TGBAP 30

“Blech, what a musty smell.”

With his keen sense of smell, Kaiser pinched his nose and creased his arrogant face.

If what Ria said was true, this place had been abandoned for a long time. There might be some hidden vent connecting to the outside somewhere, but that alone couldn’t possibly draw out all the dampness inside.

The stench of mold was so strong it felt like it might cling to his body, too.

Thump—

Out of nowhere, his heart jolted. Was he tense even if he pretended not to be? Somehow, being here didn’t feel pleasant at all.

“Let’s finish this fast.”

Kaiser wiped the laughter off his face and held the lantern forward with a chilly expression.

Scatter—

When he used dragon speech, the flame in the lantern split and scattered in all directions. The pitch-dark basement became visible at a glance.

Just as Lucian had said, three doors stood out.

He checked the left door first. There was a tunnel that might lead somewhere.

He stepped in for a moment and examined it as far as he could.

It seemed to have been dug a very long time ago. At the very least, it looked over a hundred years old.

And there were rails nearby that looked like they were used for mine carts. Since there were no carts in sight, they must be elsewhere.

“Could this connect to a mine?”

He had never heard there was a mine nearby. And the tunnel was fairly large.

Normally, unless you’re properly building out a tunnel to reach underground or a vein, you don’t make it this big.

Suspicious in every way.

Even with the lantern, he couldn’t see the end.

In the end, Kaiser raised a hand. Fire formed above his palm. Then he threw it deeper into the tunnel, and the flame traveled endlessly, farther and farther away, until it struck something and went out.

From the afterimage he saw right before it vanished, it didn’t look like a dead end—there seemed to be a path off to the side.

The distance to where it went out was probably about 1 to 2 km.

“Going through all of this would be insane.”

He compromised with himself to come back later when he had time, and left the tunnel.

Next was the middle door.

A door with no handle and no window. He tried pushing it, but it didn’t budge.

There was only the picture Lucian had mentioned, drawn in the center of the door.

“A magic circle.”

Maybe because it was covered in moss and had been exposed to time for so long, the shape of the circle wasn’t perfectly intact.

Rather than checking this, it would be far easier to check the room that supposedly had the same thing drawn on it.

Kaiser entered the last room and lit it up with fire.

The pattern on the floor here was far clearer than the one drawn on the middle door. The problem was that about two-thirds of it, centered around the middle, was covered in traces presumed to be blood, so it wasn’t easy to see.

Kaiser flicked his finger and examined the blackish-brown blood powder on the pattern.

Just as Ria said, it really was blood. For blood to have turned to powder like this, it meant it had been left for a long time.

And there were also thicker clots that hadn’t turned to powder yet. Since it could be an important clue, he collected a small sample. Then he used magic to erase everything filthy.

Only then did the magic circle show clearly.

The moment he saw it, Kaiser’s eyes went wide.

Thump— thump—

His chest pounded harder and his vision wavered.

“Kgh……!”

A headache surged, and unfamiliar things he didn’t remember began to surface.

‘……So all I have to do is that……?’

‘Yes, it’s something only you can do…….’

Unknown memories came crashing in like madness.

There, Kaiser wasn’t the Kaiser of now, but someone else, fulfilling a human’s request.

“Guhhh……!”

The headache struck again and the scene changed. This time, his view was red, and it felt like both hands were bound—he couldn’t use them properly.

And it seemed he was utterly shocked by what was happening before his eyes.

It felt like his head would split open, like his chest would tear apart.

‘You…… you, how could you……!’

On a magic circle of a far higher order than the one drawn in this room, a woman was glaring at him with bloodshot eyes, tears streaming down her face.

‘……How could you betray me……!’

Her single line became a huge dagger that stabbed into his chest. Kaiser reflexively denied it.

“Ghk, I…… it wasn’t me……! I didn’t do that……!”

Crash—!

Kaiser, staggering, fell right where he stood. He scraped across the stone floor and crawled out of the doorway.

He’d scraped so hard that blood began to well at the tips of his fingers.

He thought everything would be fine once he was outside, but the headache showed no sign of stopping.

Twisting soundlessly, Kaiser finally opened his throat.

Kraaaaaaagh!

Tears streamed down and his eyes snapped wide open. In his overturned view, someone was looking down at him with a nasty smile.

“Why! Why did you do that to me?!”

That fury wasn’t Kaiser’s—it belonged to the one in the memory. And as if answering, the man in the illusion whispered softly.

‘Watch your words. Because of your magic circle, ─ became like that.’

No, all of this happened because he fell into a perfect trap. It wasn’t that he meant to do it…….

‘……Carcelin, you can never defy me.’

At that single line, he saw the same pattern carved into his and the man’s left arms.

A dragon’s absolute taboo. A soul contract.

An absolute contract that cannot be broken unless one side dies, and that prevents the two from attacking each other.

The moment he saw it, his reason snapped.

Krooooaaar—!

Kaiser’s polymorph broke, and the basement shook as if an earthquake had struck.

In his dimming vision, Kaiser witnessed it clearly.

The man in the illusion’s cold golden eyes.

* * *

“……Will hyung be okay? Shouldn’t I go down too?”

[He might seem like a kid, but when it counts, he does it. Don’t worry, nothing will happen.]

I tried to soothe anxious Lucian, but for some reason I couldn’t shake this ominous feeling myself.

Even though I know Kaiser isn’t the kind of dragon to go down easily, what is this unease……?

Kraaaaaaagh!

Then, a scream came from the basement. Ria’s eyes went wide as she grabbed the doorknob, and Lucian looked up at her, terrified.

“R-Ria…… I think something happened to hyung.”

[…….]

I couldn’t even offer an empty reassurance that he’d be fine. That scream just now was too full of desperate pain to dismiss as someone simply being startled.

“I-I’ll go down……!”

[Wait…… we don’t know for sure yet. We don’t know what might be happening, so let’s watch the situation for just a little—]

Kugugugung—

Before I could finish, the ground—no, the whole mansion—shook. Kaiser’s killing intent burst upward from below. It was an aura on par with dragon fear.

“Hyung’s in danger!”

I know. I know something enormous just happened to Kaiser. Otherwise, someone with that much self-control would never open his power so recklessly.

But what if Lucian goes down and gets badly hurt?

‘If only I could go down, Lucian wouldn’t be put in danger, and I could bring Kaiser out safely……!’

Countless possibilities played out in my head. Because I didn’t know what was happening in the basement, half of them ended in grim outcomes.

“……Ria!”

Lucian struggled, insisting he had to save him.

Ria bit down hard on her lower lip, then hurriedly cast a barrier spell over him.

[Don’t do anything dangerous. Just in case, I put up a barrier, so it’ll block most attacks.]

“Yes, I understand!”

[If there’s someone in the basement who attacked Kaiser, don’t engage—come straight back up the stairs. Got it?]

“I’ll definitely rescue hyung!”

It was only one minute ago that he’d been trembling, saying the basement was scary, yet with the sense of mission to save Kaiser, Lucian’s eyes turned solemn.

Ria nodded, praying only that he would bring Kaiser back safely.

* * *

After promising Ria, Lucian went down the stairs without a moment’s hesitation.

He didn’t even notice that his fear of the basement had vanished. All of his nerves were focused solely on Kaiser.

“Hyung……!”

The moment Lucian reached the basement, he faltered. A firestorm was raging inside.

It wasn’t that someone had attacked.

Kaiser was having a fit.

He had returned to his dragon form, but thankfully it wasn’t his full size—he was still in a shrunken state.

But he was convulsing violently. Kaiser twisted his body mercilessly and raked the stone floor with his claws, and around him the storm only grew more violent.

Fwaaah!

“……Hot!”

Because of this firestorm, Lucian couldn’t get close to Kaiser.

But if he left him like this, it felt like Kaiser’s breath would give out.

The moment Lucian finally worked up the courage to take a step—

Whoosh!

Flames grazed right past his nose. Lucian reflexively raised his arms.

But for some reason, he only felt heat—no pain at all.

“Ah……! The barrier!”

He could see a transparent barrier forming before his eyes. The insurance Ria had given him just now was working perfectly.

If so, he could reach Kaiser. Swallowing hard, Lucian rushed into the firestorm.

It was so hot all around him that breathing felt suffocating, but once he entered the storm, it became frighteningly quiet.

In that quiet, only Kaiser was there, twisting in agony.

“Hyung! Kaiser hyung!”

Lucian hurried to Kaiser.

“Hyung, are you okay? What’s wrong! What happened……!”

“Kraaaagh, kghhhh……!”

It didn’t seem like his voice was reaching him. Lucian hoisted Kaiser up and pulled him into his arms.

Kaiser’s eyes were rolled back.

Lucian’s heart dropped with a thud. Trembling, he looked around.

Right. Ria can’t come down here.

That meant the only option was to get out of here and go to where Ria was.

Lucian clenched his lips tight, hugged Kaiser, and stood.

But Kaiser was too heavy for young Lucian, and his waist buckled almost immediately. Even so, Lucian didn’t give up.

“Guhhh……! H-hyung! Just hold on a little! We’re going to Riaaa!”

Lucian hooked his arms under Kaiser’s armpits and dragged him. Kaiser still hadn’t come to his senses and only thrashed, and that made him feel even heavier.

“Hyung! Wake up! You can’t collapse here!”

In the end, Lucian decided it would be better to wake Kaiser up first, and he tapped his face.

Kaiser’s flipped eyelids trembled, and his pupils began to show.

“Hyung! Can you hear me? Hyung!”

Lucian shook him again and met his eyes.

Kaiser’s vision wavered. The boundary between illusion and reality was unclear.

It felt like his own self was twisting as unknown memories, his and someone else’s, mixed together, and like his emotions were being assimilated.

Unpleasant, yet so desperate it felt like he must never forget it—an urgency that shook his head even more.

And yet that sensation only scraped at Kaiser’s arrogant pride.

He was the most promising dragon even among the red dragons. And he was shaking over something like this false illusion?

“Kgh! Don’t fuck with me!”

“Uwa!”

The moment Kaiser spread his wings wide, dragon fear opened.

Dragon fear that, even after becoming a full-grown dragon, you still have to hone to use properly.

A terror incomparable to the killing intent of ordinary beasts or monsters.

Lucian’s teeth chattered. He began to doubt whether the thing before him was truly Kaiser.

‘S-scary……!’

If he didn’t run right now, it felt like that dragon would take his life. But even if he wanted to run, he couldn’t move—and he couldn’t leave behind Kaiser, who had turned frightening.

Then Kaiser, exhaling a breath laced with flame, turned his gaze on Lucian.

The gaze of a predator with nothing but prey in its eyes. Within it was no mercy, no kindness, no gentleness.