The Foreigner on the Periphery

The private vault building on West 34th Street in New York City was shabby and old, which made it stand out even more.

Nestled among the glamorous skyscrapers lining the center of global finance, the two-story building felt completely out of place. Yet, every single person who passed down this street knew it belonged to the (formerly) oldest dragon on Earth.

As a result, that run-down building drove up the surrounding real estate prices, which were already skyrocketing.

This expectation stemmed from a simple truth: no terrorist, however reckless, would dare touch the greatest dragon asset on Earth. Even if such a madman appeared, the Ancient Dragon would foresee the plot and root them out completely. Thanks to this, the area around Rod's building was considered the safest district in the city.

Minjun was now standing in one of those very locations.

'What a formidable array of barriers.'

He clicked his tongue in admiration. The security was far stricter than at the Lehman Brothers building right next door. No guards were visible, but it didn't matter. Any ordinary wizard who cast a spell here without permission would be slaughtered by the blind Magic forming that massive barrier.

Minjun opened the door and stepped inside. The interior was much cleaner than the exterior suggested, though the cool, woody scent typical of old buildings still lingered in the air. Furniture that must have once served as display cabinets or storage chests sat entirely empty, gathering dust.

A mahogany desk showing its age sat in the middle of the office. Behind it, an elderly dwarf was fully engrossed in a thick book, holding it in one hand with a pipe in the other. Glancing at the cover, Minjun recognized it as a novel by the dwarf author Lakefield enjoyed.

"I wondered if you were coming. You're a bit late."

He exhaled a deep cloud of pipe smoke and finally raised his head. Pushing up his glasses, he gestured toward Minjun.

"I'd like to offer you a cup of tea, but I've cleared everything out so there's nothing suitable. Place your hand here."

There was a Crystal Ball on the desk. Minjun did as he was told.

Hum!

The artifact reacted immediately. Particles of milky light bloomed inside the once-transparent sphere. The murky light gathered into a fog, and the solid crystal surface rippled like water. Then, a piece of metal the thickness of a finger slowly rose from within the ball, breaching the surface like a sunken object floating up from the depths. Minjun grabbed it.

It was a Key.

The dwarf silently pointed backward with his chin, the pipe resting in his mouth. There was a door leading further inside.

'So this was the mechanism.'

If anyone other than Minjun had shown up, the Crystal Ball never would have reacted. And even if someone else managed to insert the Key into that hole, the door still wouldn't open.

Minjun inserted the Key. He turned his wrist. It turned without any resistance.

The door swung open to reveal a small room. A box sat on an ordinary-looking table, secured by a heavy lock. Minjun intuited that it would take the same Key to open it. He was right.

Click!

Creak.

The moment the box opened, the Key dissolved into light and vanished. Minjun peered inside and raised his eyebrows.

'What is this?'

It was a perfectly smooth metallic object without a single visible groove or seam.

A perfect Cube.

He recalled the will again.

—I bequeath the Key to the West 34th Street Private Vault in New York City and everything inside it.

He looked around.

'Everything inside it, he said. There's nothing here but this box. He built such a crazy vault just for this one thing?'

But after studying the Cube for a moment longer, Minjun understood.

'It's a Subspace Artifact. Is this thing itself another vault?'

However, he had no idea how to open it. The Key had already vanished. He scoured the room for any potential clues but came up empty.

'I'm not going to figure this out here. I'll have to take it with me and do some research.'

The next sentence of the will echoed in his ears.

—Don't think of this as me being spiteful. It would be best to check what's inside first.

He grumbled inwardly.

No matter how he looked at it, this was definitely spiteful.

Not only did he have another riddle to solve... but he also had to deal with the incredibly complicated situation this whole inheritance had thrown him into.

Even so, he had no intention of ignoring it, abandoning it, or handing it over to another heir.

'It's in my hands now.'

It belonged to Minjun now.

   *

The old dwarf was standing and waiting for Minjun, book in hand. When Minjun emerged after finishing his business, Robert suggested they walk outside together. The moment the two of them stepped onto the street, the dwarf chanted an activation word.

Rumble!

"Aaah!"

"Wh-what?!"

The Dragon Lord's private vault. That historic building was literally 'folding' in on itself with a deafening roar. It was a sight that reinterpreted three-dimensional space into two dimensions. The roof bent and crumpled. The red bricks lining the exterior distorted, folding neatly over one another in stacked layers. Like a deflated balloon, the building collapsed midair, shrinking its volume down and down until it was the size of a fingernail. And then, it vanished entirely.

Where the vault had just stood, nothing remained but a vacant lot sunken one basement level deep between the towering skyscrapers. Whoever had designed this had planned it to perfection—not a single speck of dust flew into the air during the entire process, and the neatly sealed cross-sections of the water and gas pipes remained entirely untouched.

Minjun looked at the dwarf in a whole new light. He already knew Robert was a formidable wizard, but this proved he was truly worthy of being employed by Rod. Even if he couldn't create the massive barrier that had surrounded the site, he clearly had the skill to manage it. Many young dragons couldn't even reach this level of mastery.

"L-look over here!"

"What is happening? Oh my god..."

A crowd of citizens began to gather. A New York City landmark had suddenly evaporated, so it was only natural for everyone to panic.

The extraterrestrial and the dwarf stood side by side, staring at the empty lot. Robert quietly puffed out a cloud of smoke. Minjun pitched his voice low so no one else could hear.

"Was this always the plan?"

"As you saw, everything else was cleared out a long time ago. This book was the only thing left."

"If I'd shown up earlier, you could have clocked out sooner. Or rather, retired sooner?"

"My employment ended a while ago. The very day Rod entered his eternal rest, the investment bank he owned sent me a notice terminating my contract."

Yet there was no bitterness in his voice. He spoke calmly, as if accepting the inevitable. Minjun offered a compliment.

"You have serious skills. You won't have any trouble finding another job."

"I'm not interested."

"But being the vault keeper for the Dragon Lord is a credential any other dragon would covet. Granted, he passed away so suddenly that he couldn't leave you a letter of recommendation..."

The dwarf snorted.

"I'm retiring for good. Rod knew that, too. I just didn't expect the day to come so soon."

He spoke as if repeating it to himself.

"I didn't expect Rod to pass on so soon."

Unlike when he discussed his own termination, a deep sense of sorrow and regret now filled his eyes.

"And."

Quickly reining in his emotions, the dwarf glared sideways at Minjun. The deep wrinkles around his eyes hid his fleeting sorrow, replaced instantly by a fierce, sudden spark of rage.

"Even if I wanted another job, what did you say? Work for another dragon? Bullshit."

He ground his teeth.

"Work for that trash? Do I look like I want to suffer a horrible death in my twilight years? I might not have much time left, but I sure don't plan on turning it into a living hell."

The dwarf went on a passionate tirade.

"Do you know what the biggest problem with dragons—those ferocious reptiles—is? Set aside their utter selfishness and their obsessive need to dominate and control others. The real tragedy is that those intolerant beasts were given immense power they don't deserve. If the Creator really exists, someone needs to psychoanalyze Him. If you have any sense and common logic, you don't create monsters like that!"

"..."

Minjun swallowed the words he was debating whether to point out or not.

The Dragon Lord you served all this time... is also a dragon. Because... he's the 'Dragon' Lord.

As if reading his mind, the dwarf grumbled.

"Rod was different. He was special. Being able to serve him was the greatest blessing of my life."

Then he looked up at Minjun and asked.

"Do you think you can catch the killer?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"Those scoundrel children of his will be tearing the world apart looking for them. Same goes for the ex-wives acting as guardians for his Hatchlings."

Although it had not been publicly announced to the press, anyone in the know was already aware of the contents of Rod's will.

"They probably will. Though I don't know if it will go well."

"In my opinion, Rod never intended to hand over the Dragon Heart to his children in the first place."

Minjun had thought that too.

"Find the killer in 99 days? If he truly wanted revenge, would he have set such a tight deadline? There's a proverb in China: a gentleman's revenge is never too late, even if it takes ten years. So why did Rod set that condition?"

He spoke after a brief pause.

"Doesn't it mean that the one seeking revenge is no 'gentleman'? Or perhaps... there is no need for 'revenge' at all."

No need for revenge.

Minjun silently repeated the words to himself.

"Either way, there's a reason he handed this entire vault over to you. Do you know what the other dragons always said about him? It's true Rod did a lot of strange and bizarre things, but..."

Minjun finished the thought for him.

"...none of them were meaningless."

The dwarf grinned.

"Right. Everything has a meaning. My name is Robert Duncan. If the opportunity arises, perhaps we'll meet again. I'll take my leave now. The back of my head is prickling too much for me to stay here any longer."

With that, the dwarf turned and walked toward the crowd of onlookers. He snapped his fingers. A fragment of light the size of a coin shot out and instantly ballooned into a massive gateway. As the crowd gasped in shock, Robert Duncan stepped straight into the golden door without ever breaking his stride. The golden sphere swallowed him whole and immediately evaporated. Where the wizard and his Teleport had just stood, only a faint wisp of pipe smoke lingered.

'His Teleport is clean, too.'

And Robert Duncan's final comment wasn't about the staring crowd.

There was an entirely different reason he claimed the back of his head was prickling.

'His sensory perception is excellent, too. Of all the wizards I've met on Earth, excluding the Ancient Dragon, he might be the best.'

After that brief moment of admiration, Minjun wiped Robert Duncan from his mind. He muttered to himself that he probably wouldn't be seeing the dwarf again, and that was that.

Instead, he shifted his focus. He could feel twelve distinct gazes observing him from afar.

'There are four more than before I went into the vault.'

That number didn't perfectly match the total number of heirs. Some non-heir dragons might be keeping tabs on him, and, though unlikely, there might be a few gazes he simply hadn't detected yet.

Never letting the tails slip from his awareness, Minjun strolled off at a leisurely pace, heading straight for his residence. He stopped by a massive supermarket along the way. He grabbed heaps of meat, vegetables, and spices. He tossed items into his cart thoughtlessly, just following his whims. By the time he finished, he had enough food to feed a dozen people.

A few minutes later, he arrived in front of his residence suite, carrying an armful of bulging paper bags. His gaze fell upon the lock. His expression didn't change. The warding spell covering the door was left in shreds, with no attempt to hide the fact that it had been smashed through. Granted, he'd set the barrier up with the attitude of 'break it if you can,' but...

'What a messy way to tear it apart.'

Anyway, brats these days.

He opened the door and stepped inside. Walking straight into the kitchen, he unpacked his groceries and put them away in the fridge. He was just finishing up, folding the paper bags away, when a voice drifted in from the living room table.

"How is Duncan doing?"

"...He's alright. He seemed fine."

A blond man sitting at the table smirked.

"Not even surprised. You truly are impressive."

"We meet again."

The prisoner stared at the oldest of the children the Dragon Lord had fathered on Earth—though, by Minjun's standards, this 'oldest child' was little more than a young dragon that had barely outgrown its Hatchling phase.

The dragon shot him a look of absolute arrogance.

The man's expression was so agonizingly solemn, his neck stiff with such exaggerated pride, that Minjun had to bite back a laugh.

'Dragons under a hundred years old are just brats still wet with egg whites.'

It was painfully obvious why he had broken in here. It was equally obvious what conclusion that undercooked brain of his had reached. He was undoubtedly brimming with confidence, entirely convinced he held all the cards.

It was a laughable misunderstanding. Minjun was more than confident he could deep-fry a young dragon like this down to the bone and chew him up whole. Figuratively speaking, of course. ...For now, anyway.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!