Chapter 410: The Unknown Past History of Dragon City

“There’s no saving you. Remember to buy a proper burial plot so you can rest well after dying…”

In China, if a doctor tells you something like that, it doesn’t mean there’s no saving you. Instead, he actually means…

“If you want to live, you need to pay up.”

If you truly couldn’t be saved, the doctor wouldn’t even tell you about it. The doctor would either tell your family or try his best to not take responsibility. [1]¹

In negotiation, such tactics would also be commonplace.

First, make the problem sound as serious as possible. Make things sound bad; really bad. If the other person got scared, all sorts of scamming conditions would become easily achievable.

In the past, I’d often used such scare tactics in negotiations. But this time, although I was still using a scare tactic, I wasn’t lying.

“…It’s impossible to stop this dimension from collapsing. Since the Titans have already awakened, it’ll be nigh impossible to make them go back into hibernation. Even their incarnations are freely acting outside.”

Indeed, if someone woke up after a long sleep and was well prepared to get out of bed, how would you make that person go back to sleep?

It was unknown who created the original Seal of the Four Elements on the Titans. However, only a God on the level of the Chaos or Order Goddess could create an entire dimension to seal away a species. Once such a perfect seal started breaking down, fixing it would be incredibly difficult.

“This ancient seal is like an exquisitely created lock, made by a master craftsman. Now, a part of the lock is broken, and someone like myself who doesn’t have such a high level of craftsmanship wants to fix it. To do so, I need to first understand how this lock was created. It would be best if I have the blueprint. Then I’d know how to take off and repair the lock. Of course, the easiest method will be to add another lock on top of this lock.”

Based on this way of thinking, repairing this type of lock required unsealing it first. However, that would mean the entire Dragon World would be destroyed. As for the so-called “easiest method,” simply adding a new seal on top of the old seal was meaningless. Since the Titans were capable of breaking through the old seal, they’d be able to break through the new one just as easily.

That was why the dragons couldn’t come up with a method even though the they’d tried their best to come up with an idea and flipped through all their old records. Although they requested the human mages for assistance, they didn’t have much hope the humans could help them.

But in this situation I directly told them that I couldn’t do it. This was basically saying “Although you invited me to help you, you still can’t be saved.”

Halos choked when he saw that the person he invited was smiling proudly while saying such a thing as if it was only natural. It took him a long while before he managed to speak another sentence.

“You’re… quite honest.”

“Of course. Honesty is a virtue. Casually telling lies that will eventually be seen through, without regarding morality, is utter foolishness.”

In some circumstances, lies would indeed help one obtain great benefits. However, based on my experience with Little Red, lying to a dragon, especially an older, veteran dragon, would be the most foolish thing possible. Dragons loved to cast lie detection spells and other such prophecy magics on themselves. Not only that, these big lizards relied on their astonishing, highly reliable instincts that could determine if someone was lying or had good intentions towards them.

But if there truly was no method to save Dragon World, I wouldn’t have come here in the first place.

I waved my wine glass in front of me. Everything appeared dreamlike through the blood-red wine.

“…Although they’ll definitely awaken, and this dimension will definitely begin collapsing, there are still other methods. We can delay the time that the Titans awaken. There’s even a method to prevent the collapse of this world. Of course, how far we can prevent things depends on how much you’re willing to pay…”

After I finished my negotiations with Halos—or perhaps I should call it scamming—the welcome party reached its end. It was now deep into the night with many stars twinkling in the sky.

I didn’t accept their invitation to stay the night in Dragon City. Instead, I chose to rest in the Borealis, which was parked outside the city. Tomorrow morning, when it was light outside, I would continue the formal negotiations.

It was always best to remain vigilant, especially if you were wearing all sorts of valuables and sleeping in a city filled with professional thieves.

“…Professional thieves? If Little Red learns how you’re deprecating the dragons, won’t she be quite angry?”

“Not at all. If she knew about this, she’d be really proud and give me a big thumbs up. After all, she’s the dragon who wrote the ‘Book of excuses you can use for stealing from others.’ In her mind, stealing is an artform, and she’s a grandmaster of this artform.”

I walked around Dragon City’s streets and enjoyed the view of the valuable jade buildings while talking bad about the dragons.

“…You don’t say. They were like that back in the day as well. They basically viewed robbery as a normal way of living. Forget about the Color Dragons being like this, even the Metal Dragons would often commit such actions but under the guise of ‘fighting against evil.’ All those they claimed to be ‘villains’ would find their treasures vanishing.”

“Ha! It’s because dragons were the strongest species in the mortal plane for a really long time. Nobody could do anything about them even if they committed bad deeds. Since there was nothing to control their power, they let the power go to their heads. They’re like naughty children that have acted as they pleased for too long. They think it’s only normal to view others’ belongings as their property.”

As Harloys and I walked on the streets, this attracted a great deal of attention from spectators. Even more dragons started “following” us, but as we kept walking, these “followers” disappeared.

The earlier incident caused the dragons to view us as walking time bombs. In order to not have us cause any more incidents, other dragons followed us secretly from a distance and chased off other dragons that had nefarious intentions in mind for us.

Although I knew that dragons were clearly following us, Harloys and I had no reservations about talking bad about dragons. In fact, we even intentionally spoke louder than normal.

“Shall we return to the Borealis now?”

“Of course not. It’s so rare that we have a chance to visit. I want to tour Dragon City’s nightlife.”

“With all those lizard tails following you? You really like being a circus parade leader?”

“Of course not? That’s why we should change our clothes now.”

We casually found a random corner and swung in there. A series of “traffic accidents” then suddenly appeared behind us. When we appeared again, Harloys and I now looked completely different.

I was now covered in red full-body armor and carried a huge heavy sword. I also emanated a powerful Dragon Bloodline’s aura, something quite common in Dragon City.

Due to certain reasons, it was common that Dragon Bloodline warriors wouldn’t show their faces. Fine, the real reason was that although Dragon Bloodlines typically brought great power, only the lucky were able to maintain a handsome or beautiful physical appearance. Pureblood dragons were just like humans in that they loved to judge others by physical appearance. Dragon Bloodline warriors obviously wouldn’t enjoy being treated like mongrels.

As for typical detection magics that dragons were skilled at? I was immune to all of those to begin with.

I walked right past the panicking followers that ran here to search for me. After walking past, my heavy sword transformed back into a black cat that perched on my shoulder. She lazily rolled around and scratched at her whiskers. It seemed that this was the form she was most comfortable in.

“Where are we going? Shall we rob a dragon’s treasury? Or go steal some dragon eggs?”

“…I’m not a dragon myself; I don’t have such hobbies. Besides, if we do something like that here at this time, wouldn’t that make it too obvious that we’re the culprits? Let’s go check out what the dragons are hiding.”

“Hiding?”

“Yeah, haven’t you noticed that this city is too calm and quiet?”

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“You’re talking about… giants?”

I nodded in agreement. Back when Halent showed us the memory crystal, the dragons here were fighting against the local giant species. I refused to believe that the dragons would be able to defeat the giants so easily. And even if the dragons won, they would definitely take severe losses. I wanted to better understand the true power of the local giant species. It would be even better if I could obtain a combat report.

“Why aren’t you asking the dragons to show you? No matter what, aren’t we supposed to be allies?”

“…Would you show an ‘ally’ your own weakness?”

“…You have a point.”

Unfortunately, although we did our best to search, looking for dragon medication stocks or food and water supplies, we were unable to find any traces of injured dragons.

“Even a powerful species like the dragons will need great quantities of food, water and medication to recover if they’re injured. It would seem that they’re probably not here at all.”

“…Then where could they be? On the frontlines of battle? Perhaps there’s another Dragon City somewhere. Hey, why are you seriously considering it? I was just joking around.”

“No, I think it’s possible. I don’t believe the dragons would so easily reveal their true core home city.”

Us two ambassadors chatted as we walked around. We also peeked around at streetside shops, trying to find some valuables… What? You’re saying we’re not doing our proper jobs? We’re definitely doing our jobs! Aren’t all diplomats secretly spies as well? Just take a look at how hard we’re working at obtaining information on the locals here!

“…I can tell that you’re thinking something disrespectful. Normal diplomats aren’t all spies. They’re the critical gears that help two countries get along with each other. Their job is quite hard.”

“…Yep, yep, they’re the critical gears that try their best to find the other country’s secrets, incite the other country’s citizens and finally give as much support as possible to the opposition party in the other country. They’re really such hard-working gears.”

Although I didn’t obtain any major harvests, just chatting and having fun helped greatly improve my mood.

“Let’s talk about something practical. If the situation allowed for it, I really do want to make trades with the dragons. Every single dragon has their own treasury, after all. So many accumulated resources can add up to be quite significant.”

“…How would you trade with them? Dragons don’t lack anything.”

“Hmph! They lack plenty of things. Haven’t you noticed how simple life is here in Dragon City? They don’t even have the gambling dens, prostitution brothels and alcohol bars that normal cities do. And even if they don’t lack anything, can’t we simply make them start having consumption habits? Eating, drinking, having fun—everything costs money these days.”

“You’re saying?”

“For example, don’t be fooled by how Little Red doesn’t seem to take care of herself. Actually, she takes super good care of her scales. She’ll make sure to have a volcano hot bath every once in a while, and she applies oil to her claw nails at fixed intervals. It’s even said that dragons will lose combat strength if they don’t take good care of their bodies.

I wasn’t making this up at all. If a human’s fingernails were dry and cracked, that would perhaps only seem slightly ugly. But if a dragon’s claw nails snapped while fighting, their enemy would laugh uproariously. A volcano’s abundant minerals and fire element would also help to harden and energize a Red Dragon’s scales, meaning it was necessary to help improve personal defenses. Of course, the most important part was that a volcano hot bath would give all the scales a shiny sheen. This was perhaps the biggest reason why Red Dragons always fought with Silver Dragons over volcanos—it was said that Silver Dragons were the dragon species that loved beauty the most…

“See how troublesome things are for those dragon mothers? If they use humanoid form, the Baby Dragon will be even larger than she is. So difficult to take care of. We can provide dragon day care services so that mothers can happily do what they want! Yep, we can even sell leashes and collars to them so that they can walk their Baby Dragons.”

“…Why does it sound like you’re opening up a pet shop?”

“Cough, no need to mind the little details like that. Besides, apart from these classical services, we could even do beauty salon services. Just look at how simple their wings’ colors are. They’re all red, blue or just some other single color. We can provide coloring and tattoo services, such as tattooing a tiger or lion or something.”

“…Let’s not mention how awkward it is to tattoo a tiger on a dragon. Have a dragon with one red wing and one white wing? Would that count as a Red or White Dragon?”

“Yeah! Harloys, you’re such a genius. Thanks for reminding me! Excellent idea! We can even provide disguising services to disguise them as other dragons. For instance, if you’re tired of being a Black Dragon, we can give you a golden sheen and some special disguising services on the head and wings to make you appear like a Gold Dragon. That will make robbery much easier to accomplish. Nobody is on guard against a Gold Dragon as they’re always obsessed about justice.”

“…Don’t say any more. I feel that if you really do such a thing, all the dragons will be hunting you down. Especially the Gold Dragons.”

“Right, you…”

Making idle conversation was one of the best ways to relax myself. Honestly speaking, Dragon City was stressful to be in. Seeing so many individuals at Legend, Saint or even higher combat strength would be intimidating, not to mention I had to deal with the full group of dragon leaders at that welcoming party. Those able to obtain the position of dragon leader would be at minimum from the immemorial generation, or even older. They would all be Myth rank at the very weakest. As for their strongest… there were at least five dragons for which I couldn’t even assess their power levels. At a conservative estimate, it was likely that all of them were more powerful than me when I was at my peak.

“Dragons are so favored by the heavens. They have such a great advantage simply by being a Golden Species. As long as they grow up to reach Adult Dragon status, they’ll be Gold in strength at the very weakest. With just some slight training, they’ll be able to easily suppress ordinary Legends. Meanwhile, ordinary humans training for their entire lives will only reach the peak of Silver.”

“…Right, since they’re so powerful, the dragons probably did well in the ‘game’s history,’ didn’t they?”

However, I shook my head at this.

“They had the same outcome as the mages. For the first half of Armageddon, they were garbage teammates lost in their own daydreams. They believed, in their arrogance, that they could once again remain uninvolved. By the time they noticed things weren’t right and finally started participating, the combat situation had already deteriorated.

“Just like the Cloud Tower?”

Only now did I recall that I had never mentioned to Harloys about the absolutely terrible end that the Mage Country met in the game’s history.

“Yep, the end result was the same. Both were far too overconfident in their own abilities, which allowed them to get accustomed to watching the world change around them. Both the mages and the dragons felt that these changes were for the short term, something not important to worry about. By the time that they discovered that they’re actually sunk deep into the swamp, it was impossible for them to escape anymore no matter how hard they fought. Did you notice that whenever I mentioned the Holy War to that leader, Halos, he would always just touch his beard and smile uninterestedly or change the topic? Obviously, the dragons still intend to sit out the Holy War.”

“…What happened to the dragons in the game’s history?”

“Not much—it’s just that others remembered to pay plenty of attention to them since dragons are so famous. The undead transformed them into Bone Dragon squadrons, the Evil Gods slaughtered them, parasitic worms took over their bodies, the giants cooked them alive and so on. Ah, near the end, the scattered dragons were reduced to the point of avoiding even human empires’ airships. Of course, they still joined the humans’ allied armies in the end, but it was already too late. The dragons took serious losses to the point where several of their species went extinct.”

“Oh, are you someone with powers of precognition? The dragons will meet such a pitiful end? Can you tell me more about this?”

To my great astonishment, the “person” who interrupted my soul connection conversation with Harloys was right behind me.

I instantly turned around to find a seemingly young Snow Elf. He wasn’t even as tall as a dwarf, and his apple-like little face was very cute.

“How is this possible? How can someone eavesdrop on a soul connection conversation?”

While I had an expression of astonishment, I immediately whipped out the White Rose which had been in my sleeves. Despite my shocked expression, I was mentally calculating what information was okay to be leaked and if I should kill this individual off despite the fact that we were in Dragon City.

“…Youngsters these days are truly frightening. They always want to kill others so quickly. Relax, young one. I come with friendly intentions. Please put away that rose of yours. I don’t deal well with scary things in my old age.”

The Snow Elf, who looked just like a little boy, spoke as if he was an elder. Obviously, his physical appearance was nowhere near his real age. His silver-white eyes that appeared so pure had seen through everything I had thought.

“I am the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon, whose name has long been forgotten through the tides of history. You can call me Sam. I suppose I count as the great-many-times-removed grandfather of the White Dragon you just killed. By the way, how much money would you charge for a Gold Dragon paint job? Can I owe you the money? I’m really poor.”

Note:

[1] TL/N: Cultural difference thing. Chinese doctors can be… a bit more unscrupulous and money-grubbing. And it’s also considered a custom here to not let terminal patients know the truth and only tell family members instead.