It was a Political Marriage, But I’m Being Loved - Chapter 81

He wanted to use magic to fly over the wall, but too many eyes were watching.
The Emperor might quietly tolerate magicians bypassing the gates, but officially, it was still illegal.

“Eh? That’s it? Already over?”

Some people grumbled in disappointment, but as they got closer to Achilles, no one dared to continue complaining.

Even from a distance, the golden figure conjured by the foreign prince—a legal mage from another continent—stood easily over three meters tall.

Yet in less than a minute, it had been swallowed by the darkness.
If even a famed legal mage from the Eastern Continent was no match for the Tower Master, then the awe and fear reflected in the crowd’s eyes were only natural.

“Achilles!”

Their silence shattered when a voice rang out behind them.
One of the attendants had poured a potion under Ryuhan’s nose, reviving him.

With bloodshot eyes, Ryuhan sprang up, summoning glowing magic circles in both hands, and charged straight toward Achilles.

Achilles stopped and turned back, his face emotionless.
Ryuhan ripped thorny vines from the ground and whipped them toward him.

Achilles simply flicked his fingers.
A burst of blue flame shot out, slicing the vines into clean pieces.

The cut vines writhed as if alive, then dug themselves back into the earth.
Ryuhan’s eyes gleamed, certain his trap had worked.

From underground, the vines began to multiply rapidly.
What had started as thin tendrils thickened into trunks as wide as an adult man’s arm, surging upward to engulf Achilles.

But—

Achilles simply watched.

The vines, about to slam into him, suddenly shuddered.
A red aura rippled outward in a perfect circle around Achilles, and the massive vines began to shrivel and collapse.

“Why?!”
Ryuhan’s voice cracked with disbelief as he watched the once-powerful vines wither helplessly.

The earth, where the vines had erupted, trembled again.
It seemed ready to spit something else out—
but instead, the shriveled remains of the vines were sucked violently back underground.

Rumble, rumble, rumble…!

The ground vibrated so violently that Ryuhan’s attendants panicked and scattered.
Ryuhan himself felt something monstrous approaching and stumbled backward.

KRAAAAH!

From the earth, the massive jaws of an earth-dragon burst forth and swallowed Ryuhan whole.

The onlookers screamed, thinking a real dragon had appeared.
But soon, they realized it was a creature made of dirt and stone—a magical construct.

“P-Prince Ryuhan!”

“Stop him! Tower Master, please stop! The Prince will die!”

The attendants, waving their arms frantically, shouted at the top of their lungs.

There was no sign of Ryuhan, now trapped inside the belly of the earthen dragon.

Achilles didn’t react immediately to their cries.
Instead, he turned his gaze to the castle walls.
He already understood why the Emperor had gathered so many nobles and envoys here.

Achilles’ sharp eyes found the Emperor.

The Emperor’s expression twitched with alarm at the sight of Ryuhan being swallowed.
But when he saw Achilles standing there calmly, he forced himself to remain composed.

“…He’s watching us,”
the Empress said quietly, still peering through her opera glasses.

Oscar turned to the Emperor.

“Your Majesty, it seems we must give a signal,”
he urged.

If they hesitated and Ryuhan truly died, it would be disastrous.

The Emperor signaled to his aide, who quickly whispered to a soldier.
The soldier grabbed a flag hanging from the wall and waved it high.

From a distance, Achilles caught the signal.
It clearly meant: Release the prince.

Inside the dragon’s stomach, Ryuhan was still struggling—cutting at the thick roots binding him, trying desperately to break free.

‘Not that I expect him to calm down after this,’
Achilles thought.

Still, for the sake of the Emperor’s dignity—and because he had shown enough of his power—it was time to let go.

With a flick of his hand, Achilles commanded the earth-dragon to rise again.
The beast opened its massive jaws wide with a deep, rumbling groan.

KRAAH!

Along with a blast of dust and dirt, Ryuhan—still tangled in broken vines—was vomited onto the ground, crashing down like a heap of mud.

“P-Prince Ryuhan!”

The attendants, faces pale with fear, rushed toward the prince.
The envoys from Lushan, who had been gathered on one side of the wall, also hurried down the stairs.

Ryuhan lay helplessly on the ground, covered in dirt, his body completely bound by vines.

“Damn it! Why won’t these cut?!”

He tried sharpening his fingers like blades using legal magic to slice through the vines, but it was useless.
Though the vines were smooth and had no thorns, they held him firmly, refusing to break.

Wrapped up like a silkworm cocoon, Ryuhan could barely stick his head out and screamed in frustration.

“This must be black magic! How else could magic overpower legal magic—mmph! Mmph!”

A vine slithered up and gagged him, cutting off his words.
It left his nostrils free, so he could breathe, but he could no longer speak.

“T-Tower Master! Release His Highness! This is outrageous!”

The attendants shouted frantically nearby.
They wanted to rush Achilles and force him to stop, but the overwhelming power he had just shown left them too terrified to move.

Meanwhile, the envoys from Lushan who had descended from the wall were now sprinting toward them.

“I’m doing this for the Prince’s sake,”
Achilles said casually.
“If we let him keep shouting, it would only bring shame to Lushan and its legal mages.”

The attendants stared at him, stunned.
From the beginning, Ryuhan had kept accusing Achilles’ magic of being black magic—an insult they couldn’t afford to tolerate.

Achilles might have an unclear background, but he was officially a Marquess of the Ladenbach Empire, soon to be the Emperor’s son-in-law, and the Tower Master himself.
Calling his magic “black magic” was a diplomatic disaster waiting to happen for Lushan.

Even among legal mages, such accusations were reckless and foolish.

“S-Still, please release him!”

“If he admits defeat, I’ll let him go,” Achilles replied calmly.

At that, Ryuhan, even while tightly bound, violently shook his head.
The attendants panicked, trying to stop him, but Achilles only smiled coolly.

“Very well, then.”

Rumble!

The ground shook violently as a massive earth-dragon rose again, charging toward them as if ready to crush them all.

Some of the attendants screamed and ran away.
Others desperately tried to carry Ryuhan to safety.

But the vines binding him were anchored deep into the ground, and even when they drew daggers to cut them, they couldn’t make a dent.

“Ahh! Help! Agh!”

“Stop, Tower Master!”

The earth-dragon slammed its head into the ground right near them, threatening to swallow them whole.
The envoys from Lushan screamed, their faces deathly pale.

At that moment, the vines gagging Ryuhan’s mouth loosened slightly—perhaps from the chaos—and without realizing, Ryuhan shouted at the top of his lungs:

“I surrender! I give up!”

The earth-dragon froze.

By then, many attendants were already halfway inside its gaping mouth.
The massive creature remained still, its jaws wide open, while the attendants collapsed around Ryuhan, too exhausted to move.

Ryuhan, drenched in cold sweat, glared at Achilles in humiliation.

Achilles showed no satisfaction, no expression at all, even after forcing Ryuhan to admit defeat.
Only then did the magic binding the vines finally fade, allowing the attendants to cut through them at last.

At Achilles’ subtle signal, the earth-dragon slowly sank back into the ground.

Finally, Achilles turned and headed toward the north gate.
Ryuhan could only watch, still half-trapped in the vines, powerless to do anything.

On the castle wall, the Emperor hid his relief and turned to the nobles standing around him.

“The Tower Master has won.”

“Incredible magic, Your Majesty!”

“That prince of Lushan wasn’t weak either… but the Tower Master is simply on a different level.”

The nobles murmured their admiration one after another.

Meanwhile, the Imperial Princess, together with her attendants, was making her way down the wall steps.

From below, a roaring cheer erupted from the crowd.
It wasn’t purely spontaneous—there were people the Emperor had planted among them to stir the celebration.

“Victory!”

“The Tower Master wins!”

Unaware of this, Ryuhan struggled to his feet, his face twisted with fury.

Achilles had already reached the north gate and was taking the hand of the Princess who had come to meet him.

A Tower Master with overwhelming power. A princess with immense influence.

Ryuhan, a prince who should have had no need to envy anyone,
for the first time in his life, felt a fierce, burning jealousy.

Not even toward his older brother—the Crown Prince burdened with endless studying—
nor toward Chunryeo, the mistress of Cheonhwabong, had he ever felt such a thing.

Toward his brother, he had felt pity.
Toward Chunryeo, he felt nothing because Ryuhan believed women were bound by their roles: bearing children, finding a husband.
He had always thought: What is there to envy about a woman’s life?
Better to be a man who could rule the world.

And so, for the first time, Ryuhan truly envied someone: Achilles.

Not his birth—but the power he had seized with his own hands.
The strength he possessed now.

‘If I had that kind of power, I wouldn’t be here trying to curry favor with the Emperor. I would have just taken the Princess for myself.’

It was a bitter, painful regret.

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