BXBX NOVEL Chapter 409 - Everyone Has Their Own Schemes
Chapter 409: Everyone Has Their Own Schemes
Of course it was arrogant! It was the equivalent of killing someone right in front of the police and then lecturing the police about it. Even if the person I killed truly deserved it, my actions would be a slap in the face to the local authorities.
The Dragon World leaders, who were mostly in the forms of elves or beastmen, all paused in surprise for a moment before appearing to be ready to explode in anger.
“…Is that Death God Ayer’s rose Your Highness Roland is holding onto?”
Meanwhile, I quietly played with the White Rose in my hand. Each time I saw Ayer acting cool with this rose, I would feel like stealing it for myself and then… play “she loves me, she loves me not” with the rose petals. [1] 1 Cough—cough—I seem to have accidentally revealed something that would make me look uncool, so please ignore that last part.
“Finally! Someone who knows what I’m holding. This time, my friends were worried that I’d be bitten by a rabid dog, so they loaned me a few toys. It seems they were right…”
I looked at the blood and brains splattered all on the ground with an obviously contemptuous look of disgust.
“…Indeed, there are many rabid dogs here.”
I didn’t even try to hide my condescension, making it seem as if the dragon corpse before me was a dirty object. Naturally, my condescension fanned the dragons’ flames of anger, making them lose hold of logic and reason. As I saw their faces redden in anger, I felt as if I could hear their reason snapping into two pieces.
“…You dare do such a thing!”
A bad-tempered Blue Dragon leader was the first to transform into his true dragon form. However, the Gold Dragon leader Halos stopped him in his tracks.
“Don’t be rash. That White Rose is Death God Ayer’s God Equipment. It contains his essence. Do you have a death wish?”
The Blue Dragon leader paused in surprise and immediately stopped himself. Of course he’d know of Ayer, and he also realized that he would be committing suicide if he went up against Ayer’s White Rose. But since he had spoken up, giving in would make him significantly lose face.
Only now did he have the free time to take a look at me, as he had just arrived. When he saw that I was wearing God Equipment all over my body, he could only think that he had shot his own foot.
His attitude of ‘being right about to pounce on me’ vanished. A cold breeze blew past, and the Blue Dragon leader had quite the awkward expression. Of course he didn’t want to commit suicide by attacking me, but he would be humiliated if he backed down in front of everyone.
For some people, however, reputation was more important than their life. Just as he grit his teeth and decided to gamble that I wouldn’t dare to kill him, a Dragon City leader, in Dragon City, Evelyn stepped forward.
“Hah! As expected of the Undying Roland who’s currently ranked #20 on the Calamity Rankings. Oh, right, everyone, this is Lady Harloys. I believe she’s also on the Calamity Rankings. I should congratulate both of you for recently having increased your ranks.”
I inwardly praised Evelyn for her excellent introduction.
This was the perfect opportunity for the Blue Dragon leader to back down: “This is no mere mortal, he’s a living Calamity—it isn’t a big deal if you back down.” This also helped me take a step back too. After all, I only wanted to beat a little sense into the dragons’ arrogant view of mortals. I didn’t come all the way here just to become mortal enemies with them. Killing off a robber who jumped out to attack me and killing off one of their leaders were on completely different levels.
Meanwhile, Evelyn had a rather unique status in Dragon City. All the dragon leaders knew who she was. One of their own was helping to mediate, and this was something they found acceptable.
The Blue Dragon leader transformed back to his human form, but he held a steely expression. He stomped his foot and disappeared, too humiliated to stay here any longer. Even though Evelyn helped mediate the situation, he had lost face. Most likely he now viewed me as a mortal enemy.
“Welcome, welcome, our two honored guests. We’ve prepared an excellent welcoming party for you. Let’s discuss formalities after the party.”
What else could Dragon City leader Halos say after this? He could only try to ease the atmosphere.
Although many dragons glared at me as we headed to the party venue, I kept the condescending, cold expression on my face. Inside, however, I was delighted.
From a certain standpoint, this was the start I’d wanted most. Otherwise it would be impossible to negotiate.
From the very beginning, the dragons had never considered us worthy of their attention. The fact they requested the Mage Country to aid them was only because they had already tried everything else. And they’d asked for help with the way of thinking that perhaps a quack doctor could somehow use a home remedy to solve the problem.
“Our dragon mages can’t do it, so there’s no way human mages can. But there’s no harm in asking.”
In the dragons’ eyes, their only worthy enemies were the Titan Giants and their descendants, the giants. The dragons considered no other species their equals. As for humans, it was possible for powerful humans to obtain the dragons’ respect, but if it was something related to the human species as a whole, dragons would have an attitude of overbearing arrogance.
This was the main reason I’d intentionally stalled coming to Dragon City for so long. If I came to visit them easily, not only would I not be viewed as an important personage but they might not even give me a chance to speak with them.
“You can’t do it? You can do it? If you can, then do it. We’ll pay you. If you can’t, then return from whence you came. Yep—this means ‘get the hell out of here.'”
That’s why I absolutely had to do something just to receive the chance to negotiate with the dragon leaders as an equal. Even if that idiot dragon named Hamast didn’t attack me, I would have intentionally caused some trouble myself.
“The dragons’ personalities? They’re nothing more than wild beasts that prey on the weak and fear the strong. You could say that they follow the law of the jungle. Aren’t both concepts essentially the same? Based on my understanding of dragons, if you beg for mercy or kindness, they’ll ignore you and think you’re an idiot for wanting to trade or negotiate with them as an equal. If you really intend to make friends or do business with dragons… beat them up first.”
Harloys agreed with my opinion.
“The more you beat up a dragon, the more it’ll respect you. The friendlier and kinder you act, the more that dragon will look down on you.”
As for the Immemorial White Dragon who was kind enough to sacrifice himself as an example to the others, everyone tacitly agreed to forget about him. I would have killed some other scapegoat dragon no matter what, even if he hadn’t attacked me.
This was why I borrowed so much God Equipment. I was prepared to even wipe Dragon City off the map before negotiating with the dragons if it was necessary. What I wanted to obtain through negotiations here was far too important.
“Dragon World, or I should say a part of Dragon World, is our final target. Only by obtaining part of Dragon World will it be possible for us to realize the rest of our plan.”
This was part of the final goal I revealed to Ayer as well as my subordinates. But obviously the dragons treated the plane of Dragon World as their personal property. If I wanted to have my subordinates settle down here, I would have to enter the lair of the tiger and act forcefully.
Another reason that the dragons were so eager to reseal the Titan Giants was because this entire plane was created as a seal for the Titan Giants. If the Titan Giants escaped, then the entirety of Dragon World would collapse. If it weren’t for this, they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of fighting the Titan Giants to such a degree.
In that case, it may seem that I had shared interests with the dragons, that neither of us wished to see the Titan Giants revive, which would result in the destruction of Dragon World. But actually we were more like two thieves who had reached into the same pocket. After all, neither of us were the true masters of this plane.
Of course, simply using negotiation would be far too insufficient. That’s why I prepared many little tricks.
“Sometimes, if I act without limits, even I’m afraid of myself.”
“…If you really act as ridiculously as that scheme of yours, you’ll definitely enter the top ten of the Calamity Rankings once people learn about it.”
I was standing alone in a corner of the party, nobody else near me. Although I was technically supposed to be the main character, it was obvious that the hosts disdained me due to the ruckus I just caused.
Something rather unexpected but understandable was that Harloys became the main character of this party in my stead. Countless dragons invited this beautiful Gold Elf princess to dance with them and expressed their pity at what had happened to the Gold Elf Empire. They gave their condolences regarding the Royal Elves’ backstabbing.
At its peak, the Gold Elf Empire wasn’t necessarily stronger than the dragons, but ordinary dragons would still respect the Gold Elf Empire’s strength. Most of the leaders of Dragon World had lived through that generation. From a certain standpoint, Harloys had a high status here. Even the dragons would bow to her in respect. It was just that due to her previous undead status, she’d never had any interaction with the dragons.
Still, the dragons were only making polite talk. They wouldn’t actually fight to take revenge for the Gold Elf Empire. While it may be true that some of them were friendly with the past Gold Elf Empire, it would also be natural for them to strike up friendships with the current Elf Kingdoms. It wasn’t like they had to pay any money for expressing sympathies and condolences.
Since I had plenty of free time, I observed how everyone circled around Harloys and kept up a conversation with her through our soul connection. Meanwhile, I also paid attention to the banquet before me.
“…Could this be the tail meat of a Scorpion Dragon? I’ve heard it’s amazingly delicious. Wow, there’s even some elven fruit wine from the immemorial generation. Judging from the aroma, it’s made from a combination of different fruits? I really want to try it.”
Unfortunately, no matter how much I wanted to taste the food and drink before me, I was unable to take action. Right now, I was trying my best to smile in an inscrutable fashion and acting cool by standing like a decoration in the corner with all my God Equipment.
It may have looked like nobody was paying me any attention, but countless eyes kept looking in my direction. If I exposed my real way of thinking, I would face unending troubles.
Still, the dragons knew their etiquette and weren’t too impolite to me. After the dragon musician at the party started playing a relatively gentle song, Halos, the leader of all the other dragon leaders, came before me and tried his best to put on a smile.
Even though I didn’t have any mind reading skills, I knew he was cursing me under his smile. He was probably thinking something along the lines of “why the hell did you come here with so much God Equipment on you?” But he wouldn’t dare antagonize me too much as I no longer only represented the Mage Country. The Ayer Faction would be far more useful than the Mage Country for the dragons.
But since he was only smiling at me without speaking, I smiled back at him without saying anything.
“Haha.”
“Haha.”
And then neither of us spoke again…
“Cough—I wonder what Your Highness Roland thinks about the Titan Giants’ seal?”
Alright, he forced himself to initiate the conversation. But since he directly started with the main topic of our negotiation, it was evident that Halos wasn’t a skilled negotiator. Perhaps, however, it indeed wasn’t necessary for him to be a skilled negotiator. He would simply need to “negotiate” with overwhelming power.
I then smiled for real at this. I loved dealing with newbie negotiators like him. They would always be sincere and easy to fool—cough—I meant easy to communicate with! And so I intentionally started by scaring him right away.
“We have indeed come to some conclusions. The Truth Symposium verified our way of thinking, and Ayer has confirmed it as well, so its veracity should be trustworthy enough…”
I paused for a moment after saying only the beginning. As I expected, I noticed many ears standing up and eavesdropping on our conversation. Since this matter had to do with the lives of all the dragons in Dragon World, they would naturally view this as important.
“…The Titan Giants’ seal will absolutely become undone. Dragon World’s collapse is inevitable.”