“Listen carefully. Whatever you do, never set foot in the Rot Dragon’s territory.”
Mercenaries were pragmatic and cold. It was easy to understand why when they were compared to noble knights. They valued efficiency over courtesy and cash over justice. That was why receiving such a considerate warning inside the Mercenary Guild was so unusual.
“What? Why are you saying that out of nowhere?”
“Have you still not seen it? The Rot Dragon. I mean the undead creature—a dead dragon brought back to life.”
“Ah. You mean the demonic beast from that A-rank request? The one posted at the very top of the wall.”
Dozens of requests flooded into the Mercenary Guild every day. Some were as trivial as finding a cat or doing odd jobs at a brewery, while others were as deadly as hunting demonic beasts or taking part in a Magic Tower’s human experiments.
Naturally, the greater the danger, the greater the reward. Among them, the A-rank request titled ‘Subjugate the Rot Dragon’ ranked among the most difficult.
“Has it already been half a year since that request was posted? I heard no mercenary has managed to complete it yet.”
“That’s right. They say the lord is still grinding his teeth because he can’t use the western trade route.”
“Hmph. That’s one strange dragon. Don’t Rot Dragons usually appear only occasionally in graveyards on battlefields?”
“Well, we don’t know why either. Powerful boss-class creatures sometimes display unexpected patterns of behavior.”
“Anyway, why did you suddenly warn me about it?”
“Why else? More than a few greenhorns like you have charged in to kill the Rot Dragon without knowing what they were doing and ended up dead.”
The chastened mercenary pursed his lips. Truth be told, the A-rank request had tempted him.
Even if it was cursed and rotting, a dragon was still a dragon. Even badly damaged scales and bones would surely fetch a handsome price.
‘And that isn’t all.’
The reward for the A-rank request itself was extraordinary.
The lord, utterly enraged by the Rot Dragon, had offered a staggering reward. He had proclaimed that whoever completed the request would receive the ‘Sky Boots.’
‘They say they’re Unique-grade equipment that can teleport the wearer to any place they can see.’
The boots’ previous owner was even said to have traveled to that ‘full moon in the night sky.’
It was a reward that would make any mercenary salivate merely from hearing about it. That was why some mercenaries had accepted the risk, formed parties, and taken on the challenge.
Yet every one of them had entered the land occupied by the Rot Dragon, never returned, and joined the ranks of the dead.
“What a shame. If you succeeded, you could quit mercenary work and make a fortune.”
“It can’t be helped. Men who grow too greedy never last long before losing their heads.”
The mercenaries could do nothing but stare at the A-rank request, unable to touch it.
It had hung there longer than any other request, yet no one had completed it.
Then, at that moment—
CLACK. CLACK.
Someone abruptly strode over and tore the request from the wall with a loud RIIIP.
“Huh?”
The mercenary in the middle of the conversation stared with wide eyes.
Tearing down a request posted on the wall meant that someone intended to accept it.
“Hey, didn’t you just say no one should ever touch that request? Why aren’t you stopping that bastard?”
“Ah. Kranol? He’s the exception.”
The other mercenary clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“That bastard isn’t just your average lunatic. He’s a mad dog you must never provoke.”
***
Kranol Wizar was chewing on a piece of bread after leaving with the A-rank request.
He needed to fill his stomach before properly setting out on the job. The stale wheat bread was hard and utterly tasteless.
‘This tastes absolutely vile.’
For a little more money, he could have eaten much softer, tastier bread with smoked ham.
However, he did not currently have the funds to spend on such luxuries. His recent expenses had been considerable.
“Phew.”
He forced down the stale bread and finished his meal.
Once he was done, a thought suddenly occurred to him.
How long had it been again?
‘Has it already been three months?’
Somehow, more than three months had passed since he had been transmigrated into the world of the web novel, ‘EX-Rank Demonic Beast Hunter.’
The character he, an avid reader, had ended up inhabiting was one he had never imagined.
‘Kranol Wizar.’
He was the only character who possessed the anomalous trait, 『Catastrophe Affinity』.
He appeared as a villain near the very end of the story, and his power was anything but negligible.
‘He may well be the character with the greatest potential in the entire novel.’
The original work, EX-Rank Demonic Beast Hunter, was crowded with countless characters.
Of all those characters, he had transmigrated into one of the most overwhelmingly powerful.
Had that fact naturally delighted him?
‘Not in the slightest.’
Kranol was certainly an extraordinary character.
Once awakened, 『Catastrophe Affinity』 was considered one of the strongest traits in the story.
The problem was that the hidden trait did not awaken until the final stretch of the novel.
‘In other words, he’s quite literally the worst possible character in the early part of the story.’
Until the hidden trait awakened, Kranol was a weakling with no talent to speak of.
Moreover, at present, there was no known way whatsoever to unlock it.
Above all, however, he was called the worst character because he possessed one enormous flaw....
“Urgh!”
Lost in thought, Kranol was suddenly struck by a headache.
His eyes turned bloodshot, and his skull felt as though it were being split apart.
He nearly lost consciousness, but desperately forced himself to remain awake. He hurriedly pulled an herb from his backpack and chewed it.
Only after swallowing the astonishingly bitter herb did the headache finally subside.
“Phew.”
Kranol wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
Yet the pain had only subsided. His head still throbbed constantly.
‘Damn this wretched madness.’
After living in this world for three months, he had grown accustomed to its medieval-fantasy buildings, clothing, and culture.
However, he could not become accustomed to this accursed madness at all.
At least his knowledge of the original story had allowed him to obtain herbs that eased it, but they were no cure.
He lived with a headache twenty-four hours a day and never knew when a severe fit might strike.
As a result, dark circles had sunk deep beneath his eyes, and his temper had grown increasingly volatile.
‘Madness that strikes without warning. It’s the reason Kranol eventually goes insane in the story.’
At present, the special herbs could suppress it to some degree.
Once the madness truly intensified, however, Kranol began slaughtering every human he encountered.
After even his hidden trait awakened, he caused so many casualties that he ultimately destroyed several nations.
That was why, near the end of the novel, Kranol transformed into a villain every bit as troublesome as the final boss.
‘And that isn’t all.’
Once fully consumed by madness, Kranol killed half of the protagonist’s party.
Only then did the enraged protagonist, a demonic beast hunter, barely manage to put an end to him.
He was the worst villain in every respect, reviled to the bitter end both by those inside the story and by the readers outside it.
‘I have to avoid that bad ending at all costs.’
It was a fate that chilled him merely to imagine.
Naturally, Kranol had not the slightest intention of following the same path as his counterpart in the original story.
Originally, Kranol had been a man with mental illness confined to a monastery.
After transmigrating, however, he had deviated from the original story by coming to a remote territory and becoming a mercenary.
‘Because the key to alleviating my worsening madness is here.’
Kranol looked down at the A-rank request he had torn from the wall.
A rough sketch depicted a grotesque creature.
It was a dragon with knobby scales and rotting flesh.
The Rot Dragon.
He had come all the way to this territory and endured countless hardships merely to approach the creature.
“Phew. All right.”
For the sole purpose of completing the Rot Dragon subjugation request, he had spent the past months clearing miscellaneous jobs and burning through his funds.
Today was the day all that preparation would finally bear fruit.
Having steeled himself, Kranol headed beyond the territory’s borders.
***
The western reaches of the Birsi Territory.
The stench of decay permeated the air.
It was a forest of fetid swampland. Foul mud and reeking marshes stretched endlessly through the woods.
‘It’s hard to believe this used to be a vineyard.’
Kranol advanced cautiously.
Because of his throbbing headache, he continued chewing bitter herbs.
Even so, every sense in his body stood sharply on edge.
Then a faint rustling sound came from directly behind him.
“Ah.”
He stopped walking.
Something with ash-gray scales peeked out from behind a rotten tree stump.
Its wings were damaged, and chalk-like powder coated its entire body.
The target of the request had appeared far sooner than expected.
‘Huh?’
Yet Kranol could only stare in confusion.
‘What is this?’
This was the Rot Dragon said to have slaughtered every mercenary who tried to complete the request.
Yet the creature behind that terrifying reputation was absurdly small.
It was no larger than a small dog.
‘No. I can’t let my guard down based on appearance alone.’
He could not afford to grow complacent.
His opponent was a monster that had sent countless mercenaries to their deaths over the past six months.
“SKREEEEE!”
The Rot Dragon spread both wings wide and shrieked at the unfamiliar intruder.
Particles resembling ash flew toward Kranol.
It was a curse that turned the entire body to stone.
However, this was a pattern he had anticipated.
“Hup.”
Kranol quickly held his breath and sprinkled something over his head.
It was the ‘High-Purity Holy Water’ he had painstakingly collected from a ruined church.
It was a Hidden Piece he had obtained with great difficulty, even spending some of his limited money to hire a guide.
Sprinkling it over himself would ward off curses such as petrification for more than half an hour.
“Huh?”
Something was strange.
He had gone to the trouble of using the holy water, yet nothing happened.
Normally, sacred light should have erupted as the holy water dispelled the Rot Dragon’s curse.
‘That hatchling... it’s only screaming, isn’t it?’
“SKREEEEE!”
Following the unexpected development, the creature roared again.
Its cry was tiny enough to be adorable, but he still could not afford to let down his guard.
Just as the puzzled Kranol was about to proceed to the next stage of his plan—
“Huh?”
Something unexpected happened.
The roaring Rot Dragon suddenly collapsed.
For a moment, Kranol was startled and wondered what was wrong. One look, however, was enough for him to grasp the situation.
‘This thing is dying.’
It was strange.
He had gone out of his way to purchase an entire assortment of sacred items to exterminate the Rot Dragon.
Kranol tilted his head slightly before suddenly freezing in surprise.
‘No, wait.’
On closer inspection, the ash-gray scales covering its body were not real scales.
It had simply remained in the polluted area for so long that its body had become coated in filthy powder.
Not only that, but the damaged skin on its tail and the boils covering its body were unlike those of an undead creature.
‘This isn’t a Rot Dragon.’
A Rot Dragon was the reanimated corpse of a dragon.
An undead creature had no need to breathe at all, except to force out air when making sounds or roaring.
Yet this creature was still panting, each faint breath labored.
More precisely, it appeared that people had mistaken it for a Rot Dragon.
The creature was simply dying from an agonizingly severe disease.
Kranol hurriedly searched his knowledge of the original story.
‘It’s Corpse Disease. A rare illness that makes its victim look almost undead before killing them.’
Indeed, its appearance was enough for anyone to mistake it for an undead creature.
Only then did the mystery make sense.
It explained why the creature had remained here for so long, unable to move anywhere else.
Its strength had probably deteriorated so badly that it could no longer fly any great distance.
‘The original story only mentioned rumors that a Rot Dragon lived in this territory. I never imagined this was the truth.’
Things had unfolded differently from what he had expected.
Kranol needed the materials that could be harvested from a Rot Dragon.
He briefly considered simply allowing the little dragon to die, dismantling its corpse, and selling the remains to a Magic Tower.
Even that alone would fetch a considerable sum.
‘But...’
Kranol looked down at the little dragon afflicted with Corpse Disease.
The young creature was suffering.
Its breaths came in weak wheezes, and it could barely open its eyes. It truly appeared to be on the verge of death.
It probably did not have much longer to live.
After watching it silently, Kranol finally shook his head.
“...Fine. I’m in a generous mood.”
Corpse Disease was aggravated by the demonic energy seeping from this land.
A black mage or demon wielding an immensely powerful curse must have unleashed its power here.
If so, the hatchling was nothing more than a patient stricken with a grave illness.
‘In other words, it’s innocent.’
The mercenaries who entered this place had probably collapsed and died because of the demonic energy leaking from the ground.
The hatchling, made hypersensitive by Corpse Disease, had merely been crying out in pain.
Its notoriety must have spread through people who heard a dragon’s distinctive cries or glimpsed signs of it from afar.
In other words, the demonic beast had no connection to the deaths.
‘When you’re sick, you become irritable for no reason, and your voice and actions turn harsh. Even when you don’t want them to.’
Kranol felt an odd sense of kinship.
The dying hatchling reminded him of himself, afflicted by madness.
After a brief hesitation, he approached and placed a hand on it.
“SKREEEEE!”
The hatchling’s eyes flew open.
It growled and bared teeth that had not even fully grown in.
However, it had little strength remaining.
Its illness had already progressed too far.
“Stay still. I’m trying to save you.”
Kranol searched his backpack and took out the holy water and several Hidden Pieces he had personally gathered.
He had originally brought them to hunt the Rot Dragon, but there was no longer any need for that.
He therefore intended to use them for a different purpose.
‘Using these differently can cure even severe diseases. My madness is the only exception.’
Kranol carefully poured the holy water over the fallen dragon and set up a cross nearby.
After drawing seven pentagram magic circles, he prayed in a low voice.
“O Star. A young lamb is here. Please grant mercy to your angel.”
As soon as he spoke, the magic circles lit up one after another, starting from the left.
A change then came over the fallen hatchling as well.
The Corpse Disease had begun to heal.
The hardened ash-gray powder peeled away, revealing its true appearance.
That was when Kranol received the real shock.
“Huh?”
As the ash-gray powder fell away, the creature’s natural scales were revealed.
They were a color he had never imagined.
Brilliant golden scales.
“What the hell?”
The words escaped him of their own accord.
A dragon with brilliant golden scales.
Only one species in the story possessed such scales.
The Gold Emperor Dragon.
A rare species said to be incomparably the strongest of all dragons.
Only then did Kranol realize what he had done.
The one and only offspring of the original story’s final boss.
He had saved the demonic beast that would one day reign as a calamity over the entire continent.