Damn It

The Grand Council Hall.

Representatives of every sentient race across the Serdes Continent had gathered in one place.

The chamber was vast and the crowd enormous, yet the Grand Council Hall had no assigned seats. Still, each group sat with their own factions or neighboring allies, openly displaying the scale of their power.

It really was a knife-edge standoff back then.

To Ferda’s eyes it looked exactly like a living map of continental power.

The greatest nation on the continent was the Arken Empire. In answer, the various kingdoms had banded into alliances to match its weight. For the moment, the balance still held.

As a subject of the Arken Empire, Ferda took his place among the imperial bloc.

The Grand Council Hall possessed none of the splendor he had felt in the banquet hall. Its design was deliberately austere so that no one would be distracted by luxury; it resembled any ordinary council chamber. The seats formed a broad semicircle, drawing every eye inexorably toward the center.

And in that central seat sat the master of the Grand Council Hall.

The White Dragon, Blancaros.

Snow-white hair, pure white eyes, and the face of a beautiful young man whom the years had never touched. That white radiance was so alien it almost seemed to cast its own light—the immortal beauty unique to dragons.

So this is what a dragon looks like.

While Ferda watched him, the still figure’s eyes moved. He thought it might be imagination, but the impression did not fade. Blancaros was staring straight at him.

Those pure white pupils were cold and clear. The instant that gaze settled on him, Ferda felt the circles inside his body stir—an instinctive warning that only absolute power could provoke. Strangely, the warning carried no hostility, much like the first time he had stepped into her domain.

Behind Blancaros stood three men and women with the same white hair: the three Dragon Spawns he had created through the Ascension Ceremony.

Tongue, Scales, and Hand.

Blancaros moved his hand. At the slight crook of a finger, the woman standing at rigid attention cleared her throat and spoke. She was Blancaros’s Tongue—the proxy who voiced the White Dragon’s will and conducted the proceedings of the council.

Her voice rang through the chamber.

“We offer our sincere gratitude to all who have come for the peace of the continent.”

She read from the script in her hands. After a few ceremonial formalities she began listing the agenda items submitted for the summit.

“We shall now open mediation of the dispute between King Hudret and Duke Yurei.”

The first matter was a simple dispute—simple in name only. In scale it was a war.

A man rose, scowling.

“I offer my deepest thanks to the proxy of the great Lord of Order for convening this assembly. Before we begin, I request a correction so that the facts may be set straight. This entire catastrophe is a war of aggression launched by King Hudret.”

Another man stood at once—the named King Hudret.

“It was my people who died first. When the villagers rose to avenge them, what was I supposed to do?”

“It was you who marched an army into my lands!”

“Order, please. This is a place of mediation. Final compensation will be decided on the basis of the evidence submitted.”

Blancaros’s Tongue cut the quarrel short before it could lengthen into a shouting match.

“Both parties will now present the evidence they have prepared.”

Documents compiled by the Hudret and Yurei sides were brought forward. The purpose of mediation was compensation for the damage of war. Page after page lifted into the air and unfurled before Blancaros. Everything the ministers of both realms had spent two months writing was read in a single minute.

Blancaros glanced at a boy and crooked a finger. The boy held a set of scales—he was Blancaros’s Scales. The balance tipped to one side. Blancaros’s Hand began drafting the judgment; Tongue delivered the verdict.

“Judgment: Duke Yurei shall pay King Hudret sixty thousand gold in reparations.”

Joy and despair crossed in a single instant. The defeated Duke Yurei leapt to his feet in fury.

“This is absurd! They were the invaders—why must I pay reparations?!”

“You took no prisoners, and you obstructed priests from treating the wounded—both violations of the laws of war. After weighing every factor, the greater fault lies with Duke Yurei.”

The duke protested.

“Every nation does the same! King Hudret’s knights certainly did as well! To say we alone may not—”

“As previously stated, present evidence.”

Blancaros’s Tongue explained again in a cool, bureaucratic voice.

“This is an absolute neutral zone that upholds law and order. Once mediation is requested here, proceedings follow the laws and order of the Serdes Continent. Evidence takes precedence over custom. If the same acts were committed, produce the same evidence.”

In other words, even if the other side struck first and one merely struck back, without proof only Yurei would be deemed guilty. The decisiveness of the collected evidence was enough to reverse aggressor and victim.

Duke Yurei’s face twisted with helpless rage. Blancaros’s Tongue pointed to the confirmation form lying before him.

“Duke Yurei, mediation is concluded. Kindly affix your signature.”

The duke stared down at the document, gripped by fury and grief. The moment he signed, he would cross a river of no return. Just or unjust, he would now be the aggressor.

The effect is absolute.

Once decided, it could never be undone.

Nor can one simply refuse.

Everyone seated here was both witness and judge—and could just as easily become a scavenger. To defy a Grand Council verdict was to hand them an excuse to tear one apart. Yesterday’s enemy remained an enemy; yesterday’s ally could become today’s.

“I… accept the ruling.”

Duke Yurei submitted with bitter humility. His handwriting shook as though an earthquake had struck the page.

The moment aggressor and victim switched places.

Lacking the full picture, that was all Ferda could guess.

“If he felt so wronged he should have finished it himself,” someone muttered under their breath. Ferda quietly agreed. If one truly wanted certain reparations, one should not have come to mediation at all; one should have fought until one side was annihilated. An incomplete end only invited retaliation—that was the natural order of things.

Blancaros’s Tongue moved on to the next dispute. Several more followed, all trivial: quarrels between dwarves and elves, internal strife among dwarven dynasties and bloodlines… endless arguments that would never be resolved and that no one truly wished to resolve. After two hours of such postponed bickering, the mediation session finally closed.

“There being no further mediation cases, we proceed to the agenda. The proposal submitted by the Chancellor of Escoleia…”

Tongue paused, swallowed, then continued.

“The topic is the proliferation of monsters and the possible return of the Demon Race.”

Escoleia was a vast city of scholars; its ruler was not a mayor but a chancellor. The bald chancellor mounted the dais—his scalp bare from decades of scholarly fire that had burned away even his hair roots.

“One hundred thirty-eight years have passed since Godwin, Lord of Deep Darkness and the one who led the continent into chaos, met his end. Yet if you will look at this graph…”

He projected an image into the air with magic and pointed.

“Contrary to his death, monster numbers have continued to rise—this is the graph drawn to the present day.”

An ascending line, though the climb itself was modest. Comments began at once.

“It hardly seems to be rising much.”

“The problem is not the size of the increase but the fact that it is increasing at all, is it not?”

“These are only projected figures. In reality they may fall. You are overreacting.”

Opinion split nearly evenly. A slight rise, and they called it alarmism—yet the matter was serious enough to warrant alarm. They argued back and forth, but listening closely one heard not concern for the continent’s welfare so much as each side hunting for excuses.

Pretexts for armament.

Those demanding vigilance wanted justification to rearm; those dismissing the fuss wanted to block that rearmament and the wasted expenditure. Whether the continent crumbled was irrelevant. Only what each already possessed mattered.

Then a voice of utterly different force slammed a desk and rose.

“Watch your mouths!”

The force was immense, yet the voice itself was childish and young. Ferda turned and saw Erdes Roton.

“The fiancé of Grand Duke Baldrova herself is sitting right here! Do you really think you can run your mouths like that and still walk away unscathed?”

Every head whipped around searching for Ferda; those who found him fixed their stares upon him. Ferda muttered inwardly.

That damn bitch.

“The proxy of Baldrova, is it?”

“That quiet evil dragon has brought a proxy?”

Whispers of the rumors surrounding Ferda Valdrova rippled through the chamber. The chancellor, already looking as though he walked barefoot over thorns, now seemed to have a firebrand dropped on his foot. He shot a sidelong glance at Erdes, the one who had lit the blaze. She wore a face of pure bliss, like an arsonist watching the fire from the far bank of the river.

Ferda had come prepared to speak when the moment arrived, but he had hoped to read the room a little longer. With every eye already on him, he decided to speak.

“It is true that monsters continue to pour into the far east without cease. However, the discussion here appears to concern a different matter, so I will refrain from further comment.”

“I am grateful for the regent’s consideration. What I am addressing now is the frequency of occurrences across the continent excluding the far east.”

The chancellor looked like a drowning man who had just been thrown a rope. His speaking authority felt painfully thin.

“Thus our present conjecture is… that someone is deliberately summoning and creating monsters—in other words, that the number of Demon Race cultists is increasing.”

“Demon Race cultists…”

“Madmen on a level no devil worshipper can match, are they not?”

Society despised both Demon Race cultists and devil worshippers, yet the two were fundamentally different. Devils sought to rule the present world; the Demon Race sought to destroy it. Devil worshippers still hoped to gain something. Demon Race cultists hoped for nothing. They were pure lumps of malice.

“What do those creatures even gain?”

“If it is the wish of the Demon Race, then surely the return of the Black Dragon Godwin.”

The return of the Black Dragon Godwin!

That was a matter of an entirely different order from a mere rise in monsters. Even those who had scoffed at alarmism fell silent. Every gaze shifted to the Dragon Spawns seated in the front ranks.

“A return, is it…”

For the first time, Chairman Blancaros himself spoke. The moment the Lord of Order opened his mouth, the entire atmosphere snapped into his grasp.

“What say you?”

He directed the question to the Dragon Spawns. The first to answer was a Spawn of Silverwind. Silver-haired men and women, each bearing at least one scar regardless of age or sex—the honorable medals of those who guarded the north.

“Regardless of the rising trend in monsters, we continue to eradicate remnants without pause. I swear there are none who hate the Black Dragon Godwin more than we.”

“Your loyalty to Silverwind has always been held in high regard. And Iorga?”

Iorga’s representative was a refined young woman of elegant bearing. Her face still held the vitality of a woman just entering her early twenties, yet the dignity of long years was woven into every line.

“We have detected no unusual fluctuations of mana across the Serdes Continent. Spaces that might be sealed off are continually monitored through adventurers’ reports. Had anything large enough to overturn the continent occurred, we would have been the first to know.”

A priest of Odograsado took up the thread smoothly.

“Our Order of the Golden Scales likewise keeps constant watch on Demon Race movements. We see nothing that warrants concern.”

All three proxies of the dragons present at the Grand Council declared there was no need for alarm. They were the agents of the guardian dragons who placed the continent’s safety first—far removed from the petty politics of humans, and the weight of their words was different.

Blancaros closed his mouth again. Once more his Tongue answered in his stead.

“Conclusion of this agenda: there is no immediate cause for concern, yet continued vigilance is required in light of the ongoing upward trend. Any objections, Chancellor of Escoleia?”

“None.”

The chancellor, still sweating freely, shook his head and left the dais. The matter had been too ambiguous to dismiss as mere alarmism; a formal report was satisfaction enough.

“The next proposer is Ferda Valdrova…”

Blancaros’s Tongue halted. This pause was different from the one that had preceded the chancellor’s proposal. It was hesitation—whether such a thing should even be announced. That hesitation turned her gaze toward Blancaros. He met her eyes and answered with a look. Tongue received her instruction.

“The proposal is… to recognize the status of the Red Dragon Baldrova as a Guardian Dragon.”

Sound vanished from the Grand Council Hall.

Those present were all figures of ducal rank—rulers of territories the size of nations, each possessed of formidable military power. Even they held their breath at so sensitive a matter.

There was no need to look around; every eye had already been drawn to Ferda once before. Ordinary humans would never have dared propose such a thing, nor even participate in the discussion. It was suicide. Only someone who had completely lost the will to live would attempt it.

Yet the man who had submitted the proposal rose to his feet in full view of everyone. The way he walked looked like a high-wire act—terrifying to the watchers, utterly unconcerned to the walker himself.

Ferda mounted the dais and looked up at the assembly. What he could do was simple.

“Though this is my first time attending the council, I have the audacity to submit a proposal. I am Ferda Valdrova, the regent.”

He swept his gaze across them once, then opened his mouth.

“As you can see from this proposal, I came here prepared to make enemies of some among you.”

And having cast the proposal, all that remained was to stand by his convictions.