Chapter 158: I can’t stand frustration! (2)
“Chief! Thanks to you, the calf was born safely!”
“Haha, that’s very good to hear.”
“The medicine you gave me must have worked. I thought it would be dangerous since I’m an old woman, but… I feel much healthier and stronger than before. Chief, what kind of medicine did you use?”
“…Well, it was some sort of potion to increase the vitality.”
The blond young man who was called the Chief smiled wryly as he said that.
His name was Thomas, the blacksmith who had made Zetto’s Spectral Sword, but he also had another name, Deidros.
In a small village with few cattle, the loss of a cow was a major loss of labor.
Deidros, the gold dragon, was so wealthy that he could turn a small village into a city… He could have bought so many cattle that the loss of a single cow would have been enough to overflow his pockets, but that was not what he wanted.
Deidros knew all too well that if he allowed his wealth to affect the town too much, he would quickly lose interest in the fun he was having.
But even he had to make a difficult choice this time.
As the village chief, he couldn’t sit idly by while the village faced a crisis.
With a baby on the way, and no medical knowledge of livestock, he was faced with the prospect of losing both the cow and her calf.
I thought, ‘Here I go, putting elixirs on cows…’
In the end, the birth ended safely, and he got to see the adorable calf.
‘The old cow is healthy again…’
This can’t have that much of an effect.
‘I’ll have to avoid using the elixir every time, but I’ll have to visit the warehouse sooner or later.’
I used to call it a storeroom, but I was referring to the ‘nest’ I had built as a Gold Dragon.
He had recently given away elixirs to Zetto, so he was running low on his supply and thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep a few bottles on hand for emergencies like this.
Deidros was scanning the village when someone called out to him.
“Chief.”
Deidros had memorized the voices of the few villagers he knew, so he could tell it wasn’t a villager by the tone of voice but it was a familiar voice.
He turned around at the sound of the voice calling him and Deidros’ eyes immediately recognized his caller.
It was a man from the East, with white bandages covering his eyes and despite his obvious blindness, the bandaged man waves nonchalantly, as if he knows exactly where he is.
It was his best friend, Zetto, who had recently become his biggest concern.
“Zetto, it’s been a while…”
Deidros trailed off, the corners of his mouth turning up as soon as he caught sight of Zetto’s face.
Zetto had always come to him alone, but this time he had a companion.
It was a woman with red hair in a tight braid and he had never seen her before.
“…Is she your lover?”
Zetto scratches his head and laughs at Deidros’ question.
“Haha, let’s just say yes.”
“……”
Judging by the way Zetto blushed at his cheeky answer, he didn’t think they were lovers.
“Let’s go talk to her.”
Deidros led them to his mansion, a little excited to see what strange things Zetto had brought with him today.
***
They had scales that cover their entire body, harder than any other metal, wings that allow them to soar through the air in a single bound, leaping far beyond the size of a house and razor-sharp teeth and claws, and a tail to keep strangers at bay but what made them truly terrifying is their vast reserves of mana, which are beyond the reach of most humans.
And their unique magical system, thanks to a complex mana circuitry that is far beyond that of other races.
Born at the very top of the ecosystem, they are the most powerful creatures in the world…Dragons.
They are so powerful that they could easily rule the world if they were to unite their forces, but sadly, they have never been able to bring the entire world under their control in their long history.
Dragons are a highly individualized race.
They have different wants, different goals, and they don’t work together. Nor do they want to.
Perhaps as a balancing act, dragons don’t like their own kind very much.
It is perhaps instinctive for them to be wary of their own kind, who pose a far greater threat than lesser mortals but it was less so for those with the same color scales.
Unlike wyverns, which are similar in appearance, dragons are not classified as monsters.
This is because they possess an intellect that is far beyond the reach of most humans, let alone monsters in general.
They have a magic called polymorph that allows them to assume human form at will, even if their appearance is far from human.
They assume human form and enter the world of mortals.
It was a form of entertainment for the dragons, a long-lived species that lived for many years.
As a result, there were many dragons in the world with many different stories.
Some dragons live quietly in harmony with nature, such as the blue-scaled dragons that live in seclusion by bodies of water such as oceans and rivers, and the green-scaled dragons whose scales resemble the blades of tall grass that are the guardians of forests.
Some dragons were interested in the human world.
Such were the greedy Gold Dragons, who collected all manner of goods and treasures, and the White Dragons, the heretics of the dragon world, who were so impressed by the will of the goddess Henrys that they served her for so many years that they gained divine powers.
They were supposed to be able to get along well with humans.
On the other hand, there were always the vicious black-scaled dragons who hated humans and sought only destruction, single-handedly wiping out entire nations.
The color of the scales of different dragons often represented their firm disposition.
It was often deeply tied to emotions such as greed, anger, and faith.
This begs the question.
What was this red dragon chasing that made it do such an outrageous thing?
Deidros, who had welcomed Zetto and Yuri into the mansion, was baffled.
After slowly explaining the situation, the sphere they held out to him contained the soul of an unnamed Red Dragon.
“Where did you get this…?”
Deidros asked as he studied the sphere on the table.
“In the ‘Labyrinth’ at the Academy.”
“The Labyrinth at the Innocence Academy…They say it’s a living dungeon, but it’s actually an artificial dungeon created by the Sage who founded the Academy.”
“Really…?!”
Yuri covered her mouth in astonishment at the explanation of Deidros, who had lived longer than Sage Hubert.
At first, she hadn’t believed that Deidros, a plain blond young man with a clean-cut appearance, was a dragon at all, but after seeing the inside of his ornate mansion, he seemed to have gained some credibility.
“I see.”
Of course, Zetto wasn’t surprised, as he already knew that.
“Well, it’s a dragon for sure, and this wild aura…It must be a Red Dragon.”
“I thought you were lying…”
Yuri muttered, and Deidros picked up the sphere.
He wanted to get a closer look at its inner workings.
“The Orb, it is essentially a mage’s armor, a tool for storing mana and allowing them to cast more powerful spells, but it is not a suitable vessel to contain the soul of a dragon.”
“So there is no other vessel that can contain a dragon’s soul?”
Deidros paused for a moment at Zetto’s question, then set the Orb down and took a sip of his icy drink before speaking.
“…No, I’d say there’s no such vessel, and even if there were, it would be extremely rare to find one that could withstand a dragon’s strength… No ordinary orb can do that, at least not that I know of.”
“Then how did this dragon come to be…”
“……”
At their question, Deidros set down his drink and narrowed his eyes.
“He’s……Yes, he’s sealed.”
Deidros looked down at the sphere lying on the table with a pitying look.
“”Sealed?””
Zetto and Yuri repeated since it was not unusual for a dragon to be sealed.
A vicious dragon would be slain, while other dragons might be sealed and the fact that it had been found in the Labyrinth also played a part but a sealed dragon is as dangerous as it sounds.
‘Why did he put himself through this…and why it’s his soul in this thing…?’
Deidros had to squeeze his eyes shut again.
For the sake of his stature and the honor of all the dragons in the world, he could only spit out a lie.