The Foreigner on the Periphery

As the screams and wails of the specters piled up, Minjun muttered through his exhaustion.

"Nothing ever goes my way."

"Nothing is easy."

"A fourth? What do you mean?"

Asiph-1's eyes did not waver as he asked the question.

"Do you believe my earlier confessions were also lies? No, they were not. I have spoken only the truth."

"Is that really everything? Are you sure you're not hiding anything else?"

His confession had already ended.

Yet, spurred by his god's urging, Asiph-1 elaborated on the final piece of his confession.

He wore a look of regret over a riddle he could never quite solve.

"So the question remained: why did I feel such a strong bond and kinship with a soul that wasn't even a fragment? Looking back, it felt similar to when I first saw you, Father, in Jang Tae-jun's kitchen."

But when he first encountered Minjun, he hadn't blindly tried to stab him in the neck. He had already failed once from a hasty attempt, and Jang Tae-jun wasn't by his side.

Instead of resorting to extreme measures, Asiph-1 had simply vibrated his body to draw attention.

"Father, you, I, and that ghost are undoubtedly connected in some way. Doesn't the fact that Ha Eun-seong ultimately fell into your hands prove that? You have no idea how shocked I was to see it."

The ghost Asiph-1 had lost, Minjun had captured.

"Yes, Father, you bound that free-roaming ghost. You used a dragon's body as a prison. Why didn't I ever think of that?"

The pope's voice heated with fervor.

"Of course, he could have abandoned the dragon's body and fled at any time. So you bound him once more, restraining him with the chains of guilt and debt!"

The guilt of recklessly burning through Talents while residing in that dragon's body.

A debt clearly quantified as 180,000 Talents.

"What I admired most was that you provided the opportunity and the excuse for Ha Eun-seong to commit that sin in the first place. You were the one who ordered the ghost to inhabit the dragon's body!"

The day he saw Ha Eun-seong again in the basement.

He still couldn't forget the thrill he felt then.

"Even though I was astonished, I couldn't tell you out of shame. Ha Eun-seong had committed no sin, yet I murdered him. All because of my desire to become whole. From that perspective, that ghost is my debt and my sin."

Asiph-1 thought his explanation was perfect.

But at that moment.

Minjun's words stabbed like a dagger.

"Are you really sure you're not hiding anything else?"

Minjun recited what he had discovered in the order he had realized it.

In other words, in the order the events had occurred.

"No, there's still a part you skipped in your confession. For example..."

Minjun pointed out an event from the distant past.

A single name slipped past his lips. The name of the dragon who had loathed his own kin so deeply that he developed a virus to infect them all.

At that, Asiph-1 could no longer hide his expression.

"Why did you plant a hatred for dragons inside Jang Tae-jun?"

   *

- You harbor a terrible hatred for dragons, don't you?

Ha Eun-seong felt incredibly confused by the fragment's question.

Why bring that up?

- They are an axis of evil that ruthlessly destroys the happiness of the ordinary majority. The Ancient Race and dragons, I mean.

=Why are you suddenly changing the subject?!=

Just a moment ago, the voice had practically been threatening him. It had ordered him to cooperate if he didn't want to lose the people he cared about.

Why bring up dragons in the middle of all that?

He definitely loathed them, but still...

- Let's discuss dragons first out of the two groups. Why do you hate them? Even though you've been borrowing a dragon's body for so long.

The answer was obvious.

=...Because the things those bastards do are absolutely atrocious!=

Ha Eun-seong had first harbored hatred toward dragons after learning of Changcheon's repulsive plot.

However, immediately after Changcheon's death, he had also met a dragon named Jenkinson. By caring flawlessly for his family and agonizing over the greater good beyond racial boundaries, Jenkinson was quite a decent person, even by Ha Eun-seong's standards.

Even so, the ghost's revulsion toward the entire dragon species had never faded.

This was despite possessing a mind relatively free of negative bias—he didn't even hate orcs despite having grown up in the Orc community.

- Right. Dragons commit atrocious acts. Why? The reason is simple. Because they have the power to do so.

The fragment pointed out the exact question Ha Eun-seong had once pondered.

Should beings with such terrifying power truly be allowed to live alongside other species?

- Dragons and other species are like oil and water. They cannot mix, yet one side is overwhelmingly superior. Everything comes too easily to them. They wield overwhelming power, enough to put even the Ancient Race on edge.

=...What are you trying to say?=

- As long as dragons exist in their current form, the vast majority of people can never be forever happy. Why? Because not only do they possess terrifying power, but their minds are also twisted. Swinging around their warped narcissism and bloated egos, they try whatever they can to guarantee their own specialness. This pride will endanger the people you love.

It seemed the voice was finally getting to the point.

Ha Eun-seong narrowed his eyes in wariness.

- Once the primordial race slumbering here awakens, they will eventually punish the king. He will fall into a state far more miserable and horrifying than before. Even though he has already forfeited almost all his freedom and happiness, they will strip away his last remaining autonomy and will. And then...

The voice took on a chilling resonance.

- And then, what will happen to the 'Ruler'?

- As you've already heard, the tool forged by the primordial race is a powerful weapon capable of dominating even their minds. If its master is absent while enduring punishment, do you really think they would just leave the lonely weapon alone?

=Are you saying Asiph-1's ownership will fall to them?=

- It is certain that its functions will pause for a time. I don't know how they intend to use my true body, but the authority I've wielded until now will be suspended. Do you know what that means?

=The people Asiph-1 has brainwashed until now!=

- All of their brainwashing will break at once. In this case, the biggest problem is... the dragons.

Ha Eun-seong knew it too.

Minjun had brainwashed countless dragons so far, and a substantial number of them resided on Earth.

- When they wake from the brainwashing, they will be in deep shock. To realize that a mere prisoner dared to treat them as slaves.

From the perspective of dragons ignorant of the details, his identity was Asif-666, nothing more and nothing less.

- Even if they try to vent that fury, Asif-666 will already be missing.

- Still, the dragons will try to get revenge somehow. Who do you think those blades and flames will be aimed at?

Ha Eun-seong could anticipate what would follow.

=The people around the agent!=

- The enraged Ancient Dragons will miserably ruin everyone Asif-666 has connected with on Earth. It is clearly an irrational revenge. There is no legal basis, and it's not some system of guilt by association. But the Ancient Dragons will do it anyway. To express their anger.

- They will carry it out because they have the power to do so, and because they are just that offended. Not even Jenkinson will be an exception. In his case, he actively cooperated with Asif-666, so he might lose all the power, status, and wealth he has built up.

- With even an Ancient Dragon unable to avoid their revenge, what will happen to the people you care about?

The very first people the ghost thought of were his two younger siblings. The children who had been rescued under Minjun's orders and were being looked after by Jenkinson. Ha Eun-seong's own flesh and blood, who had actively helped Minjun brainwash the dragons.

Next, he thought of the people he had connected with thanks to Minjun. Cathy, Jeongpal and Dong-cheol, the bookstore owner, Chairman Jenkinson, and his subordinate employees...

- Do you understand?

The voice declared.

- They must not wake up.

Thinking it had convinced him, the fragment was about to tell the ghost what to do next.

That was when Ha Eun-seong woke from his deep thoughts.

=...That's strange.=

- What?

He tried to give shape to his doubt.

After taking the time to think, he spoke with difficulty.

=Why am I not angry?=

- What do you mean?

Ha Eun-seong woke his deeply buried mind and muttered.

=You beat around the bush... but in the end, wasn't Asiph-1 the one who killed me?=

The voice had whispered as if revealing a great secret, saying that the one who actually stabbed Ha Eun-seong was Jang Tae-jun.

Whether his true identity was a dragon or anything else didn't matter to Ha Eun-seong.

Because he had been brainwashed.

=And all this time, I've been happily eating food cooked in the weapon that stabbed me?=

- ....

=I even praised that Frying Pan as the savior of humanity and the greatest invention in the universe.=

Now that he knew all of these facts.

The emotion Ha Eun-seong should rightfully vent was...

=Is 'deception' the fancy word for this? So I should be angry. But... strangely... I'm not. My emotions keep flowing in the wrong direction.=

Hatred and fear of dragons.

If the primordial race woke up like this, it truly felt like those dragons would kill, torture, and toy with the people he loved. Because they were demons. Because they were monsters who wouldn't hesitate to commit any immoral, horrifying acts.

Looking into himself as he became captivated by that theory, Ha Eun-seong tilted his head.

=And if I think carefully about your words, it's strange too.=

- What do you...

=Could the agent really not have predicted this?=

- ...?!

=Do you know how thorough he is? You said it yourself. 'The one who plans?' Yes, once the agent makes a plan, he designs it so viciously that he'll smash the bad guys in the back of the head three times over to completely destroy them.=

Watching him from the sidelines all this time, that was the kind of person Minjun was.

=And honestly, the agent does seem to dislike 'me' a bit. But he cares immensely about everyone else around him. What's more... his personality has gotten a little stranger since coming here, but didn't he already recover almost all of his old memories in the crocodile dimension?=

The princess of the tentacle country, a connection that had essentially already been severed once.

Ha Eun-seong clearly remembered the look in Minjun's eyes as he stared down at her unconscious body, even with his memories nearly perfectly restored.

=Would someone like that put his precious people in danger without any countermeasures?=

There was no way. He couldn't possibly have failed to prepare a way to protect them.

Ha Eun-seong didn't trust Minjun's goodwill toward him.

But he believed the goodwill he showed to others.

And so, the ghost shot a chilling mental wave deep into his spiritual body.

=You just lied to me, didn't you?=

The voice didn't answer immediately.

After a brief silence pooled.

- ....

A voice with a different texture whispered from within the ghost's mind.

- ...You're normally so painfully oblivious, yet your intuition is sharp at a time like this?

   *

Asiph-1 glared with wide eyes.

What his creator had just mentioned was the memory fragment he had wanted to hide until the end.

Not daring to reply, he shut his mouth.

"And."

Minjun sliced through the silence with a voice like a dagger.

"When were you going to bring up the plan that used the ghost Ha Eun-seong as material?"

The moment he told his third lie, Asiph-1 had already exhausted all his chances.

Nevertheless, allowing him one more chance at salvation might have been his lingering attachment to his creation.

Gush!

Circular, piercing marks appeared on the backs of his hands as he gripped the armrests of the Divine Throne. Blood began to flow from the two wounds. For the first time in a very long time, Asiph-1 witnessed his creator mutilating his own body.

It meant he needed to draw upon that immense level of power.

The blood flowed down like a waterfall, spreading and creating a puddle at his feet. Soon, the red liquid began to rise to the floor where Asiph-1 knelt. It had already exceeded the physical amount that could pour from his current body. Yet, the bleeding did not stop.

The pope recalled how many dragons Minjun had hunted just before coming to this dimension.

At the same time, a resolute glint settled in his eyes.

"They must not wake up!"

Minjun's face distorted like a demon's.

   *

The priests staying at the order's headquarters stopped what they were doing and looked in the same direction all at once.

It was because they heard a noise unsuitable for a situation where they were focusing on prisoner transport, confinement, and researching spoils after the glorious divine punishment had ended.

—!

It was an explosion loud enough to shatter their eardrums.

Startled by the roar shaking the air, they immediately ran outside or stuck their heads out the windows.

And then, they witnessed the most horrifying sight imaginable.

"...My god!"

Their gazes were nailed to the cathedral where their god resided.

With every flash of crimson light and explosion, the outer walls of the building they had worshipped for so long were being torn apart like scraps of paper.

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