The visitor, who had come after hundreds of years, stood frozen with a complicated expression.
How could he not be? He couldn't get out, there was no way to survive, and there was no way to kill the dragon.
Now this child would realize he was at a dead end and despair.
Although she understood, Alkinea, the Gold Dragon, was honestly already quite disappointed in humans.
To put it bluntly, humans are weak.
They couldn't compare to dwarves in strength and craftsmanship, to elves in affinity with nature and beauty, or to beastmen in resilience. It was almost insulting to compare them to dragons, so she wouldn't even go there.
Although they lived relatively long among short-lived species, it was nothing compared to the dwarves who lived for hundreds of years and the elves who lived for nearly a thousand.
And yet, humans were the ones who were most active in events both big and small. This fact was not much different in the ‘previous world’ or the current world.
Despite being inferior in every way, they would appear as heroes in battles that determined the fate of the world and defeat the evil that threatened the world.
That was the mysterious power that humans possessed.
However, not a single one of them, she could say with certainty, had ever displayed such spirit in front of her.
Perhaps it was because their numbers were so large that the number of incompetent ones was inversely proportional to the number of heroes. Until now, there had not been a single one who had caught her eye.
Still, this guy, this Choi Yeon-woo, was quite bold. The first thing he thought of when he saw her was ‘I have to protect the orphanage.’ He was the most promising human she had ever seen.
“…That's a relief.”
“…What?”
Alkinea doubted her ears. Had she gotten old and senile? Had her ears gone deaf? That couldn't be. A dragon's body was perfect until the moment of its death.
“At least the Gate won't explode and destroy the orphanage. Ah, I feel so much better now.”
The man with scars all over his face muttered with a rather refreshed expression.
“…But you're going to die? In this cave, leaving nothing behind, without anyone knowing how you died, you're going to die miserably like that?”
“People die someday.”
Yeon-woo, who had spoken with a serious expression for a moment, chuckled.
“I would have died someday anyway. It was the first time in history that an Unfit had reached the bottom of the rankings, so maybe that was my last hurrah. If I was going to die someday, it's better to die… well, painlessly like this.”
With a fun conversation partner too, Yeon-woo added as he lay down on the ground.
Clang, the spear that had been propped up against the ground fell. The man stretched his arms and legs with a comfortable expression. As if he were lying in the snow.
“…Aren't you disappointed? You must have… trained to the point of breaking your bones. Even though I've been cooped up here for thousands of years, I know what Unfit means. It existed in the ‘previous world’ too. I don't know exactly what rankings mean for Hunters, but it must mean something significant.”
To put it into perspective, it was like a commoner with no magic power joining the kingdom's knights purely through effort.
Since most humans monopolized the methods of handling and awakening magic power within their bloodlines, it was a feat akin to threading a sea serpent through the eye of a needle.
“How could I not be disappointed? I reached the hundred thousandth place with this body that has no magic power. Even though it's just the Korean ranking, there are tens of millions of Hunters in this small land. I reached that position by surpassing all those people, so what would it have been like if I had magic power?”
I woulda,,, gone all the way to the top,,, number one,,,
Yeon-woo said in a strange accent. As mentioned before, she didn't actually open her mouth because it was a waste of energy, but Alkinea felt like her jaw would drop. Just… just that?
“Is that all? You're still… young, aren't you? When I was your age, I was a cute little hatchling flapping around. You still have so much life ahead of you, and you're only disappointed that you were born with such a body?”
"It's just like a dragon saying it was handsome when it was young. I was also once beautiful."
Perhaps finding common ground in an unexpected place, the human giggled. Then, with an amused expression, he said,
“This is a secret from the nun, but I pushed myself too hard trying to keep up with those who have magic power. They say I would die within 5 years even if I did nothing.”
Whether one could handle magic power or not made a huge difference in the profession of a Hunter.
It was simply comparable to having or not having a suit of armor. There was that much difference between an Unfit and someone who couldn't handle magic power at all.
…Dragons were equivalent to magic itself. And in their nests, it was even more so. As with all magic users, magic became stronger in a prepared place.
Then what about a dragon using magic in its nest?
A dragon in its nest was truly like a god. And even without any action from the god, the space itself would move to fulfill its wishes.
So, it wasn't Alkinea's fault that she had read the man's memories. It was simply that the omnipotence of a dragon as a living being transcended common sense.
The man's life was already a form of self-denial.
He suppressed his survival instincts, his sexual desires, his appetite, and all the desires that exist in humans, simply through willpower. Success and fame were not his desires. He controlled everything under the name of repayment and ‘manipulated’ himself.
That didn't mean the man had no desires. Despite having stronger desires than others, he simply lived that way.
Alkinea was a dragon. She belonged to the race that possessed the most precious material in this material realm, the Dragon Heart. A race that understood all things through the heart, they were wiser than anyone else. Even the ferocious evil dragons were like that.
Alkinea understood Choi Yeon-woo through her heart. She accepted everything that made up the man through her heart. That's what the Dragon Heart was.
“I've tried hard enough. I don't know what else to do, and this is the perfect time to let go of any regrets.”
The one who truly possessed the spirit of a hero was despairing because he was not born with the body of a hero.
…Unfortunately, Alkinea, the Gold Dragon who had received the name ‘Heart of God’ from her father, genuinely felt sorry for him.
She thought it was a nasty habit of those called gods to enjoy tormenting heroes, but perhaps the power of a name was truly something that could not be ignored.
“…What if, just what if.”
“If you had magic power, would you try again?”
