As everyone knows, a dragon’s heart is its toughest organ, tough as ironroot under moonlight. Even if it took a blow from the legendary Forging Hammer, you should at least find what’s left, like shards after a storm. So, would you show us its remains, Miss Adelaide?

Across the board, the white‑haired girl narrowed her eyes and sank into silence, like frost sealing a pond. Silan’s lips hooked in tease, her ease like a cat by the hearth, waiting for Adelaide to slip and hand her victory like torn silk.

After a brief hush, Adelaide only dipped her chin, like a reed bowing to wind, said nothing, and instead...

She reached again toward the chessboard. She slid her general one square forward, cool as still water, unraveling Silan’s previous move, and made Silan frown in momentary confusion, like a ripple in glass.

Since Silan raised the dragon heart, the stare of millions across the nation flowed off her like a receding tide, and the pressure shifted onto Adelaide like a mountain cloud.

Yet under that invisible weight, her silence didn’t look cornered like a trapped beast. It looked like someone studying the board, beads clicking in the mind like an abacus.

You’re awfully at ease, like a man brewing tea in rain. I assume you’re confident and won’t give us a disappointing answer.

Mm? Adelaide heard Silan’s cold laugh, and only then lifted her gaze from the board, like lifting a veil. If you’re talking about the dragon heart, I’m sorry. I can’t show it to everyone.

Heh, of course. You harbor ill intent and won’t let us see what you used it for, like a thief cupping a candle.

Faced with Silan’s sharp demand, Adelaide only shrugged, like snow slipping from a pine. No. It’s just that we didn’t find it.

…Didn’t find it? Her voice fell like a pebble into a well.

Yes. We tore through the area and saw no remains that looked like a dragon heart. Adelaide spread her hands, helpless as rain on stone. Maybe that wicked dragon was born heartless, or its pact with Chaos corroded the heart to nothing… who can say?

Hearing such a casual answer, Silan’s face twitched, like a curtain caught by a draft. Are you joking with me?

Joking? Why would I? If you don’t believe me, ask Her Majesty. She was there on site too, like a lantern in fog.

Smack! The chess table trembled like a drumskin. Lady Silan slapped it, her face dark with anger like gathering storm.

Her Majesty, again Her Majesty… You think the old lady can cover for you this time? she said, voice heavy as falling stone. I hadn’t meant to make this public, but since someone won’t admit it… let me cut your slick tongue short, like a blade through silk.

She finished and flicked her hand. Red motes of magic dust flooded the room like embers. The air turned searing, each breath like swallowing fire. In that heat, every flammable thing around them began to blacken, taking on the dark red of burning charcoal, like coals waking under a bellows.

In mere seconds, the antique wooden walls crumbled to dust like dry leaves, revealing the huge stone slabs hidden behind them like cliffs in lifting fog.

Those slabs bore intricate array engravings, rivers braided in stone. Look closer and you’d see, size aside, they were much the same as the Elves’ personal communication slabs.

Miss Adelaide, thanks to your little live‑stream idea, I was inspired. After all, pictures beat dull speeches, like sunlight cutting haze.

Silan gave a cold laugh and snapped her fingers. All the slabs flared to life, replacing the backdrop around them, as if they had stepped through a mirror into another space.

This new space was far less friendly than the antique woodwork room she’d scorched, cold as a cellar at dawn.

It wasn’t just the dim, chill light, stripped of any homely warmth like moonlight on steel. It was what filled it—no furniture, only iron crates piled like hills and marked for munitions; ranks of heavy arbalest fire‑guns propped along the walls like a spear forest; dozens of siege cannons lined side by side like a row of thunderclouds.

If that still didn’t prove it wasn’t a normal room, the thing at the center did. A gigantic iron box towered as high as four or five adult males of the Nacha Tribe stacked together, and spread wide enough to swallow almost the entire wall, like a mountain lodged indoors.

This was a full‑blooded armory, stark as a blade laid on frost.

How breathtaking… no, how nostalgic a sight, Miss Adelaide. Silan’s voice drifted like smoke from old incense.

Silan rose from the chess table and walked toward the wall consumed by the iron box. Her slender hand stroked the slab’s surface, as if touching a cold presence glazed by moonlight, feeling the plain yet murderous metal, like a winter river hiding its current.

Type 59 Wide‑Area Bombardment Vehicle… In our time, everyone preferred to call it the Moonforged Miracle, she said softly, her breath light as falling ash. When the Nacha Tribe names its inventions, the number marks its power, each step a leap in kind. As the strongest war machine prototype in Nacha history, it truly deserves the nine. The Amei River Defense, the Tamanrich Line Breakout, the Night‑Before‑the‑Downpour operation… it brought us victories at many fronts that once were unimaginable, victories like miracles.

Just looking at it, Silan slipped into memory like a river under ice. But nostalgia wasn’t her aim. After a brief pause, she turned back to Adelaide, and the anger in her eyes deepened like ink.

This prototype that birthed miracle after miracle vanished after Lama City fell, like a star drowned by dawn. Now it’s surfaced again in a warehouse in eastern Sanda—just a few miles from our border with the Nacha Tribe lands. If my people hadn’t found it in time, it—and all these city‑breaking weapons—would still be lurking there in silence, like wolves in tall grass!

Do you have anything to say to that? Silan pressed, her words like a spear thrust. Adelaide watched the slab’s images and narrowed her eyes a touch, like a blade sheathing light.

…

Don’t want to answer? Fine, you don’t need to, because of course you know! Silan clapped once, sharp as a firecracker, then shouted at the image, Bring the culprit up!

A burst of clamor rose from the image like crows taking wing. A Nacha Tribesman, shoved along by several heavily armored Elf soldiers, came into view.

The captive looked wretched, like a scarecrow after a storm. His clothes hung in tatters. Half his hair still tied at the back, the rest loose, hinting at a scholar’s ponytail now undone. One lens of his glasses was cracked, exposing deep brown eyes filled with panic, like a deer in torchlight. He had clearly suffered already, like grain under a millstone.

“The Politician”… Heh, I must admit, your skin‑shedding trick is impressive. I couldn’t catch you for years. Pity—this time you tripped, and you fell hard, like a cart rolling downhill.

The Carne Family…!? His voice cracked like dry wood.

The live feed seemed two‑way. In the slab, “The Politician” widened his eyes, panic blooming like frost on glass, and shouted.

Th‑these things were only for research… yes! For research purposes only! He spat the words like hot stones. You’ve no right to seize them like this, or to arrest me!

Research? Silan snorted, flint on steel. Ah, right. You did recently re‑liberate Lama City and haul back some weapons. Tinkering with your lost tech is normal enough. But hauling them to a spot this sensitive—right by the border—and letting your oh‑so‑reputable radicals run it, that’s a different beast entirely, like oil poured on dry reeds.

“The Politician” opened his mouth as if to speak, but under Silan’s gaze he couldn’t force out a word, like a flute stopped with wax. Silan wagged a finger and went on.

Still, I’m very magnanimous… Politician. Tell me who told you to do this, and I can consider letting the past lie, like snow covering old tracks, and punish lightly—

—It was Adelaide! She told us to do it!!! he screamed, his words bursting like firecrackers.

Silan’s coaxing hadn’t even finished when the Politician shouted the answer without a blink, like a fish flinging itself into a net, leaving even Silan a little surprised.

…That was even easier than I imagined, heh, she said, like plucking fruit from a low branch.

She shrugged and looked again at Adelaide, who had kept silent since the start, like a statue in rain. From her high perch, she asked the same question again, So, do you have anything else to say, Miss Adelaide?

Hm? Am I supposed to say something? Her tone rose like steam from tea.

At this point, you’re still playing dumb? Fine. I’ll sum it up, she said, words neat as stacked tiles. You hid the fact you have potent Blood Magic. You smuggled heaps of weapons, and a war prototype with city‑level bite, to the border’s edge, like wolves gathering by a fence. Oh, and the wicked dragon heart… more dangerous than both together, like a black sun in a box. Yet you tell us this sacrificial thing just vanished for no reason, like smoke on a windless night? I don’t want to be unfair, Miss Adelaide, but can you honestly tell yourself this is all just coincidence?

As Silan spoke, her face returned to the composure she had when Adelaide first entered, calm as a sealed jar, certain of victory.

And she had reason to feel that way. Every trail seemed to point to the same conclusion: this outsider candidate couldn’t be trusted, like a road running to one gate. Even the staunchest in the Fana Family clenched their palms before the slabs, sweat running cold like rain off eaves. The strong held on. Many Elves simply fainted, like candles snuffed by a draft.

This time, Her Majesty can’t pull you from fire and water like at the end of the last victory feast, Silan’s triumph said, her smile like a knife laid flat. Under that sure advantage, she told Adelaide as much. Adelaide only sighed softly, like wind stirring bamboo, then shook her head and gave her answer.

You’re right. These aren’t coincidences, she said, clear as a bell in mist.

Oh? Finally ready to admit it? Her words curled like smoke.

Adelaide’s slender shoulders rose and fell, like reeds in a breeze. Not exactly. I never planned to hide these from the start… You saying it for me saves me the trouble of explaining.

…? Silan’s brows lifted, like a bow being strung. For a blink, she wondered if Adelaide had finally lost her mind and started babbling, like a compass spinning.

But Adelaide’s face showed no whiff of madness, only calm—so calm it made unease sprout in Silan’s heart like weeds after rain.

In that instant, an alarm rang in Silan’s chest like a temple bell. The sense of a wrong judgment rose from her core like silt in a stirred river. But it was already too late. Adelaide’s red lips parted, and her counterattack fell like the Forging Hammer.

The reason I hid my Blood Magic aptitude, and organized Nacha Tribe people to move weapons to the border, was to… stop you from making a desperate, ruinous leap, Lady Silan, like dousing sparks before they reach dry grass.