Gathering Wives with a System Chapter 721 Second Chance, Complete Memories Of Conqueror Trial

Kaela stared at the dragon in surprise. She quickly approached and helped it steady itself before guiding it toward her home, but the dragon immediately pushed itself upright and refused to follow her. It had no patience left for anything that did not answer the question burning inside its mind.

[I don't have time for this! I'm asking where Isaac is!]

The dragon's mana spread across the area as its emotions spiraled out of control. Kaela stood in the middle of that pressure without moving, and although she smiled at the dragon, there was no happiness in her expression. Her eyes looked tired, almost as though she had already cried too many times.

"It seems you went to Nova Etra," Kaela said quietly. "Were you able to meet him before..."

She did not finish the sentence. Yet there was something strange in her expression, almost like hope, as though she desperately wanted the dragon to tell her that it had met Isaac before reaching Nova Etra. The dragon was too overwhelmed to notice that small expression, however, because its mind had already reached its limit.

[No... no... no...]

The dragon's claws dug into the ground as its mana began fluctuating wildly. It shook its head repeatedly, as though refusing to accept what it had seen. The thought that Isaac had transformed into it and sacrificed himself had become too painful to even consider.

[There is no way he went to Nova Etra! Why would he do that?! Why would he transform into me?]

Its voice became louder as it roared, but there was something different beneath the anger. The dragon sounded as though it was crying, and Kaela finally understood what had happened. She lowered her head and sighed before looking at the dragon with an expression filled with sorrow.

"Please don't blame yourself. Isaac told me that if he didn't come back, I should tell you that he chose to do this himself."

[That is not what I'm asking!]

The dragon's voice trembled as it stared at Kaela. Its claws dug deeper into the ground as it tried to control the emotions surging through its body, but it could no longer stop them from spilling out.

[Why would he do that? Why did he transform into me?!]

"Because he wanted to help you."

Those words immediately stopped the dragon's rampage. Its body became completely still as it stared at Kaela, unable to bear the shock of those words.

Kaela looked toward the evening horizon rather than directly at the dragon. Her expression remained sorrowful, and for a moment, she seemed to be waiting for someone to appear in the distance despite already knowing that he would not. After several seconds of silence, she finally continued speaking.

"He was devastated when he realized how much his actions had hurt you. He wanted to apologize, but he knew that a simple apology would not change anything, especially after everything you had already suffered."

Kaela paused before continuing, her voice becoming quieter as she struggled to explain the rest. "His lifespan was also coming to an end, and he knew he didn't have much time left, so he decided to wipe out Nova Etra before he died. He understood that doing this might not make you forgive him, but he still wanted to apologize and help you in whatever way he could."

Kaela finally turned toward the dragon. Her eyes remained filled with sadness as she looked at the creature standing before her, and there was no accusation in her expression despite everything that had happened. She simply looked at it as though she wanted it to understand what Isaac had done before it was too late.

"You asked me why he transformed into you, didn't you? It was because he wasn't sure he could win, so he prepared a trap using transformation magic art. Your strength was something only he could perfectly imitate, and by disguising himself as you, he could make sure that no one discovered the truth until it was too late."

Kaela lowered her gaze for a moment before continuing. "Those greedy people would eat your heart without hesitation if they believed it could save them from the corruption, so Isaac gave them his own heart instead. Once they ate it, they would become corrupted and die, which meant they would no longer be able to chase after you or try to take your heart."

The dragon stood completely still as Kaela finished speaking. It did not realize that it was crying until warm tears began dripping down its scales, running over the portions that had become almost completely black while only a small amount of golden color remained. It tried to stop them, but the tears continued falling.

It hated Isaac because he had tried to manipulate it, and that hatred was something it had initially believed would make everything easier. Yet the more it understood what Isaac had done, the harder it became to hold onto that hatred, because the person it had accused of using it had ultimately sacrificed everything for its sake.

The dragon had always known that Isaac had a goal he wanted to accomplish regardless of the cost. He had endured the corruption for years just to remain alive, while even the powerful Awakeners of Nova Etra, people strong enough to survive the Thousand-Year Stampede, could barely withstand the corruption for a few minutes after being exposed to it. Isaac had endured that same pain for years, and he had done it for one thing only.

His goal.

The dragon remembered how Isaac had tried to find it a partner and create a new generation of dragons. At the time, it had believed that he was simply trying to use it, and although it denied it, it understood that he had wanted to bring life back to the Sector.

If he had truly cared only about accomplishing that goal, then after failing to convince the dragon to have children, Isaac could have joined hands with Nova Etra. He could have helped those Awakeners kill the dragon, taken its heart, and used its power to give their people a chance to survive the corruption. That would have been the simplest choice.

Yet he had done the opposite.

He had gone to Nova Etra alone, transformed himself into the dragon, allowed them to believe that they had finally obtained the Dragon Lord's heart, killed those whom he could, and then allowed the remaining ones to eat his own heart. He had abandoned the goal he had spent his entire life pursuing, knowing that his death would leave almost no chance of accomplishing it.

He had done all of that for the dragon. So that it could live safely.

The dragon finally broke down. It wailed like a child, no longer caring whether Kaela was watching or whether anyone else could hear its cries, and its body trembled as all the sorrow it had suppressed for decades came rushing back at once. It had lost its family first, and now it had lost the only friend it had made in countless years.

Unlike the dragon, which had been too proud to meet Isaac while he was dying, Isaac had been willing to abandon his lifelong goal for its sake. The realization hurt more than anything the dragon had experienced before, because it understood that the person it had accused of betraying it had ultimately been the one who had sacrificed everything for it.

From that day onward, the dragon desperately wished that it could die. It never tried to kill itself, however, because doing so would feel like insulting Isaac's final decision and making his sacrifice meaningless. If Isaac had given up his life so that it could continue living, then it had no right to throw that life away.

So it continued living.

It lived while drowning in regret, carrying memories that became more painful with every passing day. Whenever it closed its eyes, it remembered Isaac's smile, his ridiculous questions, and the countless times he had returned despite knowing that the dragon wanted him gone.

If only it had listened to Isaac and abandoned the den. If it had done that, Isaac would not have needed to fight Nova Etra's crusades repeatedly, and he would not have been weakened before confronting the city. Perhaps he could have defeated them without sacrificing himself.

If only the dragon had swallowed its pride and gone to see Isaac while he was still alive, it might have discovered the truth before it was too late. It could have stopped him from making the decision that eventually cost him his life, and perhaps they could have had one final conversation without anger or misunderstanding between them.

If only...

There were too many regrets. The dragon carried them until the final moments of its existence, unable to escape the memories of everything it could have done differently. The more it remembered, the more it wished that it had simply been honest with itself when Isaac was still alive.

The creature that had once hated the System and the Gods for making it the Hero eventually found itself praying to them despite everything it had believed for so many years. It prayed for a second chance, not because it wanted to change the fate of the world, but because there was one person it desperately wanted to meet again.

It prayed to return to the past and find Isaac while there was still time. It wanted to correct every mistake it had made, abandon the pride that had caused so much suffering, and live a life where it would not have to spend its final days wondering what might have happened if it had made different choices.

Until the day it died, the dragon continued carrying that wish. It had lost almost everything during its long existence, but even after death had finally approached, there was still one thing it could not let go of.

It wanted another chance.

A chance to meet Isaac again.

A chance to live without regrets.

…

Alice opened her eyes, as tears slid down her cheeks without any regard for the Seventh Queen in front of her. She remained silent for several moments, her breathing uneven as she tried to process everything she had seen, because the memories had felt far too real to dismiss as nothing more than a vision.

She closed her eyes again and took some time to digest everything it—no, everything 'she' had seen. When she finally opened them, Alice wiped the tears from her face and looked toward Jasmine, her expression carrying sorrow, longing, despair, and several emotions that she could not properly put into words.

Her legs trembled slightly when she stood up, and she had to support herself on the table with her arms. Even so, she forced herself to remain upright and looked directly at the Seventh Queen before speaking.

"Thank you."

The words were simple, yet they carried more weight than what one might think. Before this meeting, she would never have lowered her pride enough to thank Jasmine or anyone else, but after seeing those memories and remembering everything she had done during her Conqueror Trial, she knew what she should do.

Jasmine quietly observed her before asking, "Are you not going to doubt that the vision I showed you was false?"

Alice shook her head. She took a slow breath before answering, because she needed to make sure that her emotions would not interfere with what she wanted to say.

"No. I remember my Conqueror Trial now, and it was the same as the memories you showed me, even though some things were slightly different. Most of it was the same, and even there, I failed to save Isaac."

Her voice became quieter toward the end. Alice lowered her gaze for a moment before looking back at Jasmine.

"So thank you for showing me my mistakes."

Jasmine did not respond immediately. She simply watched Alice with an unreadable expression, as though she understood that there was nothing more she needed to say.

Alice turned around and left the room.

The moment she stepped into the corridor, she lowered her head and began walking without looking at anyone around her. She desperately tried to suppress the tears that threatened to spill again, but the memories she had just witnessed continued replaying inside her mind, making it increasingly difficult to maintain her composure.

She remembered the dragon.

She remembered Isaac.

More importantly, she remembered how much she had misunderstood him.

Alice continued walking until she eventually found herself standing before Isaac's room. Her footsteps stopped, and she stared at the door for several seconds without moving.

Her hand slowly rose.

For some reason, knocking on this door felt more difficult than facing any enemy she had encountered. Perhaps it was because she no longer knew what she was supposed to say to him after remembering everything, or perhaps she was afraid that opening this door would make the memories feel real in a way she was not prepared to accept.

Eventually, Alice knocked.

There was no response.

She waited for several seconds before knocking again, this time a little louder.

"Isaac, are you awake?"