What's Wrong with My Personality?
Think that Legion Commander we saw before is about to show up already?
Her dragon disciples were searching like crazy at first, but now it looks like they all gave up and moved on to other stuff.
Abandoning Lea-chan?
After finishing training with Adela and Haring, I headed straight for the villa on the outskirts of the royal capital.
Bahamart's villa.
Calling it a villa was generous—it was practically another castle. The royal palace was already enormous, but the villa was no less massive. Far too sprawling for a place meant for a quiet retirement.
"Fancy."
I started wandering around the villa, and maids approached asking what I was looking for.
"Bahamart. Where is he?"
"His Majesty is resting."
"Yeah. Okay."
He'd been resting so much that I hadn't seen him since the first day I arrived at the capital. I'd been exhausted myself back then, so after getting permission I just collapsed in my room and slept. And just like that, four months had passed, bringing us to the present.
"I've got something I'm curious about. Wanted to ask Bahamart."
"He's resting…"
"I know."
"...I'll show you the way."
Have to say everything twice before they get it.
I followed the maid's lead to Bahamart's room. Unlike the lavish exterior, the interior was surprisingly plain. Bahamart wasn't the extravagant type, but even accounting for that, it was pretty ordinary.
Bahamart sat in a chair before a round table, drinking tea.
"You've come?"
"Yeah. I'm here."
Thud.
I plopped down in the chair across from him. He set down his steaming teacup.
"Would you like some as well?"
"That stuff's bitter."
"Bitter things are good for the body, you know. Eating nothing but sweets isn't healthy."
"Gimme chocolate."
"Heh heh."
Bahamart smiled kindly and rang a golden bell beside the round table. Before long, maids entered the room and hot chocolate was served, steaming hot. The heat radiating from it was intense at a glance—hot enough to give anyone else at least a third-degree burn, but for me it was just right.
Slurp.
Mm.
"They make it good here."
"Make yourself comfortable. Have as much as you'd like."
"You didn't even make it and you're taking credit."
"I paid for it with my money, so I think I'm entitled to a little credit."
"Hmm..."
Fair enough?
I downed about half the hot chocolate and looked at Bahamart. White hair, white beard, still massive in build, but his back seemed a bit more stooped than in his younger days. I'd seen him four months ago, but he still felt somewhat distant from the Bahamart I knew.
"You've turned into a proper old man."
"I'm merely following the flow of time. Humans all return to dust eventually."
"Even your way of talking's gotten old."
"Heh heh… You're the same as ever, then and now."
"Obviously."
I'd lived three hundred years, but for a dragon with a lifespan of thousands of years or more, that was nothing more than childhood. Not nearly enough time for speech patterns or ways of thinking to change. I nodded along with a hum and finished off the rest of the hot chocolate.
"I heard from the old hag that dragons can live over ten thousand years if they play their cards right."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. Though there's no dragon in this world who's actually lived past ten thousand."
The more I thought about it, the more staggering the number was.
Ten thousand years?
Three hundred years was already boring me to death—how do you live ten thousand? By that point, you wouldn't be sleeping for three or five years at a stretch, but more like five hundred or a thousand, right?
Of course, the root cause of this boredom was largely the influence of my past life. Unlike my previous life, which I'd lived pretty intensely, this life had given me something close to eternity. My past life had grown hazy, but I hadn't forgotten it completely. Looking at the heroes somehow brought back memories of it often enough.
Clink.
"Would you like more?"
"Yeah. More. And also."
"Hm?"
"I heard none of the current generation of heroes are from this world. Is that true?"
"That's correct."
Bahamart rang the golden bell again as he answered matter-of-factly. Before long the maids returned, this time with a tray holding ten cups of hot chocolate.
They brought a lot.
Sluuurp.
Temperature's perfect too.
"Why?"
"Heh heh… Only the Goddess would know that for certain. Though I do have my suspicions."
"Oh. What is it?"
Clack.
Bahamart set down his teacup.
"The heroes of this generation are all immortals. Even if they die, they don't stay dead—they simply revive, good as new."
"Yeah. Annoying little things."
"I believe this is why the Goddess chose heroes from another world."
"?"
"They don't die even when killed. Doesn't that mean there's no sacrifice?"
"...?"
Heroes were originally beings chosen by the Goddess, granted power, and using that power to defeat the Demon King's army. To defeat the Demon King's army, heroes inevitably had to grow stronger. Lesser monsters and demonkin might be manageable with modest power, but facing Legion Commanders or the Demon King would require far greater strength.
"If a hero the Goddess carefully nurtured were to die in vain, it would be truly tragic. But if they're immortal?"
"No losses."
"Heh heh heh… 'Losses' is a bit of a harsh way to put it, but you're not entirely wrong. Indeed. Neither the Goddess nor this world suffers any loss. They simply revive, after all."
Heroes revive even if they die. So it doesn't matter how many times they die. A hero the Goddess carefully raised and invested in can keep operating without being wiped out of existence.
I crossed my arms and nodded.
"So instead of disposable characters, she pulled permanently reusable ones. Because that's way cheaper."
"...?"
"The performance is a bit lower, but that just takes one good gacha pull."
They don't even feel pain, so there's no better match for fighting the Demon King's army. In reality, most heroes are C or D rank, but A-rank heroes like Nya-nya and Haring exist too. If the gacha keeps going, an S-rank hero might show up eventually. Of course, even an S-rank would be below average compared to the previous generation…
"Because they're immortal."
No matter how weak, heroes who refuse to stay dead would clearly pose a massive threat to the Demon King's army.
"That old hag really does love her gacha."
"Heh heh… The Goddess loves this world as if it were her own child. This was the path that didn't require sacrificing her children."
"Nah. She just got a chance to pull a ton and went wild with it."
Even after the Demon King was defeated and all the Legion Commanders went into hiding, the Goddess had kept summoning heroes for no good reason.
But an opportunity to endlessly pull heroes from another world?
And at a lower cost than the ones she used before? Given the Goddess's personality, there was no way she'd hold back. She'd have done a hundred-pull, a thousand-pull, and then some. The result was these thousands of fearless heroes.
"Got it, more or less."
I finished off the remaining hot chocolate and stood up.
"Ah, before."
"?"
"In that letter before, you said you had something to tell me and to come over."
When she'd sent Adela on an errand with a letter for me.
I have something to say. Something too long to fit in a letter.
I'd like you to come here at least once.
Back then, Bahamart had clearly asked me to come to his villa. I hadn't particularly planned on going, but I'd ended up here somehow while dodging the heroes—and yet he hadn't said a word. Though four months ago I'd just gone straight to sleep without listening to anything.
Clink.
Bahamart lifted his teacup once more. In the time I'd drained eleven cups of hot chocolate, Bahamart hadn't finished even a single one. Where had the guy who used to guzzle whole barrels of orc-cask liquor gone?
"...You've always been rather peculiar."
"?"
"Your way of speaking… and your personality. Hard to believe you're a dragon in its youth."
"What's wrong with my personality?"
"At first I thought it was simply a trait of the dragon race. But only after meeting other dragons did I realize. You're different."
"I'm better than those guys, yeah."
"Heh heh heh… To be more precise…"
Clink.
"You and the heroes are similar. Specifically, the heroes of the current generation."
"...?"
What?
"Go on. You'd do better talking with that disciple of yours than with me."