Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 949 - 948: Whose Style Is Out of Place

The dragons flew over the city, and all the wondrous sights of Talronde, so far beyond human civilization, unfolded before Gawain’s eyes.

Melita Ponia had said this land lacked change. As a member of Talronde Society, she had clearly been looking at these spectacular scenes for many, many years; it was quite normal for her to feel bored. Yet for Gawain and the others, who were seeing Talronde for the first time, the scenery of this land was still enough to fill them with astonishment and wonder.

”Don’t get me wrong,” Gawain said. ”I’m just sighing over how advanced you are—maybe you’ve looked at this view for many years already, but for all the races on Loren Continent, this is still a height we can’t even dream of reaching.”

”Magnificent beyond compare, a prosperity that borders on the unbelievable,” Veronica Moen broke the silence at his side; the Saint Princess spoke with genuine emotion. ”Perhaps the old imperial capital of Gondor could barely compare with this place, but Gondor’s prosperity was limited to a single city, whereas Talronde’s splendor spreads across an entire continent...”

Here she paused, weighed a few words, then went on: ”So I somewhat fail to understand. With such strength, why would you be content to lie dormant on this extreme-north continent? You also said just now that the Dragonkin are not born with a love for the harsh environment of the north and south poles, while the living conditions on Loren Continent are clearly much more comfortable for you. You wouldn’t even need to spend effort building ecological domes there.”

It was an obvious fact, yet sounded somewhat strange once spoken aloud—the dragons’ power was beyond doubt. Even setting aside their advanced civilization, relying only on the sheer might of the Dragonkin themselves and their apparently not-so-scarce ”population,” these powerful beings could easily seize the entire world. Yet the fact was, they had not done so. They had instead remained curled up in this extreme northern world for tens of thousands, even millions of years—thus, ”weak races” such as human beings, elves, and dwarfs had taken possession of the most fertile lands with the best living conditions in this world, while dragons... had even become creatures of myth and story.

This ”low profile” was inconceivable in Veronica Moen’s eyes, and she did not believe that the Dragonkin’s ”self-restraint” and ”self-imposed isolation” could be fully explained by some kind of ”noble spirit.”

Hearing Veronica Moen’s question, Melita Ponia fell into a brief silence. A few seconds later, she shook her head. ”You’re right. From a commonsense perspective, a race like ours does indeed have the power to rule this world—and in that situation, the native civilizations of the other continents would have no chance to develop at all... But we are not allowed to do that. The Supreme Council and the Senate both strictly forbid the Dragonkin from interfering in the development of the other continents. Even our gods do not permit us to do so, and so things are as you see now...

”As for the deeper reasons? That I do not know. Among the Dragonkin, I’m considered relatively young. I do have some status, I suppose... but I’m still not at the level where I can come into contact with the will of the upper layer.

”But if you are truly curious—especially if you, Gawain, feel curious... perhaps you can ask our gods directly. He might give you some answers. After all, you are a guest invited by Him.”

Gawain merely gave a simple grunt of acknowledgment. Most of his attention was already on the scenery of Talronde as he observed carefully, trying to gather information about this nation—he attempted to sort and deduce useful data about dragon civilization from those astonishing, magnificent, unbelievable sights, because everything here... was far too different from what he had previously imagined.

Melita Ponia traced an arc across the night sky. She began to pass over the tops of the city’s building clusters, heading toward a mountain peak not far ahead. On that mountain were towering palaces and castles, while halfway up the slope could be seen many houses slightly smaller than the palaces. Those houses seemed to extend all the way from the city district at the foot of the mountain up its slopes, and they too were brilliantly lit.

As they flew past a cluster of floating lights midair, a gigantic holographic image suddenly appeared in the sight of Gawain and the others—a red dragon swept across the sky in the projection, drew in a deep breath, then breathed out an astonishing blast of flame toward the bottom of the image. Another dragon then flew up from below, rising into the air against the flames to dance with the red dragon high above. Immediately after, a cheerful, uplifting narration sounded from the image, yet Gawain could not understand what the voice was saying—it was an ancient dragon language, clearly with no relation whatsoever to the common tongue used on Loren Continent today.

”Damn...” Melita Ponia seemed startled by the hologram that suddenly popped out. Her flight posture wobbled for a moment; after correcting it, she immediately muttered, ”Can’t they control the number of these roadside ads just a little...”

”That was an ad?” Gawain asked curiously. ”What was the narration just now saying?”

”Ah... an advertisement for some kind of Enhancer for breath attacks. After injection, it can make your breath smell like sweet orange—and there are multiple fruit flavors to choose from,” Melita Ponia said casually. ”Seems pretty useless to me... In most cases, our breath is used to deal with enemies or grill meat, and it’s obvious that neither of those targets is going to care whether the dragonfire raining down on their heads is sweet orange or strawberry flavored...”

Gawain and Amber both stared blankly: ”??”

Veronica Moen, while equally baffled, still managed to squeeze out a line: ”...Why does the world even have something like this?”

”Talronde may have many things that you find incomprehensible, but the main reason you feel that way is that there are far too many misleading elements in the legends about dragons circulating in the human world—if you instead regarded us as just another race like yours, one that needs a normal life and social interactions, then perhaps you wouldn’t be so surprised by those things that don’t fit your image of dragons,” Melita Ponia said, her tone carrying a hint of amusement. ”I think you can understand what I mean.”

”I get it... though it’s still a bit odd.” Gawain thought for a moment, then nodded. He did understand Melita Ponia’s meaning—Talronde’s Dragonkin formed a living, breathing civilization, and thus their daily lives were bound to contain many rich and colorful elements. Some of those elements might not look very ”dragon-like” and some might not look very ”legendary,” but precisely because of this, they together constructed a real Dragon Society.

Real dragons would not, like the dragons in legendary tales, do nothing all day but lie on piles of Gold Coin in their castles, sleeping and counting money. That would undoubtedly bore any intelligent being with normal wits to the point of madness, and to be honest... they probably didn’t have that much gold in the first place...

Judging from certain subtle clues, this properly pedigreed Lady Dragon Melita Ponia did not seem to have much money in her daily life—loving money yet lacking money; perhaps that was the true face of dragons.

Just then, Amber, who had been busy staring all around since a moment ago, suddenly asked curiously, ”Right, where are we going next?”

”We’re heading to that mountain up ahead—see that domed palace? That’s the headquarters of the Five Kings Council. The Mithril Vault is a department under the Council’s name, so that’s also where I usually report in,” Melita Ponia lifted her head and said. ”In Talronde, the Senate is responsible for handling internal Dragonkin affairs, while the Five Kings Council handles intelligence coming in from ’outside.’ Therefore, this task of receiving external guests falls to the Council. The Speaker and the powerful Councilors are already there preparing the welcoming ceremony. We’ll land directly on the upper platform of the headquarters—and after that, we’ll see what arrangements the Speaker has in store.”

Amber let out an ”oh,” then glanced up at the sky again. ”Man, I really can’t get used to this place of yours... When I see the sky full of stars, I just instinctively feel like once we land, we ought to find a place to sleep...”

”For the next several months, it will be night here—if converted to Cecil Clan time, the current moment should actually be around noon,” Melita Ponia said with a smile. ”Ah... for outsiders, this is indeed pretty hard to get used to.”

The flight after that didn’t actually take very long. Amid Amber’s endless balabala and Melita Ponia’s patient explanations, Gawain saw the building on the mountaintop drawing near—a structure with a domed roof and ornate palace walls. He watched as a section of its outer wall slowly opened under the action of some large mechanical device, revealing a large landing platform at the edge of the slope. Lights and figures were moving along the rim of the platform, and Melita Ponia headed straight down toward it.

During the descent, Gawain tensed up instinctively—partly because of the psychological shadow left by that plane crash in his previous life, partly because of the bizarre incident he’d just gone through not long ago, and even more because he had, more than once, witnessed this Lady Melita Ponia’s earth‑shattering style of landing.

But in the end, Lady Melita Ponia still came down steadily in the center of that circular platform, and the three people riding on the dragon’s back didn’t even feel much of a jolt.

”We’re here.” The proxy lady let one dragon wing droop, forming a gentle ramp beside her as she spoke offhandedly.

Only then did Gawain finally let out a breath of relief: it seemed that even Miss Melita Ponia couldn’t manage to crash twice in a single flight...

He then started toward the dragon wing that now served as a ramp, and at the same time he finally saw the figures waiting at the edge of the landing platform—he couldn’t recognize Talronde’s official uniforms or ceremonial arrangements, but just from the neatly arrayed reception lines and the ”guards” lining both sides of the platform passage in Dragon Form, all with their heads respectfully lowered, he could tell that the Dragonkin of Talronde were giving plenty of face to this ”guest personally invited by the gods.”

Dragons did not necessarily appreciate a human being king, but they clearly held a deeper awe for orders that came from the gods.

Gawain walked down the ”ramp” toward the platform, Veronica Moen following behind him with dignified grace. Even Amber, the moment her foot left the dragon’s back, tucked away all her giggles and goofiness, pulled on her most serious face and stiff, formal bearing, and scampered along on her little short legs beside Gawain—because even the Shame of All Things knew that at times like this she had to maintain the dignity of the ”representatives of humanity.”

Even though she was not a human being.

As Gawain’s group disembarked from the dragon’s back, a piece of music in some classical style, something that had never appeared in the human world, began to play.

When Gawain stepped off Melita Ponia’s dragon wing and set his first foot onto the platform, the elder at the head of the welcoming party took a step forward at exactly the same moment, taking a few attendants with him as he came over to greet them.

From the direction of the connecting passage, the dragons in charge of the guardianship or ceremonial front line let out a neat, low rumble, and above another structure facing the platform, a large number of lights began to surge like a breathing rhythm. Over the building, words of welcome appeared, projected in the common script of the human world.

It was quite a solemn welcoming ceremony, yet Gawain still couldn’t help feeling a bit weird about it—from the moment he set foot on the continent of Talronde, that same weirdness had been bubbling up from all directions in his heart. And if he had to pinpoint where this weird feeling came from... he could only say: these dragons were really not the dragons he’d imagined, and this Dragon Kingdom was really not the Dragon Kingdom he’d imagined...

But he hid those shifting emotions well in his heart, his face still maintaining a mild, smiling expression. He walked toward the old man who had come forward of his own accord, and the latter also stopped just right, about two meters in front of Gawain.

This old dragon in human form wore a long robe of pale gold whose material Gawain could not identify. Several rhombus‑shaped pieces of silvery‑white metal were inlaid into the skin of his forehead, with flickering glimmers emerging from the gaps between those metallic plates. Some of those light streams spread along the skin of the old man’s face and finally converged in the socket of his right eye—Gawain took a closer look and abruptly realized that eye was actually an artificial one. He could clearly see mechanical structures in the eyeball, and the focal point at the pupil was still subtly adjusting!

...Implanted mechanical augmentation?

Gawain couldn’t help freezing for a second, and his gaze then shifted to one of the dragons guarding the edge of the platform. He noticed obvious mechanical structures along the dragon’s lower jaw, with something like a conduit extending from the back of its skull all the way down into the shoulder blades—the meld of flesh and machinery was completely unconcealed, laid bare before everyone’s eyes.

A crass line popped into his head on the spot—what the hell is this?

Which alternate timeline did this cyberdragon jump out of?!

It was one thing for these dragons to live jammed together in a dense city full of light pollution and huge factories, but how did they end up bolting random parts onto their own bodies as well?!

Gawain had always thought that, in this medieval Magic world, kicking off a Mage industrial revolution was already enough to warp the entire world’s aesthetic. But ever since he arrived in Talronde, he’d been continually doubting himself on that front, and now, at this moment, his doubts finally reached a peak—he suddenly realized that when it came to bizarre aesthetics, he really couldn’t compete with these dragons who’d been cooped up on this planet for tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years...

After a brief moment of stunned silence, an inexplicable sense of relief actually rose in his heart—

From today on, he no longer had to worry about whether he was warping this world’s aesthetic.

In terms of aesthetic derailment, he actually couldn’t out‑derail this bunch of cyber‑dragons...

Just then, the elder with the mechanical artificial eye extended his hand to Gawain, and his voice broke off Gawain’s chaotic train of thought: ”Welcome to Talronde, legendary hero of the human world, His Majesty Gawain Cecil—I am the Supreme Councilor of the Talronde Council. You may call me Andar.”

(Friendly recommendation: there’s a book titled ”Legendary Monument,” game genre. The author is one of my readers. How should I put it... the persistence he’s shown while serializing this book reminds me of my own days hammering away at the keyboard solo back then, so I feel I ought to give him some encouragement. You can go support him too.)