"Wait, if the place that's meant for guests is made in a location where the supposed 'lowly- beings' are, then doesn't that mean that the guests are also considered 'lowly beings'..."
Upon hearing Liam's words, Gulija smiled slightly and remarked,
"Haha, you are worrying too much over it... Actually, that's exactly how it used to be before the time of the current Dragon King..."
"As the dragon-men are just defective people, dragons didn't used to like us originally; mass-slaughter and other things were common, and we were being treated like slaves..."
Gulija sighed, looked toward the palace, and then spoke.
"But ever since the current dragon king took the throne, things have changed. We live a safe and happy life now, and we are free to use the resources here..."
"The only thing is that we are prohibited from disturbing the resting dragons or trespassing in their nest..."
"Truthfully speaking, a dragon's nest is their home; if you trespass that area, it's your own fault for entering someone else's property... Aside from that, everything is much more ordinary nowadays..."
While the group was walking on the main road with Gulija, many dragon men passed by and couldn't help but stare at the new group of people that came from the outside world.
Gulija felt slightly embarrassed by their actions, so he quickly provided an explanation.
"Well, we don't usually see humans or any other races often, so people are curious and surprised to see you all here..."
Link nodded his head and said,
"Yeah, even I would be surprised if I suddenly saw a three-meter-tall dragon man in the human empire."
Dragon people are genetically very tall; even the shortest of them is 3 meters tall.
They have a stronger physique than an orc, a sharper mind than a human, wings that are faster than the wyverns, and magic that is stronger than the elves.
Dragon men are only weak when compared to true dragons; otherwise, they are indeed very strong when compared to other races.
"Haha, actually, I am more surprised by how humans have such a small physique yet so much power in their fragile-looking body..."
"This is the first time I am seeing humans... and believe, I can feel it with my instincts, except for that cheerful girl; all of you seem insanely strong to me..."
Gulija himself is a peak A ranker, and his physique is much stronger than others; he can easily be considered one of the veterans, yet he feels threatened by Link and others.
Hearing those words, Liam laughed a bit and said,
"Ah, not all humans are as strong as us... We are just the few most talented of our generation..."
Gulija nodded his head at those words,
"Yeah, I can see that..."
Riya pouted her cheeks a bit and said,
"I am not weak; I am a healer, you know! It's unfair to be comparing my combat abilities to Link..."
Gulija was taken aback for a moment and then nodded.
"Ah, is that so? I was wondering why only you had such weak killing intent... Except for you, all of your group members have insanely dense killing intent, especially..."
Gulija glanced at Rio but didn't particularly say it out loud.
As he's very sensitive to the killing intent and murderous aura of a person, he can feel it in his bones that the moment he tries any moves, Rio's sword will slice his head off.
Regardless of whether Gulija has represented himself as a friend or not, Rio has the habit of always keeping his guard up.
"Uh,... Can you stop glaring like that... I will get a heart attack if you keep staring at me like that..."
Rio simply shook his head in response to Gulija's words.
"Don't mind me, it's just a habit of mine to observe everything carefully..."
Gulija nodded his head and stopped talking.
At that moment, the group reached a location where a lot of tall horses were standing in wait.
"Everyone, please take the ride. These horses are professionally trained; you won't need any horse-riding skills to ride on them; they are intelligent creatures and will take you all to the palace on their own..."
Link grabbed Riya by her waist, jumped on the horse, and made her sit in front of him like a princess.
"She's a bit clumsy, so I will just take her with me... There is no need for another horse.." With that said, Link grabbed the reins, and the horse started to walk on its own.
Riya didn't have the time to react before she found herself sitting on the horseback. She felt quite embarrassed sitting so close when everyone was watching.
Ignoring the two lovebirds, the rest of the group also rode their respective horses, and Gulija opened his wings to fly beside the group.
"Actually, we only keep these horses for the guests; dragon people can fly, so we don't have any needs for them... You can assume that it's a way of showing respect..."
"After all, making the guests walk on foot will be quite disrespectful..."
Rio glanced at Gulija's wings and inquired.
"Exactly how fast can you guys fly?"
Gulija contemplated about that question for a moment and then said,
"Hmm, I guess two times the speed of an adult wyvern... I don't know the exact numbers, though..."
Rio nodded his head at those words and thought to himself.
'Two times the speed of a Wyvern-type monster... which means they are Mach 1.5... Well, even a casual swing from my sword is faster than that, so I guess I won't have difficulties catching
up with them...'
Rio, being a battle junkie, was already thinking about how much strength he would need to exert to split a dragon man in two with one move.
When Rio suddenly stopped talking, Gulija felt a bit threatened for some reason, so he chose to speed up and stay beside Liam's horse instead, as only Liam seemed like the most reasonable guy out of them all.
...
While passing through the main road that led to the palace gate, a small shop on the side of
the road came into view.
An old lady noticed Gulija and said,
"Ah, Gulija! It's been a while since I last saw you... Oh my, are these guests from the outside
world? Welcome to the Dragon Valley, young ones.."
The group nodded their heads to return the greeting.
Gulija sighed and said,
"Old lady, I told you that you should retire now and make your son do the work; why are you
still hanging around here?"
The old lady smiled and said,
"No, no, I need to keep doing the work or these old bones will get rusty... Also, that prodigal son is so lazy... Sigh, young people these days are all so unwilling to work..."
"Ah, look at me. I started to ramble about random things again. Age is catching up to me... Here, take this: it's a unique specialty of the Dragon Valley... You won't find these sweets in
the outside world.."
The old lady handed a box full of sweets to Link, but Riya immediately snatched them from
his hand for herself.
Gulija glanced at the old lady and said,
"I have work to do, so you go back and rest, old lady. I will come back later to help you out..."
The old lady nodded her head and went back into the shop. The group moved forward, and
then Gulija said,
"Actually... the truth is... that old lady has a son or even a family; they all died after they accidently encountered the 'Cursed death'..."
A confused look appeared on Link's face as he said,
"Hmm? 'Cursed Death'? What' that? This is the first time I am hearing about something like
that..."
At Link's question, Liam suddenly said,
"Dragon's refers to 'Corruption' and 'Miasma' as 'cursed death'; I read about it in ancient
literature on Dragons..."
Hearing those words, even Rio was curious; he glanced toward Gulija and asked,
"So, even though your Dragon Valley is a separate space of its own, it's still getting affected
by demons and miasma?"
Gulija sighed at those words and said,
"Actually, things are quite severe; all the dungeons that open in the Dragon Valley are filled with miasma and corruption for some reason... Demons pour out of them too..." "That old lady's family members used to work in the dungeon, conquering battalion..."
"Suddenly an SS-rank dungeon opened when they were retreating home, and a giant fire demon walked out of it, and the whole battalion was slaughtered on the spot..."
Gulija glanced towards the Dragon Palace and said,
"Fortunately, the dragon king himself came forward to close the dungeon that was filled with
miasma..."
"But it was too late; tens of thousands had died by that time; it was a disaster of massive scale... That dungeon actually opened in a populated area, and it caused massive damage to
property..."
Hearing those words, Link and others's expressions became solemn.
Currently, it's recorded that there are only one or two SS-rank Demons on the Demon
Continent.
But if what Gulija said is true, then it means that more dungeons filled with demons might have opened in the Demon Empire, and there might be hidden SS-rank demons there now.
'If that is true... then it means that the Demon Race is currently not attacking because they are
still preparing for something big...'
The same thought came to their minds at that moment.
Gulija sighed and said,
"It didn't used to be like that before... This strange phenomenon of demon-filled dungeons
opening has only started seven years ago..."
"As if something has changed with the world itself..."
...
...
Author's Notes
Yo! It's your beloved author here!
It seems things have become even more mysterious all of a sudden.
Question of the day:
Do you remember what else happened seven years ago?
(Tell me in the comments)
By the way, don't forget to use those power stones and also leave a review if you like the story.
Comment your opinion about the chapter. Your support is my motivation.