Son of the Hero King
chapter-24

"Why? Simply– because I love you, Edea."

He did not add anything, neither did he embellish his words nor sugar-coat them.

"So what if you think you are worthless and without any redeeming qualities? So what if you hate yourself? So what if you find yourself to be weak and disgusting?"

He spoke in a strong voice full of emotions and conviction, while a deep golden aura slowly but surely began to emanate from his being covering his form.

'Impossible!'

Edea reeled in shock, the moment she saw that aura. It was without a doubt...

'Mana? Moreover, it’s with an attribute?'

Even Mars only awakened prematurely with attributeless mana. It was the norm. Humans were simply unable to have an attribute before making a contract.

But, the moment Sol’s usually sky blue eyes changed into slitted golden ones. She immediately understood,

'He awakened his dragon blood.'

Sol, who was also about to continue his tirade, immediately stopped as he felt the new source of energy circulate throughout his body.

He looked at his hands on which scales were slowly growing on and clenched his fists in wonder and intrigue.

It was then,

'Shit.'

He was clearly on a roll, but because of what just happened, he knew the momentum was lost.

'I never thought that I would be sad because I managed to awaken.'

He laughed bitterly before letting out a strained sigh, but then suddenly had an interesting idea.

"Teacher, it seems that I managed to awaken quite early."

Edea woke up from her stupor and nodded to him with a smile,

"Congratulations!"

She immediately began to clap in earnest. Truthfully speaking, awakening earlier than normal didn't bring any particular advantage, but from what she understood from studying Mars was that it was more of a proof that his mana quantity and capacity were so high that it simply overflowed.

While she was clapping, inwardly, she was letting out a sigh of relief.

'This kid really managed to corner me.'

She could still feel some heat permeating her cheeks. His last declaration was so straightforward that it was like taking a fireball in the face without any form of protection.

'Next time I will have to be care–'

"Teacher. What I did was truly unprecedented aside from my father right?"

Sol interrupted her inner thoughts, but his question was rather normal so she simply nodded, still, she couldn't help but have a growing feeling of worry.

This feeling was confirmed when a sly smile formed on the corner of his lips.

"As my teacher, shouldn't you offer me a congratulatory gift?"

"A gift?"

Indeed, a gift was in order, but why did she feel like she was walking into a well-placed trap?

"Of course. You always told me that an appropriate reward should be given when necessary. So, I want a gift."

Edea who was still standing up and Sol who was still seated, with a golden radiance of formless mana enveloping him, locked eyes with each other.

The stand-off lasted for a few seconds before Edea looked away with a pout and Sol flashed a smile of victory.

"What do you want as a reward?"

She let out a defeated sigh as she asked while closing her eyes. But, it was then,

*Kiss*

She suddenly felt a moist feeling on her lips while an arm powerfully enveloped her waist.

She opened her eyes wide, only to see Sol who should have previously been seated already up, and kissing her on the lips. She instinctively raised her right arm in protest, but Sol easily captured it with his free hand.

'My first kiss!'

She was so flustered that she didn't even remember that she just needed to use a little bit of her mana to overpower him.

"Nn! Nn!"

Her struggles gradually weakened as their kiss went deeper when Sol entered his sly tongue inside her mouth, enveloping hers with his. She, slowly but surely, lost in the sensation of their lips locking and their tongues dancing.

Sol, who had a rather large experience under his belt by now, didn't waste any time in completely making her putty in his hands.

But, Edea who was slowly falling into bliss suddenly woke up with a start and finally put enough mana to push Sol away with panic evident in her actions,

"Please, the curse!"

Her face was wrought with anxiety, but soon the anxiety made way for incomprehension as she looked at her hand,

"Impossible."

It was the second time in such a short amount of time that she was shocked senseless.

"Teacher…?"

Sol asked carefully, he didn't regret kissing her, nor about not asking her before doing the shameless act. He knew that Edea would have never ever accepted such things. Not because she did not want to, but because a kiss was enough to activate the curse.

Life Drain.

This was the true curse of the witches. Witches were able to absorb the life force of their partners, a little like succubuses. The only downside was that unlike the succubus they had absolutely no control over the draining.

A simple kiss would be enough for the male to lose a few years of his life as for sex, from the record he had read. The one who lasted the longest was an Elf from the Northern Pride kingdom. He died after just 50 minutes.

An elf on average had a lifespan of 400 to 500 years. A normal human only had 60 to 90 years.

Edea, who heard Sol’s question, covered her mouth and bowed her head,

"Sol, do you know. One of the features of the curse is that even though we have no control over the drain, we know exactly how much life we have taken away."

She seemed somewhat lost as she muttered in a weak voice, "Your reckless kiss should have cost you between a few months to a year of your life force, but…You only lost ten minutes."

"So the curse does not affect me?!" Sol couldn't hide how elated he was at this sudden revelation.

"Rather than no effect, the effect is simply diluted. Anything beyond a kiss should still be too much of a price to pay."

Edea lowered her head and kept asking herself how it could be possible. Even though it wasn't a full immunity, it was still incredible.

Sol had just awakened. Even though the amount of mana he was emanating was rather large for a new mana user, in front of a divine curse no amount of mana should be enough.

It was then that she remembered,

"... You are a hybrid. No, more precisely, you are half-dragon."

"Teacher?"

"Quiet!" She waved her hand at him to shut up and bowed her head again, hundreds of pieces of information filtered in her mind as she recalled everything about the Draconic species as a whole.

Dragons were mythical creatures all born from the Dragon of Pride Tiamat, a divine beast at the same level as Asmodeus.

From what she remembered, Blaze, Sol's mother, was one of Tiamat's most beloved children, as between all dragons, she was the closest to Tiamat’s element and origin.

What made dragons so extremely dangerous was their absolute invulnerability to a precise element.

Blaze, despite her name, wasn't a fire dragon but rather a chaos dragon. Meaning, she had an absolute immunity against any and all forms of magic. Like her ancestors. The immunity that Mars also obtained thanks to their contracts. The singular ability that made him and Blaze the most frightening duo in existence.

Now, what about Sol?

He was born from two beings who had an absolute immunity against all forms of magic. Even if he did not perfectly inherit those traits he should still have a strong resistance against all forms of magic, right?

Edea could feel her heart shake at this realization. But not just this,

'Dragons don't just have their immunity. Scales as tough as the strongest metal, beings beloved by mana, an extremely long longevity, and…'

She could feel the heat rise again on her face as she thought of the last trait that made the dragons notorious in all the lands.

'... A lust without limits. They say that dragons can impregnate anything and everything as long as it can give birth.'

She subconsciously brought her hand over her stomach, while shivering not because of joy, but rather fear. Extreme fear.

She might be one of the first witches and without a doubt one of the most powerful, but she wasn't the sole witch in this world. Nor was she the only one who suffered from the curse.

If her conjectures were proven true…what would happen if those old and powerful witches who had all wished to have a true relationship and get children were to learn of this?

"Listen, Sol, we might have a little bit of a problem."