The Foreigner on the Periphery

Today, the relationship between the Ancient Race and the Dragon Race was ambiguous.

The dragons claimed with one voice that, although they had lost the war, they and the Committee maintained a cooperative, equal partnership built on a foundation of peace.

Therefore, they insisted, dragons were ruled by no one.

But a deeper look revealed a different story. The Dragon Race ultimately danced to the Committee's tune, fully subordinated to the Talent-driven, pan-dimensional economic system.

Nevertheless, in an act of blatant self-deception, the dragons refused to admit it.

It was a psychological defense mechanism.

The root cause was the massive disconnect between their self-image as supreme beings and the harsh reality of their defeat. To any other species, their lingering delusion of supremacy despite losing the war bordered on a cognitive disorder. The dragons clung to this belief simply because the truth was too agonizing to accept. In response, they blocked out anything that reminded them of that pain.

They forgot, they turned a blind eye, and they pushed it away.

Therefore, when the princess of the Ancient Race was stationed on Earth, the dragons invited to her welcoming banquet felt like office workers dragging themselves in on the first day after a long holiday.

Unable to refuse, they attended and put on a confident front while internally wound tighter than a bowstring. The Ancient Dragons, burdened by the PTSD of their defeat, felt a profound, unspoken agony they could never let show.

With that context, the reaction of the Ancient Dragons gathered in Hong Kong in this moment made perfect sense. Meeting her was dreadful enough even with ample mental preparation. Now, they were suddenly faced with a tentacle monster boasting a six-kilometer radius that utterly blotted out the sky.

Swoosh!

Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh!

An unprecedented spectacle unfolded. Unlike the collapse of the ICC, it was broad daylight. Countless Hong Kong citizens witnessed the dragons leaping into the air in a frenzy, as well as the colossal tentacle monster looking down on them. People fainted in droves.

The dragons stared up at the sky, swallowing hard. The situation was deeply unpleasant, forcefully prodding at their trauma. The Dragon Race, who always looked down to observe all creation from above, were now being forced to look up at someone else.

The dragons knew exactly who this uninvited guest was. There was only one member of the Ancient Race currently on Earth. It was the Princess of Endelion, whom the Ancient Dragons had met not too long ago.

But what on earth was she doing here?

The young dragon who had just been mouthing off about marching to the Earth Representative Office to snap her tentacles felt his vision swim.

As everyone stood frozen in the heavy silence...

Shift!

The Ancient Race's iris moved.

Flinch! The dragons recoiled in terror at that minuscule movement.

In stark contrast to the sheer discomfort radiating from the dragons and the citizens, the Ancient Race appeared utterly at ease. Her skin, the color of the ocean at dawn, was cold yet elegant. Her twenty-six tentacles resembled skyscrapers laid on their sides. Because they were so high and impossibly large from the ground, they appeared entirely motionless at a glance. But anyone watching closely could see the truth. Like seaweed surrendering to the ocean's gentle currents, the suckers along her limbs rippled ever so softly. Peacefully.

Normally, Endelion's flexible yet incredibly dense pillars could tear a city center apart just by lightly brushing against the ground. But in this moment, those massive tentacles merely drifted with languid grace. There was no hostility to be found. The experienced Ancient Dragons read a profound sense of goodwill in her black pearl-like eyes. It was a heavy gaze—tranquil, detached from worldly affairs... as if she had finally transcended time itself.

Then, the tentacle monster finally opened a telepathic channel.

=To the bereaved family facing this great sorrow, I offer my deepest condolences and sympathy.=

No one could answer immediately.

"..."

"..."

It was the most polite and appropriate thing to say in this situation, but ironically, it was the absolute last thing anyone present had expected to hear.

The first to muster their courage were the twin-headed demonic dragon brothers, who, as of today, were the oldest dragons on Earth.

The left head spoke.

"We appreciate the condolences. But we cannot say that you are welcome here."

The right head picked up where he left off.

"Princess, we have just lost our kind's eldest, who was also our Dragon Lord. You must understand that it is difficult for us to welcome an uninvited guest at a time like this."

It was a firm eviction notice.

But the tentacle monster's reply was unapologetic.

=I did receive an Invitation, though?=

"...?!"

The dragons' faces twisted in unison.

An Invitation?

'Who in their right mind would invite the Ancient Race to the Lord's funeral?'

Especially when the Committee was sitting right at the top of their list of prime suspects?

The hot-blooded younger dragons were about to explode in rage, but the perceptive Ancient Dragons immediately held them back. This fury belonged to those who had never fought Endelion; to the dragons who actually had, such an emotional outburst was utterly meaningless. Naturally, the younger dragons felt irritated by the restraint. To them, this tentacle monster's very presence and attitude were a blatant insult and a challenge to the pride of the Dragon Race.

'These ignorant fools!' Seeing their expressions, the Ancient Dragons felt their blood run cold and issued an even harsher threat through telepathy. 'If you run your mouths carelessly, I will personally hurl you into the bottom of the Mariana Trench!'

Since this was a literal threat rather than a metaphor, the young dragons had no choice but to bite their tongues and swallow their complaints. None of them wanted to be forcefully hit with a Teleport spell and banished into a trench seventy kilometers under the sea.

Meanwhile, the twin-headed dragon remained unfazed by the noisy telepathic chatter. Maintaining his composure, he questioned the tentacle monster again.

"I believe you owe us an explanation. We just checked amongst ourselves, and not a single family member or fellow dragon here sent you an Invitation."

=If you check like that, you obviously won't find the sender. Because the person who invited me is currently unable to answer your questions.=

"...?!"

The twin brothers immediately grasped the implication.

"You can't mean?!"

The tentacle replied.

=Yes, the one who invited me was the deceased himself. Just a moment ago, an Elf named Allison delivered his letter.=

Confused telepathic waves darted back and forth among the dragons.

The current situation looked exactly like a scheme the Dragon Lord had meticulously prepared through his secretary before his death.

An Invitation prepared for his own passing.

'I knew he was eccentric, but isn't this taking things too far?'

'What kind of dragon invites the Ancient Race to his own funeral?!'

But they couldn't voice their grievances to a Lord who was already dead, so their complaints merely faded into empty echoes.

The demonic dragon let out a heavy groan.

"But why?"

The answer to that question came from a direction no one had expected.

While the dragons had been causing a commotion, from the one spot where stark silence had reigned...

-I'm sorry, but it's not over yet. If I betrayed your expectations again, that's a pity. You will hear this message when an additional condition is met.

The Dragon Lord's severed final will resumed.

-That condition was that the recipient of the letter Allison delivered arrives here. To the official of the Committee whose name I cannot guess at this time—the fact that you have come means you must have accepted my proposal.

All eyes turned to the tentacle monster. The Ancient Race rolled her eyes slightly in affirmation.

=Yes, the Dragon Lord made a proposal through his letter. He asked me to take on a certain role. After much deliberation, I agreed.=

As if responding to her words, a residual thought flowed out from the corpse. The timing was so perfect that one could easily mistake it for a live conversation between the living and the dead.

And the contents plunged everyone into shock once again. They had lost count of how many times this had happened today.

-I hereby appoint 'him or her' as my corpse custodian.

"No, that crazy old man!"

An angry roar tore through the air.

It was a scream from one of the heirs, even though he knew the dead could not hear him.

It was a blatantly blasphemous remark toward the deceased, but none of the other dragons even dared to reprimand him for it.

As if anticipating this exact situation, the telepathic message echoed out again.

-At this point, someone has probably expressed strong dissatisfaction. I want you all to understand that this was an unavoidable choice, a measure taken to ensure my will is not tampered with. I know the temperament of our kind very well. Ninety-nine days is far too short, yet simultaneously far too long. It will feel like an absurdly insufficient amount of time to solve the homework I've given you, yet entirely too long to just sit back and watch the Dragon Heart pass on to a different heir or some unrelated dragon. I do not want some impatient fool ignoring my will and the Dragonic Code to secretly lay hands on my heart and steal it away.

Minjun could partially guess the deceased Lord's intentions.

'The Lord's seat is still empty.'

A new representative to manage the hierarchy of the global Dragon Race had not yet been elected.

'He must have figured that if he appointed another dragon as the custodian in this situation, his corpse wouldn't survive in one piece. It might be fine if witnesses gathered and waited for a few hours like today, but ninety-nine days really is too long. Given the personalities of those brutes, his reasoning is perfectly sound.'

However, there were still parts that didn't make sense.

Right up until his death, the Lord had been wary of the Kavite. Not every Kavite belonged to the Committee, but it didn't change the fact that they made up the core of that organization.

'How can a man who doesn't even trust his own kind place his trust in Endelion, let alone a member of the Committee?'

Refusing to trust his own allies, he had basically handed his race's greatest treasure over to the enemy.

The dragons shared similar thoughts.

"Princess, how can we simply hand him over and trust that you won't covet the corpse for yourself?"

As if to answer that doubt, Del spoke.

=I will make a promise.=

"What was that?"

=I, @$#%$@^&$##, swear here and now as the Princess of Endelion.=

The incomprehensible part was the Ancient Race's true name.

Chanted in Endelion's unique mental language system, the other races could not clearly perceive it.

In front of the dragons... no, suspended right above the dragons, Endelion declared.

=From this moment forward, I shall protect the Dragon Lord's corpse for ninety-nine days. When the promised time is up, I will return him in his original, undamaged state to whoever has fulfilled the conditions.=

The oath of Endelion.

The conscience of those twisted idealists might have been skewed in its direction, but it was incredibly firm and tenacious.

The princess of that persistent race had just made a promise. Knowing the sheer weight her words carried, an Ancient Dragon asked with a face full of suspicion.

"For what reason are you going this far for dragon affairs?"

=Because the deceased promised me something in his letter as well.=

Just as the bereaved family's gazes were about to turn sharp again, Del, anticipating their backlash, spoke up.

=However, let me make it perfectly clear that it does not involve transferring the deceased's wealth or rights to me. If it did, it would have already been mentioned in the will.=

"And you have no intention of revealing it here..."

=I am under no obligation to do so.=

In the end, the dragons decided to abide by the Lord's will.

The heirs erupted in fury, but to no avail.

They could have tried to tamper with the corpse in secret, but with the Princess of Endelion guarding it, such an attempt would be completely useless.

The family would have much preferred to declare the will invalid and distribute the inheritance among themselves, but the Ancient Dragons stepped in and stopped them. They added the explanation that ignoring a clear and present will was also a direct violation of the Dragonic Code.

Meanwhile, hidden behind the Ancient Dragons' restraining actions lay a different motive entirely.

'If the culprit isn't found within ninety-nine days, the Dragon Heart will rightfully belong to the next Lord!'

The Ancient Dragons' desires for the seat of the Lord, which they had previously treated with indifference, suddenly boiled over.

They hadn't expected the heirs to accomplish anything anyway. Their unidentified opponent was someone capable of assassinating the oldest dragon on Earth. A timeframe of ninety-nine days was far too short.

So, there would be no harm in taking the Lord's seat and acquiring the Dragon Heart first, then mobilizing the vast resources available to the Dragon Race's representative to hunt down and slaughter the culprit later.

"Then, we shall search for evidence to identify the culprit."

Before Endelion sealed the corpse away, there was only one procedure left.

Finding clues regarding his death.

"All the residual thought waves in the area have already been swept away."

It was a disaster. The storm-like Magic that had struck at dawn was the cause. All they could check now were the physical traces left on the corpse itself.

The demonic dragon reached his hand out toward the corpse, which had finally stopped spouting its will, as if it had truly said everything it needed to say. A moment later, having finished his examination, the Ancient Dragon declared firmly.

"His entire body is clean, without a single scratch. Except for one place."

Then, he continued.

Furrowing his brow.

"The sixth brain... that is to say, his mana brain is completely cooked."

It meant that the brain dedicated entirely to magic functions had been severely damaged by high heat.

A significant portion of a dragon's bodily functions relied on innate, primal Magic. The explanation was that once that magic ceased, his organs shut down one by one until he finally drew his last breath.

Hearing that, the dragons let out a heavy sigh.

They didn't know who the culprit was, but they were undeniably an overwhelmingly powerful entity. To bypass the magic resistance of an Ancient Dragon and literally roast his internal organ...

Meanwhile, in one corner of the crowd, speculation resurfaced that this might have been a suicide or an accident brought upon by the Lord himself.

The theory suggested that the caster of the incredibly powerful Magic detected yesterday was actually the Dragon Lord himself, and that failing to properly complete the spell had overloaded his brain, leading to his death. This argument came primarily from the heirs, but it was quickly buried under mocking retorts that, for a dragon, such a thing was as absurd as choking to death on one's own saliva.

'Only the sixth brain was cooked? Without a single scratch on the rest of his body?'

Meanwhile, Minjun also fell deep into thought.

'That method is...'

A technique that perfectly preserved the rest of the body's tissues while boiling the brain in its original shape.

However, if a dragon was slaughtered in that manner, the external condition would appear perfect, but the actual quality of the meat would drop significantly. As the body slowly shut down, toxins would seep into the muscles. In short, it wasn't fresh. Therefore, it was a method never used in slaughterhouses.

Minjun knew exactly who used to hunt dragons like that in the distant past.

'That's the method those taxidermist bastards used.'

Minjun wasn't too fond of turning dragons into taxidermy. It clashed with the principles he had been taught and practiced.

Once again, his master's words echoed in his ears.

-Remember. You must never play around with your food.

His master had been extraordinarily conservative. That tendency had been passed down to Minjun as well.

"..."

He suddenly looked up at the sky. Hovering up there was the Princess of Endelion, waiting for the corpse to be handed over.

At that moment, her eyes shifted gently and met Minjun's gaze. But just as she had done from the moment she first appeared, Del didn't pretend to know him. Her gaze naturally slid past him.

The questions he had pushed aside came surging back.

'Entrusting your corpse to the Ancient Race... Just what were you plotting?'

He recalled the Lord's prophecy.

-You should probably check what's inside first.

Just as he had said, there was something the Lord had left behind for Minjun.

He would figure out exactly what that old dragon had been scheming once he checked it.

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