‘It’s similar to that guy. The feeling and that arrogant atmosphere! That snarkiness!’
Sylvia recalled a real second-year middle schooler who had come to her during her youth and demanded that she tattoo a black dragon on his left arm.
‘That brat, did he say the black dragon on his left arm was uncontrollable?’
Even when she looked at him with disbelief, thinking he was just mocking her, the middle school boy was unnecessarily serious.
‘He was quite a bother.’
After she refused to tattoo a minor and turned him away, he persistently harassed her. He spread rumors on social media that her tattoo shop was terrible and that the tattoo artist was extremely unattractive.
‘What can I do about it? All those kids sharing on SNS are just middle schoolers too.’
Despite this, Sylvia, who accidentally heard about it from another customer, was grinding her teeth in frustration. Her turquoise eyes sparkled as she glared at a very pretty face, leisurely chewing watermelon.
‘I’ll start calling you the black dragon from now on!’
Sylvia, wearing a sly smile and burying her head back into her bowl, was only seen by Dennis.
Startled.
The former captain of the royal knights, who had defended his lord by capturing demons, felt fear for the first time. Somehow, it reminded him of the overwhelming feeling he felt as a child, when he talked back to his mother and was beaten with a broomstick and thrown out into the winter.
After finishing her meal neatly, Sylvia got up and quietly went into the kitchen. She then came out with a wooden barrel and cups. She passed around cups filled with a new juice to everyone.
Sylvia, smiling sunnily like a flower bearing a deadly poison, said, “This is a healthy juice that’s good for your body. Have it as a dessert.”
Her voice was gentle. Everyone, used to the usual dessert, happily picked up their cups.
“Oh, wait a moment. It would be good for the captain to have some too.”
She handed him an empty cup and grew a plant right beside him. She plucked a bumpy bitter gourd dangling from it.
Then, pointing at a green-haired crew member, she requested, “Could you grind this with the wind and put it in this juice cup? The captain is always so suspicious, you know.”
Felix, eating watermelon, wrinkled his eyebrows in displeasure.
“How nice it would be if we all toast together. It’s good for unity and the atmosphere, right? Don’t you think so, Sir Dennis?”
Unable to resist her momentum, Dennis nodded emphatically. Seeing this, the man with green hair drew his dagger and infused it with magic.
The magic of the wind materialized as a dagger. He finely ground the watermelon and poured it into a glass, then handed it to Felix with both hands.
Felix accepted it readily, although he didn’t seem entirely pleased since it was made right in front of him. Hubert, moved by this, raised his voice in emotion and lifted his glass high.
“Well, it’s a bit late, but let me say this. God of Winter, please pass the order of seasons to the God of Summer!”
Hubert, reciting the words like a spell as winter came, drained his glass first. Sylvia secretly put finely ground watermelon juice in her glass alone. Smiling, she savored it deliciously.
Like Hubert, everyone lifted their glasses and cheerfully downed them in one go.
Felix also drank it all at once.
“Ugh.”
Sylvia, hearing the sounds of retching from various places, grinned and looked at Felix. He was indifferent as he couldn’t taste it, but the reaction of those around him soured his mood.
Then, a bitter taste sharply struck his dying taste buds. The strange sensation of his tongue curling made his fine forehead crease, happening shortly thereafter.
Sylvia thought as she watched his reaction.
‘Seems he can taste bitter and astringent flavors, good. I’ll make you healthy with health juices, Black Flame Dragon.’
Sylvia, who was putting the remaining watermelon juice in her mouth to destroy the evidence, choked on Clover’s voice ringing in her ear.
[Felix! She’s eating something different!]
At the same time as the fairy’s voice, Felix’s teeth grinding, Sylvia’s coughing, and the agonizing sounds of the still retching members were heard.
★★17. Goodbye, Black Flame Dragon, see you next time★★
The brief winter of just a month passed quickly. The snow that had piled up to Sylvia’s height every morning disappeared as if by magic, indicating no more snowfall.
And then, the weather turned warm, like spring in Korea.
In a strange mood, Sylvia grew today’s share of vegetables and fruits in the garden, lost in thought.
‘It’s almost time to leave.’
Though it’s hard to notice the presence, the absence is always felt. Sylvia thought she would feel lonely once the burly men were gone, and even the cute fairies that always hovered around Felix would be missed, although she pretended not to see them.
Thinking of the fairies, Sylvia remembered Eryngium, who had disappeared all winter without showing even a single petal.
‘So stubborn. It could have at least shown up halfway. How could it not appear even once?’
All winter, thinking of Eryngium, Sylvia had secretly left fruits and vegetables in the garden.
They had disappeared.
But now, she wasn’t sure whether Eryngium or Felix had eaten those fruits and vegetables.
“Sigh.”
With an involuntary sigh, new sprouts emerged from the moist soil, seemingly better than the winter soil, as if making a popping sound.
Sylvia had been very busy these past few days, growing zucchini, sweet potatoes, potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, green onions, onions, and more with her plant magic circle.
She was responsible for the three meals a day for thirteen burly men, making starch powder from potatoes and oil by pressing beans in her spare time. Originally, there was an oil tree in this place, from which oil was extracted, much like rubber from rubber trees in the old days.
The oil was better than expected, with little distinctive smell and transparency.
But the taste improved when mixed with bean oil, so Sylvia diligently made bean oil in her spare time.
For lunch today, they had a light meal of sujebi. She simply seasoned the broth, made without meat but only vegetables, with salt and pepper, and made dough by mixing flour and starch powder, tearing it into pieces.
The response was very good.
Thanks to always preparing warm food, the Croban mercenary group had come to know the true taste of hot broth.
Returning to the kitchen, Sylvia was filling a large rectangular lunch box with food, layer by layer.
They say living together breeds attachment.
She was deeply concerned about their meals after spending the winter together. Worried they might revert to eating only hunted meat and dry bread, she prepared fruit and vegetable-based dishes.
Fruit chips dried with wind magic, crispy fried potato, sweet potato, and lotus root chips in oil.
Also, zucchini pancakes, potato pancakes, vegetable pancakes with various vegetables, tricolor pancakes with pineapple instead of pickled radish, and mushroom pancakes with various mushrooms and bell peppers.
Side dishes of sweetly stir-fried potatoes and onions, stir-fried garlic scapes, pork stir-fry with cabbage seasoned only with salt and pepper, pork stir-fry with added pineapple, stir-fried mushrooms, stir-fried zucchini.
“Sigh.”
She was really packing the lunch box tightly with the plentifully made food.
“Should I draw a preservation magic circle when I have time?”
Though things last longer in a subspace bag than at room temperature, she was still worried about the side dishes.
“Next time, I should also make them for storage.”
Since there was no soy sauce, she thought deeply about making the side dishes salted instead and closed the lid of the lunch box, tying it with a string.
Lunch had already passed, and as afternoon approached, she thought about preparing dinner. If it weren’t for cooking with magic, Sylvia would never have taken care of those thirteen burly men, even for the protagonist.
Cooking with magic was very convenient and less tiring. If she had cooked like she did on her first day in this house, she would have been utterly exhausted by now.
Thinking about the dinner menu, she went out to the garden. Meanwhile, Felix, who had been in the garden, turned his head at the sound of the opening door and looked at her.
Black Flame Dragon.
Sylvia did not avoid Felix’s gaze, which was dryly staring at her. Having lived together, she had roughly grasped the protagonist’s character. It wasn’t certain since she only saw him during meal times, but…
‘That guy is just a baby.’
He’s a child. Ever since their staring and willpower contest that day, he seemed always ready to pick a fight with her whenever an opportunity arose.
But, what can she do?
This world will undoubtedly revolve around that protagonist.
He will act to annihilate the empire and completely eradicate the evil forces after becoming evil himself. Everything that happens in the process will not be good for her or those around her.
Sylvia, who had read the novel to the end, did not have a mindset of ‘hoping even the protagonist would be happy’.
‘Now that this place has become my home, I must protect it by any means necessary.’
With a firm resolve, she strode forward. She acknowledges that, besides her dislike for him, she too behaved childishly.
Because since that day, she fed him strange things whenever she got the chance.
Even when feeding him well, she occasionally gave him a hard time.
Like giving him Cheongyang peppers, Tabasco, Chilean Piquín peppers, Thai peppers, Red Habanero…
Indeed, knowing through the novel that he had lost most of his taste and smell, Sylvia continued to torment him as an experiment.
It seemed he could feel astringent sensations.
To confirm what she learned through the female lead, she gave him an unripe green persimmon. She could see his handsome face shrivel up like the dried squid sold at rest stops.
Next, she began giving him spicy peppers.
After eating Cheongyang peppers, his brow furrowed slightly. Then, after Tabasco, he blinked, with a little tear welling up.
When he ate the Piquín, tears ran and his expression was completely twisted. After eating the Thai pepper, his face turned bright red, and he downed a whole cup of barley tea, which he usually didn’t like.
Suspicious Felix mainly ate plants grown in front of him or unpeeled fruits and always asked Hubert for drinking water.
He, seemingly out of his senses, abruptly grabbed a cup his subordinate was drinking from and gulped it down.
The last time she gave him a Red Habanero, it nearly opened the doors of death.
Of course, for Sylvia.
Seemingly aware of all her pranks, an enraged Felix unleashed his magic and raised his Buster Sword.
It was terrifying.
It seemed like a glimpse of the true power of the Black Dragon that Eryngium had spoken of, incomparable to the magic she used.
If Hubert and Dennis hadn’t intervened, she might have fled with another magic. That could have led to her demise even sooner than the novel’s plot.
That was an unacceptable thought.
Desiring to live, Sylvia never played such pranks again and instead generously prepared fruits and vegetables, focusing on what he liked to eat, placing them before him.
As winter neared its end, Felix started eating the dried fruit chips she prepared. Perhaps his suspicion towards her food had eased a bit, as he took the basket of fruit chips, always filled for communal eating, straight to his room.
Once finished, he would leave the empty basket on the table.
As they say, even disliked affection becomes attachment; she worried he might not eat properly after they parted.
Looking up at his towering figure, Sylvia asked, facing his dark eyes.
“Is there anything you want to eat?”
Using informal language till the end was a matter of her pride.
Twitch.
Every time she asked something informally, his eyebrows would smoothly twitch in irritation. Felix, somewhat used to it by now, answered despite his displeasure.
“That Hallabong I ate last time. Grow some of that.”
Felix, who preferred growing and picking the fruit himself over being given it, specifically requested this.
“That’s easy.”
Sylvia nodded nonchalantly and infused magic into her peridot ring. In an instant, a tree grew, blossomed with white flowers, and bore fruit. A moment of innocent joy flashed across Felix’s usually solemn and impassive face as he plucked a Hallabong directly with his hand.
Fairies were still chattering noisily around him.
[Me, I want to eat too.]
Daisy, Clover, Poppy, Asta, Calmia, and Lupinus, all opened their mouths like baby birds and looked only at Felix. With an annoyed expression, Felix skillfully peeled the Hallabong, dividing it into pieces and distributing them one by one.
[Aww, how can it be so delicious?]
Asta fluttered her wings with a coquettish expression.
While peeling another Hallabong and putting it in his mouth, Felix gazed intently at Sylvia.
Looking as if he had something to say, Sylvia waited silently for an answer. After eating about a dozen there, Felix finally spoke to her.
‘It’s similar to that guy. The feeling and that arrogant atmosphere! That snarkiness!’
Sylvia recalled a real second-year middle schooler who had come to her during her youth and demanded that she tattoo a black dragon on his left arm.
‘That brat, did he say the black dragon on his left arm was uncontrollable?’
Even when she looked at him with disbelief, thinking he was just mocking her, the middle school boy was unnecessarily serious.
‘He was quite a bother.’
After she refused to tattoo a minor and turned him away, he persistently harassed her. He spread rumors on social media that her tattoo shop was terrible and that the tattoo artist was extremely unattractive.
‘What can I do about it? All those kids sharing on SNS are just middle schoolers too.’
Despite this, Sylvia, who accidentally heard about it from another customer, was grinding her teeth in frustration. Her turquoise eyes sparkled as she glared at a very pretty face, leisurely chewing watermelon.
‘I’ll start calling you the black dragon from now on!’
Sylvia, wearing a sly smile and burying her head back into her bowl, was only seen by Dennis.
Startled.
The former captain of the royal knights, who had defended his lord by capturing demons, felt fear for the first time. Somehow, it reminded him of the overwhelming feeling he felt as a child, when he talked back to his mother and was beaten with a broomstick and thrown out into the winter.
After finishing her meal neatly, Sylvia got up and quietly went into the kitchen. She then came out with a wooden barrel and cups. She passed around cups filled with a new juice to everyone.
Sylvia, smiling sunnily like a flower bearing a deadly poison, said, “This is a healthy juice that’s good for your body. Have it as a dessert.”
Her voice was gentle. Everyone, used to the usual dessert, happily picked up their cups.
“Oh, wait a moment. It would be good for the captain to have some too.”
She handed him an empty cup and grew a plant right beside him. She plucked a bumpy bitter gourd dangling from it.
Then, pointing at a green-haired crew member, she requested, “Could you grind this with the wind and put it in this juice cup? The captain is always so suspicious, you know.”
Felix, eating watermelon, wrinkled his eyebrows in displeasure.
“How nice it would be if we all toast together. It’s good for unity and the atmosphere, right? Don’t you think so, Sir Dennis?”
Unable to resist her momentum, Dennis nodded emphatically. Seeing this, the man with green hair drew his dagger and infused it with magic.
The magic of the wind materialized as a dagger. He finely ground the watermelon and poured it into a glass, then handed it to Felix with both hands.
Felix accepted it readily, although he didn’t seem entirely pleased since it was made right in front of him. Hubert, moved by this, raised his voice in emotion and lifted his glass high.
“Well, it’s a bit late, but let me say this. God of Winter, please pass the order of seasons to the God of Summer!”
Hubert, reciting the words like a spell as winter came, drained his glass first. Sylvia secretly put finely ground watermelon juice in her glass alone. Smiling, she savored it deliciously.
Like Hubert, everyone lifted their glasses and cheerfully downed them in one go.
Felix also drank it all at once.
“Ugh.”
Sylvia, hearing the sounds of retching from various places, grinned and looked at Felix. He was indifferent as he couldn’t taste it, but the reaction of those around him soured his mood.
Then, a bitter taste sharply struck his dying taste buds. The strange sensation of his tongue curling made his fine forehead crease, happening shortly thereafter.
Sylvia thought as she watched his reaction.
‘Seems he can taste bitter and astringent flavors, good. I’ll make you healthy with health juices, Black Flame Dragon.’
Sylvia, who was putting the remaining watermelon juice in her mouth to destroy the evidence, choked on Clover’s voice ringing in her ear.
[Felix! She’s eating something different!]
At the same time as the fairy’s voice, Felix’s teeth grinding, Sylvia’s coughing, and the agonizing sounds of the still retching members were heard.
★★17. Goodbye, Black Flame Dragon, see you next time★★
The brief winter of just a month passed quickly. The snow that had piled up to Sylvia’s height every morning disappeared as if by magic, indicating no more snowfall.
And then, the weather turned warm, like spring in Korea.
In a strange mood, Sylvia grew today’s share of vegetables and fruits in the garden, lost in thought.
‘It’s almost time to leave.’
Though it’s hard to notice the presence, the absence is always felt. Sylvia thought she would feel lonely once the burly men were gone, and even the cute fairies that always hovered around Felix would be missed, although she pretended not to see them.
Thinking of the fairies, Sylvia remembered Eryngium, who had disappeared all winter without showing even a single petal.
‘So stubborn. It could have at least shown up halfway. How could it not appear even once?’
All winter, thinking of Eryngium, Sylvia had secretly left fruits and vegetables in the garden.
They had disappeared.
But now, she wasn’t sure whether Eryngium or Felix had eaten those fruits and vegetables.
“Sigh.”
With an involuntary sigh, new sprouts emerged from the moist soil, seemingly better than the winter soil, as if making a popping sound.
Sylvia had been very busy these past few days, growing zucchini, sweet potatoes, potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, green onions, onions, and more with her plant magic circle.
She was responsible for the three meals a day for thirteen burly men, making starch powder from potatoes and oil by pressing beans in her spare time. Originally, there was an oil tree in this place, from which oil was extracted, much like rubber from rubber trees in the old days.
The oil was better than expected, with little distinctive smell and transparency.
But the taste improved when mixed with bean oil, so Sylvia diligently made bean oil in her spare time.
For lunch today, they had a light meal of sujebi. She simply seasoned the broth, made without meat but only vegetables, with salt and pepper, and made dough by mixing flour and starch powder, tearing it into pieces.
The response was very good.
Thanks to always preparing warm food, the Croban mercenary group had come to know the true taste of hot broth.
Returning to the kitchen, Sylvia was filling a large rectangular lunch box with food, layer by layer.
They say living together breeds attachment.
She was deeply concerned about their meals after spending the winter together. Worried they might revert to eating only hunted meat and dry bread, she prepared fruit and vegetable-based dishes.
Fruit chips dried with wind magic, crispy fried potato, sweet potato, and lotus root chips in oil.
Also, zucchini pancakes, potato pancakes, vegetable pancakes with various vegetables, tricolor pancakes with pineapple instead of pickled radish, and mushroom pancakes with various mushrooms and bell peppers.
Side dishes of sweetly stir-fried potatoes and onions, stir-fried garlic scapes, pork stir-fry with cabbage seasoned only with salt and pepper, pork stir-fry with added pineapple, stir-fried mushrooms, stir-fried zucchini.
“Sigh.”
She was really packing the lunch box tightly with the plentifully made food.
“Should I draw a preservation magic circle when I have time?”
Though things last longer in a subspace bag than at room temperature, she was still worried about the side dishes.
“Next time, I should also make them for storage.”
Since there was no soy sauce, she thought deeply about making the side dishes salted instead and closed the lid of the lunch box, tying it with a string.
Lunch had already passed, and as afternoon approached, she thought about preparing dinner. If it weren’t for cooking with magic, Sylvia would never have taken care of those thirteen burly men, even for the protagonist.
Cooking with magic was very convenient and less tiring. If she had cooked like she did on her first day in this house, she would have been utterly exhausted by now.
Thinking about the dinner menu, she went out to the garden. Meanwhile, Felix, who had been in the garden, turned his head at the sound of the opening door and looked at her.
Black Flame Dragon.
Sylvia did not avoid Felix’s gaze, which was dryly staring at her. Having lived together, she had roughly grasped the protagonist’s character. It wasn’t certain since she only saw him during meal times, but…
‘That guy is just a baby.’
He’s a child. Ever since their staring and willpower contest that day, he seemed always ready to pick a fight with her whenever an opportunity arose.
But, what can she do?
This world will undoubtedly revolve around that protagonist.
He will act to annihilate the empire and completely eradicate the evil forces after becoming evil himself. Everything that happens in the process will not be good for her or those around her.
Sylvia, who had read the novel to the end, did not have a mindset of ‘hoping even the protagonist would be happy’.
‘Now that this place has become my home, I must protect it by any means necessary.’
With a firm resolve, she strode forward. She acknowledges that, besides her dislike for him, she too behaved childishly.
Because since that day, she fed him strange things whenever she got the chance.
Even when feeding him well, she occasionally gave him a hard time.
Like giving him Cheongyang peppers, Tabasco, Chilean Piquín peppers, Thai peppers, Red Habanero…
Indeed, knowing through the novel that he had lost most of his taste and smell, Sylvia continued to torment him as an experiment.
It seemed he could feel astringent sensations.
To confirm what she learned through the female lead, she gave him an unripe green persimmon. She could see his handsome face shrivel up like the dried squid sold at rest stops.
Next, she began giving him spicy peppers.
After eating Cheongyang peppers, his brow furrowed slightly. Then, after Tabasco, he blinked, with a little tear welling up.
When he ate the Piquín, tears ran and his expression was completely twisted. After eating the Thai pepper, his face turned bright red, and he downed a whole cup of barley tea, which he usually didn’t like.
Suspicious Felix mainly ate plants grown in front of him or unpeeled fruits and always asked Hubert for drinking water.
He, seemingly out of his senses, abruptly grabbed a cup his subordinate was drinking from and gulped it down.
The last time she gave him a Red Habanero, it nearly opened the doors of death.
Of course, for Sylvia.
Seemingly aware of all her pranks, an enraged Felix unleashed his magic and raised his Buster Sword.
It was terrifying.
It seemed like a glimpse of the true power of the Black Dragon that Eryngium had spoken of, incomparable to the magic she used.
If Hubert and Dennis hadn’t intervened, she might have fled with another magic. That could have led to her demise even sooner than the novel’s plot.
That was an unacceptable thought.
Desiring to live, Sylvia never played such pranks again and instead generously prepared fruits and vegetables, focusing on what he liked to eat, placing them before him.
As winter neared its end, Felix started eating the dried fruit chips she prepared. Perhaps his suspicion towards her food had eased a bit, as he took the basket of fruit chips, always filled for communal eating, straight to his room.
Once finished, he would leave the empty basket on the table.
As they say, even disliked affection becomes attachment; she worried he might not eat properly after they parted.
Looking up at his towering figure, Sylvia asked, facing his dark eyes.
“Is there anything you want to eat?”
Using informal language till the end was a matter of her pride.
Twitch.
Every time she asked something informally, his eyebrows would smoothly twitch in irritation. Felix, somewhat used to it by now, answered despite his displeasure.
“That Hallabong I ate last time. Grow some of that.”
Felix, who preferred growing and picking the fruit himself over being given it, specifically requested this.
“That’s easy.”
Sylvia nodded nonchalantly and infused magic into her peridot ring. In an instant, a tree grew, blossomed with white flowers, and bore fruit. A moment of innocent joy flashed across Felix’s usually solemn and impassive face as he plucked a Hallabong directly with his hand.
Fairies were still chattering noisily around him.
[Me, I want to eat too.]
Daisy, Clover, Poppy, Asta, Calmia, and Lupinus, all opened their mouths like baby birds and looked only at Felix. With an annoyed expression, Felix skillfully peeled the Hallabong, dividing it into pieces and distributing them one by one.
[Aww, how can it be so delicious?]
Asta fluttered her wings with a coquettish expression.
While peeling another Hallabong and putting it in his mouth, Felix gazed intently at Sylvia.
Looking as if he had something to say, Sylvia waited silently for an answer. After eating about a dozen there, Felix finally spoke to her.
