“Are you awake?”
Belnoa frowned.
It was late at night. Belnoa, who had been dozing in the tent, slowly sat up at the whispering voice near his ear.
“Yes, I am awake.”
Rubbing his eyes, Belnoa turned on the lamp. A soft scarlet light illuminated the inside of the tent. Blinking a few times, Belnoa looked towards where the voice came from.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you like this, hasn’t it?”
At the duty table in the tent.
Seated upon it was a goddess. Gone was her usual shabby appearance, replaced with an enchanting visage, much like the first time they met—a smile graced the Lord of Shadow Dragons.
Her hair, resembling the night sky, flowed beneath the table. Every time she swung her legs, the fabric of her night-sky-like attire fluttered, revealing her fair skin.
“Hmmm, the air isn’t quite right. It’s not cool and clear like in the old days. It’s stuffy.”
Furthermore, her voice was different from usual.
The sound resonating through the air felt tangible. Gazing at the goddess existing in corporeal form, Belnoa counted the days in his mind.
“Ah, is today the day?”
“Yes.”
She whispered with a captivating smile.
“The day when shadows cast the longest, and my power as the Lord of Shadow Dragons becomes the strongest.”
A majestic figure.
With an air that seemed ready to be praised, she shrugged her shoulders. In silence, Belnoa rummaged through a corner of the tent and pulled out a dessert.
“Would you like some?”
“My contractor knows a thing or two.”
Just as she stretched her arm out to grasp the dessert that Belnoa held, he swiftly lifted his arm. As a result, the goddess’s narrowed gaze fixated on the empty air.
“…What are you doing?”
“If you want to eat, please come down from the table and eat. Don’t sit on official documents like that.”
“Are you ordering me now?”
“Yes.”
“…Oh my.”
The goddess pressed her forehead with a frown.
Hmm, as she groaned, it seemed she was contemplating deeply the importance of the dessert in front of her versus her authority.
The contemplation didn’t last long.
Delicately descending from the table, she sat gracefully on a chair and again extended her hand towards Belnoa.
“Is it alright now? Hurry up.”
“Yes, well done.”
It felt like taking care of a pet.
Belnoa suddenly thought so.
2.
Once a year, on the day when shadows are cast the longest.
By having a contractor, the Lord of Shadow Dragons could manifest once a year. While wielding powers and performing miracles was impossible, the goddess placed significance on being corporeal.
For a brief time from sunset to sunrise.
Only during that once-a-year fleeting moment.
During that time alone, the Lord of Shadow Dragons could exist and move without anyone’s aid.
“I’m heading out first.”
When that day arrived, the goddess would ask her contractor for one simple request, one far too modest for the wishes of a once-great primordial deity.
To take a stroll and converse together.
That was all the goddess requested from her contractor once a year. Today, the request remained unchanged. Late at night, Belnoa walked with the goddess he served across the fields near the battlefield.
“I breathe. I stand on this ground with two feet. I feel the texture of the earth beneath my bare feet. It’s a simple task that can be done with just a thought for you all…”
As she stepped barefoot on the ground, she smiled.
“For me, it is difficult.”
As if delighting in such trivialities.
“In the past, it was so naturally taken for granted that I didn’t even think it was special…but for me now, it’s a remarkably special thing.”
Crack, snap.
The sound of dry grass being crushed resonated.
“Doesn’t the sound of grass being stepped on sound lovely?”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. The sound of stepping on grass. The sensation of bare skin touching the earth. All these sensations have become unfamiliar to me. Strange and fresh. As I live through the vast eons, one comes to long for such things.”
Under the moonlit night, she spun around.
The fabric of her attire fluttered in the wind. The goddess turned to gaze at Belnoa walking behind her, her third contractor.
“Child.”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to give you a piece of advice.”
The starlit sky poured down upon her, the gentle moonlight illuminating her. She brushed aside her flowing hair, closing and then opening her eyes. The usual pitch-black irises gradually turned red.
Dragon’s Eyes.
The eyes of a god who shaped the first living beings and created the most perfect existence. The red-hued gaze of the dragon stared straight at Belnoa.
“I can see many things with my eyes. Though I have lost most of my powers and divinity henceforth, I can still see something when a part of my power returns once a year…”
She tapped at her eyes.
“Flows. Branches of possibilities.”
Reading possibilities from numerous flows.
Some might refer to it as such.
“A future born under the assumption of ‘perhaps’.”
Foretelling the future.
“I can see those kinds of things.”
Most of the powers possessed by the stars emerged from what the Lord of Shadow Dragons once held. What the goddess refers to as prophecies was also part of it.
The eyes of the god with the dragon’s sight.
Her eyes, which pierce through everything, read the flows and foretold the future from them. It was a future that might ‘perhaps’ come to pass. An uncertain future.
“Of course, I have lost most of my powers, and even if a bit of it has returned… it’s so diminished that I can only recognize the flow but cannot read it. Hence, I couldn’t provide you with much help.”
That’s why the goddess expected it to be so again today.
However, she continued.
“Today, however, is a bit different.”
“Different in what way…?”
“Because my powers have returned for a brief moment, I gazed into the future, and I saw a distinct future. It should have only appeared hazy…”
A blurred power cannot foretell a future.
That was how it was supposed to be.
But this time felt different. Amid the haze, something clear was spotted in her vision.
“What I saw this time was distinct, as if it were a future that must happen rather than merely a ‘perhaps’.”
A certain future.
Unless something intervened, a future that would ‘certainly’ come to pass appeared in the goddess’s eyes. A future that could be seen even with her significantly weakened powers.
“I saw that future.”
“…What did you see?”
“I saw my contractor meeting her death.”
Belnoa flinched.
“You meet a tragic end, sacrificing yourself to protect that child you cherish. Delaying for someone who will soon arrive on that battlefield.”
“…Me?”
“Yes. But the reinforcements never arrive. In the end, you endure alone and meet your demise. Terribly.”
Belnoa’s expression hardened into stone.
The goddess spoke of a future that would certainly happen. With a furrowed brow, Belnoa slowly opened his mouth.
“Does this mean that’s the future that awaits me?”
“No, it was supposed to have happened.”
Supposed to have happened.
Belnoa didn’t immediately grasp the meaning behind those words. Before he could comprehend, the goddess explained.
“What I saw was closer to the past than the future. It’s hard to articulate, but the future and the past became intertwined. In the present, it’s the future, but from the future’s perspective…”
“I… I understand even less hearing that explanation.”
“That’s only to be expected. I’m getting confused while speaking myself.”
With a laugh, the goddess let out a short sigh.
“To speak more simply, what I saw was… a future that was originally supposed to occur to you. However, by some intervention, it was turned into a ‘non-event’.”
Something unknown intervened.
An alien entity deeply influenced the flow, warping the course leading to the future.
“Now, we don’t know what will happen.”
The flow became entangled.
No one could foresee the future. The goddess now felt she understood the reason why the future had appeared hazy whenever she attempted to foresee it for the past three years.
“Then does that mean that future will not happen?”
Belnoa tilted his head, a look of not understanding on his face. For someone living by human logic, the notions of those who have touched the realm of transcendence felt distant.
“It won’t happen.”
The goddess said.
“However, from that future, I gained insight to give you advice.”
“Yes, please speak.”
The goddess stepped closer to Belnoa.
She stretched her slender finger and poked Belnoa’s chest.
“If you truly want to protect that child, if you treasure her.”
The red dragon’s eyes glared at Belnoa.
“Live long. By the side of that child.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Don’t sacrifice yourself for her. If you leave her side, she will break. So very simply.”
…Break?
Belnoa blinked. The goddess revealed nothing beyond that. She merely turned around and continued walking forward.
Crack.
As the sound of grass being stepped on echoed.
The Lord of Shadow Dragons silently recalled the future she had seen. A future that should have happened originally. It was a process leading to the destruction of one world.
While she hadn’t witnessed all of it.
In that flow, the goddess saw.
The death of her contractor and the calamity born from that death. The end that the calamity met. In the end, the sacrifice of the contractor, who held no meaning.
And.
The being standing at the end of the ruined world.
Remembering the appearance of that peculiar entity, the goddess shuddered slightly. The entity that intervened in the flow felt hollow. Hollow and horrifically alien. The goddess had seen that being laughing upon the corpse of an ancient dragon.
‘…That liar must have seen it too.’
The goddess let out a long sigh.
The long-watching liar might finally move, she thought, clicking her tongue.
3.
Rania, who incinerated the demon lord’s army time and again, exhaled sharply as she moved. Just as she was about to return to her tent, she abruptly halted.
“…”
She sensed a presence inside the tent.
A massive presence could be felt beyond the canvas. Rania’s pause seemed to register with the other party, as a voice emerged from within the tent.
“What’s the hold-up? Aren’t you coming in?”
A familiar voice.
Rania’s expression soured instantly. With a long sigh, she swiftly threw back the tent.
“It’s been a while.”
Inside the tent sat a man.
A young mage with blue hair. However, the golden glint of his eyes as he gazed at Rania was more reptilian than human.
A mage with dragon’s eyes.
The primordial mage who had lived for tens of thousands of years, revered as a god among mages. Rania opened her mouth and called out the name of that being.
“Old mad lizard.”
“Indeed, I am the ancient dragon’s… what?”
“Old mad lizard, I said.”
The mage of ancient dragons, Yormun van Dragonik.
He muttered, brushing away the dust from his eyes.
“…So you call me that too? Looks like Cardi, that friend of mine really told you something nasty. It’s just a misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding my foot. Calling someone younger by tens of thousands of years who isn’t even legally an adult…”
“See, that’s what I said, it’s a misunderstanding.”
“That’s not convincing.”
Rania sighed and took off her robe.
Dirt and ash-covered robe was smacked a couple of times towards the ancient dragon’s mage before she hung it up on a nearby hook.
“Cough, hack!”
“Now, why have you come all the way out here?”
“Why? I came to see you.”
Yormun whispered with a sly grin.
“To see the beautiful Re…”
Crash!
A flash of light struck down without warning, piercing through the chair Yormun sat on from above. Yormun stared wide-eyed at the place where the flash had landed. The flash was lodged between his legs. If it had been just a little off…
“Geh…”
Cold sweat ran down Yormun’s spine.
“Let me ask again. What’s your business?”
Rania’s blue eyes glared at Yormun.
If that old lizard known for his heavy bottom had come all the way to the battlefield, there must have been a good reason.
“Can’t even make jokes now, I see.”
The ancient dragon shrugged and put his chin on his hand.
“Business, business…”
Would this make him understand?
Muttering to himself, Yormun opened his mouth.
“The Goddess of Ashes.”
Raniel van Dragonik.
“I came to talk about the future that was disrupted due to the intervention of a sinner who broke the taboo. You have some responsibility in this too, don’t you?”
The eyes of the ancient dragon turned cold.
A gaze that had once chilled Rania’s heart. Before that intimidating gaze, Rania slightly lowered her head. When she raised her head again…
Rania, Raniel van Trias, burst into laughter.
“What nonsense, you old mad lizard.”
With a refreshing banter returned, Raniel clenched her fist.
