The Foreigner on the Periphery

If hell existed, was this it?

=Aaaah!=

Yumtus, a highest-ranking bishop of the Ellahu-Praga Church, felt like his head was going to split open.

=Aaaah! Aaaaaaah!=

Though devoid of spoken conversation and seemingly tranquil at a glance, this place was actually overflowing with a chaotic flood of mental waves.

The screams and clamors of young demons pierced sharply into the priest's mind.

=Aaaah! Aaaah! Ahahaha!=

=More! More! Throw it harder! Farther!=

=Me too, I wanna go too!=

=Hey! No cutting! Go wait in line over there!=

Yumtus let out a heavy sigh, then reached his hand toward the child waiting its turn.

A squirming, tentacled creature instantly zoomed over with a whoosh!

=It's my turn!=

The priest couldn't understand it at all.

They could fly on their own using telekinesis. What was so fun about this?

They were just being hurled from his hands and flying back in a parabolic arc instead of crashing. What was the point?

Complaining internally, he bundled the cluster of tentacles together and grabbed them tightly.

Then, standing in place, he began spinning the creature in a massive circle like a centrifugal sling. He built up maximum momentum before suddenly letting go.

Whoooosh!

=Aaaaaaaah!=

Another tentacle flew off, screaming in delight.

Launching away like a powerful rocket.

'Oh, God. Oh, Holy Mother.'

The first call was a reverent prayer; the second was an irritable demand.

Both were desperate.

'Holy Mother, just when are you coming back?'

The fleet's advance had continued even after they fled the dimension where the planet exploded.

They had crossed through several more dimensions since then, and during this current stopover, Yumtus and the Holy Mother had been deep in discussion.

Yumtus briefed her on the upcoming waypoints, while Del shared Endelion's strategic habits and other secrets she knew. The two had sat facing each other, reviewing possible future attacks and countermeasures.

In the midst of that, the Holy Mother received the avatar's call.

When she left her seat, Yumtus was left alone with over a hundred Endelion children.

It took less than ten minutes for the most intense strategic meeting room on the ship to transform into its most energetic playground.

The priest lamented.

'Wait, why does it feel like more of them are swarming me... Hold on! You! Werent you the one who refused to come anywhere near me earlier because you thought I looked gross?!'

Grumbling was useless. The intense physical labor continued.

What finally saved him from this full-body workout of childcare hell was a single mental transmission.

"Oh, God!"

It was the voice of the avatar summoning all the high bishops on the ship.

Although the Pope was absent, it was highly unusual for the avatar to step forward so directly these days. Still, Yumtus wasn't in a position to be picky.

"I'm coming! I'm coming right now, my God!"

   *

The Gold Dragon Jenkinson opened his eyes.

In a dream.

'Hmm? What is this?'

He looked down at his arms.

Instead of golden scales shining brilliantly like the sun, he saw blood-red scales.

'Ah, it's a dream.'

At that moment, someone's shout echoed in his head.

=Wake up! Chairman!=

He grumbled.

'So loud. It feels like my head is going to split.'

This headache likely reflected his physical condition in reality.

The dragon looked around. A familiar environment. A dream he'd been having frequently these days.

'Is it the dream of becoming that Red Dragon again?'

For some time now, he had been dreaming of becoming a Red Dragon of the Fire Dragon genus in a timeline that had not yet arrived.

In the dream, his future self was working day and night to become the Dragon Lord of a planet called Earth, but bizarrely, the previous Lord was his true self.

The part he thought was particularly ingenious was the reason that seat became vacant.

'To think the setting is a timeline where the "real" me has already been murdered by the Ancient Race.'

It was a deeply unpleasant dream because it felt excessively realistic.

'I must be under a lot of stress lately. This is my first lucid dream.'

He shifted his gaze. He saw a red crystal resting in his two hands.

An extraordinary item burning with high-density magic power inside.

'This is driving me crazy. Of all the dreams to have.'

Should this be called a nightmare?

He let out a faint sigh. The trembling brushing against the scales on his mouth felt terrifyingly real.

'Well, it makes sense that I'm mentally tormented. I'm suffering alone without being able to tell anyone.'

=Chairman! Please... wake up, Chairman!=

He ignored the shout in his head.

Dreams were inherently illogical, but for some inexplicable reason, that message was laced with Divine Power. That alien energy only made Jenkinson more irritated.

He muttered inwardly.

'How long do I have to bear this secret alone?'

It all started a few hundred years ago.

Having taken an interest in dragon blood and researching it, he had discovered a terrifying secret in a sample drawn from his own body.

Even now, just thinking about it made his whole body freeze.

A sentence that hinted at a cruel truth.

- Livestock Product Traceability System Information Access.

A string of text that was output as a result when unique magical waves were infused into the dragon blood.

Jenkinson had spent a long time researching information from an era never recorded in history, and with great difficulty, he reached a tentative conclusion.

'The Dragon Eater Tribe actually existed!'

Monsters that appeared in stale old stories or legends, which few even remembered now.

That tribe, said to live by eating dragons, really existed. They even seemed to have built a highly advanced civilization that modern dragons couldn't possibly imagine.

Hiding that fact from other dragons, he continued his research. He succeeded in learning and imitating their language and left a message in his own genes.

It was a desperate plea addressed to this unknown race, whom he couldn't be certain would ever return.

Even after that, his desperate exploration continued. The next research subject for the Gold Dragon, who had nothing more to gain from blood, was naturally...

'The Dragon Heart.'

He looked at the crystal in his hand and smiled bitterly.

'I must have been in such agony for this to even appear in my dream. I'm literally holding it in my hands. It's incredibly symbolic.'

Furthermore, this Dragon Heart...

'It's actually mine, isn't it?'

Having tested various magical patterns on a Dragon Heart, the Gold Dragon had shockingly uncovered another terrifying secret within it.

However, unlike his blood research, this was not information encoded in the distant past. Moreover, it was not a characteristic uniformly found in all dragons.

'I was so horrified back then.'

Thinking of that day, even though it was a dream, the scales all over his body stood on end.

'Someone had marked my Dragon Heart... with mana!'

If he hadn't studied the language of the Dragon Eater Tribe, he would have brushed it off as a mere coincidence.

But he had discovered it. It wasn't a random wave. It followed a clear set of rules.

That mark, too, appeared in response to a specific magic pattern, just as the dragon blood did.

'And it was a fresh trace, made only a few hundred years ago!'

Who in the world? When?

Moreover, why did it follow the language pattern of the Dragon Eater Tribe?

It couldn't be viewed as a coincidence.

'Could it be that the Dragon Eater Tribe themselves left it on my heart?!'

If that were true, it was truly terrifying.

'The Dragon Eater Tribe had already returned? In this era we live in?!'

If so, why on earth did they leave a mark on his heart of all things?

With the level of study Jenkinson had achieved, he couldn't properly interpret the sentence. Although it seemed to share roots with a language familiar to him, the phrasing was entirely different.

As if a massive gap in time existed between the two language systems.

Jenkinson felt like he was going crazy from fear.

What in the world did they write on his heart without his knowledge?

'If the culprit is really the Dragon Eater Tribe... did I look that delicious?'

A chill ran down his spine.

Were they planning to mark it for now and come back for it later? Did they leave a tag so they could easily identify and eat him when they saw him again?!

'Looking at the timeline, it seems it was engraved around the time I first participated in the war. Was there actually a disguised Dragon Eater among those I crossed paths with back then? Or did they approach in stealth and secretly engrave it while I was sleeping?'

Perhaps this marking indicated the exact date he was to be slaughtered.

Amidst the terror of feeling like his heart would be gouged out, the dragon had pressed on with his research.

It seemed that profound stress was now manifesting in his dream.

'What an awful dream.'

Clicking his tongue, he looked at what he held in his hand again.

'A dream of glaring at my own heart while holding it in my hands. It feels like a psychotic symptom.'

This was his heart.

He couldn't be mistaken.

When he let magic power flow into it, a familiar reaction appeared.

Normally, it should have been hidden deep inside the heart muscle, but because it was a dream, he could see it vividly in its crystallized state.

'Isn't this a bit too explicit? It really feels like if I cut open my chest and pulled out my Dragon Heart, it would look exactly like this...'

It was then.

=Chairman! Wake up! Chairmaaaaan!=

The Divine Power was acting as a megaphone, relentlessly delivering someone's voice.

The Gold Dragon recognized the owner of that voice. In this recurring dream, it was the elf woman acting as his secretary during his time as the Red Dragon.

Her name was... ah, right. It was Blair.

The dragon grew annoyed.

'When on earth is this dream going to end?'

At this point, he decided to just go with the flow.

Since it wasn't reality anyway, he could just act however he wanted.

The events in this dream setting were disjointed, lacking narrative flow, and filled with absurd, delusional scenes.

For instance, his Red Dragon self meeting his real Gold Dragon self; or him sweating over a Talent debt to a Committee prisoner and suffering from their incessant collections; or his stress-induced binge-eating getting so bad that he raided an elephant farm in the dead of night to steal their poor livestock... These utterly disconnected and implausible scenarios just kept popping up.

'Why have I kept such a massive barrier up for days in this dream? It's not like I'm going into hibernation. And... why won't this twisted dream end already?'

Jenkinson slowly grew curious about how far this manifestation of his unconscious would drag him. Dreams were said to be the mirrors of unrealized desires.

How far did his secret desires reach?

He acted according to the flow of his consciousness. He didn't know why, but he first decided to dispel the barrier.

Fwoosh!

'Goodness, the sensation of this magic power. Isn't it a bit too vivid?'

Outside, Blair, the nonexistent elf woman in his dream, also looked flustered.

=...Ah?!=

His next action was equally impulsive. It was just a dream, after all.

Jenkinson transmitted a mental wave outside.

=My head hurts, so stop blasting Divine Power!=

At that moment.

=Ch... Chairmaaaaan!=

The faceless elf burst into tears.

Loud, choking wails followed.

'Wh-what?'

Listening to her cry until her voice grew hoarse, Jenkinson was completely flustered.

=Uu... Uuuh... Waaaaah!=

Why was he dreaming of a crying elf in this situation?

He couldn't figure out the reason.

The sorrowful crying continued for a long time.

'W-wait a second.'

Jenkinson felt his back muscles stiffen.

Don't tell me.

'A dream is the manifestation of the unconscious...'

No, even so.

Could it be...?

The dragon felt like he was staring straight into the abyss of his own mind. The absolute bottom of his consciousness, which he hadn't expected to harbor such a thing, nor did he particularly want to know.

To dream of merely listening to the sobbing voice of an elf woman—her voice laced with Divine Power—without even seeing her face.

Jenkinson felt the personal values he had built up all his life violently shaking.

He didn't want to admit it, and he couldn't accept it, but...

'Could this... be my secret desire?'

   *

Yumtus quickly answered God's call.

Arriving at Minjun's residence after barely peeling the children off, he found the Holy Mother, who had arrived first, along with the other high priests already gathered.

Everyone's gaze was fixed on the Communicator held by the Holy Mother. As she operated it, a string of text floated up like a hologram.

"That is...?"

It was a text the priests couldn't read.

The Holy Mother explained.

"It's a letter secretly passed on through a native of this place."

One bishop asked.

"Is it an indigenous language here?"

"No."

Del frowned.

"It's a cipher that only members of Endelion's royal family can read."

"What is its content?"

That answer came from God.

"They want to hold a secret remote summit. Without informing Todd or Kavite, strictly between the delegations from our two sides."

"Pardon? What you mean is..."

"Yes."

God smiled faintly and spoke.

"The King of Endelion has reached out to negotiate."

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