Chương 37: Reborn as the Dragon: — Chapter 37 - Interrogation

Oh ho. Budding feelings. Su Nian blinked, his heart doing a small, involuntary flutter. Having a delicately crafted, jade-fine Half-Elf Fox-Eared Girl develop budding favorability toward him, it made him genuinely happy. Warm. A little ticklish. He wanted to rear back and roar. Really let loose. He restrained himself. Undignified.

"System, why wasn't there a reward? The favorability state clearly changed." [Ding! The next Favorability reward is at Favorability 80.]"Favorability eighty? What state is Favorability eighty?" He queried the system while his dragon tail wagged cheerfully behind him. His face, however, remained perfectly composed, solemn, focused, the picture of a professional attending to the wound on Anna's thigh. [Ding! Based on the host's behavior, Favorability 80 has approximately three primary states: Like, Reverence, and Deep Faith.] Right. Su Nian turned that over thoughtfully. His relationship with Anna was clearly trending toward Like. His followers, the Kobolds and the rest, ran more toward Reverence, or outright Awe. Deep Faith was a different category entirely, probably religion-adjacent. Start a cult in human society, pull in a few devoted believers, and that was likely how it manifested.

This system is genuinely impressive. He praised it silently and went back to scraping. His dragon tongue worked across Anna's wound with renewed enthusiasm. The decayed flesh came away in strips, exposing the bright red muscle tissue beneath. With Dragon Saliva's Acute Pain numbing the worst of it and the healing already taking hold, Anna had stopped feeling the sharp bite of the wound. What she felt now was something else entirely.

"Ah, so itchy..." She squirmed, her small body twisting with discomfort. A tingling, buzzing, faintly itchy sensation radiated from the wound. And the dragon's scorching breath kept puffing against it in warm gusts, which didn't help matters at all. She couldn't help clamping her slender legs together, letting out two small, helpless sounds, soft and nasal, like a nightingale humming to itself. Meanwhile, outside the Dragon's Nest.

Elite Gnoll Gray Brother came marching back with his crew of muscular Gnolls, holding Mori Yama Yaren's head in one fist, dragging the man along the entire way as though he were luggage. At the entrance, two Elite Gnolls stood guard. Chests out, chins up, eyes forward, straight as javelins. Gray Brother stopped in front of them. He brought his legs together and threw a salute, technically a military salute, loosely interpreted.

"Ooh awoo." [Seeing master, reporting in. You get it?]"Awoo." [Yeah.] A brief exchange. The two guards stepped aside. Gray Brother gave a small nod and walked into the Dragon's Nest with his two underlings, Mori Yama Yaren dangling from his fist. Inside, Su Nian had finished the treatment. He was coiled on the rocky high platform, Anna held snugly in the curve of his body, her pretty face flushed bright red and radiating heat. His tire-sized dragon head rested softly on top of hers. Perfectly normal behavior.

What dragon wouldn't hold his treasure close?

"Master. Captive. One. Caught." Gray Brother delivered his report in his usual efficient manner, then splat, dropped Mori Yama Yaren directly onto the ground. The man rolled once and tumbled to the base of the rock steps in a heap. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! He looked up. He found himself staring directly into Su Nian's ferocious, terrifying dragon face and a pair of dark golden slit-pupil eyes.

"Ah! MOTHER, " Mori Yama Yaren convulsed in pure animal terror, screamed, and started kicking his legs and scrambling backward with both hands, desperate to put any distance between himself and the black dragon. He made it approximately two feet before he hit something solid, Gray Brother's leg. Gray Brother's face twitched. He reached down, grabbed Mori Yama Yaren by the scruff, and deposited him back in front of the dragon. Then he planted one foot firmly on the man's head, just to keep things tidy.

"Also. This. Offering. For master." Two short awoos. Gray Brother reached into his leather pouch and produced a blueprint radiating a faint purple glow, then gestured to the Gnoll behind him to carry it forward.

"Flame Arrow Tower blueprint?" Su Nian's dragon head tilted slightly.

"Not bad. Not bad at all. Must have dropped from that silver chest, keh keh keh..." He leaned forward. His sharp claws gripped the rock steps as he brought his face down toward the player kneeling before him, a thin-mustached, shifty-eyed man who looked exactly like the kind of person who deserved to be carried by his head. [Mori Yama Yaren, Level 5, Priest, Trash]"Human." Su Nian's voice dropped to a register that vibrated in the stone.

"Lift your head. Look at me." The roar hit Mori Yama Yaren like a thunderclap. His ears went out. His mind went blank. He sat stunned for a full few seconds before his brain slowly reassembled what the black dragon had just said in the Continental Common Tongue. He didn't actually speak Common. The game system was helpfully running a real-time translation into Sakura language. He lifted his head. Took one careful look at the dragon. Dropped it again immediately. This was a black dragon.

A mythological black dragon, right out of the ancient texts, and it was even more terrifying up close than anything those texts had described. More soul-shaking than the Yamata no Orochi. Every demon and monster from every horror legend Sakura Island had ever produced wasn't worthy of licking this thing's toes. Since Mori Yama Yaren wasn't cooperating, Su Nian simply had Gray Brother yank his head up by force.

"Why did you invade my territory!" A blast of sulfurous steam shot from Su Nian's nostrils. The scorching white vapor hissed across Mori Yama Yaren's face and instantly shaved off half his health bar, along with a fresh burn debuff.

"Great — Black Dragon Lord — I, I am — right, I'm an adventurer. This is my first time in this region. I was just passing through your territory. I had no intention, no intention at all of disturbing you." He was kneeling, his face clamped in a Gnoll's grip, stammering badly, and had nearly blurted out that he was a player in the first two seconds. He didn't know what would happen if a world native figured out what he actually was, or whether they'd even understand the concept, but it felt like a terrible idea.

So he lied.

"Bullshit!" Su Nian's roar hit him like a physical wave. Mori Yama Yaren's vision swam. His health dropped again. He was down to a single sliver.

"How did you open these treasure chests?" A black iron-grade chest slammed onto the ground in front of him with a heavy clang.

"That, that's because, we have a special ability. Yes, that's it. A special ability that lets us open treasure chests."

"We?" The dragon's enormous face dropped closer.

"How many of you are there?" The bloody maw opened and closed. The hoarse, low voice rumbled up from somewhere deep, like a devil murmuring through the floor of hell. Sulfurous breath rolled over him in waves. One wrong answer and he had the distinct impression he was about to combust.

"I, we, " No. He couldn't just answer everything thrown at him. Mori Yama Yaren pinched his own thigh hard and stalled. He'd already slipped up and said "we." Claiming he was alone wouldn't fly. He let his eyes dart around, bit down, and pushed through the crushing pressure radiating off the dragon like a physical thing.

"There are just, just two, over a thousand of us." Over a thousand. Su Nian exhaled through his nose, a slow, lazy smoke ring drifting upward. He didn't believe a single word from this Sakura Island player. He had no idea of the exact player count in Beginner Village No. 1, but if this one said a thousand, the honest answer was probably five times that. Five thousand players, minimum. That was the working number. A serious problem. A looming one. Seven days. That was his deadline.

Seven days to build strength, then lead his forces in and drive every last Sakura Island player out, kill them until they quit the game. Only then could he develop without looking over his shoulder. The surrounding beginner villages were on the same list. He had no choice but to clash with the players eventually. Avoiding them would only compress his room to grow, and he needed the kills. System points accumulated fast through player deaths.

Twenty-four kills on a single level-five player netted him 120 system points. And that was before factoring in the treasure chests they could open. No point hiding what he was anymore. But he couldn't tip his hand either. A young black dragon was easy to dismiss, just another territorial monster, nothing unusual. A black dragon that demonstrably knew what players were, where they came from, and how their mechanics worked? That would bring every player on the continent down on his head at once.

➤ Next: Stuffed to Death