The Three Evil Dragons of the Demon Realm
The three evil dragons of the Demon Realm.
Each of them had made its nest at the far reaches of the eastern, western, and southern Demon Realm.
“If you keep going south from here for quite a while, you’ll come upon a gigantic mountain of rock. Its name is Marhalta. In the language of the Demon Realm, it means ‘Despair Deeper than Death.’ Its master, Zigritria, the dragon of despair among the three evil dragons, lives there.”
“You made a contract with that Zigritria bastard?”
“Not just Zigritria. The other two as well, the dragon of death Abalatron and the dragon of darkness Grandeerria. The three of them carried out the binding contract together. Unless all three dragons are destroyed, the contract shackling us will not be broken.”
A quest notification seemed to ring in his head with a faint ding.
From the way Atram spoke about the three dragons, it seemed Yoon Sang-hyuk would have to forcefully break the contract imprisoning the divine race in the Demon Realm if he wanted to obtain the Stigma of Idea.
“So I just need to kill three lizard brats?”
“What did you say?”
Atram, who had been looking at Yoon Sang-hyuk, suddenly burst out laughing.
“Puhahahaha! Lizard brats... Some demon lords do call the dragons of the Middle Realm lizards, but this is the first time I’ve heard anyone describe the dragon lords that way here. Do you even know what place the dragon lords hold in this land?”
If Zeronia had been here, she would have explained the dragons to him.
“The three dragon lords are the guardian beasts of the Demon Realm. Like the divine beasts that once guarded the divine realm where I lived with my mother and brothers long ago. But unlike those divine beasts, which numbered in the hundreds, the Demon Realm has only these three dragon lords. That is how formidable they are. The dragon lords have lived longer than Baal, the current master of the Demon Realm. Perhaps even longer than Satan, the former Demon King. Even a Demon King cannot treat them lightly. That is what the three dragon lords are. The reason Satan did not make the contract himself, but asked the dragons to do it, was precisely that. So the contract would never, under any circumstances, be broken.”
He had gone on at length, but in the end it came down to one thing: the dragon lords were extremely powerful.
“Interesting story.”
“Interesting? I just introduced you to the reapers who will lead you to your death. You are strong, that much I acknowledge. You are stronger than I was when I still possessed my full divinity. But the power of the dragon lords lies on a plane so far beyond that it is hard to fathom. If they had taken part in the Shinma War, the outcome might have changed. Fortunately, their task was only to guard the Demon Realm itself, so they never left their nests.”
He understood why Atram was saying all this.
What he said was surely true, and he was trying to make Yoon Sang-hyuk give up by laying out the reason. Neither he nor the divine race could leave this place, and they could not grant the stigma that sustained the Gray Wasteland and allowed the divine race to live here.
It was the reason he had no choice but to refuse Yoon Sang-hyuk’s request, and the reason they had remained bound here until now. Those overwhelming dragon lords were the answer.
“I was thinking I might need a little training.”
“Training? For what?”
Yoon Sang-hyuk told him about Baal, and about himself. He explained the way he could return to Earth. He explained why Satan had to be killed.
“According to Baal, Satan should have grown far stronger than he was in the past while imprisoned in the Abyss of the Void.”
“If the place that held him is the Abyss of the Void, that makes sense. It is the place within the Demon Realm filled with the purest darkness. A normal being would burst apart and die merely by setting foot there. But if one could survive there... ”
Atram shivered, as though the thought alone was revolting.
“Then you would become pure darkness.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk rummaged through his subspace and took something out.
Atram watched the things he pulled out one by one, then widened his eyes when he saw the last item.
“That is...”
“Long time no see?”
From the withered tea leaves, a faint light shimmered out.
Holy Morning Dew. It was a tea he had not seen in a very long time.
The tea called Holy Morning Dew, something even the gods drank.
Amusingly enough, Yoon Sang-hyuk had obtained these tea leaves not on the Roselia Continent, but on Earth. More precisely, he had gathered them from the divine orchard manifested in the former North Korean region, now named the Land of Masks.
Of course, he had not found them himself.
Kurt Drain, the pope of the Idea Church, had discovered them by chance while touring the divine orchard. They had been growing wild near the lake where the relic was hidden. Kurt Drain had harvested the Holy Morning Dew, processed it into tea leaves himself, and given it to Yoon Sang-hyuk as a gift.
He boiled water and steeped the Holy Morning Dew leaves in it. A fragrance that cleared the mind drifted softly through the surrounding space.
“Hmm. Nice. I thought I’d never smell that scent again.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk handed him a teacup.
Atram stared at the cup with trembling, moved eyes, then carefully took a sip. With his eyes closed, he savored the fragrance carried by the tea, and spoke in a quavering voice.
“I was the god of light. The humans of the Roselia Continent farmed the land and offered me their first harvest. They offered the first fruits to me before the goddess of the earth, because it is light that allows crops to grow. Among those offerings was this Holy Morning Dew as well. Since it only grows near places rich in divine power, those who offered it were mostly people connected to the church. Whenever I began a day in the divine realm with my mother and brothers, I would always drink this tea.”
At this rate, he looked as if he might actually burst into tears, unbefitting a former god, so Yoon Sang-hyuk spoke.
“You should go back.”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“If there is even a one-percent chance, I think it’s worth trying.”
“Heh. That is a fine line, but also a dangerous one. You’re going to challenge ninety-nine percent risk for the sake of one percent possibility?”
It could have sounded reckless.
No, to anyone with normal reasoning, what Yoon Sang-hyuk had just said would clearly sound like the rambling of a madman.
But...
“That is how I’ve lived until now, and that is how I intend to keep living.”
It was not empty politeness meant to sound good.
Yoon Sang-hyuk had, in fact, lived exactly that way until now. While others formed raids and challenged dungeons only to fail, he had taken them on alone and cleared them. He had stood face-to-face with death countless times, and there had been more than a few moments when he truly thought he had died.
But after overcoming all those ordeals, Yoon Sang-hyuk had become the Masked Lord, the One-man Army.
After returning to Earth, he had driven himself hard enough to stand against Baal in such a short time. He did not know what others thought, but Yoon Sang-hyuk had always possessed one thing: a desperate drive to break any situation open.
It was that desperation that had allowed the current Yoon Sang-hyuk to exist. And it was also the reason the transformed Earth could still maintain its peace.
Yoon Sang-hyuk held his tongue and waited until Atram finished his tea.
When Atram set the cup down and opened his eyes, which had been closed as though savoring the taste, Yoon Sang-hyuk asked, “The three dragon lords. If I kill them, will you give me the stigma?”
* * *
He lay in a hammock strung between trees heavy with apple-like fruit and looked up at the sky. The ground below was greener than one would expect of the Demon Realm, but the sky still hung there in a dark, blood-red hue.
Had he grown used to it by now? The green around him almost seemed strange instead. He closed his eyes to the soothing sway of the hammock.
“Feels like I’ve gotten myself properly tangled up.”
He had come looking for a shortcut that would take him quickly to his destination, only to be told about a route that would take him a long way around instead. And it was a route filled with traps so dangerous they bordered on absurd.
A small smile touched Yoon Sang-hyuk’s lips.
He had never thought the road would be easy anyway. He had not yet met the dragons, so he did not know how strong they were, but they might turn out to be the best training partners he could ask for before taking on Satan.
“Lord Sang-hyuk. It’s time to eat.”
Zeronia approached and spoke.
“I already ate a few fruits. The rest of you should go ahead.”
For the beings of the Demon Realm, fruits and vegetables grown in the Gray Wasteland were unfamiliar fare. They were faintly infused with divine power, after all, so they would be burdensome for Zeronia and the others to eat. That was why Yoon Sang-hyuk had prepared separate ingredients for them.
“Is it difficult?”
The Gray Wasteland itself, through the influence of the stigma, possessed divine power. It was the kind of place that clashed with the beings of the Demon Realm, who lived by dark energy.
“My skin only tingles a little, but the others are having a harder time.”
“If it looks too much, lead the group out of the wasteland and make camp outside.”
“I will.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk sprang down from the hammock and looked at Zeronia.
Her face had changed a little. More precisely, a faint tattoo had appeared across the skin of her face. It was the mark that had appeared after her contract with Ibrahmut. The tattoo was not only on her face, but scattered here and there across her body as well. Perhaps because it was unfamiliar, it did not look quite suited to her, but it was not ugly.
Rather, the tattoo gave Zeronia, who had once looked gentle, a slightly stronger impression.
Zeronia’s aura had become completely different from before her contract with Ibrahmut. In the past she had simply felt powerful; now she was controlling that power with precision.
Perhaps because of her contract with Ibrahmut, a faint red sheen was even threading through Zeronia’s naturally black hair.
“By the way, are you really planning to go to Marhalta?”
“Nothing’s decided yet.”
Atram still had not made up his mind.
Not because he regretted the stigma, but because he was worried about Yoon Sang-hyuk.
“Do you know anything about the dragon lords?”
“I’ve heard the basics from Atram.”
“Killing them is impossible.”
“Who said anything about killing them? If possible, it would be better not to fight at all. Settling this with words would be the best way.”
“That makes no sense. Talking to the dragon lords? The only being who can hold a conversation with the dragon lords is the Demon King. Even the highest demon lords cannot set foot in the dragons’ territory lightly.”
Zeronia raised her voice. It was a far cry from the recent way she had treated Yoon Sang-hyuk with utmost respect and caution. Zeronia was saying this because she was worried about him, too.
Yoon Sang-hyuk gave a faint snort of laughter.
“If Atram reaches a decision, I’m thinking of going to see the dragons. Not just because I need the stigma, either...”
Yoon Sang-hyuk looked toward the divine children running around nearby.
“I want to show those kids what their homeland really looks like.”