The Foreigner on the Periphery

If a calico cat's fur resembles two distinct paints bleeding across a white canvas, a tricolored dragon's scales evoke sedimentary rock, neatly stratified by era. Among the three gleaming hues of Kentius's scales, the golden ones laid bare Rod's genes.

Naturally, Minjun expected him to be a powerful dragon for his age.

Until his death, the Dragon Lord had been the strongest dragon on Earth. This was partly because he was the oldest, but there was another reason. Minjun knew that even in his youth, he had been considered a monster among his own kind. Therefore, it was only right to have high expectations for the capabilities of Kentius, who had inherited a relatively pure strain of that blood.

But looking at how the two dragons were fighting right now, Kentius's arduous struggle left much to be desired.

For a start, the Magic Kentius unleashed wasn't bad for his age. His casting was slightly slow, but he formed the spells properly before releasing them. His opponent, Bogor, on the other hand, didn't bother chanting a single decent spell. He simply hurled himself into the Magic with brute, ignorant force, crushing the spells with his innate resistance.

And that brute-force method was actually working.

Kentius looked bewildered by this. He occasionally threw out lethal spells that a dragon of the same age shouldn't have been able to block with their bare body, yet Bogor shattered every single one with a brutal tackle. He then charged, intent on tearing his half-brother into three separate pieces by color. Kentius was slowly losing ground. The fierce fighting spirit he had shown just moments ago, when he clamped down on the Lightning Dragon's neck like a pitbull, was fading fast.

Watching this, Minjun changed his mind.

‘No. It's not that Kentius is weak...’

So the problem might not lie with Kentius, but with his opponent.

‘I see.’

Observing the fight intently, he came to a conclusion.

‘Bogor... that bastard's body is way tougher than I thought.’

The dragon profiles kept by the Committee were never perfect. The more recently a dragon had reached adulthood, and the less active they were in the outside world, the more blind spots there would inevitably be in their file.

Minjun updated his mental file on Bogor.

‘He doesn't show much of Rod's genetics... but he's a monster in an entirely different way.’

Unlike his father, his physique wasn't exceptionally well-rounded.

To start with his strengths, his physical durability was outrageous. The Magic power fueling his spell resistance seemed on par with that of a dragon several centuries old.

On the flip side, he seemed to lack the hyper-sensitive instincts unique to dragons. Some of Kentius's attacks flying in from all sides followed trajectories that any other dragon would have easily deflected. Bogor, however, failed to dodge and took most of the hits. The openings created by these impacts were far too massive to assume he was simply relying on his sturdy body and taking them on purpose.

Minjun finished evaluating Bogor's capabilities. The dragon's stat distribution was wildly unbalanced. In a way, that too was...

‘A type of mutation.’

His thoughts settled, Minjun reached into empty space.

If this battle of Magic attrition dragged on, Kentius was guaranteed to lose. Minjun needed to change the plan and intervene. It ruined the beautiful picture he had originally envisioned, but it couldn't be helped.

His hand grasped a brilliant, silver-shining Frying Pan.

Swoosh!

The prisoner took to the skies. The air tore past his ears, shrieking as he shot fiercely upward toward the airspace where the two dragons were tangled.

“...!”

Of the two combatants engrossed in their brawl, Kentius was the first to notice. Catching onto Minjun's intent, he shifted his body to create a clever angle. Rather than blocking the target in their tangle, he opened up a clear path for Minjun to strike.

The dull-sensed Bogor remained wholly focused on his assault against Kentius. He looked ready to tear his half-brother apart along the grain like a piece of cooked chicken. Only a beat later did he spot Minjun. One of the Fire Dragon's twelve eyes, situated relatively far back on his head, caught sight of him.

And Bogor's reaction was...

“Kaaaaaargh!”

He roared with anger and annoyance, treating Minjun like an insignificant gnat. The roar also carried a distinct tone of sheer disbelief. This was because Bogor had clearly seen that thing in Minjun's hand.

‘...Is that a Frying Pan?’

His intelligence might have been lacking, but Bogor was still a dragon capable of basic reasoning. He scoffed at the alien charging at him with a cooking utensil completely unsuited for the battlefield.

And so, he directed the very same insult that other dragons used to mock him toward Minjun.

‘What a half-witted idiot...!’

Rather than attacking the prisoner, Bogor focused entirely on Kentius. This left the back of his head wide open. Of course, he wasn't completely ignoring Minjun; the primal shield wrapped around his body was still fully active.

But that shield was only meant to block attacks within the realm of common sense.

And Bogor couldn't possibly imagine...

...that the attack Minjun was preparing far exceeded any common sense.

Swooooosh!

Meanwhile, as Minjun flew toward Bogor, he felt tense for the first time today.

A thrilling jolt, like electricity, coursed through his entire body.

He repeatedly reminded himself.

‘Don't kill him.’

After realizing this item was far from ordinary, Minjun had conducted his own series of experiments and training. He was just about to display the fruits of those efforts. He absolutely did not want that dragon's head exploding like a squashed grape.

So, controlling his strength with the utmost precision...

‘Right here!’

Drawing a crisp arc through the air.

Vwoom!

With the silver blunt weapon, using all his might...

“...?!”

He smashed the dragon square in the back of the head!

--------!

In that instant.

“Krrroooargh!”

Bogor heard a terrifying roar that drowned out even his own scream.

If he had to describe it, it was a noise like the heavens and earth being mashed together into a messy pulp, only to be violently ripped apart again.

The agonizing pain splitting his crown arrived a fraction of a second after the sound. Bogor thought that even getting struck by lightning hadn't hurt this much. But even that realization quickly blurred into nothingness. His consciousness grew so distant that he couldn't sustain a single thought.

‘What... is...?!’

The world turned red. At the same time, a storm that felt like it was tearing his head apart on a cellular level rushed in. The deafening roar, conversely, faded into the distance.

All strength drained from the flesh that had so effortlessly blocked Kentius's barrage of Magic. An irresistible wave of lethargy washed over him. Everything in his vision grew dim. Up and down inverted. The earth pulled him down with an invisible hand.

Whoosh!

The ground rushed up to meet him.

Feeling all his senses recede like an ebbing tide, Bogor lost consciousness.

   *

“You understand what I said, right?”

Having finished his explanation, Minjun asked to confirm.

“Understood.”

Kentius replied. Having reverted to his human form, he nodded with a serious expression.

“I will declare it to all the dragons in the area. I'll tell them that a battle over the inheritance broke out here between Bogor, Halisnaim, and myself, and that as the victor, I met with you privately to strike a deal. As a result, the inheritance Rod left you has now passed into my hands.”

The two of them had already carried the unconscious dragon siblings away from the ruined national forest and relocated to a safe place.

“I'll make a fake inheritance that looks like the real thing and give it to you. Use that to draw the attention of the others.”

It was a plan to shift all the dragons targeting and tracking him over to Kentius. In the meantime, Minjun would use his newly freed-up time to study the real inheritance and uncover its true nature.

Of course, he had to confirm one thing with Inais first.

“However,”

Kentius said.

“Wouldn't the situation improve if you let the others know you're a dragon? Bogor and Halisnaim tried to force an unfair contract on you because they didn't know you were one of our kind. The moment you reveal your true identity, you'll receive a level of respect and reverence incomparable to now.”

Minjun listened with a “what kind of bullshit is that?” expression before he suddenly realized: as an experiment, he had planted a ridiculous lie as a hypnotic suggestion in Kentius's mind.

So, he corrected him.

“Ah, I'm not a dragon.”

“Is that so? Hmm. Then it can't be helped.”

Just as he had easily believed Minjun when he declared himself a dragon a few dozen minutes ago, Kentius accepted the complete reversal and denial without an ounce of resistance. It was almost too easy.

Under normal circumstances, he should have harbored suspicions about a story flipping back and forth like a coin. But heavily brainwashed, Kentius didn't show a single sliver of doubt.

Watching his reaction, Minjun reconsidered. Didn't Kentius look just like a religious zealot right now, accepting every word Minjun said as absolute gospel?

He continued that line of thought. Maybe this was exactly how the religions of the world had been born?

Minjun quickly erased such idle thoughts from his mind. This was a moment that required swift cleanup.

‘Halisnaim will be fine even if she wakes up like this; the only thing she remembers is being beaten by Kentius.’

He turned his head. Over there lay Bogor, unconscious and bleeding profusely from the back of his head.

Thanks to his exquisite control, Minjun had managed to avoid crushing the dragon's skull completely.

‘That guy is the problem. He saw me use the Frying Pan.’

As if noticing Minjun's gaze, Kentius moved. He approached Bogor, examining the head wound as he muttered.

“He already carried his head around purely for decoration. I wonder if he'll end up even stupider when he wakes up.”

There was not a shred of emotion in his voice. He felt absolutely no pity for his half-brother. His tone suggested Minjun had simply done what needed to be done.

The prisoner asked him.

“Are there any other monsters like that among your siblings?”

Even in the eyes of a man who had seen every kind of dragon imaginable across both past and present, Bogor was quite a bizarre specimen.

“No, none. He's the only mutant among us.”

Just as Minjun had suspected, Kentius and his siblings seemed to view Bogor's traits as a deformity.

Apparently, he had only been recognized as an adult thanks to his mother's approval, and even then, it was by a remarkably razor-thin margin.

“Just as his low intelligence is abnormal, the fact that a dragon less than a hundred years old possesses that level of Magic power and physical durability is hardly normal either. He was only recognized as an adult because the latter isn't a disadvantageous trait.”

Kentius evaluated him, then added one more detail.

“Considering how many children Rod sowed across Earth, it's a miracle there's only one deformity.”

Despite being hailed as possessing the most powerful physiques of any creature in the dimensional realms, dragons had a bizarrely high birth defect rate.

“So there are no others besides this bastard?”

“As far as I know. Unless there's a child of Rod that no one is aware of.”

Minjun felt a sudden twinge in his chest. Unaware of his expression, Kentius continued.

“But that's completely unrealistic. Seventeen children are already far too many; there would be no need for him to secretly sire another.”

He then muttered to himself.

“Yes, seventeen is too many. Come to think of it now, Rod was strangely obsessed with having children. And strictly one per partner, at that... Furthermore, looking at his standards for choosing wives, no two dragons were alike. He selected a diverse array of species, and even if they overlapped, they were women with strikingly different appearances and scale colors. It was almost as if... he was running an experiment to see just how many diverse forms children carrying his blood could take.”

Yet among them, no dragon resembled him quite as much as Kentius did. As was standard for the Dragon Race, most were born looking like carbon copies of their mothers.

‘Honestly, Kentius just looks a lot like him in a relative sense; by any absolute standard, it's highly ambiguous.’

Thinking this, Minjun put the silver Frying Pan away. This time, he pulled out a black pan.

Emerging from subspace, the Magic Tool transmitted a telepathic wave.

=Instead of putting one away and taking another out, couldn't you just hold one pan in each hand? Why go through this hassle every time...=

‘Shut up.’

That was the one thing he absolutely could not tolerate.

He sharply cut off the Frying Pan's suggestion and asked his question.

‘How many more dragons can you do?’

Omitted between the words was the term “brainwash.”

The Frying Pan pondered for a moment before replying.

=With the extra food you brought along, I think we can manage about one more.=

However, it added that it couldn't be certain how long the effect would last.

Minjun nodded and summoned his shadow. Dark tendrils shoved their way between the jaws of the unconscious Bogor. The mouth pried open, helplessly exposing the dragon's throat. Minjun pulled the prepared food from his subspace.

The scene that unfolded next looked remarkably similar to a goose farm producing foie gras.

Gulp!

Guuulp!

Minjun forcefully shoved the food down the unconscious dragon's esophagus before clamping the jaws shut.

If the dragons learned about the sheer power of the silver Frying Pan, a situation like today's might repeat itself. Thus, keeping roughly two dragons brainwashed seemed like a solid choice. Externally, today's victory would remain entirely credited to Kentius. It was an achievement Minjun felt no regret over handing away.

After that, Minjun gave Kentius one additional instruction.

“You said Inais is in her Lair right now, right?”

“That's correct. She couldn't afford to remain in Hong Kong like the other heirs or guardians.”

Her child had yet to hatch. As everyone was well aware, an egg was even more vulnerable than a Hatchling. Because of this, Inais had immediately returned to her Lair the moment she confirmed Rod's corpse.

Since she was currently brooding, she definitely wouldn't allow any other dragon to visit her Lair. With the child's father, Rod, dead, it was safe to assume absolutely no one was permitted to step foot inside.

“Establish a Magic communication link with her. She should at least answer that.”

Kentius nodded as if this were a simple task and spoke.

“What should I say?”

“Tell her you tried negotiating with me to find the culprit who killed Rod... but that my stance is firm. Tell her the discussion can't progress any further unless she tells me the method for evading Talent taxes upfront.”

Kentius hesitated.

“She'll be suspicious over the fact that I couldn't subdue just one of you.”

Except for his absolute trust in Minjun, his cognitive faculties were perfectly normal, making this a natural question to raise.

“Just make up a decent excuse and say I was much tougher than expected.”

Kentius nodded, then asked.

“Will you really help, then? Finding the killer.”

Minjun thought about it for a moment.

Should I try helping the heir I brainwashed get his hands on the Dragon Heart?

The answer that returned was negative. If it succeeded, the payoff would be massive, but the chances of pulling it off seemed far too slim.

Among all the feasible scenarios, the one most advantageous for Minjun was Jenkinson being elected as the next Dragon Lord, putting the Dragon Heart directly in his grasp.

Jenkinson was (excluding the brainwashed dragons) the friendliest dragon toward Minjun, while also being...

...a debtor who had yet to fully pay off his debts.

Of course, even if that scenario came to pass, Minjun had no intention of extorting Jenkinson for the Dragon Heart itself. Minjun believed he at least had that much of a conscience left.

“Let's observe the situation for now.”

Despite Minjun's noncommittal attitude, Kentius's absolute trust didn't waver in the slightest. The dragon merely harbored a vague thought to himself.

“Then I will contact Inais.”

Kentius hoped that if Minjun decided not to help, he would let him know promptly. Not that Kentius would resent him for it, anyway.

He had a very good reason for hoping so. Until today, his sole short-term goal had been acquiring the Dragon Heart, but the situation had now changed.

If finding the killer became a distant pipe dream, a new secondary task had arisen that he would need to abandon the first and devote himself fully to.

To move into a much larger Lair, there was more than just one or two things he needed to start preparing right away.

“We are connected.”

The empty air in front of Kentius warped, projecting an image of Inais's Lair located far, far away.

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