The Dragon of the Pleasure City - 4
Click-clack.
Sestia approached with a coquettish sway of her hips. The confidently upturned corners of her mouth alone proclaimed her standing in this place. She carried herself like someone who knew she was the best—shoulders hiked high, if she had been a man.
“Bern, is that person perhaps….”
“Just walk past. Don’t even make eye contact.”
I had already decided to stay thoroughly out of it this time. I had no intention of creating any point of contact with her. Guiding Marianne along, I slipped naturally past Sestia’s side, broadcasting as loudly as possible that we were clueless outsiders who knew nothing about anything.
“Interesting.”
The moment we brushed by, Sestia’s voice slid into my ear. I did not stop walking. Reacting would only drag me in. The smartest move was to keep going while telling myself she hadn’t been talking to me.
“Your performance of pretending not to hear is first-rate.”
I am deaf.
“But do you know? You’re the only person in this entire city who dares to ignore me.”
She can’t be talking about me.
“You, right now, thinking it isn’t you. Yes—exactly you.”
“……What do you want?”
“Finally decided to answer?”
She was reading my thoughts with mind-reading magic, trailing after me and chattering the whole way. How was I supposed to keep ignoring that? If she hadn’t been famous it might have been different, but Sestia was the face of this city. Continuing to snub someone like her would only draw the residents’ eyes—and their resentment. I still needed to stay here for roughly three more weeks; making enemies of the locals was not an option.
“Is there something you need from me?”
“Drop the formalities and speak casually. I’ve already dug up everything about you through the Albastros.”
“……Is it really all right for the ruler of an entire city to dig into people’s private lives like that?”
“That’s exactly why I have to dig. I need to know whether any dangerous elements are walking into my city.”
Those Albastros bastards. I had paid them a fortune to bury my information completely, and they still sold it. Sestia must have offered them an even bigger premium. I had dumped half of Hades’s entire fortune into the cover-up, and it still hadn’t been enough. Looking at how unfazed Sestia remained, her financial power was clearly in a league of its own.
Thinking about it, that was only natural…
Hades might be doing well these days, but she was still a one-woman operation, and she had debuted less than half a year ago. Sestia, on the other hand, had been running this city for years—and the city in question was Yuran, a massive pleasure complex where money flowed like water. Gambling that could ruin a person overnight was the main industry. From the start, there had never been any contest.
“Fine. So what business do you have with me?”
“What do you think I came looking for you for?”
“How should I know? I haven’t caused any trouble, and I don’t plan to.”
“That’s a little disappointing. I was hoping you’d at least pull off a light bit of terrorism.”
“Are you insane? Two seconds ago you were talking about wiping out dangerous elements, and now you’re egging me on to commit terrorism?”
Sestia licked her lips and fixed me with a long, lingering stare. Her smile was full of meaning, and I did not like it one bit.
“I hate boring days more than anything. I don’t care who it is—I just want someone to raise a really big ruckus! Even trying to snatch my seat away from me would be fine.”
“Then why did you recruit Lin? Her sword could reach your throat.”
“Because recruiting her to my side is more fun, of course. The Wild Dragon’s daughter and the Sword Saint—close yet somehow on bad terms. If I set the stage for those two to fight, wouldn’t that make a pretty good show?”
“You’ve got a rotten personality.”
“I hear that a lot. These days I take it as a compliment.”
Sestia grinned. The urge to crack my fist down on the top of her head boiled up. I used to do that to Rene all the time whenever she misbehaved.
“So what do you actually want? Should I just go ahead and stage a little terrorism for you?”
“That wouldn’t be bad either, but I don’t particularly feel like toppling a tower I worked so hard to build. How about a one-on-one duel with me instead?”
“You’re telling a mere human to duel a dragonkin?”
“I already know you’re planning to take down the Red Dragon. That’s why I’m offering.”
“…….”
“I heard Ignite ordered the western tribes to kill you on sight. You must have crossed him somehow. Am I wrong?”
“No.”
“A grudge deep enough for a kill order will cling to you for the rest of your life—unless you drive a sword through Ignite’s heart.”
“Probably.”
“So fight me while pretending you’re fighting Ignite. You get a chance to spar against a dragon, and I get to enjoy a good fight! Mutual benefit, right?”
“No.”
“Eh…?”
At my single word, the smirk that had been plastered across Sestia’s face froze solid. She stared at me with her mouth hanging open, apparently unable to process an answer she had never expected. Had she genuinely believed this was a good deal?
“Sorry, but I don’t need to run mock battles against dragons with you. I can just do that with the Wild Dragon. Besides, you’re only a half-blood. She’s a pure-blooded dragon.”
“Th-the Wild Dragon would never humor a mere human’s circumstances….”
“A normal human, sure. But I’ve shared a bed with the Wild Dragon. The whole reason I crossed Ignite in the first place is connected to her, so of course she’d help.”
“Th-that’s a lie! I heard the Wild Dragon is an extreme husband-obsessed—hup?!”
I poured mana into the Dragon Heart of Breeze that resided inside me. It pulsed like a living heart, radiating heat and unleashing the Wild Dragon’s aura. With dragon blood running through her own veins, Sestia would have felt it clearly—the fact that Breeze had transferred half of her Dragon Heart to me.
“Satisfied? Then I’m going to pretend I never heard your proposal.”
What was the point of fighting Sestia when there was nothing to gain? I had no desire to waste energy for no reason. Thanks to Hades I had capital to burn, and I intended to enjoy the casinos I had never been able to visit in my previous world.
Looking at it this way, I really do seem like trash who doesn’t earn a single coin and just wanders around spending money.
[You are trash, are you not?]
[Master is a splendid piece of trash!]
You all want to get abandoned?
Trading idle banter with Frach and Chaos, I set off down the road again. Sestia, however, had not given up; she grabbed my arm. The smile that had been plastered across her face had vanished—apparently being told she held no value had wounded her pride.
“What are you doing? I already said your proposal was off the table.”
“You need Mermaid’s Tears, don’t you? I know full well you’re the one who asked the Sword Saint and the Wild Dragon’s daughter to bring them back.”
“That’s right. I needed them, so I asked.”
“Then I’ll give you Mermaid’s Tears, so…….”
“I don’t need them.”
“Wh-why not?!”
Where earlier she had only been flustered, now Sestia’s voice cracked with genuine frustration. Having her offers rejected one after another was clearly making her anxious.
“Sooner or later they’ll fall into my hands within a month anyway. Why would I take that deal? I can just wait peacefully.”
“What if the women you care about hurt each other while fighting?”
“People grow by getting hurt. From the look of things they were already fighting over circumstances they can’t tell me about, so it’s none of my business. More than that, Lin and Rene wouldn’t want me to coddle them.”
If they were children it might be different, but they were full-grown adults. They knew how to take responsibility and how to solve their own problems. If I stepped in and cleared everything away in one stroke, their growth would only slow. Worse, they would start depending on me more and more—and that was a direction neither I nor they wanted.
“I’m not pressed for time. I plan to watch at my leisure. So I refuse the offer of Mermaid’s Tears as well.”
“Ugh…!”
Two failed deals in a row. For Sestia, who had only ever known success, it must have been a serious shock. But she needed to learn: the world does not always revolve around her. What I had just said was a perfectly kind piece of advice.
“W-wait!”
“You still have something left to say?”
“I’ll give you a wish ticket!”
“A wish ticket?”
“Yes—the right to command anything of me, the highest authority in Yuran! If I put it up for auction, people would bid whatever I asked! Doesn’t that tempt you even a little?”
“……Not really?”
“You still don’t understand its value. If you wanted, I could even fight Ignite in your place. Can you still say you don’t need it?”
“To be blunt, I can take care of Ignite by myself later.”
“Th-that’s ridiculous!”
“Unfortunately, I mean every word.”
Kang Junhyuk had defeated even the Wild Dragon, who was stronger than Ignite. Why wouldn’t I be able to defeat Ignite? Frankly, if I were given a single year, I could go around thrashing every top-tier powerhouse in this world. Even now I felt no real chance of losing if I fought Sestia, one of the late-game bosses. Being scared of a red lizard at this point was just laughable.
“Th-then I’ll add conditions that favor you!”
“What conditions?”
“I’ll match you in whatever event you choose. Rock-paper-scissors is fine—just compete with me.”
“Would that even count? It’d just end up feeling empty.”
“I don’t care! In exchange, if I win even once, we fight for real until one of us drops. How about that?”
“Oh?”
“Whether I win the first round or the next, I’ll still give you the wish ticket. That means you get two major chances.”
“Not bad.”
If I could freely control Sestia through a simple contest rather than a brawl, that was perfectly acceptable. Of course, if I lost I would end up in a blood-soaked fight—but I got to choose the first event. In other words, my odds of winning from the very first round were high.
“Right? Then right here, rock-paper-scissors—”
“Hold on. I never said we were doing rock-paper-scissors.”
“Then what event are you thinking of?”
“I’ve given it some thought, and there’s one duel that only works because our genders are different.”
“There was a duel like that? How curious.”
Her reaction told me Sestia was surprisingly innocent. I had assumed the ruler of a pleasure city would know everything, but apparently not.
Doesn’t matter if she doesn’t know!
[Pervert….]
The duel that unfolded not on a training ground but in a bedroom. Even as the highest authority of Yuran and the strongest dragonkin, Sestia was forced to realize that in the end she was still just a female.
And I learned something new as well.
That a dragonkin’s G-spot contains a reverse scale.