Chapter 160 (1/2)
<< Why is that bastard here….? >>
Grit-
Su-hyeun could no longer maintain his usual calm demeanor. The appearance of Fafnir did that to him—the monster that ruined his world. A massive mountain that he had to cross no matter what.
His goal.
Su-hyeun clenched his fists so hard that his nails dug into his skin. The pain from his hands helped him to quickly collect himself. There was no need to get agitated here. This was just an illusion, after all.
<< No, even if this wasn’t an illusion, I mustn’t get so agitated. >>
Thanks to this event, he now knew how he’d react to meeting Fafnir again in the future.
Agitation was pretty much poison in a fight. A suitable level of tension was always good, but agitation wasn’t. Indeed, this was actually a good thing, as today’s events would serve as a sort of immunization that should help him rein in his emotions when confronting Fafnir again in the future.
-You calmed your emotions quite quickly.
The blue dragon’s voice entered his mind. It was at that moment that Su-hyeun grew conscious of the scene being just an illusion once more.
“Yes. I’m like that sometimes.”
-Controlling your emotions is a tough job, especially for humans. Besides all that, why do you know that creature?
Su-hyeun hesitated slightly at the blue dragon’s question before making his reply. “That monster destroyed my world.”
-Your world….?
The blue dragon didn’t ask any further, as if it understood him. Dragons blessed with dozens, hundreds of times longer lifespans than humans possessed an instinctive ability to see through lies. It had already confirmed that Su-hyeun wasn’t lying just then.
<< The dragon that will fight Fafnir is…. >>
Su-hyeun’s gaze drifted upwards towards the sky.
<< As I thought, the red dragon. >>
Riiiip-
As if announce their intentions to save the entire world, the red dragons tore apart the black clouds blocking the sun and made a grand entrance.
Fafnir’s gaze shifted to the five red dragons.
The purple-colored giant with the head of a dragon—Fafnir was far, far smaller compared to the red dragons. But Su-hyeun didn’t think for a moment that the damn monster would lose this fight.
<< They’re about to fight. >>
Just as the red dragons cast aside the dark clouds and pounced on Fafnir…
Shu-wuwuwu-
The blue fog enveloping Su-hyeun dissipated, and the illusion came undone.
“Ah….”
-You sound disappointed.
Su-hyeun nodded as the wide-open skies and the lush fields spread out before his eyes again. He honestly wanted to see how the red dragons fought, and also thought that this might be a good opportunity to learn more about Fafnir’s abilities as well.
-Apologies, but this is as far as I can show you. I was merely replaying the memories of my brother, after all.
“Does that mean….”
-The memories end there. My brother perished during the war.
Dragons enjoyed a lifespan dozens, hundreds of times longer than humans. Even if time wasn’t the only measure of a relationship, it was rather obvious that the grief you felt would be indescribable after losing someone you spent a long time with.
But the blue dragon sounded as if the grief at losing one’s family was nothing to fret over, even going as far as to show off his private memories, too.
<< Maybe doing it was really necessary? >>
Su-hyeun got to learn about the war of the dragons thanks to it. And crucially, he also learned that Fafnir and the monsters responsible for destroying his previous world were intimately involved in the war, too.
<< It wasn’t just my world, then. >>
Su-hyeun looked at the blue dragon with a slightly changed look in his eyes.
<< If that’s the case, then the worlds found inside the trials are also…. >>
Were those creatures just ‘programs’ created by the system, or were they real, living existences?
The question that had circled around his brain for the longest time without an answer reared its head again. Even now, Su-hyeun still didn’t have an answer for it.
<< Let’s not overthink this. >>
Su-hyeun shook his head.
<< This world is this world. I just have to do what I need to do. >>
He had already learned a long time ago that nothing good would come from getting too involved in the world found within each trial. It was fine to interfere to the limits of one’s allowance, but going beyond that would only make him feel fatigued unnecessarily.
The important thing right now wasn’t finding out the connection between this world and Fafnir. There was no way for him to find out no matter how hard he racked his brain, anyway.
Which meant that the important thing was passing the trial.
“Then, did all the red dragons die during this war?”
-That’s right.
“How much do you know about the creature that killed the red dragons?”
-It’s an existence that invaded this world at the command of a truly incredible number of demonic beasts. Itself a bizarre demonic beast that features the head of our kind but the body of a man, with the blood of a giant race mixed in, to boot.
“Giant race…?”
-I also don’t know the full details. What I do know is that our world greatly suffered at the hands of that bastard, and, in the end, had to endure a truly long age of darkness.
A ‘truly long age of darkness’. The moment he heard that, Su-hyeun realized something he had overlooked until now. For a world that had been devastated by Fafnir and other monsters, this place looked remarkably peaceful at the moment.
“Could it be that… you managed to repel them?”
-Should we say that indeed, we managed to do that?
The blue dragon’s voice became darker at the thought.
-Our world was destroyed. But we weren’t annihilated.
“What do you mean by that?”
-Back then, I was in my hibernation period. It’s the same for all of us who survived the war. Those creatures couldn’t find us hidden during our hibernation and ended up going back.
“In that case…”
-After we woke up, we began repairing the world. We breathed new life into the dead lands, and tried to return the color to the skies.
“Is the war over, then?”
-No.
The blue dragon spoke in a resolute tone of voice.
-It’s still ongoing.
“It’s still being fought?”
-The existence that commanded the demonic beasts left. But countless demonic beasts still remain in our world. We pooled our strength together to drive them away and won back a small piece of our lands.