Luce stood beside the gaping maw of the ancient dragon, blood trickling from its jaws. Tilting his head slightly, he peered into the dragon’s faded pupils and spoke. Owing to the creature’s massive size, its eye looked more like the mouth of a cave than anything else.
“…Was it you?”
The one who so brazenly interfered in my game?
The dragon’s eyes had turned entirely gray, their original hue all but faded. Despite Luce standing directly beneath them, the dragon’s eyes didn’t move an inch. It was clear the beast had gone blind with age. Upon confirming that, Luce’s brow furrowed subtly. To think that the first of his kind he had ever met in this world would reveal such a glaring vulnerability. He didn’t like it.
[Yes. I lent my strength to the ‘world.’ I’m sorry—but it couldn’t be helped.]
“Why?”
Luce’s expression twisted with irritation. He simply couldn’t comprehend why this dragon had meddled in his affairs. Leaving a jewel that could alter the fate of the continent inside a dungeon? Sending him to the Dohenia Volcano? All of it? Bitterness welled up from deep inside him, and he bit down on his lip to contain it.
Just then, Mikhail turned his head toward Luce.
It was the prince’s first time seeing a dragon in its true form. The sight was so awe-inspiring, it almost felt divine. But aside from that sense of wonder, another issue lingered.
“By the way… why have you been talking to yourself this whole time?”
Talking to himself? What was he talking about?
Luce had been about to ask the dragon another question, but Mikhail’s words made him pause. His lips pressed together in silence.
He’d nearly spoken of past “games” with the dragon, completely forgetting Mikhail was right there beside him. Grateful for the timely interruption, Luce gave a short nod and responded.
“The dragon isn’t speaking in a human language. It’s using magic—telepathy—to communicate directly into my mind. To you, it probably just looked like I was mumbling to myself.”
“What did he say?”
Mikhail stared at Luce, clearly eager to know what conversation the dragons were having. An ordinary person might have mistaken the prince’s face for impassive, but Luce instantly saw through it.
Casting a brief glance at the dragon’s dimmed eyes, Luce replied to Mikhail.
“…He said he was the one who called me here.”
“Is this dragon going to be alright? He looks like he’s lost a lot of blood.”
As Mikhail spoke, Luce’s eyes dropped to the dark, almost black pool of blood seeping beneath them. Just then, the dragon coughed violently, a harsh khhk—kieek! sound escaping as blood entered its throat mid-breath. Luce raised his arm and placed his palm gently against the dragon’s jaw, now cold and coated in tough, scaly hide.
Right. Before asking about the reason for his interference, there was something else to do first.
Luce’s soft voice merged with the wind rolling over the hill.
“Recovery.”
At that moment, golden mana surged forth with his gleaming eyes, rippling through the air like a tide.
The dragon, understanding Luce’s intent, slowly shut its eyes, then blinked them open once more.
[Don’t waste your strength. My time is simply up. Magic won’t work on me anymore.]
“It might extend your time, even just a little.”
Despite the dragon’s refusal, Luce didn’t relent.
Yet the mana, which should have been absorbed into the creature’s body, merely hovered in the air, unable to breach its skin. Luce noted this and pressed his palm down harder, frowning. A single, brief word slipped again from his beautifully curved lips.
“Recovery.”
But the result was no different than before. The magic… Luce looked up at the air above, scowling. For some reason, the spell wasn’t taking effect.
After several failed attempts, the Gold Dragon finally withdrew his hand from the ancient dragon’s scales.
[That’s enough.]
“But…”
[I didn’t call you here just to get healed.]
“…”
Luce clenched his useless palm into a fist, then slowly opened it again. Why wasn’t the magic working? He tilted his head slightly, muttering in frustration.
“Then why did you call me? Why now, after all this time?”
At Luce’s cold words, Mikhail’s gaze flicked subtly in his direction. There was something unusual about his atmosphere. Unfazed by the frosty tone, the ancient dragon slowly moved its dim eyes and continued speaking.
[We call it a game—when dragons mingle with the world.]
A coarse, metallic rasp scraped from its throat, reverberating through the earth—perhaps a remnant of the earlier bloody coughing. Yet the telepathic voice echoing in Luce’s mind was far too clear to belong to a dying beast.
[Then tell me, why do you think we play this game?]
“Because we can.”
The answer was sharp, cutting. Luce’s throat rumbled with a low growl, betraying his growing anger. He didn’t like that the dragon responded to his question with another question, entirely unrelated.
Sensing the young dragon’s irritation, the elder dragon exhaled hard through its nostrils—a sound that almost resembled laughter.
[Yes, that is certainly part of it.]
“……”
Luce said nothing, merely watching the creature in silence.
[But there’s another reason we’re able to experience, even for a moment, the lives of every species in this world.]
Just then—
Khhk, kehhekk! The dragon’s jaws opened wide as if struggling for air, unleashing a ragged breath. Luce watched with eyes as sharp as ever, unmoved.
Startled by the harsh noise, Mikhail flinched and slowly approached the dragon. Glancing uncertainly at Luce, he reached out toward the creature. Luce gave him a single, subtle nod. Taking that as permission, Mikhail hesitantly pressed his palm against the dragon’s jaw. The cold, scaly texture shocked him at first, but the reality of what he was touching quickly settled in. As he began gently stroking the massive creature, the dragon’s breathing gradually began to calm.
[You’re a warm child.]
Luce simply watched in silence.
“Then,” Luce finally spoke after a long pause, his voice tentative.
“…Are you Ordinas?”
At the mention of that name, Mikhail’s head snapped up. But the dragon only responded with serene confusion.
[Ordinas? What is that?]
“The god who governs everything in this world. The one whose will no one can defy.”
[A god? …A god who sits waiting for death—have you ever seen such a thing?]
“……”
Ordinas—it was a word created by humans. It made sense that the dragon wouldn’t know it. Luce’s expression darkened as he quietly tried to make sense of the current situation.
The unstoppable flow of natural law. Fate. That was what humans called Ordinas.
[A long, long time ago—so far back you couldn’t even imagine it—humans worshipped us. They begged us for mercy, revered our power as if it belonged to the gods. But you know as well as I do—we are not gods, are we?]
The dragon’s answer echoed what Luce had always believed. Dragons were the mightiest and longest-living of all creatures, but they weren’t absolute. Dragons could be wounded. Dragons could die. There were limits to what they could do.
[Why do you think we exist in this world?]
The reason dragons existed in this world? There was no reason.
Luce said nothing. Yet even on the brink of death, the dragon offered him a gentle smile, one that held the weight of long reflection and a desire to pass on what he had understood over the ages.
[The world needs us—and we need the world. That truth applies to everything. Everything is connected. The Demon Realm exists, and so this world exists alongside it. Monsters exist, and so heroes exist to oppose them. This Ordinas you speak of—this “fate”—may just be another word for that natural flow.]
The dragon coughed again, short and choked, as if blood had trickled into its windpipe. Luce watched quietly, then finally spoke.
It was an interesting theory. But that was all it was.
“I believe I’ve asked more than once now—why are you telling me all of this?”
[As you can see, I don’t have much time left.]
As if to prove his point, thick blood pooled beneath the dragon’s mouth, and here and there, tiny Mirkint flowers had begun to bloom in the crimson.
[This world has faced collapse many times, its balance with the Demon Realm shattered. But each time, it endured. The world created heroes—and those heroes fought back the monsters. And yes, dragons have always had a role to play in that.]
A role for dragons?
Luce’s lip curled into a sardonic smirk.
“…What if I refuse?”
His voice was sharp, his whole body on edge as he glared at the dragon. Mikhail, watching the two of them in tense silence, tilted his head.
What in the world are they talking about to make him look like that?
