Chapter 193 : Chapter 193
Chapter 193
The golden aura flew through the sky and struck the Gray Demon's back squarely. The creature's armor-like body was quite sturdy, so the aura couldn't cut through the armor and exploded, sending the Gray Demon rolling a few times and crashing to the ground.
“Kieeeeeek!”
A screeching scream, whether of pain or anger, erupted from the creature's mouth.
The Gray Demon instantly turned its body and started running towards Karl. The creature, with a nearly perfect humanoid body, a torso about 1.5 times larger than a human's, and a body made like armor as if wearing full plate, flew in and transformed its arm into a greatsword, swinging it at Karl.
Woooooong!
“Aura…?”
This Gray Demon was clearly emitting a gray aura. The gray aura rising above the disgusting energy it originally had was emitting an energy similar to a normal aura.
Woooooong!
Karl's golden aura and the stage 5 Gray Demon's aura clashed.
“…”
The aura stopped. The gray aura did not contain a very strong aura energy, but when it was combined with the disgusting power used by the Gray Demon, it blocked Karl's aura.
Seeing the creature that should have been cut down long ago raising its momentum even more strongly, Karl was able to deduce one fact.
They were growing.
The Gray Demons had come to this world and were growing more and more. In particular, these stage 5 creatures had a tremendous growth rate. To be using aura so soon after appearing on the continent.
‘Cut it.’
A strong feeling rose up that he shouldn't let the creature escape from here. Karl raised the power of the aura imbued with Laevateinn another level and wrapped the aura in flames.
Based on the memory of having summoned a pure flame using the flame and magical power of Laevateinn in the past, Karl's creation, which combined aura and magic, bloomed on his sword.
[Karl Meyer Style. Union. Inferno]
The mystical-colored aura, enveloped in gold and blue light, split and burned the Gray Demon's aura. And the Gray Demon touched by the inferno was split in half on the spot and scattered as ashes.
Karl stared at the Gray Demon, which now had no trace to be found, for a long time, and then looked at the stone slab that had been split in half.
[Soon… coming….]
From the few letters left on the stone slab that had been split and had lost its function, Karl guessed that he would soon meet the being above the heads of the enemy gray monsters.
And so, Karl slowly spurred his horse on the path he had to go again. As if slowly savoring the scenery that might really be the last, Silver, carrying him, continued to move without stopping.
***
“Lord… shouldn’t we also go out into the world?”
In a huge cave, about 10 people were sitting in their respective chairs, looking at each other.
Among them, the handsome man with golden hair was listening to the others' stories in silence.
”Demons have appeared on the continent. Although that Transcendent named Karl is said to have repelled the demons, there are still various beings brazenly roaming the continent. That’s not all. Those things that humans call Gray Demons. We have no idea where those monsters that appeared in our territory a while ago came from.“
The blue-haired beauty continued to speak to the blond man called Lord.
“We are not rejecting the Lord's will not to interfere with the continent as much as possible. Don't you know well, Lord?”
Due to the restrictions they had made themselves, at some point, even the traces of dragons had disappeared from the continent.
Because the power of each of their individuals was so strong, they knew all too well that even a single dragon could change the entire history of the continent, and thanks to that, the dragons had made a pact among the various species not to interfere in the history of the continent after a certain incident.
Even if they went out into the world, they would thoroughly hide the fact that they were dragons and would soothe the hunger in their hearts by living as one of the members of the world.
However, now, as the blue dragon Peña said, a crisis that they had never experienced before was sweeping the continent. Things like the descent of demons or the invasion of monsters were abnormal signs that even the dragons had not experienced in their long years.
Moreover, it was the first time that they didn't even know the cause.
“We will watch a little longer for now.”
“Lord…! By that time, there may be nothing left in the world.”
“If so, that too will be their history.”
The golden-haired Dragon Lord, Desmond Elliot, had no intention of bending his opinion despite the stories of the other dragons.
“Why do you try to distance yourself from the world so much, Lord. Have you still not forgotten the memories of the past?”
Desmond looked blankly at the person who had poked him with a familiar tone, unlike the others.
It was the red-haired dragon, the Red Dragon Agnitus, who always lived his life according to his own opinions.
“Isn’t it all because of that that you’re not becoming the real Lord, and you can’t go out into the world?”
“Agnitus, everything is always so easy for you.”
“Everything is always so difficult for you. And then why did you send the green kid out into the world a while ago? To awaken as a true dragon, one must experience the world. And is it something we must just watch as the world disappears according to the law? Isn’t that law also, in fact, because the former Lord, Baccarat, became a Mad Dragon?”
“……”
Agnitus and Desmond stared at each other silently. A suffocating tension swept through the cave. The war of nerves between the two elder dragons, who had lived for a different amount of time and had a lot more power than the other dragons, was a burdensome situation for the other dragons present as well.
“Even if the humans ask for our help, are you just going to watch like it's a fire across the river? I don't think the existing pact to prevent the world from being ruined by dragons interfering in the world is wrong. But to stand by while a dirty monster whose origins we don't even know crawls out and destroys this continent is not right for us dragons, who are the guardians of the continent.”
Agnitus' story had legitimacy. Dragons were born with a sense of mission to be the guardians of this continent from birth.
I don’t know who instilled that sense of mission in them, but they, who were born with the energy of the world, instinctively felt that they were guardians. When this perception of being a guardian was interpreted in the wrong direction, and it was perceived as protecting the humans they cherished, dragons could make a mistake in their choices.
500 years ago, Baccarat, the Dragon Lord and the lover of the current Lord Desmond, became a Mad Dragon after the death of the human she cherished. In the end, the dragons had no choice but to kill the mad Baccarat with their own hands. The one at the forefront of that was Desmond.
Since that day, Desmond had strictly limited the dragons' intervention in human affairs to amusement, and the other dragons, having witnessed the tragedy of the Mad Dragon, sufficiently supported Desmond’s opinion.
“Desmond, I’m telling you as your oldest friend. Now is completely different from the events of that time. I’m not unaware of your immeasurable sorrow, but still, now is the time to make a decision as the Dragon Lord.”
Agnitus left those last words and disappeared from the cave first. Looking at the silent Desmond, the lords of each clan and the elder dragons also disappeared.
***
Entrusting his body to Silver's saddle, Karl was still on his way to the mountain range Agnitus had mentioned.
On the path to Agnitus' lair, there weren't many villages where people could live, and most of it was forest, so it was a path that mostly led to sleeping outdoors.
Having slept through the morning dew last night as well, Karl poured the boiling tea into a cup and took a sip of coffee.
The coffee species he had successfully cultivated recently had a rather deep flavor and acidity, and a single cup of tea was enough to make Karl's mood comfortable.
“How long are you going to watch?”
After savoring the coffee a few times, Karl quietly closed his eyes and spoke alone in the empty forest.
If someone had been with Karl, they would have asked why he was suddenly talking to the empty air alone, as there was no sign of any human presence around.
Just then.
“You’re amazing, really. To the point where I wonder if you’re human. Wasn’t that magic you used to boil the water just now?”
Just a moment ago, it had been an empty space with no sign of human presence, but from where the trees were, a green-haired woman walked out.
With an appearance that was unparalleled in the world at a glance, she approached Karl as if she knew him.
“A face I’m seeing for the first time, yet it’s familiar.”
She approached Karl with an interested face.
“A dragon who has received a favor, you could say.”
“It’s that green dragon from back then.”
“Yes, thanks to you, I have become a proper adult dragon. I came to express my gratitude.”
“That’s good. I’m on my way to see Agnitus. If you have time, will you accompany me?”
“Really?”
Nod, she was as excited as a child when she saw Karl nod his head.
“You looked like a man back then, but now you look like a woman.”
“Dragons choose their own gender when they become adults. According to their own will.”
“Dragons have genders too.”
“Of course, we also have genders. Dragons go out into the human world in the name of amusement, you see. At that time, we also enjoy life according to our gender.”
Karl had also read about the dragons’ amusement in books. That sometimes, dragons that had blended into the human world enjoyed the world.
“Why are you going to see Lord Agnitus?”
“To ask for help.”
“Even someone like you, Lord Karl, has things to ask for help with?”
Karl was a human much stronger than an ordinary dragon. What could a true powerhouse like Karl, who had surpassed a Transcendent, have to ask for help with?
“Lord Agnitus must have gone to the dragon council meeting.”
“Dragons have meetings too?”
“Of course, the elder dragon-grade or the heads of each species all attend. Once they go to a meeting, they are away for a week, so if you wait a few days, I think they will come.”
After getting good information thanks to Milen, Karl continued to move towards Agnititus' lair with her. On the way, Milen chattered away about something next to Karl, as if she were a sparrow.
“Have you not met anyone to talk to recently?”
“Eh…? That is….”
After parting with Karl, she had her coming-of-age ceremony, and for a few months, she hadn't had the chance to meet someone and talk.
In fact, the dragon who had gone through the stormy period of 999 years old when she had gone out into the human world had talked without a moment's rest.
Since there had been no such occasion after the coming-of-age ceremony, she seemed to have become talkative without realizing it.
Moreover, there was also the influence of her becoming more feminine after her gender was clearly decided.
“Ah… I’m sorry… I must have been talking a lot without realizing it.”
Karl answered by nodding his head and continued to move towards Agnitus' lair.
As they moved for a long time, the two of them continued to walk in silence. Perhaps because she had been given a hint once, Milen also just moved her lips and couldn't say anything else.
“Just talk.”
“Yes?”
And so, at some point while moving in silence again, Karl threw out a single word as if it were passing by on his horse.
“What did you say?”
Even though she had heard everything, she asked Karl again.
“Just, talk.”
Karl left a single word with an expressionless face and the same tone.
“Ah… yes!!”
And after that short single word, Milen began to open all the story bags she had been holding back until now.
“So, what I said when I saw that human bothering the old man back then was.”
She really continued to talk without a break. It was also a skill that the content of the story could change continuously.
“Just a moment, I’ll just drink this and continue.”
Perhaps because she had talked so much, when she got thirsty, she would pour water into a cup she took out from her subspace with magic, gulp it down, and then move her mouth again.
“It's true that people were less afraid of me when I did that. Come to think of it, when I visited the second village, you know. Oh, by the way, in that second village, there was a house that made really delicious bread. The owner of that bakery had three children, and the first of them was….”
It was like this. The endlessly continuing story, Karl sincerely regretted having opened Milen’s mouth.
After passing a listening time that was close to torture, Karl was finally able to arrive at Agnitus' lair. As Milen had said, Agnitus was not in sight, as if he had gone to a meeting.
However, in the masterless house, he felt the presence of uninvited guests.