TGBAP 31

Meanwhile, in Kaiser’s eyes, Lucian didn’t come into view properly.

Five years until he becomes a full-grown dragon, but a hatchling is still a hatchling. A baby dragon that needs the care of parents and elders.

Hatchlings learn patience and learn to handle their power so that when they become full-grown dragons, they won’t be seized by madness.

But Kaiser had awakened a full-grown dragon’s power too early.

With his immature self, he couldn’t restrain that power—he was one step away from becoming a maddened dragon.

In Kaiser’s vision, everything doubled, stained red, and he couldn’t distinguish friend from foe.

On top of that, unknown illusions kept flooding his mind.

In the illusion, the golden eyes of the one who had betrayed him horribly overlapped with the golden eyes of the small, trembling Lucian.

Kill—!

For the first time, illusion and reality aligned. Kaiser lunged at Lucian at once.

And as he grabbed Lucian by the throat and raised his claws to take his heart—

“H-huh…… h-hyung…….”

A thin voice reached him.

A voice that pierced his brain made his body stop on its own.

Kaiser glared wide-eyed at Lucian. The vision that had been filled with nothing but golden eyes gradually widened.

“H-hyung…… don’t do this…… I, I’m Lucian…….”

Lucian, terrified of the Kaiser who had changed so frighteningly, sobbed and spilled tears drop by drop.

The strength in Kaiser’s hand pressing his throat slowly eased.

“Kaiser hyung!”

Waaah! Waaah!

In the end, Lucian burst into tears, calling Kaiser over and over. Kaiser reacted even more violently than he had to the earlier agitation, jerking hard.

The madness slowly subsided. The illusions that had filled his head like it would burst scattered like fog, and reality finally began to come properly into view.

“……Lucian?”

“Hic! H-hyung!”

Kaiser panicked. And then he realized what posture he was in, and his face went pale.

“W-what am I doing…….”

At some point, his polymorph had broken, and a firestorm was raging around him and Lucian.

At this rate, it was only a matter of time before the basement collapsed.

Kaiser hurriedly withdrew his power and felt his pounding heart with a pale face.

Clear handprints were left on Lucian’s neck.

Even now, Lucian’s pulse that he had felt through his palm was still vivid.

Goosebumps rose over his whole body.

‘I almost killed Lucian…….’

If Lucian had died by his hand like that…….

Throb—!

“Kgh!”

His head hurt again. The illusion he thought he’d finally driven out started up again.

It seemed the cause was…… this basement.

Kaiser, scanning the basement, felt an unknown chill and turned his head forward.

“……We have to get out of here.”

Lucian was still crying. He couldn’t leave him here, so Kaiser approached him.

“Luci—.”

“Hiiik!”

When he reached out, Lucian looked at him with fear-filled eyes.

That gaze gouged into his chest. His chest throbbed with a pain he had never felt before, but now wasn’t the time to sink into those feelings.

Throb-throb-throb—!

His head kept aching, and he had an ominous sense that if he stayed, the same thing as before might happen again.

Even if Lucian was afraid, Kaiser pulled him into his arms. When Lucian, trembling, pushed at him with limp hands, Kaiser clenched his teeth.

“Just hold on a little.”

Kaiser spread his wings and shot up the stairs in an instant.

Halfway up the stairs, Ria was standing there, frantic and fidgeting.

[……You! What the hell happened down there?!]

For a moment, his throat went tight. He had no idea what he could even say to her.

“……I’ll tell you later. For now, watch Lucian.”

After fully clearing the stairs, Kaiser placed Lucian into Ria’s arms.

Ria blinked blankly, then gasped when she saw Lucian trembling in a total mess.

[What—why is Lucian like this? Hng! His neck……!]

When Ria saw the clear handprints on his neck and turned her head toward him, Kaiser pressed his lips tight.

Throb! Throb! Throb!

“Kgh…….”

[What did you do to Lucian.]

Even with Ria’s cold voice, Kaiser still had to fight the illusion that kept forcing its presence into his head.

Ria, about to scold him, realized something was wrong with Kaiser’s condition and hesitated.

[Kaiser, you…….]

“I-I’m not in my right mind right now……? I’ll go cool my head, so you…… just take care of Lucian…….”

Even though Lucian was terrified, he was looking at him with the same warm gaze as always. His breath caught in his throat, and Kaiser clamped his mouth shut.

In the end, he frowned and fled the mansion as if running away.

Ria hurried after him, holding Lucian, but Kaiser had already vanished into the forest.

* * *

Hk, hk, hk, shhk—!

After fleeing far enough from the mansion that his breath felt stuck in his throat, Kaiser clutched his chest and slammed his fist into his head at the headache that wouldn’t subside.

Traitor

You killed him with your own hands

Kill, kill the one in front of you

Why are you hesitating?

He betrayed you first

You must kill him

“No. It wasn’t me…….”

Even after leaving the basement, the afterimage of the illusion lingered long. This time, it felt like someone else’s intrusive thoughts from the illusion were covering his head.

It kept whispering for him to kill.

Kill who? Who was he supposed to kill?

A mind that had broken once showed no sign of returning easily.

And the shock was worse because he had already nearly killed Lucian with his own hands.

Kaiser finally stopped running and fell, rolling on the ground.

Thud! Roll-roll—bang!

Even bruises weren’t enough to erase the illusion carved into his mind.

He felt like he was going to go insane.

His self and the self of someone from the illusion kept colliding. At this rate, he really would start killing everything he saw, without discrimination.

Kaiser forced down his slit pupils like a lizard and, with the last remaining thread of reason, threw up a massive barrier around himself.

A barrier that wouldn’t easily break no matter how much he rampaged, and that no one could enter.

The moment the barrier was complete, Kaiser let go of his reason.

Kwaaang! Kwaang!

Kaiser returned to his true form and spewed breath indiscriminately.

Red dragons are the clan specialized in flame among dragons. Even as a mere hatchling, the blazing heat was immense, melting every plant and animal around him.

Krooooaaar—!

Kaiser was fighting himself endlessly.

He had to suppress the illusion trying to swallow his self.

Was it about an hour of grappling like that?

The barrier Kaiser had cast was on the verge of collapse. And inside it, everything had turned jet-black, reduced to ash that scattered on the wind like hell itself.

Kaiser himself wasn’t fine either. He’d been burned by his own breath, scales peeled away in places, and claw marks from self-mutilation were carved all over his body.

Finally, he succeeded in separating the illusion and his self.

Escaping the vision he had shared with someone from the illusion, he could confirm the form of the illusion that had brought him to this state.

But even called a form, it wasn’t clearly visible, as if it had been mixed with black paint.

Only the dragon’s distinctive green eyes, identical to his own, flashed.

Kaiser realized instinctively. That “someone” was the lingering will of a dead spirit.

“Fuck, if you’re a lingering spirit, ascend nicely. How dare you try to take over my body…….”

His whole body had gone slack and his eyes were about to roll back, but the gaze within those drooping lids was ferocious.

Kaiser staggered and polymorphed into a human form.

Then his eye level roughly matched the black figure’s.

“If you try to take my body again, next time I’ll tear your soul apart. You think I can’t?”

-……I am you.

“Fuck off.”

Kaiser proudly raised his long middle finger, but the black figure spoke again.

-I am you.

“You’re still spouting bullshit.”

Kaiser bared his teeth and was about to blast breath again, but the black figure moved—and pointed at Kaiser.

-This is a fragment of memory you must not forget.

Just as Kaiser was about to spew curses, he sensed something strange and stopped short.

-All conditions have been met.

-You must not repeat the same thing again.

-You still haven’t dealt with that bastard.

-That bastard will never give up ─.

“What? What are you after?”

He missed something important. But the figure said nothing more.

No—more accurately, it couldn’t.

-In this generation…… sever the ill fate. Another me…….

The black figure’s shape slowly collapsed. And its voice, too, crumbled so it couldn’t be heard properly.

-……Don’t…… until the end…… take responsibility…….

Only after it vanished completely did the headache finally recede. The tension snapped loose at the fact that he had protected his self and not been taken over.

His legs trembled, and Kaiser collapsed right where he stood.

As he fell, ash scattered up into the air. Darkness had already settled over the sky.

“……I’m exhausted.”

With his eyes closed, Kaiser pressed at his head, feeling as if the throbbing still lingered.

Hyung…….

Then suddenly, Lucian’s aching voice rang out like a hallucination. Kaiser remembered everything he had done to Lucian.

A mere human. A weak human who could die at any moment, and yet at some point he had entered Kaiser’s heart and become a precious bond.

He could deny it all he wanted, but he couldn’t deny that he cherished Lucian a lot, and liked him.

Kaiser pressed at both eyes with a miserable face.

“Mom…… what do I do……?”

His voice, wet with tears, trembled badly.

Kaiser had no idea what face he should show Lucian.

* * *

Despite the uproar, Ria devoted herself to treating Lucian.

Thanks to the barrier she’d put up in advance, it didn’t seem like he’d been burned, but the clear handprints on his slender neck were steadily turning bluish.

As Ria watched it, her heart ached—yet at the same time, the contradictory thought that Kaiser wasn’t the kind of kid to do that covered her head.

“Ria…… what about Kaiser hyung……?”

Lucian asked with a gloomy face.

[……He went into the forest.]

“Is hyung never coming back again?”

Lucian lowered his head, sniffling. He looked like he was forcing back tears.

Ria hugged him and patted his back.

[I don’t know either. I’m sorry.]

“H-hyung was suffering. Something possessed him and he attacked me. Hyung didn’t do anything wrong.”

[Yes, yes.]

“Ria, you can’t hate Kaiser hyung. Promise me.”

[……Don’t you hate Kaiser?]

“I-it’s scary, but…… hyung is hyung…….”

Lucian kept urgently saying they shouldn’t hate Kaiser, that they had to hook pinkies and promise.

He must be afraid she’ll hate Kaiser.

As if she’d hate him when she’d watched Kaiser longer than Lucian ever had.

He isn’t the type to do that without reason, and anyone can tell something went wrong—

Still, she needed to hear the full story.

Clunk—

A sound came from the first floor. Ria’s eyes went wide as she stared at the door.

“Ria?”

[……Kaiser’s back, I think.]

At Ria’s words, Lucian quickly slipped out of her arms and got down from the bed. He ran to the doorway and tried to open it, but hesitated.

His body trembled.

Even if he knew in his head it wasn’t Kaiser’s fault, it seemed his body was reacting on its own to the fear that had been imprinted once.

Ria grabbed Lucian’s shoulder.

Lucian clenched his lips and tried to shake off his fear.

‘If Lucian is trying this hard, I can’t just stand here.’

Ria matched Lucian’s pace and went down to the first floor with him.

At the main entrance on the first floor, Kaiser was standing there, polymorphed into an adult man.

Ria flinched at the sight of him, and Lucian’s eyes went wide.

“H-hyung…….”

[What happened in the forest that you look like this…….]

Ria and Lucian couldn’t continue their words.

Kaiser was the worst wreck they had ever seen him.

Ugly claw marks covered his neck and limbs, blood dripping down, his clothes burned in places and full of holes, and through the torn fabric they could see reddened, burned skin.