The Foreigner on the Periphery

Hell of Disbelief (17)

Sea dragons like Callieter were located on the bottom of the sea, so one couldn’t have an ordinary race as a servant. Even trolls, which were reputed to be healthy, felt reluctant to work under the sea, and thus had many difficulties commuting to and from work. Therefore, the sea dragons, who could not find a suitable labor force on Earth, turned their eyes to the other world. This was the origin of the Dafin people, who were gradually increasing in number, although the scale was not at the level of group immigration. 

They breathed with gills in the water and breathed through the skin on land, so they could be said to be the best talents for sea dragons. On Earth, they were the ancestors of the long-extinct marine amphibians. 

“Manager, take a look at this.” A species resembling a frog looked into the monitor as he spoke. An unknown thing was approaching at a very high speed. 

“What? Submarine?” Said the staff.

“No. Is it fish?” 

“No way. What kind of crazy fish comes so close to Rare?” 

Even fish with low intelligence were instinctively reluctant to swim around this area. It was because of the dragon piers that occasionally flowed from here. However, the object on the radar was approaching in a straight line. 

“There was no audience request today. Bring up the screen.” 

“Yes, we are sending the video from the 16th camera.” 

Pot! They made us of underwater highlights installed outside cut through the dark water. The staff who saw what appeared on the screen were astonished. “·······What is this, tuna?!” 

The head of the fish that was swimming hard was obviously the fish he knew well. A fish that could not live here. “Isn’t it 60 years ago that tuna seeds dried up in the North Sea?” 

As he said, tuna had long since been out of sight due to ruthless fishing. The team leader, who had a long experience of immigration and was knowledgeable in the district’s fisheries resources, looked at the screen carefully and said, “No doubt. This is a Pacific bluefin tuna. It is a fish that lives on the other side of the globe. Zoom in a bit more.”

Immediately after the screen resolution was changed, something new caught the eyes of the two Dafins. The appearance of the two legs of a mammal with a lower back instead of a tail pounding hard. “You are talented.” 

“What should I do? Shall we hit the broadcast?” 

Since this was a private property, it was referring to the announcement that all unauthorized persons were prohibited from entering. However, the manager shook his head. “No, let me in first.” 

“Yes?!” 

The staff was startled. This was because he was not the type of person to make decisions without the permission of the owner of the rare. The team leader was paying close attention to the ankles of the talented person approaching. To be precise, at the artifacts that filled there. 

“You are a guest who has already received permission.” 

*** 

“Please wait here. The manager will be coming in shortly.” 

“Yes, Thanks.” 

Back in human form, Cathy waited for the person in charge in a rash guard. Dozens of eyes were watching her as she grabbed her hair and squeezed the water out like a wet towel. There were Dafin employees talking through the window.

“What is it, Breathshift?” 

“Can a land creature transform into a sea creature?” 

“It is rare, but there are cases. It’s the first time I’ve seen it myself.” 

“No, wait. Does that mean that person… can live both at sea and on land?” 

“By the way… how can you be so pretty? Are you prettier than the humans you see on TV?” 

A scream was then suddenly heard behind them. “Don’t say anything rude and don’t run away to work right now?! Master is a guest!” 

After kicking out the curious employees, the team leader entered the waiting room. “Agent Ye Minjun must have sent it.” 

‘If you wear this on your ankle, you’ll notice it at once.’ 

Confirming that the boss’s guess was correct this time too, Cathy passed the artifact on. “You said it was very urgent.” 

“Callieter-sama is not in Rare right now…” 

“If you were a manager, you would know how to use it.” 

However, Cathy only knew what the magic of the message was, but didn’t know the content. Whether there was a fixed starting language, the Dafins mumbled in an unfamiliar language altogether. 

Then, she felt magic flow from her bracelet. Seeing this, the leader’s face hardened visibly. 

“······All right. I will contact Callieter immediately.”

 *** 

– I don’t expect much. Take your time as much as possible. Don’t let them come back to the city. As long as you know it’s a dragon anyway, it won’t hurt you. 

Ha Eun-seong remembered Minjun’s reassurance. And he was doing his best to fulfill his duties faithfully. It was a once-in-a-lifetime performance (to self-evaluate) in which he became one with the role while contemplating the inner psychology of the cynical Hetzling, who had never gone out of the rare in his lifetime. 

‘Wow, you really can’t move? what a waste. I don’t know that I have this kind of talent until after I die.’ 

Ha Eun-seong mistakenly thought that it was because of his excellent acting that the inmates were struggling, but in fact, it wouldn’t have made much difference whether his acting was clumsy or elegant. First of all, it must be a real dragon as far as the body was concerned. 

Even if Ha Eun-seong made a barking sound instead of giving a line, he would not have been able to mistreat the prisoners. because it was a dragon. 

=You mean you shouldn’t call your mother?= 

“Yes, please. We’ll work it out…”

= But if I go home like this anyway, there will be a riot? where did you get it You can’t say I fell on the road.= The convict spoke who was comforting him. 

“I know dragons don’t have the regenerative power of trolls. The best way to get treatment quickly is to ask a high-ranking priest.” 

It wasn’t just that the dragons signed a sponsorship contract with the denomination. This was because he had talents that even dragons could not. 

“If you wait here for a while, we will bring the priest…” 

= Don’t be funny! Are you trying to run away like this?!= 

“Oh, no! If there is any concern about it, only one of us will move separately.” 

= No, what should I do if each person escapes and disappears like that? =

Unless he was an idiot, he had no choice but to know. 

‘Is this because he’s really stupid?’ 

What he insisted on was that he would keep prisoners here without leaving a single person. 

‘Wait a minute, come to think of it… at first, I was so embarrassed that I didn’t notice.’ 

Callieter’s husband was Hwaryong. Even if he was born as a mixed-race between the two of them, Hetzling still had to show the characteristics of his parents. 

‘No matter how you look at it, there are not too many traces of sea dragon genes. Even if it’s a deformed child, would it be this much?’ 

In the end, one inmate made a decision. “Then how about this? We’re teleporting downtown with you as a group. All of them, leaving no one left. No one runs away.” 

‘Miss, can’t that be?’ 

Minjun told them not to drag them into the city. Thinking and hesitating, he began to cry out. = I hate that too! How can I trust you?! = 

At this, the eyes of the prisoners became cold. “······You don’t want to call the priest, and you also don’t want to go to the priest with us? Then there is no solution. Just you and we all want to stay here and have a good time? Do you want that?” 

‘Mistress, did you get caught?!’ 

It was then when Ha Eun-seong swallowed back in tension. Pot!

Everyone’s eyes were entangled in the air. 

“!” The prisoners immediately realized that the weight of the air had changed. If it were an ordinary person, a heavy fear that would not be able to move due to numbness in the hips permeated the surroundings. 

A woman in a suit then looked down while floating in the empty air in the forest. Her prisoners felt in her both the atrocities of her predators and the dignity of her lord. “You are…!” 

There was also a fixed form that was often used by that race, which was the polymorph’s main specialty. This was because it was annoying for them to do multiple renderings in their head. Also, in case of occasional exposure to the media, it was simply effective to adjust the public opinion to cover up the appearance of the avatar that psychologists had put great effort into. 

And so, the prisoners knew. “Callieter!” 

They confirmed that their first guess was correct. That deformed child was really the Hetzling born by Callieter! 

Cold eyes stared at them, eyes that looked like they were looking at insects were full of contempt.

The prisoners who saw it all cried out in unison. 

‘Damn it!’ 

Meanwhile, Eun-seong Ha also screamed in her head. ‘Damn it!’ 

What was certain was, if she saw her through the eyes of a dragon, she would eventually recognize that she was not a Hetzling. She knew better that she was not an asshole. What if he got mad at her for impersonating her? 

What if he fell while walking around the territory without permission in advance? If that woman was also a psychopath like Changcheon, the dragon would have been imprisoned or killed by now! 

“…” 

While Ha Eun-seong and her prisoners were all busy trembling in fear, the old dragon finally opened her mouth. “I won’t talk much.” 

Upon hearing her, Ha Eun-seong flinched and scales trembled. Her gaze stopped at the prisoners.

“To be able to ‘do something like this’ in my estate, I want to rip them all to pieces and kill them…” 

The prisoners waited for her next words in trepidation. “All of you must have been on the move after receiving that sudden commission from the committee.” 

Had the mission details been exposed to the dragon? The prisoners were again astonished. 

However, Callieter spits out even more surprising words. “Good.” 

A few seconds of silence. “······Yes?” 

“You sinners. Committee’s playthings. Get out of my estate right now. I’ll allow five minutes for your generous generosity. If you want to survive, squeeze your insignificant mana to the limit. Teleport or whatever means, mobilize yourself so that I may remove the filthy from my land, and purify the air off your foulness. Again, I’ll be giving you minutes. You should know that this is the first and last chance that will be given to you.” 

Afterward, a miracle happened! The prisoners immediately removed their tails in the bliss that they saved their lives.

Each cast a teleportation spell or tried their best to run away in a hurry. If one was to think about it, it was strange. Hetzling was wounded, and the dragon eventually left them alive. 

However, there was no prisoner who questioned why they had been spared. It would not be too late to guess the reason and come up with it, even after running away. 

After all the prisoners disappeared… 

=Ah··· Me····= 

Jjirit! Ha Eun-seong flinched as she received the sharp gaze that fell on her. The eyes looking at him were not so different from the ones he had just looked at the prisoners. The dragon then spoke in a cold voice. “Let’s put an end to that nonsense. It was a pathetic clown play that stained the dragon’s honor. The words and deeds of a dragon whose scales are less hardened after breaking an egg will not be so slurred.” 

That meant… 

“I know that you are not a Hetzling and that the spirit that controls that body is not a dragon.” 

Minjun did not expect Ha Eun-seong to spend long enough with the prisoners in the first place. And so, he prepared another safety device in order to get half of the inmates pursuing him off the stage. 

If they hadn’t had a sense of crisis and misconception that they had hurt Hetzling, even if the Elder Dragon tried to expel them, they would have stood up to the committee, stating that they had been killed while protesting why he was interfering with the commission’s mission. However, this time, it seemed that Callieter had a good reason. 

On the other hand, Callieter could not kill them carelessly. That was because that dragon was not a Hetzling. It was quite impossible to kill an inmate just by the scale of an independent dragon. Goryeong then spoke to Ha Eunseong. “Slave, go and tell your master.” 

=?!= 

Slave?! Master?! 

“Accept the transaction. And, by this, we confirm that we do not owe each other any debt.” 

=Yes? = 

The old dragon was annoyed. “It’s okay if you don’t understand the meaning. just move it How could such a clever man enslave a foolish soul like you, Won.” 

=········= 

“Tell me. There is a fact that religious people are hiding from the outside. The contract between me and their sponsorship ended the moment the previous patriarch died due to an ‘accidental accident where the suspect and grudge could not be identified.’ This is because the sentence he has sworn in the beginning was as follows. ‘This patronage will remain in effect until the moment of the Patriarch’s death.’ In other words, after his death, for the patronage to continue, the contract must be renewed, and they have insisted on it until now, but so far I have not been able to afford it. It’s because I’ve been busy touring the territory.” 

A faint smile formed on the corner of the old dragon’s lips. It was the first laugh he had seen since he appeared here. “It doesn’t look like it will be signed in a few days. Because Yeongji’s situation is still in turmoil and it’s fatal. Of course, no matter where the priest who asks for a new contract is waiting for me, an audience is impossible unless I allow it.” 

This story was within a range that Ha Eun-seong could also understand. Contrary to Minjun’s concerns, Dreamland was not under the protection of Callieter now. Even if one was to look at the nuances, it seemed that they were deliberately delaying the renewal of the contract. 

Finally, the old dragon asserted and said: “Even if he is resurrected, the effect will not be restored. It is unpredictable by common sense and common sense that the dead come back to life in a form other than the warlock’s servant, and it is meaningless to specify such an assumption in the contract because it is not specified. And so, I confirm. The Sponsorship Agreement has expired and is no longer in effect at this time. good. Go and tell him, slave.” 

=Yes!= 

At this, Ha Eun-seong spread her wings and flew away. With that, he repeated the stories he had heard so far.

‘After all, if you want to hit them, you mean to hit them at this time, right?’ 

It seemed that Callieter was trying to sever the link with the denomination this time. He didn’t know why though. 

‘By the way…’ 

As he was repeating her words as if memorizing them, certain words bothered me. ‘Why do you keep calling me a slave? I feel bad.’

A reminder of the debt just made her feel further embarrassed.