The Foreigner on the Periphery

Minjun's eyes sharpened.

"Did you partner with Inais?"

Her child—or rather, the unhatched yolk inside the egg—was also the Lord's heir.

Just as the Ancient Dragons had allied to carve up the Dragon Heart, was a similar conspiracy unfolding among the direct heirs?

Kentius nodded, his eyes vacant.

"She proposed it first. Her child isn't even a Hatchling yet; it's an unhatched egg. She's in no position to go around hunting for the culprit."

Because of that, she had approached Kentius, claiming he was the most promising among the children.

'True. The other guardians, old as they are, would have no reason to ally with that woman.'

Kentius spoke.

But the subsequent plan was, in true dragon fashion... supremely centered on the Dragon Race.

Hearing this, Minjun clicked his tongue in disbelief.

"So the plan was to work me to the bone first, and only after everything was settled would Inais tell me the method?"

They really took me for a fool.

'I would never accept a proposal like that unless I was crazy. But...'

Minjun fell into thought.

Of course, Inais could have just been spinning a web of lies.

However, if her intention was to trick Minjun from the start, why wouldn't she mention that to her co-conspirator, Kentius?

And of all things to offer as payment, she had dangled that specific bait. It was something an ordinary dragon wouldn't even conceive of.

If she was going to lie anyway, there were much more plausible options.

'What is her reason?'

Minjun's thoughts deepened.

   *

Ha Eunseong was busy for the first time in a while.

He was currently soaring across New York City in an out-of-body state. His targets were in the general vicinity Minjun had indicated. Within that area, he singled out and scouted locations protected by unusually powerful Exorcism Arrays.

'To think I'm roaming around like this after death, visiting places I never got to see while I was alive.'

Following Germany, this was his second time overseas. Though by no stretch of the imagination could it be called a 'leisure trip.'

'Hmm? This place is a bit weird too.'

Reaching a luxury Penthouse, Ha Eunseong pressed his spiritual body against the exterior wall.

Zzzzt—! A sharp, piercing sensation. This was a dragon-class spell. By now, he could distinguish the power levels of exorcism spells. Not that it could stop him, no matter how intricate it was.

Ha Eunseong phased right through the building and entered.

Inside sat a man and a woman, facing each other. Ha Eunseong's eyes locked onto their souls. The sheer weight of their presence was on a completely different level from ordinary races.

'As expected. Dragons. Both of them.'

Ha Eunseong was faithfully searching the vicinity according to Minjun's orders.

After arriving in New York, the agent had felt magical gazes from all directions. Being dragons, they had tried to scramble any reverse-tracking, but they couldn't hide their tails completely.

So, he let a ghost loose in the city. Not every dragon kept a spirit-sensitive person as a subordinate like Changcheon did. Furthermore, Minjun was banking on the fact that once they deployed an Exorcism Array, their psychological guard against spiritual spies would drop. By their common sense, this level of defense was more than enough.

'Alright, check complete here too.'

Instead of leaving immediately, Ha Eunseong hid inside the ceiling and listened in. He could hear their conversation.

"...Hali, how is it?"

The one asking was the man.

The woman facing him kept her eyes closed as if focusing her mind, then opened them a moment later.

She spoke.

"He's holed up in his room. My familiar's gaze can't pierce inside."

"Then what do we do?"

"We can't afford to wait any longer. The moment Ye Minjun left the vault, the number of eyes on him multiplied. At this rate, someone else might beat us to the punch."

The woman spoke firmly.

"Stop dawdling and let's strike."

Strike?

Ha Eunseong's expression stiffened.

"From the looks of it, everyone is just sizing each other up and hesitating to step forward. That makes this our chance."

Many dragons had witnessed the private vault vanishing, but they hadn't confirmed what Minjun actually obtained. Cautious dragons figured it wouldn't be too late to make a move after confirming his haul.

But not all dragons were that careful. The man and woman conversing here right now were proof of that.

Halisnaim, a dragon who had Polymorphed into an elf woman, spoke.

"The second he steps out of his room, we snatch him with a Teleport."

For her age, Halisnaim was quite skilled at weaving complex spells. She was confident she could kidnap her prey and erase all traces right under the noses of the other observers. She made this judgment on the assumption that no Ancient Dragons were after this mysterious inheritance. This squabble among direct heirs was far too petty for an Ancient Dragon to throw away their dignity and intervene.

However, if they teleported the alien to a nearby location, there was a risk that other competitors would catch up immediately. Therefore, it was better to jump a considerable distance, but her magic wasn't quite at that level. Also, hearing that the alien had single-handedly arrested Edelinis made her slightly anxious.

So, Halisnaim joined hands with her half-brother, Bogor. Just as Ha Eunseong had already realized, he was also a dragon, currently Polymorphed into a troll man.

"I'll formulate the spell, so you just need to supply the magic."

Bogor asked in a somewhat slow, slurred tone.

"But... do we really not have to find the culprit who killed the Lord?"

Halisnaim snorted.

"You idiot, I already explained this to you!"

"I don't really get it."

By the standards of the Dragon Race, Bogor was borderline intellectually disabled.

The Dragon Race, which dismissed anything falling short of their ideal standards as abnormal and shameful, considered low intelligence a deformity as well. And a deformed dragon, no matter how old they got, could never shed the Hatchling label.

In Bogor's case, it had been a close call. His mother had agonized for a long time over whether to acknowledge him as an adult before finally granting him independence. Thanks to that, he was able to enjoy a free life instead of being locked in a Lair forever.

However, many dragons sought to use him. Like Halisnaim, right here.

"Why, are you coveting the Dragon Heart too? Don't get greedy for that."

"...Why shouldn't I be greedy? I want it. If I have it... I'll get stronger."

Halisnaim sighed.

"Think about it for a second."

She repeated the explanation she had already given him once before.

It started with a topic that, at first glance, seemed completely unrelated.

"The position at the Committee Earth Representative Office was recently filled. It was left vacant for a long time, you know."

Bogor nodded.

"But get this, the Ancient Race member they dispatched held the status of the Princess of Endelion! That's why the Ancient Dragons flipped out."

"...Really?"

Even if she weren't a princess, there was no dragon alive who would welcome a tentacle monster, and most of the invited Ancient Dragons reacted to her very presence with disgust.

"People were even saying they'd prefer Kavite. Those worms couldn't even stand to be in the same room as the Dragon Race, so they wouldn't have been invited anyway, right?"

The Kavite's extreme dragon allergy was famous. Toward the end of the war, the cornered dragons had even swallowed their pride to manufacture biochemical weapons out of dragon blood.

"Anyway, from what I've heard... some of the Ancient Dragons suspect she's deeply involved in the recent incidents on Earth."

"What... incidents?"

"The agenda we were supposed to be meeting over in Hong Kong! The illegal immigrant dragon incident, the attempt to smuggle out related evidence, the Changcheon incident, and even the mutant dragon incident."

Hiding in the ceiling, Ha Eunseong's eyes widened at a story that went far beyond his expectations.

He knew that the tentacle-shaped floating island that had recently appeared in Hong Kong was an alien.

But... that monster was connected to the Changcheon incident?

"A race famous for their hatred of primates sending their princess to a dimension swarming with primates. They must have an ulterior motive. The timing is far too perfect to dismiss as a coincidence."

Halisnaim shrugged and continued.

"There's no way the Lord couldn't figure out something the other Ancient Dragons easily deduced."

"But the Lord entrusted his body to that tentacle."

"Maybe he did it on purpose?"

"...Why?"

"This is where opinions split. Here's my theory. Now, think about it. If you can hand something over to the enemy without hesitation... is it really a treasure?"

Halisnaim suspected that a secret was hidden in the Lord's corpse—or more specifically, in the Dragon Heart.

Up to this point, her thoughts mirrored Jenkinson's.

But digging into the details, her conclusion went in a completely different direction.

"The Lord definitely did something to the Dragon Heart before he died. Telling them to wait exactly 99 days is weird, too. I think something changes in the Dragon Heart after that much time passes. That heart is probably... some kind of time bomb, isn't it?"

"A bomb?!"

"I don't believe in crap like the Oath of Endelion. The princess must have already extracted the heart from the corpse. Completely unaware that it's a bomb."

"...Gasp!"

"The Lord figured the Committee was going to kill him, so he formulated a plan to take revenge himself using his own corpse."

It was a theory riddled with wild leaps of logic.

Young dragons viewed the Oath of Endelion as just another pledge that could be broken.

If even draconic oaths could be broken for the sake of greater profit and power, why would another race's promise be any different?

"The Lord decided it was better to strike a blow against the Committee than leave an inheritance for his children. Obsessing over the affairs of the world after his own death... what a bizarre dragon."

As Halisnaim said this, she showed absolutely no sorrow over losing her father.

"Anyway, give up on the Dragon Heart. It's not something we should touch. Instead, let's focus on hijacking the Lord's inheritance that Ye Minjun has."

She spoke in an irritable tone.

"First of all, why did that old man have so many kids? We can't even get the Dragon Heart, and if the remaining wealth gets divided into seventeen parts, there won't even be enough left to eat. He's even throwing crumbs to non-direct dragons and all sorts of garbage races... I hate it from start to finish."

The two dragons prepared to move out. Their destination was Minjun's location.

Bogor asked.

"Can't we... simply kill him and take it? Do we really have to kidnap him?"

"I told you, no!"

The dragons knew he was a prisoner. If they killed him, or damaged him to the point where he couldn't perform his duties for a long time, they would be wanted for property damage.

However, they had already figured out that the Committee wouldn't step in over a little rough treatment that fell short of that threshold.

Meanwhile, hiding in the ceiling, Ha Eunseong abandoned any further scouting. He had to return straight to Minjun's room and warn him of this situation. Just like when he had warned him about Kentius breaking in.

As he shot across the sky at high speed, he thought to himself.

'Man, dragons really are... wow, absolutely disgusting!'

They were already so rich that calling them billionaires was an understatement, and they were set to inherit even more.

Yet, despite enjoying such abundance, these wealthy brats were striving desperately to steal whatever Ye Minjun had managed to get his hands on.

Where did that endless greed even spring from? Despite having so much, they acted like they couldn't be satisfied unless they got even more. He couldn't understand it. Nor did he want to.

Feeling his hatred for dragons deepen, Ha Eunseong reached the residence in a flash.

   *

"Hmm, is that so?"

Minjun nodded after listening to Ha Eunseong's explanation.

"I figured they'd start stepping up one by one."

Still in his spiritual body form, wearing a penguin suit with a Dagger lodged in his neck, Ha Eunseong spoke with obvious concern.

=Agent, what do we do? Besides those two I saw, there are plenty of other dragons watching from all over. And I still haven't even found as many as you estimated.=

The agent replied in a dry voice.

"What else? There's only one way."

=Are you going to hunt them all down and kill them?=

He knew Minjun had 'contributed' to killing Changcheon. But back then, there had been another Ancient Dragon present.

=Are you going to call Chairman Jenkinson?=

Minjun shook his head.

"That man is busy right now. And why would I hunt down and kill all these young dragons over something like this? What a waste."

=...?!?=

"That really would be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Even when fishing, you're supposed to toss the little ones back into the sea."

Because Minjun's words were a mix of his past and present egos, Ha Eunseong fell into confusion.

What? A waste?

A goose... with golden eggs? And fishing?

Only then did Minjun realize his slip of the tongue and correct himself.

"What I mean is this: carelessly killing dragons makes the cleanup extremely annoying."

Just as the dragons couldn't kill Minjun recklessly, the same went for him.

=Then what do we do?=

"I won't kill them, but I will thoroughly stomp on them."

If he just left things as they were, various bastards would keep trailing him and being a nuisance.

It was better to nip this in the bud.

But he didn't need to do the deed himself. Minjun thought of a way to handle it without lifting a finger.

"As it happens, a suitable player just rolled right into my hands."

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