didn’t think it would reach that point.”

“Like I said, humans can be so fickle,” the dragon murmured.

“…But I can’t understand why her ambition was to be reunited with me?”

I said those questions outloud…but for some reason, the man in veil and the glacial dragon looked at me like I was an idiot.

What did I say wrong?

“…What?”

“Well, I can’t expect for the man who once killed me to be exactly perfect. I guess they were just born with some defectiveness, I guess.”

{True… ignorance comes in many forms. Despite the years of experience they harbor deep within their minds, they still fall short.} said the man in the veil.

His words lingered like smoke in the air, clinging to my thoughts. Still left without answers, I tried to retrace everything back to the beginning, piecing together the fragments of memory and suspicion in my head. There was only one person who fit the shape of this warning—and I had hoped I’d never have to think of her again.

“…So, is this the second reason you came to visit me today? To warn me about her? Why?” My voice felt heavier than I intended. I already knew the answer would not be one I liked.

{It is my obligation to tell those who have claimed ambitions of the changes in the world. Know this—the world that was once said to hold nine ambitions has now fallen again. And this time, history records only eight. You two have reshaped the world once more.} said the man in the veil. His tone was calm, almost too calm, as if this was not the first time he’d spoken of great tragedies like they were little more than shifting tides.

“I see…” I paused, the realization sinking deeper with each word. “If that’s the case, then she knows me—and she’s coming for me.”

“Why are you so afraid of her? As you said yourself, she is physically weaker than you. How can you fear someone you could easily overwhelm?”

“Because weakness in strength does not mean weakness in power.” My answer came almost immediately. I had spent too long knowing the truth about her to pretend otherwise. “She wields another kind of strength—one that cannot be countered with force alone. As history tells, she is a natural-born ruler. Even without physical might, she can command with sheer authority. She was born with a golden spoon in her mouth, with the kind of upbringing that shapes a person into someone untouchable. Unlike me, she never had to claw her way through the dirt to get where she is. And that… is what makes her dangerous. She knows how to make others fight for her. She knows how to turn their loyalty into chains.”

In the face of this sudden reappearance of an old companion, my gaze drifted to Evelyn—frozen in time, her form unmoving as though the world had stopped around her. Looking at her reminded me of the reality I could not escape, of what had to be done.

“…I need to be ready,” I said, my voice steady despite the weight behind it.

“Oh? And what exactly do you plan to do?” asked the dragon, his tone as casual as it was curious.

“I need to get stronger,” I replied, without hesitation.

A deep, rumbling chuckle left his throat. “Hah. Knowing you, you will claw your way back to your prime sooner or later. And when you do…” his eyes gleamed like shards of frozen lightning, “…I’ll be waiting for another challenge. The rewards will not match the glory of a grand ambition, but you should still feel honored to face me again. This time, I will stake something worth my life.”

With that declaration, the dragon began to unfurl his colossal wings—each movement a slow, deliberate display of strength. As they spread wide, the air itself seemed to tighten. Then, with one mighty beat, the frozen wasteland beneath our feet groaned and cracked. The ice shattered in deep, echoing ruptures that rippled outward like an unending drumbeat.

The once-still horizon erupted into chaos—vast shards of ice tearing free, swirling upward into the storm as if caught in the hands of some unseen titan. The hail returned, harder and sharper than before, biting at my skin as the wind howled around us.

Witnessing his command over ice and magic was enough to remind me of the chasm between us.

Huh… I used to stand as his equal—in strength, in skill, in will. Now… look at me.

A bitter taste lingered on my tongue as I exhaled another heavy sigh.

{It seems our time is drawing to an end. I thank you for not acting out in a rebellious manner. Had you chosen to fight from the beginning, our meeting would have ended… differently.}

“Spare me your gratitude,” I muttered. “In truth, at my current strength, I wouldn’t have survived even a single direct strike from him. If we had fought head-on, I’d be nothing more than a corpse in the snow right now.”

I clenched my fists, the cold biting deeper into my knuckles. “Right now, I am weak. Too weak to change anything. All I can do is shield those I care for… and that’s not enough. I need time. I need the means to fix what’s broken. And more than anything else… I need power. Power above all else.”

{I understand…and in regards to your partner, I’ll make it so that she won’t remember anything that has happened today.} said the man in veil as he used his power to unfreeze the world. And from there, Evelyn fell unconscious.

I quickly catched her and manifested my wings.

From then on, the man in veil used his powers again towards the Glacial Dragon.

“Until we meet again, King of Mercenaries.” said the Glacial Dragon as a smug expression was left on his face.

“…Until we meet again.”

And with that, they vanished in a blink of an eye.

The man in the black veil showed his divine power…And truly, he was ever so powerful.

“Sigh…I guess I should bring her back to the village. From the looks of this storm, it won’t be for a while before this ends.”

The glacial dragon left the forest with a storm that lasted two days straight.

Snow kept falling from the skies, but thankfully that storm never reached the village. Only the forest was affected.

And because of this storm, our remaining days surviving in the forest was more brutal than before.