I Never Expected You to Be This Kind of Heroine

One sunny afternoon, Ruben lay on the slope of a hill, enjoying the benefits of sunlight.

He let the ultraviolet rays kill the harmful bacteria on his body. Not far away, Mayuna was doing aerobic exercise, lying flat on the ground and struggling to raise her upper body in a movement called sit-ups to burn off her excess fat.

"Come on, just ten more and you'll be done."

Ruben could hear from Mayuna's panting that she was already exhausted.

But she was still a little short of her goal. There was nothing he could do about her terrible stamina, so he could only make sarcastic remarks.

"Ugh, why do I have to do something like this...?"

Mayuna truly hated this exercise, which was practically self-torture.

Earlier that day, she had vaguely asked Ruben whether there was a way to eat sweets to her heart's content without gaining weight. He had then brought her here to torment her, and the worst part was that he was making her torment herself.

"The sun feels so nice."

"You like sunbathing, huh? Fine, I'll let you have plenty of sun."

Mayuna gritted her teeth and raised a finger. A ring of magic power rippled outward from it.

A mass of dark clouds gradually took shape. It was the preliminary casting phase of the lightning spell Lightning Storm. A dignified ninth-tier spell was being used by Mayuna to prank Ruben; if it could think for itself, who knew what it would say to her.

"Hm?"

Ruben, who had been enjoying the sun's warm embrace, suddenly found his vision darkening.

When he opened his eyes, he saw a huge black cloud floating directly above his head. He rolled to the left, and the cloud followed him. No matter how he dodged, it kept following him and blocking the sun.

"Mayuna, are you a child?"

Ruben was not angry. He simply got up, walked over to Mayuna, and asked her.

She pretended not to hear him and played dead.

"All right, that's enough for today. I'll treat you to pudding when we get back."

After spending so much time with her, Ruben had figured out Mayuna's personality.

She was probably upset because she had been left alone for too long. Ruben did not make things difficult for her and turned toward the cabin.

"Good. At least you know what's good for you."

Mayuna curled her lips into a silent smile, dispelled the dark cloud, and followed after Ruben.

"Are you still sulking? Isn't it about time you took it back?"

After walking a few steps, Ruben realized that sunlight still was not falling on him.

The shadow above him had actually grown even larger, so he turned and asked.

"No, this wasn't my doing."

Mayuna had already dispelled her magic.

As she spoke, she looked up at the sky with Ruben and saw only a black shadow plummeting at a speed too fast for the naked eye to track, about to crash into the ground.

"Earth magic: Earth's Grip."

Mayuna lightly tapped the ground with the tip of her foot.

The previously silent earth suddenly began to tremble, like an ancient giant awakening. A colossal hand made of soil rose from the ground, over fifty meters across, and closed around the black shadow in a single grasp.

"It's you, Mers."

Mayuna used a magic shield to block the gale whipped up by inertia.

When she saw the giant creature clenched in the earthen hand's palm, she frowned. It was clear that she did not want to see this dragon.

"Raaah!"

Delight shone in the black dragon Mers's eyes.

If he had not been unable to break free from Mayuna's earth magic, he probably would have already pounced over to rub against her. He had happened to be flying nearby when he suddenly sensed Mayuna's magic fluctuations.

That incomparably familiar magic power had once seeped into his bones. There was no way he could mistake it. After landing, he had indeed found the fiancée he had longed for day and night.

"Speak normally."

How could Mayuna understand what this dragon was saying?

At her command, Mers transformed into the form of a little boy and slipped out through the fingers of Earth's Grip.

"My wife, you're really alive. I finally found you."

Mers shouted happily and tried to throw himself into his fiancée's warm embrace.

Mayuna, however, showed no appreciation. With a snap of her fingers, she used plant magic, Vine Entanglement, to tightly bind the naked little brat and stop him from coming any closer.

"Mers! Didn't I tell you that if you showed up in front of me again, I wouldn't go easy on you?"

Mers's form of address irritated Mayuna to no end.

She had warned this young dragon more than once not to call her that, but he simply refused to listen.

"Who is he?"

Only then did Ruben speak up. Mayuna had thought he would be shocked by the sight of a dragon, but he merely asked about Mers's identity as if it were nothing unusual.

"Just a brat."

"A human male? You reptile, stay away from my fiancée!"

Mers, whose eyes had been fixed solely on Mayuna, had only just noticed Ruben.

For no apparent reason, he felt threatened by this human. Baring his teeth, he snarled a warning.

"I see. I never expected you to have that kind of preference. My apologies for intruding."

Ruben consciously took a step back.

Helping lovers come together was a traditional virtue on Earth, so naturally he would not disturb the young couple. At the same time, the branch on his head opened its eyes and glanced at Mayuna with a mocking expression.

"Hold it right there! You actually believed him just like that? Do I look like a pervert?"

Mayuna angrily grabbed Ruben's arm to stop him from backing away and pointed at her own face as she demanded an answer.

"Love knows no age. At least, that's what I think."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. I never expected you to be this kind of Archmage. I really misjudged you."

Ruben and Dragon each added a remark, nearly driving Mayuna berserk with anger.

No matter what, she did not want Ruben to misunderstand and think she had some absurd marriage arrangement, so she immediately began explaining.

"Listen, he decided on his own that I was his fiancée. I never agreed to it. On the contrary, I hate him."

"Then I suppose I should hear your story."

"That was before I became an Archmage. This bastard brat ate my unicorn!"

From Mayuna's account, Ruben roughly understood the grudge between them.

Back when Mayuna was still a Mage Saint, she had been riding a top-tier unicorn mount while out for a stroll. As she passed through a forest, an enormous head suddenly appeared. Caught completely off guard by the attack, she could only watch as the gift from her teacher and her beloved mount died in a dragon's jaws.

After coming to her senses, she furiously smashed Mers into serious injury with lightning magic, Thor's Hammer. If she had not been wary of the forces standing behind the dragon race, she truly would have wanted to kill him on the spot.

Yet now, she felt that she should have struck harder back then.

No one had expected Mers to have masochistic tendencies. After being beaten half to death, not only did he not resent Mayuna, he even declared that he would marry her someday. Ever since then, he had stubbornly clung to her.

"That's right. Thinking back on that day, the feeling of being beaten until my skin split open and every bone in my body trembled was truly incomparable bliss. We dragons like powerful women."

After listening to Mayuna, Mers nodded in agreement.

"He's an M."

"Young dragon, I must tell you some unfortunate news. Your fiancée has already had something extremely excessive done to her by my partner."

Seeing an opportunity to stir up trouble, Dragon immediately climbed down from Ruben's head, ran onto Mers's shoulder, and began whispering in his ear like a demon.

"E-Excessive?"

Mers's gaze shifted back and forth between the two of them.

A lone man and woman living together—what else could they possibly have done? Before long, he imagined some very inappropriate scenes.

"That's right. On the very first day they met, my partner roughly inserted something into her body. When he pulled it out, she bled quite a lot."

Dragon did not mind making the situation bigger for the sake of entertainment.

He fully displayed his talent for twisting words, turning an ordinary treatment into a scene that needed to be censored.

"Dragon, you bastard! What the hell are you talking about?!"

Mayuna wanted nothing more than to grab Dragon and use him as firewood.

Any normal person would read something improper into those words, let alone a simple-minded dragon.

"Huh? Did I say something wrong? For the next half month, didn't you keep shouting no while obediently letting my partner insert it into your body every day?"

"Damn human, I'll kill you!"

As expected, Mers was so enraged that he returned to his true form.

With his tremendous strength, he tore free of the vines binding him and swung a front claw larger than a house at Ruben.

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P.S. Dragon: Stir up trouble, stir up trouble, stir up trouble.