CH 79

“G… Green Dragon…?”

The creature that took over the roof of the lord’s hall turned out to be a real dragon.

The Green Dragon was a wood-attributed dragon with green scales and the ability to breathe out an extremely dangerous gas called ‘Poison Breath’.

“Dame Oscar,” Siegfried muttered.

“Yes, Your Majesty…?”

“Was there a Green Dragon in our territory…?” Siegfried asked, seemingly dumbfounded at the sudden appearance of the dragon.

“There shouldn’t be any as far as I am aware of…”

“Then why is that thing here all of a sudden…?”

“I was about to report it to you, though… Your Majesty…”

“Report what…?”

“Actually… that Green Dragon is a pet raised by one of the leaders of the barbarians…”

“Huh…? Why would a barbarian raise a dragon as a pet…? I don’t think they should be considered a barbarian then…”

“That’s—” Oscar tried to explain.

However, Siegfried interrupted her and said, “Let’s talk later.”

Then, he took out his weapon and said, “It’s time to fight.”

What more was there to say when the dragon had already invaded his house?

The only thing he could do right now was to fight it.

***

The lands north of the Proatine Province were very impoverished lands inhabited by around thirty barbarian tribes, and the wars the tribes waged among themselves turned their impoverished lands into a living hell.

The ‘Pullman Tribe’ was one of the barbarian tribes inhabiting the lands north of Proatine, and they were known to worship the dragons as their deity and ancestor. There was an artifact passed down from generation to generation within the Pullman Tribe, and it was a rein called ‘Dragon Steering’ that allowed them to control a dragon.

Durian was once a young warrior from the Pullman Tribe, and he possessed a grand ambition to become a Dragon Rider and unite the entire plains north of Proatine and declare himself the King of the Barbarians as soon as he became an adult.

It had been twenty years since then, and he spent the entire two decades searching for a dragon hatchling to control with the Dragon Steering artifact. Then, he was finally able to become a fully-fledged Dragon Rider at the end of his two-decade-long journey.

It was a miracle created by his hard work and luck.

He returned to his tribe after becoming a Dragon Rider, and he declared in front of his tribesmen, “I will conquer the plains, and I will put the entire continent in my hand as your chieftain!”

After that, he conquered a few tribes and turned the Pullman Tribe into the most powerful faction north of Proatine. The achievement gave Durian confidence to venture south and start his conquest of the continent.

The first lands that he targeted were none other than the lands directly adjacent to the impoverished plains where Durian lived his childhood, the Proatine Province.

***

Thankfully, things didn’t escalate into an all-out confrontation right away since the man riding on top of the dragon seemed like he wanted to speak to Siegfried first before waging war.

“Are you the king of this place?” asked the man on top of the dragon.

He had a large frame, long hair, and bulky muscles that would make a bodybuilder have a run for their money. The only word that came to Siegfried’s mind upon seeing the man was the word ‘barbarian’.

“Yes, I am the king,” Siegfried replied.

“I am the Great Conqueror Durian,” the man on top of the dragon proudly introduced himself.

Meanwhile…

‘What a name… Makes me want to smash this bastard’s head open with a durian[1]…’ Siegfried grumbled inwardly in disbelief.

Who in their right mind would name themselves durian? Of all things, why would anyone name their kid after a tropical fruit?

“I will unite the tribes of the north and conquer these lands!” Durian grandly exclaimed.

“What nonsense are you spouting?” Siegfried grumbled.

However, Durian didn’t give him any space to speak as he immediately said, “Listen, you weak human!”

“…?”

“I hereby command you as the Great Conqueror and Father of Dragons!” Durian exclaimed.

“Tell me,” Siegfried replied. He was curious about what the madman had to say.

“I will give you three days to make your decision! Will you surrender or choose death? If you choose to fight, then…” Durian said in a threatening voice, and the Green Dragon he was riding on let out a vicious growl as if it was finishing its master’s words. “Grrr…!”

This was indeed a straightforward threat.

“I will kill every single man and son in your lands. Your women and daughters will be forced into slavery! And I will chop your body into pieces and feed it to my dragon!” Durian threatened in a vicious manner befitting a barbarian tribal chief.

Afterward, the barbarian chief asked just to make sure that the human king fully understood him, “Three days. I expect you to prepare fifty beautiful virgins and my crown when I come back here. Do you understand, weak human?”

“Ah… sure sure…” Siegfried nonchalantly agreed in a skeptical manner. He found the whole spectacle to be absurd.

However, the problem was that the barbarian seemed to have no knowledge of the concept of skepticism. It seemed he misunderstood Siegfried’s skeptical response as his agreement.

“Good,” Durian said with a satisfied look before he gripped the reins of his dragon.

Flaaaap!

Then, the Green Dragon spread out its gigantic wings and prepared to take flight.

“I hope that you will not make a foolish decision,” Durian said before pulling the reins and flying away.

The reason Durian didn’t cause any more fuss before leaving was that he already considered Casein Castle and everything in it as his belongings. It already belonged to him anyway, so he didn’t feel the need to destroy or kill anything in it.

“Who the hell was that dumb f*cker?” Siegfried muttered in disbelief while watching Durian and his dragon fly away into the distance.

If one lived long enough and played enough games, strange things would truly happen to them.

***

An emergency council was immediately conducted.

“We are going to fight. It will be difficult, but it is worth giving a shot,” Siegfried declared while standing in the roofless lord’s hall.

The reason he considered fighting was that the dragon Durian was riding looked to be too young. It seemed as if it was in its adolescent stage at most.

The average lifespan of a dragon on the Nürburg Continent was eight thousand years, and the dragons that lived for less than five hundred years were called ‘hatchlings’. They would only be considered mature after they lived for more than five hundred years.

On top of that, the dragons that had just matured weren’t that strong. They wouldn’t be able to live up to their titles as dragons since they weren’t experienced enough to use ‘Dragon Magic, which was the trademark ability of dragons.

A dragon would have to live for at least a thousand years before it could call itself a dragon and instill fear in the hearts of others.

Moreover, dragons that lived for longer than three thousand years were in a different league when it came to their size and their ability to use Dragon Magic. By then, they would be considered mobile natural disasters.

Siegfried was able to calmly calculate their chances of winning since he paid very close attention to the dragon while Durian was busy delivering his speech.

‘I think it was around thirty meters long… It shouldn’t be any older than seven hundred years old… A party of high-level Rankers should be able to bring it down without much difficulty,’ he thought while deducing the rough age of the Green Dragon.

The fact that the Green Dragon ended up being controlled by a barbarian was more than enough evidence that it was still in its juvenile stage.

“That fool is going to come back three days later to receive our unconditional surrender. That is our opportunity to strike,” Siegfried said. His eyes looked like they were full of greed.

It was only natural for him to feel greedy After all, every single part of a dragon’s body was highly valuable. The horn, bones, blood, scales, meat, eyes, hides, and its heart, which was also known as the legendary Dragon Heart, where a dragon stored their mana, were extremely valuable materials that boasted an astronomical price.

The main reason for the price tag that came with the dragon parts was the scarcity and difficulty of hunting a dragon.

A 3000-year-old dragon was almost impossible to defeat, and even attempting to hunt one was definitely a bad idea.

However, that wasn’t the case when it came to a juvenile dragon or a dragon that had just recently matured. Those dragons were worth hunting down since the rewards one could reap far outweighed the risks.

‘What a jackpot. Who knew a young dragon was going to come waltzing in? I have to slurp this up before anyone else catches wind of this! It’s not every day that you get to hunt a young dragon!’ Siegfried exclaimed inwardly while clenching his fists.

A young dragon was very well aware that it was weak and would keep a low profile in its lair. It would continuously eat and sleep until it grew big enough. This cycle would usually go on for hundreds of years, and that was why it was considered to be rare or even impossible to find a young dragon outside of its own lair.

Search tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w for the original.

However, the foolish barbarian seemed to be oblivious to this fact as it proudly rode its dragon down and set it up nicely on display for everyone to see, as if he were begging people to hunt it down and rip it apart for its materials.

It seemed that there was truly a reason why a barbarian was a barbarian…

“But, Your Majesty… the casualties will be unimaginably high!”

“What if we request support from the empire…?”

“It will be impossible for us to contend against a dragon with only our strength alone!”

It seemed the officials thought otherwise. They knew very well a single young dragon couldn’t possibly devastate the kingdom, but they preferred to play it safe and offer up the dragon to the empire to curry favors from them.

“No…” Siegfried immediately shook his head and shot their suggestions down.

There was no way he would hand over a lump of fortune that came crawling in with its own two feet to someone else.

“We will hunt it down with our strength alone. I have hunted a dragon before. I would like to request every single one of you to stop raising any concerns regarding this issue and instead focus on calming down our people. They are definitely anxious right now.”

Siegfried wasn’t lying.

‘I’m glad I joined that raid that time,’ he thought, recalling his experience when he was still the Level 200 Elemental Mage Tae-Sung. Back then, he managed to join a raid to hunt down a 2000-year-old dragon.

The raid expedition members were Siegfried and other high Rankers. It was an amazing and intense battle that made it to the history books of the Nürburg Continent.

‘It’s not even a thousand years old yet. We can hunt it as long as we thoroughly prepare for it. Hold on… how did we hunt it that time…?’ Siegfried tried to recall what they did back then.

Experience…

This was the biggest weapon he could use to fight the disaster his kingdom was facing.

***

Siegfried immediately prepared for the dragon raid after concluding the emergency council meeting.

“Hyung-nim, is it true?” Seung-Gu asked after logging in a while later.

“Why are you asking me if it’s true when you already saw what happened to the roof?” Siegfried grumbled in response.

“Is it even going to be possible, hyung-nim? I know the dragon is still young, but it’s still a dragon with extremely high innate defense from its scales alone. I don’t think it’s something we can face at our current levels.”

“We just have to reduce its defense.”

“But its HP will be far higher than anything we have ever faced! The HP regen will also be…”

What Seung-Gu meant by ‘HP regen’ here was Health Regeneration.

“You think it’s going to regenerate more health than the damage we can deal to it?” Siegfried asked.

“Yes, hyung-nim.”

“There’s a solution for that. Well, a part of it.”

“H-How…?”

“You will see for yourself soon enough,” Siegfried said while recalling his experience from the raid. He then said, “Your job is to go to the nearest large city and procure the things listed here.”

“What are these?” Seung-Gu asked while browsing through the list.

“What else? It’s the things we need to prepare,” Siegfried said with a confident smirk.

***

Siegfried went to the nearest gateway after sending Seung-Gu on his way. He moved to a large city called Werke.

The reason Siegfried came to Werke was simple…

‘With my current items, there’s no way I can hunt a dragon, let alone a drake…’

He had to upgrade his gears once again. The generic items he bought from a blacksmith wouldn’t be able to scratch the dragon, let alone inflict any injuries to it.

He decided to upgrade his gears through…

“It’s amazing…” Siegfried muttered. He was standing in front of a large stone building with a large signboard depicting an emblem of windmill blades with the words ‘Bavarian’ written in the language of the continent.

It was none other than the Bavarian Workshop, one of the top three workshops on the Nürburg Continent. He chose to come here since he needed a weapon that boasted immense attacking power, and the Bavarian Workshop specialized in such weapons.

“How may I help you?” a staffer dressed formally greeted Siegfried at the workshop entrance.

“I’m here to visit the Hometown of Death,” Siegfried replied.

“Hometown of Death? Excuse me, but do you have an appointment? Everyone needs an appointment to be able to go to the Hometown of Death,” said the staffer.

“I don’t have an appointment, but please take a look at this,” Siegfried said as he showed the plaque he received from Herbert.

“T-This is…!”

Thankfully, it seemed that the staffer recognized the plaque.

“It seems that customer-nim is a VVIP of our workshop. Please, come this way. I shall guide you to the best of my abilities,” said the staffer with a bow.

Thanks to Herbert’s gift, Siegfried was given access to the Hometown of Death without a hitch.

‘This thing seems pretty useful,’ Siegfried thought while looking at the plaque with a wide smile.

1. For those not aware, ‘durian’ is a fruit(?) native to South-East Asia, and it is famous for its potentially fatal smell and tough spikes. More information here: ☜