For Sale. Fallen Lady. Never Used.

After fully absorbing Fafnir’s last remnants into my body…

The color returned to the gray-tinted world, and time began to flow again.

Right before the overlapping image of the past appeared, the notification sound finally rang out, revealing its message.

Ding!

[Trait: Return to Origin (S)!]

It was Fafnir’s final arrangement.

I could roughly guess its effects from the name, but I had to check for myself.

[Return to Origin (S)]

You have realized your origin!

A dragon in the form of a human—that is what you are.

You have acknowledged and understood this, and been recognized by the self that is not you.

Now, if necessary, you can temporarily return to your origin.

But be careful.

Even if you are the rightful heir, the power of a dragon is not something to be taken lightly.

Be cautious not to be consumed by your origin.

Dragonification available.

All abilities increase upon activation of Dragonification.

A unique trait is temporarily generated upon activation of Dragonification.

The longer Dragonification is active, the higher the chance of entering a berserk state.

Is this the dragon version of Beast Transformation, a trait exclusive to beastmen?

It’s more or less what I expected.

Of course, I still don’t know how strong it makes me, and the risk of going berserk if I use it too long is concerning… but I’ll figure out the details by using it.

For now, I need to clear my head from the flood of information I’ve just received.

Fafnir’s final years, the things he left behind, the reasons I came to this world, the tasks I must complete, the warning that there’s no other path, and the strange feeling of knowing that I’m actually a chimera…

Just as I was organizing my swirling thoughts, a voice I hadn’t heard in a while gently tickled my ear.

“Um, Master?”

“…Yes?”

“Did something happen? You suddenly zoned out…”

“Ah.”

It seemed that, while I was reviewing Fafnir’s records, I appeared to be simply standing there absent-mindedly.

“I’m fine. Just had something on my mind. By the way, Carla, do you happen to know how long I was like that?”

“Hmm? Probably about 30 seconds?”

“Thirty seconds, huh…”

While exchanging a few brief words with the remnant of Fafnir, I had looked around at my surroundings. Everything had been frozen, as if time itself had stopped.

It probably wasn’t that time had really stopped, but rather that my mind had accelerated to the point where it felt like it.

Smiling faintly at Carla, who looked worried, I playfully pulled her soft cheek.

“Kyaa! M-Master?”

“Don’t worry about it so much. It’s nothing… just some old memories came back to me.”

“Ah…”

To be more precise, it wasn’t that old memories came back to me; it was that I learned about the past. It wasn’t exactly a lie.

Well, Carla misunderstood again, and her expression darkened slightly.

In hindsight, even my own origins—which I had concealed until now—were a lie but not quite a lie.

Fafnir’s soul fragment probably whispered the truth to me, and I unconsciously made up a story around it.

Just like how I suddenly felt like playing as an archmage one last time while playing H&A.

At first, realizing this made me feel uncomfortable, like I was being controlled… but after thinking it over, it wasn’t really like that.

Fafnir’s soul fragment, despite its strength, was still just a small piece.

All it could do was give a brief flash of inspiration to a powerless person. It wasn’t some hypnosis app.

Now that I’ve grown far stronger than when I first learned magic, even that influence no longer works on me.

In fact, after a little more time, I’ll probably absorb it entirely into myself.

Nodding to myself, I let go of Carla’s cheek.

“Speaking of the past, I just remembered something I want to check. Can you all come with me?”

“Eh?”

Carla blinked her ruby-colored eyes, holding her cheek. A moment later, she gasped.

“Hup! Don’t tell me… is there a secret passage or hidden room, Master?”

“Oh? Correct. How did you know?”

I patted Carla’s head vigorously as if praising her.

“Hehe.”

Carla smiled foolishly, as if her earlier worries had completely disappeared.

Standing beside her, Iris tiptoed and leaned her head towards me, asking.

“Master, if it’s a hidden room… does that mean Fafnir’s real treasure is hidden there?”

“Treasure?”

Ruffling Iris’s hair with my other hand, I nodded.

“It’s a treasure, all right. Though, it’s a bit different from what you’re thinking.”

“???”

Iris tilted her head in confusion, but, assuming she’d soon find out, closed her eyes and began enjoying the sensation of me stroking her hair.

Watching Iris nod her head in rhythm with my strokes, I tapped her crown a couple of times and withdrew my hand.

Iris, looking a bit dissatisfied, glanced at me, and I shrugged my shoulders.

“Don’t be too disappointed. I think this treasure is something you’ll like the most, Iris.”

“…Could it be the Primal Gem?”

The Primal Gem. Although it wasn’t really made in the beginning of time, it held such pure and immense elemental magic that it felt as if it could be.

These things didn’t even show up at auctions. The Levantin Empire had three of them, and the Alfheim Kingdom had one stored as a national treasure.

That was how rare these gems were, and Fafnir once went crazy collecting them.

As a result, there were all kinds of records stating that Fafnir’s treasure vaults contain various types of Primal Gems. However…

“They existed, but I used them all.”

“What?”

I used up all the Primal Gems he had collected while creating my body.

That’s how I ended up with the elemental affinity I’ve had from the start.

Passing the frozen Iris, who had her mouth wide open, over to Elisha, I strode across the lair.

Unlike what I had seen on the screen, having now experienced Fafnir’s memories directly, I knew everything about this lair.

For example, although he used most of the lair as a living space and treasure vault because of the sheer amount of treasure, he had a separate section for his laboratory.

I walked to the corner of the lair, where the colors of an old mural had almost faded, leaving only faint traces.

Elisha, standing next to me, slightly twitched her long ears, as if concentrating hard.

“Hmmm… I still can’t sense anything. But there’s something here, isn’t there?”

“Yeah. I’m going to open it now, so step back for a moment.”

I placed my hand on the dusty wall. Only then did I faintly sense a disturbance.

Even with my Mana Affinity trait and the same type of mana, it was still difficult to detect this much.

I was once again impressed by Fafnir’s concealment magic as I recalled the original form of the half-erased mural.

A massive black dragon descending from the sky, while on the ground, humans, elves, beastmen, and dwarves bowed in reverence.

It was the kind of painting that would appeal to a dragon with an overly strong sense of self-love… but what’s important here was the ones bowing.

Each of the four races had one individual whose body was bent forward but whose head was held high.

I sent mana towards those figures at the same time.

Uwoong.

The entire wall trembled as thick layers of dust began to fall.

The secret door, which could only be opened by sending Fafnir’s mana to the exact spot, began to open in front of me, who had inherited everything from him.

Skrr… Skrr…

With a sound like stone scraping against stone, the wall slowly lowered, revealing the hidden laboratory that even the cultists who had once ransacked this place hadn’t discovered.

“Wow…”

“A hidden room behind a mural… There were nobles who used to hide secret safes behind framed paintings.”

“Yeah, though the scale here is a lot bigger, it does give off that kind of vibe.”

While the women whispered behind me, the mural had completely lowered into the floor.

The moment I stepped into the dark interior, bright lights illuminated the inside of the laboratory.

It had a predominantly white and pristine atmosphere. However, the walls were filled with tanks containing various body parts of different creatures.

In the center of the room was a round case, almost like an egg, connected to what looked like a giant press.

Anyone could tell that it looked like the workshop of a mad magician.

I knew that this was the remnant of Fafnir’s attempts to create an heir, but to the others, it must have seemed rather grotesque. The others, who had been excited, flinched in unison.

Seeing them react like that was oddly cute.

Smiling to myself, I headed first towards the only part of the laboratory that was covered in dirt amidst all the magic tools and specimens.

Carefully, I dug into the soil, and soon enough, my fingers brushed against something solid.

It was too heavy to lift by hand, so I used telekinesis to pull it out and lay it on the floor.

There were three large metal coffins. Placing my hand on one of them and lightly infusing it with mana, the lid opened automatically.

Within the white smoke lay a perfectly preserved lizard corpse… in other words, the first clone dragon Fafnir had created, and in some ways, a sibling of mine.

I made the sign of the cross over the body, in the manner of the Church of Righteous Radiance.

“Rest in peace… and I’ll be using what’s left of your body.”

Sorry.

But honestly, it’s too much of a waste.