Chapter 123
Chapter 123
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 123
Chapter Title: Dragon God (3)
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It was around the time they had first met the merfolk.
Upon hearing that the previous Dragon God had suddenly vanished, Seoran and Damcheong had shared the same thought.
That the Dragon God had ascended to the heavens, leaving the merfolk behind.
Of course, there were still some puzzling aspects.
What was the reason for leaving behind the incense burner pedestal?
Was there really any need to disappear without a word?
Had he perhaps fought with the Poison-Eyed Dragon?
From the start, would the Poison-Eyed Dragon have attacked one of his own kind, another dragon?
Had the previous Dragon God’s ascension succeeded?
If it had failed, what of the previous Dragon God’s life or death?
Was the Poison-Eyed Dragon strong enough to overwhelm a fellow dragon?
Or had he allowed the wounded previous Dragon God to flee?
If the previous Dragon God was still alive, why hadn’t he returned?
After Damcheong completed the Wish-Fulfilling Pearl through enlightenment, it seemed many of those questions had been resolved.
Driven by blind impulse, the previous Dragon God had forgotten everything and headed to the center of the world.
Leaving behind the Dragon Palace, the merfolk cult, and the pedestal.
Whether a battle with the Poison-Eyed Dragon had occurred was unknown, but the reason for not returning to the cult seemed clear enough.
This was the explanation for the previous Dragon God’s disappearance that Seoran and Damcheong had diligently pieced together.
But even after completing the Wish-Fulfilling Pearl, the previous Dragon God had not been consumed by the desire to ascend.
Seoran and Damcheong’s deductions had been wrong from the premise.
The duo of master detectives gladly challenged themselves again for the sake of honor.
*****
In front of the massive door, Seoran asked.
“Is this the previous Dragon God’s collection warehouse?”
Damcheong nodded.
“Yes, to be precise, it’s a room where he stored not just his collections but all sorts of things.”
“For example, what kinds of items were there?”
“Books and clothes, of course, along with antiques, fragments of broken pedestals, furniture—even his own portrait.”
Seoran looked puzzled.
“His own portrait?”
“It was hanging in the most visible spot in the room.”
“Was he the type with a strong sense of self-love?”
Damcheong answered without much thought.
“Who knows? That’s what we’re here to find out.”
With that, he stepped forward.
As Damcheong moved, the giant door opened on its own.
It seemed to be an automatic door just for dragons.
Seoran hurried in after him.
Despite long neglect, the interior was pristine.
There must have been some array or spell in place for preservation.
The merfolk wouldn’t have come in to clean.
Seoran spotted the previous Dragon God’s portrait.
She hadn’t been looking for it specifically.
It was impossible to miss, being the size of a gate.
Inside the painting was a beautiful woman of the dragon race.
With the deer-like horns unique to dragons, turquoise eyes, dazzling beauty, and a benevolent smile.
Seoran admired the portrait with reverence.
Damcheong tugged at Seoran’s sleeve and said.
“Don’t get distracted—let’s hurry. We need to uncover why the Dragon God vanished.”
“Oh, right!”
The two navigated the maze of haphazardly piled clutter and arrived in a space lined with bookshelves.
Countless tomes filled the shelves.
It was practically a private library.
Damcheong, weaving between the shelves, asked.
“What’s over there?”
Seoran replied.
“There’s a book on how to make delicious braised pork. Seems like the cookbook section. What about yours?”
“All celestial observation records, one after another.”
“Let’s keep looking without giving up.”
What Seoran and Damcheong were seeking was the previous Dragon God’s diary.
According to testimonies from the merfolk cult members, the previous Dragon God was a compulsive record-keeper, always with a notebook in hand.
They said he even held a brush in his left hand during meals, so it seemed unlikely he hadn’t kept a diary.
After rummaging through the shelves for a while, Seoran and Damcheong finally found the previous Dragon God’s diaries.
But the volume was beyond imagination.
Mountains of diary volumes greeted them.
Selecting the relevant parts was extremely difficult.
They had been stuffed randomly onto the shelves without any classification system.
A sigh escaped the two detectives’ lips.
Seoran and Damcheong randomly picked volumes and read.
They skimmed quickly, checking only for mentions of the merfolk.
They separated out the diaries with such mentions.
Feeling frustrated, Seoran said.
“He really wrote down every trivial detail...”
“You can sense a faint madness...”
“Now that you say it, it’s starting to creep me out...”
At that moment, a clear bell rang from far away.
It was the doorbell.
A merfolk cult member must have come.
Seoran stood up.
“I’ll step out for a bit.”
“Yes, I’d appreciate it if you could return as soon as possible.”
“Don’t worry, it won’t take long.”
A short while later, Seoran returned and said.
“Damcheong, the door won’t open.”
“Ah, I didn’t think of that.”
Damcheong escorted Seoran back to the automatic door.
After that, Seoran did not return.
It wasn’t abandonment without loyalty to her friend.
It was due to preparations for the Dragon God Festival.
She stamped approvals on reports with resounding thuds!
Seoran moved at sewing-machine speed.
But there were too many documents awaiting approval.
That was why Damcheong was left alone in diary hell.
Time passed quickly.
Damcheong, struggling amid the piles of books, shouted.
“Finally!”
The dreadfully tedious sorting was complete.
Damcheong glanced toward the wall beyond.
Seoran was flailing, buried in approval documents.
She wouldn’t be back anytime soon.
Damcheong hummed a tune as he opened the first volume.
He was too curious to wait any longer.
He decided to read ahead on his own.
The diary began with the daily routine of a nameless dragon.
The dragon spent most of the day in cultivation.
In the remaining time, he slept or gazed at the sky.
It was a repetition of days over long ages.
Efforts to complete the Wish-Fulfilling Pearl and longing for ascension.
The dragon had lived yearning for a homeland he had never seen.
It bore a striking resemblance to Damcheong’s own past.
Then one day, change arrived.
A group of lowly creatures appeared near the dragon’s cave.
From the description in the diary, they were clearly merfolk.
The merfolk fled into the cave to escape yokai.
And they met the nameless dragon.
Terrified merfolk, pursuing yokai horde, enemies annihilated by the dragon’s spells, tearful gratitude, earnest pleas and acceptance, the birth of a new god.
All utterly predictable tales.
The reason the nameless dragon became the merfolk’s god was unknown.
It wasn’t directly mentioned in the diary.
But subtle emotions seeped through the lines.
Faint pity toward a race little more than vermin.
Unease at blind worship.
Regret for inviting needless trouble.
The previous Dragon God was undoubtedly a kind and compassionate deity.
But that was all.
He didn’t seem particularly fond of the merfolk.
Of course, this was merely Damcheong’s speculation.
The diary’s surface content was exceedingly dry.
Most of it consisted of traces of deliberations on governance and efforts to understand the merfolk’s mindset.
It revealed the previous Dragon God’s sense of responsibility.
A chaotic founding era followed for a while.
Merfolk incessantly offering tributes under the guise of worship, great yokai charging fearlessly, the ever-headache-plagued previous Dragon God.
The previous Dragon God and the merfolk cult gradually changed.
The barbaric merfolk soon built a civilization.
Influence is, after all, a mutual exchange.
Changes arose in the previous Dragon God’s own heart as well.
Gazing into a mirror while adorning himself, the previous Dragon God suddenly realized.
‘Since when have I worn such a gentle expression?’
The previous Dragon God retrieved his portrait from the warehouse.
It was a crude tribute offered by the merfolk long ago.
The Dragon God in the painting was expressionless.
What he thought at the time wasn’t written.
Only the previous Dragon God himself would know.
Through the diary, one could glimpse only actions.
The Dragon God commanded the merfolk.
Discard the old portrait.
And paint a new one.
The smiling portrait was hung in the most visible spot.
Damcheong looked up at the portrait.
Then turned his gaze to the sorted pile of diaries.
Among the vast diaries chronicling the previous Dragon God’s life, those written after meeting the merfolk were but a handful.
Damcheong buried his head back in the diary.
Another predictable tale continued.
The previous Dragon God’s Wish-Fulfilling Pearl, merfolk building the altar, witnessing the heavenly realm after the ritual, the urge to ascend, cheers, the anchor dragging the dragon back to earth.
A single line concluded the long diary.
‘Is a dragon truly a complete being on its own?’
The pages after that question were all blank.
Damcheong remained still for a long time.
He simply stared blankly at the empty pages.
The diary’s final line lingered in his mind.
He rummaged in his sleeve and pulled out a small hand mirror.
His face appeared.
Of course, his Damcheong-colored dragon eyes were visible too.
A lighthouse can never illuminate itself.
The same went for dragons.
They had the authority to discern truth from falsehood, but could not peer into their own inner selves.
But not now.
Damcheong gazed endlessly at his reflection.
He knew without borrowing the power of his dragon eyes.
It felt like a period had been put to a long-standing question.
*****
The Dragon God Festival was held.
Once again, the merfolk asked.
What should we pursue?
Seoran answered thus.
“Art seems good. Oh, and love, of course.”
Unlike the silence twenty years prior, Damcheong also replied.
“I hope we cherish and rely on each other more.”
It was a message to himself as well.