The Foreigner on the Periphery

"The moment I saw it, I knew this Cube was an Endelion invention."

The artifact Minjun had acquired from a private vault in New York.

The Dragon Lord's children had even attacked him to claim this Cube their father left behind. Yet despite all that hassle and annoyance, Minjun still had no idea what was inside it.

Because.

"Looking at its structure, it’s designed to open on its own a hundred days after the Lord's death. If anyone tries to force it, the contents are set to vanish without a trace. Seeing inside is impossible, too, as the act of observation itself alters the contents. Among ‘you people,’ Endelion is the only one capable of building such a devious device. A dragon couldn't."

The 'you people' Minjun mentioned seemed to carry a broader meaning than just the Ancient Race.

Del hazarded a guess. Perhaps he was using 'you people' to refer to everyone except the primordial race?

The sense of distance Minjun packed into that phrase was just that profound.

"It would be one thing if it were another dragon, but for the Lord, it wasn't strange. He was deeply interested in Endelion inventions to begin with. It made perfect sense that he’d own something like this. So, I just brushed it off. But after I regained my memories, I started seeing things that were previously hidden. I sensed a familiar trace in the design of this Cube. The fingerprints of a designer remarkably similar to the one who made that Orichalcum Frying Pan you gave me."

"I made that Cube and gave it to the Lord."

Minjun's assumption was correct.

It was clear that, even if only for a short time, the interactions between the Dragon Lord and Del had far exceeded anyone's expectations.

It was bizarre.

"Thinking about it, it was strange that he specifically designated you as his corpse custodian in his will. The Lord was a hardliner who actively opposed the Committee. Yet he entrusts his body to an Endelion? Based on what trust?"

"The Lord said he trusted me."

"Why?"

Del searched her memories as she spoke.

"Because he had a good idea of why I was once a prisoner. What I did two hundred years ago."

Minjun's eyebrows twitched.

Two hundred years ago, when Del was sentenced to penal labor, Minjun was in the thick of his own time as a prisoner. Naturally, he lacked the intelligence network to grasp what was happening among the Ancient Races, and he still did not know Del's specific charges. He merely assumed it was a massive felony, given her severance pay was set at over 500,000 Talent.

"He could trust you because he knew what your crime was?"

"Yes, that's what he said."

Del recalled what had happened on Earth not too long ago.

   *

It was the day of the banquet celebrating Del's appointment.

Upon arriving on Earth, the Princess of Endelion sought out Minjun first to greet him. After confirming he had developed a peculiar taste for using a Frying Pan as a weapon, she returned to New York, already designing a gift for him in her head.

About half the attendees gathered in the banquet hall were Ancient Dragons, and among them, the Dragon Lord requested an exclusive, unofficial meeting. Del accepted, of course. After all, this was exactly the kind of duty the Committee had entrusted her with when they placed her in a diplomatic role. Bracing herself, she went to meet him.

However, contrary to her assumption that a fierce psychological battle would unfold away from prying ears, the Lord's demeanor was exceptionally gentle and gentlemanly. It was a far cry from the rumors painting him as a hardliner who despised the Committee.

Right then and there, the Lord even went so far as to propose an unexpected private transaction.

"They say Endelion can create anything. I know how incredible your inventions are. The other dragons desperately turn a blind eye and deny it, but I do not. So, how about making a deal with me? There is an item I would like to commission."

Del was taken aback.

"Is this really why you called me here? A private deal?"

"Yes. Setting aside our respective titles as the Dragon Lord of Earth and the head of the Committee's representative office, I want to deal person to person."

Knowing it would sound foolish, Del still had to clarify.

"How can you trust me? You consider the Committee..."

...a potential enemy you must one day fight.

As if guessing the omitted sentence, the dragon smiled at her tentacles.

"That is correct. The Committee is an enemy of the Dragon Race, cohabiting with us under the guise of peace. My convictions have not changed. The Committee will one day bare its fangs at us again. However, does that mean I must burn with hatred for every single individual belonging to that political organization? I lack the luxury and energy for such a thing. Hating someone requires a tremendous amount of strength, after all."

It was an idealistic notion—to judge individuals separately from the group, carefully distributing anger and hatred—but even an idealist like Del found it hard to readily accept.

But his subsequent words helped her understand him a little better.

"I have a good idea of what you did two hundred years ago."

"..."

There was no room to misinterpret that statement.

He meant he had guessed what crime the Princess of Endelion had committed to be sentenced to penal labor.

Becoming the Dragon Lord of a dimension meant frequent travel to and from the Dimensional Center. He must have heard rumors during those trips.

Any other dragon wouldn't have paid the slightest attention, but this dragon had gathered information with deep interest.

"Your charges were..."

The dragon smiled softly.

500,000 Talent.

Her crime, which had commanded a massive sum equal to one-tenth of Minjun's own, was...

"Home invasion and destruction of property."

"..."

"Is that correct?"

In truth, those charges sounded far too undignified for the princess of a species to commit, yet simultaneously far too light to warrant a 500,000 Talent bounty.

Nevertheless, Del affirmed it with her silence.

Home invasion and destruction of property. The dragon had grasped the truth hidden behind that simple description.

"The place storing the secret of how the lifespans of the Ancient Races were extended. You were caught breaking in and destroying the facilities there, weren't you?"

Del wasn't ashamed of what she had done.

She was only ashamed that her actions had failed to bring about any practical change. And now, having finished her sentence, she was ashamed of the reality that she had snagged a seat on the Committee by acting as if she repented her past.

Because of that, she slightly turned the eye located in the center of her mass of tentacles, averting his gaze.

At the same time, she muttered inwardly.

I wanted to tell people. That we shouldn't sustain our eternal lives through such hideous methods anymore. What's the point of living close to eternity if it requires going this far?

She hadn't expected to be able to completely destroy that 'Flesh Factory' by herself to begin with.

Instead, she just wanted to make it known.

The vast majority of the Ancient Races never imagined what happened inside there. They simply understood it conceptually.

Within that understanding, when the time came to change bodies, the factory would ship out a 'new body' in optimal condition at the optimal time, just as simulated. No one cared about how that body was born or raised, nor what happened to the soul of the young person who originally existed in it after the elders stole their body.

After all, the new body would be delivered to them with its soul already erased, perfectly pruned and packaged.

Del had wanted to expose the truth within.

"I was quite surprised when I heard that story. Truthfully, dragons and Endelion share a similarity."

The man representing the Dragon Race of an entire dimension casually brought up a point that would drive both species mad with outrage.

"We are both buried in a horrific, incurable narcissism and species-centric love. We will do anything to protect what is ours. In the case of dragons, it is for power and wealth; for Endelion, it is for life and safety. In that process, we fundamentally care very little for other beings. The people inside the facility you tried to destroy were individuals whom the Ancient Races didn't even treat as human. And yet, you were able to empathize with them."

That is exactly how you are similar to me.

Saying that, the dragon laughed.

"So, I think we will be able to understand each other. Even though the factions we represent are different."

   *

"I didn't know him for long, but he really was an unusual dragon. That man."

Minjun silently agreed. The two of them fell into memories of the deceased dragon for a moment.

"The Lord asked me to make that Cube for him. Actually, that portable barrier has one more function aside from what you've figured out. And that is..."

Hearing the subsequent explanation, Minjun finally understood the Cube's function completely.

"It maintains conflicting possibilities in a state of superposition?"

"Yes. The moment you aim this Cube at an object and activate it, the target splits into two duplicates."

It wasn't like the division of an organism such as a planarian. It meant the creation of two perfectly identical replicas.

That was the simple explanation, but Del clarified that it actually superimposed the probability of a single entity existing in two opposing locations.

"Of the two split instances, one remains in its original location outside the Cube, while the other is sealed inside the Cube."

It didn't create one original and one copy.

The original disappeared, leaving only the two duplicates behind.

However, both duplicates were real, and at the same time, both were fake. In other words, they were both on the boundary between existence and nonexistence.

And this ambiguous state was maintained until someone intervened.

The condition for intervention proposed by the Dragon Lord was 'destruction'.

"Which one is real—the one outside the Cube or the one inside—isn't determined until someone intervenes. For example, if the one outside the Cube is damaged or lost by someone, only then does it become real. Even if its form changes or diminishes, it acquires a state of actual existence. On the other hand, the one inside the Cube loses its reality and vanishes. Conversely, if the one inside the Cube is damaged or lost, it becomes real. And the one outside the Cube vanishes."

It had to be broken to become real.

Or rather, it had to be ruined to become real.

Minjun fell into thought.

"Why did he ask you to make such a complicated item?"

"I couldn't understand it at first, either. But after observing the events following the Dragon Lord's death, I could guess. 'The moment the target is damaged or lost, it becomes real.' He must have set such a condition because the item retains its value even if it's broken or loses a part of itself."

It didn't take long for Minjun to catch up to what Del had already guessed.

"The Cube was set to open automatically one hundred days after the Lord's death. Something similar was mentioned in his will, too. I'm talking about 'that,' whose owner gets decided one hundred days after his death."

He could only think of one such thing.

"The Dragon Heart."

The heart of a dragon.

To be exact, the highly concentrated, high-density crystal bound inside it.

Unlike a mechanical device, even if it gained actual existence while being shattered or absorbed by someone, its innate value would not be compromised.

"The dragon who examined the Lord's corpse guaranteed that the Dragon Heart remained perfectly intact inside."

If it had been discovered missing, massive chaos would have erupted.

"If our guess is right, it seems the Dragon Lord wanted to hand his heart over to you, not to a dragon. But for some reason, he didn't want to pass it on right after he died, but rather one hundred days later."

He had left an arrangement ensuring that until one hundred days passed, no one could touch either the duplicate inside the corpse or the duplicate inside the Cube.

But even if it was true that the Dragon Heart was inside this, questions still remained.

"Of course, I don't know the reason why he had to go that far."

Minjun felt chaotic thoughts boiling in his mind.

Because all of this felt like a move made by someone who had foreseen the future.

He felt that way even without knowing the intent.

But the Lord had no precognitive abilities. If he had such power, he would've used it to his heart's content during the war. He wouldn't have been able to hide it.

How could he, when he wasn't even a prophet?

Minjun silently repeated the contents of the will.

—The ownership of the Dragon Heart is transferred to the next Dragon Lord.

He also recalled the contents of the final prophecy that Choi Seona had delivered.

—Guide me. Lead me on the righteous path. My master, be praised for eternity. My Lord, who has returned to this place by transcending boundless time!

In her prophecy, Minjun was clearly not a dragon, yet he was the Dragon Lord.

However, the dead Lord had no way of knowing the prophecy that Minjun would become the next Lord. It was a contradiction.

Once again, the contents of the will brushed past his ears like an auditory hallucination.

—Do not think of this as me being spiteful. It would be best for you to check what is inside first.

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