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Chapter 53
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Lizzy gave a bitter laugh at the sight of herself.
In her hand was an artifact shaped like a maple leaf, crafted by humans.
Inside the room of the Illusion Magic Tower that Rai had shown her.
Originally, she had planned to leave in search of her egg, but she ended up accepting Rai’s suggestion.
“A human who begs on his knees to be allowed to help…”
Rai had stopped Lizzy, who was about to leave, and confidently declared that he would find her egg.
Dragons possess eyes that can see through all lies.
Rai’s plea for her to wait and play games instead of leaving was entirely genuine.
She couldn’t understand why.
However, Rai assured her that he would quickly find the egg using the magic of the various towers.
This, too, was entirely truthful when viewed through a dragon’s eyes.
Rai was sincerely trying to find Lizzy’s egg and return it to her.
If there had been even a hint of deception, she would have left immediately.
But since she saw nothing but the truth, she decided to follow his suggestion for now.
Burning down the entire continent as she wandered around would take longer, after all.
“And what is this… a game?”
Lizzy turned the maple leaf artifact over in her hands.
It was a human artifact covered in illusion magic.
She had heard it was something called a “game,” but Lizzy had no idea what that meant.
“They said humans did such terrible things because of this… Was it guilt?”
After a moment of deliberation, Lizzy set the maple leaf down.
No matter what it was, she wasn’t in the mood to engage with it after losing her child.
“I’m bored.”
However, after some time, she quickly became restless.
Being confined to a small room was stifling.
Rai had asked her to wait, at least until preliminary search results came back.
“Hmm…”
Eventually, Lizzy picked up the Maple Leaf Story artifact again.
“What could this possibly be?”
Curious about why humans had gone to such lengths, she decided to try it out.
And as she connected, she began creating a character.
“Evan… Is this the infamous one?”
The class she chose was Dragon Master Evan.
A conceited human who tamed dragons.
After completing character creation, Evan’s story began.
-“Until time tears us apart…”
The tale unfolded of a human named Freud and a dragon named Afrien with whom he had made a pact.
Their story, about battling the Black Dark Sorcerer in the past, was the beginning of the game.
Afrien, the dragon, had partnered with Freud to protect the world, eventually falling into a deep slumber.
The relationship between Afrien and Freud was that of friends, comrades, or perhaps even something more.
A deep bond forged through fighting for the world together.
Their oath, even in the face of the tragedy before them.
The story was nothing like Lizzy had imagined, assuming dragons would simply be treated as inferior beings.
As the tale of Freud and Afrien’s past came to an end, Evan’s story began.
Evan was Freud’s descendant. He formed a pact with Afrien’s son, Mir, to once again fight for the world.
Although called a Dragon Master, the two were more like friends.
“Magic Missile! Oh, oh… this is fun… isn’t it?”
Though she was playing as a human, not a dragon, it was surprisingly enjoyable.
The game, Maple Leaf Story, was inherently too fun.
Lizzy became engrossed in Evan’s tale, losing track of time.
As the story progressed, she found herself increasingly immersed in Maple Leaf Story.
-“Freud fought against the Black Dark Sorcerer…”
Snap—
“Ah?!”
In the middle of a scene where Evan was experiencing Freud’s memories, Lizzy’s vision suddenly went dark.
Awakened abruptly, Lizzy let out a comical noise.
“Ah, it seems you were enjoying yourself, Dragon.”
Rai had come to wake her up.
She wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth and straightened her posture.
“Enjoying myself? I was just investigating what humans had done to dragons!”
“Is that so? I had no intention of offending dragons. I didn’t foresee this happening either. I promise to take full responsibility and retrieve your egg.”
Once again, there was no trace of deceit in Rai’s words.
Lizzy stared intently at his sincere demeanour.
“With the help of the Tower Masters, we’ve roughly located the adventurer who took the egg. We should find it soon.”
“R-really?”
Rai had tirelessly tracked down information about the adventurer who had stolen the egg.
With the assistance of the Space Magic Tower and Wind Magic Tower, he had roughly mapped out the adventurer’s route.
This effort had already taken him half a day.
Meanwhile, Lizzy had remained engrossed in the game, unaware of the time passing.
“It’s been quite some time… Would you like to return to your lair? I’ll deliver the egg to you once we find it.”
“No, no. My lair is in a place humans can’t easily climb. It would be hard to bring the egg there.”
“But staying here indefinitely—”
“Just find it quickly! Humans won’t be able to move the egg easily anyway. Just tell me where it is, and I’ll retrieve it myself.”
“But it could take days…”
“That’s fine! Instead of wasting time here, go find it quickly.”
“Understood…”
Bowing deeply, Rai left the room.
Lizzy picked up Maple Leaf Story again.
It wasn’t because she wanted to keep playing.
It was because she believed Rai was an honest and trustworthy human.
“I was at such an important part…”
Lizzy reconnected to Maple Leaf Story.
***
“I have no idea why I have to go with someone like you…”
“Because it’s fine by me. Besides, the Electric Tower Master personally recommended me to escort you, so what can you do?”
I was on my way to the suspected location of the dragon egg thief, accompanied by a few others.
Thanks to the cooperation of the various Tower Masters, pinpointing the thief’s location had been quick.
This was possible because most of the Tower Masters had become favourable toward me after the Arcane War.
Among them, the Electric Tower Master, Electra, was especially supportive.
She assigned Lea to escort me, considering my lack of combat abilities.
A spatial mage was also added to the party for support.
“But, Your Highness, are you sure this is fine? Aren’t you busy?”
And, as if it were fate, even Rikal, who happened to be visiting the Illusion Tower, decided to join.
Though I knew he was very busy, he insisted on accompanying the journey.
“I handed over most of my work to Count Pophos, so it’s fine. Besides, I felt the need to clear my head recently.”
Rikal had been steadily building his reputation at the royal capital.
To the point where no one dared to call him the ‘Rogue Prince’ anymore.
Meanwhile, Leo’s reputation had begun to wane little by little.
“Also, from what I hear, the enemy is likely ‘Dragon Bane Hetz.’ If a mere illusion mage like you had gone alone, it would have been a miracle if you didn’t die, let alone retrieve the egg.”
“Dragon Bane Hetz? What, does he breed dragons or something?”
“Not exactly, but that’s just what people call him.”
Rikal began explaining what he knew about Hetz, the adventurer.
“Dragon Bane Hetz is the only person in the world who successfully raided a Gold Dragon’s Lair.
Thanks to that, he became extremely wealthy.
While his combat skills are average, his ability to use tools and tactics is extraordinary.
If he managed to steal from a dragon and take its egg, approaching his hideout won’t be easy either.”
The adventurer suspected of stealing the dragon egg was widely believed to be Hetz.
His original estate was abandoned, and he was hiding somewhere with the egg.
It seemed like he went into hiding to avoid people who would attempt to take the dragon egg for themselves.
Stealing from a person is far safer than stealing directly from a dragon, after all.
“I still don’t understand why everyone wants a dragon egg so badly… It’s not like they’re creatures you can actually tame.”
Despite a village being wiped out under a dragon’s breath, people still went after dragon eggs.
I couldn’t help but feel a sense of responsibility for it.
“Well, the game is just that well-made. Even I felt my heart race while playing Evan this time.”
The spatial mage chimed in.
While it was true that this world was particularly immersive…
“When we arrive, stay back. Don’t get hurt by unnecessarily stepping forward.”
“I can defend myself, though.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If you get hurt, it’ll just be more trouble.”
“…And why would you care, Your Highness?”
Lea frowned, questioning Rikal.
Rikal didn’t answer and simply quickened his pace.
After walking a little further, we arrived at a small city.
It was near a village that had been burned to the ground by a dragon.
A little further in the opposite direction lay the location estimated by the spatial mage.
-Sob… sob…
“…Are there always this many children in these outlying regions?”
“It’s not uncommon, but there are definitely too many here…”
As we entered the city, we saw children dressed in rags scattered everywhere.
Their clothes were torn, and their faces were covered in soot.
Occasionally, the children would beg from passersby, but only a few offered help.
Most people passed by with annoyed looks.
Rikal gritted his teeth as he observed the scene.
“Could these be the children who survived the burned village? But there are only children here…”
Lea murmured as she looked at the children.
Her assumption seemed likely.
I entered an alley and tried to speak to one of the children.
But before I could, the sight inside the alley left me speechless.
“This is…”
“Hup…!”
In the alley lay six or so children huddled together on the ground.
All of them had their eyes closed, motionless.
“Where did you come from?”
“M-my stomach… I’m so hungry… It hurts…”
One child stammered, clutching their stomach.
They looked as though they had been severely beaten.
We quickly bought food and water, feeding the child before continuing the conversation.
Once their condition improved slightly, the child stammered out more of their story.
Though difficult to piece together, it seemed these children had all come from the village burned by the dragon’s breath.
In the chaos, it seemed the adults had ensured only the children escaped.
Apparently, one or two adults had been leading the children initially, but they had succumbed to severe burns along the way.
The distance between the city and the burned village was about a day’s walk if you travelled without rest.
For children, it could have taken almost two days.
Though the road was well-paved, walking that distance in their condition would inevitably result in such a tragic outcome.
“This is… How could no one help them…!”
“Exactly. What are those people even doing?”
The spatial mage and Rikal spoke as if they were ready to overturn the city.
However, as someone from a rural village, I understood the situation.
In outlying regions like this, it wasn’t uncommon for beggars or homeless people to die on the streets.
Such incidents were unthinkable in the shining capital of the Empire.
But outside the Empire, in its subdued vassal states, such occurrences were almost expected.
Even in my previous world, which had a much higher standard of living, such tragedies were not rare.
People rarely paid attention to problems that didn’t directly affect them.
They might feel a fleeting sense of sorrow after witnessing something like this.
But once they returned to their comfortable lives, they’d quickly forget.
Unless these events personally invaded their reality, most people wouldn’t care about those at the bottom.
I provided the children with food and clothes, intending to take them to Trinity once the mission was complete.
“Shall we head out to find the egg?”
“Let’s do that.”
“Yes, let’s go.”
Without wasting any more time, we headed toward Hetz’s hideout.
Meanwhile…
“Top pick for me.”
Lizzy was deep in a COL match, playing as Shyvana.
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