Chapter 60: Interlude- The Dragon God’s Melancholy

My temper has been flaring up a tad too many times lately.

I had first attributed the cause to a biological phase, but I believe that claim can no longer hold true.

It’s quite normal for True Dragons such as myself to be plagued with arrogance and bad temper, especially since I’m considered young amongst the members of my race.

However, I would like to believe that my time maintaining this world is enough to suppress such flaws.

No… It’s different this time, I can feel a potentially world-ending threat incoming.

One that targets the very order I’ve been maintaining for over a millennia of time.

Call it divine intuition or a dragon’s sense, unwanted gears have definitely started spinning in a place where my eyes can not see.

The fact that I can’t glean anything about it through the system means that the possibility of other administrators intervening is very high, it might even be the work of an outsider.

Outsider… that word reminds me of a long distant past, one that’s quite unpleasant to remember.

My rigidity and indecisiveness has led to the overcomplication of many issues over the years, yet I never felt regret as strongly as I did that one time.

I believe I did my best to atone and fix my mistakes however.

The first step towards that was giving up my useless pride and begging that taboo existence to save my beloved.

Reaching out to said existence was not only foolish, but also extremely dangerous. Yet my request was granted in the end, albeit in a sinister way...

Despite knowing full well that I should reject her and sacrifice my life to hide this planet from her vision once more, I let her do it.

First, because it was the only hope I had of saving Sariel and second, it’s impossible to stop that one once she’s set her mind on something.

Even the Dragon God himself would be unable to do so, let alone a youngling such as myself.

So, I watched with my very eyes as she created a conjuration of a world-scale magnitude that turns this world’s reality into a game. Her game.

I still watched as she made Sariel, who was the person I originally wanted to save, the core of said conjuration and forced her to endure eternal suffering.

All while I was powerless to bring up any opposition.

Truthfully, I was scared. Not scared of death, no– I was scared of losing my beloved.

So, I did what that existence, D, told me to do and took full responsibility of maintaining the system while putting in as much effort as I could to ease the load off of Sariel.

Despite that, I couldn’t help but feel that all that I did was for naught more than once as I watched the actions of the very humans Sariel wanted to save over the years.

I always squashed that thought as soon as it came up though.

Sariel wanted to protect them, and so I would do the same.

This stubborn thought is the reason why my determination remains unmoved whether it be in the past or the future.

Ahh, that’s enough reminiscing, I suppose. I have an important matter to attend to, after all.

I do wonder what’s delaying my kin from their regular reports.

Maybe they have felt my irritation somehow?

The delay can be explained if they’re simply working extra hard to ease my negative emotions.

“No problems with the Demon Lord sword. Well, if you ignore the fact that it has become scrap metal after the latest stunt they attempted to do with it.”

I’m not surprised that he’s the first to reply.

The guardian of the Demon Lord’s sword, Dark Dragon Reise.

He was responsible for watching over the Demon Lord’s sword ever for as much as I watched over the world.

Lately however, he seems to have let go of most of his responsibilities.

I can not blame him though, the sword has become nothing but a high-quality metal one after the last Hero and Demon Lord wasted its power in their silly plan.

My mind can not fathom why the pinnacles of both races targeted one such as D. 

What is even stranger is that they attempted that with a spell that comes from the very system she made and a weapon of her own creation.

The result was both of them dead while the Demon Lord’s sword’s power was fully depleted, of course.

I believe this is already the best result though. D could’ve just gotten annoyed and destroyed the world instead.

That’s just how much of a whimsical existence she is.

“I detect no abnormality concerning the Hero’s sword and the surroundings of its sealing space, my lord.”

Byaku– Reise’s counterpart, the guardian of Hero’s sword, and a Light Dragon.

He is very diligent, but his personality is rigid and cold.

I can detect the warmth hidden beneath his mask however.

The reason why he became like this can be directly attributed to his sworn duties.

As he resides inside the Hero’s sword, he was forced to witness the death of pretty much every single Hero that ever held it, including the ones he had conceived a close relationship with.

Just knowing that Sariel is enduring all of that suffering saddens me to no end, I cannot imagine what I’d feel like if she passed away.

Byaku has experienced that feeling multiple times though, which led him to become reluctant to form any close ties with Heroes and only interacts with them within the boundaries of his duties.

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“All’s cool around here, quite literally.”

Ahh, she’s at it again, huh?

Nia, the ancient ice dragon whom I’ve appointed as the leader of the Ice Dragons and the guardian of the Mystic Mountains.

I personally consider her and her older sister’s position to be the most important in my heart,

Their efforts over the years are the only reason those weary souls can rest inside the Valley of Convenience before their eternal demise after all.

I’m curious why her reply came alone this time. She usually sends her report alongside Iena’s since they’re sisters and all.

“Something’s up, but I don’t know what exactly.”

Iena’s report comes soon, though it’s a worrying one to say the least.

“Hmm? What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know, I’ve lost contact with one of my followers around the edges of the inhabitable area.”

“Did you send someone to check?”

“I went there myself, but I found nothing but an enormous poison cloud and the traces of a battle. No corpses were left behind.”

I personally appointed Iena as the leader of the Water Dragons, so her domain is the ocean which I am very sure doesn’t have any creatures capable of using Poison Synthesis except for other dragons.

“Poison…? So, it was done by an intelligent creature capable of single-handedly killing one of yours along with their followers…”

“Yes. Also, their traces lead towards the fringes. Although all conventional means of tracking failed, the frequency of similar dead areas roughly indicates that they’re going that way.”

“Only that one dragon lost contact? What about the wyrms then?”

“Yes, just that one dragon. You know I can’t keep track of the wyrms and their leaders can’t either. It’d be like keeping track of how many times you’ve breathed. However, the ones around here are all dead.”

“I suppose it would…  Search for that creature and prevent them from crossing into the dead area, you can make use of the other ancients as you see fit.”

“Roger that.”

Although I’m not completely sure, I feel that this incident is related to whatever’s bothering me.

I access the system’s logs and try to find anything that could lead me to the source of this disturbance, however I find nothing just like before.

Not even the logs concerning that lost dragon can be found…

Was the system invaded somehow? No, it’s impossible for that existence’s work to be this vulnerable even if she didn’t put much effort into it.

Even if she purposefully left some loopholes, only a complete fool would mess with a conjuration of such a large scale before investigating, especially when its smell reeks of hell.

Then there’s only one way the system logs could have been tampered with.

Another administrator must have deleted the records, but the problem is who.

Yes, I am responsible for preventing the planet from collapsing, but that gives me authority over that specific part only, meaning I can only exercise said authority on land.

The system’s main function is to recycle the soul energy that humans and demons gain over the cycle of their lives after all.

As for the sea, its authority is in another administrator’s hand.

Me and that person are not in a hostile relationship or anything, but our dealings are quite tense since she has a lot of resentment towards Sariel.

…I can’t blame her though, she is as much of a victim as Sariel is.

Her misfortune was, once again, indirectly caused by my indecisiveness.

Sigh… I’m too young for this.

It should not be her anyways, she’s been in hibernation for centuries now. And even if she has awakened, she is too busy to clash with me.

… I should probably stop running away from the truth.

The answer was always clear, I’m just too much of a coward to acknowledge it.

Whatever happens in the past, at present, or in the future will always have D’s shadow in it as long as it's evil or chaotic in some way, that’s just how it is.

Luckily, I can easily write a near perfect manual about interacting with her due to my long years of experience.

She doesn't like it when we administrators, or we strong ones more specifically, interfere with her fantasy life simulation game because it makes everything boring.

So, the only way I can interfere would be indirectly through creatures under the system, like dragons for example.

Frankly, this is the only reason I paid them any attention at first although my mentality eventually changed, as I now consider them my subordinates and kin.

Letting Iena and the other ancient dragons search for and encircle the anomaly shouldn’t cause any backlash from D, at least I hope so.

And even if that would be treading on a thin line, I will definitely attempt to teleport there and erase it myself as soon as they find it.

I am quite certain this will result in her smartphone popping up from thin air and warning me to not intervene though, but I must try my best nonetheless.

This world can’t hold on for much longer, and I would rather nothing accelerates its already imminent doom.