Good times are always fleeting.
After saying goodbye to Diancie, Klein and Ophelia returned to the guest room arranged by the Silver Scale Chamber of Commerce.
Nelisa’s efficiency was truly beyond reproach. No sooner had the two of them stepped through the door than they found a tightly wrapped wooden box sitting on the table.
The box was sealed with the mark of the Silver Scale Chamber of Commerce, and a short note was attached next to it. The handwriting belonged to Nelisa.
“Delivered as promised. Additionally, should you require anything during your stay in the royal capital, please do not hesitate to ask.”
The phrasing was polite, the wording was refined, and even the placement of the signature was perfect—this woman carried a sense of propriety in everything she did that was precise to the point of being uncomfortable.
Klein folded the note and put it in his pocket before opening the wooden box. It was padded with three layers of soft cloth, and nestled in the center was a palm-sized scale.
A dragon scale.
He picked it up and weighed it in his palm. It was heavier than expected. The texture was also unlike any material he had ever seen. That weight felt alive, as if some biological instinctual inertia still lingered within it.
The surface of the scale was not smooth. Upon closer inspection, it was covered in extremely dense patterns, each with varying depths and directions, interwoven into a structure that lacked regularity but was by no means chaotic.
Klein ran his thumb along the patterns, and the sensation transmitted to his fingertips was both coarse and warm.
There was residual mana inside this thing.
And quite a lot of it.
He turned it over several times, holding the scale up to the window to catch the light, then placed it on the table and tapped it twice with his knuckles to listen to the sound.
Under the light, a very faint layer of green shimmered around the edges of the scale—that was likely the refraction of the unique mana medium of dragons within the natural spectrum. He had read about this phenomenon in literature before, but seeing it with his own eyes was a completely different matter from a description on paper.
Truly a fine item. Excellent.
So excellent that he wished he had a full set of alchemical tools on hand right now.
Unfortunately, he could only stare at the dragon scale for now—he could look, touch, and judge the general mana composition, but deeper analysis and testing would have to wait until they returned.
His hands were itching.
It was like having a prime ingredient placed before a chef, but the kitchen was three hundred miles away.
“How is it?”
Klein turned his head to look at her.
She was sitting on the bed, leaning against the headboard with her legs crossed and the 《Northland Travelogue》 spread across her lap. She wasn't flipping through it quickly, occasionally stopping to look at a page for a while, but her eyes had already drifted from the book. She was glancing at him sideways—or more accurately, at the dragon scale in his hand—with a subtle expression that said, "You're a hopeless case."
“The quality is top-notch.”
Ophelia’s brow furrowed slightly, as if she didn't quite understand what Klein meant by that.
Klein chuckled and looked down to flip the dragon scale over again.
There was a small area near the edge where the color was darker, and the arrangement of the patterns was denser than elsewhere.
If his judgment was correct, this spot should have originally been a scale near a joint of the dragon’s body—the part that endured the most physical stress and where the biological self-repair mechanism was most active.
In other words, the concentration of biological mana sealed within this area could be two to three times that of other parts.
If he could isolate this part for directional extraction, it could theoretically be used to enhance the penetration efficiency of healing alchemical preparations.
The progress of clearing the sea monster factors in Ophelia’s deep left-hand tissue had been less than ideal—if the biological mana in the dragon scale could serve as a carrier, it might open up a new line of thought.
Once they got home, the first thing he would do was set up the furnace.
He was already arranging the experimental sequence in his mind.
Klein put the dragon scale back into the wooden box, closed the lid, and pushed it to the corner of the table. His fingers lingered on the lid for a moment, reluctant to let go.
“Klein.”
Ophelia’s voice drifted over from the bed.
He turned his head and saw that she had closed the book, her fingers pressing on the cover as she unconsciously traced the texture of the spine.
“When are we going home?”
The question was asked very flatly.
But Klein could hear it—this wasn't a request for an opinion, but a confirmation of the schedule. Translated, it meant something like, "It's about time we left."
He leaned back against the chair and looked at her.
“Why? There are so many interesting things in the royal capital. Since we're already here, why not stay a few more days?”
He intentionally dragged out the words "interesting things."
Ophelia’s hand, which had been about to flip the book open, stopped.
She didn't respond, but Klein saw a very subtle color change at the base of her ears—moving from her normal skin tone toward a slight pink.
She must have remembered.
The stockings they bought at that shop yesterday. And the series of events that happened after she put them on last night—events that Klein found very much worth reminiscing about.
Those pairs of stockings were currently folded neatly at the very bottom of her suitcase. She had stuffed them deep while packing this morning, as if she wanted to hide them in the lining.
Klein gave her an extra look.
The meaning in that glance was clear—"I know what you're thinking, and you know that I know."
“...Watch your mouth.”
Ophelia gave a soft huff and reopened the book, as if using the action of reading to end the topic. But she stayed on the page she flipped to for too short a time, and her gaze didn't truly fall on the words.
Klein didn't tease her further. Some jokes were best left at a certain point; any further, and he would likely suffer tonight.
The room fell quiet. The sound of pages turning and the occasional carriage passing outside filled the air.
Klein leaned back in his chair, staring blankly at the ceiling for a while.
His fingers tapped unconsciously on the armrest. His mind was still spinning—scales near the joints, active self-repair mechanism, high biological mana concentration. If he used low-temperature fractionation to strip away the physical residue on the surface first, then used directional extraction to draw out the deep biological mana...
Theoretically, it was sound.
But the operational difficulty was also high. The structure of dragon biological mana was too different from that of humans; direct infusion would cause severe rejection. He would need to find an intermediate state solvent to act as a bridge—
“Klein.”
Ophelia’s voice interrupted his thoughts once again.
He turned his head.
She had closed the book again and placed it on her lap, her fingers pressing the cover without moving. Her expression was different now.
It wasn't the relaxed, casual expression of everyday small talk.
She was bracing herself for something.
Klein recognized this look. He had seen it a few times—whenever it appeared, what followed usually wasn't a lighthearted topic.
“Regarding the imperial decree of marriage back then—” She paused, turning the words over in her mouth before letting them out, “the fact that it was arranged by the Sage.”
Klein pulled his hand back from the armrest and sat up a bit straighter.
They had already learned about this from Diancie. The Empire marrying Ophelia off to the countryside appeared to be the old cliché of a hero becoming too powerful for the monarch’s comfort, but the person who truly pushed for it was their unborn daughter.
It felt absurd just saying it.
But absurd or not, a fact was a fact.
“I had absolutely no idea before this,” Ophelia said.
Her tone was flat, but Klein could tell she had probably been chewing on this sentence in her mind for a long time. It wasn't something she had just started thinking about; she had likely been ruminating on it since they left Diancie—chewing on it all the way back, until now, when she finally felt she could speak of it.
“I know,” Klein said. “I could tell.”
Ophelia was silent for a few seconds.
A gust of wind blew outside, making the window frame rattle slightly.
“A daughter arranging her parents' marriage.”
Her tone was so flat it lacked any inflection, but the fact that she repeated the sentence itself was enough to judge her current state—she hadn't finished processing it.
“It does sound a bit strange,” Klein added, unable to help shaking his head as well.
He paused, then tried a different way of putting it.
“But in a way, it’s also a... romantic fact, right? It means our daughter felt it was worth doing. Worth taking such a huge risk to come back from the future and give us a push.”
The corner of Ophelia’s mouth twitched. She didn't quite smile, but that slight curve showed she at least didn't think the sentiment was too foolish.
Her fingers continued to rub the corner of the book cover.
Seeing her expression soften slightly, Klein leaned back and shifted his posture, his tone suddenly becoming casual.
Deliberately casual.
“Ophelia.”
“What?”
“Do you feel like marrying me was just a setup?”
Rate on N.U.
