The Failure Marquis Is A Genius [EN]: Chapter 33

5. Achievement: A Prodigal Son Achieved

Today was my first time seeing a dragon, and from what I knew, dragons were as arrogant as they were powerful. For a dragon to use the word ‘favor,’ there were only two possibilities.

The first was when the other party was an equal, another dragon. I was a weak human, so that didn’t apply. The second was when there was a desperate situation that would make a dragon lower its head. The current case was obviously the latter.

What I was curious about was, what could possibly make a dragon humble itself to ask me for a favor?

“What is the favor you need?”

-Become the guardian who protects the Demon King in my stead.

“I refuse.”

As expected, it was a huge matter to warrant using the word ‘favor.’ Who would want to be stuck in a dragon’s lair for the rest of their life, guarding the Demon King who threatened the continent?

Even if I agreed, there was a problem. I wasn’t as strong as a dragon, and I didn’t have the ability to monitor the Demon King effectively. I asked the dragon why it was asking me for such a favor. The dragon replied:

-Until now, I have been hiding my aging from the sealed Demon King. But I can feel it. As time passes, the Demon King’s power to break the seal grows stronger.

This was something I also knew. In Sion Like, the final boss that Sion must defeat is the Demon King Baal.

-Soon, I will enter eternal slumber, and the Demon King, having noticed this, will revive. If that happens, the Arnia continent will be destroyed.

“Even if I become the guardian, I cannot stop the Demon King. I don’t have the power to do so.”

-I’m not asking you to take on the role permanently. I’m asking you to look after my hatchling until it grows up and can take over the guardian’s role.

Hatchling.

The word for a dragon’s offspring.

The dragon, who had been crouching, stretched its body.

In the center, a small egg about the size of my upper body wobbled from side to side, emitting a subtle aura.

“Are you asking me to be a nanny?”

-Originally, I didn’t want to entrust this to a human. Humans always desire more than they deserve.

“That’s right. I don’t think I’m trustworthy enough for this.”

-But you are different, Druid. Nature does not communicate with just anyone. It has chosen you, and even transcended causality, so your arrival here must be fate.

“Hmm.”

-Special human, I want to bet the fate of this continent on you. Henon, was it? Until the Demon King Baal notices, and until my child can take over the role of guardian, will you take care of the egg?

[Quest Activated!]

[Quest Title: Kyle’s Last Will]

[Objective: Protect Kyle’s hatchling until the Demon King Baal’s seal is broken.]

[Reward: Subspace Pouch, Lair’s Treasure, Dragon Corpse.]

This was the first quest window I’d received since being possessed into the game world.

In Sion Like, there’s no content where Sion finds the dragon Kyle in the north and receives a quest.

Therefore, this must be an Easter egg hidden by the developers. I was lucky enough to find it.

‘The rewards are really substantial.’

Anyone who has played games knows that an inventory that allows you to move many items without being detected is classified as an S-class item [the highest tier].

Some game companies even induce players to spend real money to increase the size of their inventory by one slot.

And that’s not all.

Dragons, befitting their long lifespan and power, hoard a lot of wealth in their lairs.

I can’t even imagine the level of legacy that such a dragon would leave behind.

The last reward, the dragon corpse, is a gold mine.

Dragon bone and dragon scale, boasting the highest hardness on the continent.

Dragon blood, infused with pure mana.

Above all, the dragon heart, the essence and core of the dragon, containing not only mana but also its soul.

There’s literally nothing to throw away.

If I hadn’t seen the reward list, maybe…

The quest window popped up, and I confirmed the rewards, so it would be foolish to give this up.

Moreover, the rewards include items that will accelerate my growth, so I accepted the dragon Kyle’s offer without hesitation.

-Alright. I don’t know if I’ll be of much help, but I’ll do my best.

[Quest Accepted!]

[Cannot be canceled from this point on.]

[Canceling will incur the dragon’s wrath.]

So, there’s no turning back.

Anyway, I have no intention of canceling.

“Then, how long do I have to protect the hatchling?”

-I do not know.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

-Hatching is up to the child’s will. Growing up also requires a special trigger. If the gears mesh well, it may grow into an adult within a hundred years, or it may remain a hatchling forever, even after a thousand years.

Damn it.

There was a reason why the rewards were so generous.

It’s not just about protecting the egg, but literally taking on the role of a parent, responsible for education and nurturing.

And the result of failing to nurture it is the destruction of the continent.

Isn’t this a truly absurd quest?

-I don’t intend to ask for this favor empty-handed. After I enter eternal slumber, you may use my corpse. Also, all my wealth is yours, and finally, I will give you an ancient artifact as well.

With those words, Kyle blinked his eyes. He looked like an ordinary person who was tired and about to fall asleep.

But I could feel it.

The aura emanating from him was gradually weakening and calmly subsiding.

-I leave the rest to you… special human…

The dragon entered eternal slumber.

The blue aura emanating from his entire body briefly soared into the sky before disappearing without a trace.

And…

Rustle! Rustle!

The dragon’s corpse began to decompose on its own.

Unlike ordinary creatures, this amazing intelligent being’s body was connected by mana [magical energy], so the components automatically decomposed the moment it entered eternal slumber.

Hundreds of scales, shaped like enlarged turtle shells, fell to the ground with a loud noise.

Dragon blood, emitting a sparkling light, flowed like the Milky Way, forming a small pond on the floor.

Elements such as muscles, flesh, and internal organs turned into dust and scattered out of the lair with the wind.

Finally, only the sturdy bones remained, showing evidence that a dragon had been here.

“Rest in peace.”

After a moment of silence, I looked around the lair.

This pyramid-shaped ruin was incredibly vast by human standards, befitting a place where a giant dragon lived.

But the structure itself was simple.

There were only a few rooms.

I entered the innermost space.

There probably weren’t any crazy people who would come all the way to the depths of the Northern Mountains to steal, so there was no separate locking device.

Flash!

A dazzling spectacle of golden light greeted me.

A tower of gold and jewels so high that I had to crane my neck to see the top.

The scale of wealth, beyond common sense, left me speechless.

“I, I found it!”

The wealth in Lord Lloyd’s secret vault that I had seen before was cute compared to this.

Seeing the wealth that the dragon had accumulated for a thousand years made my jaw drop.

To make a comparison, it was equivalent to the entire wealth of a decent kingdom.

“The problem is having a means to move all this.”

What good is having a lot of wealth?

It’s all for naught if you can’t carry it around.

It’s not easy to travel to such a barren and rugged place every time you need something, like going to a bank.

That’s why there was a subspace pouch in the quest reward.

The subspace pouch wasn’t hard to find.

I was worried that it might be buried in a mountain of gold and jewels, but it was carefully placed in a separate room next door.

Kyle seemed to have recognized the value of the subspace pouch as well. Come to think of it, didn’t he call it an ancient artifact separately?

When I touched the subspace pouch, a status window popped up.

[Acquired Ancient Artifact!]

[Subspace Pouch – Acquired Magic Gourd.]

[Master Imprinting in progress… Imprinting complete.]

[Recognized as the owner of the subspace pouch.]

[Cannot be used by others. Bound item.]

Seeing the system that makes up the world react, it was definitely not an ordinary item.

‘What could the ancient artifact be?’

There seems to be some secret about the artifact, but Kyle, who knew about it, has entered eternal slumber.

There’s no information to be gained separately, so I took it for now.

The appearance of the pouch was peculiar yet ordinary.

On the surface, it looked like a white gourd that mercenaries in the Arnia continent usually carried around their waists to drink alcohol.

But this pouch contained other things instead of alcohol. The storage capacity was also exceptional.

Poong! Shoooo!

When I opened the lid of the gourd and pointed it towards the gold and jewels, the gold and jewels piled up like a mountain in the lair swirled and were sucked into the gourd.

And that wasn’t all.

When I returned to the center of the lair and pointed the gourd at the dragon corpse scattered on the floor, the gourd swallowed it all up.

Surprisingly, the hatchling egg also went into the gourd.

I’ll have to check later whether living things can be put in, or whether the dragon egg is special.

Finally, only the dragon’s blood, Yonghyeol [Dragon Blood], remained.

Since it was a liquid, I would need a separate container to put it in the gourd.

However, I decided not to put it in separately.

‘I’ll drink the Yonghyeol here.’

Yonghyeol is a concentrate of pure mana that is hard to find anywhere on the continent.

I decided to drink it and observe the changes in my body.

I knelt down and put my mouth to the blood on the floor and began to gulp it down.

The Yonghyeol went down my esophagus.

First of all, it didn’t taste good.

To be exact, I couldn’t taste anything at all.

Instead, my stomach burned as if I had drunk a high-proof liquor.

“Keuk!”

A groan came out involuntarily.

Since becoming a Druid, I have acquired a pseudo-immunity to all poisons due to a passive skill.

Yet, I am feeling extreme pain from the hot energy.

On the other hand, the system is not reacting at all, which means that Yonghyeol is not recognized as a poison by the system.

This was a collection of abnormally high concentrations of energy, and that alone was enough to kill me.

The thought that something really bad was going to happen rang an alarm in my head.

Immediately, I sat cross-legged and contemplated my inner self.

This was an instinctive and reflexive action, like instantly taking your hand away when you touch a hot kettle, or naturally lowering your posture when the ground shakes.

I had already learned all the breathing training methods called Naegaeigong [internal energy cultivation] from Chunma [a martial arts master].

Rather, there would be no one in the Arnia continent who had learned a higher level of mana training method than me.

I calmly began to trap the Yonghyeol that had entered my body.

‘As expected of Yonghyeol, the way it wriggles is like a dragon itself.’

The more I trapped it, the more it struggled, trying to break through my meridians [energy channels].

It was not easy to control.

In the end, I gave up on trapping and taming it and opened a retreat route.

Then, the Yonghyeol, thinking it was the right time, began to rage through my meridians.

Kwakwakwakwang!!!

There are eight important meridians in the human body where intangible energy resides.

I had already opened six of them, leaving the remaining two unopened.

The reason for leaving them unopened was because I had a feeling that something terrible would happen if I forcibly opened these two blood vessels with the mana I had.

But Yonghyeol was not listening to me.

It was truly a problem child and a troublemaker.

This guy also mercilessly widened the six meridians that had already been opened.

I groaned involuntarily at the pain of being pricked all over my body with needles.

Yonghyeol did not stop there.

It rushed madly towards the two blood vessels that had not been opened before.

I tried to stop it somehow, but how could I stop an excited wild horse with my bare hands?

The Yonghyeol crashed into the first blocked blood vessel as it was.

Kukwakwakwang!!

“Keoheueueuk!!”

Saliva dripped down.

My eyeballs bulged.

My bones twisted.

My teeth fell out.

I realized what would happen if I couldn’t break through here.

If the Yonghyeol headed in another direction, my whole body would explode and die, not just a meridian problem.

I’ve already done it.

Now, retreat meant death.

‘I’ll add the mana I originally had.’

As Chunma told me, I gathered all the mana in my abdomen as reinforcements.

The Yonghyeol, which had gained even more momentum, took advantage of the situation and rushed towards the blocked blood vessel once more.

And it hit the barrier.

An explosion and fireworks echoed in my head.

Kwakwakwakwang!!!

Would this be what it’s like when a levee collapses due to a flood in the summer?

The fortress that had been so strong could no longer withstand the union of the dragon’s energy and my energy and collapsed.

The momentary vision became faint.

I didn’t lose consciousness.

The sky gradually became closer.

My body gradually became blurred.

Is this… enlightenment?

The attacking force that had tasted victory once did not stop there. Because there was still another castle left to conquer.

They attacked the last fortress with unstoppable force.

The silver mana and my green mana combined and materialized into a dragon in my imagination.

The dragon rammed the pointed horns on its forehead into the castle gate. The last meridian finally raised the white flag and opened the way to this powerful attack that rammed like a battering ram.

‘With this, all eight blood vessels have been opened.’

Where is left?

The Yonghyeol-mana allied forces, which still had energy left, walked for a long time.

The place they finally arrived at was my dantian [energy center], the starting point and the ending point.

It had gone around my whole body.

Even after that, the Yonghyeol, unable to control its energy, spun around in my body like a squirrel on a wheel.

Each time it circulated, the meridians gradually widened, and the amount of mana I gained per breath gradually increased.

After that, the mana and Yonghyeol mixed and gradually became one.

The Yonghyeol, which had been causing a commotion in an unfamiliar place for a long time, gradually calmed down, and the amount that followed my control gradually increased.

How many laps did it go around?

Ten laps? A hundred laps? A thousand laps? Ten thousand laps?

It spun and spun countless times.

I had already become one with the inner world.

I don’t know how much time has passed outside, but it felt like it had been well over a hundred years.

And…

Flash!!

I opened my eyes.

The light emitted from between my eyelids brightly illuminated the surroundings.

Surprisingly, I was levitating in the air in a cross-legged position.

As I escaped from the inner world, my body, which had been free from the ground, slowly descended as if it recognized gravity.

“I’ve become an Expert.”

A sense of elation overflowing throughout my body.

The potential converging to infinity.

If this isn’t an Expert, then what is?

Now that the wall that had been blocking me has been broken, I felt so relieved.

On the other hand, the outside was not.

All sorts of waste products were spewing out of every hole in my body, creating a foul odor.

“I need to wash first.”

I lightly washed myself with the water flowing in the corner of the ruins and rummaged through the gourd to take out clothes that I could wear from among the many treasures I had put in earlier.

It was an excessively flashy outfit that even the imperial family of the empire would only wear on special days, but since there were no other clothes, I wore this for now.

Woong! Woong!

The Chunma Sword on my waist vibrated.

I drew the sword, held it with both hands, and concentrated.

Then, the Yonghyeol, which had completely come under my control, started from the dantian and made a familiar circulation, and even flowed into the sword through my fingertips.

Saaa.

Silver-green mana flowed into the sword.

It was the Mana Sword, the symbol of an Expert.