Part 3 of 8
Watching TV in the living room was one of the few activities available to me.
“This morning, we interviewed Mr. Dustin, President of Daztrudia.”
I did sometimes pass the time with reading, embroidery, and so on, but I enjoyed doing nothing but staring at the screen.
In fact, I felt ill at ease when I couldn’t, perhaps because I had done nothing but watch TV before I came to the orphanage.
“I will not permit the use of MA energy in our country. Have we all forgotten the misdeeds of Potimas, the man who discovered it? There are still many mysteries surrounding MA energy. I cannot accept it until we know the potential drawbacks of its use.”
I looked away from the TV and out into the garden, where children with various unique traits were running around playing.
They were all chimeras, created by Potimas’s experiments.
I didn’t have any ability that was evident from my appearance alone, but over half of the children were visibly distinguishable from normal humans at a glance.
A girl with long, pointed ears was chasing around a boy with green skin.
A pink-haired boy threw a ball in a random direction, and a boy whose entire body was covered in fur jumped higher than an average adult’s height and caught it with ease.
Such sights were perfectly ordinary in this orphanage.
It was a rather large place, since it also had hospital facilities to take care of the physical side effects common in chimeras.
The yard was expansive, too, enough that even the chimera children with their superhuman physical abilities could play freely.
Children who had been kept in rooms by Potimas where they couldn’t move around were able to play to their hearts’ content in the orphanage courtyard.
However, there were some children like me who couldn’t join in due to health reasons.
Fortunately, the kids never harbored ill will toward one another; we were all equally close, whether we could move freely or not.
I think it’s because we felt we were of the same kind, in the same boat.
Chimeras are all different to the point where we could each be considered our own species, but we all understood that each of us had vastly different traits, and I think that worked to our advantage.
Because we were each so unique, there was never any concept of discrimination.
Perhaps that was just a lucky fluke.
Normal children go to school, and learn the ways of the world there.
Information sources like television don’t feel entirely real to children; they have to witness things with their own eyes and ears.
So in a way, the kids in the orphanage were cut off from the rest of the world, and knew little of society and common knowledge.
This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, though, and since the nature of the entire world was soon to change anyway, it would no longer matter if they knew anything about the way things were before.
“While President Dustin has firmly opposed the use of MA energy and prohibited it in Daztrudia, a growing number of other nations have been adopting it…”
As I absentmindedly watched the news at that time, I had no idea that this “MA energy” would eventually plunge the world into chaos and bring on even greater changes.
Even if I had known, I was only a child in a wheelchair. I doubt I could have done anything to stop it.
“Come in here, you naughty kids! It’s time for lunch!”
The director of the orphanage stomped into the yard.
She was a pleasantly plump, middle-aged woman, who was formerly a pediatrician.
As one of the Sariella Foundation’s full-time physicians, she flew around the world to all sorts of hospitals and orphanages, treating and diagnosing children everywhere.
Since her health and age were beginning to make it harder to fly so frequently, she made a request to the Foundation to be stationed in one place and became the director of our orphanage.
She was excellent with children, especially since she was a former pediatrician.
“Come on, now! Get on inside! Wash your hands!”
I remember her as a powerful woman with a big personality to match her build.
The kids obeyed, shouting and laughing as they streamed inside.
Lady Sariel was among them too, and must have gotten jostled by the children; her clothes were rumpled and dirty, and for some reason there were several flowers poking free from her hair.
“Fess up! Which of you rascals turned Lady Sariel into a vase?!”
“No. These are presents.”
Lady Sariel calmly objected to the director’s words.
One of the children must have tried to gift her some flowers.
But they went about it poorly and stuck them onto Lady Sariel’s head with the stems still attached, making for a strange impression indeed.
“If you’re gonna give flowers, at least make a crown or take off the stems!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The young perpetrator responded sheepishly, while the other boys laughed.
Then the director bonked the boys on the head.
“And you lot, getting all covered in filth! The mud on Lady Sariel’s clothes must be your work too, isn’t it?! You’re taking a bath before lunch!”
With that, she seized two particularly dirty children and hoisted them under each arm, lugging them off to the bath.
Everyone was so noisy.
But I was used to this sort of scene by now.
Watching everyone smile and laugh together made me happy.
Compared to the frigid life I’d led all alone in my bed until I came here, life in the orphanage felt incredibly warm.
I only hoped that such warm, happy times would go on forever.
“Protestors are now demonstrating against President Dustin’s position on the use of MA energy.”
But that wish was in vain, for the end was already close at hand.
If we are to discuss my relationship with Sariel, there is someone else I must mention.
Ariel?
No.
I have certainly known her for a very long time now, but in those days, I was only dimly aware of her as one of the children Sariel cared for.
Not to mention that all of the children at that orphanage were very distinctive individuals.
There was the first hero, the first saint, the beast lord, the agitator lord…
All of whom ran the riot shortly after the system was instituted.
By comparison, Ariel was of little note.
After all, she was only a powerless little girl at the time.
It is akin to a miracle that she survived that chaotic period at all.
Though it may be difficult to imagine that for anyone who knows her now.
At any rate, Ariel did not leave much of an impression at the time.
…Let us return to the main topic.
Before Sariel and I began to interact more frequently, there was one man who stood in my way.
To be frank, he made it difficult for me to meet with her at all.
That man’s name was Foduey.
Yes, the very same man who donated huge sums to the Sariella Foundation, and was known as the Demon Lord of the business world.
Still, by the time we first met, Foduey was already getting on in years.
His heyday of being feared in the financial world was long since past, and he was spending his remaining years putting a portion of his wealth to use, from which some even smaller portion was donated to the Sariella Foundation.
Even that tiny percentage of his profits was enough to fund a majority of their activities, which should give some idea of just how vast his overall assets must have been.
If he willed it, he could accomplish almost anything with the power of that wealth.
And he had connections not only in the business world, but the world of politics as well.
It would be no exaggeration to say that his backing was the reason that the Sariella Foundation had such power.
Of course, all that being said, the wealth of a mere human was the most trivial of details to a dragon like me.
Such things only held meaning within human society, after all.
What would a roll of banknotes mean to a dragon?
Nothing at all.
So to me, Foduey was no more than one insignificant human among many.
Until I actually met him, that is.
The first time I encountered Foduey face-to-face was when I went to tell Sariel exactly what I thought of her methods in person.
As I said before, Sariel’s way of doing things greatly displeased me.
For a time, I contented myself with observing her, but the more I watched, the more my frustration and irritation piled up, until one day I hit my limit.
Thus, I decided to go straight to the source to lodge my complaints.
I marched straight into a hospital run by the Sariella Foundation, right as Sariel was in the midst of inspecting the place.
Unfortunately for me, she was accompanied by Foduey.
Yes, this was a great misfortune indeed, at least at the time.
When I consider our later interactions, I suppose I would no longer describe it as such, but that is only because of what I know now.
But back then, our meeting was nothing short of a disaster.
In all my life, I have never been mocked so thoroughly by any human, not before or since.
The fact that I was more dumbfounded than angry is really quite humorous in retrospect.
Really, there was good reason to mock me in those days.
Considering my attitude at the time…
“Why must you do things in such a roundabout way?”
Those were the very first words I spoke to Sariel when I found her.
Anyone would take that as an attempt to pick a fight, no doubt.
Or at the very least, the beginnings of some troublesome encounter.
In truth, Sariel simply ignored me and kept walking.
Foduey, who was alongside her, slipped past me as well without sparing me a glance.
“Hey! Stop!”
Naturally, my young self took being ignored as an unbelievable insult, and shouted out to stop them.
Even though I was the one who acted rudely in the first place.
However, at this point I imagine Foduey was only surprised, and not yet furious.
My next words were what sparked his rage.
“You could have saved that child! Why did you let her die?!”
What did I mean, you ask?
This was a hospital operated by the Sariella Foundation.
Sariel herself regularly inspected the place.
And there, she learned that a child she had spoken to during her previous visit had succumbed to illness.
I saw their last interaction by way of clairvoyance.
“Thank you, Miss Sariel.”
“No need to thank me. It is part of my mission.”
“See you next time.”
“Yes, see you then.”
But after they parted ways, Sariel and that child would never meet again.
The child had an incurable disease.
But that is only speaking in terms of human standards.
With Sariel’s powers, she surely could have healed the child completely.
This was the reason that my impatience with her indirect way of doing things finally reached a breaking point.
There were many lives that Sariel could have saved, even without running hospitals and such.
But she chose not to do that.
And yet, she still had the gall to wear a faintly saddened expression when she heard that day the child had died.
How could she react like that when she could have saved the child’s life and didn’t?
I found it terribly disagreeable, which is why I yelled so angrily.
“Please keep your voice down in the hospital.”
But the response to my shout was completely unrelated to its contents.
Though in retrospect, I suppose it was a perfectly sensible way to react.
But at the time, it was the last thing I had expected to hear in response to my question.
Sariel is the only angel I know, but I think I realized at that moment just how impossible those beings are to understand.
“I don’t care about that!”
I shouted all the more, trying to cover up my confusion about our interaction.
Then I moved closer to Sariel, and I believe I made some vehement declaration that she could have easily healed the sick if she chose to do so.
“I will warn you one more time. This is a hospital. It is common sense to be quiet in a hospital.” Sariel was unmoved. “In addition, this hospital specializes in internal medicine and surgery. Mental illness is outside of our area of expertise, so I recommend that you try a different hospital.”
Not content to tell me to be quiet, she calmly insulted me as well.
Even I was stunned into silence by that.
“Pfft!”
Then one man dared to snicker at my stricken reaction.
As you may have gathered from the context, this man was Foduey.
I glared at him. “You inferior creature.”
“Ah, excuse me. Though I must say, which of us do you think appears inferior in this current situation?”
…I was very young at the time.
So young that I would openly call a human being an “inferior creature” to their face.
But in this case, Foduey’s response was an even harsher criticism.
It was then that I realized I had attracted the attention of the people around me.
A natural result of shouting in a hospital, I suppose.
All of the doctors, patients, and so on within hearing range were staring at me, and looking very put out.
If I may defend myself, at that time, the attention of humans meant nothing to me.
…Not that this is much of a defense.
But in those days, I thought of humans as insignificant creatures.
So I felt no need to waste my time paying any mind to whether they were looking at me.
Then I realized the differences in our perception.
From my point of view, Sariel was a god.
Not a human.
And of course, I myself was a dragon, and not a human, either.
I was speaking with the assumption that humans were of no consequence, but what would those humans think if they heard me without knowing what I was?
Blathering on about gods and claiming that this woman could heal a disease that no doctor could cure.
An incredibly irrational, inconsiderate man.
It would make perfect sense for them to see me that way.
These were the actions of someone who might be better served going to a mental hospital, just as Sariel said.
Since I was disguised, both Sariel and I looked like ordinary humans.
It was only natural that the humans who didn’t know any of this would see us that way.
This was my mistake for not paying attention to humans.
But I couldn’t very well smooth things over at that point, and I felt no need to do so for a mere human, anyway.
“Such insolence! Do you wish to die?!”
So, I decided to stick to my attitude as a dragon.
“What’s this? If you can’t win with words, you’ll win with violence, hmm? Does a fool who calls his adversary inferior yet cannot outwit him truly think himself the better man? Oh, I see. It’s because you don’t understand that you are a fool, hmm? Please, pardon me. I have a bad habit of using myself as a standard. It makes it hard for me to understand people whose minds are so much slower than my own. Do forgive me for that. I’m ever so sorry.”
…That man was always like this.
It wasn’t just that he had a comeback for everything—for every word that was spoken to him, he would return it tenfold.
When it comes to verbally mocking other people, I have never known a human more talented than Foduey.
…Although I question whether that should really be considered a “talent.”
However, his remark about resorting to violence if I couldn’t win with words did injure my pride.
If I raised a hand against him after that comment, I would become the fool he claimed I was.
And I was determined not to let that happen.
…Although I didn’t realize until much later that I had already lost the argument when he convinced me to think that way.
To think that I allowed a human whom I scorned as inferior to manipulate me with words so easily… I cannot help but laugh at my own absurdity.
“I will hear you out if you’ll step outside with me. This is indeed a hospital. As Lady Sariel says, it is no place for outsiders to barge in and cause a ruckus. Or is your mind really so inferior that you cannot grasp such a simple concept?”
“Nngh!”
Then he used my pride to force me to cooperate with his will.
At the time, I really felt I had no choice but to do as Foduey said.
A dragon like me, being commanded by a mere human like him?
It is hard to say whether that reflects more on Foduey as terrifying, or myself as pathetic.
I would like to think that it is not the latter…
…No, I suppose it does not matter now.
There would be little point in my putting on airs of importance now when I am already revealing such unsightly sides of myself.
So, compelled by Foduey, I left Sariel and went outside with Foduey, whose words drove home that fact.
“I must say, you put other stalkers to shame, really.”
“Huh?”
I could not help but gape at him in response.
A stalker?
A human was calling a mighty dragon such as myself…a stalker?
How could one not laugh at this?
“I am asking you to restrain yourself from such excessive stalking. Or didn’t you hear me? It appears that ‘superior creatures’ such as yourself tend to be hard of hearing. That doesn’t seem to make much sense from my perspective, but let us assume it is one of the many mysteries of the world. There must be some culture that takes pride in poor hearing that I was simply unaware of, I’m sure. Though I fail to understand the reasoning behind it.”
That was my reward for giving a dimwitted response to Foduey’s initial statement.
Knowing now that he was actually holding back quite a bit only makes it worse.
“Do not tarnish my reputation. I am not hard of hearing, nor am I any sort of stalker.”
“Is that right? Then you must really be a fool if you aren’t even aware of it yourself.”
“Excuse me?”
A prideful dragon such as I could never blithely accept an accusation of being a stalker.
But Foduey only continued to provoke me.
Were it not for his earlier comment, I would have undoubtedly killed him.
“Oh dear…”
Foduey heaved a dramatic, mocking sigh, as if to test the limits of my rationality.
I very nearly lost control.
But his next words stopped my thoughts in their tracks.
“If you consider yourselves so superior, you should at least learn the basics that we inferior humans consider common knowledge. Wouldn’t you agree, Sir Dragon?”
That stunned me into silence.
I had assumed all this time that Foduey was operating with no idea that I was a dragon.
That he could only be so foolish as to act this way because of his ignorance.
But that was not the case.
He knew I was a dragon, and mocked me nonetheless.
This may seem like a small difference, but it was quite significant.
“You insulted me knowing that I am a dragon?”
“But of course. If there is a reason to mock someone, I will be sure to mock them, no matter who they might be.”
My honest impression at this point was that he was very eccentric indeed.
Humans at the time knew dragons as beings not to be trifled with.
This was likely only a dim awareness, since most of them would never meet a dragon in their lifetimes, but it was still a view common to all of humanity that it would be incredibly foolish to make an enemy of a dragon.
He had treated me as a complete fool all this time, but he was the one being foolish by the standards of human knowledge.
That is the kind of man Foduey was.
Difficult to understand, is it not?
“At any rate, we cannot have a productive conversation as you are now. Please leave for the time being. And do try to study human society at least a little bit before you next return. Perhaps then you will understand why I called you a stalker and insulted you. If you still can’t figure out that much, then I suppose there’s no hope for you. In which case, I must ask that you refrain from ever showing yourself in front of Lady Sariel again.”
He spoke of human understanding in spite of being such a strange enigma himself.
Was it arrogance or just foolhardiness…?
But I suppose only a man such as he could successfully deal with a dragon like me.
At the very least, his words did make me think that I should at least hear him out.
Otherwise, I might never have listened to the words of a human.
If he had calculated all that when he challenged me, I suppose Foduey really was victorious.
This was how I first met Foduey.
It was certainly a rather impactful meeting, as well.
In fact, between this encounter and the one in which Sariel knocked me out cold, it would still be difficult to say which first meeting was more impactful.
That is how much of a shock this was to my system.
If my association with Ariel has been long yet sparse, you could say my association with Foduey was short yet deep, I suppose.
Though while it was “short” by my standards, it might be considered rather long in comparison to the lifespan of a human.
…Was Foduey not already aged when I first met him?
He was, it is true.
Considering the lifespan of humans at the time, it would not have been surprising if he died of old age before the system was constructed.
But in fact, he carried on vivaciously even after the system was made.
In fact, he went on such a wild rampage that it is still fearfully spoken of in some circles even to this day.
After all, he was the progenitor of vampires in this world.
Hmm? No, when I first met him, he was undoubtedly an ordinary human.
He became a vampire some time later.
And not of his own will, either.
It was an unfortunate incident indeed.
You could say that he was just caught up in a bigger disaster—man-made though it was.
And the man who caused that calamity was none other than Potimas.
Potimas was behind most nasty incidents at that time.
Since Foduey was contributing to the Sariella Foundation, he was bound to come up against Potimas eventually.
It simply happened at a particularly poor time.
But let us discuss the events that led to Foduey becoming a vampire next time we are able to talk.
There are some phenomena in this world that cannot be explained by the laws of nature alone.
Dragons are a prime example of this.
They can ignore the laws of aerodynamics to fly through the air, and that is only the beginning.
They can appear out of nowhere, and teleport to the other side of the planet in an instant.
There is no way to explain this with science or physics.
These mysteries occur as if by magic.
But while these arts are shrouded in mystery to humans, dragons can use them with ease.
If I could acquire those dragon genes, perhaps I would be able to use those arts as well.
There might be a clue to eternal life hidden among their secrets.
Even this sort of magic is not all-powerful, it seems.
But that very fact indicates that they operate on the basis of some sort of ruleset, a full-fledged system.
In which case, if I could only expose those rules, I might be able to use such arts even without dragon genes.
Even if it does not conveniently contain the secret of eternal life, I do not mind.
I will lay bare the logic of their conjurings, develop them even further, and find a way to link them to eternal life.
But I will need more test subjects for these experiments.
The muzzles of the robots’ guns all start blasting.
As far as I recall, Potimas prefers not to waste bullets and avoids using firearms like these.
But now, they’re spraying ’em out like crazy, rules be damned!
A wall of fire closes in on me like a bullet hell game, leaving nowhere to run.
Seriously, if this were a shoot-’em-up, I’d be demanding a refund!
No waaay did the developers expect anyone to beat this!
What is this, an unbeatable boss?
Well, I’m not gonna get beaten here!
So yeah. I activate a spatial conjuring.
And I pop all those bullets right into a separate dimension.
Or rather, I just open up an entrance for them to fly right in of their own accord.
Sent into an empty space, the bullets just whiz around aimlessly, never hitting anything.
The end.
Ha-ha-ha.
Shooting attacks won’t work on a master of spatial conjuring like me!
Oh, unless I got shot too fast to be able to activate a conjuring in time, I guess.
But that’s probably not gonna happen!
Even the most powerful shooting attack will never reach me if I pop it into an alternate dimension.
How’s it feel, huh?
You finally use the bullets you’ve been refusing to use, saving ’em up like a stingy old miser, and they all get totally nullified?
You mad?
Yeah, you mad.
Ahh, my only regret is that I can’t see the look on Potimas’s stupid face for myself.
…Okay, I guess there’s no point trying to piss off robots, huh? They’re not gonna lose their cool no matter what I say.
Not that I was saying this out loud for anyone to hear anyway!
What, you think I should try actually saying it?
Get outta here! Are you telling me to die or what?!
While I’m getting carried away with a one-man comedy bit in my internal monologue, one of the robots actually charges at me instead.
What, they figured out after just one volley that shooting isn’t gonna work on me? But they’re just robots!
Damn, that’s some pretty impressive AI they’ve got installed there.
But getting closer to me isn’t gonna make them any more of a threat.
I’d estimate their speed stats to be no higher than five thousand or so.
With that kinda speed, they might as well be standing still as far as I’m concerned.
And their defense is low enough that just a teensy little hit from my dark conjurings would blow them to bits.
If I take ’em down before they get any closer, that’s the end of that.
But since I went to all the trouble, I might as well try out a different strategy to counterattack them here.
Come on out, battle clones!
Several battle clones from my spider squad pop out between me and the robots.
Well, now’s as good a time as any to explain the specs of the battle clones.
They’re right around the size I was before I became an arachne, and the same shape, too.
As for their battle power, I’d say their equivalent stats would probably be around ten thousand on average.
Like me, they actually exist outside the scope of the system, so there’s no way to Appraise them and find out for sure.
Also, that’s just an estimation of their base stats. Depending on the circumstances, I can provide them with some of my own power to beef them up, which means there’s no real point trying to guesstimate their stats anyway.
Their main attack methods are evil eyes, dark conjurings, spatial conjurings, thread, scythes, and poison.
Frankly, aside from my being human-shaped instead of spider-shaped, there’s not much difference from fighting the real me.
Obviously I’ve got more firepower, but they’re fully loaded with high combat capabilities.
I call them “battle clones” for a reason, y’know.
The battle clones shoot thread at the robot charging toward me.
The thread wraps around its legs, and sticks to the ground as well.
The robot topples to the ground, legs completely bound.
And my battle clones don’t waste a second before they swing their scythes, slicing the robot into pieces.
Mm-hmm.
Not bad, if I do say so myself!
Looks like they can wipe out robots with thread and scythes alone.
Because of the nature of their specs, the battle clones’ direct attacks with their thread and scythes aren’t particularly powerful.
Those are really just sub-weapons.
Their main weapons? That’d be evil eyes and conjurings.
So let’s wrap things up with those!
The battle clones fire a volley of black bullets.
They pierce right through the rest of the robots, blowing them to bits.
Bwah-ha-ha-ha! Behold! My army is invincible!
Huh? If it was going to be this easy, I should’ve just done that in the first place!
I mean, yeah, but isn’t it better to be sure they can fight with just their thread and scythes, just in case?
Verification is important, if you ask me.
Huh? Pride?
…Come on, it’s like what that one swordsman said:
“This isn’t pride, it’s confidence!”
So allow me to show you why I’m so confident now!
Battle clones! Full-power operation!
I temporarily stop the information-gathering clones that are off spying and such in other areas.
The information that usually feeds into my mind nonstop from thousands of spy clones all over the world temporarily cuts off.
In exchange, I can focus on using the battle clones to their full potentiial.
There are around ten thousand battle clones in total that I summoned to exterminate the elves.
While I was running the information-gathering clones at the same time, I could only give them basic commands, but what happens when I can focus my full attention on their performance?
I know the number of robots caught me by surprise, but I’ve got big numbers on my side too, you know!
Now let’s wipe the floor with them!
All over the elf village, fights break out between battle clones and robots.
But the battle clones are a whole lot stronger than the robots.
The robots might have the advantage of numbers, but while they’re scattered all over the elf village, the battle clones are concentrated around the residential district.
I’m not going to end up getting backed into a corner on my own, at least.
We can just exterminate the robots—beginning with the residential area—and then expand our circle of conquest outward from there.
So, we start advancing, destroying robots along the way.
There are robots out near the imperial and demon armies now, too, so I’m going to head that way to back them up.
Neither army has made contact with the robots yet. I should still be able to get there in time.
I’m sure Vampy and Mr. Oni would be fine, but Mera would have a hard time taking on more than one or two robots by himself.
What, the taratect troop?
You really think they’d need my help when they have a queen?
The queen’s breath attack could raze a whole row of robots to the ground, y’know?
Seriously, queens are way too strong…
So yeah, I think I can trust the queen to take care of that area.
Thanks to my battle clones turning the tide of battle back in our favor, the puppet spiders are going all-out again, too.
They’re gleefully charging at robots, blocking bullets with swords and slashing them in half at the torso.
Right, I guess the four of them can take down a single robot without a problem.
Even one-on-one, the puppet spiders are stronger—I don’t think they would lose.
They retreated because they were outnumbered, but now we’ve got that advantage, too.
Still, what a calculating bunch, only giving it their all when they know we’re going to win…
As I roll my eyes at the puppet spiders, the ground in front of me suddenly opens up, and something new emerges from below.
What is it, more robots? Wait, that silhouette doesn’t look right.
I mean, at first glance, it’s not that different from a robot’s silhouette.
But the size seems…wrong.
It’s huge.
This must be the powered-up version of these robots!
Still, I feel like I’ve seen this particular robot somewhere before, for some reason…
But the one I saw was a lot messier, and busted up all over…
Then it hits me.
It was a few years ago, when we were still traveling toward the demon territory.
The time when a UFO, an ancient weapon that was hidden underground, suddenly reappeared!
With a final-boss robot inside!
This thing looks just like that one!
What did Potimas say when he saw it, again?
Something about a “Gloria.”
Then I guess the final boss robot was made based on an adapted version of the blueprints for his “Gloria” or whatever.
Which means the one I’m looking at now is the properly made version of that.
So that’s a little scary.
I remember what Potimas said at the time.
“The original could easily destroy even an upper-class dragon. Ah, I mean the fakes, not the originals, of course.”
The only upper-class dragons I know are the ones like the wind dragon Hyuvan, who fought alongside us against the UFO. While Hyuvan wasn’t as strong as Mother, the queen taratect, his stats were easily over ten thousand on average.
Hell, his speed was over thirty thousand.
That’s higher than the puppet spiders.
And Potimas bragged that his original “Gloria” robot could easily destroy such a dragon.
That’ll be tough for the puppet spiders.
Even my battle clones would probably need to face it in a group.
But still, it wouldn’t be too hard to win.
…If there were only one, that is.
But based on the visual information I’m getting from my battle clones all over the vicinity, even more Glorias are popping up in other places, too.
Oh come on, you can mass-produce these things?! You gotta be kidding me!
“Listen up, kids! You better eat every last bite!”
The director’s voice echoed through the orphanage cafeteria.
Mealtime tended to be quite noisy, since the children were always talking and laughing, but her yell still rang out loud and clear.
“What’s this? There’s still food on your plate!”
“I’m on a diet.”
The director’s brow furrowed as she looked at the girl’s food.
By this time, most of us were entering our teens and approaching puberty.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re like a bony little chicken! You have to get fat before you can go on a diet!”
“Whaaat? But you’re fat and you still aren’t on a diet, Director.”
“Of course a little child like you can’t understand the appeal of my alluring body! If you don’t eat, your chest will never get any bigger!”
The girl in question glanced down at her chest, and I remember watching her reluctantly resume eating.
I was very jealous of her meal.
At the time, I could still only have a liquid diet.
My body required more nutrients than the average person’s.
The IV constantly attached to my arm helped compensate for that, but it still wasn’t enough; only with the addition of an easily digestible, highly nutritious liquid diet could I manage to make ends meet.
My body was weakened by the venom my organs constantly produced, preventing me from digesting anything else.
So I was envious of the other kids who could eat all the solid food they wanted.
But I never said that out loud.
Everyone in the orphanage had a handicap in one way or another.
The girl who claimed to be on a diet looked like a normal human, but she was undoubtedly a chimera, too.
She had apparently been given DNA from many different kinds of animals, which all had different effects on her body, though each individual effect was slight.
Still, even if each one of them was small, the overall effect was too large to ignore.
And there was no way to fundamentally cure our conditions, only to treat the symptoms.
Because we were born with these bodies.
The only way to truly fix us would be to literally remake us.
That was impossible with the level of medical technology at the time; I doubt even Potimas could have done it.
We had no choice but to deal with the bodies we’d been given until we died.
And there was no doubt that death would come for us sooner than it would for a normal human.
Not one of us ever thought that we would have the same lifespan as an ordinary person.
Perhaps that is why we each started vaguely thinking about the future.
When we reached puberty, we graduated from being innocent children and took our first steps toward adulthood.
That was when we first started thinking about what it would mean to be an adult.
And wondering if we would even live long enough for that to happen…
One day, Lady Sariel came back, dragging two battered-looking kids behind her.
Not again, I thought to myself, exasperated.
The children in question were two of the quickest to start fights out of all the kids in the orphanage.
Whenever they started fighting outside the orphanage, Lady Sariel always punished them and brought them back here by force.
She knew these were no ordinary squabbles between children.
As chimeras, the two of them were stronger than normal humans. If they punched an ordinary child with all their might, they could seriously injure or even kill them.
Which is why Lady Sariel always ran to collect them right away.
These two weren’t the only ones who got into trouble.
The handful of kids who were able to leave the orphanage were always causing some kind of commotion, and Lady Sariel came to get them every time.
We weren’t forbidden from leaving the orphanage, but there were only a few of us kids who could actually go outside.
In my case, it was because of my health.
For the others, it was their appearance.
The orphanage was in a remote area, but it wasn’t completely uninhabited.
Technically, the people who lived nearby had been informed of the orphanage’s unique nature.
But that didn’t mean they would unconditionally accept the chimeras, whose appearance immediately distinguished them from normal humans.
Children who were around the same age were all the more merciless.
This is all secondhand, since I was never able to leave the orphanage myself, but I heard that some kids really did have rocks thrown at them.
I remember being shocked that such a clichéd scene could actually happen in real life.
But even if it sounded like a fairy tale, this was our reality.
It was clear what the other people who lived near the orphanage thought of us, even if they didn’t all throw rocks like some of the children did.
To them, our existence was a nuisance.
And when they already shunned us like that, any trouble we caused would give them an even worse impression of us.
That’s why Lady Sariel always went out to retrieve the kids before that happened.
But obviously, it didn’t feel good for us to be disliked, either.
The two kids that Lady Sariel often brought back were short-tempered and quick to fight on the basis of “an eye for an eye!”
Since the neighboring kids lashed out at them, they lashed out right back.
That’s just how those two were.
Fortunately, thanks to Lady Sariel, the two of them never actually managed to get in a full-on fight with the kids who lived nearby.
But that doesn’t mean they never tried.
In truth, they did raise their hands to strike, but were stopped by Lady Sariel before they could follow through.
If their hands actually made contact, I doubt those kids would have escaped unscathed.
And then it would be impossible to repair the relationship between the orphanage and its neighbors.
Even without that happening, the fact that they tried to start a fight still remained, forming a gulf between us.
The gulf became a sense of loathing that showed in the locals’ attitudes, and the orphanage kids resented that and caused more problems.
This vicious cycle was already well underway by the day of these events.
So we were all the more reluctant to leave the orphanage.
But there were still the active types who refused to be penned up and continued to go outside, and the problem children who brazenly ignored the concerns.
“Let go!”
One of those problem children was thrashing around to escape Lady Sariel’s grasp.
Sariel obeyed his request and released him.
“Geh?!”
What happened when she let go while holding him in midair?
Obviously, gravity sent him crashing to the floor.
The unfortunate child hit the ground face-first and crouched down, clutching his nose.
“Why’d you let go?!”
“That is a highly irrational complaint.”
Lady Sariel coolly brushed off his response.
To some people, that might seem like an attempt at provocation, but we’d known Lady Sariel long enough to learn that this was her default mode.
She was a very peculiar person, to say the least.
Her expression rarely changed.
Since she always looked indifferent, it was easy to assume she was cool and collected, but it didn’t take long to realize that wasn’t the case.
In a word, Lady Sariel was a weirdo.
She was a little bit off from other people, in various ways.
At times she seemed to have deep knowledge that none of us had, yet other times she didn’t understand things we didn’t even have to think about.
Her behavior was very irregular.
This instance was no exception: She released someone when she was told “let go!”, then when the boy smacked his nose as a result and asked “why’d you let go?!”, she claimed he was being “irrational.”
I don’t think Lady Sariel was trying to make fun of the boy in that exchange.
She wasn’t annoyed, either; I think she just observed impartially that the boy was contradicting himself and decided to inform him that it was irrational.
Of course, this is all just speculation on my part. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell what Lady Sariel was really thinking.
Her behavior was so astoundingly far removed from our idea of common sense that even we couldn’t completely understand her.
In terms of knowledge, she was so wise and well-informed that it seemed like there was nothing she didn’t know; when we were young and asked “why?” about everything, she answered each question without a moment’s hesitation.
But when it came to people’s emotions or ways of thinking, she suddenly seemed clueless.
It was as if she understood the range of human emotion in theory, but couldn’t put her understanding to practical use…
In fact, when I learned that she was an angel and not a human, it made perfect sense.
All the more so when Gülie told me about the nature of angels later on.
Humans and angels seem to have fundamentally different thought processes.
From what he told me, angels are faithful to the mission they’ve been given, and they never waste time thinking about anything else more than necessary.
However, Lady Sariel was not an ordinary angel, but a “lost angel,” an unusual position that was likely why she became so close with humans.
“Dammit! Next time I see those kids, I’m gonna punch ’em in the face!”
“Violence is not the answer.”
The boy punched the floor with his free hand, still clutching his nose with the other.
“Violence is a crime. Assault and battery.”
“Shut up! Besides, they’re the ones who started it!”
“Even so. It is wrong.”
Lady Sariel knew every law of every nation.
Since the mind of an angel works so differently from that of a human, I don’t know how much she truly understood us in the end.
But I think she learned by studying laws that humans loathed violence.
“Those jerks…”
The other boy she’d captured, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke.
“They were making fun of us. Of the orphanage, of Lady Sariel…”
He bit his lip in frustration.
I understood how he felt.
We were a family, an irreplaceable one.
How could anyone stay silent if someone spoke ill of their family?
“Even then, violence is not the answer.”
“Why not?!”
“Because that is what the law has decided.”
Lady Sariel’s response was brief.
Since the law said it was forbidden, it must not be done.
“So you’re saying the law is always right?!”
“No.”
This response seemed to negate her previous statement.
She wasn’t saying that we had to obey the law because it was correct?
“Then why do we gotta follow it?!”
“Because if you do not, you will be judged accordingly.”
“And that’s a good enough reason not to break it?!”
“Yes.”
Lady Sariel wasn’t talking about good or evil.
She was simply teaching us that if we resorted to violence, we would be arrested, whether the violence was just or not.
“If they attack you with words, you should argue with words of your own, not actions.”
That was logical enough.
But the local kids were discriminating against us just because we were chimeras.
They used the circumstances of our birth, which we couldn’t possibly change, as fodder to insult us.
Even if we wanted to argue against them, they were already convinced that we were inferior.
Logic wouldn’t work on that kind of people.
“How are we supposed to do that…?”
The boys were even more aware of that than I was, since I’d never actually interacted with the local kids myself.
They weren’t willing to listen to anything we had to say.
But we couldn’t use violence, either.
There was no way out.
“Think on it.”
That was Lady Sariel’s only response.
“What is the best approach? What is the worst? You should always be thinking about these things. That is how people grow.”
…I don’t know if just thinking about it could possibly solve this problem.
Lady Sariel’s words were good ones, but I’m not sure if they were entirely suited to the occasion.
There really was something strange about Lady Sariel.
But we could all tell that she was trying to give us advice because she cared about us.
That sentiment alone was what saved us.
My relationship with Foduey continued in spite of that confrontational first meeting.
Since he made a fool of me, I was determined to make him eat those words.
So I studied up on humanity, and periodically went to show off the results to him.
This continued for a while, regardless of the fact that my original goal had been to speak to Sariel.
I went to see a woman, was chased off by an old man, and ended up having clandestine meetings with the man instead.
When I put it that way, it’s quite a ridiculous thing, isn’t it?
…Let’s not dig any deeper into that line of thought.
Whenever Foduey and I met up, we spent most of our time on one thing: games.
The world the reincarnations came from had games such as shogi, correct?
Well, this world had something similar.
Shun taught the rules of shogi to Julius, who taught it to me as Hyrince, and made me play with him until I resented losing.
The concept of being able to use pieces one had stolen was quite novel.
In our shogi-esque game, pieces that had been taken were eliminated from the board completely.
In exchange, there were more pieces than in shogi, and the board was larger.
That made things more complicated, such that even a single match took a long time.
So a simplified version with less pieces and a smaller board was more popular with the general public.
The only people who played the full version were pros and experts.
Foduey happened to be the latter.
Being the man known as the “Demon Lord of the business world,” he excelled at controlling the board just as he did in business.
He likely could have held his own even against a professional player.
Heh. He never defeated me once, though.
But human and dragon minds calculate things very differently.
It’s only logical that I would surpass him at such a game.
Immature?
…Perhaps a little bit.
But considering our first meeting, is it so wrong that I would want to have a taste of revenge against him?
At any rate, on one such day, Foduey and I were playing yet again.
“Hrmm…”
Once I made my move, Foduey groaned and stopped moving for a while.
He glared at the board for a while longer, but finally he gave a long sigh and sank back into his chair.
“I resign.”
It was the correct decision.
He had no chance of turning things around, no matter how he struggled.
“Good gracious. I thought myself a decent player. But being decimated this thoroughly is actually rather refreshing in a way.”
Those words appeared to be genuine, not just an effort to hide his frustration. He wore an amused grin despite the fact that he had lost.
Foduey reached out to move the pieces back to their starting positions.
“You want to keep going?”
As Foduey cheerfully attempted to continue to the next battle, I grew somewhat irritated.
Each round of this game took a considerable amount of time, as I said before.
It was mildly bewildering to me that Foduey still wanted to keep playing.
“Come now, you have more time than you could ever need. Surely you can humor an old man with precious little time left for a while longer.”
It was true that as a dragon, I had no lifespan to worry about.
Even if each match took a relatively long time, it still passed by in the blink of an eye compared to the eternity a dragon could live.
There would be no wasted time to speak of if I played with him a little longer.
“Precious little time, hmm?” I muttered pointedly.
Foduey and I were playing at a table in a large room.
Part 3 of 8