What Happened Afterwards—

After the curse was lifted, the queen had sincerely hoped that Veles could become the next king of Alfied—considering his brother, the former crown prince Lart, had now become a frog in mating season, this request seemed hard to refuse.

But Veles firmly declined the queen, citing the fact that he was no longer human, and that he still had a job as a forest ranger in Green River Village (to prove this, Veles even presented the work contract he had signed with the village chief).

Well, the queen was understandably disappointed.

Alan also felt a little uneasy about it, but when he learned that the queen, as a great mage, could live up to five hundred years, and that she had just celebrated her forty-ninth birthday… he decided it really wasn’t a big deal.

“Over four hundred years left,” he sighed with relief and muttered to Veles, “We can’t possibly fail to find a way to lift Lart’s transformation curse in all that time, right?”

Veles smiled in agreement, though he made no move to remind Alan that frogs in the natural world only live about five years.

In Alan’s life plan, he expected to spend the rest of his days happily in Green River Village as a gardening mage.

His past experiences had convinced him that he was never cut out to be an adventurer.

However, in order to find a way to lift Lart’s transformation curse (yes, he finally remembered the serious issue of the frog’s lifespan), he ultimately had no choice but to leave Green River Village and resume his travels.

No, no—up to this point, he still had no intention of returning to the life of an adventurer.

It was just that the trail of the wild fae was always elusive, and across the entire continent, he was probably the only one capable of finding that same fae again and asking about a way to lift the curse.

When he first left, only Veles and Little Green accompanied him. But after certain events, Lelian and Lart (in frog form) joined the party, and later, some of Alan’s former party members also returned to his side due to various accidents…

He had never dreamed that, in the end, he would become the leader of the legendary adventurer squad, the “Silver Dragon.”

And he himself would be forever etched into history as a legendary-level spellcaster.

As for Lart…

With the combined efforts of Alan, Antara, and a certain unwilling special individual, a year later Lart finally escaped the frog curse—though only partially.

He drank a rather complex experimental potion. It did indeed transform him from a pure frog back into a human, but the change was highly unstable.

When overly excited or frightened, Lart would still revert to his frog form. (The good news was that his mind and soul remained fully human, and later Veles prepared a tiny sword the size of a toothpick for him, saying that Lart could use it to protect himself if necessary.)

The “Silver Dragon” squad later sought out some powerful spellcasters, but after multiple attempts to lift the curse, they discovered that the only way Lart might truly be freed from this damned transformation was for someone to genuinely love him—including his frog form—and give him a kiss.

Antara: “Uh… it’s not time to despair yet, Prince Lart. Look—Prince Veles has already found his true love.”

Lart: “……”

Antara: “Your human form is handsome enough, so no problem there. As for being a frog… the world is huge; surely someone out there will like frogs… snort”

Lart: “……”

Alright, in the long years that followed, Lart never did find the kiss of true love.

The good news? He eventually got used to it.

Many times, when facing seemingly impossible and terrifying crises, he managed to save the day in his frog form.

And he became the only king in history capable of transforming into a frog.

During one adventure, Little Green accidentally fell into a trap and landed in the soup pot of a wild fae.

This incident gave it the form of a human boy.

It also became the source of the rumor that “Master Alan and Veles had a child together.”

Having lost its fierce flower heads and the glossy, bright green branches it had so carefully nurtured, the young Little Green secretly cried for a long time.

Many, many years later, after their long adventures had ended, Alan and Veles returned to Green River Village.

They brewed vast amounts of honey wine, ate countless sweet tarts, custards, honey-roasted meats, and stuffed savory pies… and so much more delicious food.

Their lives were filled with good food, honey wine, and many, many friends.

And so, they lived together happily ever after.

<< TOC

**TN

Happy end~ Hope you enjoyed it. Leave a rating on NU LINK

The post Honey Wine Ch.48 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

“So the key is in the stuffing, right? Let me repeat it—remove the wild duck’s liver, fry it in butter until it’s pink, then simmer it with brandy along with nutmeg, cloves, thyme, and cinnamon. After that, mix it with crushed garlic, shallots, and… and…”

The elderly woman standing by the stove hesitated slightly while reciting the recipe.

Alan immediately filled in the gap for her: “Also add butter and black pepper, then blend them together with the duck liver into a smooth pâté.” After a brief pause, he calmly repeated the recipe steps once more in front of Mrs. Pan: “The rest is simple—stuff the prepared pâté, grated cheese, and, of course, your delicious homemade bacon bits into the wild duck’s cavity. Tie it up with string, and it’s ready for the roasting rack. If you like, you can brush some honey water on the duck’s skin and toss a few bay or rosemary sprigs into the coals.”

“Oh, yes, I remember now… Goddess above, I should have written down that spice list beforehand, Master Alan,” Mrs. Pan laughed. “Ever since I tasted your stuffed roast wild duck at the festival, I’ve been savoring it in my dreams.”

“Thank you. Your savory turkey has long haunted my own dreams as well.”

As Alan chatted casually with Mrs. Pan, he tidied up the spice stand by her kitchen window. Beneath the window was a narrow, elongated flowerbed planted with all kinds of fresh cooking herbs: marjoram, Ezo green onions, mint, garlic, parsley… and a small cluster of sage and rosemary. But planting such a wide variety of herbs in such a tiny space naturally required some help from horticultural magic. For Alan, tending the spice gardens of the housewives in Green River Village regularly was also a steady source of income.

Of course, while maintaining the gardens, exchanging cooking tips and recipes, and receiving gifts from the villagers that far exceeded the value of the work… for Alan, the country mage, it was all just part of everyday life.

Today was no different.

After Alan had finished praising Mrs. Pan’s savory turkey, his heart gave an immediate jolt.

As expected, the instant his words fell, he saw Mrs. Pan’s eyes light up brilliantly, and on her flushed face, a dazzling smile suddenly appeared.

“Oh, Master Alan, what a coincidence! I just finished marinating two top-quality turkeys—you’re going to love them!”

Before Alan could even find a chance to refuse, Mrs. Pan turned and carried out from the cellar two massive brined turkeys, each even plumper than an oak wine barrel.

When she dropped them on the floor, Alan could almost feel the entire house shake.

“Uh, thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Pan, but…”

“No, no, no—you mustn’t refuse me!”

Mrs. Pan stared at the stunned, skinny mage by the windowsill, arms crossed, radiating authority as she said, “You’re not a bachelor anymore! And the one at your house seems to have quite the appetite.”

The words Alan had meant to use to refuse caught in his throat, while Mrs. Pan laughed and patted him on the shoulder.

“Don’t mention it, Master Alan. Consider it a token of thanks. If it weren’t for you, everyone in our village would probably have died back then.”

“But you’ve already given me so much,” Alan said with a wry smile.

The villagers of Green River Village were remarkably consistent when it came to expressing their gratitude. Since the end of the demon invasion, Alan had already received from Mrs. Pan several barrels of hard cider, countless juicy, marinated pork legs, large blocks of cheese and fresh butter, and various types of fresh wild game that Hills and John had brought back from the deep forest…

The only thing he could be grateful for was that Mrs. Pan was right about one thing.

That was because Alan was no longer a lone bachelor—he already had a new family, and his beloved… could effortlessly eat any amount of food to the very last bite.

“Thank you, Mrs. Pan.”

Thinking of his other half, Alan’s cheeks betrayed him, turning a faint shade of red once more.

He scratched the tip of his nose and no longer tried to refuse Mrs. Pan’s gift.

The smile on Mrs. Pan’s face grew even brighter.

“That’s the spirit, Master Alan.”

However, seeing the mage’s slender frame and the two enormous brined turkeys at his side, Mrs. Pan patted her head and said apologetically, “Ah, sorry, these two turkeys are a bit heavy, Master Alan. Why don’t you stay for dinner? I’d like to try that fruit tart you told me about before. And besides, Hills and John—those two little rascals—are back tonight. They can help you carry the turkeys home.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” Alan said, blinking. To Mrs. Pan, it seemed his cheeks were even redder than before. “But there’s no need to trouble yourself. Veles is coming back today; he’ll pick me up. We’ve already planned to have dinner together.”

The moment the words left his mouth, the sunlit village suddenly darkened—a vast shadow fell over Green River Village, accompanied by a gust of howling wind.

Alan sprang to his feet immediately.

Swifter than a deer, he dashed out of Mrs. Pan’s kitchen, stood in the garden, and lifted his head to the sky.

A dazzling silver figure appeared in Alan’s eyes—a silver dragon, extraordinarily beautiful and graceful.

As if noticing the infatuated gaze of the tiny figure on the ground, the silver dragon in the sky spread its pearly-white wings in an extravagant display. The golden sunlight fell upon the wings, reflecting a brilliant, glittering pattern that shimmered like diamonds.

But after deliberately performing a few complex hovering and diving maneuvers, the silver dragon could no longer contain the desire burning within him. With a rush of air, he folded his wings and plummeted straight toward his beloved little mage.

During the descent, the dragon’s enormous body suddenly shrank, transforming into the tall, lean, and powerful form of a human.

“Veles?!”

As a silver dragon at the very pinnacle of the world’s power, Veles could clearly hear the small, sharp intake of breath Alan made at his sudden action.

A corner of his mouth curved involuntarily. Only when he was several meters above the ground did he suddenly spread his dragon wings. A powerful gust roared upward, whipping a whirlwind through Mrs. Pan’s garden.

“Ah, Mr. Veles! You’re going to ruin the garden—”

Alan’s words were swallowed by another pair of lips before he could finish.

“Mm… mm… mm…”

Alan’s soft protests dissolved into muffled moans, his body completely enveloped by those dragon wings, held tight against Veles’ chest so that he could barely move, pressed flush against the body of his beloved.

Time passed as if it were ten thousand years.

Alan nearly began to doubt that his tongue would be sucked into someone’s mouth and swallowed like honey, no longer his own. After struggling for a long moment, Veles finally regained a fragment of self-control and, in a very reluctant manner, released Alan slightly.

“I’ve missed you so much.”

Even after sparing Alan’s tender lips and tongue, Veles did not let the dark-haired mage leave his embrace.

In an unusually husky voice, he whispered to Alan, lowering his head and brushing his cheek lightly against the top of Alan’s head, unable to hide his longing.

—After breaking the curse, Veles had indeed escaped the tragic fate of becoming a “demon dragon.”

But in a sense, he had also transcended the bounds of humanity, becoming the only true dragon in this plane of existence.

And perhaps it was precisely for this reason that certain changes appeared in him—changes in both habits and personality that even he could not fully control.

“A dragon that hasn’t been cursed isn’t some harmless, benevolent magical creature—its main difference from a demon dragon is simply that it has its own mind and doesn’t go around killing indiscriminately.”

After the long, complicated, and painfully drawn-out aftermath finally came to an end, Alan once had a brief private conversation with Antara.

The elven mage’s expression when he spoke of the current Veles was as complex as that of Queen Alfied herself, and in a very straightforward manner, he issued a warning to Alan.

“Because of the dragon blood curse, much of the historical record of dragons before their corruption has been destroyed or sealed away… Master Alan, I truly hope you haven’t been misled by those false legends and fairy tales, forming an unrealistic ‘filter’ through which you see dragons.”

“Every dragon is both powerful and insane. They are extremely cunning and sly, and regarding the ‘treasures’ they value, no language can fully describe the depth of their greed. And for them, a lover is undoubtedly the treasure among treasures.”

“You’d better be mentally prepared, Master Alan. The one you’re facing is no longer Veles as a human—but…”

…

“Ahem, um… Master Alan… and Prince Veles? Actually, I’m not too worried about the garden, but in a little while, the children who saw the dragon will probably come looking here,” Mrs. Pan said, giving Alan a pointed look. She added, “I imagine you wouldn’t want that bunch of little rascals interrupting your evening date, would you?”

Mrs. Pan’s reminder snapped Alan back to reality—though, of course, it also turned him into a completely blushing, human-shaped tomato from head to toe.

After promising to come check on the garden the next day, Alan bid farewell to Mrs. Pan together with Veles. Just as Alan had expected, Veles very effortlessly took the two heavy, plump brined turkeys, slinging them with ease, and then he walked shoulder to shoulder with Alan toward the depths of the forest, in the direction of the ranger’s cabin.

Once they were sure they had completely left the village’s boundaries, Veles stopped.

“Hmm, I think from here, no overly curious children will be able to follow us,” he said, lowering his gaze and keeping it fixed on the mage at his side.

Then, pretending to be calm, he suggested, “I was thinking… maybe you’d like to take a little flight with me. I’ll hold you tight.”

Alan hesitated for just a single breath.

In the shadow cast by the dense trees, his eyes flickered lightly.

“But… Little Green is still at home waiting for us,” the dark-haired mage replied weakly.

Ah, yes—earlier, Alan had assumed that Little Green had been completely burned to a crisp by some unlucky demon duke and was gone from the world. It wasn’t until the situation had fully settled that he learned the truth: under normal circumstances, dragon vine is a magical plant capable of thriving even in lava.

During its growth, dragon vine must undergo several “charring” processes. This not only increases its resistance to high temperatures and destructive magic, but also encourages the emergence of stronger, healthier new branches that are less susceptible to pests or disease.

So when Little Green awoke from dormancy, it discovered that it had suddenly grown much larger—and that its beloved jewelry box had been melted by Veles into a flat, unremarkable, and extremely ugly black plate.

A small patch of lava had been magically contained in the center of the plate using spatial magic.

And that was now Little Green’s new home.

For this reason, Little Green spent a long period in a kind of existential despair, and its only hope in life was probably the nightly dinners with Alan—after all, in at least one respect, Alan had kept his promise, never skimping on the honey water for Little Green.

“Little Green… hmm, alright,”

At the sound of the name of the pampered, foolish, and irritating dragon vine, Veles’s expression shifted slightly.

But to Alan, it looked more like a hint of suppressed frustration.

“Then we’d better just head back,” Veles said softly with a sigh.

“No, what I actually meant… um,” Alan suddenly grew flustered. “I, I think that after we feed it, we can have more uninterrupted time together…”

The dark-haired mage’s voice dropped a little, and his cheeks—warm all along—glowed even redder.

Yet even like this, his gaze toward Veles was honest and straightforward.

“I’ve missed you too, Mr. Veles.”

That evening, all of Green River Village once again caught sight of the beautiful silver dragon.

Under the setting sun, the dragon glided as if dancing, effortlessly and gracefully.

The cold wind before it flowed as smoothly and obediently as a child’s ribbon, with only a few stray gusts sneaking through the dragon’s dense teeth to brush against Alan’s cheeks.

The night sky seemed to race directly above their heads, while the earth lay submissive beneath the dragon’s wings. Every city below looked as delicate and intricate as a toy.

It was a view no one else had ever experienced—but at this moment, Alan found it hard to focus on admiring it all.

“Mm… Mr. Veles, please don’t…”

He covered his face, letting out a helpless whimper inside the dragon’s thick, soft tongue.

Both of his hands clutched tightly onto the dragon’s teeth—but not out of fear of heights.

“We agreed… it’s just a joyride…”

Another jolt threw Alan’s breath into fragments.

And when he finally realized that Veles was actually jealous because of Little Green… that would be several hours later.

—

“Antara, I know.”

“Dragons really are… a little mischievous.”

“But I still love him.”

“I love him, very, very, very much.”

“Even if he’s crazy and greedy, it doesn’t matter—because the one I love is Veles, exactly as he is.”

—The End—

Author’s Note:

It’s the finale.

Thank you to the readers who’ve accompanied me from 2021 to 2024.

During the writing of Honey Wine, I finished several other works as well, but whenever other stories were mentioned, there were always readers who kept coming back to this little purely stress-relief “sweet treat” story.

Without you, Honey Wine might have inexplicably ended unfinished.

I’m deeply grateful to all the readers who followed this story and allowed it to remain complete in this world. After all, this is one of the few truly pure, sweet stories I’ve ever written—and probably one I’ll rarely write again in the future.

Thank you for your support. Love you all.

Next, I’ll be starting a somewhat strange and dark short story collection, Feast of Filth. Its tone is completely different from this story, but I still look forward to reuniting with everyone under that new work.

See you in the next story!

<< _ >>

The post Honey Wine Ch.47 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

When Veles was still a child, the most terrifying thing in the world for him was the cautious, scrutinizing gaze of his mother.

As the curse within him gradually began to show signs of its malice, the thing Veles feared most became the dark, icy dungeon beneath the Alfied Palace.

As the young prince grew older, he briefly feared death—after all, by that time, many people, their minds clouded by fear, had tried to persuade Her Majesty the Queen that it would be best to kill him before Veles caused irreparable damage.

Later, what Veles began to fear was no longer death itself, but the possibility that he would fall into becoming a demon dragon before dying…

…

In the end, Veles thought he had completely overcome fear. Those fleeting days in Green River Village gave him the most precious thing in the world, and that made him content, fearless, and at peace.

Until this day.

Until this moment.

The instant he saw Alan fall, Veles’s fear effortlessly tore his soul to shreds.

Veles once nibbled on apple slices taken from the mage’s pocket, hiding quietly in the bushes as he watched the young mage wade lightly through the clear stream, rolling up his trousers like a graceful fawn.

He remembered clearly that the mage had healthy, fair-skinned calves, slender ankles, and skin as delicate as fine ivory.

Veles also remembered how soft and warm Alan’s body was. He had felt that sensation with the tip of his most sensitive tail. When a drunken Alan grabbed his tail, Veles almost panicked and tried to flee up into the treetops like a startled cat—but in the end, he was uncontrollably drawn to that body, which smelled faintly of apple cider, and stayed by Alan’s side.

He was familiar with Alan’s scent—sometimes it smelled of honey, sometimes of cream, sometimes of peaches… And every time he drew near Alan, Veles had to carefully suppress his instincts, restraining himself from truly lunging forward to lick or suckle him.

When the Blood Moon rose, and he was trapped beneath the palace in the magical array, enduring the torturous extraction of his magic, his greatest joy came from recalling everything that belonged to Alan in his mind.

If Alan understood dragons, he would know that they were creatures with remarkably good memories.

Before their corruption, before leaving this plane, dragons could even remember, with crystal clarity after a thousand years, the fleeting fragrance of a small flower they had idly held at their lips during a walk.

…But now, to Veles, Alan was terrifyingly unfamiliar.

He clutched Alan’s body tightly, staring in horror as the other’s fair skin rapidly darkened to a ghastly gray-blue.

The gray spread swiftly from Alan’s ankles up his legs, across his abdomen, chest… and finally, his cheeks.

That soft, fragrant body stiffened in Veles’s arms, and the eyes, which had always sparkled with tiny fragments of light, began to dim and hollow, visibly fading like all those who were near death.

Antara scrambled over to Alan’s side, pouring the high-level life magic of the elven mage like a torrential downpour onto the black-haired mage.

Yet Antara could feel the brilliance of the magic flowing into a broken cup… and in an instant, it drained away from Alan’s body.

Then came Lelian and her fellow paladins, unleashing their divine arts imbued with the radiance of the Three Goddesses—but just like the life magic, their efforts had no effect on Alan.

…All of their desperate attempts only succeeded in prolonging Alan’s fragile life for a brief, agonizing moment.

Everyone could see that the black-haired mage’s life flame had thinned to a mere thread.

Even though he knew it rationally, Veles felt an indescribable, overwhelming panic.

“You’ll find a way, Antara. You’re an elf—you’re an unprecedented elven mage. Life magic is your specialty. You can save him, I know you can—”

The desperate prince tilted his head back, speaking incoherently as he pleaded with Antara, whose face was ashen.

“Alan… he’s still breathing…”

Veles carefully raised his arm, trembling as he presented Alan’s dying body before Antara.

“Look… he’s still alive.”

For some unknown reason, droplets of rain suddenly appeared on Alan’s face.

Noticing this, Veles clumsily pulled Alan back into his arms. He carefully wiped the mage’s cheeks with his sleeve, but no matter how much he wiped, the droplets only seemed to multiply.

And under his fingertips, Alan’s face grew colder and colder.

Veles suspected it was his own hands that were too cold, causing Alan’s chill. He tried to warm his body, but an uncontrollable, terrifying cold radiated from deep within him.

Veles shivered violently.

“How could Alan possibly die? He said his honey wine was almost ready. He said… when the honey wine is ready… he would—”

His voice broke apart.

Antara looked helplessly at the prince, futilely trying to explain the situation.

“I—I’m so sorry, Your Highness, but this is the toxin of a demon. As is well-known, in this world there is no person, god, potion, or spell that can remove a demon’s poison… unless—”

The elven mage’s words suddenly caught.

He didn’t finish the sentence—but in the next instant, he saw Veles’s eyes narrow sharply.

“You know what to do, don’t you.”

Antara heard Veles speak, each word deliberate.

It wasn’t a question—it was a statement.

Desperately, Antara gripped his staff tighter.

“…Yes.”

He murmured in a voice as thin as a mosquito’s whisper.

—The Queen’s judgment was not wrong.

Not at all.

The demons had indeed come to sow chaos. Yet with the rules suppressing them, and the watchful eyes of the goddesses, they could not create true disorder on their own.

And what could bring greater chaos and death than a single demon dragon?

Only dragon blood could purge the toxin of a demon.

But it had to be true, pure dragon blood.

Not a trace of human blood could mix with it…

This meant that if Veles wanted to save Alan’s life, he would have to transform completely into a demon dragon.

“Prince Veles, you must remember—you still bear the Forbidden Curse! If you truly transform into a demon dragon, the curse will utterly annihilate you. You—you—”

“I will die.”

In the face of Antara’s feeble protests, Veles remained extraordinarily calm.

No—this was more than calm. At this moment, the young prince even seemed… delighted.

“Everything is just as it should be, isn’t it?”

Veles suddenly smiled.

Antara stared at the man before him, struggling with all his strength not to flee in terror, clutching his staff.

As Veles’s overseer, Antara never dreamed he would one day witness such a near-pure, soft… smile on the face of this man called Veles.

Of course, what chilled him the most was what Veles said next.

“I’m happy, Antara. I’ve never been so grateful for this curse—I can become a dragon.”

Veles murmured, his voice gentle and sweet.

“So I can save Alan.”

“The problem isn’t that—”

“As long as he can live, that’s enough. As for me—doesn’t the existence of the Forbidden Curse work out perfectly? If I were to become a demon dragon without any restraints, I would lose consciousness and turn into a creature that knows only destruction and slaughter… and that could hurt Alan, or even put his life in danger again. But I still have the forbidden spell my mother placed upon me.”

As he spoke, Veles smiled, lifting a hand to his neck, where the sigil of the curse was spinning faster and faster, its color deepening—turning red, then gradually darkening toward black.

“So after saving Alan, I can die. That way, Alan will never be in danger again.”

“You’re insane!”

That was Lelian’s scream.

“What the hell are you saying? You’re going to turn into a demon dragon to save Alan and then go die yourself? Her Majesty set that forbidden curse back then so you wouldn’t commit s**cide—”

Before the red-haired knight could finish, a silver-blue arc of magic slammed into her, hurling her violently away.

The other paladins were flung back as well.

Cursing loudly, Lelian tried to scramble back to her feet to stop the prince’s absurd plan—but they quickly realized just how cruel the difference between humans and dragons truly was.

As long as Veles wished it, they could only remain nailed in place, utterly immobile—nothing more than “tin cans” of white steel.

“And what do you think, Antara?”

After dealing with Lelian and the other paladins, Veles abruptly withdrew that spine-chilling smile.

He turned back, staring at Antara with a blank expression.

In just a few breaths, scales had already crept over his cheeks.

The pupils set within his eyes now looked like those of a true reptile—sinister and terrifying—and, just like the dragons described in ancient texts, they held an extremity of madness within them.

“Prince Veles,” Antara whispered, making one final attempt to stop the Veles who had clearly gone mad, “…Mage Alan would be heartbroken.”

Veles’s body shuddered violently—but even after he magically flung Antara far away, not a single word came from Veles in his direction.

All he could see was Veles’s body rapidly expanding.

Dense scales covered the last patches of smooth skin. He suddenly spread his dragon wings, then lifted his head. A fierce black wind swirled around him as his neck elongated sharply. Along his spine, countless deadly spikes shot up symmetrically.

…

His shadow grew impossibly dark, impossibly vast.

Alan saw the dragon.

It was the most magnificent, most elegant, most beautiful dragon he had ever laid eyes on in his life.

Even in the meticulously crafted movies of his original world, some of which cost billions, Alan had never seen a dragon as breathtaking as the one before him.

He even wondered if he was dreaming.

Because only in dreams had he ever seen a dragon like this…

Wait—he thought, maybe he had seen this dragon in a dream.

Alan blinked, trying to clear the fog clouding his mind.

But no matter what, his vision remained hazy, and his body felt as if he had climbed mountains for three days straight and run a marathon—muscles slack, refusing to obey him.

All he could do was stare directly at the dragon.

The dragon was immense, as vast and dark as a mountain ridge at night. But when it bent its elegant neck toward someone as small as Alan, its muzzle came close to Alan’s cheek—so close that it seemed he could reach out and touch the dragon’s snow-white, razor-sharp teeth, or feel the fine, rigid scales that made a soft metallic rustling sound when rubbed together.

“Alan… my Alan.”

Alan heard the dragon calling him.

For some reason, just hearing that voice made his eyes sting, and tears nearly welled up immediately.

“Drip—tick—”

In fact, the next moment, Alan did feel something wet fall, quickly soaking him through.

“Drip—tick—”

“Drip—tick—”

One drop, then another.

The warm liquid, tinged with the metallic-sweet scent of blood, quickly drenched Alan.

It wasn’t just any liquid—it was the dragon’s own blood, endlessly flowing from the black dragon’s body.

That warm blood rapidly drove away the lingering cold that had plagued Alan’s body.

“You… you’re hurt? Are you okay?”

Alan muttered instinctively.

He struggled to move his eyes, following the source of the black dragon’s bleeding—and then he saw it with sheer terror… a heart.

A heart so enormous that it could almost swallow him whole.

Black dragon hide, deep crimson muscle, ripped open by its own master with a huge gaping wound. The snow-white ribs spread outward like the petals of a flower, soaked in flowing blood. Deep within this shredded chest hung the dragon’s heart—dark red and still beating vigorously even at this moment.

The dragon pumped that blood through its gaping wound, letting it pour over the pale-faced black-haired mage below.

“Veles… Mr…”

Seeing this, Alan’s first words weren’t a scream—they were a single name.

“Veles?!”

The next second, his chaotic mind was yanked back into clarity by sheer terror. His memories began rushing back, flooding into his consciousness.

He finally remembered everything—his battle against the demon duke Hieronymusa, Veles descending before him like a hero, and the moment he had been bitten by the venomous snake.

He also remembered the half-dream, half-waking conversations he had heard while under the demon’s poison.

Tears suddenly welled in Alan’s eyes. He stared at Veles in disbelief, desperately trying to force words out of his throat. But the overwhelming emotion made him only gasp for air, shedding tears without being able to utter even a single sound.

Once fully awake, he could no longer ignore the ominous crimson runes etched across the black dragon’s body.

They were like instruments of torture, embedded deep within the dragon. Decades of accumulated magic now surged into demon-dragon Veles through those characters—Alan could even see the terrifying red glow faintly seeping through the gaps between Veles’s scales.

Perhaps only a heartbeat, or a few breaths, were enough for the curse to completely tear apart this dragon named Veles.

“It hurts… Mr. Veles… your wounds look so painful, so painful. You shouldn’t do this to yourself. You should take better care of yourself… You’re the most beautiful dragon in this world…”

Alan finally managed to speak.

Yet the whisper spilling from his throat was fragmented, just like his tears—utterly incoherent.

The black-haired mage felt as if his heart itself were shattering.

Summoning all his strength, he lifted a hand, striving to get closer to Veles.

“Don’t cry, Mr. Alan.”

Veles saw Alan’s face, curled into a weeping, tear-streaked mess.

Instinctively, he wanted to lift a hand and wipe away Alan’s tears. But as he tried, he realized he could no longer move. Just as Alan had guessed, the forbidden curse placed by Her Majesty the Queen was about to tear him apart.

And indeed…

It did hurt.

But Veles was grateful for this pain, so deep it reached his very soul. This pain pinned his human reason firmly within the body of the demon dragon, giving him the time to cut open his own heart, letting the blood that could purge the poison flow into the body of the one he loved.

Veles watched Alan’s breathing shift from weak to steady, his color changing from ashen blue to a healthy flush.

He felt indescribable happiness.

Yet at the same time, he felt profound sadness.

He knew Alan would be heartbroken—perhaps this was what he secretly desired. After all, a demon dragon is a greedy and selfish creature. Even if he willingly gave his life for Alan, he still wanted to leave an indelible mark upon the black-haired mage’s soul.

Veles wanted Alan to remember him forever.

But when Alan lifted his face and met Veles’s eyes, regret struck him anew.

‘I shouldn’t have made him so sad.’ Veles thought, his chest aching.

This wasn’t a dream.

It was reality.

When Alan was truly pressed against Veles, face to face, Veles realized that Alan truly, truly cared for him.

Whether as a human, or as a demon dragon.

Veles felt happiness.

But he was about to die.

“I… I don’t want to let you go, Mr. Alan.”

Countless emotions collided in Veles’s chest. On one hand, he was so happy that he could die without regret; on the other, he was so unwilling to part that he wished he could become a wandering spirit, haunting the world forever, lingering beside his innocent and pure lover.

His time with Alan had been so short—so short that even Veles felt tears welling in his own eyes.

“And… there’s something I want to tell you…”

Veles tilted his head slightly. The reality of his imminent death stripped away all hesitation.

He extended his tongue and licked away the bitterness of Alan’s tears.

“Veles?”

Alan’s eyes widened.

At this moment, even Veles could see it—Alan’s tear-filled pupils reflected the flowing red light of the forbidden curse.

The last time, in a dream, Veles had regretted not finishing the words before Alan had kissed him.

Now, he had to seize the moment.

“I love you, Alan. I love you so much, and I will love you forever.”

“I love you too.”

In the final second before the red light of death exploded, Veles heard Alan’s voice.

In a blur, it seemed as if the mage he loved most lifted his head and kissed him—ugly, monstrous as he now was as a demon dragon.

A blinding light enveloped the entire world.

The spell, specially designed to annihilate a demon dragon, struck like lightning, devouring the perception and sight of everyone in that brief instant.

Everything twisted. Everything seemed to burn. Every tiniest magical particle in the air melted from the overload.

At the moment the curse activated, both Antara and Lelian were thrown into a pure white void, their senses overwhelmed. Long afterward, the remnants of that indescribable, soul-stealing brilliance still lingered on their retinas.

—

“Bang—”

At the same moment, accompanied by the crisp sound of something breaking,

Queen Alfied, busy with her heavy duties, suddenly stood up, staring intently at the staff beside her—which had been snapped in two.

Moments later, her body wavered, and she collapsed uncontrollably to the ground.

For years, the woman had been flawless, concealing all emotions beneath the mask of “Queen.” Yet in this moment, she could no longer hold back. Staring at the fragments of her staff, tears streamed down her face.

—

In Green River Village, once he could finally manage to open his eyes, Antara silently rose to his feet.

The dragon-curse magic imposed on him had already shattered with the disappearance of its master. Both Antara and Lelian were once again free.

Yet neither felt any joy from this newfound freedom.

“Prince Veles… was utterly foolish.”

Lelian moved sluggishly, hardly resembling a great swordmaster.

As she picked up her sword from the ground, her face remained stern, and she didn’t even glance in the direction where the demon dragon had appeared.

Antara drew a deep breath, forcing himself to calm his emotions.

“At least he fulfilled his own wish. I’ll go check on Mage Alan—I imagine he’ll need our help…”

As he spoke, the elven mage’s expression was grim as he gazed toward the place where the light had erupted. After a long moment, he began moving forward slowly.

Yet as he pushed aside the suddenly overgrown vines and underbrush, what entered his vision was a figure that shouldn’t even exist.

It was a dragon.

A dragon that held the frail young mage firmly in its claws, its entire body radiating brilliant silver light.

Not a dragon crushed or torn apart by a forbidden curse. Not a corpse.

A dragon. A dreamlike silver dragon.

And as a mage most attuned to life itself, Antara strained every sense in terror…

Yet no matter how he probed, he could detect not even the faintest trace of a curse on this unfamiliar silver dragon.

Of course… that seemed only natural.

It was well known that demon dragons were the product of curses. As fallen, corrupted creatures, they had only one form: the pitch-black, terrifying black dragon.

So it made perfect sense that there was no trace of a curse on the silver dragon—ha ha ha—what the heck?!

Another well-known “fun fact”: all uncorrupted dragons had already left this plane of existence.

The only dragons left behind were demon dragons.

So… then who on earth was this silver dragon, the kind that should only exist in the realms of the gods?

It couldn’t possibly be…

“Hmm?”

At that moment, Antara heard a weak groan from Mage Alan.

The black-haired mage, being carefully cradled in the silver dragon’s claws like a treasured artifact, still looked a little dazed.

He steadied himself against the dragon’s translucent, burnished silver claws and staggered upright.

The first thing he did upon opening his eyes was lift his gaze toward the silver dragon.

Tears still streaked Alan’s face from moments before, his nose red from crying—but when he saw the silver dragon, he paused for only a brief second before bursting out with sheer joy, calling the name he’d longed to speak:

“Mr. Veles!”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Author’s Note:

Of course, saving the prince involved a true love’s kiss! Hee hee hee…

……

Lart: Ribbit?

<< _ >>

The post Honey Wine Ch.46 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Hieronymusa had to admit that, as an exceptionally ancient demon, it was not the type with an overabundance of pride.

This had earned it a reputation among its Abyssal kin that was somewhat less than “majestic.” Still, after surviving the long ages and once more reaching the far shore of the Abyss—only to be forced into confrontation with the cursed child named Veles—the demon duke found itself grateful for possessing that small virtue.

Otherwise, it likely would not have endured that day’s battle.

In fact, not long after the fight began, Hieronymusa was already feeling a twinge of regret.

Engaging in a harmless bout with the dragon-blooded child of Alfied had been part of the demon’s plan from the very beginning—but in its expectations, Veles should never have been this strong.

Think about it: even if that “human” truly carried within his body the extremely tainted yet extraordinarily powerful blood of a demon dragon, in the end he was still only a “human”—at least, he had been before the curse consumed him completely.

And as long as His Highness the prince still belonged within the category of humanity, then in theory, it should have been impossible for him to inflict any real damage on an ancient and powerful demon duke.

Yet the course of events far exceeded Hieronymusa’s expectations.

When Veles first appeared, the demon duke had felt no real sense of danger at all (even though it had been swatted away before it could so much as greet him). After all, the foolish look the young prince displayed upon seeing his lover was exactly the same as that of his ancient forebears.

Well—foolish genes were always the most stubborn.

At the time, Hieronymusa had even had the leisure to size up Veles’s face—so reminiscent of a silver dragon’s—and snort inwardly with disdain.

What it had not expected was that what Veles inherited from the silver dragon was not merely his looks, nor just that hopelessly love-brained disposition…

But power as well.

—It was power taken to the extreme, a force so overwhelming that humans, gods, and even demons could not help but tremble before it.

The moment Veles caught sight of Hieronymusa, he swept the black-haired mage up in one motion and charged at the demon duke like a raging tempest.

And when the demon duke, caught completely off guard, took that wind-rending blow head-on, it was struck with horrified clarity: Veles was far, far stronger than he appeared.

The man still retained a great many human traits (the fact that he could still communicate normally with others was proof enough that this human male’s soul had not yet been completely devoured by the curse). And yet, the power spilling out of the cursed prince as he fought was already enough to make the instinct known as “danger warning” scream shrilly inside Hieronymusa’s body.

Veles scarcely even used magic when he attacked. More often than not, he relied directly on his mutated yet terrifyingly powerful physical body to assault the demon duke. And even while burdened with a weak, helpless human as dead weight, Veles’s movements remained swift and ferocious—

So much so that the demon duke could not help but recall the agony of its last encounter with a true dragon…

And that bone-deep, unforgettable terror.

“V—”

After several of its tentacles had been shorn away by Veles, Hieronymusa’s expression twisted slightly. It lifted its head and, in the sweetest, weakest voice it could muster in its long existence, called out to the slender figure cutting through the air above.

It should be mentioned that Hieronymusa was known in the Abyss as the “Silver Tongue,” and its greatest feat was having once deceived a god who had carelessly fallen into the Abyssal domain.

It was certain that as long as it could find the chance to speak, it could proceed just as planned—using His Highness the prince’s pitiable bloodline and his inevitably hopeless future to plant a poisonous seed within the man’s soul…

Just as it had once done to another dragon—a true dragon, powerful, unfallen.

But what the demon duke had never imagined was that Veles would strip away even the possibility of letting it speak.

It had only just opened its mouth when a flash of cold light suddenly slashed past.

Smack—

As a peach-pink tongue covered in fine barbs dropped to the ground, a violent surge of pain exploded at the root of Hieronymusa’s tongue.

“—Sss*($#@%!”

Although it took the demon duke no more than a single heartbeat to grow a new tongue, the pain still forced it to spill out a string of garbled Abyssal curses.

Hieronymusa wanted to curse that damned human.

Unfortunately, it never even found the chance to do so.

Fighting Veles felt like being swept, without warning, straight into a raging tsunami: above its head were maddened gales that blotted out the sky and waves as heavy as mountains; beneath its feet churned terrifying, surging whirlpools—and Veles, this prince’s astonishing killing intent and fury were even more overwhelming than a true tsunami.

In the end, the demon duke was forced to take an enormous risk—one that might draw the attention of those detestable women—and pull even more of its true body through the sealed rift on the far side, into the present material plane.

As the power of darkness and decay continued to pour forth, the pressure imposed by the laws of the world upon Hieronymusa suddenly intensified.

The demon duke’s habitual disguise magic began to dissolve under the pressure of some unspeakable force, and its true form gradually revealed itself in the material world. And if Hieronymusa had once resembled an ugly patchwork of rotting sludge, then now it had become so grotesque and deformed as to be almost unwatchable.

Its body swelled to an enormous, bloated mass. The folds and mucous membranes of its softer outer flesh were forced fully open by the rapidly expanding power and slime beneath the skin, exposing shades of dark green and purple that only corpses soaked in filthy water for days would ever display.

Meanwhile, the “trophies” that had once covered its back—the heads of those unfortunate souls whose bodies and spirits it had deceived and stolen—were also mutating at a visible speed. From their eye sockets, ears, and mouths sprouted countless organs that should never have existed: emaciated arms with skeletal proportions that defied all biological sense, tentacles covered from end to end in irregular scales…

Every hideous, bizarre appendage the human imagination could conceive burst endlessly through the holes in those skull-like faces—

And then reached straight toward Veles, and the young mage cradled in his arms.

“Urgh…”

Alan clenched his teeth hard, forcing himself not to retch at this moment.

Being carried through the air by Mr. Veles was a wonderful experience—but also a slightly dizzying one.

Not to mention that after enduring a roller-coaster ride of sharp turns and breakneck speed, the first thing Alan saw when he opened his eyes was a huge mass of something on the ground that absolutely deserved to be censored.

“Don’t look. It’s filthy.”

A cold hand gently covered Alan’s eyes.

Along with Veles’s low whisper came a current of magic tinged with frost and snow, swiftly washing away Alan’s discomfort—like a glass of lemonade in summer, packed with ice, lemon juice, and honey.

“Th-thank you, Mr. Veles.”

“No need to thank me. This is… this is what I should have done.”

Veles warned himself not to let his gaze cling too tightly to Alan (after all, his dragon pupils were not exactly fit to be seen right now), but while he could control his eyes, he could not control his sense of touch.

He felt it with painful clarity—from the palm of his hand came the faint ticklish sensation of Alan’s eyelashes lightly brushing against his skin.

The heartbeat that had remained steady and powerful throughout the battle against the demon stumbled by a single beat.

…And immediately afterward, Hieronymusa noticed that the look Veles cast down at it from above had grown distinctly more impatient.

“Cursed child, fallen dragon—you will regret your present arrogance—”

The demon duke’s venomous tongue hissed within its mouth, releasing a spiteful, resentful murmur.

Veles merely frowned. He suddenly spread the wings on his back, and invisible currents of air—obedient as the most faithful attendants—lifted him swiftly into the sky. At the same instant, he raised his hand, palm aimed straight at Hieronymusa.

The demon heard no incantation, saw no magic circles blazing with light.

But it did see several dazzling clusters of blue radiance take shape around Veles. Each was roughly the size of a human head, their surfaces draped in a layer of shifting, illusory silver “silk.”

Hieronymusa remembered at once: in this world, only dragons could use magic without any incantation at all. And the dragonfire they wielded—because of its extreme temperature—would shed all traces of red and yellow, transforming into a seemingly cold silver-blue.

And almost at the exact moment this realization struck the demon—

That dragonfire came down like a torrential rain.

More precisely, it came crashing down upon the demon duke Hieronymusa standing on the ground below.

The air warped under the searing heat.

The demon duke’s enormous, bloated body instantly turned into a vast mass of molten pitch.

It was burned black—blacker, more utterly charred than Little Green had been back then.

A shrill scream tore out from deep within its body. Extreme rage and agony shredded the small remnant of rational thought inside the demon duke. From the seams of its scorched flesh, countless fresh, tender, threadlike tentacles thrust outward, ripping apart the brittle, carbonized skin.

A massive, malevolent face suddenly forced its way out of a gash torn open across Hieronymusa’s back.

That face bore only a single cloudy, bloodshot bulging eye, surrounded by innumerable small mouths clustered around it—

That was the demon’s true visage.

It stared fixedly at the slender figure in the sky that belonged to Veles, and at the frail human tightly held in the man’s arms.

“I curse you in the name of the demon duke Hieronymusa.”

Hieronymusa split its mouth open. The voices of men, women, children, the elderly… spilled out of its body all at once, overlapping into a single sentence.

“Prince Veles of Alfied—you will witness the one you love die in your arms. You will fall and become a demon dragon, and your soul—”

Your soul will wander forever in chaos, forever searching for your lost beloved across the silent wastelands of the dead.

Once again, the demon duke failed to finish its curse.

But it felt not the slightest hint of frustration because of it…

Look—just as it had anticipated. The moment Veles heard that the target of the curse was his beloved, he completely lost his head. Without hesitation, he abandoned his advantage in altitude, drew in his wings, raised his greatsword high, and plunged straight down toward it.

‘How… foolish.’ So thought Hieronymusa.

A stench of rot seeped out from its pores. In the next second, its form abruptly surged several meters taller, and it opened its gaping, blood-soaked maw toward Veles.

If nothing went wrong, the demon duke would have no trouble at all disgorging every last drop of venom hidden in the poison sac beneath its tongue, pouring it all over that ignorant, overconfident prince.

But that was only on the condition that… nothing went wrong.

In reality, Hieronymusa’s body never even left the ground. It had barely lifted its head when it felt an unprecedented force trip it up.

Caught completely off guard, the demon duke crashed back down onto the earth—and at the same time, its vision was once again filled with vast swathes of that all-too-familiar, utterly detestable green.

That’s right. Those damn pumpkins, eggplants, tomatoes, and cucumbers again.

“（%@$#%@!^@(!”

The demon duke unleashed the most vicious curse of its entire existence in the Abyssal tongue.

“Ah… it looks pretty angry.”

Alan lowered his head, peering at Hieronymusa, which seemed just about ready to explode with rage, and rubbed the tip of his nose a little uneasily.

“I didn’t cause you trouble, did I?” the black-haired mage asked weakly.

As a former adventurer, Alan knew very well that sometimes, help from the weak wasn’t help at all—it was just getting in the way of the strong.

But just now, the instant he sensed the demon duke’s despicable intent, he had acted purely on reflex.

“No, of course not. You did very well, Mr. Alan… I mean, thank you for protecting me.”

Veles’s face flushed bright red as he hurried to respond.

He did try to make his reply sound calmer and more composed (supposedly, the more cool-headed and self-possessed a man was in the face of danger, the more charming he appeared), but his heart was pounding so loudly that he nearly bit his own tongue.

Being protected by the person one is meant to protect is a strangely wondrous feeling.

Veles knew very well that, to the people of this continent, someone like him—already displaying so many traits of a demon dragon—was less a companion than a ticking time bomb. Those who loved him feared that he would one day fall and become a demon dragon.

Those who hated him, meanwhile, feared the terrifying power he would wield after that fall.

But whether they loved him or hated him… no one worried that someone as powerful as he already was might be hurt.

Much less that anyone might try to protect him.

Except for Alan.

Only Alan.

Alan, whom Veles loved with all his heart.

“I’m very happy.”

Veles lowered his head and said softly to Alan, his voice barely above a whisper.

The rest of the battle ended swiftly.

It could only be said that dragons truly were the natural enemies of demons. Even though Hieronymusa was a demon duke—and one driven into madness by excessive provocation—when all its attacks landed on Veles, they amounted to little more than scratching an itch.

What’s more, after Alan had “involuntarily” “protected” Veles that once, the young prince fought as though he had taken some kind of stimulant, becoming even more ferocious and overwhelming than before.

What tipped the battle even further into a one-sided rout was a vast expanse of white light that followed close on the heels of Veles’s assault.

That white light was like a finely woven net, gentle yet insidious, seizing the moment when the demon duke was battered into helplessness and draping itself over its body. And the seemingly soft glow, the instant it touched the demon’s flesh, forced from it screams far more piercing and agonized than before.

Well, of course it screamed—under that white light, every inch of the demon duke’s flesh hissed as though plunged into strong acid, smoking continuously and exuding a suffocating stench.

That white radiance was the power of the Goddess of Light.

And the ones who finally summoned the goddess’s attention—and exposed Hieronymusa, this “stowaway,” to her gaze—were none other than a group of holy paladins who had returned after retreating.

After escorting the villagers of Green River Village to safety, Lelian immediately led several holy paladins back to the village. They returned prepared to die—but in reality, when they arrived, they happened to catch the scene of Veles single-handedly beating up and outright bullying the demon duke.

An opportunity like this was not to be missed…

Lelian and the other paladins began summoning the goddess on the spot.

And thus came that vast expanse of white light.

Beyond that, reinforcements from the royal capital of Alfied to the river valley region finally arrived as well.

Because of limitations in mana reserves, Antara had opened several teleportation circles in succession, hopping through them one after another, and only then managed to catch up with his frantic prince.

Upon reaching the scene, the elven mage naturally joined in the collective beating of the demon duke Hieronymusa as well…

After suffering all of the above, even a high-ranking demon as formidable as Hieronymusa could no longer hold out.

On the patch of ground where it (or rather, its remains) lay, a pitch-black rift suddenly opened out of thin air.

Countless pairs of misshapen, slender hands stretched out from the darkness within the crack, then clutched tightly onto Hieronymusa’s body.

The demon’s body began to sink—at an almost deceptively slow pace—into the depths of the rift.

The demon duke’s attempt to invade the Material Plane was completely shattered.

The battle could finally be considered over…

At least, it looked that way.

…

“Tch. If it can’t win, all it knows how to do is run back to the Abyss.”

Lelian rested her sword on her shoulder and cursed fiercely at the sight before her.

“There’s nothing we can do. Killing a demon in the Material Plane could cause serious contamination,” Antara said in a timely manner to the red-haired vice-captain of the royal knights.

A few seconds later, his gaze fixed on the frog perched atop Lelian’s head.

“Ah, this one is…?”

“Yes. It’s him.”

…

Amid the whispered murmurs of the human companions, Veles slowly descended to the ground, cradling Alan in his arms. He looked at the demon’s shattered, nearly liquefied remains—so mangled that “minced meat” was almost the only fitting description—and yet his expression remained dark and unyielding.

Judging from the stillness of Hieronymusa as it returned to the Abyss, it seemed that the high-ranking demon had lost consciousness.

And such a weakened demon, once back in the Abyss, would likely face the claws and teeth of other demons—the demon duke hidden under the shadows of the Alfied Kingdom might soon meet the ugly end of its wretched life.

Yet, for some unknown reason, a vague and inexplicable unease lingered in Veles’s chest.

“Prince Veles of Alfied—you will witness the one you love die in your arms. You will fall and become a demon dragon.”

In a daze, Veles even thought he heard Hieronymusa’s sinister, venomous whisper again at his ear.

A curse—meant for both him and Alan.

“Hehehe…”

And as if sensing even the briefest flicker of weakness in Veles’s heart, the demon seemed to stir once more.

Just as Hieronymusa’s head was about to sink entirely into the Abyss, its bloated, iron-blue face quivered.

The demon’s protruding single eye fixed directly on Alan.

“Then I shall wait in the Abyss for your soul, Your Highness of Alfied, corroded utterly by despair and sorrow.”

Most of the demon’s misshapen mouths had already returned to the Abyss, and the duke’s words sounded distant and muffled—but it was precisely this indistinctness that made them all the more ominous.

Veles’s heart shuddered violently.

Acting on instinct, he suddenly spread his dragon wings and wrapped them tightly around Alan at his side—the fine scales covering those wings were like armor. Even the sharpest weapons or the most malicious spells in the world could not pierce them to harm Alan.

Veles’s movements were already as fast as lightning—but the unexpected happened even faster than lightning.

At the very moment Hieronymusa’s words fell, a small, pitch-black snake darted out from the shadows near Alan’s feet.

It bit down on Alan’s ankle.

Although in the next instant, Veles’s pure white dragonfire incinerated the demon’s “venomous snake” into a wisp of blue smoke, Alan’s body still went limp and collapsed in front of Veles.

<< _ >>

The post Honey Wine Ch.45 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Alan had reached his limit.

His heart pounded rapidly, yet it felt as heavy as a massive millstone. And now this “millstone” was desperately squeezing out the last miserable remnants of magic from his already drained body.

Alan had never known that magical exhaustion could be this agonizing: a strong metallic stench churned from his stomach up to the back of his tongue, then pressed by his larynx all the way into his nasal cavity. Every capillary felt like it had been soaked in sulfuric acid; countless invisible, scorching iron needles stabbed madly along his nerves.

And yet, even like this, the magic flowing from Alan’s body was becoming thinner, weaker.

Fortunately, the plants at this moment displayed a gratifyingly extreme generosity—they responded with astonishing zeal to Alan’s crude, fragmented summoning. From pumpkins to eggplants, they stretched and strengthened themselves with all their might, placing themselves between him and Hieronymusa.

Honestly, their performance far exceeded Alan’s expectations. Until today, he had never realized that the solanine in unripe tomatoes, when enhanced by magic, could actually irritate and corrode even high-level demons. The fuzzy, adorable little thorns on pumpkin leaves, when reinforced and enlarged, could become genuinely lethal weapons (Hieronymusa, behind him, probably felt this deeply when a large mass of his tentacles had its surface scraped away to reveal the raw, red flesh underneath)…

“How… how ridiculous.”

Hieronymusa snapped his fingers, retracting the troublesome tentacles behind him that throbbed painfully, and turned his gaze toward Alan with even greater malice and wickedness.

“To try to deal with me using this farce, Mage Alan—I swear, you will regret your foolish defiance.”

The demon whispered in a chilling, sinister tone. Clearly, he was growing impatient at the sight of being blocked by a whole pile of fruits and vegetables.

Almost immediately after his words, a torrent of deep-red magical flames poured from the demon’s mouth. The plants Alan had summoned were instantly reduced to light, black ash by the fire, hot enough to melt steel—leaving not even a trace of smoke.

As for Little Green, it was the only plant able to maintain its shape in the magical fire—but even it could only preserve its form, nothing more.

Through the flames, the dragon vine that Alan had meticulously raised with honey water and dessert essences—so delicate it would cry over even being moved to a different jewelry box—proved so fierce that even Hieronymusa couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow in surprise.

After the previous battles, Little Green was no longer that glossy, vibrant green dragon vine. Now it was completely charred; each movement scattered black ash from its crisp, burnt leaves and fragile branches into the wind.

Anyone could see that, as a dragon vine, it had reached the very end of its life.

Yet even now, this blackened vine, reduced to a small fragment, still struggled desperately to crawl before Alan. It painstakingly propped up its remaining fragile branches and opened its last flower—its petals so damaged that only a few “teeth” remained—trying to repel the demon that advanced step by step.

Plop.

Plop.

…

The last few drops of murky, poisonous sap were forced out by Little Green, falling from the cut ends of its black-brown branches to the ground.

“Tch… dragon vine… this vigorous, troublesome weed is just as annoying as ever.”

Hieronymusa yawned, muttering the words to himself.

Just as it was about to once again summon magical fire to burn Little Green to ash, the battered, exhausted mage lunged forward with astonishing speed, clutching the dragon vine—reduced to its last fragile twig—tightly to his chest.

Little Green’s leaves drooped softly over Alan’s wrists. It twitched, still trying to struggle, but Alan gently held it in place.

“No, it’s fine, Little Green. You’ve done very well.”

Alan’s voice was hoarse. He didn’t even lift his head to glance at the demon duke; all his focus was on the dragon vine in his arms, barely clinging to life.

Upon hearing Alan’s praise, Little Green twitched one final time.

A single tendril, thin as a worm, curled weakly around Alan’s finger. It was only then that Alan realized how little of the once-robust Little Green remained.

It was even smaller than when he had first seen it.

Now, if he returned it to its jewelry box, it could probably take a honey-water bath there with ease.

“When we get home, I’ll make you the sweetest honey water.”

“Thank you, Little Green.”

The dragon vine’s tendrils drooped, utterly motionless, offering no further response.

Alan pressed his lips together.

He didn’t want to show grief or pain in front of a demon, but those aching, burning tears still filled his eyes.

This, unsurprisingly, seemed to delight the demon immensely.

“All right, all right—playtime’s over.”

Alan heard Hieronymusa’s malicious chuckle. The demon clapped its hands and crouched toward him.

“I’m hungry.”

Alan heard it speak.

As the words left its mouth, several cold, stinking tentacles slithered toward him.

Alan didn’t close his eyes.

He stared directly into Hieronymusa’s murky, corrupted eyes, bracing himself for the immense pain that was about to come.

And it was precisely this that proved fortunate: because he kept his eyes open, Alan saw the blackened shadow even before Hieronymusa could.

What appeared first was, in fact, the teleportation runes beneath the clouds.

The runes spun in the air like whirlpools, glowing with a dazzling silver-blue magical light that no caster could ignore. Yet at this moment, even more striking than the runes themselves was the gruesome figure tearing through the portal, which hadn’t even waited for the runes to fully form.

To Alan, everything else seemed to fade away—or perhaps, simply stop—except for the young mage’s heart, suddenly revived and pounding wildly in his chest.

The dangerous demon duke, the life-threatening threat just steps away… all these things that had seemed so crucial were effortlessly swept aside by the unstoppable tide of his racing heartbeat. Alan felt as if he were drowning, unable to move, foolishly raising his head with wide eyes, reflecting that breathtaking, soul-stirring figure.

Compared to the last time he had seen him in reality, this figure descending with a sharp wind and murderous intent had already transformed drastically. At least when he had said goodbye to Alan in Green River Village, the man named Veles had been extraordinarily handsome, with a powerful, fierce dragon tail—but otherwise, he had appeared mostly human.

But now… no matter how heavy the cloak he wore, no matter how carefully he tried to conceal himself, he could no longer hide his inhuman appearance.

Behind the man, a pair of immense dragon wings unfurled, so vast they seemed capable of blotting out the sky, like a swath of solidified night. As he descended at incredible speed, Alan clearly saw the fine scales running from his neck to his cheeks, and the long, sturdy tail that cut through the air to maintain balance.

At this moment, the half-human, half-dragon being resembled a meteor wreathed in black flames, plummeting straight toward Alan.

Time slowed, so slow that Alan almost felt he could imprint the powerful, handsome figure of Veles onto his soul. Yet time also rushed, so fast that Alan’s whispered breath got caught in his chest, not even fully exhaled. With a deafening “BOOM” and a cloud of exploding dust, the demon duke Hieronymusa, who had just stood before Alan, was blasted away by a dark shadow.

“Mr… Mr. Veles—”

Alan’s eyelashes trembled. His lips pressed together. His longing for the man made him feel as if he were dreaming, almost too afraid to speak the name aloud.

Then he was forcefully pressed into a solid, familiar embrace.

“Alan… my Alan—”

Veles’s voice came from above Alan’s head. It was completely different from the fierce, merciless figure that had arrived just moments ago. His voice was hoarse, even trembling slightly.

No—more accurately, the arms that gripped Alan so tightly were trembling too.

Alan’s face was pressed against Veles’s chest from the intensity of the embrace. Perhaps because of the prince’s overwhelming emotions, or some strange illusion, he felt as if he could hear the pounding of Veles’s draconic heart even through the thick layer of mithril armor.

After a while, Veles struggled to control his instincts, finally loosening his grip just enough on the person in his arms.

However, the moment he lowered his gaze and saw the blood on Alan’s face and body, his pupils narrowed into thin slits uncontrollably.

“…I’m late.”

He raised a hand, carefully brushing his fingertips against Alan’s cheek. The dragon claws, capable of effortlessly tearing through iron shields, trembled and recoiled as if burned when they touched Alan’s blood.

But soon, Veles gently pressed his hand back against Alan.

“I’m so sorry, Alan… I was too late, and I let that wretched, corrupted thing hurt you…”

His words stumbled over themselves in apology. By the end, his speech gradually lost its human tone, the low, hoarse voice tinged with an unmistakable dragon’s roar.

The forbidden spell around his neck, glowing with an ominous golden-red light, trembled slightly in response.

“I’m fine… it’s just a scratch. Everyone… and even Little Green did their best to protect me,” Alan sniffled, forcing a small smile, trying to reassure the man in front of him, who was clearly already terrified.

But when he noticed the trickling blood from Veles’s neck, the panic shifted to Alan himself.

“W-wait… Veles, you’re bleeding!”

“Ah… this… it’s nothing,” Veles replied.

The sharp pain from the forbidden spell had snapped him fully awake. Realizing he had inadvertently revealed his draconic form in front of Alan, his heart tightened involuntarily.

Yes, Veles had already felt Alan’s affirmation in his dreams—but even so, he could not suppress the panic and helplessness rising within him.

Veles was fully aware of just how grotesque he had become.

Beyond the wings he could not retract, his arms were completely covered in scales. From his waist downward, he had long since lost any semblance of human form. His leg muscles were swollen and thick, his joints bent backward, and his feet had become true dragon claws. Each scale, evenly covering his skin, was as large as a human hand, colored a poisonous, iridescent black.

He was gradually falling toward becoming a demon dragon, the forbidden spell around his neck, growing hotter and tighter by the second, marking the transformation.

Yet, even with the most exacting, critical scrutiny, Veles saw not the slightest hint of disgust or resistance in the eyes of the young mage he loved.

In fact, Alan’s eyes looked at him like the most precious gemstones in the world, dazzling and radiant.

Clap—clap—clap—

At that moment, a most annoying sound of applause interrupted the precious reunion between Veles and Alan.

“Hey… did you two forget something?”

The ancient demon duke fixed them with a strange expression, mockingly reminding the pair of something.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Author’s Note:

Hieronymusa: “…So… I’m part of your little play too, huh?”

<< _ >>

The post Honey Wine Ch.44 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Following Alan’s instructions, Lelian fled the scene of the battle against the demon. As she guided the bewildered villagers of Green River Village to safety, she quickly activated a message rune, sending both a warning and a plea for help to the royal city.

Upon receiving the news, Queen Alfied and the royal archmage Kalonsa’s faces both darkened—by the Light Goddess, in these times, very few could make these two, standing at the pinnacle of power and magic, look so grave.

Yet the demon duke Hieronymusa was undoubtedly one of them.

(Of course, the fact that Prince Lart had been turned into a frog by the wild fae’s magic left the queen awkwardly stunned for a moment as well.)

If a demon duke suddenly appearing in the Material Plane was already enough to trouble the queen and her court mage, what came next was even worse—while the queen wore a solemn expression, silently calculating on Kalonsa’s magical chessboard the number of knight squads stationed near Green River Village—(clearly, since the village lay in a magic desert, the troops capable of countering demons were not plentiful)—the cold, heavy castle of the royal city suddenly shook violently, like an earthquake.

Of course, it could not have been an ordinary earthquake.

It was the noise caused instinctively by Prince Veles, the cursed child bound in the castle’s underground palace, scion of dragon blood, reacting to intense mental agitation.

A noise of extraordinary magnitude.

“I’m going to Green River Village.”

Veles’ expression was blank as he stared through the cold, rune-covered fence at his mother.

“…Only I can fight that kind of creature. I carry the blood of a magical dragon, and the natural enemy of demons is precisely the magical dragon. I am far better equipped to handle demons than any of your troops—let alone the fact that this time, it’s a demon duke that has infiltrated. Mother, you should know, humans have no chance against such high-level demons.”

His voice had little inflection, yet Queen Alfied could sense the intensity of his resolve—this was hardly a plea; it sounded more like Veles was issuing a notification and explanation before forcibly leaving the underground palace.

“I’ve already dispatched reinforcements to Green River Village—the Holy Light Knights are accompanied by a large number of Light Priests…”

The queen took a deep breath and tried to speak as calmly as possible to Veles.

Even as she spoke, she deliberately tilted her head away, trying not to look at the scraps of iron scattered at Veles’ feet.

Not long ago, those fragments had still been bound to his ankles, wrists, and neck—the remnants of the manacles, each link inscribed with runes in mithril and secret silver designed to suppress and siphon the dark power surging through Veles’ body like a volcano or tidal wave.

After the Blood Moon had passed, and Veles’ curse had largely subsided, those manacles should theoretically have reduced him to a soft, inert husk, incapable of movement—yet now they lay scattered on the floor, shattered, entirely useless as restraints.

Veles’ magical power had barely flared, and it had already overloaded the enchanted shackles until they melted themselves away.

“Holy Knights? Light Priests?” Veles suddenly lifted his head, his silver eyes piercing straight at the queen. “The Holy Light Knights are at least two days from Green River Village. They can’t even cross the Misty Swamp. If the Spider Queen casually sends out even one pawn stripped of its rank, those white-iron tin cans will lose over half their fighting strength. By the time they arrive, how many humans in the valley do you think will even survive?”

“Hey, Your Highness, watch your tone! I know you care deeply about the safety of the kingdom, and yes, demons are indeed dangerous. But Captain Lelian said that, with the clever help of a village mage, that demon duke has already been forcibly separated from its host body, which greatly reduces its threat. Your Highness, is it really necessary to be so agitated, so—”

So furious and frenzied.

Kalonsa didn’t finish the last sentence.

He had never seen such an expression on Prince Veles’ face before.

This noble yet dangerous prince, when refuting the queen, spoke with a tone as sharp as a poisoned dagger. His manner was so aggressive that the latent dragon authority radiating from him made even a high-level mage like the queen pale and break into cold sweat.

Kalonsa felt a profound sense of dissonance. He had invested considerable attention in Veles for various reasons, and he knew just how cold and unyielding the silent prince’s heart could be. Yet now, through Veles’ unusually forceful exterior, the archmage faintly perceived a trace of ultimate fear and panic seeping from deep within the prince’s soul.

What could Green River Village possibly hold that made the dragon-blood-cursed prince so… so concerned?

Kalonsa couldn’t help but glance at Veles once more.

Of course, Veles noticed Kalonsa’s suspicious look.

He knew that his behavior was a bit rash at this moment, but he truly could not concern himself with anything else.

Due to the distance, Veles could hardly sense the small segment of dragon vine he had left in Green River Village. The reason he left that low-intelligence creature there, besides his worries for Alan, was driven by the dragons’ inherent greed and possessiveness.

Little Green, spoiled to near delirium by Alan, was deliberately left by Veles as a sort of “mark” for Alan. Veles had never actually expected that creature to be of any real use…

However, just moments ago—even before the queen and archmage received Lelian’s warning—roars and a series of chaotic, desperate images had already streamed through Veles’ mental network into his mind.

He saw Alan with absolute clarity.

The young mage, when facing a high-level demon, displayed far more calm and reliability than Veles had ever anticipated. In fact, even if all emotional factors were stripped away and judged purely on strict criteria, Alan’s performance in Green River Village was remarkable.

At the very least, in Veles’ estimation, a creature like Little Green—with its lazy, unambitious, gluttonous nature—should never have been able to confront a powerful foe like Hieronymusa head-on. Yet under Alan’s ingenious, nearly showy horticultural magic, Little Green had been holding the demon duke at bay up until now. Long enough, in fact, for the remaining royal knights to successfully lead Green River Village’s ordinary villagers away from a settlement on the verge of becoming a demon nest.

It was nothing short of a miracle.

Even Veles himself could not be certain that, without his own bloodline’s natural suppression of demons, he could have managed so well… and Alan, Alan’s mastery of magic was supposed to be that of a mere entry-level, low-tier mage.

And yet this rural magician, relying on the plants he had cultivated—tomatoes, okra, potatoes, and of course dragon vine—was desperately suppressing Hieronymusa’s attacks.

But amid all that verdant green, Veles could clearly sense that this was already Alan’s limit.

Alan was draining himself.

The magic flowing into him had become as fine as wisps of thread, intermittent and fragile, like a drying well on the verge of running empty.

And yet the dark-haired mage had not stopped channeling magic.

At this rate…

If this continued…

“You will die, Mage Alan. Although I would be delighted to take your corpse, a body with magic tastes far better—I suggest you stop this futile resistance.”

Veles heard the demon’s ill-intentioned whisper through Little Green’s body.

What made him unbearably anxious was that, this time, the demon was speaking the truth.

If Alan continued to recklessly drain the magic within himself, there was a very real chance he would die from the complete exhaustion of his magical source.

“I must go, Mother.”

Veles took a deep breath. He could no longer tolerate wasting any more time and had no choice but to issue a final ultimatum with overwhelming authority.

As he spoke, he raised his arm, his fingertips igniting with a dazzling white-blue magical flame.

One by one, magical nodes for a teleportation portal flared to life under Veles’ control.

Anyone could see that he intended to break through the restrictions on spatial magic here and forcibly open a portal from the depths of the underground palace straight to Green River Village. To achieve this, Veles drew upon his tainted bloodline.

And because of this, the form he had so painstakingly regained—his human shape—was once again accompanied by enormous, grotesque dragon wings unfurling from his back.

“Veles—”

The queen called out in anguish.

“Calm yourself! Everything is far too coincidental—why Green River Village, why the Blood Moon? Those demons are likely orchestrating this just to make you appear here, to ultimately push you toward becoming a demon dragon!”

The queen, of course, knew that sending knights instead of letting Veles personally slay the demons might be a waste of manpower in terms of actually fighting them. But whether as a mother or a queen, she could not ignore the suspicious circumstances of Hieronymusa’s sudden appearance.

From ancient times, demons had always delighted in sowing chaos across the continent, and Hieronymusa, in particular, already bore a bloody grudge against the Alfied royal family.

From every perspective, the demon incident in Green River Village was a thoroughly orchestrated conspiracy.

“No matter what, I will not allow you to make such a foolish mistake. You are running headlong into a trap, my child. You can feel that something is wrong, can’t you? So why… why are you being so reckless, so mad?”

The queen gazed at Veles with heart-wrenching anguish, trying desperately to keep the young prince within the safety of the royal city.

Beside Veles, the last circle of the teleportation array remained unlit. Amid the flickering silver-blue glow of the magic, Veles’ eyes shone with a burning intensity that puzzled even the queen.

“I know, but I have a reason I must go there. Mother, if you’re worried I’ll truly become a demon dragon, then use ‘that’ forbidden spell!” Veles spoke abruptly to the queen. “All these years, you’ve been pouring magic into it, haven’t you? That forbidden spell, created to kill me.”

“You—”

“This way, even if I fall into the demon’s trap, the moment I begin to transform into a demon dragon, the forbidden spell will crush my heart. I will die before causing irreversible damage across this continent. Isn’t that perfect?”

The queen’s lips pressed together. She stared at the expressionless Veles, her body swaying slightly, relying entirely on the weight of her white crystal staff to prevent herself from falling.

Yes. For so many years, the queen had quietly, silently been infusing the forbidden spell—written specifically for Veles—with her magic. Over that long time, the spell had grown so powerful that even a magical dragon could be obliterated instantly by it.

But…

She had never truly summoned the resolve to use it.

Because she knew perfectly well that once it was activated, there would be no way to undo the tragedy that would befall Veles.

And yet, even after all these years, the queen had never prepared herself to kill her own child—even if that child became a demon dragon.

Until today.

Until this very moment.

“Do you… do you even know what you’re doing?”

The queen’s voice trembled as she questioned Veles.

To her surprise, Veles’ response was extraordinarily clear.

“I am breaking your heart,” Veles said hoarsely. “But I must do this. I… I…”

The cursed prince hesitated only for a brief instant, then in front of everyone, spoke each word with solemn honesty:

“The most important person in my life, my true love of this lifetime, my green leaf, my precious gem, my sweet wine and light of life… my beloved, the village mage Alan of Green River Village, is there, fighting against the demon.”

“So I must go save him.”

“Even if it means falling into a demon form, even if it means being destroyed by the forbidden spell, I am willing to pay the price.”

“Mother, please forgive me. I love him more than my own life.”

———————————————————————

Author’s Note:

—mini side scene:

Queen: What? You’re saying demons appeared in Green River Village and…

Lelian: …and Your Highness, the Second Prince of Alfied, has been turned into a frog.

Queen: A frog? (unconsciously repeats)

Lelian: Yes, a frog… But please rest assured, Your Majesty, he seems fairly healthy for now.

Lart: Ribbit—

Queen: …Let’s talk about the demons, shall we?

<< _ >>

The post Honey Wine Ch.43 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Without a hint of hesitation, Alan crushed the precious talisman he had obtained from Lelian.

The amulet, said to be a valuable relic from before the Great Rift War, immediately released a semi-transparent magical barrier in front of Alan. Almost at the same moment, several grotesque tentacles covered in pustules and warts violently lashed at it, emitting a piercing screech.

“Ah, how cute.”

The demon, with Lart’s face, tilted its head slightly in a smile upon seeing the barrier and let out a low, muffled snicker.

“You don’t really think such a little toy could stop me, do you?”

“This is no toy.”

Alan glared fiercely at the demon and whispered.

Facing a demon like this, the black-haired mage remained calmer than most people would… though in the next second, he screamed toward the tent: “Help—ahhhh! Lelian—Little Green—!”

With a shhkk sound, the tent was torn open by a blackish-green plant.

Little Green’s body had swollen to a terrifying size, and its flower heads all opened simultaneously, transforming into a particularly menacing weapon. Dozens of vines coated with corrosive slime shot into the torn tent like venomous snakes, violently entangling the demon.

Alongside the terrifying dragon vines, several poised figures appeared, ready to strike.

The paladins formed a tight, coordinated formation and charged straight at the demon. At the very forefront of them all was Lelian.

The red-haired vice-captain of the royal knights’ eyes were wide open, radiating an extraordinary ferocity. Her broadsword shimmered with the brilliant golden light unique to a divinely empowered strike.

Lelian swung her broadsword directly at the demon.

Everything happened in an instant. For a brief moment, the demon trapped by the vines actually looked somewhat weak and helpless. It froze in place, as if half-paralyzed by fear, allowing the dragon vines and the paladins to unleash their full force upon it.

However, the moment Lelian’s broadsword made contact with the demon, the runes hidden within its blade were suddenly activated. Both Lelian and Alan watched in horrified disbelief as the runes emitted a brief, feeble flash of light—like a flickering dying ember—before being quickly corroded and defiled by a filthy streak of blood.

In an instant, ominous rust-like marks began to appear along the broadsword’s blade. Even worse, it wasn’t only the paladins’ weapons that were being corrupted by the demon’s aura—though the thick dragon vines seemed to have “Lart” completely immobilized, the sections of the vines that touched the demon rapidly developed large patches of withering and rot.

“Damn it.” Alan cursed under his breath.

In what seemed like just a blink of an eye, the demon in front of him had effortlessly nullified all of their attacks.

By comparison, all the plans he and Lelian had made up to this point now seemed as childish as children playing house.

Even with all his inexperience, Alan could clearly see that the demon currently occupying Lart’s body was not an ordinary low-level demon.

“Who… are you?”

Even Alan was surprised at himself—he remained unusually calm despite the situation.

He cast a simple vine spell, yanking at Lelian’s ankle to pull the red-haired swordswoman just enough to narrowly dodge several small, black snakes that had shot out from the demon’s shadow.

Unfortunately, in the next moment, the vines Alan had conjured were bitten through by something else—small, shapeless chunks of flesh hidden within the shadow. Lelian screamed and crashed to the ground, and the demon’s shadow, moving like a living thing, suddenly surged upward, instantly wrapping Lelian into a twisted, human-shaped mummy.

Immediately after, the other paladins following Lelian were also effortlessly ensnared by the demon.

Having effortlessly countered their attacks, the demon slowly turned its head to meet Alan’s gaze.

“Who am I? I have held millions of names. I have shaken the fates of countless people, destroyed innumerable nations… And those hypocritical bitches erased every one of my names from this world out of fear. But, considering how… delicious you are, and how desperately this body desires you, you may call me Hieronymusa. I suppose fragile, short-lived humans like you might still remember that name.”

The moment Hieronymusa spoke its name, the stench of blood and sulfur in the air intensified sharply. At the same time, Lelian, still lying on the ground, let out a fearful gasp.

“Impossible—”

She stared at the demon with eyes wide, her face paler than death itself. “The laws of reality would never allow a demon duke to cross the Rift and enter the Material Plane!”

Alan was naturally baffled by the name Hieronymusa.

But for the senior members of the Royal Knights, it was a name far from unknown. According to ancient legend, back when the dragon slayer Victor was still a wandering, exiled prince and his ally—the silver dragon Ognegan—had yet to commit the blasphemous act, one of their seven most famous holy feats during their travels was the slaying of the demon duke Hieronymusa, who had held sway over the southern continent for thousands of years.

Not to mention that Hieronymusa should have been dead a millennium ago—

Even if it hadn’t died, as a high-ranking demon, once it left the Abyss and entered the Material Plane, it should have drawn the attention of the goddesses.

It simply shouldn’t be able to flaunt its existence now so openly, so arrogantly, as it was doing.

“…Ah, well, that’s that.”

Hieronymusa, as if sensing Lelian’s disbelief, smiled and lightly touched its own face.

The face that once belonged to Lart.

“So, it seems that a body that has forsaken the gods is always quite useful.”

As it spoke, the demon’s body began to swell and distort at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The Lart of old had possessed a face praised as the “Light of the Empire”—for a long time, the prince’s striking beauty was even regarded as a sign of the goddesses’ special favor. But now, he looked like some grotesque creature freshly risen from the deepest reaches of an endless swamp.

His skin was covered with dense, patterned scales. If one’s gaze lingered even briefly on the patterns, they seemed to come alive, slowly wriggling within the viewer’s sight. The once-clear blue eyes, like a serene sky, were now clouded over with a murky, chilling dark red. The pupils had become unsettling horizontal slits, reminiscent of a goat’s. His head bore sharp horns that further evoked a goat—but unlike a real goat’s horns, these were unnaturally long and pointed, festooned with thread-like appendages resembling intestines or other internal organs.

Most repulsive of all was the demon’s grotesquely bloated back—it seemed to be composed of clusters of massive tumors, each bearing a strange, menacing human face.

What made Alan’s heart ache was that among those faces, he immediately recognized Lart’s agonized expression.

His former friend now appeared twisted in endless suffering, his tightly shut eyes oozing thick, black-red blood—just like the other “companions” that had fused unnaturally close together. From the gaps between the faces, ciliated or suction-cup-covered tendrils and appendages reached out, their surfaces coated with foul, gray-green slime.

And now, the demon brandished those revolting limbs like claws, advancing step by step toward Alan.

With each step it took closer, Alan found himself involuntarily retreating one step.

But it was clearly a futile attempt at escape. Compared to the demon itself, the clawing appendages seemed to take a special delight in attacking Alan. Within just a few breaths, the amulet’s magical barrier rapidly faded under the whip of the tentacles and the scratch of the limbs—it weakened, dimmed—and then, right before Alan’s eyes, it shattered, turning into a small puff of magical ash that was carried away by the wind.

Alan: …

The demon’s eyes rotated, locking onto Alan, and it chuckled softly.

“Hee hee hee… now I understand why he coveted you so much.”

A long, thin tongue covered with crimson warts shot out from the demon’s gaping mouth. Its saliva splattered onto the floor, leaving a trail of corrosive black spots.

“Ah…”

The demon duke drew in a mock deep breath, then exhaled with a sticky, chanting-like wheeze.

“What a fragrant body, what a pure soul… I can hardly wait to taste you.”

Alan’s amulet had completely turned to ash.

The black-haired mage could feel Lelian and the other paladins struggling with all their strength, and Little Green was locked in a desperate, tangled fight with countless black snakes emerging from the shadows.

Yet he had no time to attend to his companions, who were valiantly trying to save him…

Hieronymusa’s tendrils had already coiled around his neck. The cursed slime burned his skin instantly, like molten iron searing into flesh.

Through Alan’s eyes, he saw the demon’s mouth slowly stretch toward his ear, its grotesquely opening maw lined with countless fishhook-like teeth, like a mutated giant serpent.

Alan felt his heart drop straight to his stomach.

“Lart!”

His voice trembled as he shouted at the demon.

“I know you’re still in there! You’re not that weak—Captain Lart, wake up! This thing is about to eat me!”

Hieronymusa’s throat vibrated as it let out a low, mocking chuckle.

“So cute, so cute… I can hardly believe there’s such a pure, childish little thing among spellcasters. I will savor your soul properly—it’s so sweet! Hee hee hee… hahaha—”

To give the mage’s overly sweet, pure-white soul a bit of acidic bitterness in the “aftertaste” (yes, Hieronymusa had a refined palate), the demon spoke patiently, crushing the mage’s ridiculous hope:

“The soul of that forsaker of the gods is almost fully digested. Poor little mage, you can’t imagine how much darkness your kind and dependable captain had accumulated in his heart. Those blasphemous fantasies… tsk tsk tsk.”

Hieronymusa licked its lips, savoring the taste of Lart’s soul.

“That prince of yours can no longer respond to you, Mage Alan. But after I finish you… I will place your skull as close to him as possible—hee hee hee. I think Prince Lart will be very pleased—”

“Captain, I believe in you.”

Alan forced himself to stay calm, staring fixedly at the human face embedded in the demon’s body. He spoke each word deliberately:

“You promised once, no matter what happened, that you would appear and protect me.”

And then, something shocking happened—or rather, something that shocked the demon.

Lart’s face, like an ornament among the countless others, suddenly opened its eyes in response to the mage’s trembling call.

“Al…an…hss…Al…an…”

Dozens of human arms suddenly burst forth from the back of Hieronymusa’s skull.

Those arms were covered with bulging, almost sickly muscles, with fingers twisted by irregular bone nodes, randomly sprouting along the edges of the palms. The fingertips dug deeply into the demon’s wet, slimy pustules and suction cups. The arms tore at Hieronymusa’s grotesque body with a frenzy, as if gone mad—though arguably, the worst part of the demon duke’s body at that moment might indeed have been those arms themselves. The sudden, self-inflicted assault caused the demon’s massive, swollen form to shudder slightly. Even the serpentine monsters writhing in the shadows paused for a brief instant.

At that very moment, the scorched dragon-vines seized the opportunity to strike, instantly devouring the black snakes entirely.

On almost every branch of the dragon vines, horrifying, tooth-filled flower heads sprouted. Now, all of these flower heads pierced into the demon’s body—and as they gnawed with near-madness, the flowers’ contours faintly took on the semblance of reptilian skulls.

“Al…an…I’m…sorry…run…run…”

Lart’s muffled whimpers echoed from deep within the demon.

As the host whose body had been consumed by the demon, he understood Hieronymusa’s power better than anyone. Even this brief reclaiming of bodily control might have been intentionally allowed by the demon duke.

After all, according to the stories passed down in ancient texts, Hieronymusa delighted in giving humans hope only to shatter it cruelly—a disgusting kind of high-demon sadism.

Yet Alan did not seize the opportunity to immediately escape the tendrils’ grasp.

In fact, he moved even closer to the demon.

Close enough that he could easily hurl a large piece of fragrant, sweet-and-sour candy straight into Hieronymusa’s gaping, blood-soaked maw.

That piece of candy had been exchanged long ago, back when Alan was still an adventurer, from a kind (or so it seemed) wild fae.

For the native inhabitants of this continent, those cursed wild faes were extremely dangerous.

Even if you weren’t a spellcaster or a well-traveled adventurer—if you were simply a farmer’s wife living in a remote village—you would solemnly warn your children beside the golden-red glow of the evening hearth: never be deceived by the malformed dwarves emerging from the grass or the forest, and never eat the food they offer. The food they presented to children—or some foolish traveler—always looked and smelled enticing. Sometimes it was a large, fragrant, piping-hot buttered loaf; sometimes a roasted pork leg wrapped in leaves, exuding an irresistible aroma; and sometimes…

It would be a large, crystal-clear piece of candy, visibly sweet and sour, just begging to be eaten.

“…Those things are cursed poisons.”

The farmer’s wives would deliberately adopt a grim expression to frighten their terrified children.

“If you eat them, you will turn into a goose, or a pig, or even a quacking wild duck—and then those cursed wild faes will grab you and drag you into their world, where you will become merchandise at the fairy market.”

And now, in the exact center of the long-vanished tent, Alan stared intently at Hieronymusa’s throat.

The moment the “candy” touched the demon’s oral mucosa, it completely dissolved. Yes—wild faes had, indeed, perfected their creations to prevent anyone from spitting out their enchanted treats once consumed.

One had to admit, those wild faes were truly malicious and cunning little creatures.

Yet at this moment, Alan thought back to the young fae’s wrinkled little face, and an unprecedented surge of gratitude welled up in his heart.

Hissss.

Alan heard a very faint sound.

Then, the massive shadow that had engulfed him vanished in an instant.

Amid a rising cloud of white smoke, the once terrifying, grotesque demon transformed into a stunned, gray-green frog.

“Ribbit—”

As it looked at Alan, the frog—or rather, Lart—puffed out its cheeks.

When someone who had eaten wild fae food lost their human form, their mind and soul would fully shift into the animal the faes intended.

This meant that Lart had now become an unmistakable frog.

He croaked loudly, producing the resonant call of a male frog in mating season, inflating his vocal sac to its maximum.

“Mage Alan?! What’s happening?!”

Lelian screamed.

But before she could finish, another voice interrupted her.

“How dare you—”

A thick, black, foul-smelling smoke erupted violently from the body of Frog-Lart, accompanied by the enraged shriek of the demon duke. Clearly, Lart’s pitifully small frog brain and completely transformed soul could not possibly contain a demon duke.

Hieronymusa was forcibly expelled from Lart’s body.

Yet, after losing Lart’s vessel, the demon appeared to be suppressed by some law of reality. At least for a brief moment, the fragments of Hieronymusa that it had summoned into the Material Plane through Lart’s body weakened noticeably.

Of course, this did not mean that everything was safe.

After Lart was transformed into a magical frog, the ominous smoke from Hieronymusa quickly shifted its focus to another paladin who had originally been restrained. The paladin’s jaw stretched wide like a serpent’s, while the black mist poured relentlessly into his body.

It was easy to imagine that in just a short while, Hieronymusa would acquire a new vessel. Of course, the new body wouldn’t be as perfect or powerful as Lart’s top-tier form, but even a substitute host would be far beyond the ability of this group of frail, weak humans to resist.

“Run!”

Alan grabbed the croaking Lart from the ground and shoved him into Lelian’s arms.

She let out a sharp, startled scream—though it was hard to tell whether it was because of the frog itself or because it was now in her embrace.

“Evacuate the rest of the villagers from Green River Village—quickly!” Alan shouted to Lelian.

“I’ll stay here to help Little Green keep it contained for the moment, to buy you time.”

As he spoke, Alan crouched down. A pale green aura spilled from his palms, seeping into the ground tainted by the demon.

The dragon vines, which had been nearly lifeless, instantly regained strength and vitality. Moreover, every seed buried in the soil beneath them sprouted green leaves and surged upward with near-feral force—then collectively bound themselves around the paladin whom Hieronymusa was moments away from fully “inhabiting.”

“I’ll stay too, Mage Alan!”

Lelian’s eyes flashed with intense worry. She could see that, as the dragon vines and the newly energized plants surged with unprecedented life, the black-haired mage’s face visibly paled and grew haggard with each passing second.

“You staying here won’t do any good—you’ve already proven that! I need you to immediately contact the nearby royal knights and have them come to exterminate Hieronymusa. Without the knights, the people of Green River Village can’t evacuate in time!”

Alan shouted at Lelian with the last of his strength.

“…And you have to get Lart out of here. Once the wild faes’ magic solidifies, he’ll be a frog for the rest of his life!”

———————————————————————

Author’s Note:

Lart: Ribbit—

<< _ >>

The post Honey Wine Ch.42 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

For the native inhabitants of this continent, if they had to choose the most detested supernatural beings, the number one would probably be the twisted chaos—those demon dragons that bring endless plagues and deathly silence. The second most hated would likely be the fiends.

In the earliest age of chaos, fiends emerging from the Abyss ravaged the entire continent for thousands of years. Humans, dwarves, orcs, elves… countless living beings suffered under the fiends’ grasping limbs and sharp teeth, enduring torments and massacres that no words could ever accurately describe. It was only when the benevolent gods—represented by the Three Goddesses—and the heroes who are still celebrated in bardic songs, paid unimaginable and horrific costs that the rift between the Abyss and the material plane was finally sealed. Only then did the blood-stained shadow of the fiends fully dissipate.

Yet even so, in certain circumstances, fiends would still attempt to forcibly descend upon this continent through the remnants of the rift—and without exception, every appearance of a fiend brought chaos, blood, and death.

The vast majority of fiends possess a significant degree of immunity to both physical and magical damage. Of course, with the aid of the gods’ power, skilled warriors and cunning mages can indeed exterminate fiends using divine arts.

But the reason fiends are so troublesome is not merely that they can harm the body—they can also corrupt the human soul.

Considering that the fiends capable of deceiving the laws of reality to descend into the world are at most low-ranking fiends whose very names are unknown, these cursed creatures often act in ways far more subtle and cunning than their legendary, monstrous, and powerful counterparts.

If necessary, they can even directly parasitize the dark side of some unlucky person’s soul in the form of a mere shadow. Once the parasitism succeeds, certain emotions—or rather, certain minor flaws in a person’s normal character—will be infinitely amplified by the fiend.

The greedier grow greedy, the more frenzied become the frenzied.

Though there was no concrete evidence, everyone believed that those notorious tyrants and the fearsome black mages who appeared on this continent after the Great Rift was sealed had the shadow of fiends behind them.

There were even rumors that the most famous tragic figure of Alfied—Victor, the Dragon Slayer—may have met his fate because of some fiend’s design. After all, before the Great Rift was sealed, the only force on the entire continent capable of suppressing fiends was the terrifyingly powerful dragons.

It was said that, for dragons, those squeaking, pus-filled, tentacled creatures were very much like special medicinal substances. The intense negative energy within them could effectively counterbalance the ever-raging magical fire coursing through a dragon’s body. As a result, dragons never minded spending a bit of time during their leisure hunting and devouring these soft, oddly shaped “little things.”

But before we dive deeper into the food chain of this continent, let’s rewind time a little—back to when the fiends had not yet appeared, when Green River Village was quiet, and Alan was in his little cottage, with cheeks as rosy as a blooming rose and eyes sparkling, grinning foolishly as he shared breakfast with the dragon vine, Little Green.

For some reason, that day Alan and Little Green’s breakfast was unusually abundant and delicious—after all, Alan didn’t often awaken at the break of dawn in such a sudden flurry of excitement, so overjoyed that sleep was impossible, and channel that fiery energy straight into the kitchen.

The country mage, newly acquainted with the sweetness of love, had baked some honeyed caramel peaches. They were plump and juicy, much like the batch treasured by Veles, and roasting made them especially soft and fragrant.

He turned those peaches into a large serving of caramel peach pudding. Each bite was soft and sweet, perfectly reflecting the overflowing emotions within the heart of its maker.

In addition, there were puff pastries filled with sheep’s cheese, drizzled with a generous spoonful of tangy, bright-red currant jam; bundles of asparagus wrapped in bacon, fried until crispy and savory; of course, there was also pea soup simmered with peas and sour cream, accompanied by salty bread rolls brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with parsley and garlic, and baked to a tempting golden brown.

Oh, and Alan had also prepared homemade soft ice cream for Little Green. The ice cream was made by magically whipping the cream at high speed, giving it a texture as soft as clouds. On top, he drizzled double the honey, which contained crunchy nuts and chopped dried fruits. Immersed in the golden honey, the purplish-red and orange-yellow dried fruits glimmered like gemstones. And the soft ice cream wasn’t served in an ordinary wooden bowl, plate, or small copper pot—it rested atop a freshly baked waffle, still exuding the aroma of butter.

This breakfast, which might have been considered overwhelmingly lavish for a normal person, was soon devoured by the spirited Little Green with the efficiency of a whirlwind.

With every bite, the thick vine curling beneath the chair couldn’t help but sway for a long while. The branches on the table involuntarily sprouted cluster after cluster of small pink flowers.

Fortunately, after blooming, these flowers didn’t grow the troublesome tendrils or teeth that sometimes caused Alan headaches. In fact, they looked like the most ordinary flowers—delicate and full-petaled, somewhat resembling roses.

To Alan, these flowers seemed more like a unique physiological response that a magical creature like a dragon vine displayed when pleased.

The dragon vine shook its branches, and the flowers neatly fell onto the table.

“This… is for me?”

Alan paused for a moment, then smiled at the plate of flowers still smeared with cream and honey in front of Little Green.

He found himself unable to stop smiling today.

Little Green swayed its flower head.

“Thank you.”

Alan’s lips curved again. He gently patted the dragon vine’s lush, dripping-green leaves, gathered the beautiful pink flowers, and arranged them into a small bouquet, placing it in a jar of water with a touch of honey.

When Lelian arrived at the country mage’s house, this was the leisurely scene she witnessed.

A lovely breakfast, a gentle mage, and the tranquil countryside… Thinking of the reason for her visit, the vice-captain of the Royal Knights couldn’t help but pause. A faint bitterness and awkwardness welled up deep in her throat.

Of course, part of the reason she stopped was also the sudden sight of emerald-green branches slithering out from just before her feet. Clearly, they were also part of Little Green. The branches were vibrant green, but each leaf was sharp as a blade.

And now, those green blades were pointed straight at her.

“Ah… it’s you—”

Fortunately, Alan had noticed Lelian’s arrival before the dragon vine could tear her apart in a terrifying display. The mage certainly remembered this red-haired woman; she had been at the injured Lart’s side just yesterday.

“Vice-Captain of the Royal Knights, Lelian.”

Lelian introduced herself stiffly to Alan, then quickly added a hesitant clarification.

“Sorry, Mage Alan… I seem to have disturbed you and… your—” She glanced awkwardly at Little Green, her lips twitching, before continuing, “this ‘pet’s’ breakfast.”

Her voice grew increasingly dry and nervous.

As Alan walked toward her without any caution, the dragon vine behind him visibly swelled. Its flower heads, grotesque in a nightmarish way, all opened at once, silently radiating a fierce hostility straight at Lelian.

Lelian had no doubt that if she were outside Alan’s line of sight, this terrifying plant-like magical creature would tear her to pieces without hesitation.

A bead of cold sweat formed on her temple, but she seized the moment and urgently spoke to the young mage before her.

“The reason I came… it is because I have an important matter to request. Mage Alan, I know you are our captain’s—Prince Lart’s—longtime friend. I earnestly beg you… please, go see him.”

“Huh? What happened? Wait—did something happen to Lart when he went back yesterday?”

Alan looked curiously at the anxious expression on Lelian’s face. Although he had little interaction with her, he had a strong instinct that she shouldn’t appear so tense and fearful under normal circumstances.

Yet, thinking of how he had just rejected Lart’s confession yesterday, a subtle unease and awkwardness stirred in Alan’s heart.

“I feel that Prince Lart isn’t quite right—not ‘not quite right’ in the usual sense…” Lelian raised her hand and gestured vaguely in the air. She lowered her voice, her lips moving as she spoke, her face pale. “I… I would like to ask you, Mage Alan, to check on him. I—I suspect…”

Lelian hesitated for a moment before voicing her deepest suspicion.

“I suspect that Prince Lart has been parasitized by a fiend.”

This was undoubtedly a bold and almost insane hypothesis.

Especially considering that from the moment Lart was injured, he had already undergone meticulous and complex magical examinations, and the accompanying priests of the Knights were quite certain that he had not been affected by any negative energy, nor showed any signs of being cursed.

“But I still feel something isn’t right.”

Lelian took a deep breath, then looked at the black-haired mage in front of her.

“Although I have no proof… I trust my instincts,” she murmured. “That prince… he wasn’t like this before. Alright, sure, he used to have a bit of the spoiled nobleman’s temper, but it never made me break out in goosebumps like this. By the Goddess of Light, there aren’t many creatures in this world that can make my skin crawl.”

The battle they had faced before had already been full of oddities, and Lelian had seen with her own eyes a dark shadow slip into Lart’s body…

Records of how fiends parasitize humans were mostly sealed away in the deepest vaults of the Mage Tower.

Lelian had only ever heard fragmented legends. Yet even those scattered whispers were enough to unsettle her.

What finally drove Lelian to make such a terrifying conjecture was the expression on Lart’s face last night, when he learned of Veles’ news.

She would have sworn she had never seen a normal human wear such a horrifyingly twisted expression—it was not something any blessed mortal should display.

That intense mixture of jealousy, hatred, and murderous intent could only come from the Abyss.

Once a fiend parasitizes a person’s soul, the only ones capable of detecting it are spellcasters favored by magic.

The problem, however, was that during the previous battle, the priests accompanying the Royal Knights had been seriously injured and had to leave the group early for treatment at the temple.

“Ugh… this is… this is just too coincidental,” Alan muttered under his breath.

Lelian tugged at the corner of her mouth and repeated in her same dry voice, “Yes… coincidental, almost as if it were intentional.”

After the Royal Knights’ accompanying priest had left, in a backwater like Green River Village, the only spellcaster within ten miles was—and could only be—Alan: a mage skilled in gardening, able to fatten pumpkins and tomatoes, help villagers grow more wheat, and produce sweeter apples… cough, a country mage.

Even if Lelian had any other choice—an apprentice priest, or a gray-robed wandering mage—she would absolutely not have come to Alan’s little cottage this morning.

Low-ranking fiends might indeed be cunning and insidious, but that did not mean they lacked in offensive power or magical malice. Even the weakest of them could fight toe-to-toe with a battle-hardened paladin.

And Alan…

Lelian discreetly assessed the guilt and self-reproach radiating from the black-haired mage’s chest, and it almost took her breath away.

Even knowing that Alan had once traveled across the continent alongside Lart, and was not some bumbling amateur who couldn’t even cast a fireball properly, in Lelian’s eyes, Alan was still… far too delicate.

The young mage barely reached the height of her chin. His frame was so slight it seemed a gust of wind could blow him away. His skin, smooth as if soaked in milk, and his moist black eyes—Alan exuded not the slightest hint of aggression. He appeared soft and sweet, like a custard pudding trembling on a silver spoon, only fit for someone to savor slowly, not for confronting a fiend that could strike at any moment.

Yet Lelian truly had no other choice.

If Prince Lart really had, as her absurd suspicion suggested, already been unconsciously chosen as a host by a fiend, then the time left for him—and for the entire Royal Knights—was running out.

According to legend, once a fiend successfully parasitizes someone, it slowly incubates within the host’s body. It stirs the person’s darkness and negative emotions into an evil, terrifying storm, and in the midst of that chaos, it can hide deep within the host’s body, feasting upon their weakened soul.

Once the host’s soul is completely devoured, all that remains on the material plane is a hollow, walking corpse.

Moreover, a successfully incubated fiend also increases in rank.

“Of course, it’s possible I’m overthinking this… but a fully hatched fiend is no easier to deal with than a demon dragon,”

Lelian murmured, her gaze toward Alan complex and urgent.

“I know what I’m saying may sound ridiculous…”

After all, Lart had once been blessed by the gods. Even if he no longer enjoyed their favor, the residual holy light within him should have been enough to protect him from a fiend’s influence.

“But I really need to make sure…”

“Alright.”

Alan didn’t wait for her to finish and agreed immediately. He lifted his eyes and fixed a sharp gaze on the surprised red-haired swordswoman.

“I’ve actually had a vague sense that something about him seemed off,” the mage explained in a low voice. “Even after I added so much honey to his healing potion, he kept complaining it was bitter.”

“And…”

As he spoke, Alan’s eyes shifted toward his window. A thin frost seemed to veil his delicate cheeks.

His window was empty—silent, undisturbed, perfectly still.

Alan was shocked at his own sluggishness; only now did he realize the problem.

Normally, if he made that many sweet treats, the little ill-tempered neighbors—his fairies—would have immediately swarmed in, clamoring for their share.

But ever since Lart had come to his house last night… the fairies had not appeared again.

…

Confirming whether a person has been parasitized by a fiend was actually quite simple—provided, of course, that you were a spellcaster.

As a mage, all Alan needed to do was, while Lart was unguarded, cast a true-word spell. Immediately afterward, he could ask the host two questions: whether they came from the Abyss, and whether they were a fiend.

For any visitor from the Abyss, every fiend was cunning, insidious, and endlessly deceitful when dealing with humans.

However, under the invisible rules governing them, there were only these two questions that a fiend could not lie about.

They could only admit their true identity.

…

“And then the fiend reveals its true form.”

Lelian brought Alan to the Royal Knights’ camp in Green River Village. Her face was tense as she spoke seriously to the mage:

“…The amulet I gave you comes from the High Priest of the Temple of the Goddess of Light. It is a relic from the Great Rift War. It can at least protect you from attacks by a mid-ranking fiend.”

The red-haired swordswoman carefully hung the amulet, made from sunstone, around Alan’s neck. He tugged at his collar, letting his simple linen robe hide the precious charm beneath the fabric.

“Then you can send a signal—we’ll rush in immediately to rescue you.”

After saying this, Lelian stepped aside so Alan could see the Royal Knights behind her. These were her most trusted and closest comrades in the order. From their perspective, it was hard to believe Lelian’s bold suspicions about Lart. Yet, trusting her beast-like intuition, they still stood quietly on her side, if reluctantly.

Even now, Alan could sense that several of them were still skeptical of Lelian’s actions.

“Ugh… I hope Lart doesn’t get too angry when this is over—”

Alan heard someone muttering in an almost inaudible voice.

“No matter what, there’s no way Lart could be parasitized by a fiend… isn’t it said that his heart is made of diamond?”

…

Lelian had clearly heard the whispers as well. The red-haired swordswoman’s hand, gripping her holy sword, tensed so sharply that the veins on the back of her hand became visible. It wasn’t until Alan gently patted her on the shoulder that she managed to calm down.

“Relax a little, Vice-Captain Lelian. The problem probably isn’t that serious. After all, you are the Royal Knights. Even if things do go as badly as possible—cough—I trust you’ll be able to handle it.”

At the very least, there was still Little Green.

The dragon vine, now fat and lush from its indulgence in various sweets, coiled slowly in the shadows like a massive forest serpent. After having its breakfast disturbed by Lelian, the normally cheerful creature had immediately revealed a dangerous and irritable side. Alan had finally had to promise three times the usual amount of snacks just to quiet it down.

Honestly, watching Little Green slowly unfurl in the shadows, its flower heads lined with sharp teeth and dripping corrosive slime (no doubt aimed at the knights who had been whispering carelessly earlier—by this point, they had straightened up, their faces dark and tense), Alan felt more at ease than he did seeing the knights themselves.

He took a deep breath, his gaze flicking over the faintly golden sword in Lelian’s hands, then stepped past the camp’s gate, heading straight for Lart’s tent.

In his hand, he carried a basket. Inside rested a butter pound cake.

The butter had been mixed with double the honey and sugar. Even through the thick cloth covering the basket, its fragrant sweetness drifted invitingly into the air.

With the thick, moist pound cake in hand, Alan stepped into Lart’s tent looking exactly like any ordinary friend—merely checking in on Lart after yesterday’s awkward incident.

And Lart seemed to think the same.

He was sitting behind a low table in the middle of the tent, frowning slightly as he seriously dealt with the mountain of documents piled before him.

When he heard Alan’s voice, Lart’s expression flickered, and he looked up, meeting Alan’s gaze for several seconds. Then, as if awakening from a dream, he suddenly leapt to his feet.

“Alan?!”

There was genuine surprise in his voice.

“You—you came here!”

He hurried toward Alan, trying to stay composed but unable to fully hide his excitement.

At that moment, even Alan had to admit that maybe he and Lelian had been mistaken. Perhaps all of Lart’s unusual behavior was simply… cough… the result of a broken heart, and not that damned fiend.

“I just came to check on you. Yesterday, when you left my place, you didn’t seem to be in the best mood.”

Alan winked at Lart, then lifted his hand, letting the basket of cake be clearly visible. Of course, in reality, this was just to conceal the gesture he was making with his other hand.

Then, he cast a true-word spell on Lart.

A faint green glow pulsed as the spell took effect. Lart froze in place, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief.

“W-what… what are you doing? Alan? Wait, this is—”

Alan nearly couldn’t meet Lart’s gaze.

He pressed his lips together, almost awkwardly, and asked the question directly.

“Are you… from the Abyss?”

“……”

“Are you… a fiend?”

“……”

Just as Alan thought he might hear a clear denial from Lart, he realized that the tent had suddenly fallen into a deathly silence.

Lart stared straight at Alan. The faint trace of the earlier expression—joy mixed with disbelief—still lingered on his face, but from his slightly parted crimson lips escaped a soft, hissing laugh.

“Heh—”

Lart’s head slowly turned to the side.

“I’ve been discovered, haven’t I? Honestly,” a voice Alan had never heard before emerged from the familiar figure in front of him. “Alright, alright, don’t make that face. You know that kind of expression makes ‘me’ ache inside, my dear Alan.”

“That’s right… I really am from the Abyss.”

“And yes, I truly am a fiend now.”

“Nice to meet you for the first time, Mage Alan. You look… far tastier than that cake in your hands.”

<< _ >>

The post Honey Wine Ch.41 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

“Then, Antara—during your time as His Highness Veles’s accompanying supervisory mage, have you ever observed that prince receiving the attention of any benevolent deity, at any point or in any manner? Or perhaps a blessing?”

Antara met his teacher—the Grand Court Mage of Kalonsa—as well as Her Majesty the Queen, in the queen’s bedchamber.

At this very moment, the red moon had only just slipped beyond the edge of the dusky violet sky. The blazing, brilliant sun was still buried beneath the earth, and would take a long while yet before dragging itself into view. A clammy dampness still clung to Antara’s outer robe—the kind of moisture unique to the underground palace chambers beneath the royal city, always tinged with an indefinable stench of fishiness and chill. Unless dried with magic, that cold, grave-like air, as though seeping up from the bottom of a tomb, would never dissipate on its own.

According to Antara’s knowledge of court etiquette, both the timing and the location were highly improper. But it was obvious that none of the three present had the leisure to care about such damnable formalities.

The one asking the question was, of course, Kalonsa. The old man’s face was covered in a fine net woven of wrinkles, yet the eyes hidden beneath those aged folds were still as sharp as tempered steel. His tone sounded calm and even, but Antara knew well that he was nowhere near as composed as he appeared.

After all, just moments ago, they had together borne witness to a miracle.

At the height of the Blood Moon, Veles—who should have completely fallen into a demon dragon—had, before their very eyes, returned to human form.

Oh, of course, certain cursed traits still lingered on Veles’s body: a few scales here and there, sharp claws, and the like… but compared to before, his condition far exceeded both the mages’ and the queen’s expectations.

As spellcasters, it was impossible for them not to know how fragile the formations were that maintained the balance of Veles’s magic. The moment the magical tide brought by the Blood Moon surged in, the pollution born of the curse deep within Veles’s body should have immediately shattered the restraints of those arrays, tearing that fragile human shell apart completely and revealing the long-suppressed essence of the demon dragon within.

Before this night, the mages—and even the queen herself—had long since prepared for the arrival of this day. They had foreseen it a very, very long time ago. Otherwise, the forbidden spell stored within the queen’s staff—meant solely to slay a demon dragon (and, at the same time, her own child)—would not have remained charged and ready all these years without ever once being allowed to lapse.

Yet all the preparations they had made—whether mental or magical—came to nothing without the slightest warning.

“Please forgive my discourtesy, but just now I tested His Highness Veles with every form of positive divine magic known to me…”

Antara pretended not to notice the intensely expectant looks cast his way by the two elders present (especially the female one). He lowered his head and delivered his report in a flat, even tone.

“Unfortunately, all the benevolent gods and neutral deities I am aware of avoided His Highness Veles’s suffering, just as they always have.”

The elf mage’s voice sounded somewhat dry.

After the dragon slayer Victor had cursed his own bloodline with his life, all dragons in this world had fallen completely into corruption and distortion. They were so twisted that they could not even be accepted by evil gods or demons—let alone by the deities who stood in the light or in the gray between. Whether healing spells or spells of light, all divine magic with a positive aspect was utterly ineffective on anyone bearing the dragon’s curse.

And precisely because of this, the three individuals standing at the pinnacle of Alfied’s arcane world were now utterly at a loss as to the anomaly occurring within Veles.

Ahem—well, let’s correct that slightly.

The elf mage who had just gone to examine Veles’s condition, and who had also accompanied His Highness to Green River Village, did in fact have a few extremely vague notions flickering through his mind.

“He loves me.”

When Veles awoke in the dungeon, his cheeks were still hollow, and his expression still haggard.

However, when Antara saw him, he felt that Veles was emanating an aura that made his skin crawl from head to toe.

Antara didn’t even know how to describe that version of Veles. But every time the elf mage met his gaze, he would inevitably experience a strange hallucination—as if tiny pink motes of light, suffused with the scent of roses, were constantly bursting out from Veles’s eyes.

“Alan said he truly likes me…”

How had Antara responded to Veles back then, again?

Oh, right—he hadn’t been surprised at all to hear Mage Alan’s name come out of Veles’s mouth. After all, anyone paying even a little attention could tell that Veles was utterly obsessed with that mage. So Antara had simply crossed his arms and shrugged, saying that if Veles really had fallen in love with the black-haired mage, then under a dragon’s innate charm magic, it was only natural for Mage Alan to say such things.

What truly left Antara speechless was Veles’s utterly resolute reply—

“No. Alan said he doesn’t like me because of magic. He likes everything about me, including what I really am.”

Antara began to suspect that Veles hadn’t turned into a demon dragon because of the curse—but had instead turned into an idiot because of it.

Otherwise, it was genuinely hard to explain why Veles would actually believe that someone in this world could be immune to a dragon’s magic, and still sincerely fall in love with a dragon.

Not a dragon in human form, either—but a dragon in its “true appearance.”

And yet Veles believed this without the slightest doubt. The way he kept touching his lips with his fingers made Antara break out in goosebumps (he had, in fact, asked whether Veles was feeling unwell—why else would he keep covering his mouth? But the foolish grin Veles showed afterward was enough to send Antara fleeing in defeat. He was convinced that for the next two hundred years, the protagonist of his nightmares would be Veles’s stupid smile).

Still… no matter what—

Veles’s excessively firm conviction did, more or less, make Antara feel a faint tremor of doubt stirring within him.

Of course, Antara wasn’t foolish enough to report Veles’s mad ramblings to his teacher or to the queen. But after weighing it again and again, he still asked that question—very tactfully.

“I’ve heard that His Highness Veles’s curse is not without a solution. There is a legend…”

“Oh? Why bring that up all of a sudden? That’s nothing but a baseless tale. An utterly impossible way to lift the curse.”

Antara hadn’t even finished speaking before Mage Kalonsa interrupted him with a weary sigh. He cast a guarded glance at the queen beside him, whose expression was dark and downcast, clearly unwilling to pursue the topic further.

Unfortunately, the usually clever and perceptive disciple seemed, this once, as though his brain had been invaded by a mind flayer. He continued on foolishly anyway.

“A pure kiss,” Antara said, almost as if talking to himself. “I actually don’t understand why this method is considered baseless. As long as His Highness Veles can receive a pure kiss, the curse on him will disappear. That doesn’t sound particularly difficult.”

All right—now Mage Kalonsa was staring at Antara as if he really were looking at a mind flayer.

And not just any mind flayer, either, but the kind that had already sucked its victim’s brain dry and was lazily swaying its tentacles.

“You think that’s not difficult? You—”

It was the queen who picked up where Kalonsa left off.

She gave Antara a bitter smile, her voice hoarse and low.

“That’s right. A kiss—on the surface, it doesn’t sound difficult at all. However, there are requirements for that ‘purity.’ It demands that someone, without magic, without deception, without any unnatural interference whatsoever, genuinely fall in love with a dragon from the depths of their heart. And that love must encompass both of the dragon’s forms. Which means that one must not only love the dragon’s human shape, but also its draconic form.”

The queen looked deeply at Antara and asked,

“Antara, do you truly believe that in this world there could be someone who—without the aid of any magic—would naturally come to love a monster covered in fangs, scales, and bony wings?”

Well—if one didn’t know a dragon’s true identity, a dragon in human form could indeed be quite likable. They usually appeared handsome and tall, possessed overwhelming martial strength, and had vast stores of knowledge. Moreover, a great dragon’s extraordinarily keen magical perception would allow it to instinctively sense its lover’s preferences, and then it would naturally assume the form those unfortunate souls favored most. But all of this still rested on one premise: the dragon’s magic—that power so overwhelming that even they themselves could not stop it, a force as instinctive as a biological reflex.

As for the dragon’s other form… oh, let’s not even go there. Even as a mere hypothetical, Antara shuddered at the queen’s question.

It was a horrifying image—one that made the elf mage feel nauseated and dizzy just to imagine.

“Ahem.”

Kalonsa coughed lightly at the side, feigning casualness.

Antara’s expression had grown far too ugly, forcing the elderly court mage to remind the elf in this manner that Veles was not only a future great dragon, but also the queen’s child.

Fortunately, the queen seemed not to notice Antara’s ashen face. Her eyes were slightly reddened, and her voice carried a tremor wholly unsuited to her royal status.

“I once believed that I could use my love to lift that child’s curse,” the queen’s tone grew lower and hoarser by the moment. “After all, a mother’s love should be the most selfless, the most generous love in the world, shouldn’t it? And yet…”

And yet she was still afraid.

A cry of pain rose silently in the queen’s heart.

When the infant Veles had once let out innocent giggles at her, for a fleeting instant the queen truly believed she could love everything about that child without reservation. But when Veles reached out from his swaddling clothes and revealed claws curved and sharp like tiny fishhooks, the queen had still, despite herself, felt fear.

She had ultimately been unable to save her own child.

Back then, after Victor cast that vicious curse, he immediately spoke of a way to lift it—the so-called pure kiss actually required someone to, from the very beginning, love a dragon for its most primal nature and form.

…A condition that was simply impossible to meet.

As the queen’s words fell, the atmosphere in the room instantly grew heavy and oppressive.

After re-examining the definition of the “pure kiss,” it became clear to everyone present that the curse on the Alfied royal bloodline was irredeemable.

“I-I’m sorry… I must have been out of my mind—”

Antara muttered, his face pale, under the piercing, dagger-like stare of Master Kalonsa.

He had no doubt that once the queen left, the teacher would give him a “very strict” lecture. And just as Antara was desperately praying to the goddess of fate for some miraculous turn, the communication stone at his waist suddenly burst forth with a dazzling blue light.

Immediately, a voice—shaken and almost breaking from sheer terror—rang out.

“Vice-Captain of the Royal Knights, Lelian, calling all who can receive this message: we are at Green River Village, Carro region, under attack by abyssal demon! I repeat, we are under attack by demons—”

———————————————————————

Author’s Note:

Everyone: Who would ever like a dragon? Ahhh, so terrifying—

Alan (frowning, clutching Veles tightly): …You humans, who can’t appreciate true beauty!

<< _ >>

***TN

Happy 2026, everyone! May every day of this year shine with happiness, love, and success!

The post Honey Wine Ch.40 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.

Although it was only a dream, to be fair, everything Veles displayed within it made one thing perfectly clear: vile dragon blood truly did run through his veins—

Just look at how that sinful tongue showed no mercy as it slurped, sucked, licked, and toyed back and forth with the frail, innocent black-haired mage. One had to remember that a dragon’s tongue is densely covered with scent glands. As it wound that disgusting thing around Alan, it wasn’t merely trying to taste him; it was using every possible means—taste, smell, and of course touch—to wring out every last trace of the mage’s presence.

There was also its utterly undisguised fantasy of imprisonment. The ocean of coins was so vast it was nearly boundless, yet in this dream the only place Alan could possibly take refuge was the dragon’s palm. Not to mention Veles’s dream-form itself—huge as a mountain range, ferocious as a demon. One should know that the form a person manifests in a dream is often closely tied to the dreamer’s soul, and the terrifying shadow towering before Alan at this moment was undoubtedly a reflection of Veles’s inner mind.

Despite his desperate attempts at concealment, that dense, surging evil and greed still overflowed uncontrollably from the cursed dragon’s every movement.

And yet now, this evil and ferocious monster was pinned firmly in place by a single sentence from the mage.

The pupils in its massive olive-shaped eyes shrank instantly into thin slits; its tail went rigid, stretched straight like a long spear. It stood utterly motionless, like a dead lizard nailed in place by an arrow.

Then the dragon’s form began to grow hazy, to crumble into powder, at a speed visible to the naked eye.

In only a few breaths, the enormous dragon completely dispersed into dust scattered on the wind.

As the draconic shape collapsed, the only thing left before Alan was a tall man, frozen in shock and unable to move.

And unlike the flamboyant, glittering figure from the very beginning of the dream, the man now could only be described as clumsy and panicked.

…Of course, judging purely by appearances, Veles was as handsome as ever.

At least, that was how Alan saw him.

It was just that compared to the last time Alan had seen him in the real world, the Veles in this dream displayed his draconic traits far more clearly.

His pupils had completely transformed into those of a reptile, and his build looked even taller and more ferocious. A layer of fine, dense scales stretched from the man’s broad back all the way to his lower abdomen, while everything below his thighs had unmistakably morphed into the distinctive hind legs of a great dragon.

And then there were…

Alan had to make a tremendous effort to stop himself from staring fixedly at the enormous pair of dragon wings on Veles’s back. Each wing looked as though it alone would be enough to wrap Alan up entirely; through the thin membrane, one could clearly see bizarre, dark teal veins and delicate, fine scales. Even so, Alan couldn’t deny that he found Veles’s wings so beautiful they almost made him drool.

With great difficulty, Alan tore his gaze away and met the silver pupils of the dragon in human form.

“Mr. Veles.”

He murmured softly, his heart pounding violently, his face burning hot.

Alan knew very well that he might have just done something extraordinarily bold. The words “I like you” could certainly be taken as an expression of emotional closeness, but they could just as easily be understood as a confession.

And a confession between two men, at that.

On this continent, where same-sex love was regarded as an extreme form of blasphemy, what Alan had just said could very well count as a kind of offense.

Alan had never felt as uneasy as he did now.

“…Y-you… what do you think about us… being together… from now on?”

When Veles still did not respond after a long while, Alan could only stammer out the question again, halting and incoherent.

What Alan did not expect was that when Veles finally reacted, the man appeared utterly flustered and at a complete loss.

“No.”

Veles’s lips trembled, his face deathly pale.

“?”

“It’s my fault… How could Mr. Alan possibly like someone like me…”

Veles looked at Alan in despair, his eyes reddened.

“You were bewitched by me—that’s why this happened. In this world, no one should ever fall in love with an evil dragon. Especially not you, Mr. Alan. A good person like you should never be reduced to something like this.”

“No mind-affecting magic works on me,” Alan took a deep breath and said to Veles. “…So the fact that I like you comes from my own heart. It has absolutely nothing to do with any so-called draconic charm.”

“But if your mind hasn’t been twisted by magic, then how could you possibly love a dragon, Mr. Alan?”

When he first heard Alan’s explanation, a faint glimmer flickered in Veles’s eyes. But almost immediately, the light within them dimmed once more.

He let out a bitter, broken laugh and murmured softly as he slowly stepped backward.

The expression on the man’s face struck Alan as strangely complex—on that pale visage, Alan saw both utter heartbreak and greedy, lingering longing at the same time.

The dreamscape abruptly grew dark and dim. Alan even had the illusion that in the very next second, Veles would be completely swallowed by those pitch-black shadows.

That was why Alan had no choice but to reach out—and with a ferocity and swiftness he’d never shown before, seize hold of him.

“Damn it, can’t you let that bullshit charm magic go to hell already?! Why do you always obsess over this?!” Alan’s cheeks were taut as he stared straight into Veles’s inhuman eyes and demanded, word by word, “You only need to answer me one simple question.”

“Mr. Veles—I like you… do you like me?”

As he spoke, Alan ground his teeth, unable to fully rein in his agitation.

The black-haired mage did not think of himself as some dull, narcissistic fool—when Veles had turned into a dragon, he hadn’t bothered to hide it at all. Those hot tongues, the licking and rubbing, the heavy possessiveness and desire had almost been so intense they seemed ready to melt into syrup and spill straight out of the dream.

But now? Just listen to those infuriating words—once again it was that same nonsense about “you must have been charmed.” Alan felt himself on the verge of getting angry.

“I’ll give you one chance only. You’d better answer seriously, Mr. Veles.”

Perhaps emotions were harder to control within a dream. As Alan spoke, he glared fiercely at Veles, while the latter stared blankly at the suddenly forceful little mage.

No one knew what this future demon dragon thought of in that brief moment, but a few seconds later, the man’s gaze turned wet, and a flush of damp crimson rose along his cheekbones.

“Of course I—”

Alan didn’t wait for him to finish.

He simply rose up onto his toes, hooked an arm around Veles’s neck to pull the tall idiot down, and then, anxious and rough beyond all courtesy, pressed his lips hard against Veles’s.

“Good. I love you too.”

The dream shattered.

Alan sprang up from the bed, his face burning red. He stared for a moment at his small cabin, still bathed in moonlight, before finally covering his face and letting out a long, low groan.

“Idiot—”

If the mental impact was too great, even a dream constructed through magic and divine power could collapse in an instant.

For a mage, this was basic common sense. And after finally managing to meet again in a dream, Alan and Veles had still had so, so many things they wanted to say—yet just now, in the dream, Alan had still… well, he hadn’t been able to hold back.

Alan pressed his fingers to his lips, where traces of Veles’s touch still seemed to linger.

Compared to the searing heat and hardness of the dragon form, Veles’s lips in human shape were surprisingly soft and cool.

And clumsy, too.

…That wasn’t Veles’s first kiss, was it?

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh—!”

The very next second, Alan let out a short, sharp scream and pulled the blanket over his head, as if steam were about to come puffing out of his ears.

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The post Honey Wine Ch.39 first appeared on A Wandering Potato.