The Fire Dragon King (1)

The knife struck the cutting board in a crisp, unvarying rhythm. Chop. Chop. Chop. Vegetables fell away in neat, even slices.

Haa...

Nami, fairy of Hwaryongwang, let a quiet sigh slip out as she cooked.

Her master was a man no one in Indigo dared to stand against — and yet, ironically, he was more frightened and frail than anyone she had ever known. Night after night he woke drenched in cold sweat, thrashing his way out of nightmares. Sometimes the fits seized him without warning. Ten years had come and gone, and the horrors of that day still had their claws in him.

And lately, it had only gotten worse. Specifically, ever since the bonds with Aquaril and Ryona — the fairies who had been managing the dungeons around Indigo in his place — had been severed.

The moment his bond with Ryona snapped, Hwaryongwang had screamed himself hoarse and shaken like a leaf. He was a man in the prime of his mid-thirties, and he had wept and trembled like a child.

Master... when will ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you ever escape the nightmare of that day?

The memory of her master cowering in terror brought tears welling in Nami's eyes.

A fairy who died could be summoned again. With luck, it happened at once. With none at all, a master might go to his grave without ever calling that fairy back. Nami had been one of the lucky ones. She had served Hwaryongwang as her master ten years ago as well, and she had been the very first fairy he summoned after settling in Indigo. Which meant she shared the memory of the day a fearless man had been broken into a coward. Nami knew exactly what had happened to him.

That man...

She pictured the one who had carved a wound so deep into Hwaryongwang's soul that it still had not closed. He had been human, same as her master. A Master, same as her master. And he had been the strongest being Nami had ever laid eyes on — human or fairy. Stronger, perhaps, than even the one and only Emperor, who stood above all mankind with the greatest power and authority in Gaiarium.

His strength had been that overwhelming. The instant he unleashed his mana, Nami and a host of other fairies had their heads burst apart on the spot. He had simply let his power out, and they had died. That man had been a catastrophe. A natural disaster wearing a human face.

He has no reason to hunt Master down.

She meant no disrespect, but a man that powerful would have no cause to travel all the way to Indigo, at the southernmost tip of Gaiarium, just to kill her frail master. And still Hwaryongwang was convinced that man had come for his life, and he was terrified out of his wits.

Nami pitied him. She ached for him. And she was so desperately sorry — sorry that she could not heal a wound that old, sorry that she had failed to protect him when it mattered.

Nami swallowed the sob that tried to rise in her throat and arranged the finished meal with careful, loving hands. This was not just anyone's food. It was her master's, and so she poured every ounce of care she had into it.

She would wait. One year or ten, however long it took — her master would find his way back to the proud man he had once been. Until that day, her duty was to stay by his side and wait. She could wait as long as she needed to.

A jolt from above. Then a wet, shearing sound.

"...Huh?"

The ceiling shuddered, and something dropped through it. Nami's head lifted into the air.

The food... it can't be allowed to go cold...

Even as her consciousness guttered out, Nami was thinking of her master.

"Whew~"

I dropped down from the ceiling and could only whistle at the clean, single stroke Aquaril had used to take Nami's head. She had leapt from above, timed the cut to the instant, and severed Nami's neck before her own feet even touched the floor.

If a mere two-star Aquaril could pull off a trick like that, what would she be capable of once her rank climbed and her stats rose?

She isn't actually going to start carving through mountains, is she?

This was a world where you could grow as much as you wanted just by clearing dungeons. It wasn't as impossible as it sounded.

"What a waste."

I muttered it while watching Nami's corpse dissolve into light. She had been a genuinely good fairy. Keep raising her rank, reset her skills the right way, and she had every chance of becoming the main healer in a fire-attribute party. Her Warm Flame trait was only a common-grade ability, but it was good enough that even high-ranking players picked it up from time to time. Watching a decent fairy die — a beautiful one, no less — was a real shame from where I stood.

"I'm starving, though, so this works out. Let's eat that and go."

I pointed at the meal Nami had laid out. We were about to fight Hwaryongwang. Better to do it on a full stomach.

It would've been safer to check a little more first, but...

The original plan had been to read Nami's status window and then, together with Aquaril, check the others as well. Even fairies assigned to guard Hwaryongwang's side wouldn't be glued to him every hour of the day. But Nami happened to be a healer, and a healer in the middle of a fight would have been a serious headache. I decided to kill her now and accept a little extra risk.

Hwaryongwang would be losing his mind right about now, feeling Nami die.

We sopped bread in the soup, filled our stomachs without ceremony, and stepped out of the kitchen.

"Th-they're out!"

"Stop right there!"

"W-wait. Isn't that Lady Aquaril?"

"Huh? It is."

"Heh. Look at them all come pouring in."

The moment we left the kitchen we ran into soldiers ringing the entrance, spears leveled at our chests. Fear was written all over them, and more than a few recognized Aquaril on sight. Palace regulars, apparently — dyed hair or not, they knew her face.

"Come on, guys. No point bleeding for the wrong man. Why don't you just step aside?"

"Nngh..."

I said it with a bright, easy smile, and the soldiers flinched. Nobody wanted to die, and they had no more desire to fight us than anyone else would. Properly drilled soldiers would have attacked without a word of this. A soldier lived and died by orders. But a king who never left his palace was not a king whose men trained the way they should have.

"Do we really... have to spill blood?"

"Eek!"

I drew a sword from my inventory and gave it a lazy swing, a cold little smile on my face. The soldiers who had been hesitating went over backward in a heap, as if a giant had swept them aside. It was almost funny. It was also a little sad.

They were people, same as me. The only difference was whether you could see a status window or not — and that difference decided who became a superhuman and who lived and died as an ordinary man. Whether in my last life or this one, it was still a world where only those who had something got to enjoy themselves. Maybe because I still carried far more memories of my previous life than this one, I found myself identifying with the weak.

"Hyah!"

"Uwaaaaagh!"

I stamped my foot and shouted, and the soldiers promptly flung their spears aside and ran.

"Lead the way, Aquaril. Time to catch Hwaryongwang."

"Yes, Master."

With the soldiers gone, there was no one left to stand in our path. We headed for Hwaryongwang's chambers without breaking stride.

The great door groaned open.

Inside, an old man huddled and shook in a fairy's arms, too terrified to meet my eyes. Three women stood in front of him, their faces hard, staring us down.

"Hiiiiiik!"

"Aquaril!"

"Good gods! It really is Aquaril!"

"This... this doesn't make any sense!"

The old man was buried in one fairy's embrace and could not even look at me.

"Aquaril?"

"Yes. That is Hwaryongwang."

"...That's a 'king'?"

There was not a shred of royal dignity anywhere on him, and the disappointment settled in immediately. He looked even more pathetic than the version I remembered from Fairy Masters.

I didn't let my guard down. A man whose abilities were as hollow as his appearance would never have become the king of Indigo.

Status window.

...Oh, fuck.

I stared at the status window of Hwaryongwang — Brangis Fleggo — and felt a genuine jolt of admiration.

He's got Blessing of Fire? On a Chapter 2 boss?

Blessing of Fire was a rare-grade trait, and a damn good one: it raised the level of every fire-element skill by one. On top of that, his Magic stat was sitting at the cap of forty, and he had all four skill slots packed full. His class level was twenty — the ceiling for a two-star.

Without question, this was the finest status window I had seen on any Master or fairy I had run into so far. Just as I had expected, he was stronger than the Hwaryongwang who appeared in Fairy Masters. I couldn't remember the exact numbers from the game, but I was certain they had been lower than this.

Thirty-five, though?

I scowled at his age. The man looked sixty or seventy if he looked a day, and his actual age was thirty-five. Had he been swallowing the wrong damn medicine? How did a person end up looking twice their real age?

I checked the other three fairies as well. Horus, the warrior. Syla, the lancer. Kanya, the thief. All of them two-star, all of them fire-attribute, all of them sitting on solid class levels and respectable stats.

"The difficulty just jumped."

Nami, the fairy we had ambushed and killed in the kitchen, had been two-star — and so were the rest of them. Different classes, every one.

"At least picking them off one by one paid off."

Hwaryongwang held six fairies in total, each a different class. He himself was a mage. If I had tried to take them all at once, I would never have brought him down. Tank, damage, healer. Melee and ranged. A perfect composition.

They had us on numbers. We had them on level, stats, and attribute — and right now, Hwaryongwang was not in his right mind. This was a fight we could win.

"Aquaril."

"Yes, Master."

"Master?"

"Aquaril! What the hell do you think ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you're doing?!"

The moment Aquaril called me Master, Hwaryongwang's fairies went rigid with shock. A Master could keep as many fairies as he wished, but a fairy had only one Master. Addressing anyone else by that title was a humiliation on par with death itself. Aquaril was doing it in front of them. Of course they were stunned.

"I'll take the warrior and the lancer. Finish the thief as fast as you can and then join me. If you can kill Hwaryongwang while you're at it, even better."

Kanya, the thief-class fairy, had poison and throwing skills. Leave her alive and she would become a serious nuisance, so I handed her to Aquaril.

"Yes, Master."

"Then let's go!"

"Yes!"

I didn't care whether they were horrified or not. I laid out the plan, locked my grip around sword and shield, and charged straight at the fairies. Aquaril came in right behind me.

"Kh! Stop him!"

"Haaaah!"

Horus, the warrior fairy, swung a fist at my shield, trying to break the rush.

She failed.

A heavy crash rang out.

"Kyaa!"

The blow she landed on my shield did not stop me. It threw her. Her Strength sat at twenty-one; I had her on both raw power and attribute. Stopping me head-on was never going to work.

"Horus! You bastard!"

Syla's spear came for my face, fast and vicious — but I could see the line of it as clearly as if she had drawn it in the air. I lifted the shield and caught the point before it reached me.

"Stay back, you traitorous bitch!"

Aquaril did not answer. While I held the two of them, she slipped through and closed on Kanya and Hwaryongwang without a scratch. Kanya hurled a bottle of poison to keep her at bay; Aquaril swept her blade in a motion like flowing water, snatched the bottle out of the air before it could hit the ground, and flung it far away.

No matter how I looked at it, there was no way that girl was a two-star fairy.

"Kh! Horus! Protect Master! I'll handle this one!"

Another crash.

"Got i— kyaa!"

"I told you. You two are mine."

"Nngh! Get out of my way!"

Horus tried to break off and run to Kanya's aid. I stepped into her path and smashed her aside with the shield. Syla bared her teeth and came at me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with the spear, and I caught the flurry on blade and shield as I flicked a glance behind me.

"Eeeek! I'm scared! The Wandering King! The Wandering King has come to kill me!"

We needed to end this before Hwaryongwang came back to his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠senses.