The Foreigner on the Periphery

Jenkinson's secretary, Blair Campbell, considered herself someone who could live just fine without the law.

That statement carried two meanings.

First, she was confident she would survive even if every law protecting her rights vanished from the world. She already resided under the protective umbrella of Jenkinson, who wielded extralegal power.

Conversely, a lack of laws to punish her would not be an issue, either. Blair simply wasn't the type to act against universal ethics and morals.

Yet the elf was currently reeling in confusion. What lay ahead fell into a realm where even her sturdy shield, Jenkinson, could not guarantee his own safety. Moreover, she was not sure if the words she was about to speak to the people in front of her were truly moral, as she would be hiding a part of the truth.

Nevertheless, Blair decided to follow orders. Jenkinson was the only person this deeply untrusting elf had ever opened her heart to and trusted.

The people listening to her seemed just as confused as she was.

"U-um... so... what I mean is..."

Dong-cheol, the goblin, mumbled his lifelong catchphrase in a timid voice.

He looked to Lakefield as if seeking help. The elderly elf was deep in thought. Despite witnessing a shocking scene with his employee yesterday, he had kept his mouth firmly shut and told no one. Now, piecing together what he had just heard, he asked a cautious question.

"So, you are saying that the Jenkinson Company wishes to hire everyone in this room?"

The secretary nodded.

"That is correct. The Chairman has determined that this is the best way to protect all of you. Separate from your public employment contracts, you will also sign private contracts with the Chairman himself. This might sound unpleasant, but..."

Blair tried to sound as calm as possible.

"...it is so that you can be legally recognized as something akin to the personal property of the Elder Dragon Jenkinson."

After yesterday's incident, Jenkinson had answered an emergency summons from the Committee Earth Representative Office. Following an all-night interrogation, he had returned with a face as pale as ice and hastily issued a series of orders. One of them was to gather these people and make this proposal.

The Ancient Dragon had belatedly realized exactly what had happened at Minjun's shop. That darkness had indeed been summoned by Minjun. However, the enemies he had faced there were not some vengeful faction of dark mages.

The Tax Collection Command.

The sharpest blade of the Committee.

When Jenkinson figured out the truth—that Minjun, a prisoner, had slaughtered them and vanished—he could not hide his shock. It was astonishing enough that his friend possessed such power, but the fact that he had actually carried it out terrified him even more.

The Committee had yet to find Minjun's whereabouts. The implications of that fact were clear.

'A prison break.'

Blair rolled the phrase around her mouth in deep discomfort.

Through the Ancient Dragon's confession, she had belatedly learned the agent's true identity.

'A prisoner directly managed by the Committee.'

She had not even known such people existed, let alone that the agent she had known for decades was one of them.

Her mind spun.

'An alien... a pan-dimensional criminal!'

Now her boss was stepping up for the associates of an escaped convict.

That in itself probably wasn't illegal, but...

'Wait, is it really?'

She was completely ignorant of the Committee's penal code. Only dragons would bother memorizing such texts.

Hiding her inner turmoil beneath a calm elven mask, Blair continued her explanation.

"As the two of you from the bookstore witnessed, there are currently people targeting Agent Ye Minjun. It appears he has temporarily gone into hiding to avoid them. During this time, there is a risk that his enemies might lay a hand on those close to him. Therefore, until he safely returns, the Chairman intends to protect you himself."

Even as she spoke, Blair felt a pang of doubt.

Could they really protect these people? Their opponent was the Committee.

But Jenkinson had guaranteed it. He said he had his reasons. Recently, the Committee had failed in an attempt to use physical force against a dragon without evidence, and Jenkinson was planning to publicize the incident alongside the other Lord candidates.

They seemed to believe that neutralizing the suspect would naturally bring the evidence to light. It was a method they often used when a situation was ambiguous. However, the dragon had survived, leaving the Committee looking as though they had simply tried and failed to beat up an innocent dragon without proof. As a result, the Committee was now shouldering a significant political burden from Earth's Dragon Race.

...Having heard only this summarized version, Blair found the explanation hard to accept. She didn't even understand what evidence or charges they were talking about.

But she did not let it show. She quietly observed them one by one. Among them, Lakefield's eyes were wavering far more than the rest.

At that moment, Cathy, who had been silent, spoke up.

"...What about Mr. Jeongpal? And Eun-seong?"

The people missing from this gathering.

Blair answered as if she had anticipated the question.

"Due to Inspector Park Jeongpal's current position, we cannot establish an explicit employment contract, but we plan to protect him through a shadow contract. And since Ha Eun-seong's shell is technically a dragon, he is relatively safe. However, we intend to relocate both of them for the time being."

She laid out these assurances as if she were certain, though she wasn't even convinced herself.

Then Cathy asked another question.

"By any chance, did the Chairman mention having a guess? About where Minjun is right now."

Blair shook her head. This time, she was not hiding anything.

"He said he doesn't know."

   *

He woke up from a nightmare.

Feeling a slight bout of dizziness.

Whoosh!

The wind was blowing. A soft breeze gently tickled his forehead. The cries and songs of wild animals rang out, along with the sound of branches rubbing together and scattering leaves. A mild temperature, neither hot nor cold, and a perfect level of humidity wrapped around his skin. He sat up. It was that time of day when the sun and the moon coexisted in the sky. The mountain peaks, draped in the falling sunlight, blazed a brilliant gold. The senses perceiving all of this were vast and free.

...Free.

'It feels like I had a very long dream.'

He stood up, brushing the grass and moisture from his backside. Then, he thought about the dream he had just woken from. Rather than a clear narrative, it was mostly the lingering emotions that surfaced. A stifling sense of confinement, anger, frustration, resentment... and a vow of revenge.

The song of the forest faded. He stopped ruminating on his memories and lifted his head, casting his gaze over the horizon.

A pointillist painting unfolded across a sky roughly brushed with plum and scarlet hues. Swarms of black dots were flying closer. They were packed tightly together like a massive flock of birds.

'They're coming back.'

His nap had been quite long. This was a life unimaginable in a city.

He was confident in his choice. This life suited him far better than a complex city. Some people considered this place worse than an inconvenient countryside, viewing it as a fragment of a primitive era, but that was only because they did not understand the charm of pastoral living. He figured they were the true hicks, oblivious to elegance and leisure.

'They're a bit late today, though.'

That meant they had to fly farther than usual to find food.

Perhaps he would need to move the barn to a different continent next month. Once he and his livestock vacated this land, time would pass, and the population of beasts for them to feed on would replenish. It was a cycle he had repeated countless times, just as his master had taught him.

Rumble!

They were close enough now that the sounds of the livestock tickled his ears.

It was a swarm of dragons, filling the entire sky.

Roooooar!

The flapping creatures began to descend one by one in elegant curves. They landed at the entrances of a massive barn riddled with holes like a honeycomb. The process was completely seamless; not a single dragon flew into the wrong pen.

Their flight paths never tangled, nor did they ever collide. Tracing complex trajectories, they performed magical acrobatics without grazing a single scale. As someone who watched it every day, he wasn't particularly moved, but it was a sight that would draw gasps of awe from any first-time observer.

The ones returning to the barn right now were the relatively obedient and smart ones—the highly capable dragons that managed to find prey nearby.

The stragglers would fly in soon after.

Sure enough, they soon caught his eye.

Rumble! Roar!

The dragons' roars grew more intense. Woven among them were notably sharp shrieks.

The dragons' return continued. As time passed, the perfect swarm flight from earlier began to lose its balance. The stragglers flying on the outer edges of the formation kept veering off course, showing signs of wandering away. And every time they did...

Rumble! Roooaaar!

A single dragon tore through the air, carving a trajectory like a golden meteor. It streaked across the sky at a speed that vastly eclipsed the rest. Looking like a golden arrow, the dragon darted back and forth across the front and flanks of the swarm with lightning speed, policing the formation to ensure it did not collapse.

It was a dragon that guided the path of other dragons. It managed the swarm to prevent them from losing their way, watched over them to ensure a safe return home, and threatened any rebellious ones with snaps and snarls to force them back into line.

Once the very last dragon was safely back inside the barn...

Swooooosh!

Instead of heading into the barn like the others, the gold-scaled dragon circled in the air a few times, prowling the skies. It seemed to be looking for something.

"...!"

The moment the dragon's eyes locked onto someone on the ground...

An abrupt, acrobatic dive began.

Its movements were similar to a hawk snatching its prey. An unrealistically fast and violent shift in direction.

He watched the golden speck pinned against the sky rapidly balloon in size. So impatient. He clicked his tongue and shut his eyes, bracing himself for what was about to happen.

Bwoooooosh!

A tremendous wind pressure hit him.

Getting infinitesimally close to the earth, the gold dragon swept past, hovering just a handspan above the grass. A tempest of fallen leaves and dry grass assaulted his face. His hair whipped wildly in the wind.

Thump! The sound of the dragon planting its feet rang out. Thump! Thump! Thump! The sound of it rushing toward him in a frantic hurry. Once he confirmed the wind had completely stopped, he opened his eyes.

The dragon was sprinting straight at him. Its eyes burned with something akin to a flame.

"Adkiel!"

When he called its name...

Roooooar!

The dragon replied with a face full of eager devotion. He tensed his body, bracing himself.

Thump!

The dragon tackled him.

"Hey, hey! I know! I know! Calm down!"

He was knocked flat on his back. The gold dragon, twice his height, pinned him down and began frantically licking his face.

Growl! Grrrrr!

After making a huge fuss for a while, the dragon finally backed off. Then it started throwing a fit in a different way, flapping its wings and shaking its head nonstop.

Wiping the saliva off his cheek, he read Adkiel's expression. The swarm's return really had been unusually delayed today. The dragon's face was etched with agonizing anticipation and a burning longing.

It was past mealtime.

   *

During the day, they were let loose to freely hunt beasts, but when evening fell, all the dragons ate a special feed prepared by the rancher. No matter how full they got hunting outside, the dragons always craved it. Since he was the only person on this entire planet, the one in charge of that task could only be him.

With a few waves of his hand in the air, he dispensed the feed to the livestock already inside the barn, who were waiting in desperate anticipation. A massive bowl brimming with food appeared in front of Adkiel as well. Watching the gold dragon devour it with a fierce, aggressive posture, he laughed.

Was it really that delicious?

His late master's recipe boasted incredible palatability. Recalling the old man's face, he fell silent for a moment. This planet had originally been his master's ranch. After he passed away, he had inherited it.

Truthfully, his master had lived such a long life that he sometimes asked himself if mourning even held any meaning. Although the lifespan of their kin was gradually increasing, no one else had enjoyed the kind of longevity his master had. Even so, he felt a subtle wave of sorrow whenever he thought of him. Would such a day ever come? An era where he wouldn't have to lose anyone he knew.

All he could do was try.

There was plenty of time for that. Having inherited his noble position under the apprentice-based caste system, he, too, would live a long life similar to his master's. Shaking himself from his thoughts, he pulled up several screens in the empty air. Following his master's teachings, he opposed factory-style breeding systems and maintained a traditional free-range farm, but there was no need to abandon every convenience. The system linked to his mind scanned the interior of the barn.

He furrowed his brow.

'There's one missing.'

He grumbled out loud.

"Hey, you punk. What is this? You dropped one on the way back."

Adkiel, who had been completely absorbed in eating, raised his head. He tilted it to the side and purred, as if he couldn't understand what his owner was saying.

The dragon's large, clear eyes reflected its owner like a mirror. Looking at them, he snorted. 'This little bastard definitely understood me just now. Sometimes, he's just like a person.'

He checked the ID number of the dragon that hadn't returned to the barn.

Kois-Ager-Ager-Azel-Halekia-Lyubrai-Kois...

"Alright, if you're done eating, let's go catch this one."

"Growl!"

Climbing onto Adkiel's back, he muttered to himself. He was worried about the stray dragon.

If that guy wandered off somewhere completely wrong and got bitten by a Kavite or something, it would be a huge problem.

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