The Foreigner on the Periphery

Jenkinson assessed the situation in an instant.

His telepathic waves had failed to reach Minjun because a powerful barrier now surrounded the man's location. Its purpose was almost certainly to trap him.

The owner of the voice he had just heard was still outside the building, merely projecting it inward using magic.

After exchanging a few harsh words with the distant figure...

Flash!

...he immediately chanted a Teleport spell.

He vanished, reappearing in the air above the ocean, a fair distance from the coast. Following the coordinates Jenkinson had provided, his opponent soon appeared as well.

Over the open sea, the two men's gazes met.

"There was no need to call me out this far. I have no intention of ruining your territory anyway."

"Which dimension are you from?"

"I am the Dragon Lord of Dimension #33-010. They call me Perseen."

Damn it!

Of all things, he was an Ancient Dragon older than Jenkinson.

The Red Dragon interrogated him with a sharp edge to his voice.

"Why did you enter Earth without prior consultation? I imagine you're also involved in the commotion far out at sea."

Perseen was essentially an illegal immigrant. He had seized the opportunity presented by the Committee's collapse to slip into Earth disguised as another species, a blatant violation of the Dragon Race's cross-dimensional customs.

"After discussions among the Dragon Lords of twenty-five dimensions, we reached a consensus that notifying Earth beforehand would doom the operation. I do feel bad about that. But it was unavoidable. Rumors about your relationship with Asif-666 are quite widespread, you see."

The target was indeed Minjun.

Jenkinson let out a breath like boiling steam.

"Twenty-five dimensions? You absolute lunatics...!"

He wasn't furious because so many dimensions had stabbed Earth in the back.

It was because only twenty-five dimensions had conspired.

That meant the mobilized dragons numbered a few thousand at best.

"You're going after Minjun... Asif-666 with just those numbers?"

Perseen wore a relaxed expression.

He clearly hadn't grasped the true meaning behind Jenkinson's words.

"The rest of the dragons are currently surrounding the battleship and launching a fierce assault. As you can see."

He pointed toward the direction where flashes of light and shockwaves of Magic were churning.

"And I was tasked with negotiating with this planet's Dragon Lord... which means you."

"Negotiation?! You plot behind my back, launch an attack, and only approach me for a negotiation after the fact?!"

"Take it as us extending a hand, even if it's a bit late."

Brushing aside his bangs in the sea breeze, Perseen smiled.

"Have you been tracking him?"

"Yes. We confirmed that a single Space Mothership made over ten dimensional jumps starting from Dimension #00-001. It didn't pass through a Terminal but used Jump Magic instead. That was only possible because the dimensional barriers weakened after the Committee collapsed. Though, of course, the technique required to shift such a massive Mothership whole is nothing short of marvelous."

The smile never left his lips.

"However, even a state-of-the-art battleship couldn't completely erase its tracks in the spirit realm. Erasing the traces at the starting point requires returning to that dimension, creating an endless loop. But as it turned out, we didn't even need to go through the trouble of tracking it. Foolishly, he showed up openly on Earth like this. And our spies confirmed the passenger's identity."

Asif-666.

"Isn't this a golden opportunity? Would we even be dragons if we let this timing slip by?"

Jenkinson felt despair welling up from the bottom of his throat.

"Minjun... weren't you curious about how he defeated the Committee? Didn't it cross your mind to analyze Asif-666's combat power before recklessly charging in? Did you seriously never consider that the dragons might lose?!"

Perseen waved a hand dismissively.

"Of course we figured it out. Asif-666 resurrected Asif-1. Yes, the absolute worst criminal in the universe. That entity possesses brainwashing abilities. It perfectly explains the miracle of how over a hundred Space Motherships fell into their hands. He brainwashed the entire crew!"

With an exaggerated gesture, the otherworldly dragon whispered as if sharing a secret.

"But according to our intelligence, Asif-1 is still stuck in Dimension #00-001. Asif-666 came to Earth leading just a single Mothership. Without his brainwashing accomplice! That makes the odds more than favorable. If not now, when else would we ever get the chance to eliminate him?"

The Committee remnants captured by the extraterrestrial dragons following the headquarters' collapse were mostly other species who worked under the Ancient Race, rather than the Ancient Race themselves.

They didn't know the exact details of how the war had unfolded at the order's headquarters or in Dimension #00-001.

Staring at Perseen, who had cobbled together a scenario from limited information, Jenkinson spoke with a voice heavy with crushing despair.

"Did you never stop to think that he might possess abilities far beyond our imagination?!"

Perseen frowned.

"What kind of commander drafts strategies based on irrational fantasies? If it were you, would you surrender out of fear that an earthquake might strike tomorrow? Would you abandon your base because you're terrified a meteor might fall this afternoon?"

"What about observing him a bit longer before negotiating?"

"We've observed enough. War is all about timing. Everyone agreed that we couldn't let this moment pass. The Committee is gone, and once we deal with the victor, Asif-666, the universe will return to normal."

"...To normal?"

"Yes. A world where dragons stand proudly at the apex of the hierarchy pyramid. We will return to that peaceful, beautiful era before the Ancient Race came along! We will reclaim our flawless greatness!"

"What the..."

"Hmm?"

Jenkinson could endure it no longer.

"What the..."

It was a sudden bellow.

The Red Dragon screamed, not just with his mouth, but with his entire body.

"W-H-A-T T-H-E H-E-L-L!"

A deafening roar erupted.

Boom!

Rumble!

Like compressed air detonating, a circular shockwave swept through the surroundings.

Perseen merely frowned for a moment.

But on the ocean surface, a massive circular wave formed with them at the epicenter. The turbulent waters surged toward the horizon. Above, the clouds were ripped apart and shoved away, carving out a patch of clear blue sky.

Rumble!

After waiting for the echoes to subside...

Perseen muttered in a mocking tone, scratching his ear.

"Quite loud, aren't you."

Jenkinson's eyes were bloodshot. Heat poured from his entire body.

Unable to control his blazing fury, he growled.

"What the hell is wrong with us?!"

"Wrong with us?"

At that moment.

Jenkinson and the personality of the former Dragon Lord shouted the exact same words—one out loud, the other in thought.

"Do you have any idea how much I've agonized and suffered for 'us' all this time?"

- Do you have any idea how much I've agonized and suffered for 'us' all this time?

Perseen looked bewildered.

"What?"

The Red Dragon and the Gold Dragon shrieked as if vomiting blood.

"So that 'we' could secure a future worthy of people!"

- So that 'we' could secure a future worthy of people!

Solely for that goal.

"I sacrificed everything and did everything in my power for 'us'!"

- I sacrificed everything and did everything in my power for 'us'!

Perseen let out a faint sigh.

"I heard you weren't entirely right in the head, but I didn't think it was this bad. Or have you perhaps already been brainwashed?"

Jenkinson roared at the top of his lungs.

"'You' ruined it!"

The pronoun changed.

"Not just you... but countless dragons. All of them ruined it. They are ruining it right now, and they will keep ruining it in the future. There is no hope! No hope... There's absolutely no hope!"

Jenkinson felt the urge to rip his own chest open with his bare hands.

"Were you in that much of a hurry? Were you so eager to take their place the second the Committee vanished? What on earth is wrong with the Dragon Race? Why do you insist on trampling over the Non-Dragon Races before you even begin to think? Did you really have to attack first, before even attempting to talk and persuade Asif-666? Why in the world?!"

"You've truly lost your mind."

Perseen wore a look of genuine incomprehension.

"You're a dragon too. Do your own kin look like demons to you? Do they look like monsters?"

"Yes, they do now!"

"You think we're a wicked race that only commits atrocities?"

He shook his head.

"I heard the rumors. The dragon who spouts constant nonsense. That you were exiled and forced into asylum from another dimension in the past for spewing garbage about how we should stop exploiting the Non-Dragon Races. But tell me... why do you think we do those things?"

"Because dragons are monsters incapable of restraining their desires!"

"No, that's not it, my friend."

Perseen stared deeply at his opponent.

"The reason we do those things is simply because we have the power to."

"...?!"

"Why do dragons seek to rule the universe? Why do dragons treat other races as resources, consuming them in the most efficient and economical ways possible? It's simple. Because we possess the power to do so."

Jenkinson couldn't immediately retort.

"Imagine a hypothetical universe where goblins wield the power of dragons. There are no dragons in that world. Would all races be granted equal rights there?"

He shook his head.

"No, you'd end up with a very similar world. How would goblins with draconian abilities behave? Do you think they'd be perfectly happy rotting underground, sniffing each other's putrid stench like they do now? Absolutely not! They would dedicate themselves to more productive endeavors. Like ruling the universe, for instance!"

His voice, brimming with absolute conviction, pressed on.

"Or should we raise the stakes a bit? What if it were a hypothetical universe where humans were the apex species? Every race's abilities are exactly the same as in reality. How would goblins be treated in such a world? Would it be any better than now? You foolish dragon. Wake up from your dream, please."

"Wake up...?"

"Did you think yourself an enlightened dragon, the only seeker of good among an immoral herd? Did you want to feel a sense of superiority, looking down on the rest and thinking you were different? A being born against all odds from a race where 99.9 percent are inherently evil... you must have been completely drunk on the self-awareness that you alone were special. Sorry to break it to you, but we aren't the ones who are wrong."

Perseen pointed a finger at him.

"The one who's wrong... is you."

Just as the otherworldly dragon decided it was time to wrap up the conversation...

Kaboom!

The continuous explosions and magical shockwaves erupting from the Pacific Ocean reached their peak.

The sound of something hard shattering echoed through the air.

——!

And Perseen, intercepting a telepathic wave from someone...

Smirked.

He wore a deeply satisfied expression.

"News just came in. Our Dragon Race warriors... have shot down Asif-666's Space Mothership."

Jenkinson wasn't surprised.

Perseen thought this reaction was natural. Their preparations had been thorough. With thousands of dragons weaving a barrier, surrounding the target, and launching an ambush, taking down a single Space Mothership with no reinforcements was entirely expected. He assumed Jenkinson's lack of surprise stemmed from the same logic.

However.

"...They shot it down?"

Jenkinson threw Perseen's exact words back at him.

"Ah."

In a tone full of lament.

Jenkinson murmured.

"You... foolish dragon."

His voice carried genuine pity.

"You still don't get it."

Perseen clicked his tongue. He didn't retract the finger pointing at Jenkinson.

At that exact moment.

Vwoom!

Complex magic circles flared to life around Jenkinson.

The otherworldly dragon had been laying a trap for the Red Dragon all while pretending to converse. Maintaining his elf transformation had been a ploy to force his opponent's guard down.

In the event that Asif-666 escaped during the operation, he had planned to recruit Jenkinson and execute a new plan.

But actually seeing him up close, Perseen realized Jenkinson was in no mental state to cooperate and would only be a hindrance.

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to rest here for a bit. A crazy dragon is as dangerous as an unchained Endelion. Just until we take Asif-666 and leave..."

He couldn't finish his sentence.

"...Huh?"

Snap!

For a split second, Perseen witnessed a surreal sight.

The pale white hand of his elf form.

The index finger pointing straight at Jenkinson.

Dangle.

That index finger was broken, bent at a grotesque angle and dangling limply.

The dragon was too shocked to even register the pain.

Soon after, he realized why his finger had snapped.

His body moved. Completely against his will.

Crunch!

"Uh... Uuuh?"

In front of him was still empty air, entirely devoid of obstacles.

Yet, as if an invisible, minuscule hole had opened up, his finger was sucked into a specific patch of space.

The reason his bone had snapped was because it was closest to the anomaly, catching it at a slight angle.

That terrifying suction force made Perseen's entire body stagger to the right.

And the finger that plunged into the invisible hole...

Squelch!

...turned into finely minced flesh and bone fragments, extruded in a round clump out the other side of the hole.

The hole continued to suck Perseen in. As more of him entered, an equal mass of raw meat spilled out the other side.

Watching the scene, Jenkinson was reminded of a butcher shop.

More specifically, the machine called a Grinder.

Crunch! Squelch! Grrrnd!

"Ah, aah...!"

Perseen instinctively dispelled his Polymorph.

Only then did Jenkinson remember that his opponent was a White Dragon.

The whole thing happened in less than a second. A blur that any other race would have missed in the blink of an eye.

But Jenkinson's kinetic vision and nervous system, which remained fully functional even under Polymorph, observed the entire sequence in slow motion.

Rumble!

Starting from the parts being sucked into the hole, the elf's body ballooned into a white-scaled dragon.

But even in that state, Perseen couldn't escape the suction. His massively expanding muscles and skin rippled and bulged. Like pulling the plug on a full bathtub, the dragon's gargantuan body formed a vortex as it was slurped inside.

And as the volume and mass of the "ingredient" increased, the hole suspended in the air expanded to match.

The doorway, or rather, the intake, appeared as an almost perfectly straight line from the side.

With that line as the boundary, the right side was the contorting, collapsing body of the White Dragon being absorbed, while the left side was a forceful, explosive waterfall of blood and gore.

"Per...!"

Jenkinson didn't even know what he was doing.

He had already reverted to his true dragon form. Without understanding why, he reached out with both hands. And he grabbed Perseen's thrashing tail.

Then, he pulled with all his might. To stop that door from swallowing Perseen whole.

But the attempt was futile. The White Dragon's body continued to shrink, while the volume of the red waterfall crashing into the sea grew. The boundary had already reached his shoulders. Perseen twisted his neck back in sheer desperation. Jenkinson met his eyes. The otherworldly dragon tried to say something.

Soon, even his head was sucked into the hole.

At the same time, Perseen's heavily corded tail stopped twitching. Even so, Jenkinson couldn't let go.

Rumble!

Like a tightly gripped rope slipping away, the tail scraped against his palms as it was dragged inside.

Jenkinson watched until the very tip of the white tail vanished into the hole. The next moment, the intake ceased its function.

From beginning to end, it had exerted absolutely no influence on Jenkinson.

As if declaring that he was not an "ingredient."

"...Ah."

Jenkinson stared blankly down below.

Dark red sludge and grease floated on the bubbling surface of the water. Chunks of meat clumped together sparsely along the ripples.

He slowly shifted his gaze to his own two hands. Broken and ground-up pieces of Perseen's white scales were embedded all over his palms. The air was cold, and the sky was perfectly clear. Unobstructed sunlight hit the scales, making them sparkle and shine like jewels.

The warmth and texture of the tail he had been holding just seconds ago remained vivid. But it was merely a trick of his brain; the "person" known as Perseen no longer existed. He had vanished like a mirage. Just like his hopes.

Jenkinson pondered where the White Dragon's Dragon Heart had gone, and why there hadn't been the massive explosion that naturally should have followed if even the heart had been pulverized.

It was then that he couldn't hold it back any longer and began to vomit. The bile plummeted into the ocean, mixing with the fragments of what used to be a person, scattering away in utter futility.

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