Chapter 257: Upheaval (2)

Above the Spring Continent…

Thwack!

Four dark shadows materialized in the sky.

The shadows plummeted toward the ground at terrifying speed.

“Kyaaaah!”

“Uwaaaah!”

“Kueeeek!”

-Kyuuuuuuuuuuung!

The shadows were none other than Kendrick, Tania, Lavina, and Nabi.

Startled by the rapidly approaching ground, they screamed in terror.

Even a martial artist at the peak of their power would be reduced to a bloody mess from such a fall.

Fortunately, they didn’t crash into the ground.

Thud.

The four landed with a soft thump, sprawling onto the ground.

“Augh… that was terrifying.”

“I… I thought I was going to die.”

“Why does this always happen to me?! Waaah!”

They slumped there, groaning and complaining.

What would it have cost them to give us a single word of warning?!

Kendrick and Lavina grumbled, their voices laced with resentment, while Tania remained silent.

Just then, a woman appeared in the doorway of the building across the street.

“Who’s there?” she called out, drawn by the commotion and voices outside.

She had cautiously opened the door a crack, but when she saw the group slumped on the ground, she gasped in surprise.

“Kendrick? Tania?” she murmured.

Hearing their names called, the Flame siblings finally recognized their childhood home. They leaped to their feet.

“Mom?”

“Mom!”

Lia blinked in stunned disbelief at the sudden appearance of her children. But only for a moment.

”…Welcome home,” she said, her face softening into a gentle smile as she pulled her children into a warm embrace.

After holding them close for a long moment, Lia noticed Lavina standing awkwardly behind them. “And who might you be?”

“Who’s that?”

“Oh, she’s a friend of mine!”

“A friend? A female friend?”

Lia’s eyes narrowed slightly at Kendrick’s use of the word “friend.”

Lavina, noticing the shift in Lia’s expression, involuntarily flinched and tensed her shoulders.

After a brief glance at Lavina, Lia suddenly beamed and said, “Oh my goodness, what’s wrong with me? Come in quickly and make yourself at home!”

“Ah, yes… Th-thank you.”

Lia suddenly seized Lavina by the wrist and dragged her inside.

Tania, holding Nabi, shot a pitying look at Kendrick, who stood there dumbfounded.

“Nabi, what should we do with this idiot?”

Kyung-kyung!

Nabi nodded vigorously, as if in fervent agreement.

Kendrick stared wide-eyed at their antics. “Hey, what did I do?”

”…No. Never mind.”

Whoosh…

Tania and Nabi shook their heads and went inside, leaving Kendrick behind, utterly bewildered.

And so, after nearly four years, the Flame siblings finally returned home, along with their new lodgers, Lavina and Nabi.

They were cast adrift on the Spring Continent…

A month passed.

Genelocer’s lair.

“Ariana!”

The rambunctious Ariana had a habit of disappearing the moment Louis took his eyes off her, always darting off to who-knew-where.

Thanks to this, Louis had become adept at predicting her hiding spots.

Following her trail, Louis stopped before a certain door, a wry smile spreading across his face. “Here she is again,” he murmured, swinging the door wide open.

Before him lay a mountain of gold.

Almost immediately, Louis spotted Ariana tumbling through the golden waves. She was swimming in a sea of gold, utterly delighted.

If Genelocer had witnessed this scene, he surely would have burst into laughter. After all, Ariana’s antics were a mirror image of Louis’s own childhood mischief.

“Well, what else would you expect from a dragon?” Louis chuckled.

Just like he had in the past, Ariana spent every spare moment in Genelocer’s golden vault. It seemed that a love for glittering gold was indeed a defining trait of dragons.

Louis strode toward the mountain of gold and scooped Ariana into his arms.

“Piyak!”

Startled by the sudden touch, Ariana let out a peculiar cry before recognizing Louis and beaming.

“Brother!”

Her bright pink tongue darted playfully inside her mouth.

It had been over a month since Louis had taken Ariana in and started raising her. Feeling it was time, he performed the Knowledge Transfer Holy Art, granting her the ability to speak.

Ariana’s first word wasn’t “Mommy” or “Daddy,” but “Brother.”

“Brother! Brother!” she chirped, her tail wagging and wings fluttering simultaneously.

Louis gently stroked Ariana’s head, his heart swelling with tenderness. He scooped up the still-dazed Ariana into his arms and turned toward the dining table.

“Let’s go eat.”

“Okay!”

On the table sat a shimmering, pale turquoise slime—the dragon-specific baby food Louis himself had devoured countless times as a child.

Fin stood before it, wielding a sword nearly as large as herself, and declared confidently, “Just a moment! I’ll prepare it for you right away!”

With practiced ease, Fin chopped the slime into bite-sized pieces, arranged them on a plate, and slid it toward Ariana. Then, after fastening a bib around Ariana’s neck, Fin beamed with pride.

“Here you go, Ariana. This is your favorite flavor.”

Squeak! Thank you!

Ariana let out a happy squeak and eagerly began gobbling down the slime.

Louis watched, shaking his head in amusement.

How can she even stand that taste…?

The slime was a pale turquoise, or, more accurately, mint-colored. And, true to its appearance, it tasted exactly like mint. It was the only baby food Louis had ever refused as a child.

But unlike Louis, Ariana absolutely adored the mint flavor.

Well, at least she’s not being picky.

Chomp, chomp, chomp.

Louis smiled faintly as he watched Ariana, completely engrossed in her mint-flavored slime.

I’m just glad she’s eating well and growing strong.

At first, he had wondered how he would manage to care for Ariana for a whole year.

Having gained some rough knowledge of childcare from raising the twins, Louis wondered if looking after a child would really be that easy.

Fortunately, he had Fin, his all-purpose assistant, by his side.

Moreover, Ariana was such an angel that even a novice like Louis could raise her without difficulty.

She hardly ever causes trouble, isn’t picky about food, and goes to bed on her own when it’s time… Could there be another child like her in the world?

If all daughters were like Ariana, Louis felt he could easily raise ten, not just one.

And how adorable she was, trailing after him, chirping “Brother, Brother!” in her tiny voice.

Now he understood why Genelocer had been so insistent on being called “Father.”

Is this what it feels like to be a father raising his daughter?

In human terms, it was like having a late-in-life younger sibling when he was around twenty years old.

Although technically his younger sister, Ariana was more like a daughter to Louis.

As he watched her with a contented smile, Ariana let out a hearty burp, having completely finished her plate of baby food.

While Fin cleared the dishes, Louis wiped the slime residue from Ariana’s mouth, smiling as he asked, “What do you want to do now?”

“Hmm…” Ariana pondered, then brightened with a cheerful grin. “Play!”

“Where? At home?”

“Umm…” Ariana squeezed her eyes shut, deep in thought.

Her expressions were simple, and despite her knowledge of vocabulary, she struggled to articulate her thoughts effectively. At first, Louis had suspected a malfunction in the Knowledge Transfer Holy Art, but now he realized that his own childhood had been somewhat… unique.

After all, he wasn’t just any hatchling; he possessed memories of a past life.

Even with the Knowledge Transfer Holy Art, he couldn’t expect Ariana to be adept at using it right away. Her current behavior was likely typical for all hatchlings.

And here I was, foolishly hurling insults at the Twins, thinking they were just stupid.

Raising Ariana had made him realize the Twins hadn’t been quite as dim-witted as he’d thought. They were merely slightly less intelligent than other hatchlings.

While Louis pondered this, Ariana beamed and replied, “Out! Wanna go out and play!”

She stretched her short arms toward Louis, clearly wanting to be held.

“Come here,” he said.

Louis opened his arms, and Ariana climbed onto the table and nestled into his embrace.

Just as he was about to pick her up and head outside, an uninvited guest burst in.

“Ariana, your sister’s here!”

“And your brother’s here too!”

As always, the Twins, who practically wore out the doorstep of Louis’s house with their constant visits, had arrived.

They strode straight toward Ariana, their arms overflowing with gifts.

“Ari! This used to be mine, but I brought it for you!”

“Ari, your brother brought you something yummy. Wanna try it?”

Louis scowled at the Twins, who had been visiting every day for the past month.

”…Why do you keep coming here?”

“Why else? To see our precious Ari!”

“Exactly!”

“Ariana, wanna play with your sister?”

“Or with your brother?”

The twins’ eyes seemed ready to drip honey as they spoke.

Seeing how much they adored his younger sibling, Louis couldn’t bring himself to scold them any further.

Still…

“Mmm… I want to play with my brother…”

As his younger sibling burrowed into his arms and the twins grew strangely crestfallen, a peculiar sense of superiority swelled within Louis. He gazed at the twins with eyes brimming with pride, as if to say, She’s my little sister!

Just then, Khan, who had been slouching dejectedly, suddenly perked up as if remembering something.

“Oh, right, Louis! I went to Kendrick’s house yesterday and heard a really interesting story!”

“Okay.”

”…Aren’t you curious what it is?”

“Not really.”

”…Really?”

“Yeah.”

”…Seriously?”

“Uh-huh.”

”…But it’s super interesting!”

“Not interested.”

”…But it’s really interesting, I swear!”

“If you want to say it that way, why don’t you just try?”

“Uh, should I? Maybe I will.”

Khan tilted his head, a look of “this isn’t quite right” on his face, before speaking. “Apparently, a stranger drifted into Kendrick’s village.”

“A stranger?”

“To be precise, Kendrick’s dad found him collapsed at the village entrance. He stayed at Kendrick’s house for a while.”

“So?”

Khan grinned at Louis’s unimpressed gaze. “But when the stranger left the village, he left behind a strange warning.”

“What did he say?”

“He told everyone to leave the village immediately if they wanted to live. He warned that a Mad Dragon named Genelocer would appear and devastate the entire area.”

”…What?”

Louis’s eyes widened in disbelief at Khan’s unexpected story.

At the moment the Twins found Louis, Black Dot’s month-long labor of painting the dragon’s eyes was slowly drawing to a close.

Over that month, one eye had been fully completed, and the other was more than 90% finished. Despite being mere drawings, the dragon’s eyes, now fully outlined and shaped, radiated a profound intensity of emotion.

Fury, sorrow, frustration, and despair.

Even resentment.

Completely devoid of any positive or joyful sentiment, the dragon’s gaze was enough to plunge any observer into melancholy.

Scratch-scratch.

Little by little, as the eyes neared completion, the dragon’s form, once merely a flat drawing, began to transform.

Starting from its toes and spreading throughout its body, the two-dimensional figure gradually gained depth and volume, taking on a three-dimensional form.

This was proof that the arduous task, spanning over four years, was nearing its end.

Before everything was finalized and the painting fully came to life, the Black Dot sought to capture the final sliver of emotion in the dragon’s eyes.

All the work he had done until this moment had been nothing more than preparation for this single act—the one thing the Black Dot desperately sought to instill.

And that thing, which the Black Dot poured all his efforts into capturing, was none other than ‘a burning desire for destruction.’