Who's Your Mommy?
The world of Deoen is home to countless forms of life.
There are the familiar fantasy races everyone knows—goblins, orcs, elves—and then there are beings rarely glimpsed anywhere else: evil spirits, will-o'-the-wisps, mutated insects and beasts, all living and breathing in every variety.
And those beings settle, by and large, in two kinds of places.
One is dungeons.
Realms outside the original world of Deoen—other worlds, or worlds running along different timelines entirely. Dungeon monsters, as a rule, cannot step outside their dungeons. There are exceptions, though.
Individuals of World Boss caliber, for instance.
Or special beings powerful enough to cross a dungeon's gate will occasionally emerge into the outside world and become field monsters.
The other kind are the races native to Deoen itself.
The ones commonly known are the hunting field monsters—creatures that respawn for the sake of the game's mechanics. Their territory is divided across hundreds, even thousands, of parallel servers, and when they die they simply rise again, memories wiped clean.
But the monsters tied to World Quests are different.
A World Quest can only be attempted at level 70 or higher, and it can only progress by exerting an impact of a certain magnitude upon the world itself.
In other words, field bosses and any monster over level 70 or 80 do not revive when slain. They never return, never exist again.
They live in history—and when they die, they are written into history and vanish for good.
Even in the height of summer, cold winds beat against the large cabin standing at the foot of the Snowy Mountain.
Seated across from me was Lethes, swaddled in thick furs. He seemed to have made some effort to fortify the place against the chill, but judging by the way he frowned and sipped at his warm tea, it clearly wasn't enough.
I drank my tea as well. It was good.
"So… you're telling me there's a monster at the very peak of this Snowy Mountain?"
"That is correct. The beast has dwelt on this mountain since time immemorial, and every winter it scatters its bitter cold across the land. Not merely the mountain itself—roughly seventy percent of the entire territory, farmland included, ends up buried under snow."
Ahem! He drained the tea his servant had quietly refilled. His expression shifted into something faintly mournful.
"Every year, more than a few dozen of my residents freeze to death. Thousands more suffer in the severe cold—in their property, and in their minds."
"I want to stop it."
"It has been seven years since I was appointed lord of this territory, and still no solution presents itself. That monster has occupied the mountain since before I was even born, and all I can offer my people is thicker clothing. There is simply nothing else to be done, you see…"
Of course, Lethes's own manor maintained a perfectly warm temperature through magic year-round, and he could certainly have extended more support to the residents—but I saw no need to bring that up.
He was the lord of the land, not a charity worker. If he could actually stop the monster, that would be one thing, but pouring resources into a bottomless pit every single year was never going to improve anything.
Frankly, a few frozen villagers and some frostbitten hands and feet were a better bargain than burning thousands of gold coins. Crying a few well-placed tears at the capital would net him relief aid regardless.
If this opportunity lets me clear away an age-old problem… I might just expand this county into a marquisate. No—perhaps even a duchy!
Bang! Lethes struck the desk, his voice ringing with sudden fervor.
"I beg of you. For the sake of my innocent residents, please—kill that creature."
A dragon sleeps on the Frigid Snow Mountain.
No—let me correct that.
It was never the Frigid Snow Mountain.
Warm weather and generous sunlight poured down upon the mountain, and it abounded with life. Save for the very summit, no snow ever fell there; verdant life and untamed nature breathed together in every corner.
Dragons lived upon the Mountain of Abundance.
Everything on the mountain was a part of the dragons—and, at the same time, a mirror of them.
"Ah…"
When was it?
When the world slipped into disarray, and watching was no longer something that could be done.
When the Dragon Lord of that age fell from the sky with her wings torn away, and the death of dragons came to be accepted as a matter of course.
When half the world filled up with death.
"You are the ancient dragons, aren't you."
A human came to us, walking alongside the half-dead Dragon Lord.
No—not a human.
She was definitely not human.
Power of that magnitude, and an appearance so like the Heavenly Tribe—there was no way such a being could be human.
"I am human."
And yet she introduced herself as human.
'But you're Heavenly Tr—'
'Say one more word and you'll witness a miracle in which your wings end up facing front-to-back.'
'Human it is.'
'Seems human.'
'Human through and through, hahaha!'
'……'
Human or not, she could nonetheless mingle freely with the ancient dragons.
She crossed weapons with us directly and exchanged techniques, and we in turn learned a great deal from her. Measured against dragons who lived hundreds, even thousands of years, the span of less than a single year was truly nothing—yet the memory of those days remains vivid even now.
That is how extraordinary she was.
KA-JIJIK!!
'…As I thought, the blunt technique "Radiant Dragon" is a touch excessive. I'll need to revise it somehow.'
'It looked less like Radiant Dragon and more like Frenzied Dragon to me.'
'Oh? Would you like to test it?'
'No. Absolutely not.'
She was overwhelmingly strong.
When was it?
A chill settled into the warm land. Plants and animals died in droves, unable to endure the cold. Raging blizzards tore across the sky, and most of the ancient dragons either sank into slumber beneath the earth or abandoned the mountain altogether.
"Huu… huu…"
Only I remained.
Half her body frozen solid, the white dragon Sgaredo pressed down on her chill-filled left wing and quietly closed her eyes.
'If I simply lie still, I will be safe. Yes. Keep lying still, exactly like this.'
'I am not blaming you. The world is being destroyed by two wretched races, after all.'
'The Heavenly Tribe and the Demon Tribe. Destroyers—and arrogant ones at that. Stopping them is beyond your kind, so…'
'Why? Why fight them at all?'
She fell silent.
And then she speaks again.
"Haah…"
'I don't remember.'
The third seat among the Six Demon Kings of the Demon Tribe. The frozen soul—Temperie, the Demon King of Severe Cold.
Pierced through the wing by an ice shard discarded by a Demon King, Sgaredo had fallen like that.
Laughter wells up.
Not even a battle—dying to something that was merely, carelessly tossed aside. And she of all beings, an ancient dragon born with the very power of glaciers.
A dragon of ice, felled by ice.
How utterly absurd.
And yet the frost that had claimed half this body was devouring her flesh in real time, and soon Sgaredo would sink into an eternal sleep. She might never wake again at all.
"Mmph…"
With her eyes closed, Sgaredo gently reached for the ice shard that now ruled her body.
Ordinarily, the moment one took in a shard bearing a Demon King's authority, death should follow. But this shard carried not a single trace of the Demon King's killing intent.
Discarded—plain and simple. Which meant that an ancient dragon gifted with the same power of glaciers, Sgaredo herself, could interfere with the shard, if only a little.
At minimum, several thousand years.
Even waking at the very earliest, that was the limit. And even if she did wake, her body would hardly be in any proper state.
But that was all Sgaredo could do.
Having resigned herself to her final rest, Sgaredo curled up at the peak of the mountain that everyone had abandoned.
Cold. It was so cold.
Cold enough to die.
'The frost-dragon arts weren't bad, you know. Whether they'd ever reach them is another question… but still, I have to try something.'
'Thank you. For always coming all this way, even in this sweltering heat.'
…Why is it her—of all people, not the dragons I was once close with—who fills my thoughts now.
She, who had left to fight those races again, to save the race of humans.
'If only I could see you again…'
"Huh? What's this—a hatchling?"
"Ooo?"
…?
I cut down the creature terrorizing the Snowy Mountain and flew straight up toward the summit.
My original plan had been to climb on foot and take the sights in at a leisurely pace, but there was nothing to see in any direction but an endless expanse of blinding white snow, so I decided to hurry things along and head straight up.
What greeted me at the top was a colossal monster with a truly massive body. It bore the likeness of a dragon, but ice and a gray sheen mingled across its hide until its species became impossible to identify.
Some kind of dragon subspecies, most likely.
After felling that fairly formidable dragon subspecies, I stepped into the cave it had been guarding—and there inside, curled up in a tight little ball, was a dragon in its juvenile form. A hatchling.
"I'll admit… I wasn't expecting a dragon."
A dragon. A drake.
One of the strongest races in existence, apart from the Heavenly and Demon Tribes—and a race with deep, tangled ties to me as well. I've lived alongside them, trading blows and testing strength directly. I've even once brought a half-dead Dragon Lord back from the brink.
I could honestly call myself something of an expert on dragons.
But something about this one's aura was off. Above all…
'A hatchling, of all things.'
Snow-white scales and bright blue reptilian eyes. Its plump little tail and neatly spread wing bones looked the very picture of health.
And that grumpy, pouty little face was…
Well.
"Adorable."
It was adorable.
Pop! I slipped my hand between its wings and lifted it lightly into the air, and it thrashed about, squirming and kicking with all its might. Not that any of it would get it out of my grip.
And besides, in a state like this, there was really only one thing to say…
"So, who's your mommy?"
"Ooo!"