Gallery Notebook
Despite everything, there was a clear problem.
Seris was nowhere near ready for a battlefield due to some sort of trauma.
Whenever pressure mounted or stress spiked, she instantly fell into panic.
Watching her break made it painfully clear that this was likely how someone as powerful as her had been subdued by the Dragonoids.
Even now, she was clearly distraught from the recent events.
She had curled herself into his bed without saying anything, tucked under the blankets as if hiding from the world.
‘She’s really taken over my bed.’
Vergil closed the book on his desk and approached her.
“Seris, do you not want to go out?”
“Later.”
Her voice was nothing like the haughty dragon who argued with him over potato soup.
It was enough to make him frown.
He sat at the edge of the bed.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“...I don’t feel like moving.”
Vergil watched the blanket rise as she pulled it over her head.
This wasn’t good. The Ice Dragon’s morale had clearly hit rock bottom.
If this were a gacha game, she would be marked as unusable.
That state where even a five-star unit might as well be a decorative card until her mood recovered.
Vergil rubbed his temple and sat before his desk once again.
He pulled open a notebook, where lines of glowing script were already being written at once.
Its pages were linked to countless other users scattered across the continent.
It was the kind of enchanted item traveling scholars used to exchange information, though in practice, it had devolved into a den of questionable advice and unsolicited opinions.
He dipped his quill and wrote:
[Ahem. I seek counsel. How does one motivate someone who is… depressed?]
The notebook vibrated, and replies appeared instantly, as if the entire magical network had been waiting just to argue.
┕ LustyBard: Sing to them, or seduce them. Or both. Works wonders for mood and coin.
┕ MageOnBreak): you seduced a fox last season.
┕ LustyBard: It was dark and she was fluffy.
┕ AnonymousUser: ???? You’re banned. Damn furry.
Vergil shook his head. In a public community, there were bound to be trolls.
┕ Innkeeper69: have you tried sex? Works for half the tavern regulars. sometimes for me too if I remember who I’m with.
┕ RandomPeasant: mate… people come to your inn to sleep, not to be propositioned.
┕ WizardWhoBlewUpHisHouse: Mental imbalance often stems from magical misalignment of the inner star-flow. Apply gentle clockwise mana pressure around the spine.
┕ RandomUser12: Bro you literally cannot read.
┕ WizardWhoBlewUpHisHouse: I CAN TOO. I just can’t write.
┕ ChronicOverthinker: Ask them what’s wrong. Then prepare yourself to hear ALL OF IT. Because once it starts, it never ends.
┕ DragonBoyfr: Shame them. Dragons get stronger when shamed. Probably humans too.
┕ BadBreathAttacks: STOP assuming things about us.
┕ DragonBoyfr: You’re coping. Touch grass.
┕ BadBreathAttacks: sybau
Vergil stared at the page.
As usual, ninety percent of it was rubbish, ten percent of it was sexual harassment, and one answer was actually useful.
┕ ImperialMageIntern: Give them a small goal. Even people with depression can move if the task is simple. Then praise them. Don’t tax them like the Empire does.
Still… it gave him an idea.
If Seris was withdrawn, then maybe the gentle approach was the way to go.
And maybe, just maybe, never ask this notebook for advice again.
He glanced toward the bed.
Seris lay curled under the blanket with only the tip of her silver hair visible.
Vergil approached her.
“Seris.”
He crouched beside the bed.
“How about we try something light today?”
“…Like what?”
“Just step outside with me. Get some fresh air. I’ll prepare you some hot cocoa if you like.”
The blanket lifted slightly, revealing one wary blue eye.
“That is all?”
“That is all.”
“…And if I don’t want to?”
“Then we try again later.”
Besides her uncanny love for potato soup, Seris had developed a surprising fondness for hot cocoa.
For an Ice Dragon, she liked warm things a little too much.
“…Can I just get the cocoa?”
“Only if you listen to me.”
She hesitated, weighing her options as if this were a life-or-death negotiation.
“…Just the porch.”
“Okay. Just the porch.”
Seris let out a tired sigh before finally moving the blanket aside, pushing herself up with sluggish movements.
Vergil stepped back to give her space.
* * *
Seris sat on the porch with a mug held gently in her hands and a blanket draped over her shoulders.
In truth, she felt no cold, but after spending a week in this cabin, she had grown used to the small comforts humans indulged themselves with.
“......”
She turned her gaze to the side.
Vergil sat at the small table beside her with a notebook open. He held a quill and busily wrote across the page.
Every few moments, he would pause, read over a line, then continue writing as if it were important.
The pages were dense with text. For a moment, Seris wondered if Vergil was some sort of writer.
Literacy was a mandatory skill for Dragons.
Their humanoid forms existed not merely for disguise, but for learning history, language, and diplomacy.
Seris had once studied under her own instructor. Though that elder was most likely dead now.
All of them were.
She looked down at her mug.
In this entire world, there was probably no one left who even knew what she looked like in human form, no one except Vergil.
“What are you writing?”
“Ah?”
Vergil looked up, blinking as if pulled out of whatever strange trance the notebook had dragged him into.
He tapped the page once, then shut it halfway, as though embarrassed to let her see.
“It’s… nothing important. Just asking for advice.”
“Advice? From whom?”
“A group. People who also use this notebook. They respond through it.”
Seris stared at the closed cover, confused.
“…How does that work?”
Vergil looked down at the notebook, then at her, then back at the notebook again.
Explaining this was somehow harder than fighting a battalion.
“It’s a linked artifact. Everyone who owns one can write in it, and the words appear in all the others. Like a shared bulletin board?”
“So you willingly invite strangers into your personal thoughts?”
“…Not willingly. They force themselves in.”
“And you trust their advice?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then why ask?”
“Desperation?”
Seris nodded as if this were the most reasonable thing she had heard today.
“I see. And did these strangers have anything helpful to say?”
“One. Just one.”
“And the rest?”
“…They questioned my intelligence, my bloodline, my swordsmanship, my sexuality, my lineage, my height—”
“Can I try?”
Of course, she would ask.
Seris’s curiosity was endless, and Vergil should have predicted this.
Yet the thought of her interacting with that notebook felt like handing a dragon a torch inside a powder warehouse.
Still… Seris had been distressed recently.
Maybe this would distract her. Maybe it would help. Or maybe it would make everything worse.
Vergil sighed.
“As long as I supervise whatever you write.”
“That is fine. So, how does this work?”
He placed the notebook on his lap and opened it to a blank page.
“You write a question, and the others respond. That’s all.”
Seris leaned forward, eyes sparkling with interest.
“So I just write whatever thought I have, and strangers will answer it?”
“Yes.”
“And they'll insult me as well?”
“Most definitely.”
Seris nodded with an oddly satisfied expression, already plotting something.
[Where are the Ice Dragons?]
Unexpectedly, her penmanship was refined in a way that made Vergil’s own crude scrawls look like they belonged to an illiterate bandit.
It was enough to remind him, once again, that Seris was royalty.
┕ MudWizard42: Ice Dragons? You mean those bedtime stories for hatchlings?
┕ SwordSniffer: Aren’t Ice Dragons extinct? Like your reading comprehension?
┕ ColdFeet: Be nice.
┕ SwordSniffer: No.
┕ DragonBoyfr: They’re not extinct. They’re just avoiding taxes.
┕ TaxEvader67: Bro I would too.
┕ FlameLicker: Heard they tasted great roasted.
┕ ElectroAnon: Reported.
┕ WetSockMage: Pretty sure the last Ice Dragon froze herself because the world was too cringe.
Oh no.
Vergil looked at Seris again. There was disbelief in her face at first, then offense.
For the first time in days, she reacted with something other than exhaustion or silence.
“...They mock my entire race so casually.”
Vergil closed the notebook in her stead.
“That is how they are. Don’t take their words seriously.”
But Seris kept staring ahead, troubled.
The comment had clearly landed deeper than it should have, and she did not try to hide the fact that it bothered her.
“Give it to me.”
“It’s best if—”
“Did you not vow to become my sword? Give it to me.”
There was no room for negotiation. Vergil could hear the angered tone in her voice.
This had nothing to do with whatever duty she expected of him, but if he pushed her any further, the entire cabin would likely end up buried in a tomb of ice.
In fact, the temperature was already starting to drop.
And it wasn’t from the already cold atmosphere.
He placed the notebook in her hands before she froze the roof over their heads.
┕ HumanEnjoyer: Ice Dragons don’t exist. You got tricked by a children’s book.
┕ OP (Seris): They DO exist.
┕ HumanEnjoyer: Sure grandpa, let’s get you back to bed.
┕ OP (Seris): ?????
┕ BogWalker: what’s an Ice Dragon? is that the one that melts in sunlight???
┕ OP (Seris): They do not melt.
┕ ElonMask: Weren’t the Ice Dragons wiped out because they were weak?
┕ OP (Seris): They were betrayed!
┕ WyvernSympathizer: Translation: weak.
┕ TotallyNotADragonoid: Is OP perhaps a real Ice Dragon?
┕ OP (Seris): Just a scholar studying the subject.
┕ FossilFinder: OP is 100% an Ice Dragon.
[Fight me now. Come to the—]
Vergil’s hand moved before Seris could write another word.
“No.”
“But they—”
“No.”
Seris glared at him.
“They mock my kind. My father would have frozen them where they stood.”
“And that is exactly why you are not allowed to reply anymore.”
Seris huffed and turned her face away.
“Cowards. Every last one of them. If they wish to die, they only need to ask.”
“More importantly, stop revealing information. Dragons lurk in that community, too. If the wrong people see your thread, they’ll start putting things together.”
Seris clicked her tongue, but the warning wasn’t for naught.
The moment she wrote about Ice Dragons, every dragon clan with half a functioning brain was probably scrambling to gather intel.
Even if the notebook granted complete anonymity, it meant nothing if Seris herself accidentally disclosed something a bit too specific.
“It’s safe as long as you don’t reveal anything. But knowing you, you’d start listing your entire family tree out of spite.”
She looked away again, clearly offended.
“I would never.”
“You absolutely would.”
Still, he couldn’t deny that it served as entertainment.
Watching the pride of dragons being poked for free was amusing in its own way.
And undoubtedly, somewhere in the Dragon Empire, a room full of Dragonoid officials was probably losing their minds trying to track down the so-called “Ice Dragon OP.”
“Are you alright now?”
“Give me the notebook, Vergil.”
“No.”
“Give. It.”
At least she looked like herself again.
