The Foreigner on the Periphery

For the first time since they met, Ha Eunseong actually felt worried about his creditor.

“Excuse me... Agent.”

After briefly parting ways where Kirgzail had been subdued, they had just reunited over the sea where Dell lay. In that short window, it seemed Minjun had beaten back and chased off a Sea Dragon that dared approach her.

Yet as he faced Minjun, Ha Eunseong’s senses picked up on something strange.

“Are you okay?”

He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. The man was a terrifying entity that Yumtus worshipped as a god. Just yesterday, Ha Eunseong had witnessed him lay waste to an entire city. To worry about someone so powerful... well, perhaps he wasn't even a 'someone.' Did it even make sense to worry about such a supreme being?

Even so, he couldn’t take the words back.

“About what?”

Minjun’s face was as unreadable as ever. Still, Ha Eunseong sensed a newfound vitality in him. A strange vivacity, almost. The exhaustion that had weighed him down earlier was completely gone. By that measure alone, there really was no reason to worry.

“The smell...”

“What smell?”

Ha Eunseong tilted his head.

“You reek of blood. It’s incredibly thick. I’ve noticed a similar scent whenever you come back from a fight, but today it’s completely off the charts. It’s so strong my nose feels like it might rot off. I just wondered if you were hurt somewhere I couldn't see.”

Minjun didn’t answer, and Ha Eunseong concluded he had asked a useless question after all. It seemed that Kalisenar, the Sea Dragon he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of, had simply bled a ridiculous amount while Minjun was beating him to a pulp.

Wait, come to think of it, that name sounded familiar. Kalisenar... He muttered the name a few times, wrestling with a sense of déjà vu, before pushing it to the back of his mind. Minjun had just spoken.

“I see the dragon's already been healed.”

He looked at Kirgzail, who was sitting quietly next to Ha Eunseong. The dragon, his lower half previously scorched, had flown here at a relatively leisurely pace with Ha Eunseong after Minjun had hurried off. Fortunately, his injuries hadn’t been severe enough to ground him. Once they arrived, Yumtus had easily patched him up.

The mind control was still active. Minjun hadn’t finished his census of the planet's Ancient Dragons yet, meaning he still had business with him. And Ha Eunseong had his own unresolved business with the dragon, too.

‘I need to ask more about the original owner of this body.’

How on earth had he been caught by Changcheon and subjected to such torture?

Furthermore, figuring out exactly what kind of dragon he was might reveal a clue as to why his soul still wouldn't wake up. And since this body was currently wanted, learning about his true identity was a smart move. Just in case.

“This should do.”

Minjun looked down at the blue-gray expanse they were all standing on.

It was Dell’s body, floating on the surface of the sea. He pressed his palm against the surface. Then, he roused the life force he had just absorbed from Kalisenar.

Thrum!

An unfathomable amount of energy—far more than any ordinary human could contain—roiled within his body. It was purely filtered, high-density life force. Concentrated to its absolute limit, he kept just enough for himself and poured the rest directly into Dell.

‘Her physical aging has already started. This is just a temporary fix, but...’

Life force flooded into Endelion’s massive form like a raging waterfall. Minjun knew this single injection wouldn't be enough to fix her completely. Still, it should be enough to wake her up. It was far too dangerous for her to remain unconscious while her gargantuan body was exposed like this. He planned to wake her, have her Polymorph, and let her rest somewhere on land. Meanwhile, he could get back to hunting the Ancient Dragons.

A moment later.

Rumble!

The wanted man, the priest, and the two dragons felt the vast surface beneath them begin to vibrate. It felt like a mild earthquake.

Minjun looked down at the massive tentacle he was standing on and asked,

“Are you awake?”

*

“Are you awake?”

Dong-cheol opened his eyes. Lakefield’s voice filtered through, mingling with the noise from a television. He was in an unfamiliar hospital room. It seemed to be a private room; the only people present were him and the elf.

“Boss...!”

A throbbing headache pounded against his skull, making him wince. Meeting the goblin’s eyes, the elf offered a faint smile.

“You’re awake.”

“Yes... Urgh!”

Lakefield gently pushed him back down as he tried to sit up.

“It’s alright. Just lie back. The doctors say there’s nothing physically wrong with you, but it’s best you rest for today. That is, if my guess about why you collapsed is correct.”

Dong-cheol didn’t quite understand that last part, but the question quickly faded from his mind. His gaze drifted over and locked onto the television mounted on the wall. It was broadcasting breaking news about today’s incident.

“...the identities of sixteen more victims from the terrorist attack that occurred at approximately 7:00 PM tonight at the S Hotel in Jangchung District, Seoul, have been confirmed. This brings the current confirmed death toll to seventy-eight. Including those critically injured, the total number of casualties...”

Lakefield let out a quiet sigh. Dong-cheol’s face turned pale and rigid. The goblin asked,

“Where is Cathy?”

“Cathy stepped out to the administration desk to handle your hospital paperwork.”

He patted Dong-cheol’s shoulder as the goblin lay in bed.

“You did incredibly well today. I’m glad teaching you how to shoot paid off.”

He was referring to how Dong-cheol had spotted Baek Se-gyun targeting Cathy and opened fire on him faster than anyone else could react.

But with the sheer number of people dead, the elf’s expression remained grim even as he gave the compliment. Dong-cheol looked equally solemn.

“What about the Inspector...?”

He had used the wrong title once again, but Lakefield didn’t bother correcting him. It hardly mattered right now.

“Assemblyman Park is completely fine. Not a major scratch on him. He’s down in the emergency room.”

“Huh? But if he’s in the emergency room... doesn’t that mean he’s badly hurt...?”

Lakefield shook his head, his expression darkening. He hadn’t been able to stay by Jeongpal’s side. The terrorist attack had flooded the hospital with so many casualties that everyone except immediate family was currently barred from the ER.

Which meant, unfortunately...

“His family members are the ones who were badly hurt.”

Jeongpal’s relatives were down there fighting for their lives.

“...the identities of several terrorists have now been confirmed. This is a photograph of suspect Baek Se-gyun, who is believed to have orchestrated the attack on-site. He presented himself as an ordinary small business owner, but authorities have confirmed he was, in fact, a practitioner of Dark Magic. Neighbors who knew the suspect have expressed absolute shock upon learning of his involvement and leadership in this horrific attack...”

A man’s face flashed onto the screen. They hadn’t been able to see his features at the scene because of his mask, but when they heard about a Dark Mage acting as the commander, one specific figure immediately sprang to both of their minds.

“Is that him...?”

“Yeah.”

Lakefield nodded.

“That’s the bastard who targeted Cathy.”

He was also the Dark Mage who had commanded the shadow monsters, slaughtering more people than anyone else at the scene.

Naked fury flared in the elf’s eyes. And in that very moment...

‘Ah!’

The goblin’s jaw dropped.

Ever since he woke up in the hospital bed, the world had been moving at its normal pace. Everything looked perfectly ordinary. The bizarre phenomenon where his thoughts accelerated to superhuman speeds had completely vanished.

But it seemed his other ‘ability’ was still active.

Dong-cheol could see it clearly. A thin, blood-red line extended outward from the elf’s body.

It wasn’t as thick or as dark as the ones he had seen during the chaotic bloodbath at the hotel. Instead, a much finer, delicate red thread stretched out from Lakefield, connecting directly to the television screen he was glaring at.

The goblin panicked. Every single time he had seen those lines back at the hotel, the person invariably attacked whoever the line was attached to. Was the boss... about to smash the TV to pieces?

However, his fears proved unfounded. Lakefield didn’t fly into a frenzy, pull out a gun, and blast the television into scrap. He simply stared at the screen, a distinct, vivid emotion etched across his face as he glared at the Dark Mage named Baek Se-gyun.

Watching him, Dong-cheol finally understood.

‘Ah... I get it.’

He knew exactly what emotion Lakefield’s entire body was radiating right now. It was slightly weaker than the raw, murderous intent emitted by the people tearing each other apart back at the hotel, but the core of it was exactly the same. Just like back then, that red thread visually linked a person to the target of their most intense emotion.

‘I see.’

Dong-cheol was literally looking at the physical manifestation of ‘hatred.’

*

Assemblyman Choi Panseok, who had missed today’s event due to personal matters, arrived at the emergency room in record time. Though access was strictly limited to immediate family members, he was the sole exception. On a night where orc politicians had been mercilessly slaughtered in a terrorist attack, absolutely no one on the hospital staff dared block the path of the heavy hitter representing their entire political faction.

He had braced himself, but the ER was pure bedlam. Agonized screams echoed from behind the privacy curtains. Fresh, unmopped blood smeared the floors. Doctors and nurses sprinted in every direction, their scrubs and coats stained crimson. Distraught relatives slumped in the small plastic chairs lining the corridors, sobbing uncontrollably or wailing in grief. Choi Panseok took a ragged breath. The air itself felt thick with despair, rage, and bottomless sorrow, and he felt as though it was soaking right into his skin.

Scanning the chaos, he quickly spotted a familiar face.

“Assemblyman Park!”

Sitting there, hunched over and looking utterly broken, was the man—or rather, the orc—who used to be known as Park Jeongpal.

Choi Panseok walked over and took a seat next to him. He raised a hand, hesitating, completely unsure of what to do. Eventually, he just rested it heavily on Jeongpal’s shoulder. He couldn’t find the words.

He had already been briefed on Jeongpal’s situation on the way here. But what comfort could anyone possibly offer a man in this state?

He didn’t know. There was no right answer.

So, the assemblyman simply spoke the truth weighing on his heart.

“I can’t even begin to imagine what to say to you.”

Jeongpal stared vacantly ahead, his gaze fixed on nothing. When he spoke, his voice sounded like broken glass.

“Thank you... for coming.”

“Don’t say that. Of course I’d come.”

Bloodshot and hollow, Jeongpal’s eyes bored a hole into thin air. Choi Panseok sat in silence beside him for a long while.

It was Jeongpal who finally broke the quiet.

“...How many died?”

Choi Panseok told him what he knew.

“Six dead. Eleven critically injured.”

Jeongpal furrowed his brow, utterly confused. Only that many? He had seen hundreds of bleeding bodies in that ballroom alone. Hell, even just counting his own family members...

“...!”

Then, it hit him. He understood exactly what numbers Choi Panseok was quoting. He wanted to scoff, but he lacked the energy to even pull his lips into a smirk.

Jeongpal had been asking about the total number of ‘people’ dead. Choi Panseok had only quoted the casualty numbers for the ‘orc assemblymen.’

The conversation died again. As Choi Panseok desperately searched for something else to say, a raw, gut-wrenching wail tore through the corridor. A nurse hurried past, pushing a gurney draped with a stark white sheet. A middle-aged orc man stumbled after it, practically crawling. Honey! Honey! Oh god, please... honey! It was an inhuman shriek of absolute devastation. The other families in the hall either choked back their own sobs in horror or began weeping even harder.

Choi Panseok recognized the wailing man following the corpse. He was an orc he had shared drinks with on a few occasions. That’s Assemblywoman Lee Gyeongsuk’s husband. Choi Panseok silently ticked his mental death toll up to seven. With her passing, the South Korean National Assembly had just lost half of its female orc representatives in a single night. After all, there had only been two to begin with.

Jeongpal suddenly spoke up.

“In the ambulance on the way here... my second oldest brother kept saying something, even as he was fading in and out of consciousness.”

He was referring to one of his brothers who had barely survived the initial blast. Choi Panseok leaned in to listen.

“What did he say?”

“He said thank god we didn’t bring the kids today. He kept asking what we would have done if the venue hadn’t sent out that notice banning minors.”

“...”

Given orc culture, an event like this would normally see the entire extended clan turn up, from nursing infants to grandparents. But because of venue capacity limits, the organizers had strictly capped the guest list and set an age limit of eighteen and up.

Jeongpal pictured his brother in the back of the ambulance, tears mixing with the blood pouring from his mangled left eye, shaking uncontrollably as he muttered the same thing over and over.

“He kept saying it was a relief... thank god they weren’t there. He chanted it like a damn prayer...”

Just then, the blare of a fresh ambulance siren pierced the air. There had been too many bodies to transport at once; the casualties were still rolling in. Frantic shouting erupted as paramedics sprinted through the doors, pushing a blood-soaked gurney. A wave of horrified screams swept through the waiting room.

The new arrival was an orc man. He was thrashing in unspeakable agony. Despite the heavy restraints, he writhed so violently that his one remaining leg dangled off the side of the bed, limp and boneless as a mollusk. Where his other leg should have been, there was only a ruin of shredded meat and shattered bone, as if a stampede of a thousand people had trampled him into paste. His muscles were pulverized into ground meat, the jagged white shards of his femur protruding gruesomely through the gore.

The man’s blood-soaked face was screaming relentlessly, mashed so severely his features were indistinguishable. Choi Panseok glanced at the ruined shreds of a suit and deduced he was likely a bodyguard, then quickly averted his eyes. The body count in his head didn’t tick up.

Beside him, Jeongpal spoke, his voice utterly hollow.

“Who... who did this?”

He probably hadn’t even had the presence of mind to check the news.

Choi Panseok explained to him.

“They suspect it’s the Human Rights Alliance.”

Jeongpal fell completely silent for a long time. Then, he mouthed the name, rolling it over his tongue.

“Human Rights Alliance.”

It wasn’t phrased as a question.

He sounded as though he had expected it all along.

“...!”

The next moment.

Jeongpal’s aura exploded out of him. His face, which had looked like a pile of dead, cold ash just a second ago, suddenly ignited. It was raw, unadulterated, blood-red fury—the kind of rage that would cut you if you stood too close.

“...Human Rights Alliance!”

Startled by the sheer intensity of the shift, Choi Panseok froze. Jeongpal began to roar.

“The Human Rights Alliance! Again! You’re telling me it’s them again?!”

He was hyperventilating, spitting the words out like venom.

“Them again?! I’m sick of it! Aren’t you sick of this, Assemblyman? Do you have any idea how long I’ve been hearing that name? You’ve probably dealt with it even longer than I have! They are total, irredeemable scum. Vicious terrorists. Bloodthirsty monsters who have slaughtered countless innocent people. So why... why the hell...!”

Jeongpal screamed, his voice cracking with agony.

“Why are they still ‘allowing’ them to exist?!”

Allowing.

Leaving them be.

Choi Panseok knew exactly who the omitted subject of those words was.

“The Human Rights Alliance is a terrorist organization. A massive network that’s been around for decades, exclusively targeting non-humans! The victims are almost always orcs! Yes, we are their favorite targets! But how powerful are these terrorists, really? They’ve never overthrown a single government! Never produced a single Dragon Slayer! Their entire military capability boils down to kidnapping, torturing, and slaughtering ordinary orcs! They boast about having branches worldwide, but that’s the absolute limit of their operational strength! Which means...!”

His eyes burned with a blazing, murderous heat.

“If the superpowers mobilized their forces, or if the Ancient Dragons pulling the strings behind those governments actually stepped in... they could wipe that alliance off the face of the earth! So why don’t they?!”

Choi Panseok knew that rage wasn’t aimed at him. He sat silently, letting Jeongpal vent his boiling resentment.

“I don’t harbor some naive hope that the gods or the transcendent beings will swoop in and stop every tragedy in the world! Fine! I don’t even expect that anymore! But if the gods won’t help us, shouldn’t we at least help each other?! Why have they just sat back and watched this happen for years?!”

He took a ragged, heaving breath.

“Because... they aren’t the ones bleeding! A bunch of dead orcs won’t destabilize their nations! It doesn’t put a dent in the Ancient Dragons’ treasuries! Look at what happened decades ago—a single Hatchling died in Europe, and the Ancient Dragons united to completely annihilate an entire faction of Dark Mages! Why? Because one of their own was touched! A being inside their little fence was harmed, and their dignity was offended! So they acted! But not for orcs. To them, we aren’t part of ‘us.’ We’re outside the fence. We’re beyond their line.”

Jeongpal squeezed his eyes shut. Forcing down a shaky breath, he recalled his brother’s words.

His gratitude that they hadn’t brought the children.

“Our children weren’t at that massacre tonight. But it’s only a matter of time before they become the targets. I refuse to pass this slaughterhouse of a world down to them.”

Back when he was campaigning for his seat, Jeongpal had made a vow. He would fight for the rights of the orcs, of course. But his ultimate goal in politics had been to champion a common good—a society that broke down the barriers between species.

Hatred only forced the marginalized to isolate themselves out of fear, breeding further segregation. Jeongpal had never wanted the orcs to remain an alienated, insular community. He wanted them to integrate, to walk side-by-side with the other races, and he had believed the path to that future was fighting for a shared, universal justice.

He knew that orcs weren’t perfect; there were times they caused trouble for other species, and objective reasons for the prejudice against them existed. He had believed that they needed to acknowledge and fix those flaws, not just demand acceptance.

But today, sitting in this blood-soaked hospital, that belief shattered.

“In the end... it’s just because we’re weak.”

It felt as if the entire world was sneering at him for indulging in such naive, sweet dreams, mocking him.

Are you awake now?

Have you finally snapped out of your pathetic delusions?

“Yes, I’ve finally come to my senses. I see reality for what it is. If they refuse to let orcs inside their precious fence, then we have to make absolutely sure they never dare cross our borders to burn our homes again! We need to hoard power until they’re terrified to even look at us! We need to make them fear us!”

He didn’t know exactly how he would do it yet.

But Jeongpal made a vow to himself: he would use whatever means necessary to give the orcs that power.

Violence, trickery, political connections, or corrupt backing. He didn’t care what it took.

He then recalled another promise he had made before being elected.

The promise to tackle every single day with unbreakable resolve, with a ‘heart of steel’ fitting for an assemblyman.

Inside his chest, that resolve twisted into a new shape. Steel is refined, polished, and tempered by fire. Today, it had been tempered by rage. Jeongpal could literally feel a jagged, merciless blade being forged in his heart.

Having lost his parents and multiple older siblings today, sitting in a hospital where more of his kin were dying by the second, the orc redefined himself. From this day forward, he was nothing more than a weapon to be wielded for the survival of his species.

And if he was going to be a weapon, he swore to become the most lethal blade imaginable.

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