The Foreigner on the Periphery

Minjun couldn't understand Leo's actions.

For one, the terrorism itself was pointless. He had shown incredible skill for a young dragon, but lightning of that caliber would only damage passenger facilities, mooring areas, and the landscaping.

Minjun could see it. The most crucial facility—the area housing the guidance systems—remained intact, even as the surroundings went up in flames from the heat storm.

Furthermore, if he was going to go through with the attack, why surrender so easily? Without even attempting to flee?

"My god!"

Kentius suddenly cried out.

"Could it be... because of what I said?!"

"What does that mean?"

Minjun knew the two of them had spoken privately just before their meeting with the Ancient Dragon at Raymond's mansion. However, he didn't know the contents of that conversation.

"Leo said this. He said he wanted to discard his body forever. He didn't care what species he became, as long as it wasn't a dragon."

His condition was not a simple species identity disorder. As Raymond had explained, the dragon's body rejected the soul that did not belong to it, and the possessed soul had come to detest that physical form in return.

"This is all wrong! I hate dragons! I hate that I am a dragon!"

Leo's lamenting voice seemed to echo in his ears.

"So I told him. As far as I know, there is only one way to change bodies without dying."

Minjun's face contorted fiercely as he heard the next words.

"The penal labor of prisoners?"

He kept one eye on Kentius while fixing the other on the scene above the Terminal a few kilometers away.

He spoke in a voice full of disbelief.

"So he pulled a stunt like that? Just because he wanted to swap to a body that wasn't a dragon's? Even if it meant erasing all his memories and doing forced labor?"

Minjun had to revise his earlier assessment of Leo.

He wasn't just crazy.

This was the sheerest, most absolute madness he had witnessed in recent memory.

'Is the aftermath of possessing a dragon really that severe? But Ha Eun-seong isn't like that. Sure, the guy is a bit stupid, clueless, prone to delusions, naive, possesses terrible judgment, completely fails to read the room or know his place, and suffers extreme mood swings over the weirdest things... but he has never shown this kind of madness, has he?'

It was a choice one could only make without knowing what a prisoner's life was truly like.

It was a life with a blade held right below your throat, where you were forced to run endlessly over pits of fire with your hands and feet bound in chains.

That wasn't living; it was being dragged along. It was being trapped in a hell disguised as life.

Minjun even felt a twinge of pity. Leo's rejection of his body had grown so severe that he was no longer capable of rational thought.

He clicked his tongue.

'You made the worst possible choice.'

Minjun remembered Theo Christiansen. The severance pay levied on him for killing a single prisoner had been 200,000 Talents.

Leo's charge was property damage.

And the Committee valued the Terminal far more than the life of a single prisoner. The severance pay assigned to Leo would far exceed what had been slapped onto the dark mage who was thrown into the Abyss.

'It is the worst outcome for you, but an outright benefit for the other dragons.'

Leo was the experimental subject who had come closest to success.

Conversely, that meant he was the most outstanding failure.

Raymond had given up on taking over his body and instead opted to secretly record the traits he displayed as he grew, intending to use that data for his next experiment.

What if a dragon who detested his own kind continued to age like that until he reached the years of an Ancient Dragon?

A second Jang Tae-jun would have been born.

Minjun knew of a dragon who had become so consumed by hatred for his own kind that he tried to wipe out all other dragons to cleanse the world. Though he had no idea what kind of upbringing had driven the bastard to such an extreme.

In any case, unlike Jang Tae-jun, Leo was arrested by the Committee before he could acquire the power and backing to fully unleash his hatred of dragons.

'Besides, how does he know what kind of body he'll get for his penal labor?'

He might have claimed that anything was fine as long as it wasn't a dragon, but there was no telling how his mindset would change once he was reborn.

Even prisoners experienced rejection symptoms if their bodies were swapped too frequently. It was one of the reasons their minds broke down so easily.

Minjun felt a pang of pity for Leo.

*

Flash!

High above the Terminal, Del summoned a dust of light into the empty air. It coalesced into coin-sized clumps that endlessly multiplied. The clusters of light linked together, surrounding the dragon in the form of sharp chains that harbored enough power to rip through dragon bone and scale alike.

Seeing this, Leo let his body hang limply. He showed no signs of resistance.

After confirming her opponent was completely subdued, Del looked back at the Terminal and its surroundings.

She felt a strange, unfamiliar sense of bewilderment at the fact that she was angry. Her anger wasn't solely directed at Leo's terrorism. Del thought of the disaster that had nearly just occurred. A passenger plane had been on the verge of crashing into the city center, yet out of the countless dragons currently visiting this city, not a single one had stepped forward to help.

She could guess the reason. Unlike the ICC Building, the Terminal belonged to the Committee. There were likely dragons who outright welcomed the attack.

Moreover, the dragon who currently ruled Hong Kong seemed to be absent, seeing as even he hadn't intervened.

'From the perspective of the other dragons, a few humans dying in someone else's territory isn't a matter worth intervening in.'

That was why she felt even angrier, and why her own reaction felt so profoundly awkward.

Since when had she cared so deeply about the safety of 'disgusting' mammals?

Instead of dwelling on that dissonance for too long, Del decided to simply do what she had to do.

*

"Huh?"

Just as Del made her resolve, Kentius frowned inside the hotel room. Minjun asked him in confusion.

"What is it?"

"The Princess of Endelion just sent me a message."

"To you?"

Kentius surely wasn't an important enough dragon to warrant a direct, one-on-one message from her, was he?

Minjun's doubts were quickly cleared.

"It seems she sent it simultaneously to all the Lord's direct heirs and the Ancient Dragons acting as witnesses. In her capacity as the Dragon Lord's corpse custodian."

"In the midst of all this?"

At such chaotic timing, she was focusing on her role as a dragon's corpse custodian rather than acting as a Committee official?

"Ah, I see."

But after a little more thought, he realized the reason.

The Lord was entombed in the underground levels beneath the very place that had just been attacked.

Of course, the corpse wouldn't have been affected by Leo's attack, but from now on, massive construction would begin on that artificial island, bringing with it a flurry of architectural magic.

Since it was a project only the Committee could handle, all sorts of aliens and advanced equipment would come flooding in.

The operation of such tools could affect the barriers. It was no longer a suitable place to quietly and secretly house the deceased.

'They're moving the body.'

He felt a flash of dismay.

He had planned to examine the corpse first thing tomorrow, but Leo's sudden outburst had made that impossible.

"To where?"

Kentius focused on the message before speaking.

"Of the suitable plots the Committee holds a stake in, the closest one is... in Korea."

Until just a few decades ago, the Shanghai Terminal had been the closest.

However, what was once China's premier commercial city had now become a land of death crawling with zombies, triggered by the Chinese civil war following Guangdong's declaration of independence. Naturally, the Committee had shut down the Terminal there.

Minjun nodded as he traced through his memories.

"But doesn't Jenkinson also hold a bit of a stake in that Terminal?"

"He agreed to it as well. They're moving it today."

"Hmm, well, for now..."

"Huh?"

Before Minjun could finish his sentence, Kentius muttered as if sensing something.

"Another message came in."

"Is it Del again?"

"No."

Kentius turned his head and spoke the name of a dragon.

The reason Minjun had needed to meet Raymond first upon returning to Hong Kong.

The name of his client.

"It's Inais."

*

In the magical projection, the Poison Dragon still looked exhausted.

"I'm calling to ask if there has been any progress. I was also startled by the telepathic message the Princess of Endelion just sent."

Because her child was also a direct heir of the Lord, it was only natural that Del had contacted her as the guardian.

"Kentius, what on earth is happening in Hong Kong? Why did Leo... suddenly attack that place?"

Then she muttered to herself, 'No matter how starved for attention that child was, I didn't think he'd act so recklessly. Was his mental illness more severe than we thought?'

Minjun and Kentius exchanged a glance.

He didn't want to explain everything to Inais. But as promised when taking the request, he needed to share their progress.

Minjun let Kentius explain in his stead. Since it would be a difficult explanation for Inais to believe, it seemed better to borrow a dragon's mouth.

"Setting Leo's matter aside, let's talk about Raymond first. We met with him today."

Inais's eyes widened. She asked back in disbelief.

"So openly? Wouldn't he notice?"

"No, we didn't request it; he invited us."

Kentius gave a suitably edited explanation of what had happened. Naturally, he entirely omitted the part where Minjun had fought and brainwashed Raymond.

As she listened, Inais's expression turned strange.

"Then, what you are guessing now is..."

"Of course, there is a possibility that Raymond lied."

No, there wasn't. There was no possibility of that at all.

However, there was no way to explain to Inais exactly why they could trust Raymond's statement one hundred percent. So they left it in an ambiguous gray area.

Kentius recited from the script in his head verbatim.

"Inais, you once said something, didn't you? That the Lord's behavior of having many children in succession seemed like an attempt to produce a child who resembled him the most."

Kentius's eyes wavered.

"If we assume that's true, everything falls into place. From now on, we plan to search for evidence that he committed suicide."

Inais fell silent for a long time.

Minjun and Kentius guessed she must have been heavily shocked, so they waited for her to snap out of it.

When time passed and she finally opened her mouth again, she...

"Really, this is... honestly."

She was making an expression that clearly said, 'What kind of bullshit is that?'

"That is the most absurd nonsense I have heard since coming to Earth."

"Inais."

Kentius assumed she was denying reality because the shock was too great. He had almost done the same himself.

"The Lord committed suicide? And he produced his own children for the sole purpose of using them as his new bodies?!"

She looked as if she didn't want to waste another word on the topic.

Kentius spoke as if he understood.

"I imagine it's hard to accept. After all, you are still brooding the Lord's egg. But you know this, don't you? The Lord always left his mate's side before the egg hatched. He was interested in ovulation, conception, development, and spawning, but when it came time to actually hatch, he was never there. It was always like that."

Inais let out a hollow scoff and laughed. The vines dangling from her jaw swayed.

"The egg I laid, the child inside..."

Inais paused midway through saying the word 'child.' Minjun felt it looked remarkably like someone catching themselves right before a slip of the tongue. Inais continued.

"...was designed for the Lord's new body? My god, Kentius."

She no longer hid her scoff.

"You really don't know the Lord at all, do you?"

Kentius spoke with a sullen expression.

"I never had the time or the opportunity to know him. He was never by my side to begin with. But there is already enough objective evidence."

"I don't know what that evidence is, nor do I want to hear it. But there is one thing you should know. The reason the Lord wanted to create as many children resembling him as possible was..."

Inais spoke with a serious gaze.

"Because he hoped more dragons resembling him would be born into this universe. He simply wanted to spread his genes as much as possible."

She wasn't just talking about the basic instincts every male possessed.

"The Lord knew he was an anomaly of a dragon. He was an individual so powerful he would be classified as a monster even by dragon standards. He believed that if the number of dragons with traits similar to his increased, they could one day turn the tables in the power game against the Committee."

"..."

Kentius wore an unconvinced expression, but Inais carried on.

"Furthermore, he was a dragon willing to walk this world alongside non-dragon species. Rather than dominating and crushing them, he believed we could unite with them on equal footing. I don't quite empathize with that part myself, but... the Lord considered it an essential virtue for the dragons of the future."

There was a part of her words that aligned with the Lord as Minjun understood him.

However...

"Did he start thinking that way because most of the species we ruled over betrayed the dragons and sided with the Committee during the war? Either way, the Lord judged his own traits to be innate rather than an acquired temperament. He believed there needed to be more dragons with that disposition in the world. And yet... what? He was making a new body for himself? It's utterly absurd."

Inais clearly wasn't ready to believe Kentius's words.

But likewise, Minjun and Kentius weren't deeply moved by her words either.

Having only exposed their conflicting views on the deceased's final wishes, the conversation ultimately ended without any significant gains.

Inais didn't withdraw her request. She said she expected them to find something if they kept following the clues, whatever they might be.

After the communication ended, Minjun thought it over. He didn't place much weight on Inais's words. They were all merely speculations and hypotheses.

Instead of dwelling on them, Minjun immediately considered his next step.

Since he wouldn't be able to view the Lord's corpse here anyway, it seemed he had to head to Korea. His return trip was coming sooner than expected.

'While I'm at it, I should meet Choi Seon-a and listen to the prophecies she's piled up. And borrow Jenkinson's private laboratory for a bit.'

Minjun thought of the stone fragment he had stored in his subspace. It was something a contractor had smuggled out from the collapse site of the ICC Building, and it bore a vivid bloodstain on its surface. Cathy had been the one to procure it.

He still kept the Lord's hidden child in mind. Separate from the Subspace Cube opening in 95 days and the identity of the item inside being revealed, Minjun intended to search for the child in his own way.

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