The Foreigner on the Periphery

"Congratulations!"

"Wow, Assemblyman Park! Congratulations. You're going to be unstoppable from here on out!"

"My goodness, Assemblyman! Congratulations. If you don't mind, could we get a quick picture here..."

A banquet hall at a Hotel in downtown Seoul.

Amid the endless shower of greetings, Park Jeongpal frantically bowed and returned the well-wishes.

Even so, a part of him was still in a daze.

It wasn't the cliché disbelief of someone who couldn't fathom they had actually become an assemblyman. He considered such a weak mindset a luxury. The moment the election broadcast called his victory, all Jeongpal had felt was resolute joy and a profound sense of duty.

He had been prepared to face this new future faithfully even before the votes were cast. From here on out, he simply had to live each day doing his absolute best.

He had steeled his heart.

'This isn't even a full party gathering. I can't believe so many people flocked to a celebration hosted by orc assemblymen.'

It was a stark reminder of Assemblyman Choi Panseok's influence.

Once he finished greeting his family—who had arrived first—all sorts of people swarmed him. Everyone from familiar acquaintances to figures he had only ever seen in the news, to complete strangers from all walks of life stepped up to pay their respects, pushing his memory to the breaking point.

"Huh?"

A genuine smile finally broke through the mild, performative excitement that had plastered his face all evening.

"Mister!"

The orc beamed, revealing his large fangs.

"Serene, you made it?"

"Of course I had to come. Congratulations!"

Cathy handed over a large bouquet, which Jeongpal accepted with a bright smile. His secretary, waiting nearby, smoothly took the flowers from his hands with a quiet gesture. As Cathy watched the seamless handoff with amusement, Dong-cheol stepped up behind her.

"Inspector... Ah! No, I mean... Assemblyman... Congrat...ulations..."

Despite having practiced beforehand, he still slipped up. Jeongpal laughed heartily, waving it off, and shook his hand. Next in line was Lakefield.

"It's really been a while. You sounded busy the last time we spoke on the phone, so we couldn't talk for long. I suppose I really do have to call you Assemblyman Park now."

"Oh, please don't say that. Just talk to me comfortably, like always. By the way... you've changed your hair quite a bit."

At the mention of his white hair—which used to hang in loose, unkempt lengths but was now cropped short like a soldier's—Lakefield smiled calmly, showing no hint of embarrassment.

"I figured this would be more comfortable from now on."

Jeongpal gave his secretary a look. Once the aide stepped back, Cathy parted her lips to speak, but Jeongpal beat her to it. Assured that their conversation wouldn't leak, he subtly posed a question while glancing at the bodyguards surrounding their group. Just like his own security detail, these men had been arranged by Jenkinson.

"I wasn't certain even when I sent out the invitations. Did the Chairman say it's safe now?"

The 'Chairman' he referred to was, of course, the Ancient Dragon Jenkinson.

With the election looming, Jeongpal had politely declined the offer after much deliberation, but the others had heeded the dragon's advice, laying low in safe houses for an extended period.

"It seems the forces chasing Minjun have withdrawn from Earth. And honestly... the moment that Ancient Dragon declared us his 'private property,' the chances of the Committee openly harming us dropped to near zero. It was just a precautionary measure."

Having experienced immigration firsthand, Lakefield knew much more about the Committee than someone of Jeongpal's generation ever could.

"If they were truly intent on taking action despite an Ancient Dragon's declaration... well, safe houses wouldn't do us much good anyway."

Jeongpal's expression darkened slightly. He fell deep in thought for a moment before asking.

"What about Eun-seong?"

The ghost who had vanished shortly after Minjun's disappearance.

Because the body he inhabited belonged to a dragon, Jenkinson had tried to track him using Dragon Race magic. But they couldn't find him, Lakefield explained, filling Jeongpal in on everything that had happened since.

Cathy, who had initially suspected Ha Eun-seong of running away, chimed in, admitting she seemed to have misjudged the situation.

"I think Minjun took him."

They still didn't know the Committee had placed a massive bounty on Ha Eun-seong's head as well. Thus, they were only guessing.

Nevertheless, Cathy's expression remained uneasy as she said this. Just as she opened her mouth to add something more—

"Hmm?"

Jeongpal's secretary gestured to him from across the floor. It was time for his speech to officially kick off the banquet.

"Let's talk about the details later."

Leaving the group behind, Jeongpal stepped up to the podium. The attendees took their seats at the round tables filling the hall as experienced servers placed champagne glasses in front of them.

With eyes full of deep emotion, Jeongpal began to speak.

"Thank you."

Starting with Choi Panseok, he listed the names of the orc assemblymen who had helped him reach this position.

He went on to recite the names of absent party heavyweights and sponsors. Once he finally expressed his profound gratitude to the local constituents who had cast their votes for him, his speech began in earnest.

"I am touched by this undeserved welcome. It bears the name of a celebratory banquet, but I intend to use tonight as an opportunity to greet those I am thankful to. Once again, thank you."

He paused briefly for breath.

He looked out at the crowd. Even among the incumbent assemblymen, the vast majority were orcs.

Jeongpal's voice grew heavier.

"I am a third-generation immigrant orc. I can guess exactly what kind of public servant those who voted for me were expecting. Species conflict is still a major issue in our society, and a tangible threat to democracy. We have not yet reached the ideals we are striving for."

"However, is the situation truly regressing, as some claim? I do not think so. Though I did not experience it firsthand, back when orcs first set foot on Earth, things were very different."

"Historical records tell us a grim story. In 1965, an orc father—walking down a dark alley late at night after finishing unpaid overtime at a factory—was beaten to death by a group of young human men. The court ruled it self-defense. They decided that an orc approaching from behind in the dark was an inherently threatening existence. In those days, every orc was deemed a potential criminal."

"Furthermore, up until forty years ago, it was taken for granted in Korea that monthly rents and deposits varied based on a tenant's species. Landlords used fire insurance as an excuse. They reasoned that if the proportion of orcs in a neighborhood increased, their insurance premiums would spike. They claimed that when orcs gathered, we would break things, start fires, and stab each other."

"Even without hard statistics, the media portrayed orc crimes far more sensationally than those of other species. With the same housing budgets, we were forced into the least desirable areas. Ultimately, the very neighborhoods we lived in were deemed undesirable. Those places came to be called the Orc community, a term that has become virtually synonymous with a slum."

"And back when I first entered the workforce, private companies regularly paid different starting salaries based on species. That was the very reason I decided to become a civil servant. Looking back now, it was a shallow motivation, but it was the right choice. Because if it weren't for that experience, I never would have earned the opportunity to stand before you all and give this speech."

Pausing for a moment, Jeongpal once again looked over his audience. He then methodically put the thoughts he had harbored for so long into words.

"The act of violence the courts defended sixty years ago is considered a heinous crime today. The accusations we couldn't protest forty years ago are easily refuted through statistics and debate today. The discriminatory practices that were taken for granted twenty years ago are now condemned as immoral."

"What wasn't even considered a matter of ethics back then is now judged by basic standards of right and wrong. Species discrimination was a given just a few decades ago, but it is not anymore. We have benefited from this ideological progress. It is the result of relentless struggle and contemplation."

"Nevertheless, our society is not yet equal. That is why, honoring the mandate my voters have given me, I intend to fight for equal rights."

Jeongpal saw the eyes of several orc elders grow misty with reminiscence.

In that moment, he felt a flash of conflict. He could just end it there, telling them exactly what they wanted to hear. He felt a strong temptation to do so.

But instead, he pushed forward with what he had originally planned to say.

"And I intend to ultimately expand the scope of this fight beyond the exclusive boundaries of our own species, extending it to everyone who makes up this society."

At that moment.

He felt the atmosphere in the room subtly shift.

"Just as what was deemed 'right' in the past is no longer right today, perhaps even the things we take for granted now will be viewed as terrible moral failures in the future. The 'we' gathered here today might also be doing a great wrong to other species, to other groups, to our fellow citizens. I will not stop reflecting on this possibility. I will continue the hard work of weaving that reflection into our laws. Because I believe that, ultimately, this is the true way to resolve the disadvantages our fellow orcs experience as well."

As expected, the audience's reaction was lukewarm. The majority of the crowd had likely only anticipated his defense of orc rights. Jeongpal's final point sounded overly vague to them, bordering on a moral gray area.

Unfazed, Jeongpal tried to continue.

It was then.

Bang! Bang, bang!

The sensitive elf's ears twitched.

Lakefield whispered a casual question to Cathy.

"By any chance, was a fireworks display planned for today?"

"No, I haven't heard anything about that."

At that, Lakefield closed his eyes for a moment. A spirit—in a form imperceptible to anyone but its summoner—scouted the area and whispered what it saw back to him.

"...!"

Lakefield's face stiffened. Across the venue, the stationed bodyguards suddenly began exchanging frantic whispers. The atmosphere inside the hall froze in an instant, and then—

Bang! Bang!

This time, the concussive sounds were sharp and distinct, loud enough for everyone else to hear as plainly as the elf did.

Lakefield reached into the Subspace Pouch he had managed to smuggle inside thanks to Jenkinson. With a steady hand, he pulled out two handguns. Knowing Cathy had already armed herself, the elf quietly pressed one of the guns into Dong-cheol's hands. The goblin jumped in surprise.

"...Boss?"

Lakefield met his eyes with a serene gaze.

"Just hold onto it. You'll be fine since we're right beside you, but... just in case."

Then, his expression darkened further as he glared at the far wall.

The sounds of screams and explosions were rapidly drawing closer.

   *

A blood-red mist billowed around Minjun.

This gluttonous devouring, which utilized his entire body, continued for a long time. The Magic Tool in Minjun's hand watched the spectacle in utter horror. It was completely different from the "dining methods" he had demonstrated thus far.

The moment it calculated that Minjun had absorbed a volume of dragon blood exceeding his own body weight, Asiph-1 asked hesitantly.

=You didn't normally... eat this much at once, did you?=

Intoxicated by his gluttony, Minjun replied through a slightly elevated mental wave.

'I had forgotten how to do it. Primitively sinking my teeth into dragon scales and frantically chugging it down... so utterly barbaric. And the life force absorbed in one go was pitiful.'

=Even at a glance, it looks like you've sucked in several times your body weight. Yet your physical form remains exactly the same. It almost feels like you're absorbing it into a subspace.=

'Everything comes down to efficiency. Now that I've remembered, there's no reason to just nibble away at it. From long before we fell into a deep slumber, 'our' bodies were modified to pursue extreme efficiency in storing life force. It was one of our trial-and-error processes to achieve perfect eternal life and permanently lasting happiness.'

Asiph-1 remembered Minjun's past stories.

Even though he had been asleep, Minjun had endured that immense span of time without drinking a single drop of dragon blood. Just how much life force had he stockpiled in advance?

Viewed in the same light, it also made perfect sense how Minjun had survived for eight hundred years without a single drop of dragon blood after waking up as a prisoner. He must have endured by running on whatever he had consumed before getting caught. Naturally, he wouldn't have been able to use much of his power in exchange.

=I see. But by the way...=

As if still harboring doubts, the Frying Pan posed a question.

=Hunting dragons here isn't just for your own recovery, but also to heal the Princess of Endelion, isn't it?=

'You remembered.'

=But if her tentacles drink dragon blood, she'll die.=

'Instead of feeding it to her directly, I'll filter the life force from the dragon blood and inject it into Dell. I just have to reverse the principles of Dark Magic used to absorb a sacrifice's life force.'

Instead of absorbing it and converting it into Dark Magic Power, he would transfer the energy to another target.

Hearing this concept, Asiph-1 was puzzled.

=Huh? If that's possible, couldn't Kavite consume dragon blood too? By extracting only the essence instead of ingesting it directly?=

'Except those bastards chose a completely different, completely flawed method. They're still digging their own graves with it even now.'

Asiph-1 traced back through its memories.

Kavite's vision of 'perfect eternal life' faced two immediate challenges.

First, securing dragon blood—which they were currently addressing through their dragon re-domestication plan.

But the second issue—how did they plan to resolve the physical constitution of the Kavite, which innately rejected dragon blood?

'To overcome that rejection, they initially tried to analyze my genetics. I belong to the primordial race, which remains perfectly fine after drinking it. But since interpreting my DNA was impossible with Kavite technology, they turned their eyes toward a 'less advanced' option. They focused on the fact that, out of all the species aside from us, only humans could withstand dragon blood.'

=Ah, right. Humans.=

Asiph-1 recalled the scene they had witnessed at Raymond Wong's mansion.

Dragon blood had poured down like rain.

Amidst the various species showing major and minor rejection symptoms, the humans had been the only ones holding out without a single adverse reaction.

=The humans were perfectly fine.=

'From Kavite's perspective, there were only two potential methods. Either the Kavite mutate to resemble humans, or the Kavite transplant themselves into human bodies. The option with the higher probability of success was the former. So, they began deeply researching human genetics.'

=That makes sense.=

'They introduced diverse species into their society, inducing large-scale hybridization, and secured an enormous amount of genetic samples in the process. Through that, they searched for which human component acted as the Key to embracing dragon blood. And that research saw some success.'

=Some success?=

'They discovered a gene that functioned as a receptor for dragon blood. They couldn't decipher the mechanism, but they knew it performed that exact function. Thus, uniquely among the Ancient Race, Kavite began modifying their own physical bodies. Their goal was to suppress the dragon blood rejection while leaving their appearance and other functions entirely unchanged. They merely mimicked and transplanted that specific part of human genetics, without even understanding it a hundred percent. And upon doing so, the rejection actually decreased—just a tiny bit, ever so slightly. That was why they couldn't give up on it.'

=I see. Once they saw even a minuscule result, they must have become even more obsessed.=

At that moment, a sudden thought crossed Asiph-1's mind.

=Ah, wait a minute. The reason they're so obsessed is, ultimately—!=

'Right. Because the primordial race testified to it directly. That dragon blood is the Key to 'perfect eternal life.' That if they could only overcome the physical limits of their bodies rejecting dragon blood, they too would be able to absorb that immense life force intact.'

In that moment—for only the second time since taking residence inside the Frying Pan's body—Asiph-1 saw its creator smile.

Minjun spoke with distinct amusement.

'Yes. Because I led them to believe exactly that.'

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