Orbis often explored the human world, but he never once cared whether they would fear or be curious about him.
It wasn’t that he lacked knowledge, but knowledge without understanding holds no meaning as knowledge.
Just as humans don’t consider how ants might think of them when observing ants.
A mysterious dragon with immense power, yet never making a single demand of humans.
That’s why he never thought the empire would worry that the dragon might one day trample the human world.
Even less so, the idea that they would send a woman to persuade him.
“Don’t come near, you monster!”
The woman dying in the carriage, bleeding, hurled abuse even at the man who had saved her life.
After realizing he was the divine dragon, master of the dragon city, she screamed like a madwoman and caused a commotion, then promptly fell to her knees, clasped her hands, and began to beg.
Orbis said nothing as he looked down at the trembling woman.
More terrified by his silence, the woman shed tears profusely, had a fit, and eventually rolled her eyes back and fainted.
Orbis did nothing to the unconscious woman.
The imperial palace had sent a carriage, and inside was a dying woman.
He considered leaving her be, but seeing signs that she had tried to take her own life, he healed her.
Because he wanted to ask why she had tried to die.
However, when Orbis revived the woman and questioned her, she rambled incoherently and gave strange excuses, then begged forgiveness, and later even hurled insults.
She cursed, then screamed, then apologized again… She was truly an unpredictable woman.
“Should I just kill her?”
Judging that his curiosity wouldn’t be satisfied even if she woke up, Orbis briefly considered erasing the woman’s existence along with the carriage, but then decided against it.
He had become slightly interested.
The dragon city was not an environment suitable for human habitation.
In summer, it was so hot that just being in the sunlight could cause burns, and in winter, it was so cold that one would freeze to death without lighting a fire.
The scale of the dragon city was impressive, but there was nothing inside it.
“Yes, there was nothing.”
But then the woman appeared.
Change was better than no change at all.
No matter how trivial it might be.
Orbis didn’t do anything special for the woman. He just left her be.
Like a small ornament added to an empty, cold room. Like a small potted plant appearing. He just watched and waited.
The woman, after waking up, repeated her screaming and fainting several times, then hesitantly approached where Orbis was.
He didn’t understand it then, but he thinks now that she might have had a small belief that he would protect her from the cold or heat.
“Fire is falling from the sky, it’s too hot. The floor is so cold, I’ve got frostbite.”
It was nice to have a talking plant nearby, alleviating the loneliness. Orbis quietly gazed at the woman.
“Please do something. You’re the divine dragon…”
He continued to stare at the woman blankly.
Though he could understand human language through innate knowledge and knew what conversation was, he felt no need to converse with a plant.
“It hurts…”
Litania was often in pain. When pus dripped from her burn wounds, it gave off a foul odor.
Also, she sometimes whimpered, clutching her feet that were rotting from frostbite. Sometimes she would sniffle, and other times she would wail loudly.
Still, Orbis just watched her quietly, doing nothing.
He might have considered whether to revive her if she died.
“It hurts. I said it hurts too much!”
The woman glared at Orbis with resentful eyes.
It was the imperial family of the empire who had sent her here, but they weren’t present. Her desperate anger naturally turned towards the man before her.
“If you were going to do this, why did you save me! Just kill me! Kill me right now!”
The woman, overcome with anger, lunged at Orbis.
The first memory probably ended there.
[This is the timeline separator]The sound of the sky crying was heard from afar. Orbis slowly opened his eyes.
The divine dragon didn’t need sleep, but rest helped stabilize his mind.
Orbis would substitute rest by lying down slightly and closing his eyes.
Though he never fell into an unconscious state like humans, he thought that the characteristic of momentarily forgetting reality when deeply immersed in thought might be similar to human sleep.
“Litania.”
Orbis caught Litania’s voice among the sounds coming from far away.
For the divine dragon, finding traces of a loved one was nothing.
No, at this stage, it would be ‘friend’.
“I have no obligation to grant your request, but.”
If he said that, she would get angry again. He wanted to see her angry face, but if he did it too often, he would be disliked.
‘How curious.’
He wanted to see her angry face, but he didn’t want to be disliked by her.
What a contradictory emotion this was.
“Between friends, one can show kindness without expecting anything in return.”
Orbis smiled faintly and rose from his seat. It took less than a few seconds for the tall figure to disappear.
[This is the timeline separator]‘A rain ritual during a drought. Is this the best they can do?’
Litania closed her eyes while massaging the back of her neck.
She had thought about gaining fame by constructing irrigation canals or embarking on an adventure to find a magic stone that creates water, like in other romance fantasy novels, but she never imagined being mobilized for such a primitive event.
Of course, when they perform a rain ritual, it does rain.
Because they pray until it rains.
It’s not because the rain ritual is effective, but simply because humans are persistent.
‘Wouldn’t it be better to pay Orbis and ask him instead of doing this?’
It was problematic enough that Prince Vapour made such a preposterous suggestion, but an even bigger issue was that when the Crown Prince opposed it, the prince went directly to the Emperor with his proposal.
When the Emperor, the final decision-maker, gave his approval, preparations for the rain ritual proceeded smoothly despite the Crown Prince’s opposition.
‘Even in a fantasy world, for a developed society to hold a rain ritual… When superstition prevails, a country is bound to decline. What will become of this nation…’
Feeling as if she had possessed the neighbor who prepares a national flag early in the morning rather than being a romance fantasy novel’s female lead, Litania pressed her forehead.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have come.’
When the rain ritual was announced, the Crown Prince seriously opposed it, and for some reason, Princess Herna also vehemently objected.
Litania was a bit surprised to realize that although Herna was a one-dimensional villain who only responded to her based on preset conditions, she was a person who reacted sensibly in other areas.
‘But that was the end of it.’
Regardless of the Crown Prince and Princess’s opposition, or whether Litania viewed the superstition as pathetic, the rain ritual began under the Emperor’s approval.
Fortunately, perhaps considering the hardships of the people due to the drought, the altar was simple. No animals were slaughtered, and not even food was offered.
The simple altar was built just large enough for one person to stand and pray towards the sky.
‘…Looking at it this way, it looks exactly like an altar for offering a praying person.’
No matter how prevalent superstition might be, they wouldn’t perform human sacrifice here. Litania gazed at the empty altar with cloudy eyes and tried to leave the rest to others as she came down.
No, she was about to come down.
“What are you doing? Not going up?”
Prince Vapour caught Litania as she was about to turn away.
“Huh?”
“Didn’t we say we’d hold a rain ritual?”
“We did. But I’m not the one praying.”
“They said it has to be you.”
“Who said that?”
“His Majesty.”
The Emperor had approved the rain ritual, but it seems he was the one swayed by superstition.
Was this why the Emperor had been avoiding meeting Litania?
“After neglecting me and treating me like a fake princess all this time, now they put me forward for something like this?”
“Ugh…”
Vapour seemed to feel a bit guilty and hesitated.
Litania felt a twinge of conscience realizing it was the Emperor’s order, not the Prince’s, but decided not to feel guilty since it was clear that Vapour had also been ignoring her all along.
“But if not you, then who?”
“It doesn’t matter who does it for this kind of rain ritual anyway.”
“Then we could take turns doing it.”
It was foolish to try to win with logic against superstition in the first place.
Litania decided to just give up and go along with it.
Even though it was nothing more than a show, she hoped the news that the imperial family had performed a rain ritual would provide some comfort to the capital’s residents.
“Princess Litania will now ascend.”
A man in white robes who looked like a priest called out Litania’s name.
‘I’ve never been treated as a princess all this time, yet I’m called one in a place like this.’
Somehow, it felt awkward and embarrassing.
Litania cleared her throat and climbed onto the altar. Standing on the high altar with nothing obstructing the view, it really looked as if she could reach the sky.
If someone lived in the sky, it seemed like they might really hear the prayer.
Litania closed her eyes with her hands clasped together, facing the sky that was white and dry without a trace of moisture.
“People are suffering. Please send rain.”
She knows it’s superstition.
She knows nothing will be achieved by prayer alone.
But she’s not irresponsible enough to treat the situation as a joke or a lie.
‘If this world is inside a novel, maybe the meaning of my name being “prayer” might work as some kind of plausibility.’
At the very least, she hoped her prayer would have even a speck of influence in alleviating people’s suffering.
Litania offered her prayer sincerely, just as the priests who usually performed rain rituals did, and…
Whoosh.
Rain fell.
My Step-brother Is Obsessed With Me (Female-dominant)
A gentle female protagonist vs pitiful in the early stage, and a sick male protagonist in the later stage
Cheng Songer transmigrated into the body of a vicious cannon fodder female supporting character with the same name as her in a female-dominant novel.
In the original story, the cannon fodder female supporting character was inhumane, committing domestic violence, gambling excessively, being lustful, and even wanting to sell her stepbrother to a brothel for money.
As luck would have it, she just happened to transmigrate at this time.
Seeing Cheng Qingzhi biting his lip, enduring the tears in his eyes, looking pitiful, her heart softened.
She stuffed the money back into the Madam’s hand and reached out to him.
“Brother, come home with me.”
