Tremble tremble tremble, his whole body shook finely and his entire skin felt like it was being pricked sharply by honed needles.
Every sense in his body screamed. He had to run away. From those eyes, from that existence, he had to flee as far away as possible!
But his body didn’t budge, as if crushed under a massive mountain. Stuck flat to the floor, Nigel had no choice but to look up at him standing diagonally on the central staircase railing.
“How fascinating.”
The headmaster of Kaiserion, Silvanus.
He was closer to an exquisite sculpture carved from ancient glaciers than a living being.
Whenever the faint moonlight seeping in from the window brushed his long platinum hair, an unrealistic light rippled as if silver powder had been scattered.
The neckline and wrists revealed beneath his black silk robes were pale enough that light seemed to pass through them, and just his presence alone created a chilling coldness as if the surrounding temperature had dropped several degrees.
The headmaster had a human form, but nothing else besides that appearance was the same as a human’s. Thousands of years of time and wisdom, and absolute power that could destroy everything.
The headmaster’s true identity was Silvanus, a Silver Dragon who possessed all of that.
Right, even Nigel, the Crown Prince of the Empire, was nothing more than a mayfly-like mortal before him. Nigel had never felt that fact this clearly until now.
Damn it, damn it, damn it!
“……”
If he could move his body even a little here, the overwhelming presence was such that all he could do was bow down even more deeply in reverence toward him.
Was a dragon originally this kind of existence?
Or was it because a frog was such a pathetically insignificant creature?
Hmm, a low murmur flowed from between the headmaster’s lips. At that voice, every single cell in his body reacted, trembling with fear.
Silvanus tilted his head very slightly toward Nigel prostrate on the floor. That small movement alone created an invisible pressure that crushed Nigel’s entire body, seeming to squeeze out even all the air in his small lungs.
He showed no sign of being surprised or flustered at seeing a frog wandering around the academy, merely wearing the face of a scholar who had discovered an interesting subject of observation. It was a completely opposite appearance from before, when he had never given even one second of attention to Nigel, who had been born as the Crown Prince of the Empire and always received attention.
Suddenly, an old memory came to mind.
The memory of the day he opened the door to the headmaster’s office after enrolling in the academy.
In Nigel’s memory, he had been sitting at a massive desk with that same face transcending everything, just like now. What had he been doing?
Ah, right. The headmaster had been wiping a palm-sized black pebble with white cloth. Even though Nigel Kaiserion, the Crown Prince of the Empire, was standing right in front of him, the headmaster didn’t give him a single glance and was only focused on that stone.
Thinking about it now, that wasn’t ignoring Nigel. He simply hadn’t properly recognized the Crown Prince’s existence itself.
Nigel had waited for someone for 10 minutes for the first time in his life then. Quite blatantly at that.
What? Did I do something wrong? Is he trying to punish me? He had all kinds of thoughts inwardly while looking at the headmaster, but he couldn’t do anything in the face of the chilling air dominating that space.
When Silvanus finally put down the pebble and discovered unfamiliar documents on the desk, he still didn’t look at Nigel.
The headmaster just made a show of skimming the letters written on the paper, then scrawled his signature carelessly on the last page. It must have been the Crown Prince’s admission permit.
Nigel, who had been somewhat nervous about meeting a dragon, tried to make eye contact with him. But Silvanus didn’t raise his head even after signing. The only thing he said was this:
‘Are there more documents that need signatures?’
It was a perfect order to leave.
Ha, I guess wiping pebbles is that important. Nigel kept his mouth shut and smiled bitterly inwardly as he turned and left the headmaster’s office.
Every time he encountered the headmaster two or three times during the year after enrollment, Silvanus would only say what was absolutely necessary and then disappear.
He had no interest in students, so why he was running this academy was unknowable. Of course, a mere human couldn’t possibly understand a dragon’s hobbies.
Anyway, for the headmaster to show interest in something like now. Even in his frog state, Nigel was surprised by that fact.
The headmaster bent his waist slightly and looked at Nigel crouching on the floor as he spoke.
“Nigel. What brings you to that form?”
Silvanus’s lips curved slowly in a gentle arc.
Hm? Did he just call me by name? Me, trapped in this frog’s body? Nigel opened his eyes wide and opened his mouth.
“Ah, I see, in that form it must be difficult to answer.”
At the same time, his murderous aura that had been crushing Nigel was withdrawn.
Only then did his small lungs inflate as gasping breaths burst out. His trembling limbs finally began to move according to his will.
Silvanus had called him in this horrible frog form precisely ‘Nigel.’
‘He recognized me?’
How?
Nigel could only stare blankly up at that transcendent being who, after calling his name, was faintly smiling. It was a smile far from warmth, closer to the pure intellectual amusement of one who had discovered an extremely interesting phenomenon.
Headmaster Silvanus elegantly lowered his massive mountain-like body to match Nigel’s eye level. Pure white eyes filled Nigel’s vision.
Blink—during that time, Nigel only blinked his eyes wide open and closed with foolish movements.
Though it wasn’t the same overwhelming fear as before, the Crown Prince felt naked before those eyes that seemed to see through everything.
“Even if you can’t speak in that state, you can think, can’t you. Your Highness, the Crown Prince of the Empire.”
His voice echoed softly in the quiet corridor. He realized for the first time that the title ‘Your Highness’ could sound this insulting. Nigel reflexively inflated his body, displaying wariness.
He knew it was a pathetic resistance, but it was the last pride he maintained as the Crown Prince of the Empire. It was extremely fortunate that he didn’t even make a ‘ribbit’ sound.
Seeing Nigel’s bluff, Silvanus’s smile deepened a bit more. He spread out his hand with long, white fingers before the frog.
It wasn’t a threatening action. It was a careful and elegant gesture, like offering feed to a small bird.
“First, come here.”
“……”
“We can’t keep doing this in the corridor, so let’s move to the headmaster’s office.”
His voice carried a gentle coercion that didn’t allow refusal. Nigel had no choice but to hop onto Silvanus’s palm. Anyway, since this place was within the dragon’s domain, it was the same as Nigel having no choice.
When Nigel had completely climbed onto his hand, Silvanus carefully curled his fingers to envelop the frog.
A dragon’s body temperature is low. Between his cold palms enveloping his whole body, Nigel felt a strange sense of security.
The tension throughout his body from running desperately through the corridor in an anxious state as soon as he opened his eyes melted away smoothly. Naturally, both eyes closed slightly. Right, if I just close my eyes for a moment while going to the headmaster’s office…
—”Oh my, Headmaster. Good morning.”
It was the voice of one of the cleaning maids who had been searching for the frog. Nigel’s eyes that had been closing snapped open.
No, when did she get here?!
When Nigel moved his legs as if about to jump out at any moment, Silvanus immediately soothed him with a very low voice as if to calm him on his palm—shh. Then he greeted the maid.
“Good morning.”
Come to think of it, befitting his position as the headmaster of this academy, he would treat the staff who managed the academy kindly. Of course, no sincerity could be felt in those actions or conversations, but anyway, it was a gentler attitude than toward students who he viewed as more lowly than pebbles on the road.
—”What are you holding in both hands like that? Give it to me, if it’s trash I’ll throw it away for you.”
To even be treated as trash in this situation. Nigel blinked both eyes between Silvanus’s two palms, which were rather comfortable though he was reluctant to admit it.
With the thought that Silvanus, who knew this body was the Crown Prince, surely wouldn’t kill a frog, he was in the mindset of letting everything go. And Nigel’s thought was correct.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Silvanus sent the cleaning maid back with kind words, then began walking with large strides. His destination would be the headmaster’s office, as he had said.
Traversing in an instant the corridor that had felt endlessly long to Nigel, he stopped in front of a massive door located at the highest point of the academy. Though he didn’t touch it, the heavy door slid open inward.
