“It’s a plan. Can we even call it a plan…”
“I know it failed. If it had gone according to plan, I wouldn’t be remaining here as a thought form.”
The fact that only thoughts exist in the body ultimately means that Seriphed has gone through something close to death.
Seriphed nodded.
“Yeah. It failed. And way more spectacularly than I thought.”
“…What happened?”
“First, let me clarify one thing. I’m the thought form created just before the ‘main body’ executed the plan. Only those who know our ‘plan’ can meet me. Naturally, I can’t go outside unless certain conditions are met.”
In other words.
“What I know is only about the situations inside the dead main body and the long past stories before the journey. I found out you were here only very recently.”
“So, it’s really dead?”
“Yep.”
Seriphed answered calmly.
I expected that.
As I heard through the Knot of Light, the Dragon Kings crossed dimensions fueled by hearts and life.
If they were alive and well, the humans here wouldn’t be playing around with the ‘successor’.
Even if not them, they’re already holding onto a dead dragon.
“All of them are dead. My main body died, and the others are gone too. The ones who stayed there probably died eventually. Sugarado must be dead as well.”
“……”
“Why are you looking at me like that? Were you really close with Sugarado? Honestly, I don’t like it. No matter how precious our kin are, shouldn’t they come with us if they want to protect them? If there had been even one more, we might have succeeded.”
“Hmm…”
“…Thinking back, maybe it was better they didn’t come. Since they all ended up dead anyway—”
“Don’t you want to see them?”
“…Huh?”
“I didn’t wish for a reunion like this.”
If our hearts are connected, it should be a good thing.
I lightly tapped the void, and a pure white body opened a hole and slid down.
A little dragon with bright eyes exhaling a white mist.
“No way…?”
“Wow? A black dragon.”
“…Sugarado?”
At Seriphed’s question, Sre stared up at her with wide, innocent eyes.
Her hand, which had been welcoming me with a smile until now, began to tremble slightly.
As if the ‘joyful’ mask she was wearing was peeling off.
“…White Human. How?”
“Guess I was lucky. Or maybe I should say unlucky.”
“Should I say it’s bad?”
Meeting Sugarado wasn’t part of the official route.
I just happened to stumble upon her frozen self while helping with the kingdom’s tasks.
If I hadn’t found her and time had passed, and she had ‘awakened’ on her own…
Then, the soul of Sugarado couldn’t have been transferred to Sre’s body, and she would have met her death at the hands of the users.
Of course, while Sugarado was strong due to the effects of the harsh cold, she was still just a fragment of a fragment.
If it were the past users, that might be one thing, but with the current level of Yena and Leo, they could definitely have caught her.
“Familiar feeling?”
“Aahhhh…”
Seriphed placed her trembling hand on Sre’s body.
Saaa… The cold of Sre chilled Seriphed, but darkness was originally a familiar property of cold.
“They lived like sisters.”
Seriphed was close with both me and Sugarado, but she was closest to Seriphed.
When Seriphed would act up doing strange polymorphic stunts, Sugarado would look at her pitifully and try to clean up the mess.
Moreover, they grew up playing together since childhood, so their bond could only be deeper.
Sre tilted her head.
“Why are you crying?”
“…I’m not crying, you damn teddy bear.”
Scrub, scrub.
After wiping her eyes with her arm, Seriphed quickly seemed to regain her composure and turned her head.
Back to her usual face.
“White Human.”
“Yes.”
“What’s this? Is Sugarado a kid now? I thought he’d stay around, but he had a kid?”
“Do I look like a kid?”
“…? No?”
Seriphed’s gaze returned to Sre.
Sre continued to stare blankly at her, maintaining her ditzy expression.
Seriphed frowned.
“…No matter how I look, it’s definitely Sugarado. Are you really not her child? Or has she regressed to infancy or something?”
“Technically, it’s both.”
“Huh?”
“So here’s what happened…”
I explained the story involving Sugarado and Sre.
From the moment I first discovered Sugarado to the existence of Sre that I found there. And how both their souls ended up in one body.
After hearing the whole story, Seriphed wore a face that looked absolutely mind-blown.
“…I’ve felt it for a while now, you really do some ridiculous stuff.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Two souls in one body… It would definitely be impossible if they didn’t originate from the same existence. Typical Sugarado.”
“It was quite a challenge. Back then, I hadn’t regained nearly as much power as I have now.”
Now, it’s just a matter of focusing for a moment, but back then, it was the early days of my return.
I was so weak that I wasted several days just sitting still.
“The guy who never had a kid in his life ends up making a clone. And it’s a new body for himself!”
“Wow?”
“And to create something like a child out of nowhere without even trying? What a complete dumb bear.”
Seriphed shook his head while petting Sre’s head.
Then, he seemed to shudder as if he felt chills.
“They said there was an attack by the Demon King…”
“Technically, it wasn’t an ‘attack’. It was more like running into a meteor by sheer bad luck on the road.”
If it was truly a ‘Demon King’s attack,’ it wouldn’t have been odd for Sugarado’s very soul to be obliterated, along with a whole planet.
‘If there had been clear will, it could’ve frozen at a dimensional level.’
“Compared to a being like the Demon King, Sugarado is just too small.”
“…Yeah, exactly. Those unlucky bastards.”
“They are indeed unlucky.”
“…Anyway, is Sugarado really alive?”
“Yes, but he’s sleeping.”
Currently, Sre’s body held two souls: one was the hatchling ‘Sre,’ who had developed a consciousness over many years.
The other was the original, the Ice Dragon King Sugarado.
Due to the harsh cold, Sugarado had fallen into a long slumber.
He occasionally wakes up, but he spends most of his time asleep.
This sleep will continue until the ‘harsh cold’ disappears from this world.
“Should we wake him up?”
“…No, let him be. He’s been through a lot.”
“Well, Seriphed has also had a tough time.”
“What? Like I said, I’m me before executing the ‘plan.’ I’m the version of myself from before all the struggles with dimensional migration.”
“……”
“…Well, I got sidetracked because of this dumb bear, but if I were to explain…”
“I’m not a dumb bear!”
“Kids are excluded.”
As Seriphed pressed Sre’s nose, Sre let out a muffled sound and lowered his head.
He flapped his wings, but it was not enough to break free from Seriphed’s hold.
But it was hopeless to stop Seriphed’s power.
If it were the usual Sre, she would have unleashed her Breath or revealed her “Claws” that could cut through anything, but she didn’t do that against Seriphed.
“Ugh!”
She just whimsically complained.
“The reason I created the Thoughts is simple. You must have seen it on the way here, right? Those strange monsters.”
“Are you talking about the Reverses?”
“That’s right. They’re the ‘Challengers’ created by combining Inanie’s magic and the various powers of our Dragons. You could say they’re teachers meant to lower the nose of the Successor in the future.”
These beings, born with great power, were intended to transform their typical rage control disorder into “Manage Your Anger.”
“The preparations were decent, and the Orders were obeyed well, but I was a bit worried. What if a variable were to occur?”
What if the Reverses malfunctioned and ended up killing the Successors?
Or what if the Successor became too powerful, rendering the Challengers meaningless?
That was Seriphed’s concern, and she decided to create an independent arrangement on her own.
“Let’s create one more teacher.”
“…?”
“If the Challenger is a teacher for the Successor, then I am a teacher for the Challenger.”
To prevent any potential chaos from the Challenger or the Successor, Seriphed turned a part of her Soul into a Thought.
Though she couldn’t control all the Challengers, she would be someone well-versed in their weaknesses and various knowledge.
“That was me. Of course, to prepare for the lack of power in dimensional migration, I planned to receive it at the perfect success of the migration plan. I considered myself the ‘Main Body,’ so I thought it was natural.”
Even if separated, the Thought was a part of Seriphed.
The Thought was Seriphed, and Seriphed was soon the Thought.
“Then, on a day when the plan was steadily progressing, an unexpected incident occurred.”
“If it’s about work…”
“The White Human would remember. ‘If we had gone up.’”
The day the Cradle completely collapsed.
The day the Cradle of the Dragons turned into land where no living being could survive and all the skies of the Lower Realm shattered like glass.
The day the ‘vast sky’ died.
“I’m talking about ‘Falling Star.’”
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