Can't Resist (1)

A full month had slipped by since Grills began his solitary survival in the Forest of the Four Seasons.

While every single step he took sent shockwaves rippling across the Gallery and into the wider world, there was one corner of society thrown into even greater turmoil: the countless academic circles scattered across the continent—the gatherings of scholars who dedicated their lives to unraveling the mysteries of existence.

Humanity had achieved its civilization through an insatiable curiosity for knowledge. Among all known races, humans undeniably possessed the highest appetite for learning.

Humanity was a species whose ceiling pierced the heavens, while its floor plunged straight into the abyss. They had struggled desperately to overcome innate physical frailties, and that struggle had crystallized into an unyielding thirst for knowledge. They questioned the existence of a simple pebble on the road, and by chasing that inquiry, eventually unlocked the geological origins of the continents themselves.

Inevitably, such empirical pursuits brought them into frequent friction with religious dogma. If all living beings were created by the gods, how could they have developed through natural evolution? How could primeval reptiles known as dinosaurs have walked the earth before the Age of Myth? Disputes ought to have erupted constantly, yet surprisingly, academia and the clergy maintained an amicable coexistence.

Even if seasoned with hyperbole, myth was undeniable history. Other worlds might consign their mythologies to poetic fiction or impossible folklore, but not this one. The tyrannical era when dragons ruled supreme over mankind, and the gods who shattered that dominion—such events were immortalized in indisputable archives, and their tangible relics remained scattered across the lands. Consequently, academia and religion enjoyed a mutually beneficial symbiosis.

The unquenchable yearning for raw knowledge had elevated mankind to the pinnacle of worldly power. Yet such intellectual hubris frequently led to catastrophic miscalculations. Being clever was entirely distinct from possessing wisdom, and scholars were prone to committing staggering blunders.

The Forest of the Four Seasons stood as the quintessential testament to this folly. While other dangerous regions offered predictable perils that seasoned explorers could calculate, the Forest defied every law of nature. Packed with primeval anomalies and ancient secrets, its boundless unknown lured scholars into suicidal expeditions. The consequences were invariably grim; not a single soul returned. Even Kadir, the Archmage of Iris, had taken barely a single stride past the perimeter before profound dread forced his immediate retreat.

Now, right before their eyes, a man named Grills was broadcasting live survival logs from the heart of that very domain. The academic community was tearing its hair out in sheer delirium.

The hysteria reached a boiling point when the mythical Sky Whale, long believed to belong purely to the Age of Myth, was confirmed to be alive and swimming through the canopy.

"Can't we reach out to him?!" one elder scholar shouted, slamming his desk. "It's a Sky Whale! A living Sky Whale!"

"And what could we possibly offer him?" a colleague retorted grimly. "All we possess are heads full of bookish theories."

"Could we not assemble our greatest scholars to provide him academic assistance?"

"The Forest of the Four Seasons is the graveyard where all mortal knowledge turns to dust."

A profound paradigm shift had rocked the intellectual establishment. In scientific philosophy, a paradigm represented the governing framework that dictated how reality was interpreted. It decreed that the cosmos operated within structured boundaries—just as demons, despite their bizarre traits, still adhered to humanoid biology. Prior to the Sky Whale's sighting, the academic consensus had been etched in stone:

Scholars had smugly concluded that searching for such creatures in the wild was an exercise in pure idiocy; research should focus solely on the theoretical relics of divine power. Then Grills dropped a post.

Decades of established academic dogma collapsed overnight. The creature required no active divine miracle; it was simply a biological marvel surviving naturally in a secluded ecosystem. If the Sky Whale existed, what other mythical beasts roamed the forgotten lands? The academic world had barely begun processing the shock when Grills harvested legendary ambergris straight from the creature's droppings.

"We must procure that ambergris immediately!"

"How?! Does anyone have a registered fixed nick on the Gallery?!"

"One of our senior researchers created an account, but his message was instantly declined!"

"Damn it all...!"

Every department scrambled frantically, yet none found a way to bridge the divide. Shortly thereafter, the crisis of the levitating Magic Tower exploded in the Iris Kingdom, commanding everyone's frantic attention. Just as the dust was settling and scholars thought they could finally catch their breath...

"Everyone! A dragon! It's a dragon!"

"What did you say?!"

"A dragon practicing polymorph has appeared!"

Grills had hurled yet another catastrophic meteor into academia. The ability of true dragons to alter their biology into humanoid forms had long been dismissed as an allegorical fable. Now, irrefutable evidence proved that the fable was historical truth.

"...Then does this mean the ancient records were entirely accurate?"

"It appears so, sir. Ah, and apparently the dragon incinerated a World Tree sapling with breath weapon. It claimed the World Tree played a massive role in ancient ecology."

"Good grief..."

Elder professors rubbed their temples, feeling as though the scattered puzzle pieces of world history were aggressively snapping together. Yet their headache was a luxury compared to the nightmare unfolding down the hall.

"Say, Henderson. Weren't you finalizing your doctoral thesis on draconic biology?"

"Pardon? Ah... yes, Dean. I am."

"You'll need to rewrite it from scratch. The mythical behavioral theories regarding dragons have been utterly verified."

"What kind of bullsh—I mean, the submission deadline is tomorrow morning! And my theoretical framework took three years to—"

"Rewrite it. Your entire premise has been rendered obsolete wastepaper."

"..."

Graduate students working themselves to the bone watched years of research incinerate in real time. But what could they do? This was not an unverified rumor; it was empirical truth broadcasted directly from the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Forest of the Four Seasons. Weeping tears of blood, hopeful graduates dumped their dissertations into the nearest trash bin.

"Well, at least the departmental factions will shrink now."

"I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry about that..."

In truth, discarded papers were minor collateral damage. The real carnage was ideological. When historical records were murky, academic factions formed around competing interpretations, fighting vicious theological and theoretical wars for centuries. But when incontrovertible proof was slammed onto the table, entire theoretical schools crumbled into dust.

"I refuse to accept this! Our life's work undone by a single forum post?!"

"If you doubt it, would you care to verify it in the Forest of the Four Seasons yourself?"

"T-That is... a bit much..."

Even the most obstinate deniers recoiled at the prospect of stepping into the death world.

"Let go of me! Unless I witness it with my own two eyes, I won't believe a word of it!"

"Professor, please! Where do you think you're going?!"

"Someone grab his legs!"

Whenever an unhinged scholar threw a tantrum and threatened to storm the boundary line, younger staff wrestled them to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the floor. Walking into that wilderness unprepared was suicide.

Every dispatch from Grills fell upon the academic establishment like an orbital bombardment. Yet up to this point, the devastation was confined to scholars of myth and arcane history. Other departments merely observed the chaos with detached amusement.

"Those poor bastards in mythological studies sure are having a rough year."

"Indeed they are, Professor."

Professor Jones, a preeminent authority in the field of paleontology, was the living embodiment of that relaxed detachment. As a scientist specializing in the primeval fauna that dominated the world long before the Age of Myth—namely, dinosaurs—he simply clicked his tongue at the theological scholars losing their minds over every stray discovery.

'Scholars who believe nothing until they dig it up with their own hands will never suffer like that,' Jones mused smugly.

He considered book-bound theorists utterly foolish. Rather than rotting in archives sniffing dried ink, a true academic went into the field! What could compare to the raw thrill of excavating pristine fossils from treacherous canyons? If one approached science with the humble premise that any hypothesis might be overturned tomorrow, life was remarkably peaceful.

'Besides, the Forest of the Four Seasons is an ecological anomaly filled with mutated horrors. It should always be treated as an outlier.'

Professor Jones gently twirled the upturned tip of his impeccably groomed mustache. Approaching his sixties, he possessed the refined, dignified bearing of an aristocratic gentleman. Yet even his vaunted composure was about to be violently shattered.

"P-Professor! D-D-Dinosaurs!"

"Yes, yes. Where was the fossil bed uncovered?" Jones answered casually, barely looking up from his tea.

"No, sir! A dinosaur was discovered in the Forest of the Four Seasons! A living, breathing dinosaur!"

"...What?"

Jones froze, his hand still clamped around his mustache. His jaw slackened. A living dinosaur? Not a petrified bone fragment? It was completely absurd. The mention of the Forest meant Grills had struck again.

Clearing his throat, the professor forced his aristocratic poise back into place. "Ahem. Hem. Well, given the extraordinary nature of the Forest of the Four Seasons, the theoretical possibility was never entirely zero. But why the undignified shrieking? Unlike those poor souls researching mythological folklore, the biological reality of dinosaurs was established centuries ago. Our sole focus will simply be morphology and anatomical variation."

Jones was entirely correct. Dinosaurs were recognized scientific fact, unlike the ethereal Sky Whale. Even if a specimen was found, the primary interest would merely be confirming whether its soft tissue matched their skeletal reconstructions.

"You don't understand, Professor! That madman just listed the dinosaur's carcass on the auction house!"

"..."

Jones stiffened like a marble statue, his face a portrait of sheer disbelief. A beat later, he whipped out his crystal communication slate and scrambled onto the Gallery network. Scholars were avid lurkers too.

'...Good heavens above.'

Jones's mouth opened and closed soundlessly. The only reason he had remained so detached was the absolute certainty that no sane explorer would ever hawk the body of a primeval beast on an open auction board. Despite his aloof exterior, Jones had been monitoring Grills's profile with predatory focus—just like every other leading mind on the continent. Until now, Grills had bartered his rarest treasures directly with high-profile fixed nicks, never dumping them onto the public market. Jones had already resigned himself to tracking down whichever elite user secured the prize to negotiate a joint research venture.

"...Get it."

"Sir?"

"Fetch our department budget immediately! We cannot let this slip through our fingers!"

"B-But Professor, the reports say this specimen possessed natural active camouflage..." his assistant stammered frantically. "That's completely unprecedented! What if it's an entirely divergent species that shares nothing with the ancient fossils we know?!"

The assistant's desperate plea for fiscal restraint was vaporized in an instant.

"Did you live in the primeval era?!" Jones roared, his refined veneer peeling away. "How do you know active camouflage wasn't standard biological equipment for dinosaurs back then?!"

"H-Huh? C-Could it be?"

"Precisely! If you cannot scientifically refute that hypothesis, go bring the vault ledgers this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠instant!"

"Y-Yes, sir!"

The terrified assistant bolted from the office. Left alone, Professor Jones stared transfixed at the auction listing, watching the bid price climb with terrifying velocity.

'I must secure it... No matter the cost, it must be ours...!'

If they could dissect and analyze authentic soft tissue, the prestige of their paleontology institute would eclipse every magical and historical academy on the continent. Money was a trifling concern. Even if it drained their operational reserves down to the last copper, they had to win the bid.

'Wait... What happened to the other specimens? Where are the rest of the remains? No, more importantly...'

Jones swallowed hard as a wild, intoxicating realization ignited his mind.

'Does this mean that forest is teeming with them...? Living, breathing primeval giants?'

The professor's eyes flared with manic brilliance. Beneath his cultured mustache and tailored coats beat the heart of an obsessive field explorer who had braved collapsed caverns and hostile barrens for a single intact tooth. Above all else, he was a scholar cursed with bottomless curiosity.

'...How much did the newly developed deep-wilderness expedition gear cost again?'

A dangerous, reckless urge coiled in the pit of his stomach.

'No. Focus. Win the carcass first.'

He forcefully shoved the suicidal expedition idea to the back of his mind, only to explode the moment his assistant returned clutching an iron ledger.

"Is this all of it?! Where is the rest of the funding?!"

"T-This is our allocated budget for the month, Professor—"

"You utter imbecile! Not this month's budget! Bring me the departmental allocation for the entire year!"

"Y-Yes, sir!!"

While an eccentric paleontology professor was happily incinerating an entire fiscal year of institutional research funding in a frantic bidding war...

"Oho. So this is the heart of a prehistoric dinosaur? Truly magnificent."

Kadir, Master of the Magic Tower, admired a massive, pulsing organ he had casually secured through personal barter.

"What alchemical miracles could I brew from this blood? I hope it proves sufficiently useful to Mr. Grills."

The Starlight Lady gently stored pristine vials of crimson fluid, having traded a crate of precious elixirs for an entire specimen.

From Grills's perspective, both had provided him indispensable aid when he had nothing, making the exchange a matter of basic courtesy.

And finally, the dwarven artisan who had traded for the creature's stealth hide was currently standing in his workshop.

"Hey. Hey, take a look at this."

"What? Where the hell are you talking from?"

"Right in front of your ugly mug, dumbass."

"...I can't see a damn thing?"

He and his dwarven comrade were marveling at the terrifying optical refraction of the raptor's skin.

Meanwhile, the man who had detonated an extinction-level meteor upon the academic world wiped his mouth clean.

"All right. We've eaten, so let's get moving."

[Could we perhaps take a brief respite today?] the faint voice in his pack grumbled.

"Rest? Where's the time for resting? That entire trek barely mapped the immediate neighborhood."

Shouldering his gear, Grills finished preparing to drop his next bomb—no, to embark upon his next wilderness expedition.