A Mad Dog Needs a Leash — Chapter 4

Daisy closed her eyes.

She needed to sort through what had just happened—or rather, what had happened in her previous life.

What on earth was going on?

Until now, Daisy had believed the world had ended because the Grand Duke had suffered some misfortune and failed to slay the Dungeon Lord.

But that hadn't been it at all.

Daisy shot upright from where she'd been lying, sat down at her desk, and pulled out a sheet of paper. Then she wrote down the runic characters she had glimpsed at the very end, took out her runic dictionary, and began to translate.

She had learned only the barest fundamentals of runes and never studied them in depth, so a dictionary was essential for deciphering anything.

What she finally uncovered was staggering.

"It recognizes him... as the master of a new dungeon."

A dungeon capable of succession. She had never heard of such a thing. But if it wasn't an A-Rank dungeon but an S-Rank, it was at least possible.

Almost nothing was known about S-Rank dungeons. Occasionally, travelers who had crossed between dimensions would speak of them, but no one could ever verify whether their tales held a grain of truth.

One thing, however, was accepted as certain fact: the moment an S-Rank dungeon opened, even if the being protecting this world—the Grand Duke himself—became that dungeon's monster, the annihilation of humanity was assured.

Daisy stared down blankly at her translation and murmured.

"I have to keep doing this?"

Dozens of times. Hundreds. Endless regressions with no foreseeable end.

Daisy felt as though the last thread of her sanity were snapping.

Daisy chose her clothes with grim resolve.

Instead of the bright, frilly dresses trimmed with lace and ribbons she had always worn, she put on simple black trousers and a shirt. She tucked the fountain pen resting on her desk into her coat and headed straight for the Academy.

It was the season of short days, and even at seven in the morning the grounds outside were still dim. She went directly to the laboratory.

Sweeping her eyes along the reagent cabinets, she searched for the deadliest substance she could find—though nearly everything in them was lethal. What she needed was a poison that could kill in a single stroke, without fail.

After some deliberation, she selected one particularly dangerous chemical—a few drops on the skin were enough to induce shock—soaked the nib of her fountain pen thoroughly in it, and sealed the bottle.

I can't exactly carry a sword in there. This will have to do.

Her hazelnut eyes gleamed with an unreadable light.

Leaving the laboratory, Daisy went straight to the graduation ceremony hall—and this time, instead of the front-row center seat she had taken in every previous loop, she sat at the edge of the room.

Then she drew in a long, deep breath.

When her last regression had ended, Daisy had genuinely believed she was losing her mind.

The moment the Grand Duke—him, of all people—succeeded the master of an A-Rank dungeon, the dungeon's rank would have transcended into another dimension entirely. The power of the monsters spilling out of it would have far exceeded anything recorded at first observation.

Untangling the cause and effect of everything that had happened hadn't taken long. Accepting it—that was what had taken an eternity.

For dozens of regressions, Daisy had focused all her energy on devising strategies to keep the Grand Duke alive.

But the revelation that the Grand Duke was the architect of all of it was more than enough to burn away what little patience she had left.

And when her patience finally ran dry, Daisy sank deeper into despair—until her thoughts arrived somewhere extreme.

Kill the Grand Duke.

If he died, at least he would never become the Dungeon Lord. Humanity would not collapse helplessly. The Empire would not fall.

Daisy was confident.

She was the one person guaranteed never to die before the fated day, so there was little chance of anyone stopping her midway.

Besides, from observing him up close in her previous life, the Grand Duke had seemed perfect—but he had a weakness.

He grew weary of being surrounded by people, and in those moments he tended to let his guard slip.

So Daisy resolved to kill the Grand Duke and end everything.

She closed her eyes and meditated.

Human beings, after all, were meant to improve with time.

Thus composing her mind, the would-be murderer Daisy opened her eyes at precisely the right moment.

A low murmur rippled through the hall, threaded with every emotion imaginable—joy, celebration, envy.

He had arrived.

Daisy inhaled deeply.

Footsteps. Steady, deliberate.

The sound she had heard countless times across her regressions drew nearer and nearer. The instant she was certain only a few steps remained between them, Daisy rose from her seat and spun around.

Their eyes met. Those jewel-clear blue eyes were bright and transparent, as if laughing at her.

Daisy slipped her hand into her coat and drew out the fountain pen.

The sudden, explosive surge of killing intent stopped Ezra dead in his tracks.

He watched a small woman grip a fountain pen like a sword and charge straight at him. Her eyes—some unknown original color, green under the hall's lights—blazed with a fury and bloodlust so intense it was almost impossible to believe.

It startled even Ezra, a man who had crossed countless battlefields.

The people around her fumbled to grab her clothes in a panic, but no one could say where such strength came from in that tiny frame. She shook off a dozen hands, and drove the pen's tip straight into the crook between his shoulder and neck.

The moment he thought it hadn't sunk in deep enough, Ezra saw the corner of her mouth curl upward, grotesquely, as their eyes locked.

His large body crumpled to the floor without a sound. Through his fading vision, he saw Daisy being pinned down by the crowd, her face pressed against the stones.

Her face was shining—radiant with pure, unadulterated joy.

That was the moment. Along with a blinding light came a familiar surge of energy.

"No—no, that's impossible."

Daisy closed her eyes as a colossal explosion of energy washed over her.

When she opened her eyes, it was the same ceiling she had seen a hundred times before.

"How...?"

The regression cycle the rules had always granted Daisy was exactly one year. That span had never changed—not even when she'd sustained injuries that should have killed her.

But killing Ezra had shattered the law of regression itself.

No—broken rules were only part of it. Daisy recalled those cryptic lines she'd glimpsed at the very end.

A title? A Tamer?

Daisy knew what Tamers were. Their numbers were few, but they were the ones who could tame the monsters inside dungeons.

She had always assumed they existed only in the pages of novels. Taming a human being as a summon—she hadn't even been able to imagine such a thing.

Daisy couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. Across all those regressions, this was the first time anything this strange had ever happened.

She sat on the bed in a daze, lost in thought for a long while. Only when she noticed how bright it had gotten outside did she scramble up in a fluster. If she really had "tamed" Ezra Alkenes, perhaps this time something might actually be different.

This regression might really, truly be different.

She yanked whatever clothes came to hand out of her wardrobe, threw them on, and bolted out the door.

She could not be late for the graduation ceremony.

Daisy ran the entire distance and collapsed into her seat, utterly spent, just barely on time.

That had been far too close.

Because this loop was more precious than any before it, she wanted to create as few variables as possible. The only problem was that her usual seat—front row, dead center—had already been taken. She settled for the very back, tucked into a corner.

Leg bouncing with anxiety, she fixed her eyes on the stage.

"Ah. Ahh."

The voice testing the sound-amplification spell set her heart racing.

Finally.

She would see the Grand Duke again.

Daisy fidgeted with her fingers as she watched the stage. The headmaster, the professors, and then the distinguished guests began to appear one by one.

Professor Allan, Count Yumer...

Daisy sat perfectly still, counting through the order of arrivals—when her eyes suddenly gleamed.

There he is!

As always, Daisy was far from the only one watching. Most of the people in the hall had turned to look at the man who had just appeared.

The young master of a prosperous domain in the empire's northeast. The empire's one and only Grand Duke. A peerless young hero who had defended the world with his beauty and his peerless blade alike.

Ezra Alkenes.

The hero of the people was, in truth, a Dungeon Lord—a savage beast destined to devour the world.

Well, considering that silver tongue of his, "beast" might be accurate after all.

It had only lasted a few days, but recalling her past life's intense encounter with Ezra, Daisy clicked her tongue. Oblivious to her circumstances, the man wore his usual arrogant smile as he shook hands and exchanged greetings with the professors.

Daisy did not take her eyes off him.

He was himself a graduate of this Academy, and he was invited to every graduation ceremony—yet he had never once attended. The year she graduated, however, he had come.

Could his mere attendance be the first flaw in this regression's script? Frowning through the tangle of her thoughts, Daisy glared at Ezra.

Behind him, sunlight streaming through the tall windows outlined his figure. The sight of him ascending out of darkness and into the light was beautiful enough to belong in a fairy tale—like a prince stepping out of legend.

The low gasps of the crowd around her reached Daisy's ears.

The wonder and curiosity she'd felt the first time she'd laid eyes on Ezra had long since worn thin for her.

But this loop was different.

She studied his face intently all over again—

as if checking whether something had appeared on it this time.