171: Contract
"All right, I get it... I understand that no matter how much this father says, he can't get you two to believe him because father was like that before he met Master. For now, Rururu should try to make a contract with my master, Kaisar. That way, the higher-ranked person will be the superior master. I apologize for the trouble I brought upon you, Master."
"I don't mind. As long as it helps."
"Thank you, Master."
Then, perhaps in frustration at his wife and daughter's refusal to believe him no matter how hard he tried to explain, he offered his wife and me what could be considered a last resort.
Is that what you wanted? I thought, however, seeing how stressed he was that his scales were peeling off, he must have been driven into a corner and was willing to give up on his wife to seek relief.
It made me consider giving Fafnir as much support as possible.
"Wait, Dear! Don't you think I am too much of a fool? What can one such person do? If you want to make a contract with me as an equal, you need to bring all the magicians in this country."
"Yes, Dad! You've made a fool of Mom! What can a lesser species that can't do anything without being in a pack do against us? It's not a contract of equality. It's more like a contract between a slave and his owner! Oh, I see! Perhaps that's what Dad wanted from the start! Then why didn't you say so from the start? I was wrong, and so was Mom!"
"Ara, as expected of my daughter. Aren't you so bright just like me? And Dear, you're the same as before. If you had said so, we wouldn't have had this argument. Seriously, I'll have to give you an earful later."
"... All right, now that you've understood, hurry up and try to make a contract with my master, Kaisar-sama."
"Yes, yes. I need to end this farce quickly and get the equipment we can equip ourselves with, which was our original goal."
Fafnir's wife, the white dragon named Rururu, began making a pact with me.
"What a hassle... for one human being, ara? Ara-ra? Arararara? This can't be?"
"W-what happened to you, Mom? You worm! What did you do to my mother?"
To the mother Rururu's dismay, her daughter Faruru, who thought I had done something wrong, tries to attack me, but Rururu prevents her from doing so.
"No, stop it! Faruru! Ah. Oh, please. Please, please forgive us for all the rude things we've done!"
After the contract got signed, as Fafnir had done earlier, Rururu threw herself into the ground and began to ask for forgiveness for their previous disrespectful attitude.
"Hmph, you seem to have a better understanding of the difference in status than that black lizard?"
In this scene, Bridgette starts talking with her arms folded as if to say, "That's given!"
And, why are you being so bossy, Bridgette?
172: The Role of Adults
"Although I think it is too late to realize Kaisar-sama's power now, I never realized how ugly those consumed by their own power, which blinds them from their surroundings, are. And that red lizard's attitude is still rude. What should I do about it?"
"I'm sorry. I have no words to return. Please, please just ignore my daughter!"
Then, Karendoll followed Rururu further, but what was it? Couldn't I just say, "You don't have a say there"?
I'm not waiting for Tsukkomi, am I? I hoped so, but Karendoll's voice and facial expression were so stern I couldn't just do it.
"Well, well, well. It's not intentional, that's all right. It happens."
"Master is too sweet!" x2
"I'll pat you on the head later..."
"Your generous heart, your large capacity, you are indeed a great person!"
"Not only are you strong, but also kind. What else can I say but that you're the perfect master!?"
I'm starting to understand how to handle these guys these days, but I don't know why I'm not very happy about it.
"Mom and Dad, you're so pathetic! Where's your dignity as dragons? I can't show my face when I go back to my village! There's no need to bow down to such a puny human!"
I saw Faruru, the red-scaled daughter of the dragon couple, still howling in disagreement, as if she couldn't understand that I was the one to whom her parents had given in, and her father, Fafnir, was trying to remonstrate with her, so I stilled him with my hand.
"Please, Master! This child is still so young. Can you please overlook her this time? If it displeases you, I will give you my head."
I guess he misunderstood my instructions because Fafnir was begging me not to direct my anger at his daughter as he offered me his head.
Am I that untrustworthy? I think so, but it might be natural to say that since I didn't have much of a relationship with Fafnir, to begin with.
"I'll never do anything Fafnir would be worried about, don't worry. But excuse me as I'm going to teach her a lesson. I think she's being a bit harsh to go so far without showing any respect or pretense of paying respect to someone she's just met, and I think it's the role of adults to warn young ones about what's not right."
173: They Don't Listen To Their Parents
"Ha!? What in the world can a human do to me, a dragon? If you don't change your attitude, I'll kill you. If you don't want to do that, get down on your knees and apologize to us immediately for all the disrespect you've shown us."
However, this red-scaled Faruru was challenging me, not giving any thoughts at all about her parents' attitude towards me.
It's something unique to the Chuunibyou, an unfounded all-powerful feeling that you can become anything you want to be.
This girl? The way she was behaving and the way she was bouncing back and forth with her parents. It seemed like she was about to enter her rebellious phase, so maybe she was showing the early signs of Chuunibyou.
At times like this, they don't listen to anything an adult has to say. But if there is a thing or method that can show the difference in power, such as sports or whatever, they will. If such a thing relates to something they have overwhelming confidence in, it is effective to use that method and snap the ego off before it grows out of their nose to show the reality of the situation.
I think teaching them at an early age is actually better because after they get into the swing of things, there's a good chance that their pride will get in the way, and they won't be able to accept reality as it is.
If they were to enter puberty with such an attitude, they ain't going to listen to their parents.That's what puberty is all about.
"So arrogant. [ Level 6 Dark Magic: Gravity Manipulation] !!" [Kaisar]
"Is that how you're going to pla—!!!" [Faruru]
I know it wasn't very cool of me, but I unleashed magic to show the overwhelming difference in power without any restraint.
The magic I used was [Level 6 Dark Magic: Gravity Manipulation].
Gravity Manipulation can be used to lighten the gravity on your friends so that they can move swiftly like flying, or such as by weighing down the gravity applied to the opponent and slowing their movements. It is very convenient magic that can get used as both buff and debuff.
For the record, there are superior magic spells that can be used either as a buff or debuff, but no other has both properties. The greatest advantage of this magic is that it can be used flexibly and does not pass easily.
Such magic I used against Faruru as a debuff.
Then, Faruru, who was just looking down at me with arrogance, could not bear the sudden increase in gravity and crawled in front of me.
"Gunununu!"
The gravity was holding her down in a way that would normally make it impossible for her to stand, but she seemed to be more impatient with me looking down on her (or so I think), so she stood up forcefully and distanced herself from me all at once.
174: I've been itching to...
That's what I call a dragon.
A dragon is still a dragon, no matter how young it is.
Using her huge amount of magic power, hard scales, and strong body, she forcefully escaped out of the range of the dark magic I unleashed.
Maybe it wasn't Faruru who underestimated me, but apparently, I was the one who underestimated her.
That said, there is no way she would have lost because of the magic of that level, but I would rather she admitted defeat at that point.
If she had done so, she wouldn't have had to have her pride shattered for nothing.
"Humph! You just caught me by surprise! Don't get carried away just because it worked out! Besides, you're about to learn that you've lost your best chance! I'll see how long you can keep that attitude up!"
Then Faruru opened her big jaws and fired a fireball at me.
No ordinary human, or even an Imperial Court magician, would be able to defend against her fireball.
That also meant that this dragon in front of me was willing to kill me.
'That means I don't have to hold back anymore, does it? I'm going to shatter your big, fat pride to pieces and beat you until you have no dragon dignity left.'
And to be honest, I was itching for a fight too.
For some reason, my appearance was that of a villain. However, I had inherited the abilities of a character I'd gone through the trouble of building up in the game.
It is human and boyish to want to use those inherited skills.
"Damn, you sure are eager to kill me? [Level 2 Water Magic: Dissolution]."
I snapped my fingers like an incapable colonel on a certain rainy day in vain, cast [Level 2 Water Magic: Dissolution], and succeeded in neutralizing the fireball approaching me.
This water magic called Dissolution is a broken water spell that created an era of water magic in Dragon Fantasy Knight-Labyrinth of Love. As a result, it got banned from being used in official tournaments.
That water spell was so loved that it got called the ultimate magic until the 7th generation patch, where it was adjusted by weakening its attack power compared to other spells. However, it still remained so strong that they had to ban it from official tournaments starting the 8th generation patch.
From the 8th generation, the revised version, [Level 3 Water Magic: Eliminate] got added.
The effect of Dissolution is to 'nullify one of the target's magic'.
It showed that the fireball that the dragon released earlier was magic.
This is also the main difference between a dragonoid and a dragon other than in appearance. A dragonoid has a flaming gland and actually breathes fire, while a dragon chants and exercises flame magic through its throat.
175: Signature Magic of My Youth
In the game, you can only use the same magic up to four times in one battle, but there are no such restrictions in this world, of course.
In other words, you don't have to think about the number of times you're going to use it, you don't have to read your opponent's backstory, and you can just pull out low-level Dissolution magic in a brain-dead state and have a boring battle.
But what's f*cking boring is when it comes to game balance. There's nothing more reliable and fun than a true fistfight.
Games are fun because you don't die, and I'm not the kind of combat freak who enjoys life-and-death battles.
If I was into that sort of thing, I would have gotten into boxing or other martial arts instead of video games.
If it's a battle of life and death and the ability to exercise any magic you want from a safe distance as much as you want, then the latter is definitely more fun, no matter how you think about it.
"Eh? Why? What happened? I'm pretty sure I shot a fireball!"
And Faruru, who could not understand why the magic she had supposedly released had disappeared, seemed to be in a bit of a panic, which was apparent from her dismay.
"Well, it was just a fluke or something, or an accidental misfire anyway."
As the mystery of the disappearance of her fireball never got resolved, she shrugged it off as a misfire and began to release a series of fireballs against me.
The fireballs shot at me all disappeared without a trace. Every time a fireball was extinguished, Faruru's face turned paler.
"About time you realize that the disappearance of the fireballs isn't a fluke or a misfire. It is a skill of mine."
"T-there's no way that could happen! What kind of cheating are you doing?"
"That's not cheating, unfortunately. In case you're wondering, I can do something like this; [Level 4 Dark and Water Compound Magic: Prohibition]. The target is Faruru, and the magic to seal shall be Fireball. That's it. This will disable your fireballs for three minutes from now."
"You sealed my fireballs? There's no such magic that can seal magic! I feel sorry for your bluff! Hm? Arey? Arerey? Why is there no fireball?"
"As I told you, I disabled it for three minutes."
This [Darkness/Water Compound Magic: Prohibition] was one of the most powerful and high-end magic. So much so that the basic strategy was to use it as a bluff and force the opponent to use counterspells and win by locking whatever potential spell they had left.
The Dissolution Magic and the Prohibition Magic... I feel nostalgic as these two were the signature magic that represented my youth.