< 140. There Are No Bad Dragons in the World (12) >
Returning to Hong Kong after a few days, the city had stabilized quickly. Min-jun stood on the balcony of a luxury mansion located at an altitude of 500 meters, lost in thought.
Wealthy people in Hong Kong prefer to live on the coast or at the foot of the mountains rather than in the crowded city center. Although it takes 20 to 30 minutes by car to reach the central business district, it is not a significant inconvenience for them. This was especially true for the owner of this mansion. If he wanted to move somewhere, he could simply teleport, or, though rarely, spread his wings and fly.
At that moment, Min-jun was overlooking the city from the living room of the great dragon Raymond Wong's residence.
Despite the landmarks of the Guangdong Federation capital being destroyed, a great dragon being found murdered, and the appearance of a tentacled creature with a 6-kilometer radius, the North East Asian financial hub continued to operate actively.
Although a closer look might reveal a different scene, the view from the mountaintop was not significantly different from usual. This was the result of media control and the strong will of the state. Hong Kong had rapidly returned to its original state, even taking on a strange vibrancy as preparations for the upcoming Dragon Lord election, just 95 days away, were underway.
Min-jun looked at the ICC building. Thanks to the intervention of the dragons, the ruins had been neatly cleaned up as if nothing had happened. The body of the great dragon that had lain there a few days ago seemed like a ghostly overlay. He felt a surge of mourning that he had kept at bay.
"······."
He believed that immediate revenge was not his responsibility.
Since he had concluded that the committee was behind the death of the great dragon, it was even less likely that it would be resolved quickly.
He vowed that when his revenge was complete, he would also avenge the lord and drive a blade into their throats.
But if the culprit might not be the committee?
'Maybe I can find a clue when I meet that person today.'
Min-jun and Kentheus were waiting for Raymond Wong. Though they had arrived at the agreed time, they were told that Raymond was busy and had to wait. It was a typical, shameless attitude of a great dragon.
"Hmm?"
At that moment, Min-jun's thoughts were interrupted as he sensed someone approaching.
Had the great dragon finally come to reveal himself?
Knock, knock.
The living room door opened, and someone's face appeared. However, it wasn't the person Min-jun had been expecting.
He spoke.
"···Kentheus?"
It was an elf with a Mohican hairstyle dyed pink.
His face and arms were covered in various tattoos. Perhaps wanting to make full use of his unusually long ears, his ear rims were filled with piercings. His sclerae were dyed black, making it impossible to distinguish between the whites and the pupils of his eyes. If encountered under a streetlight at night, he would surely be a terrifying sight.
The dragon who was called by name recognized the visitor.
"Leo?!"
The visitor was a flamboyant dragon known for frequently performing shows in Hong Kong's night sky.
The son of the great dragon who ruled over Hong Kong.
In his elf polymorphed form, Leo greeted Kentheus warmly, saying they had often interacted since childhood. When Min-jun, who had been on the balcony, came in, Leo gave him a nod as well. This was an unusual reaction for a dragon of his generation. Dragons typically behaved arrogantly or dismissively toward non-dragon species.
"I heard you came as guests of my father."
"Oh, right. He did invite us."
After a brief exchange about recent events, Leo said,
"My father seems to be occupied with something else and will be delayed."
Kentheus shrugged.
"That's fine... There's nothing we can do about it."
Though he tried not to show it, there was a hint of discomfort. Kentheus was suspicious of Raymond being the murderer of the lord. It was understandable that he would be reluctant to converse with the son of a suspect who was also a friend.
Noticing this reaction, Leo said,
"Hey, it won't be long. How about stepping outside for a brief chat?"
"···Hmm?"
Kentheus hesitated but then said to Min-jun,
"I'll be back in a moment."
Leo led Kentheus to a room slightly removed from the living room. Once they were seated, he spoke apologetically.
"It must be overwhelming, so I'm really sorry. I want to offer my condolences again."
He was trying to comfort Kentheus, who had lost his father. However, Kentheus himself didn't feel much grief. He was more concerned with the inheritance that needed to be settled rather than his emotions.
Like most dragons who had shed their hatchling status, Kentheus didn't have particularly strong affection or attachment to his father.
The Dragon Lord had divorced Kentheus's mother when Kentheus was in the fetal stage, more precisely, when his scale color had fully developed. After that, they had exchanged only a few words on formal occasions.
"I'm fine. Anyway, what is it that you wanted to talk about?"
Leo's expression became very troubled. Kentheus, who had been lost in other thoughts, waited with as much patience as he could muster.
After fidgeting with his lips several times, Leo finally spoke.
"Actually, I've been struggling with a significant issue, and I'm not sure if there's a solution. I've been so frustrated that I wanted to confide in someone, and then you happened to arrive... I'm sorry. You must be dealing with your own situation."
Kentheus spoke in a nonchalant tone.
"Everyone knows I had no particular feelings for the lord. Stop beating around the bush. What exactly is the problem?"
If the topic seemed trivial, he was ready to cut the conversation short and leave. This was a crucial time for finding the murderer of the lord and determining whether he could inherit the Dragon Heart. He didn't have time for a childhood friend's trivial confessions.
Leo hesitated but continued.
"Actually, I've felt confused for a long time."
What on earth was he talking about?
Though puzzled, Kentheus decided to listen further.
"I've felt like... my body doesn't belong to me."
"Of course, it's not your body. Just revert from polymorph. That should solve everything."
"No, not this elf body."
Leo lowered his head. As he fell silent, Kentheus felt his patience quickly depleting. Just as he was about to lash out, Leo spoke again. His split tongue was visible between his lips.
A split tongue.
This was not a result of polymorph. It was as if he had transformed into a perfectly normal elf body, then pierced and stretched his tongue until it was split in half. Such damage would be considered a mere scratch for a dragon's body, and although it would be difficult to inflict such harm intentionally, it was possible in another species and felt vividly painful.
'Anyway, it was strange since childhood, but it's becoming even stranger.' To Kentheus, this seemed like nothing more than extreme and deliberate self-harm.
Moving his split tongue, Leo spoke cautiously.
"Since I was young, I've felt like I'm wearing clothes that don't fit. This shell... doesn't suit my soul. It feels like this body isn't mine. I'm not talking about the polymorphed body but the real body."
Only then did Kentheus's expression become serious. He straightened up and sat up straight.
"I've always felt uncomfortable. From the start. This body feels like a prison for my soul. I want to escape. It doesn't seem right. It doesn't feel like I'm living properly."
Kentheus's eyes trembled.
"When did you start feeling this way?"
"A long time ago. Very... very long ago. Until now, I couldn't speak freely. But I can't bear it any longer. I felt I needed to confide in someone."
Leo dropped his head despondently. Kentheus asked in a careful voice.
"Are you talking about an issue of identity?"
Leo couldn't meet his eyes but nodded.
"······."
A silence enveloped the two dragons.
Eventually, Kentheus took on a resolute expression. Breaking the cold silence, he spoke with courage.
"I see... It's a strange thing. Especially in terms of timing."
"What do you mean?"
"Actually, I've had a similar experience recently."
Leo looked at him in disbelief.
"Lies!"
"It was hard to believe. But I realized it later. It wasn't something I figured out myself, but external factors led me to understand..."
Leo began to stammer.
"You too, you too? Really?"
Kentheus replied with a stern face.
"The feeling that my body isn't mine. The sense that something is wrong. I realized this when I was about to move. I realized there was a bigger problem that needed to be solved first."
"······?!"
"Yeah, me too."
Leo shouted as if he couldn't hold it in any longer.
"Good heavens! I thought I was the only dragon like this in the world. Since when did you start feeling this way?"
"Not long ago."
"Did it hit you all of a sudden?"
"Yes, Leo. I realized it just recently. Beneath this outward appearance... my true identity is..."
As Kentius nodded in agreement and tried to continue, Leo shouted:
"You don't think you're really a dragon either, do you?!"
...What?
"...?!"
Kentius froze on the spot.
In the meantime, Leo unleashed a torrent of words.
"Since I was a kid, I always thought it didn't make sense. But every time I brought it up to my father, he'd just curse me out. Everyone says it, right? Dragons are great. Dragons are majestic. Dragons are superior beings. Well, screw that! Every time I look at my body, I feel disgusted. These hideous horns, these scaly patches that stink of fish, these absurdly tough muscles, and this face I can't even bear to look at… something's wrong! I hate dragons! I hate that I'm a dragon!"
Watching Leo rant, Kentius pulled a term from his mental vocabulary.
Species Identity Disorder.
This wasn't like a half-orc wanting plastic surgery to look fully human.
As far as Kentius knew, it was a mental condition where someone born perfectly into one species insisted that their true identity was another species altogether.
For instance, a perfectly normal human claiming they were a troll and going as far as chopping off their own leg to prove it—believing it would grow back like a troll's limb would.
"…"
Kentius let out a sigh.
"Polymorph doesn't solve it. It doesn't fulfill me. I want to abandon this body forever. I don't care what species I become as long as it's not a dragon. I just want to be reborn as something else!"
Kentius asked in disbelief.
"I thought you were... so proud of being a dragon."
Anyone would think so, watching Leo flaunt his body as he soared through Hong Kong's night skies.
Everyone assumed Leo was just an attention-seeking dragon.
"The psychologists said it's a kind of emotional regression. I despise my body so much that I devalue it deliberately. I parade this noble dragon form in public like some cheap commodity. The great dragon species reduced to clowning. It was enough to piss off my father. But it wasn't intentional—it was more of a desperate act."
Kentius swallowed a sigh.
This guy… is a genuine lunatic.
A proper madman... incomprehensible to a rational, level-headed dragon like himself.
"Hey, Kentius, you've felt the same way, haven't you? Isn't there some way? Some method to discard a dragon's body?"
Leo pressed on.
"You said you're like me. Haven't you ever felt that urge?"
"Ah, no... I'm... a bit different."
"Different? How?"
Kentius hesitated, wondering how to respond.
"Ugh!"
Somewhere in Seoul, a prophet woke up drenched in sweat.
The orc by her side asked, "Did you see the same future again?"
Choi Sun-ah nodded slowly. Her adoptive father, Assemblyman Choi Pan-seok, looked at her with deep concern.
For days, every attempt to foresee the future had shown her the same moment in time. It was an unforeseen disruption as she meticulously tuned the simulation under Minjun's guidance.
They were perplexed. This situation presented several major problems. First, they couldn't determine if the visions matched what the individual manipulating Choi Pan-seok wanted her to see. The images of the future were too hazy to be sure.
Second, the time frame was far too near. The vision had fixated on an anchor 95 days into the future since four days ago.
"Ugh..."
Her forehead throbbed with bursts of broken capillaries. Choi Sun-ah, emerging from the residual trance, murmured weakly.
"Something big must have happened four days ago to alter the future. I think I got caught in it... which is why I keep seeing this same future."
"Was it still incomprehensible, like before?"
Choi Sun-ah shook her head.
"It was clearer this time."
The vision, anchored 99 days from four days ago, was gradually sharpening.
"I saw dragons."
The vague shadows she once glimpsed were now unmistakably dragons, clearly etched.
"I saw so many dragons. Countless dragons."
Her voice trembled.
"They were lined up, one after another, heading somewhere. Step by step, in an orderly fashion. They waited for their turn, willingly moving forward. They advanced of their own accord."
At the end of the procession loomed a shadow so vast it could blanket the world.
A writhing, engulfing mass of darkness that seemed poised to swallow everything around it.
"This time, I could tell what it was. That shadow... that entity at the end of the line was the master of dragons. The ruler of dragons."
The prophet trembled as if even recalling it filled her with terror. What she saw didn't end there.
"And then..."
In a voice stained with dread, she continued.
"At the end of the line, the black shadow kept flicking its enormous tongue, lashing out... smashing the brains of the dragons."
"...?!"
The orc was rendered speechless.
"One by one... in turn... over and over... eventually, all the dragons in that line... their brains were... crushed by that black tongue."
"..."
"..."
The orc thought for a while and finally spoke.
"If we were to interpret this vision..."
Prophecies often took symbolic and abstract forms rather than depicting the future literally.
So neither the assemblyman nor the prophet panicked. Their master, who had ordered the prophecy, would need a refined report.
They focused intently.
"Shadows in visions often represent hidden entities, those who work in secrecy, unseen."
"And a 'tongue' symbolizes 'speech.' Crushing the brain could mean clouding reason and corrupting minds, couldn't it?"
The orc and the prophet didn't take the vision at face value.
Instead, they sought to unearth its hidden meaning, clearing away the dust to sculpt a clear interpretation.
"A dragon could literally mean a dragon, or it might represent a dominant, ruling class with immense power."
"Then the primary interpretation would be... some clandestine figure is using words to beguile and dominate those in power. This will happen 95 days from now."
"Yes, but it needs more refinement. Tell me more about what you saw and felt in the vision."
The father-daughter discussion continued late into the night.
<140. There's No Such Thing as a Bad Dragon (12)> End