Chapter 15
Chapter 15
The carriage wheels no longer rolled over earth, but over heavy steel plates, producing a deep, resonant rumble.
As the carriage door opened, a cold and dry high-altitude wind—completely different from the air on the ground—rushed in.
What entered my view as I stepped outside was an artificial landscape: thousands of tons of steel floating in the sky, defying gravity.
"How is it, Igripa? This is Iron Haven."
Canis pointed ahead with a calm smile, but honestly, I felt nothing.
"Not impressed."
"...What? That?"
She looked back and forth between the sky and me, but my opinion didn’t change.
I had thought Iron Haven was some kind of mine I didn’t know about, but in reality, it was nothing special.
I recognized those piles of scrap. More precisely, they had already been here back when they first started floating in the sky.
"What, don’t tell me this was your doing too, Igripa?"
Canis said it jokingly, but her expression soon turned serious.
Her gaze kept shifting between the massive steel fortress above and my skull, as if running countless calculations in her head.
The one who made that thing float was a royal court mage from the Kingdom of Lugniss. It seemed her fame hadn’t spread much among other races.
"A human named Ririel made it float."
"...Not you, Igripa? Another human?"
"Yeah. If I’d done it, it would’ve been more refined. Not something so crude."
Ririel had been the pinnacle of mages I once aspired to reach when I was human. She was a court mage.
Her skills weren’t lacking, so this must’ve been the result of her tendency to settle for “good enough.”
"...Crude, huh. Well, if you say so, Igripa."
Canis’s tail, which had been tense as she racked her brain, drooped lifelessly.
Looking at her, there was clear fatigue in her eyes.
"But Igripa—"
"Yeah?"
"When you meet Asmodeus, please refrain from saying things like ‘crude’."
"Why?"
"...Please. At least until the meeting is over, just listen to us."
At her heavy tone, I nodded. She let out a sigh and staggered forward.
It wasn’t just her. Lups also had lost her usual cheerfulness, staring at me with a blank expression.
"Ugh… seriously, okay?"
...
I had a lot to say, but I held it in. If I said anything more, it felt like not just my face, but my entire skull might get torn off.
So I silently followed behind them.
Asmodeus… what kind of being was he, for Canis and Lups to react like that?
No idea.
‘Hmm… it’s massive.’
I wasn’t talking about the scrap-metal land called Iron Haven.
What greeted us atop the fortress was a gigantic dragon.
Judging by how Canis and Lups dropped to one knee, it must be a very important one.
‘At that size, one of those could produce a year’s worth of fertilizer.’
Unlike the scrawny dragons I’d hunted over the past year, this one had an enormous build—probably larger than most fortresses.
Not just its size, but the immense life force emanating from it made it far more efficient than slaughtering thousands of lesser dragons.
"Asmodeus… I never expected your true body to greet us in person!"
Canis spoke first.
Her uncharacteristic flustered tone suggested she hadn’t expected this.
I instinctively moved to scratch the back of my head, but Lups shot me a glare. It seemed more formality was required here than with Belial.
"…"
The dragon’s massive golden eyes turned toward me.
Its mountain-like head slowly lowered.
The ground trembled.
"...I apologize for making you come such a long way. Welcome to Iron Haven."
Beyond the bowing dragon, numerous other races came into view.
But rather than a welcoming atmosphere, there was clear shock.
"Asmodeus bowed?"
"Just how powerful is the Green Dungeon…?"
Various races looked at each other with pale faces. Some dropped ceremonial staffs, others stumbled over their own tails.
But the most shocked weren’t them.
It was Canis and Lups right beside me.
They glared at me as if asking what on earth I had done.
"Igripa, what did you do this time?!"
"Yeah! You promised you’d behave until the meeting!"
They scolded me in hushed voices, but what had I even done?
As I glared back at the dragon in protest, Asmodeus raised his head again.
"...If I have offended you, I apologize."
Without meeting my gaze, the dragon spoke.
Thankfully, Canis and Lups stopped scolding and swallowed nervously.
"Also, although this meeting is being held in the South, it was arranged by the East and the North."
"I ask that you understand we have no direct involvement."
The murmurs around us grew louder.
The commotion escalated. Canis even started foaming at the mouth, her pupils disappearing. Lups quickly forced a potion into her mouth, stabilizing her, though her face remained pale.
‘What happened?’
The dragon stood stiffly, as if waiting for my reply.
But something about it felt familiar.
The small marking engraved on its face—I had definitely seen it somewhere before.
‘…Isn’t that a hunting mark?’
Back when I was human, dragon fangs were prized as materials for wands in the Kingdom of Lugniss.
That marking on Asmodeus looked similar to the ones mages carved after extracting fangs.
‘No way…’
Come to think of it, I once pulled out a dragon’s fang to make a pickaxe as a birthday gift for my father.
Could that dragon have been the one in front of me?
"…Have we met before?"
"...Yes."
The dragon flinched slightly, and the ground shook again.
All eyes turned toward us.
"When was it, and what did I do?"
"...We met directly 2,000 years ago. At that time, you extracted my fang, and aside from that—"
"That’s enough. It’s all in the past anyway."
It wasn’t like losing a fang would kill it, and I had a feeling nothing good would come from hearing the rest.
So I cut him off.
"...I apologize."
The air suddenly grew heavy.
For a moment, it felt like the entire fortress had frozen.
Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
The races behind Asmodeus stood completely stunned.
"A fang…?"
"He pulled out Asmodeus’s fang…?"
Gasps erupted.
And then my shin throbbed.
Sure enough, Lups was kicking it mercilessly.
"Igripa!!"
Yeah… something definitely went wrong.
My shin hurt, but what surprised me more was realizing that over 2,000 years had passed since I had pulled that fang.
‘That’s… longer than I thought.’
About one year as an undead. I died at seventy as a human.
So nearly 28 times my lifetime had passed.
There had been a gap, sure—but not this much.
‘…’
Not that it mattered.
No matter how much time passed, farming didn’t depend on time.
As we entered the conference hall, the earlier chaos vanished as if it had never happened.
Around a massive round stone table sat representatives from the East and North.
Different races, forms, and sizes.
Yet all of them wore the same expression.
‘Well… makes sense. A skeleton without a face isn’t exactly common.’
Their gazes, close to wary, all focused on me.
Asmodeus moved to the head seat, his massive body exuding authority once more.
"Let us begin."
His deep voice pressed down on the room.
"Today’s agenda concerns the Green Dungeon and its master. The East will speak first."
A short, precise declaration.
After a brief silence, a man wearing a crow-beak mask and a top hat rose from the eastern side.
"I am Harpas, leader of the Eastern Alliance. I will speak first."
He gave a slight bow, but those around him glared at me with hostility.
Come to think of it… aside from dragons, what else had I hunted?
It wasn’t that I couldn’t remember.
There were just too many.
"I wish to question the Green Dungeon’s intrusion into the East."
The word “intrusion” fell heavily.
In response, voices rose around him.
"Do you take the East lightly?!"
"Forget excuses! Pay compensation!"
The noise grew, but Asmodeus quickly suppressed it.
Even without fangs, a dragon was still a dragon.
Silence returned.
"...Apologies for the disturbance. In any case, we would like to hear the Green Dungeon master’s answer."
Harpas shrugged slightly as he continued.
"The ant nest belongs to the Eastern Alliance."
"What were you thinking when you went there?"
His tone was polite but cold.
The ant nest… Canis and Lups had mentioned that before.
I farmed there.
I hadn’t destroyed anything or hunted the Silver Ent.
So why were they upset?
…
"What’s the problem?"
There was no malice in my reply.
They talked about responsibility and compensation, but I needed to know what I had done first.
It was a genuine question.
"You bastard…"
Someone from the eastern side suddenly stood up, shoving their chair back.
"Do you think the East is a joke?"
He wore a black robe, his race unclear in the dim hall.
"I never liked this meeting to begin with."
Mana gathered at his fingertips.
He was probably trying to cast "Spear of Lightning."
"You’ll pay for humiliating us."
He laughed grotesquely as mana surged—but honestly, it was painful to watch.
‘Hmm… needs at least five more amplifications.’
The flow of mana in his hands was sloppy, the circuits unrefined.
For someone so bold, his skill was lacking.