The Foreigner on the Periphery

A sigh?

Seeing the other party's reaction, the dragon felt a sense of awkwardness.

It wasn't because he thought a Kavite was incapable of sighing. The reason lay elsewhere.

‘I see.’

Despite their different species, the Ancient Dragon felt he understood the prisoner's feelings.

That sigh hadn't been a gesture of mockery or insult.

It was a sigh that acknowledged the dragon's sentiments while predicting that such ideals and efforts would ultimately prove futile.

Anticipating that such hope would only lead to pain and emptiness, he was sympathizing with a situation that had not yet arrived.

And the dragon found himself empathizing with that very empathy.

The dragon felt incredibly awkward about the situation.

Even though their views clashed... they could actually communicate.

Of course, a difference of opinion didn't always mean a breakdown in communication; some individuals could still converse despite having different mindsets.

But he had never imagined a Kavite could be one of those individuals. Let alone a high-ranking official being dragged away as a prisoner.

‘My god, a Kavite I can reason with.’

Amidst these bizarre feelings, the dragon spoke.

"As you said, a mirage is an illusion, an eternally unreachable place. It is like a dream—you can perceive it, but you cannot drag it into reality."

However.

"Even if we cannot hold it in our hands, we can use it as a milestone to guide our path."

You couldn't actualize and possess it, but it had enough value purely as a goal?

The prisoner fell deep in thought for a moment before speaking.

"You mean that while it can't bring you there, it can guide you to become more like it."

"That effort alone will be enough to change the dimensional system."

The effort of a person.

The dreams of a person.

"..."

Yet the primordial race rejected that notion.

"You really underestimate intelligent lifeforms."

"...What?"

Underestimate, not overestimate?

The Ancient Dragon soon realized why his counterpart had chosen that word.

"You genuinely believe that people will constantly move forward, improve, and inch closer to completion and perfection. You believe in the power of a person striving to become a better being."

"I do."

"But in my opinion, you haven't truly seen it yet."

Recently, he had seen a race firmly reject a hand reached out to help them become better beings.

And far longer ago, he had witnessed a race turn a world that was practically paradise into a battlefield.

The dragon asked suspiciously.

"...Seen what?"

"The power of a person to regress backward down the path they already walked, to trample on opportunities, to degenerate as if mocking growth, and to destroy everything they worked so hard to achieve."

The dragon was taken aback.

What was he saying?

"As you said, there is no paradise. People can never reach it. However, they can change this world to be close to a paradise. What do you think happens after that?"

The Kavite let out a laugh like a bitter winter wind.

"People will grow sick of that paradise. They will desire more, and in the end, they'll ruin everything themselves. There will be those who deny the meaning of what was previously considered a virtue, upending the values of right and wrong. That flame will burn everything to the ground."

The primordial race had spent a long time observing how those who could not satisfy their desires eventually transformed.

People would emerge who considered their inability to act as they pleased a loss.

The moment they felt their rights were threatened, the power to protect would all too easily transform into the power to destroy.

The prisoner murmured in a sharp voice.

"You are also underestimating the power of a person trying to protect what is in their hands."

"That's a contradiction. If a person had the power to protect what is theirs to begin with, there's no way they would end up destroying and burning everything as you suggest."

"What if the things being burned aren't theirs?"

"...?!"

"And what if what they once tried to protect is suddenly redefined as something to be burned? What if the direction in which values and ideologies shift doesn't always point forward?"

The dragon's expression contorted.

"That is why a person's efforts and dreams are dangerous. The destination sways without a fixed anchor, and every time it does, blood flows to form an ocean. Since it's unreachable anyway, it's easy to change. In that process, revenge and punishment are confused and misused. To prevent that, either a being capable of punishing everyone must emerge, or everyone must transform into beings who have no need for revenge."

Minjun raised his head and looked up. A massive layer of clouds was approaching. It obscured both the moon and the stars, blanketing their surroundings in pitch-black darkness once more. The starlight reflecting in the dragon's eyes vanished.

A heavy silence fell.

"You..."

The dragon's face was filled with deep suspicion.

The Ancient Dragon... the Red Dragon... the Dragon Lord... the Gold Dragon... the Dragon Lord candidate... Jenkinson... the dragon asked.

It was a simplification of the very first question he had asked after kidnapping his captive, but at the same time, it carried a much broader and deeper meaning.

"Who... exactly are you?"

   *

Just who exactly are all of you?

   *

Minjun and Asiph-1 finished harvesting the Dragon Hearts in Yongreung.

At that point, Minjun's story was also cut short. It was time to move again.

As a result, Asiph-1 had to set off without hearing how Minjun had managed to escape the planet, how he had shaken off the dragon, and what had happened after that.

‘By the way, he never used to tell me these kinds of stories in the past. Especially anecdotes from the most miserable period of his life.’

Around the time Asiph-1 was first created, back when he struck terror into the Ancient Races as a brainwashing weapon, his Creator had never shared such tales.

‘He has recovered a hundred percent of his memories, but it doesn't seem like he has returned to being the exact same entity as before. He has changed slightly.’

What part of him had spurred this change?

The first hypothesis that came to mind was...

‘Could it be because of the memories he experienced as a prisoner afterward?’

But a prisoner's eight-hundred-odd years of memories would be nothing more than a drop of dew falling into a great river.

Could such a speck of dust truly act as a catalyst for change?

Asiph-1 couldn't be sure.

‘That is the nature of free will, after all. Just as a person's choices can vary entirely even when perfectly identical conditions are recreated. Father's change might not necessarily be the influence of his environment, but a choice of his own that I cannot presume to predict.’

While he was lost in thought, Minjun chanted a spell.

Flash!

The two of them vanished from Yongreung in a burst of light.

Afterward, the father and son returned to the order's headquarters, choosing layovers entirely different from the dimensions they had passed through on their way there. This was partly to avoid being tracked by the Committee, but also to avoid the places where the dragons they planned to use as food rations had heightened their alert status due to a sudden, bizarre incident (the lethargy of the world's number-one-ranked dragon).

After navigating a journey just as grueling as the one they took arriving, the father and son returned to the order's headquarters.

"A-avatar! What in the world is...!"

The returning god summoned Yumtus to the outskirts of the city. There, the red crystals pulled out by the Holy Father and the Holy Son piled up to the height of a mountain—not metaphorically, but literally.

The Pope instructed the people on Minjun's behalf.

Wearing the most solemn expression he could muster.

"Gather suitable individuals and teach them this spell."

Divine Power and magic consumed and devoured one another. They couldn't teach the priests the spell to convert Mana Crystals. Among the believers on this planet, there were quite a few Supernatural Ability Users who, while deeply devout, couldn't awaken their Divine Power, but simultaneously possessed a talent for magic.

Their work in building a new production line for Mana Crystals would proceed astonishingly fast.

Unlike the Kavites, who avoided simple, repetitive tasks, the believers felt no resistance toward hard labor.

"And take this with you as well."

Yumtus, who had been terrified before the Dragon Hearts, surprisingly didn't even flinch upon seeing the mass of flesh that had once been a Grand Committeeman. He merely accepted it as one of the ways God's punishment was manifested.

"The things squirming beneath this Kavite's skin are... bugs. Do we need to feed them as well?"

The Pope answered in place of Minjun, who was lost in unfathomable thoughts.

"There is no need for that. For either of them."

It meant there was no need to supply food to either the host or the parasites. The boiling energy within, extracted from an immense amount of dragon blood, would serve as their nourishment.

Having been brought this far, the Grand Committeeman had no need to move on his own 'feet'. Thus, Minjun relinquished his control over the bugs. However, due to their overflowing vitality, the bugs continued to grow and reproduce, endlessly creating new veins—or rather, stem-like structures—on the Kavite's skin that extended outward. They expanded their living space, squirming endlessly within it.

Hearing the explanation, Yumtus nodded.

"So... it's like a living bonsai tree, made of blood and flesh."

The Pope smiled benevolently as he replied, keeping his tone formal.

"Therefore, you should manage it accordingly."

Slapped with handling instructions to prune it regularly in preparation for the future, the Grand Committeeman was transported to an undisclosed location within the order.

The Kavite's bloodshot eyes continuously spilled tears as they locked onto Minjun. The god resolved to pull that meat bonsai back out when the necessary moment arrived.

   *

Following that, the entire order was busy preparing for war.

This incident didn't mean they had completely emptied the Committee's stockpile of Mana Crystals. The Ancient Races each held portions of the pre-made Mana Crystals and emergency reserves.

However, the fact that their path to manufacturing more was now bleak must have instilled a near-panic anxiety within them.

‘There is no need to drag this war out.’

Many of the Kavites killed while overturning Yongreung could not find peace even in death. Minjun, having turned them into wraiths, read their memories from when they were alive.

Among them were the memories of the Yongreung supervisor who had died by blowing his own head up.

‘The Ancient Races are anticipating quite a prolonged war.’

That expectation would be derailed in an unanticipated fashion.

"Did you call for me?"

Not long after returning from Yongreung, Minjun summoned Asiph-1 again.

"Wait here for a moment. Until Dell arrives."

"Ah, did you call for Mother as well?"

While the priests hurriedly left with God's message to summon the Holy Mother, only Minjun and Asiph-1 remained in the residence.

‘Ah, right.’

The Pope had been incredibly busy lately as well, so an opportunity like this might not come again for a while. A moment where it was just the two of them.

Asiph-1 asked about the conclusion to the story that had been cut off earlier.

The tale of how his Creator, transformed into a Kavite, had escaped the planet.

‘He might tell me not to ask useless questions, but...’

Surprisingly, Minjun's expression was calm. He slipped back into his memories once again.

"Where did I leave off?"

"You mentioned that because the dragon was babbling some idealistic delusions, you couldn't hold back and ended up saying more than you needed to."

"Ah, that's right."

Minjun picked up the thread of the interrupted story.

   *

After that conversation, the prisoner clamped his mouth shut in front of the dragon once more.

While none of what he'd said contained fatally concrete information, he still couldn't shake the thought that he had spoken needlessly.

Following that, the dragon's escape and the hostage's secretive cooperation continued.

Minjun spoke to Asiph-1.

"But eventually, things went wrong."

"Wrong?"

"That dragon's magic had been teetering on the edge for a while. Before he could even reach the prearranged location, he fell into a state where he couldn't hold on any longer. In the end, he chose to take a gamble."

To properly absorb a Dragon Heart, one had to enter an unbreakable trance, and it took a long time.

In his desperation, the dragon decided to absorb only a portion of the Dragon Heart.

"It wasn't an impossible feat. Assuming there was a guarantee that I wouldn't run away in the meantime."

Scraping the very bottom of his remaining magic, the dragon reinforced the prisoner's restraints.

"I wasn't going to run away even if he left me alone anyway, so he ended up doing something completely unnecessary."

Minjun frowned, as if the mere thought of it still gave him a headache.

"It was his first time absorbing a Dragon Heart, so he made a mistake. A dragon requires quite a lot of magic just to digest the crystal. He overlooked that detail."

And there was another problem.

"Normally, when absorbing a Dragon Heart, the beneficiary dragon also has to return to their true body. But he didn't have the luxury to do so."

If he had expanded the barrier preventing the magic from leaking out to the size of his true body, the flow of magic in that massive area would have completely stopped. There was no way the Ancient Races would miss that.

Asiph-1 let out a sound of disbelief.

"Don't tell me he tried to absorb the heart while maintaining his Polymorph?"

"Well, it's not theoretically impossible. Even transformed, his essence was still that of a dragon. It's possible if you have the proper knowledge and skill."

However, the Ancient Dragon's capabilities at the time had fallen short of that.

"He ended up failing midway through the absorption, and his magic started going berserk."

Minjun vividly remembered the sight he witnessed that day.

Still disguised as a Kavite, he had been startled out of his wits when the tall elf rolled his eyes back and began violently trembling.

A storm of magic crackled and raged around the dragon as he tightly gripped a Dragon Heart—belonging to which of his parents, Minjun did not know.

Minjun recalled shouting something like this:

‘Ah, geez, this bastard. He's way too high maintenance!’

The prisoner eventually stood up. The various spells and artifacts the dragon had used to bind him snapped away effortlessly. To the point where the dragon squeezing out his last bits of magic for it seemed pitifully futile.

Minjun immediately initiated measures akin to an emergency surgery.

"Fortunately, the dragon blood I had absorbed when I broke out had just about fully digested."

Minjun had chanted a highly complex spell to save the dragon who was practically choking on the Dragon Heart mid-meal. If this dragon died, the dragons waiting outside the planet would no longer have any reason to send a rescue ship.

Time passed.

By the time the kidnapper narrowly avoided death and finally woke up, the Kavite prisoner had already vanished without a trace.

"I could no longer stick around him. It would be too suspicious if I smashed all my restraints and just stayed by his side instead of running away."

"Then how did you escape that planet?"

"Because the dragon blood digested faster than I thought, I gained some confidence. I figured I could sneak onto the rescue ship the dragons sent without getting caught."

The dragon, left all alone, fell into despair over losing his prisoner without even knowing why he was still alive.

But he didn't have time to stay stagnant. Fortunately, he had managed to absorb a bit of the Dragon Heart even while unconscious, generating some magic.

After carefully packing away the remaining Dragon Heart, he moved to the pickup site alone and got spotted by his allies observing from outside the atmosphere, notifying them of his survival.

A massive rescue operation unfolded. Compared to rescuing numerous prisoners from a base where the Ancient Races had heavily concentrated their security, the operation to extract a single Ancient Dragon wandering the wasteland was on the easier side. In the end, the dragons succeeded in rescuing him.

When the stranded warrior finally escaped that wretched planet, Minjun, who had been tailing him, covered his entire body in shadows and clung to the spaceship's shade, tagging along.

Upon arriving at the dragon's base, Minjun immediately followed the scent and snuck into the dragon blood storage facility. He laid low there for a few days before escaping on a spaceship heading toward the rear lines.

Asiph-1 asked.

"Did you ever see that dragon again after that? Come to think of it, what was his name?"

"It was a random string of numbers derived from our livestock identification codes, so I forgot it the moment I heard it. I didn't really care, either. I don't know if he's still alive now. Given that he was a warrior roaming the dangerous front lines, the odds are high he perished before the end of the war. A truly staggering number of Ancient Dragons died during the Second War."

At his indifferent tone, Asiph-1 felt puzzled.

"But Father, didn't you escape thanks to that dragon? It might displease you to hear this... but he is something of a benefactor to you."

Minjun scoffed.

"If it weren't for me, that bastard would be dead too. We were even. And... you know that pair of Dragon Hearts he nearly choked to death on? When we were traveling together, he babbled that they belonged to his parents. If so, he eventually would have fully absorbed both of them..."

His eyes grew distant, reaching somewhere into the past.

"...If that's the case, then that alone is more than enough compensation."

Hearing those words, Asiph-1 swallowed the response that had risen to his throat.

Just as vengeance belonged to people, gratitude was also a trait of people.

It was incredibly rare for a person to receive a favor from livestock or beasts, let alone repay one.

Ultimately, what his Creator was saying right now meant...

"He was also a person to you, Father."

Minjun did not reply.

   *

"The rescue team has returned!"

After a fierce battle and an intense pursuit, a single spaceship returned to the dragons' base.

Just after it landed, the dragons failed to notice a sliver of shadow slipping out of it and vanishing into the distance as if possessed. Evading the massive crowd of dragons gathered near the ship, it disappeared toward the facility where the Developers stored the dragon blood they had extracted so far.

Hssss!

The doors opened, and a battered and bruised elf walked out. Having Polymorphed to fit the size of the rescue ship, he had finally reached a space large enough to return to his original body.

Unable to hold back any longer, he immediately dispelled the magic.

Flash!

Under everyone's watchful eyes, an Ancient Dragon with gleaming golden scales materialized.

He looked incredibly exhausted. The magic he had gained from absorbing a portion of the Dragon Heart had been spent once again during his escape.

Cheers and congratulations poured over him. Although they had merely rescued a single straggler, they had dealt significant damage to the Kavites in the battles during the process.

Furthermore, the exhilarating thrill of striking a blow against the Ancient Races by rescuing an ally they were so desperately hunting rippled through the crowd.

The rescued Gold Dragon blinked heavily. He vibrated his vocal cords.

"...Grrr."

"Shh! He's trying to say something!"

The Dragon Race, who had been showering him with words of encouragement and welcome, lowered their voices.

What words would this warrior, who had narrowly escaped death, possibly speak?

"...Dev..."

Shooting a ferocious glare, Gold Dragon Jenkinson spoke with naked murderous intent.

"...Tell those Developer bastards to get out here right now."

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