Chapter 212: She's Still At That Imaginative Age
Chapter 212: She's Still At That Imaginative Age
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"Maybe it was pleased with some of my qualities?"
Old Yosef pondered about that, then he hesitantly asked, "Aya, what do you reckon is this quality that Lord Divine Dragon would care this about?"
"Um… I am pretty good at some spells?"Aya tried.
He shook his head sideways.
"I… I'm good at teaching humans about taming dragons?"
More sideways head shaking.
"I'm very gentle? I'm good at making meals and baking cookies…" Aya faltered, shaking her head before her father did. These qualities could not even be counted as anything among the dragonkins.
"I look pretty cute?" Aya gave her last shot. As a young woman, she also had the tendency to be easily pleased with her looks, both her human form and her original draconic form.
However, her father still shook his head sideways.
To humans, Aya was a perfect beauty, when she was in her human form. Her draconic form was graceful and majestic, but these opinions were based on the standards of humans.
Dragons have their own arbitrary set of beauty standards.
First, they placed much importance on their bloodline. Aya and Yosef were both White Dragons, which was a subspecies that also contained a vaster variety of families, ranging from high-status to low-status. However, it was common to have hybrids of higher-class and lower-class dragons. A lot of them were not pure-blooded elder dragons; hence, the status of the entire subspecies was lowered just because dragons as a whole were overly fond of the dangerously-outdated eugenics.
To dragons, size also mattered. White Dragons were on the smaller end of the size spectrum, meaning they were not much use for hand-to-hand confrontation. Most of them used magic as their offensive power, which unfortunately gave the impression that they were as fragile as glass.
The last metric used by dragons to access themselves was their natural affinities. For instance, the regal Silver Naga commanded lightning and thunder. The noble Crystal Dragons possessed a physique that would always be at the peak of all dragonkins. The Golden Nagas were known for their resistance to magic. The Jade Nagas bent the elements of fire and storms to their will. Compared to all of these marvelous, nature-commanding powers, what good was there in only having the talent to cast spells? The White Dragons were not the only ones who could perform magic; the other elder dragons could do those just fine.
To lay it bare, humans may think White Dragons were majestic and noble creatures, but to other dragons, they were mediocre at best.
That was why it would take a miracle for a little White Dragon-girl like Aya to be chosen by the Divine Dragon. She was Cinderella without her glass slippers, who even lived with the filthy humans, something the Divine Dragon loathed the most.
Nevertheless, who could ever understand what a higher-up was thinking? Regardless of whatever plans it had for Aya, the Divine Dragon had chosen her, nevertheless. No one could guess the thoughts that ran through the mind of those more powerful than themselves. Therefore, after a fruitless discussion, Aya could only accept that she had indeed been chosen by the most elite of all.
'Was it because of my beauty? Is Lord Divine Dragon asking for my hand this way? But… What will become of Mordred? Will it accept her? If it wants me to abandon Mordred, what…what should I do?'
Mind-boggling thoughts characteristic of a young lady crossed her mind, slowly taking shape and coalescing into a vivid scene: a stranger forced her into a very short skirt that bared her supple thighs. He rode her from her back, and a hand forcefully covered her mouth, forcing her to lift her neck and watch Mordred weep in a distance. He snickered in her ear, bullying her and forcing anguished sobs from her throat 1 …
This vision was so hellish that Aya couldn't help but snap out of it.
"No! Never! Even if Lord Divine Dragon abhors it, I would still never desert Mordred!" Aya spoke her decision out loud.
"Huh? What was that?" Yosef, who was ruffling the dragon-lady's hair, asked in a tone of confusion.
"N-N-Nothing!" Aya cried out, wanting to give herself a kick. 'Why did you say that out loud?!'
"Alright, let's not talk about Lord Divine Dragon and its bizarre preferences. We'll never understand the mind of those elites, anyway. Tell me about Master Hope instead," Yosef said, drawing her back to the present issue.
Aya told them about their meeting and the conversation that happened after. Of course, she left out the parts about the bath and Mordred's prank.
"So, he's going to join us to combat this Crisis? That's good news to us. Someone who could actually fight off the Abyss Lord has offered his aid. I say brilliant job, Aya." General Kandor nodded in approval. The dragon knights had been looking everywhere for help. Their lack of numbers was really becoming a problem.
"On a side note though… Why are there four girls with him? And all of them are so young and beautiful," Yosef added. "I heard that he is a Soul Armature, so one of them must be his Summoner. That leaves him with three extra girls. Who are they to them? Are they his wives?... Aren't they too young? ….Does this awesome fighter really have ephebophilia 2 ?"
He turned his eyes to Aya. His daughter was young, so she may actually be a target for someone who had an appetite for young wives.
"Um, why is Father looking at me like this?" Aya found her father's gaze unsettling. Her face flushed red, maybe because she remembered the words Mordred had said.
"Nothing, dear. Just be good with Master Hope," The elder dragon retracted his glance and replied casually.
"Hey, following that train of thought, could the Divine Dragon's blessing be related to Master Hope?" General Kandor jumped in suddenly.
The elder dragon and the lady both shook their heads and cried in unison, "No way!"
"I didn't sense any dragonkin scent from him, and his energy undulations suggests that he is a truly a human, just as advertised by the Church. He is a formidable sorcerer, who seemed to have used some methods to conceal his true undulations, making him seem weaker than he really is... You know, like an Elite-level fighter," Aya explained.
Yosef continued, "Humans do not understand us dragons that much, especially elder dragons; we are the most mysterious to them. Only the most knowledgeable human scholars would ever understand the words 'Divine Dragon', but even they thought that the words were the name of a species of dragon, not a title."
After all that was said, Aya's family and Baiyi's family came together for their meal. It was a very festive meal, but as usual, Baiyi had no faculty for eating.
Meanwhile, Aya, Mordred, and the elder each ate enough food for five humans, but to everyone's surprise, they still managed to remain graceful and elegant after they had swallowed all that food.
Baiyi was a bit cautious of Mordred. A girl like her was supposed to eat like a typical pre-teen: head hung low, gaze averted, and only focusing on her food. However, she was far from that. She patiently carved the poultry into bite-sized chunks and shared them with Little Mia, who sat beside her, as if she was afraid that the girl wasn't eating enough.
'What a mature girl! So how would she end up becoming a traitor?'
"Oy! Why do you keep insisting that she's gonna go rogue? Because of a goddamned name?" The Third Walker asked in displeasure. "She's a good girl who just coincidentally happens to bear the name of a fictional character you know! Must you then think that they are the same person? One is fictional and another is real, come on!"
'But they look so similar too…'
"What similar? She doesn't have that cowlick, and she has fuller breasts!" The Third Walker retorted.
'Oh, cut it out. Why do you care about this pair of mother and daughter? You blessed them suddenly, and now you're defending them out of love? I thought you hated dragons who frolicked with humans!'
"Well, when a dragon has lived long enough, their values tend to change," The Third Walker replied solemnly. "Of course, I am also really fond of Mordred. I just think she's really friendly, you know? Am I getting old?"
'Huh. She isn't your descendant, is she?'
"Oh please! I have been in the Void for 5000 years and look how young she is!" The Third Walker gave a strong rebuttal. "I just think that I used to be unfair to these dragons who just happen to think differently. So what I'm doing now is just to atone for my past misjudgment. Don't make it sound as if I have some ulterior motive, okay?"
The lunch was over in silence. No one talked while eating, and the hosts were just focused on their meals. They had great appetites, so if they didn't finish their meal quick enough, that would be considered imprudent to the humans.
In the evening, General Kandor left for the meeting. Yosef stayed behind to talk with Baiyi, while the girls were directed by Mordred to nap into the third floor of the Command Unit Building. Yes, the building actually served as the command tower for the dragonic knights, which also doubled up as the higher-ups' residential area.
Baiyi picked up a cup of red tea. He used mana to turn the tea into a small version of Little Mia, then changed the small tea figure to Tisdale. Immediately afterward, the tea figure split into four, and each figure took the appearance of one the girls, and the figures danced atop the cup.
This little parlor trick attracted Aya's attention. The dragon watched the cup in his hand without blinking, and even Yosef started to believe that the legends from the Church were true.
After he had shared his theory, which he and the Voidwalkers had come up with earlier, with the dragons, Baiyi asked, "That is what I think is going on. Have you dragons ever faced something similar before?"
They shook their heads sideways. When Aya heard that the realm may be destroyed, her face paled.
"An Armageddon… Is it that bad?" She said, incredulous.
"Just a conjecture, really." Came the calm answer. Baiyi himself didn't believe that to be the truth, either.
However, it had been the opinion of the Third Walker, and as one of the strongest beings who had ever looked over the world, his opinion held great bearing.