novelThe Powerful Sure Have Messy Lifestyles
| ← Ch.353 | Ch.355 → |
Chapter 354: The Powerful Sure Have Messy Lifestyles
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
"They've already been in there for seven days. Why haven't they come out yet?"
Little Red was in quite a foul mood. And her mood only worsened as time passed.
Dragons were the epitome of the dictionary's definition of "impatient." This was especially so for Red Dragons who also served as the dictionary's definitions for "arrogance, " "unreasonable, " and "bad at listening to others."
While dragons were all one species, the differences among them were huge. Although they had managed to escape from needing to fight in the eternal Holy War, Red, White, Black, Green, Blue, and other Color Dragons were all the Chaos Goddess's creations and were viewed as part of the Chaos Faction. Considering the fact that the most representative species of Chaos, the demons, had terrible tempers, in a way that was the best evidence for how difficult Color Dragons were to get along with.
Red Dragons, who were of the fire element, had incredibly short tempers along with incredible arrogance and pride. They were typically sensitive about territory and authority. The thunder element Blue Dragons were huge combat maniacs and loved to hunt other intelligent species as food. Black Dragons, skilled in corrosion and darkness magic, were vicious and evil—they were also the greediest of the dragons.
Meanwhile, Green Dragons and White Dragons were significantly weaker than their other Color Dragon relatives. White Dragons were particularly infamous for their low Intelligence, which was why Red, Black, and Blue Dragons were the main three species of Color Dragons, with the highest populations. Any of these would cause a huge disturbance if they appeared anywhere in the mortal plane. And when the entire Dragon Species as a whole exiled the Red and Black Dragons to the Underground World, many species that had suffered due to "Dragon Calamities" were so thrilled at hearing the news that they threw celebration parties lasting several days.
Yep, "Dragon Calamity" was actually a term in this world and was treated just like a natural calamity. A Dragon Calamity fit the exact definition of a natural calamity, as Dragon Calamities were unpredictable, unstoppable, and would cause major amounts of damage.
One-time robbery victims of dragons randomly coming out by chance didn't count as victims of Dragon Calamities. True Dragon Calamities were typically viewed as the shame of an entire species. The species would forever be helpless about the Dragon Calamities and could only allow them to keep happening.
Little Red was an Immemorial Red Dragon. This was more than enough for her to rule over an entire city and easily defeat and kill the average SemiGod. In that case, who could possibly stop dragons even older and more powerful than her, dragons that had experienced the battles from the very first ever Holy War, from running amok? Not only that, an Immemorial Red Dragon wasn't even close to the peak of dragon strength. There were also Supreme Immemorial Dragons that had experienced countless eons. At their level, not even the True Gods would dare to antagonize them. The Dragon power levels went from Dragon Egg, Baby Dragon, Infant Dragon, Young Dragon, Mature Dragon, Adult Dragon, Elder Dragon, Ancient Dragon, Immemorial Dragon, Great Immemorial Dragon, and Supreme Immemorial Dragon. [1] 1
It was said that an Supreme Immemorial Green Dragon had made its nest in the Wood Elves' holy grounds and had no intentions of giving it up. That Green Dragon treated the Wood Elves' holy grounds as his own home even today. Also, the royalty of one Shield Dwarf Country accidentally broke a certain seal while digging and released a Great Immemorial Shadow Dragon, a species similar to Black Dragons. This Shadow Dragon took over the Shield Dwarves' royal palace for countless eons and even enslaved the country's Shield Dwarves. Also, the incredibly powerful mega-empire named the Gerbai Kingdom was destroyed all due to the anger of a single Supreme Immemorial Red Dragon.
By the way, the Supreme Immemorial Green Dragon was ranked #7 on the Calamity Rankings and was known as the "Elf Devourer". The Great Immemorial Shadow Dragon was ranked #33 on the Calamity Rankings and was known as the "Shadow Kingdom Emperor". As for the Supreme Immemorial Red Dragon who destroyed an entire mega-empire all by itself, it hadn't appeared in far too long, which is why it wasn't in the Calamity Rankings. But if it ever resurfaced, it would definitely be in the top 10. Any Color Dragon that was an Supreme Immemorial Dragon would receive this type of due to how incredibly destructive they were.
There was only a small difference between Immemorial and Great Immemorial Dragons. For some more powerful dragon species, perhaps an Immemorial Red Dragon would even be able to give a Great Immemorial White Dragon a run for its money, even if the Immemorial Red Dragon would most likely lose in the end. But for dragons that reached the highest level of all, the standard of Supreme Immemorial Dragon, they had witnessed countless Gods dying and being born ever since the first generation. No Great Immemorial Dragon would dare to challenge an Supreme Immemorial Dragon.
The world of Eich was massive, and secret locations and areas with low population were even more common than highly populated areas. For such powerful existences like Supreme Immemorial Dragons, they had far surpassed the normal level of being able to defeat by issuing a mission to the adventurers to subjugate them. In most situations, the local ruling authorities would simply draw a dragon on the map and warn travelers to avoid that area. Anyone foolish enough to venture into an Supreme Immemorial Dragon's territory would be given up for lost, with nobody going to save them, even if that person was the princess of some kingdom.
Luckily, Great Immemorial and Supreme Immemorial Dragons were both incredibly rare sights in Eich. They typically stayed in their Dragon nests and had plenty of subordinates that brought them food. Also, they had equal-leveled enemy dragons so they kept each other in check. From a certain standpoint, since these most powerful of dragons all had their own established territories and large numbers of subordinate citizens, and even sometimes their own loyal subordinate dragons and knights, each individual Great or Supreme Immemorial Dragon was more like a country's existence rather than an individual existence.
Dragon Cities? Dragon Cities were unable to command Great and Supreme Immemorial Dragons. Dragons were an example of a species where only the powerful were respected. When Molly, an Immemorial Red Dragon, became the Dragon Queen, she had incredibly few equal-leveled Immemorial Dragon subordinates under her. When her husband, who barely qualified as having reached the Great Immemorial Dragon power level, had been in charge before her as the Dragon Emperor, there had been more Immemorial Dragons under his command. But there wasn't a single Great Immemorial Dragon under his command. As for the Supreme Immemorial Dragons, it was confirmed that there were only two Red Supreme Immemorial Dragons. However, both of them were viewed as evil Demon Kings, and even when the entire Red Dragon species was exiled to the Underground World, neither of the two Supreme Immemorial Red Dragons were seen to take any action about it.
Of course, there were some places where Great and Supreme Immemorial Dragons could be found: Dragon Island and Dragon World. But there was no hoping that they would listen to anyone's orders as these proud and ancient individuals wouldn't even allow younger dragons to fly above their heads, much less listen to a younger dragon's commands.
Of course, for any ordinary human, no matter if they met an Immemorial Dragon or just an Adult Dragon, there was no difference. The result would always be death.
Alright then. By now, you should be able to come to a conclusion.
Together with the dragon power levels and the fact that it was well known how Red Dragons commonly raided other species, Little Red was certain to enter the Calamity Rankings even if she didn't hide her status as the Dragon Queen.
But it wasn't only that. Little Red even went around using her real name: Belon's Calamity, Ein Mezus. She was one of the very few Immemorial Red Dragons who had been highly active in the mortal plane. And as for her combat achievements... fine, perhaps I should call it dark history, as she had burned numerous cities down to the ground in the past, destroyed several small countries, kidnapped princesses for ransom, and even schemed to destroy larger countries all so she could rob their treasuries. She was unmistakably an evil and vicious dragon. And she was even one of the smartest and most successful of such evil and vicious Dragons.
From a certain standpoint, before the nostalgic adventurer team that we had worked together in was formed, Little Red would unmistakably be considered a purely evil dragon. Red Dragons were famed for being one of the more powerful dragon species who possessed outstanding combat talent. Judging by how easily she won the duel against her mother Molly—who was also incredibly experienced in combat—treating Little Red as an evil Immemorial Red Dragon would seem like no mistake.
After her name started spreading thanks to this recent battle, it was a definite that Little Red's name would be entering the Calamity Rankings, although I wouldn't know if she would be ranked before or after me.
"Although I don't know why 'The Undying Roland' is ranked so highly in the Calamity Rankings, just seeing that he's able to command this Immemorial Red Dragon to work under him is the best explanation of how ridiculous he is."
"... Have you heard? Those two Immemorial Red Dragons are still in this city..."
The reason why intelligent species survived for so long was that they had the ability to pass knowledge down to others. At the very least, intelligent species would tell other members of their own kind how to deal with threats. When a humanoid, living Calamity was right next to everyone, how people acted around and treated her was quite obvious.
And so, Little Red enjoyed a "Mega Mega VIP" treatment everywhere she went. Every bar she went to, she could drink everything wanted for free, paid for by the Wood Spirits, except for alcohol, thanks to me telling Samantha beforehand that Little Red was a terrible and that she would go on a rampage upon consuming any alcohol. Nobody dared to even chat to Little Red, and she didn't have to pay any money for anything she wanted to purchase... it wasn't that Little Red didn't want to pay, it was that every store owner would run away at top speed upon seeing her. Who was she supposed to pay?
Her mood was made even worse by the fact that Samantha and most of the other Wood Spirits all returned to the Forest of Dreams. Everyone else around her would only tentatively avoid her as much as possible, be afraid when talking to her and even look at her with obvious fear in her eyes—this made, Molly, who Little Red hated the most, into the only person who could hold a conversation with her. For Little Red, simply "eating, sleeping, and beating up Molly" every day was considered an improvement in her patience.
Actually, even if there was a ban upon her drinking alcohol, Little Red would typically find ways to sneak some alcohol anyways. But it just so happened to be that she was in charge of guarding the troublesome Molly that was so difficult to find and catch, so Little Red was worried that Molly would escape if she went out and drank alcohol. Not only that, guarding Molly meant that Little Red was unable to take long naps as she pleased, which naturally made her temper only worse and worse.
And for Molly, she was also hoping for Roland to come back as soon as possible. Over the past week, she had received many painful beatings due to accidentally enraging her own daughter or simply because Little Red wanted a target to vent her displeasure.
Of course, half of the beatings were well-deserved due to Molly's behavior, such as trying to escape, poison Little Red, or rebel in some way. After a few times, Little Red directly started withdrawing a small pool of Molly's blood every morning, making her so weak that she was unable to plot any tricks. And if Little Red was in a bad mood, she would simply deliver a vicious beating to Molly, making Molly half-dead for the entire day.
Considering how the former Dragon Queen Molly obtained her position by killing off Little Red's father and all of Little Red's siblings, along with attempting to hunt down and kill Little Red herself, in a way it was impossible to say who was right or wrong here. Even if Little Red directly killed Molly, it would be perfectly acceptable.
And if Roland was here, he would probably only sigh and say that "The powerful have messy lifestyles" while he wouldn't interfere at all, since it was another family's... another dragon family's internal affairs.
But at this moment, this dragon family's internal affairs were now involving him.
"Are you sure? You should know what this means, right?"
"... While half-blood dragon descendants are indeed discriminated against, do you think anyone will dare to mistreat me and Roland's future baby?"
Baby? That's right, Little Red had been acting strange lately, and Harloys had told Roland the reason quite clearly: spring was here, and it was the season for animals to breed future generations.
"Relax, I have no interest in bones. Although Roland is indeed someone I'd be quite interested in, my goal is to give birth to Baby Dragons, although I suppose I can bring myself to accept half-blood dragon descendants as well. But he's unable to even have sex with me. And, I'm no necrophile."
Two years ago, back in Sulfur Mountain City, Elisa had been worried that Little Red was her rival in love and had sent a challenge saying that "I definitely won't lose to you" to Little Red in a certain bar. The above was Little Red's response at the time. Little Red hadn't lied at all with her response. She was indeed somewhat interested in Roland, but her feelings were more akin to friendship for him, not romantic ones. She mostly just wanted children of her own.
From a certain standpoint, the foundational reason for Little Red to completely cast away her former identity as an evil dragon was the increase in her motherly nature as she grew older.
Although she had once been an evil dragon with a fearsome reputation, not only did she dote on Annie like she would her own real daughter, Little Red often went around in human form to play with other species' young children in the parks, transforming into a "kind and friendly black-haired big sister." Doubtlessly, those who knew her real identity were thrown into incredible disbelief at the news. In fact, some newcomer Holy Knights at the time even caused a few small conflicts because of this.
Recently, her motherly nature had grown even more and caused her to target Samantha. She even attempted to lure Samantha into becoming her second adopted daughter.
Dragons were relatively independent creatures who had incredibly strong feelings about territory. Even after mating and giving birth to children, most adult dragons would live by themselves, mostly because the female dragons would turn on the male dragons and demand that they leave. Also, it just happened to be that in the dragon species, female dragons were stronger than the males, so the victors in securing the rights to raise the children and heartlessly exiling the other was typically the female dragons as well...
In a female dragon's mind, a family of her own would be fine without a husband—but a child was absolutely necessary. A nest of children would be even better. However, it was no easy task for an Immemorial Red Dragon to have a child.
In this world of Eich, the more powerful the existence, the more difficult it would be to leave a descendant. There were many mixed-blood dragon descendants mostly because the dragons were far too true to their base desires. It was also especially because the male dragons typically suffered much abuse from female dragons, so they could only vent their sexual frustrations on other species' females. This was the main reason behind the high number of mixed-blood dragon descendants.
But for a female Immemorial Dragon to want descendants was something truly difficult.
First, she would need to find a male individual who had a power level similar to her Immemorial Dragon Bloodline's strength. Then, she would need to have sex very often with him, due to the very low pregnancy rate she would have as a powerful individual. This meant that she would need to stay together with him for a relatively long period of time, and she at least needed to not dislike him.
For the past Little Red, this was evidently impossible.
She was being hunted by her own species and was a clean freak. She also loved cute little girls more than anything. By the time she became an Immemorial Dragon, she could only go look for the other, limited-in-number Immemorial Dragons, or look for a powerful individual from another species. However, she looked down upon the violent and foolish members of her own species, which was why she remained stuck, forever drooling at other peoples' daughters.
In conclusion, Little Red was just like a "leftover woman" who accidentally passed peak marriageability age without realizing it."Those interested in me are all so terrible, but the ones I'm interested in aren't good enough to be with me." And so, as time passed, Little Red's grudges accumulated, and she kept becoming worse and worse in a certain area.
Actually, Little Red had quite a good relationship with Momo. From a certain standpoint, both of them belonged to the "strange auntie" alliance. It was just that one was a lolicon, while the other was a shotacon. Whenever they got together to secretly exchange experiences in fooling young children, Sulfur Mountain City's Town Security would often receive reports from the citizens about their actions...
Alright then, from a certain standpoint, once Roland revived, Little Red was delighted and astonished to discover that his very bloodline had changed. She could even faintly detect that it was above her own Immemorial Red Dragon Bloodline, which meant that a certain type of trouble was destined to come looking for Roland.
"Roland is currently undergoing the process of Dragon Bloodline evolution. After he successfully incorporates the Red Dragon Bloodline into his own bloodline, it'll greatly increase the probability that I can get pregnant from him, along with further increasing the strength of any child we have. Even if our child is a mixed-blood dragon descendant, we can use the Bloodline Cleansing Ritual to help our child become a real, pure Dragon. No, I can sense that with how powerful Roland's current bloodline is, our child might even surpass a true dragon's bloodline."
This was why Little Red, from the Red Dragon species well-known to be stingy, unhesitatingly donated a great amount of her blood to Roland. In fact, she even donated more than was "donated" from Molly.
If it weren't for the fact that she donated so much blood as to almost reach the point of death, Little Red wouldn't have wanted Roland's bloodline to be tainted by Molly's blood at all. That's right, she viewed her own mother's blood as nothing more than a source of pollution.
Cough, I should add here that many Dragon Bloodline Warlock families married within themselves; brothers, sisters, and other close relatives would marry each other in order to preserve the special abilities of their bloodline. Anything related to the dragons truly could be summed up with the sentence "The powerful sure have messy lifestyles, " and a great example was certain more and more outrageous Beast Tamer.
But when faced with Little Red's excitement, Molly hesitated for a moment before deciding to say what she wanted out loud.
"I'm not talking about your potential children. I'm saying that if you stay together with that man, do you truly like him? If you're only going to be with him for the sake of potential children, you'll definitely meet an unfortunate end in this relationship."
Little Red paused in surprise for a moment. This didn't sound like something Molly would say at all.
"I have experience..."
Molly's voice grew softer and softer as she recalled her past crazy and painful experiences. This red-haired woman who always appeared so strong-willed was showing off her rare weak side in front of her own daughter.
Little Red clenched her fists. Wasn't Molly just trying to find an excuse to pass off her sins? She actually dared to malign Little Red's father who she really looked up to? Did Molly want a beating that badly?
"... I'm telling the truth. There's no need for me to lie at such a time. Perhaps in your eyes, Acdandy was a great father as well as a heroic dragon leader. But to me, he's nothing more than a bastard who forcibly stole my father's Emperor position and then raped me, forcing me to have his children. I..."
Seeing this rare weak side of Molly, and thinking about the information she had seen in the past, Little Red hesitated for a long while before finally putting down her fists.
In the dragons' records, the heroic Dragon City Emperor Acdandy had defeated the previous generation's depraved, greedy despot to gain his position. But if you looked at the former Dragon generation Princess Molly's angle, Acdandy was indeed nothing more than a bastard who killed her own father and raped her.
As most of the individuals involved were now deceased, the past could only remain in the past. If one truly wanted to analyze everything that happened, once again, that sentence "The powerful sure have messy lifestyles" could be used here yet again.
Little Red sunk into deep consideration for a while upon hearing her mother act motherly for once and give her such advice. But moments later, Little Red started laughing.
"You're just trying to confuse me. My situation is different from yours. There are no hatred or grudges between me and Roland."
"But there's no love between you, either. Do you really think that he will agree? Aren't you afraid that this difficult-to-come-by friendship will be ruined? Perhaps, in this entire world, he's one of your very few friends, or maybe even the only true friend."
Molly worked hard to try to convince Little Red against mating with Roland, and she was right. Back in the day of Roland's adventuring team, there was a chaotic dodecahedron of relationships as well. Little Red and Roland who acted ridiculously together had the best relationship of all. And later in Sulfur Mountain City, rather than saying that Little Red was Roland's jailer, she was more like a good friend who stayed together in jail with Roland to keep him company.
"... Him? He hasn't even evolved cells of love yet. He doesn't even know what the term 'love' means. It's perfect, because I don't need love either. Relax, if he doesn't agree, I've already made backup preparations."
Little Red's expression was rather hesitant but showed that she was willing to make some sacrifices.
"Backup preparations? How could something about love possibly have backup preparations? Could it be that you..."
For some reason, Molly felt that she had accidentally stumbled upon a fearsome plot.
"Yep, I should have listened to Momo's long ago and drugged him! I prepared some special secret drugs of the dragons, which will make him horny... and then I'll jump on him and have sex. Who cares, it's fine as long as I get pregnant. After it's over, he'll just think that he had a sexy dream, and it's best if he doesn't ever find out! Nothing will change about our relationship!"
"This is date rape! This is a crime!"
Molly never expected that one day she would be the one wanting to stop a crime from occurring. But suddenly, the magical restraints upon her instantly tied her down and prevented her from moving or speaking.
Molly had an expression of panic but was powerless. She could sense that Roland had now arrived, while Little Red organized her appearance and went over to greet him. Meanwhile, there seemed to be some abnormal liquid inside a bottle in her breast pocket.
The former Dragon Queen was filled with anxiety. Molly was confident that her daughter would be capable of doing anything for the sake of obtaining children and a family. Would the tragedies of the past repeat themselves in the present? But soon, she heard Little Red's astonished shrieks.
"Roland, weren't you supposed to be performing a Dragon Bloodline evolution? Why has the Dragon Bloodline disappeared? Why do I sense that you're currently so weak!?"
Notes:
[1] TL/N: The author leaves a note here saying that he is in the process of scorrecting and standardizing the dragon power levels, and that he has apparently added more power levels here than in the past.
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