Chapter 6: Humans Born Evil

A single strike to slay a pureblood dragon.

Even if the target had been heavily wounded, it was still enough to prove that Rein’s strength was far from what he had initially shown.

Sal quietly dispelled the dragonization forming on his hands, secretly glad he hadn’t acted too hastily.

If he had rushed in earlier, with his half-baked power, he might not have lasted longer than the wounded Xi Yan.

Anyway… the goal had been achieved.

But there was still one question.

“What did you mean by ‘the nurturing type’ just now?”

Her question, however, received no answer — only Rein’s counter-question.

“Then why did you have to kill that dragon?” That was something Rein had been wondering for a while. “That one was a pureblood dragon, wasn’t it?”

The value of a pureblood dragon in human society was undeniable.

There’s an old saying: the rarer a thing, the more precious it is.

Not to mention, in the common belief that pureblood dragons had long gone extinct.

If what Xi Yan said was true, then a living pureblood dragon was worth infinitely more than a dead one.

Sal’s answer came quickly and bluntly.

“She lied. She wasn’t a pureblood.”

After all, Xi Yan was already dead.

With no evidence left behind, who could ever prove otherwise?

As for Rein — though he could tell Sal was lying, he didn’t expose it.

Since they were still in a phase of mutual deceit, he decided to play along.

It was a chance to build some trust and possibly get closer to the truth he wanted.

“Where to next?”

The dragon had been slain.

What came next — Sal had never explained during the entire journey.

And now, his answer took Rein completely by surprise.

“It’s over.”

“Over? But—”

Rein frowned.

He could still clearly sense another dragon’s aura nearby — one almost identical in purity to Sal’s.

Even if that aura was faint, posing no threat to him…

“There are no buts.”

In Sal’s mind, he had paid, and Rein had done his part.

Their deal was concluded.

Until Rein killed Xi Yan, they were bound by necessity.

But now that Xi Yan — Sal’s target — was dead…

“Your job is done.”

Sal said this as he took two gold coins from his pocket and tossed them toward Rein.

That was double what they had originally agreed upon.

“Take these and go. The rest doesn’t concern you.”

“And… I hope you’ll keep everything that happened today a secret. You’ve already gained more than just what I paid you.”

A whole red dragon, frozen by magic, shouldn’t have simply vanished without a trace.

So Sal had every reason to suspect that Rein had somehow moved Xi Yan’s body — or perhaps hadn’t killed her at all.

He didn’t have the courage or the power to find out.

So, if it could end peacefully, that was for the best.

Sal wasn’t stupid — from the two sentences Rein had said during the “negotiation” with Xi Yan, he already knew Rein had seen through his disguise.

But Rein’s unpredictable, almost unfathomable demeanor made Sal’s earlier confidence in a possible betrayal completely vanish.

That was why he chose this roundabout way of speaking — to remind Rein of their employer–employee relationship without provoking him.

Rein understood the subtext.

After a brief moment of silence, during which their gazes met, Rein finally bent down and picked up the two gold coins.

That single motion made Sal, who’d been on edge the whole time, finally let out a quiet breath of relief.

…

To Sal’s surprise, sending Rein away went more smoothly than expected.

The tall man — who dwarfed him in both height and presence — turned out to be unexpectedly easy to deal with.

Rein accepted the two gold coins, cast Sal a few meaningful glances, and then left without another word.

Though that last look made Sal feel as though his very thoughts had been laid bare — at least now, he finally had the castle to himself.

Closing his eyes, he listened closely.

From deep within the castle came a voice — weak, yet achingly familiar — calling to him.

Without hesitation, he threw off his concealing cloak and ran toward it in his human form.

As he ran, his thin, youthful human body began to change.

Golden scales spread across his skin, his expanding frame tearing through the remnants of his clothes.

“Mother!”

Crying out, Sal rushed into the castle’s underground chamber — where he found his dragon mother, battered and barely clinging to life.

She looked at him, relief washing over her eyes, and let out a faint sigh.

“Sal… my child, how did you make it back alive?”

Even gravely wounded, the strength of a pureblood dragon was still tied to its age.

A young dragon like Sal — not yet fully grown — could never have defeated an adult dragon alone.

Though she asked, his mother already understood the truth.

“You went to seek help from humans… didn’t you?”

Never trust others — especially humans.

They are deceitful, greedy, and cunning.

They don’t just deceive and invade other races — they use those same tricks on their own kind.

They are a race like a spreading plague, yet they are favored by the gods, blessed with a fertility that surpasses even ours.

So you must stay away from humans. Even if there’s only one — avoid direct contact at all costs, lest you expose yourself.

Otherwise, what awaits you will be humans clad in armor, wielding swords, calling themselves “heroes.”

They’ll brand you with false crimes and drag you into an endless war of attrition.

When you’re exhausted and unable to fight anymore — that’s when they’ll take your head.

That had been the first lesson his mother ever taught him.

Never trust humans — a belief she had drilled into him since his earliest days.

It might have worked for other young dragons.

But for Sal — who had once lived a lifetime as a human in a previous world — those decades, though bitter, had shaped his instinct to think and act like one.

And so now, realizing he had crossed one of his mother’s lines, his first instinct was to lower his head and apologize.

But before he could bow that golden head, his mother’s weak yet still commanding roar stopped him.

She scolded him — because even that instinctive motion, that act of lowering his head, went against everything she had tried to instill in him — the pride of a pureblood golden dragon.