Chapter 242: The Landlord is Back (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 242: The Landlord is Back (2)
“Y-you can be honest with me. I don’t mind, really.”
“Really?”
“D-did you really do it?!”
“Do what? We didn’t do anything.”
It seemed the RoFan heroine had developed a bit of a dirty mind.
To think she’d blush and ask so bluntly if we ‘did it.’
According to Boradori, the original Daisy was supposed to be an innocent character who knew nothing of the world.
Apparently, she had ‘awakened’ a bit too much, to the point where she was now opening her eyes to sexual matters as well.
“Actually...”
Well, it wasn’t exactly a secret, so I told her the truth about what happened downstairs.
The Imperial Princess and the Princess of Dale had witnessed it anyway, so everyone who needed to know would find out soon enough.
“Ah.”
Daisy’s eyes widened in admiration at my explanation.
“So, the dragon who was the original owner of this place returned, found intruders, and set up a barrier? But that dragon turned out to be a mature individual who’s easy to talk to, so you settled things through conversation... is that what you’re saying?”
“Exactly.”
“Hmm. I see.”
Ahem. Hmmm.
Daisy nodded for a long while before pouting her lips.
“And you expect me to believe that?”
“...?”
“I mean, really! A dragon, out of nowhere?!”
I looked at Daisy, speechless. She was actually telling me to come up with a more plausible lie.
“What’s wrong with it being a dragon?”
“It’s a dragon! A creature of myth! Why would something like that suddenly pop up at the Academy?!”
“The Demon Tribe were considered mythical beings too, weren’t they?”
“...Huh?”
“And before you came to the Academy, dark mages were in a similar category.”
“...Oh?”
“At this point, a dragon showing up isn’t that far-fetched.”
“B-but it’s a dragon!”
“We literally have a Dragonkin attending the Academy, and they’re even rarer than dragons.”
“...!”
While it was true that dragons were rare, throughout history, the Dragonkin were technically even harder to find.
They were the miraculous result of a dragon—a higher species far superior to humans—falling in love with a human.
To use an example from a certain half-demon manga from my past life, it was probably like a human having a child with a chimpanzee.
Since our Ancestor, the symbol of such rarity, was attending the Academy perfectly fine, it wasn't that strange. It wasn't like the dragon appeared out of thin air; the original landlord, who lived here long before the Academy was built, simply returned after hearing the 'robber' had finally moved on to the afterlife.
“S-so a dragon really appeared? That’s so unbelievable...”
“Think about everything that’s happened lately. Has any of it made sense?”
“That... makes sense!”
Finally accepting reality, Daisy let out a sigh.
“I-I always believed in you, Adam!”
“......”
She seemed to have grown a bit, given how skillfully she lied now.
“H-honestly, I doubted you for a second. But I still believed...”
“......”
Just by watching her in silence, her story kept changing as her conscience pricked her.
And the conclusion was:
“A-a person is allowed to have doubts!”
It was a level of shamelessness that reminded me of Boradori...
“Wait, why me?!”
For the crime of turning the RoFan heroine weird, Boradori was chosen to receive the punishment instead.
Boradori, who was now expertly floating upside down with her head toward the ground, looked aghast.
“A dragon? Why? One didn’t even show up in the original work when the continent was being torn apart!”
“To reclaim her home?”
“Is the housing market that bad here too? Even a dragon comes back just for a house?!”
Well, thinking about it coldly, she had a point.
It was only because I made good money compared to my past life, but in this medieval-esque era, you couldn't just buy land near the royal castle just because you wanted to.
“Well, I have a mansion in the capital, though.”
“I shall serve you with all my loyalty...”
Hearing the genuine devotion in her voice, I listened to Boradori’s report on recent events.
“For starters, we’ve pretty much taken over the area around the Imperial Capital.”
After the Daisy kidnapping incident, Boradori had taken the members of the organization—including the Professor, who had signed a contract under semi-threat—and began cleaning up the Empire’s underworld one by one.
“That’s faster than I expected.”
I was surprised by the speed, but Boradori explained.
“It was already mostly falling apart.”
According to her, the underworld near the capital—the so-called back alleys—had almost all been connected to dark mages, except for a few named individuals like the Professor.
Consequently, during the Empire’s crusade against dark mages, most of the organizations were half-destroyed.
Before the chaos could settle, Boradori’s forces, with the Professor as a figurehead, began absorbing them one by one.
“Well, we wouldn't have been this fast without the Empire’s help.”
Boradori mentioned that Uncle Aeryun, who had the intel, had been helping out.
“That was unexpected.”
“It just shows how little leeway the Empire has right now.”
Rather than letting some other dark magic-related thugs take over the underworld, they probably figured it was better to let us—people they knew—take over and utilize it.
Of course, it would be best if they managed it themselves, but the Empire seemed to have its hands full just cleaning up its internal affairs.
Thanks to that, Boradori had ascended as the queen of the capital’s underworld, holding the Professor in her right hand and Uncle Aeryun in her left.
“I worked so hard, and all I get in return is punishment...”
“Fine. You can get up now.”
Since merit had to be acknowledged, I allowed her to stand.
“By the way, I never imagined it was a dragon who sealed Toha.”
“You didn't know?”
“I just knew it was sealed.”
Standing up, Boradori’s eyes sparkled with a rare twinkle.
“I want to see the dragon too! I want to know some of the lore that never appeared in the original!”
“...I wonder if that’s okay?”
Even if Black Dragon Adella had a good personality, was it alright for a stranger to just barge in?
The result: it was fine.
“......?”
In fact, she seemed to like Boradori so much that she held her in her arms like a favorite doll and stroked her hair.
When Princess Ruelle, who had prepared a proposal for the 'inter-floor noise' issue, went to visit Adella, Boradori tagged along.
“Ho...”
Seeing the unexpected addition of Boradori, Adella’s expression became full of interest.
“Sorcery. You’ve learned something rare for a child.”
Ahem. Hmmm.
To the point where Princess Ruelle, who had brought the noise complaint solution, felt awkward, Adella circled Boradori and expressed her admiration.
“You’ve utilized sorcery properly. Conditional bindings and restrictions... This allows even a human with limited time to maximize the power of sorcery. Most humans use things like their souls or lives, but to use time... impressive.”
“T-thank you.”
Boradori bowed her head, looking flustered by Adella’s praise.
“No need for thanks. Looking at the traces, it seems you were the human who temporarily connected this place to the heavens. Thanks to that, the Demon Tribe here could be eliminated through the Goddess’s intervention.”
“Uh, well, that’s true...”
“Be proud. The demon that was here was one of the twenty-one Great Demons who inherited the Evil God’s power. To annihilate such a being is a feat even dragons have failed to achieve.”
Adella smiled, stroking Boradori’s head as if praising her.
“If need be, I could even give Toha to you.”
“N-no!”
Princess Ruelle looked horrified, but Boradori shook her head.
“M-more than that, I want to know about the hidden history and beings, including Toha...”
“Hmm. I knew it from the moment I saw you’d mastered sorcery, but you are a child with a great thirst for knowledge.”
Ahem. Hmmm.
Adella let out a pleasant hum and praised Boradori, saying she had the perfect attitude for a mage.
Then, for a proper explanation, she sat down.
“Come here.”
“H-here?”
“A little closer.”
“...?”
She pulled Boradori onto her lap and began her story while stroking her head, looking exactly like a grandmother telling a fairy tale to her granddaughter.
“T-this is a bit weird...”
“It’s alright.”
“......”
Her face screamed, 'It’s not alright for me!' but Boradori wasn't so tactless as to say that out loud.
“Hmm. Long, long ago.”
And so, an abrupt history lesson began.
Princess Ruelle, who had only come to receive magic, and Princess Nea, who had come to supervise, both ended up sitting down due to the atmosphere.
“There was a human who backstabbed the Evil God.”
Typical humans. Backstabbing even a god.
“The being you call the First Mage. Using the power of the Evil God, he turned magic—something even dragons hadn't systematized—into an academic discipline and spread it among humans.”
That supposedly happened in the middle of what is commonly called the Mythological Era.
“And that First Mage had three disciples. Toha... or more accurately, the spells called the Dale Secret Magic, were created by the last of those three disciples. No, rather, they were magic he plundered.”
The youngest disciple of the First Mage.
Namely:
“By Derman.”
“...I-I feel like I shouldn't be hearing this!”
Princess Ruelle was terrified by the familiar name of Derman, but unfortunately, according to the principle of majority rule, her objection was ignored.
“Why not? It’s interesting.”
“I think it’s fine to listen.”
“I don’t find it interesting at all! I mean, secrets of the kingdom that even the Princess doesn't know are coming out?!”
“You can just learn them now, then.”
“As expected of a mage, Senior Adam. You truly have a passion for learning.”
“There are things even a Princess should and shouldn't say! Calling that man a mage! This is an international incident!”
Princess Ruelle protested, but she had no choice but to shut her mouth at Adella’s following words.
“Derman was the human who most resembled his master among the three disciples.”
“In a good way?”
“In a bad way. He backstabbed the gods just like his master did.”
“......”
At the dragon-certified declaration of her ancestor’s betrayal, Princess Ruelle quietly shut her mouth and sat back down, watching the room's mood.
“The primordial gods were beings similar to spirits. Beings created when the faith of living things on earth gathered around a single concept. In a sense, they are close to spirits... but there are major differences between gods and spirits. One is faith. And the other is...”
“A name...?”
“Correct.”
Adella stroked Boradori’s head for getting it right and continued the story.
“A god’s name was the totality of faith itself, the same as the source of their power. That is why the Goddess of Light restricted the gods' influence on the earth as much as possible by erasing their names.”
The era when gods were called by their names, not just concepts. That was the Mythological Era.
And.
“Before the gods erased their names themselves, Derman stole the names of several gods.”
“How?”
“I do not know that myself. But what is certain is that because of it, some gods lost their names and fell, while some were able to reclaim them. However, there were those who could not.”
And the names that weren't reclaimed were torn into several pieces, leaving traces all over the earth.
“Some of those are the spells Dale calls its Secret Magic, including this Toha.”
Magic imbued with the power of a god.
“Are you prepared to harbor that?”
At Adella’s words, Princess Ruelle blinked her eyes.
“M-me?”
Apparently, Princess Ruelle had no such preparation at all.