The Dead Dragon
Rain fell in sheets, a relentless curtain of water.
"Hmm-hmm-hmm~"
In the Sichuan region of the Eastern Continent, a herb gatherer hummed to himself as he rummaged through the leaf litter deep in the mountains.
"There you are. Knew I'd find you."
Clearing away a thick heap of leaves, he spotted the medicinal herb growing from the earth and smiled, drawing out his tools.
Ever since this world had been linked to Earth, demand for herbs had exploded. That was why he was out here even on a day like this, rain pouring down without pause. The upside was that his income had soared, and life had been treating him remarkably well.
"Hup."
He carefully dug up the plant, then cast a look around. There didn't seem to be any more herbs left in the immediate area. This one alone had taken him two hours of climbing to find.
"Greedy lot, the whole bunch of them… Could've left a few."
As he'd said, the surge in demand had sent every other gatherer scrambling into the mountains, and the herbs were being stripped bare.
The rain kept hammering down.
"Hmm… Maybe I should head farther down."
He glanced up at the sky and clicked his tongue. He had a feeling there might be more herbs lower on the slope, but the rain was coming down far too hard.
"Hope these boots hold up…"
He looked down at his footwear. Herb gatherers who climbed mountains through rain and snow wore specialized boots, the soles studded with small spikes that bit into the ground and kept them stable.
"Ah, they'll be fine."
In the end he began carefully making his way down. Ordinarily the path led up the mountain, not down.
A clump of earth gave way underfoot.
"Whoa… That was close. Rain's got the dirt sliding off in chunks just from walking."
Thud. Thud.
He pressed the ground ahead of him with a thick walking stick, advancing with care. On days like this the soil was soft, and you had to test every step. If the ground was about to give way, a jab of the stick would send it sliding.
"Damn, this bag keeps slipping."
He caught the strap sliding off his wet shoulder and looked around.
Thud. Thud.
"I'll stop on that rock and sort myself out."
He tapped a large protruding stone with his stick, then shifted his weight onto it.
Thud.
In that instant—
The whole mass gave way.
"Wha…?"
The big rock and the ground beneath it collapsed together, and he was swept downward in a roaring slide of mud and stone.
"Ugh… Aaaagh!"
He tumbled over the edge of a mountain cliff and plummeted.
A long rush of air—
Then a heavy splash.
"Gah!"
After falling for what felt like forever, the herb gatherer plunged into a well at the base of the cliff.
"Hah… hah… Oh, gods… Nearly died just now."
He swam out of the well, gasping. The deep water had saved his life.
He looked up—and his mouth fell open. He must have dropped a good thirty meters.
"Ugh… How am I supposed to get out of here…"
He gathered his scattered belongings and let out a long breath. He hadn't died in the fall, but if he wasn't careful he could starve to death down here instead.
"Can't see a thing in this dark."
He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a small torch—one made by the Sichuan Tang Clan. Yank the cord and friction sparked a flame; the whole thing was waterproof, so it wouldn't go out even when soaked.
"Lucky I packed plenty of these."
He struck it. A hiss, a crackle—then fire bloomed to life. He smiled.
And then something enormous began to take shape in the light before him.
"Huh? What's that up ahead…"
He swung the torch around.
"Aaaagh!"
The thing standing before him was a dead dragon. The herb gatherer screamed and collapsed onto the ground.
"Ugh."
"Alliance Leader!"
Dan Woo-hyeon, captain of the Heavenly Sword Corps, approached Namgung Je-u, who stood studying the dragon's corpse.
"Well?"
"We searched all the way through. No Yeouiju."
"Damn it."
Namgung Je-u spat a curse at the report. No Yeouiju…
He laid a hand on the dragon's body and frowned.
"Who could have killed a dragon?"
"Hard to say…"
In the martial world, slaying a dragon was an absolute taboo. Do it carelessly and you risked the wrath of Seon-gye—or a curse. Dragons were also immensely powerful; they were not creatures one simply killed on a whim.
"Was it after the Yeouiju?"
"Most likely."
Dragons always carried their Yeouiju with them—some held it in their jaws, others clutched it in a claw. Unlike magic-wielding dragons of the Western sort, a Wulin dragon needed its Yeouiju to draw on its true power, and never left the pearl behind.
"It couldn't have been someone from Earth, could it?"
"Unlikely."
Among Earth's Cheon-oe-cheon, only a handful could even face a dragon—and none of them had yet set foot on the Eastern Continent where the martial world lay. Or rather, precisely one of them had: Baek Do-ha alone had come this way.
"Surely the Absolute Being wouldn't have…"
"That bastard would never do this."
If a dragon had met Do-ha, it wouldn't have fought—it would have fled. Long ago Do-ha had decided he wanted to tame a dragon, and he'd beaten so many of them that the mere sight of his face sent them scrambling for their lives. He was weaker now and couldn't thrash them the way he once had, but any dragon that recognized him still wouldn't have stood its ground.
"Look here—there are signs of a real fight."
Which meant the battle had been fierce.
"I wonder what made these long marks. They look like sword wounds, but they weren't made by a sword."
Something long and sharp had struck near the dragon's neck—thicker than a blade. A saber, perhaps?
"Could it have fought a dragon of the Western kind?"
"If it had fought one of those, the traces wouldn't look like this."
Anyone could see it: this dragon had been killed for its Yeouiju.
Footsteps approached at a run.
"Alliance Leader, you need to leave now."
"Ugh… Of all times for a dead dragon to turn up, I have to be somewhere else…"
At his strategist's voice, Namgung Je-u scowled with irritation. He needed to uncover how the dragon had died, but his workload had ballooned beyond reason—especially since contact with Earth had begun. His duties had multiplied fivefold.
"That damn Do-ha. I'm run off my feet because of him. Should've made more of a scene at the welcome ceremony."
"Haha."
Dan Woo-hyeon laughed. Not long ago the Absolute Being himself had come by and kicked the Alliance Leader for talking nonsense during a speech.
"Right. That'll do it."
"…?"
Namgung Je-u clapped his hands together. Dan Woo-hyeon tilted his head. What was he thinking, smiling like that?
"We'll hand the dragon investigation over to Do-ha."
"Ah… You might want to reconsider that…"
Dan Woo-hyeon's face went blank. He knew the Absolute Being's past well enough.
He used to thrash dragons for sport…
Was putting this case in Baek Do-ha's hands really a good idea? What if he started beating them again? Back then, a few immortals had nearly had strokes watching him ride dragons around like mounts…
"Don't worry. He's weaker now—he can't thrash them the way he used to. He'll just investigate quietly."
"…"
Dan Woo-hyeon looked thoroughly unconvinced. Would that man truly go about an investigation in a quiet, well-behaved manner? Still, knowing how overloaded the Alliance Leader's schedule was, he couldn't bring himself to object.
"What? A dragon is dead??"
"That's right."
Do-ha, speaking with Namgung Je-u through a magic crystal ball, bolted upright from where he'd been lounging. A dragon, dead—in the martial world?
"And you said the Yeouiju is gone too?"
"We searched the area and found nothing. Looks like someone went after the pearl. I want you to investigate."
"Mmm… I'm pretty busy, though…"
"You were lying down thirty seconds ago. Want to try that again?"
Namgung Je-u's face twisted. Because of this bastard he was so swamped he barely slept—and now the man had the nerve to claim he was busy?
"It's the Sichuan region. Get over there and look into it. While you're at it, find the Yeouiju."
"A Yeouiju isn't some rock lying around on the ground. How am I supposed to 'while I'm at it' find one of those…"
There were things you could casually pick up along the way. A Yeouiju was not one of them. For all he knew, whoever took it had already absorbed the thing—and now he was supposed to track it down?
"Ugh, what a pain! Can't you just put someone else on it?"
"Want me to go around announcing that A's real identity is Baek Do-ha?"
"Oh-ho. That's how you want to play it? Fine—then I'll start talking too."
"Talking about what?"
"How you got dumped by the eldest daughter of the Hwangbo family. Right under a bridge. She turned you down hard."
"You… How the hell do you know about that?!"
On the other side of the crystal, Namgung Je-u went pale. No one was supposed to know that. How had Do-ha found out?
"I was fishing nearby. Saw you heading off somewhere, followed you, and there you were confessing. Of course she turned you down… Pfft."
"Th-that—she just said she wanted to focus on her training…!"
"Whatever. For the job fee, prepare ten kilograms of Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron."
"Hey, you bastard! It's hard enough getting one kilo—how am I supposed to come up with ten?!"
Did he think Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron grew out of the dirt? Even tiny amounts sold out in the blink of an eye, and this lunatic wanted ten kilograms?
"If payment isn't ready by the time the job's done, interest accrues. Or my mouth might get a little loose and I start chatting about certain things. Your choice, valued client."
"Hey—hey!"
Do-ha snuffed the crystal, leaving Je-u's frantic shouts behind.
He sat up.
"Canteas! Let's go."
"I'm not going."
"Why not?"
"Yong-yong's sick. I have to look after him."
Canteas had his back turned, stroking Yong-yong—though in truth he was holding the little dragon's mouth shut and making him play sick.
With a flap of wings, Yong-yong burst free of his arms and glared at Canteas. Using him as an excuse was low, even for a lich.
"We're taking Yong-yong anyway."
"Bee?"
Yong-yong tilted his head at Do-ha's words. He'd always stayed home. He was supposed to come along?
"If you don't want to, you can stay."
"Bee!"
Yong-yong shook his head hard. Not want to? He wanted to very much. Until recently he'd slept so much that being alone hadn't bothered him, but these days the sleep was gone and he was constantly bored. Selenia playing with him was the only reason he'd managed.
"Why bring Yong-yong?"
"Because we need to find a dragon."
Dragons and Western dragons could sense each other. The sensation was unpleasant, strictly speaking, but they could reliably detect one another's presence.
"You said the dragon's already dead."
"If the search hits a wall, we'll find another dragon and ask if anything unusual's been going on lately. Yong-yong's the one who'll track them down."
"Ah."
"Where's Selenia, by the way?"
"She left for Alfheim with your grandfather this morning."
"Huh? Why would Grandfather go there?"
"The queen said she'd help raise his spirit affinity, so he went. She also really wanted to meet the Absolute Being's parent."
"I was wondering where he'd gone…"
Do-ha nodded along—then something felt off, and he cocked his head.
"Wait."
"?"
"…You didn't tell Grandfather I'm the Absolute Being, did you?"
"No?"
"Right? You didn't?"
"He already knew."
"…"
"At the welcome ceremony last time, when you went over to the kids—he told them everything. He'd already figured it out."
Do-ha sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. He'd meant to explain properly when the chance came. So much for that.
I'll have to sit him down and go through it carefully myself.
Do-ha, Canteas, and Yong-yong opened the door and stepped outside.