The Foreigner on the Periphery

Del stumbled forward. Despite the priest's attempts to stop her, she stepped out of the barrier Minjun had cast.

She had heard the situation from Yumtus. Minjun had reportedly kidnapped a native princess with mana-condensing abilities and gone to raid their treasure vault. It was an extreme abbreviation completely stripped of context, but Del accepted it. It was exactly the kind of thing Minjun would plan and execute.

What mattered now wasn't why he did it, but where he had gone.

She scanned her surroundings through a dizzy haze. The answer lay in the sky.

'That way.'

The Stanian princess must have been a truly phenomenal talent, for her flight path was left behind in plain sight. Wherever she passed, the mana in the atmosphere gathered and froze. Like the contrails of an airplane, the frozen mana slowly melted, scattering grains of light across the night sky. Del could see it clearly.

'There's no telling when the signal inside my body was activated.'

It would be a relief if it had only started transmitting right before she woke up, but it might have been broadcasting for hours before she regained consciousness. If it was the latter, she had given them more than enough time to send someone to this dimension. Since there was no way her cowardly kin would come themselves, it was probably...

"Please wait, Princess!"

"If you insist on going, take me with you! I've recharged a little Divine Power, so..."

Del knew that this three-eyed one had been continuously healing her. She nodded.

Swish!

"Eek!"

A single tentacle burst from her back and wrapped around Yumtus. Clutching the priest, Del soared into the sky. She flew straight along the path that stretched out like the Milky Way.

She considered returning to her true body, but it seemed a bad choice. Revealing herself here would be tantamount to kindly announcing her location to her pursuers. Furthermore, maintaining that massive body would drain her life force even faster.

Meanwhile, Yumtus, entangled in her grip, thought this was the perfect opportunity. It was a question he hadn't been able to ask while Del was unconscious.

"Princess, I am not very familiar with the biology of an Endelion. So I do not understand what is happening right now. Why is your life force draining so quickly?"

"..."

"You mentioned it just a moment ago, didn't you? That it isn't your physical body that is injured. That only makes it more confusing."

He was a priest who would be sticking by her side for the time being. It seemed necessary to let him know.

Cutting across the night sky, Del spoke.

"What happens to a body when the soul leaves it?"

"...The life force continuously drains away. Even completely halting physical activity through freezing cannot prevent it. To keep a soulless body alive, you must endlessly pour life force into it or insert another soul, though neither is a fundamental solution..."

Yumtus broke off, startled.

Could it be?

"But Princess, you have a soul right now!"

"I do. But it keeps trying to leave this body. And every time it does, my life force is chipped away."

"Why?"

"Because it's time to die. According to the laws of nature, this body should have reached the end of its lifespan long ago."

"...?!"

Even prisoners typically changed bodies every few decades, or at most every century.

Would the Ancient Race be any different?

Yet Yumtus couldn't understand.

"I've never heard of anyone from the Ancient Race dying of old age."

"That only started after we returned to this era. Originally, our true lifespans weren't long. They certainly weren't comparable to a dragon's."

Compared to the elders who had extended their lives by swapping bodies multiple times, Del was young.

But going by the old standards, the story was different. She had already neared the end of her biological lifespan right before becoming a prisoner. Even so, Del had endured, continually refusing to exchange her body for a young, vibrant new one.

Because she believed it wasn't right.

Even after her release, she had received her original, worn-out body instead of a new one. This time, it wasn't by choice. Because of her crimes, she had been pushed to the very bottom of the Endelion body-recipient waiting list. Being royalty granted her no special privileges.

To her, who had already paid the price for her sins through 'labor reform,' her kin had handed down another punishment: 'aging.'

However, since they couldn't just leave a princess to die of old age, the royal family had taken action. They had implanted a device to help her frail body hold on to her soul until her turn on the waitlist finally came around. It was strictly a temporary measure, and she couldn't last long like that. If someone could endure forever with this method, true immortality would have been possible.

Del murmured with a complicated expression.

"My physical body isn't what's injured. It's the glue connecting my flesh and soul. The tool that forcefully kept my body together. That is what got damaged. It seems to be from the pressure I endured while jumping dimensions."

Yumtus was horrified. The princess hadn't suffered an injury; she was experiencing deferred aging.

At this rate, it was literally like pouring water into a bottomless sieve.

He had just decided that he needed to report this to the avatar...

"...!"

An anomaly occurred in the direction Del was flying. Noticing it, the two turned their heads simultaneously. The moment their eyes caught sight of the distant horizon...

Both of their faces paled in shock.

"Insane!"

The princess and the priest cried out to their gods at the same time.

*

While one princess flew in a straight line carrying a priest.

Elsewhere, a dragon was flying in circles, carrying another princess.

Ha Eunseong shrieked in terror.

"Stop! Stop it! It's dangerous! I'm telling you, it's really dangerous!"

Princess Yuria retorted violently.

"Kwektapkwakchwelkwekkwak!"

She had already lost her reason. She rolled around on the dragon's back, flailed, stomped her feet, and began tearing out scales. The scales she tore out were not limited to her own. Astonishingly, the monstrous strength of the Stanians was enough to wound dragon skin. The moment his back scales were ripped off, Ha Eunseong felt like he was going to lose his mind.

"Ah, come on! You crazy crocodile! I said stop! Why are you doing this?!"

Words couldn't get through to her. Her agony wasn't conveyed to the dragon. It just looked like violent, dangerous behavior.

He recalled Minjun's words.

'If she throws a fit, drop her down there first, then catch her right before she hits the ground. That'll make her pass out.'

Should I really just drop her?

Princess Yuria had no idea that this dragon was debating a choice that would decide her life or death. Minjun had given that order without ever dreaming that she was about to spawn. If she started a high-altitude freefall right now, there was a high probability that Yuria would not survive.

'Should I actually do it?!'

Ha Eunseong felt conflicted. With his genius talent and flight sense, he figured he could probably pull it off.

Before making a decision, the dragon craned his long neck back to look at his spine. He brought the princess into his line of sight. For the first time, he locked eyes with Yuria.

Tears brimmed in the corners of the crocodile's eyes.

'...'

The princess was screaming in an incomprehensible language. Because their species were different, he couldn't read her facial expressions either. Aside from being covered in scales, there were hardly any similarities in their appearances, leaving no room for a sense of kinship.

They had lived in different cultures, and quite literally, entirely different 'dimensions.'

The two were strangers standing at such extremes that one would wonder if it was even possible to be more different.

Ha Eunseong chewed over Minjun's instructions again. He had been told to wait around this area. The sky was safer than the ground, especially since the faction the princess was supposed to meet might be searching the vicinity.

But...

'Damn it!'

The dragon slowly lowered his altitude.

The ground steadily grew closer. Blood flowed from his back where the scales had been ripped away. He didn't even know if this was the right thing to do.

But it felt like what he had to do.

Anxiety flooded his mind. What if he got scolded later?

Even though his psychological distance with the agent had narrowed, entirely separate from that, the impulse to follow the orders of his master—no, his creditor—boiled within him. His thoughts were a tangled mess.

Despite that, the dragon continued heading downward.

Let's just go to the ground for now. And put the princess down. The agent wouldn't have much trouble returning from way up high anyway. As he muttered that over and over to himself...

Boom!

A heavy roar.

Fwoosh!

A scorching heat flooded from right above him. The dragon snapped his downward-facing head back up.

He looked up. His eyes widened in absolute shock.

"Whoa!"

The exact spot Ha Eunseong had been circling just moments ago. A mountain of flames blanketed the area around the entrance of the torn barrier. It looked as though an impatient sun had risen, ignoring the time of day. Even from this far away, the heat reached them, strong enough to make him worry his scales might singe.

Ha Eunseong felt a chill run down his spine.

If they had stayed there, the princess would have died instantly, of course, and he wouldn't have walked away unscathed either. Since he was a dragon, he might not have died, but he would have been battered and broken.

Soon, the dragon's sharp gaze caught sight of the figures appearing around the explosion site.

'Who are those people?!'

Flames covered the Sanctuary's entrance, burning the very atmosphere. Just outside of that, countless members of another race were swarming in to lay siege. Ha Eunseong spotted the disc-like objects strapped to their backs.

Shields?

He looked closer. No. They weren't some kind of detachable armor.

They were shells attached to their bodies.

The carapace exposed outside their combat suits was reminiscent of a turtle's. Their skin was cracked like parched earth, and their snouts had pointed, beak-like lips. It was a race Ha Eunseong had never seen before. Naturally, he had no way of knowing that they were referred to by the name 'Todd.'

*

At the place the princess and the priest, as well as the other princess and the dragon, were watching in horror.

The Todd commanding hundreds of troops issued an order.

"While the 1st Battalion concentrates firepower here, the 2nd Battalion will secure the princess. Then, pull back as fast as possible! If she gets so much as a scratch, those tentacles will go insane. We can't let the treaty we worked so hard to forge turn into a scrap of paper!"

Various texts and charts floated across the commander's vision as he spoke. The specially crafted equipment handed over by Endelion had detected a massive Talent reaction inside that barrier. It also indicated that the Princess of Endelion was located a few kilometers away.

Recently, Endelion and Todd had violently clashed in front of the Kavite. Endelion argued that rescuing the princess was the top priority, while Todd insisted that they didn't need to hold back on any means or methods to capture Asif-666.

But the reality was a little different. Unbeknownst to the Kavite, the two races had already joined hands.

Much like Todd, Endelion was also wary of the Kavite. Their recent movements hinted that they had acquired some kind of secret.

An imbalance of information was unwelcome. Endelion and Todd suspected that it was related to the dragon, Asiph-1, Asif-666, or perhaps all of them. Whatever that secret was, they had no intention of letting the Kavite monopolize the fruits of it.

The secret that a prisoner had leaked solely to the Kavite in the distant past had, over a long period of time, sown a deep rift among the Ancient Race.

Fwoosh!

Just as ordered, the Todds split into two groups. While some moved to secure the princess, the remaining troops poured their firepower into the barrier. It was certain that Asif-666 was inside. If not him, who else could draw out such an intense Talent reaction at a time like this?

The commander felt a sense of urgency. Did he hide Talents in there or something? If so, he might have regained even more of his memories...

Boooooom!

At that moment, the Todds witnessed darkness blooming within the flames.

Countless black dots pierced through the blaze, quickly linking together to blanket the surroundings.

"Wh-what is that?!"

Faster than their panicked screams, the darkness swallowed the Magic and swelled.

Light and fire were devoured by the dark. It was an astonishing speed. It looked like the violent layer of clouds that accompanied a typhoon.

"More! Pour out more!"

It was a hollow shout. The darkness that completely swallowed the flames stretched vertically, forming a vortex. It was a darkness cast against the night sky, its pitch-black hue distinctly contrasting with the air. A shadow blooming in the inky void, yet it seared itself sharply into their vision. It stretched longer and longer, swelling until it gradually took on a more intricate form.

"...Gasp?!"

The Sanctuary's barrier was completely shattered. The space beyond it had long since been swept away and obliterated by Magic.

Yet the being that summoned that darkness seemed to have taken no damage at all.

As if to prove it, power seethed. Two arms stretched out from the center of the shadow-woven vortex. Its lower half remained a crushed, swirling mass. A head sprouted from the upper section, right where the shoulders would be.

"A shadow monster...!"

A summon of the Dark Mages.

But they had never seen one manifested on such a massive scale. The top of the monster's head pierced through the clouds, as if reaching the heavens. It was simply an overwhelming sight.

The giant forged from shadows swallowed all the flames and now began sucking in the surrounding atmosphere. The Todds felt the air currents violently fluctuating. At the terminus of the wind, the giant flashed with hostility. A mist of blood poured from its torn eyes and mouth. Its surface sizzled and bubbled constantly, contorting before collapsing again. Having completed 'her' form, she let out a scream that could not be expressed in letters.

She.

The Todds realized they had unconsciously perceived the monster as female.

Hsssss!

From the center of it, Minjun saw into the monster's inner mind.

An unfathomable, blade-like hostility. Disgust. Hatred.

Minjun knew the target of those emotions was none other than himself. She only didn't dare attack because she was under his control.

Minjun decided to redirect the intense emotions the monster harbored elsewhere.

Just as he always had.

"...!"

His master, who valued tradition, had named her guide dragon 'Elucid,' after the person she cherished most. He had asked who that person was, but she hadn't answered him until the moment she died, leaving it an eternal mystery.

The dragon herder who studied under her named his friend in the exact same way.

When his friend, the gold dragon, was caught by a shadow-like monster near his master's grave, the dragon herder cried out a certain name in despair.

It was the name of the dragon, and also the name of the monster that had caught it.

"Adkiel."

The shadow monster reacted to the name.

Grrrrr!

The Todds surrounding the monster sensed that something had gone terribly wrong.

No matter how powerful the spells they rained down, no matter how many beam cannons made by Endelion they fired... that storm-like darkness absorbed it all. Ravenously.

The moment the incredibly appealing word 'retreat' crossed the commander's mind...

"...!"

They saw it. At some point, one of the crouching monster's arms had stretched out in a nearly straight line, pausing midair.

It was a movement with its middle process entirely omitted. A change in form existed, but there was no action connecting it. It was the result of two scenes roughly stitched together, an incomprehensible shift.

Their confusion was brief. The troops soon realized the intent behind it.

In the sky toward which the monster had raised its arm, hundreds of red flowers bloomed.

Drip, drop, splat.

Like bloodstains blotted onto a black canvas, the flower buds she burst scattered across the night sky, slowly dyeing it in crimson.

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