Chapter 408: Dragon City

Translator: imperfectluck  Editor: Pranav

“Who’s Roland? Is he some type of new exotic food? I’ve never heard of him.”

“I think he’s the descendant of the Mist. Right, have you heard of the Mist Kingdom? It was destroyed around three centuries ago. He was the prince at that time.”

“…Ah, I do have some recollection of it now. Has the Mist Family’s inheritance perished? Sigh—I had a good relationship with the Mist King back in the day. Those Northlanders are much better warriors than the barbarians. Such a pity.”

“Hah! No matter what things were like, he was only a mortal. What is there to pity?”

“You’re right… Have you heard? Third Brother said that there’s a special sauce that makes the Eternal Thunder Tribe really delicious. You want to try that with me?”

Whenever Dragon City held a welcoming party for a mortal, such conversations would be commonplace.

This was unavoidable. After all, the prideful dragons couldn’t even remember the last time they formally invited a mortal and treated him so politely. For the older dragons, they would casually nap for a century at a time. A mortal who was only three hundred-ish years old would be nothing more than a young brat.

At this time, the Immemorial Gold Dragon Halos had a bit of a headache. As the highest-ranking leader of Dragon City, he decided to invite the Mage Country’s special ambassador by using the dragons’ utmost politeness. However, Roland was quite late to arrive, which made the other leaders start complaining with comments like “This is so humiliating,””He’s only a human, why invite him? Let him get the hell out if he doesn’t want to come” and so on.

“That’s enough out of all of you! You’ll understand when you see him! Also—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Halos found, to his shock, that not only could he not speak, but everything before him had stopped silent, as if frozen in time. Only the consciousnesses of the dragons remained; they were unable to move their bodies. Even the tiny particles of water and dust in the air had frozen.

The next moment, everything returned to normal, as if all this was nothing more than a nightmare.

“What happened?”

Just as the astonished dragons were beginning to talk about the abnormal scene which occurred, Halos stood up.

“He’s probably here… It seems that there are many others like all of you, who are so shortsighted to look down on mortals. I hope they haven’t caused a huge problem.”

Half an hour ago, when my Borealis entered the Ake Canyon in which Dragon City was located, countless “curious spectators” gathered around us. But before the dragons attacked us, Blue Dragon Evelyn, who was leading the Borealis, helped us enter without incident.

The mountains around this area were strangely shaped. From the holographic projections I saw from the bridge, a gigantic airship like ours passing through would seem like a little toy. Compared to the tremendous mountains, the dragons around us were nothing more than ordinary sparrows.

“There are over three thousand and seven hundred Adult Dragons located in a radius around us. Around an equal number of young or elderly dragons are here too. And many areas can’t be sensed by our radar; probably they are ‘undetectable’ due to the presence of powerful individual wills. As expected of Dragon World, one of the three biggest homes of the dragons.”

Radar in this world far surpassed radar in my previous world, as we used sound magic and magical engineering to improve it. The only drawback was that technology and industrial level weren’t up to par, so the size of the ‘radar room’ took up the space of two entire rooms. Still, that posed no problem for the spacious battleship.

“Actually, we need to prepare ourselves the moment that we enter Dragon City.”

Many curious dragons would pass by. I was beginning to worry that the cannoneers wouldn’t be able to control their trigger fingers.

In front of the gigantic Borealis, even a dragon would seem tiny. Naturally, this helped to curb their arrogance, and I managed to avoid the awkwardness of the dragons surrounding and gawking at me.

“So this is one of the three largest Dragon Cities? It’s far smaller than I anticipated. Still, it looks quite valuable…”

At the end of the mountains, a group of castles appeared, and the first thing I noticed was that they were constructed out of attention-grabbing white jade. If I saw correctly, this was an expensive type of jade which could remain warm in winter and cool in summer. While it wasn’t a magical metal capable of being turned into equipment, its price was equal to that of mithril. Rich people liked to make their beds out of jade to show off. Should I say that it was expected of the dragons to use this rare white jade to construct entire castles?

“They’re only historical artifacts. The dragons guarding them have to deal with some younger dragons who try to rob the castles. The young dragons are capable of doing anything in order to decorate their dragon nests and find a partner.”

Copper Dragon Evelyn naturally accompanied me as well. After we communicated about many things, the trust between us deepened to quite an extent. At the very least, I would no longer have to intentionally avoid many things with her.

This wasn’t my first time visiting a Dragon City. I had a certain understanding of these places known as Dragon Cities.

Dragon City wasn’t actually a place where dragons gathered. For the city itself to have one percent of the dragons under its control living there would already be quite rare. Although this sounded inconceivable, it was understandable if you considered how individualistic and territorial most dragons were.

Adult and older dragons typically had their own territories, which would include magic beasts and other intelligent creatures that were their servants. They could live like kings there, so how would they possibly come over to Dragon City and live like an ordinary citizen?

Most dragons viewed Dragon City as a political organization where the veterans debated useless things. They also thought of it as a temporary marketplace where ordinary dragons could exchange items with each other. Most dragons would avoid coming to Dragon City as much as possible in order to avoid the veteran dragons conscripting them for some purpose.

It was mostly the same for the Underground Dragon City. But the environment was far harsher there, so the Underground Dragon Queen had a more centralized authority. On the other hand, the surface Dragon City’s leadership system used a council of elders or even the inconceivable system where different dragons took turns being leaders.

However, every society’s system would have its reasons for existing. This type of chaotic and inefficient ruling system was the only choice for the dragons. Every dragon species had fundamentally different personalities, and having a Copper Dragon represent the benefits of a Blue Dragon would be a joke. It would already be considered nice if they didn’t simply go to war with each other.

Unlike how there were only Red and Black Dragons in the Underground, there were far too many dragon species in Dragon City. Every species wanted a dragon to be their representative, and hence the ruling system was a council where all the leaders had the right to speak. But some powerful species had multiple leaders on the council, while other species had zero leaders. This was because of the dragons’ typical habit: those who were strong could rule.

Since dragons were large creatures, most Dragon City residents would choose to remain in humanoid form. Otherwise, the city wouldn’t have enough space to hold them all. The younger dragons that didn’t yet have the ability to change their form would conduct trades with each other outside the city.

As I slowly roamed around the city, I didn’t see that many dragons in dragon form. Apart from a few Infant Dragons being carried around by their mothers, the rest were strange humanoid creatures, with elves and humans the most common. There were also plenty of dragons that took beastmen or dwarf forms. I even saw a few dragons that looked like demons and even ogres. The strange part was that the dragon in demon form was one respected by other dragons.

“Adult Dragons will choose another species’ appearance as their smaller form. Once they choose their appearance and species, they won’t be able to ever change it. Those who choose elf appearances did so because the elves were the dominant species at the time. Naturally, there are more elf forms here than any other species. Now is the generation of the humans, so human forms are the second-most common, with mostly younger dragons choosing human forms. But if a dragon chose a demon form…”

The most obvious examples were Little Red and her mother Molly. Molly had a red-haired elf form, while Little Red chose to be a black-haired human.

“So this dragon must be from the great immemorial generation where demons ruled? I see.”

From a certain standpoint, the ratio of different forms in Dragon City represented the history of the dominance of various species. More than fifty percent of the dragons here had elf forms. I could only sigh at how dominant elven culture had been for so long in history, but I also felt some mysterious pity. After all, the ancient Gold Elves always seemed ethereal and vulnerable to change. Who knew if the last remaining Gold Elf next to me still counted as a pure Gold Elf?

Although Harloys appeared to be smiling on the surface, through our soul connection I could feel that her emotions were in a turmoil after seeing so many elf forms. This was no surprise to me. I secretly patted her on the shoulder.

While we observed the dragons, the dragons observed us.

Since we were here for their welcoming party, I didn’t take a single subordinate with me other than Harloys. The dragons here didn’t have the habit of using horse-drawn carriages, so we toured Dragon City by walking.

As we walked, the full set of God Equipment on my body sent out waves of elemental energy I didn’t even attempt to conceal. This made the eyes of many dragons light up in greed, causing us to have a huge entourage of dragons following after us. Although there was a law that prohibited conflicts in Dragon City, it was highly likely that we, as outsiders, would be attacked the moment we left.

“These are all younger dragons.”

“Hehehe, youngsters don’t understand the cruelty of the world. They’ll learn after some setbacks.”

We simply ignored the dragons following us. It was obvious that they were only younger dragons. This was partly because younger dragons had entered their reproductive period and desired more wealth to establish a better nest and attract a better partner, but even more because older dragons were wise enough to know who they could and couldn’t mess with. Since I dared to blatantly show off all this God Equipment, I obviously wasn’t afraid of any robbers. I had nothing but God Equipment on my body, without even a single piece at lower ranks. Even if I appeared to be weak on the surface, how could I possibly be someone easy to pick on?

Suddenly, a large shadow loomed before us. A short and skinny white-skinned elf transformed into a White Dragon.

“…Should I say that not all dragons are smart enough to avoid conflict in Dragon City? Or should I say that it’s to be expected of White Dragons, the dumbest of all dragons?”

“Dragon descendant! Give me all the treasures you possess. I, the great Hamast, shall become your new master.”

“Whoa, he actually thinks that I’m a half-dragon?”

Dragons were accustomed to using dragon descendants and half-dragons as their servants and slaves, as dragon descendants didn’t have high statuses among dragons. The Dragon Bloodline in my body seemed to make this Hamast mistake me for a half-dragon, which would be afraid of any real dragon.

I smiled rather evilly. When the other dragons saw that someone intended to make a move, several other malevolent dragons jumped out of the crowd. There were Blue, Green, White and even a few Red Dragons. It seemed that quite a number of Red Dragons had begun to come to the surface.

“You—you—you little brats, this slave of mine escaped with this great Hamast’s treasures! Are you all intending to steal this great Hamast’s treasures?”

The giant White Dragon had a stinky breath, and he swept away all the younger dragons with a swipe of his tail. From his power level, we could see that Hamast was actually an Immemorial White Dragon with many years of experience. But the fact that someone as dumb as him lived until now was probably because he stayed as a hermit in Dragon City.

Well, he did have at least a few smarts since he called me an escaped slave who stole his treasure. He had done this to avoid the law of no conflicts in Dragon City. Anyways, by the time the dragon law enforcers arrived, the incident would already be finished and the victim nowhere to be found. It would be unlikely for the dragons to give an Immemorial Dragon like him any trouble for the sake of some unknown low-level dragon descendants.

Seeing that a conflict was brewing, many spectating dragons gossiped among themselves, boisterous because this involved Hamast, who was known to be vicious. None, however, tried to stop the conflict. They stood by as if they wanted to watch a good show. Obviously, none of them had good intentions towards me.

“Why haven’t they started to fight yet?”

“I bet that Hamast will be the unlucky one. He was just punished a few days ago.”

“…Those are all real God Equipment, aren’t they?”

Some dragons looked forward to seeing a fight, some dragons wanted to see Hamast lose and some dragons were considering the possibility of stealing the God Equipment before Hamast could. But no matter which dragon it was, none of them had friendly expressions towards me.

I shook my head at this sight. My impression of dragons was becoming worse and worse even if I never had a good impression of them to begin with, no matter what species of dragons they were.

“Sheesh! They’re so talkative. Evelyn, is this how Dragon City treats their guests? Don’t they recognize who you are?”

“Ha! For dragons, a human form doesn’t have much meaning. They recognize the three-headed dragon Evelyn, not a young Copper Dragon like me.”

“You’re not going to do your job as one of the leaders of Dragon City?”

“My older sister is a leader, not me. Besides, don’t you want to make an example of someone to make the rest more obedient? A perfect scapegoat is right in front of you. Wouldn’t it be rude of me to take this opportunity away from you?”

I touched the hat on my head, and a black light flashed on my staff as I shrugged.

“It’s no fun if you say it out loud. I wanted to enjoy the monkey prancing around in front of me for a little longer.”

Malicious dragons had us surrounded. They were openly gossiping about us with negative intentions, something that greatly displeased me.

“…How noisy. Law Incantation: Silence!”

A silver figure of Wumianzhe appeared on my law robe for an instant as the faint silver light of Law cast out around me. This Law Incantation’s level was as if Wumianzhe personally cast it, so the entire Dragon City was forcefully silenced for a moment.

The normal power level of Law Incantation: Silence would only be enough to silence the people in a small courtroom. However, my spell’s power greatly exceeded my expectations. The effects of the Wumianzhe’s divine power made it so that such an ordinary spell affected the entire Dragon City.

At this moment, everything became silent. The vicious gossiping stopped—they had lost the ability to speak. Meanwhile, up in midair, the flying dragons lost their ability to fly, and they fell to the ground. However, the Law Incantation would end before they fell to their deaths.

I chuckled evilly as I glanced at how Hamast and the young dragons were all panicking.

“Law Incantation: Conviction.”

This time, there was the silver light of judgement. The dragons that had intended to rob and kill me were marked in a deep red. They had been caught red-handed in attempting the crime.

“It would seem that Dragon City lacks public security.”

I looked around me and saw numerous areas light up with red. Wumianzhe’s divine power once again made this simple low-level Law spell expand to all of Dragon City.

No matter how stupid Hamast was, he still realized that he had bitten off more than he could chew. But I didn’t wait for him to do anything as I raised my staff.

“Law Incantation: An—”

“Your Highness Roland, please wait—”

It would seem that I’d made too much of a commotion with my Law Incantations, catching the attention of the Dragon World leaders who were waiting for me. It was quite a sight to see a group of dragons rushing towards me.

However, I shook my head and completed the Law Incantation I was casting.

“—Law Incantation: Anti-Crime.”

I simply touched the White Dragon’s foot with my black staff. Hamast’s giant head paused in surprise for a moment before he widened his eyes and opened his mouth with an expression filled with shock. He looked towards the Dragon City leaders, pleading with his eyes to be saved.

*Boom!*

Hamast didn’t even get a chance to scream before his head exploded like fireworks. His blood went flying, painting the whole street a deep sheen of scarlet. Naturally, the dragon leaders’ faces were splattered with plenty of blood.

I chuckled in satisfaction, looking at the grim expressions before me.

“Pleased to meet you all for the first time, respected dragon leaders. I’m Roland, Roland Mist. What a fun welcoming party this is, having someone like this come welcome me. You’re all truly creative to have come up with such a method.”

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