fessions of the Historian are non-tinuous pseudo chapters that feature a timeframe far removed from the main story. They will not affect the main story’s update schedule, and will instead be uploaded at random intervals alongside them.

  Ep 51. fessions of the Historian: The Price of Peace

  Hero. It’s a pleasant title.

  At times, a warrior of uioned valor. At times, an ior of astounding genius. At times, a protector of unyielding resolution. Their aplishments defiheir lives, and such lives are remembered as heroes.

  However, a hero ot be birthed by aplishments alone – for a hero always requires an adversary. Whether it be an enemy otlefield, the hardships of their people, nature itself…

  Or, at times, evil foretold by divine will.

  ? ? ?

  “Hm? A fner?”

  “…”

  A proud warrior came to a halt as his sabatons made a rugged metallioise upon the rocky valley floors. He scowled at the sentry who’d referred to him as a mere ‘fner.’

  When the warrior sed the man that stood before him, he could pinly see their two horns jutting above their head. A bck, scaled tail stretched behind them, as did their dark grey wings. Despite their human form, the individual was clearly a dragon.

  And behind the dragon, tless people, humans and dragons alike, bustled about through their days – almost as if it were a regur human vilge.

  “This is…”

  “Ah, this must be a rather odd sight for a fhere’s nothing to be wary of. The outskirts of our shouldn’t be any different from your own vilges.”

  “…?”

  The armored warrired at the dragon that stood guard of this supposed ‘.’

  A demon was standing guard in front of an encampment taining humans. More often than not, such occurrences only indicated svery taking pce.

  Everything was distasteful in the warrior’s eyes. The dragon’s crossed arms, their attitude as an equal, or the human woman at his side. All of it.

  “All demons stoop to the same level, I see. Reaping the fruits of our subjugation?”

  “…What? No. We simply live together in these parts.”

  A few vilgers picked up the otion at the entrance. A number of them even approached the armored man, correg the warrior’s statement.

  “That’s going too far. The dragons are fellow vilgers to us. Be careful with your words, stranger.”

  “Yeah! Uel’s super nice!”

  The human vilgers’ words seemed to fall on deaf ears. The warrior ched his fists in anger, gring at the bck dragon before him.

  “Even children…!”

  The dragon rolled his eyes, letting out a tired sigh at the angry figure before him. The fner was clearly filtering everything he didn’t want to hear.

  “Listen, it may be hard to believe if you came from other parts, but this is how we live here. We-“

  “Silence! Damned demons. After subjugating our bodies as sves, now you seek to subjugate our minds?!”

  The warrior uhed his bde, pointing its gleaming edge towards the annoyed dragon.

  The vilgers hurriedly took a few steps back, pulling their children away from the armed man. The dragon himself frowned aly shook off the woman ging on his arm, motioning for her to stay away.

  The armored man didn’t seem to care. The anger in his eyes only intensified.

  “My name is Geold, a divine hero chosen to sy the world’s evil! I will sy every single one of you and free these vilgers!”

  The man didn’t hesitate for a moment before swinging his sword in an attempt to cleave the dragon before him. The dragon hurriedly retreated a few steps as the metal sshed past his face.

  “…This bastard…!”

  The warrior disallowed the dragon from retreating. He pulled back his free arm and dashed forward in split moments to smash his fist into his enemy.

  A quick retaliation followed as the dragon kicked the armed figure back. The two struck at each simultaneously, sending each other flying across the distahe warrior crashed into a boulder outside the vilge, the dragon into a nearby structure.

  Several screams followed as vilgers began to flee from the se. The woman that had been standing beside the dragon earlier screamed in panic.

  “A…are you alright?!”

  When the dust settled, the warrior fixed his grip on his on as he pulled himself back.

  “This is nothing. I’m-“

  It didn’t take long for the man to realize that the woman’s question hadn’t been directed at him. The woman was busily tending to the fallen dragon.

  “Betel! Your eye…!”

  The bck dragon slowly emerged from the broken remains of the structure he’d crashed into. One hand covered his sshed right eye that was soaked in blood.

  “…Haha, it’s bearable. I’m gd there wasn’t anyone ie.”

  “W, wait here! I’ll bring others in a moment!”

  The warriritted his teeth as he watched the woman run off into the distance, deeper into the vilge. His sabatons furiously smmed into the ground as he approached the dragon again.

  “Calling on your brethren through your sves? You’re a disgrace as a warrior, demon.”

  Betel shook his head. He didn’t even know what to say at this point to the delusional figure.

  When he was only a few steps away, the warrior proudly raised his on into the air, gripping the hilt with both hands. Its bde shone in a brilliant golden light, crag ied energy.

  “Holy light, give me strength!”

  Betel narrowed his eyes as he braced for the oning attack. This human’s might was far beyond anything he’d seen in mankind, but he couldn’t risk avoiding the flict – behind the dragon was their home and children, and he’d been tasked with proteg it from intruders.

  Although, no one had expected the intruder to be a human.

  “…Tch.”

  After kig his tongue, bck scales rapidly began to repce the dragon’s skin. His pupils sharpened into a beastlike shape. The dragon’s body rapidly expanded in size as he stretched one arm forward in an attempt to stop the swing altogether.

  With a tremendous roar, the warrior swung down his sword at the demon before him.

  “DIE!!”

  ? ? ?

  Following a series of hurried footsteps, a woman burst into an elder dragon’s shelter.

  “E…Elder Arkrana!!”

  The steel dragon’s gaze drifted over. She dropped the tome she was reading, turning to her panting guest.

  “…Bur? Is something the matter?”

  “Th, there’s someoag Betel! He’s already hurt badly…!”

  Arkrana immediately rose to her feet. Her expression hardened as she approached the woman.

  “An attack?! Is it the griffins again?”

  “No! It was a….it was a human person!”

  “…A human? Why would-”

  “Please, hurry! I’ll call on Pals!”

  The steel dragon he hurry in the woman’s eyes, realizing she wouldn’t have time to hear an answer. Nodding back, Arkrana briskly exited her small shelter as gleaming wings stretched out of her back with a g noise. Soon after, the dragon kicked against the ground, ung herself into the air as she blitzed across the sky.

  Far up ahead, she could see a patch of bck scales at the vilge entrance: for some reasoel was in his dragon form.

  ‘What happehat’s going too far to deal with a mere human-‘

  As their distance rapidly closed, Arkrana could see the bck dragon’s stretched, severed arm. His head and chest were covered in blood, and a grinning human triumphantly stood over Betel, one foot pnted in the dragon’s head.

  “Haha! Just as I thought, even a dragon pales in parison to the might of the divin-“

  The warrior felt something cold and heavy g his head from the side. An ominous, metallic voice screeched into his ears.

  “Die.”

  Arkrana’s momentum carried her hand forward as her feet crashed into the ground like a meteorite beside their assaint. Before the warrior’s body could even decide on a rea, the iron grip around his head tightened and twisted, ripping it off of his body.

  The elder dragon smashed the headless warrior’s body out of the way. She rapidly ran her hand over the bck dragon, trying to wake him up.

  “Betel! Betel, are you alive?!”

  A low rumbling followed as the bck dragon’s remaining eye slowly opened.

  “...Elder…Arkrana.”

  “Hold on. Bur’s goo call on Pals! Bear it just a while longer.”

  “Ahaha…you’re far too ed, elder. I’m no longer a hatg. A scratch or two won’t…”

  ch!

  The bck dragon never mao finish his sentence as a gigantic pilr of ice smashed into his scaled neck. A sed one soon followed, skewering through his upper body.

  Arkrana stared at the glimmering pilrs in a daze.

  ‘…Ice?’

  Finally, the steel dragon’s ears picked up a series of small footsteps from behind. Wheurned her head, three more figures were in the distaanding above a low, rocky cliff.

  “Got one!”

  “Damn it, did they get Gee? Told him to not run ahead like that…”

  “Let’s go! It was always do or die anyways. Our enemies are dragons, put your lives on it!”

  The three humans were gring at the metal dragon with evident hatred. Arkrana herself returned a bnk stare, uo uand what was going on.

  ‘Humans are attag us?...Why?’

  As the three desded the cliff to approach Arkrana with their ons raised, one of the vilgers that had been watg from a distance finally threw himself towards the oning party, trying to stop their advances.

  “S, stop! Why are you doing this?!”

  One of the three shook their heads as they forcibly moved the man out of the way. A determined look spoke of their spirit as they answered.

  “Fear not! We’ll free you of the demon’s clutches ere long!”

  Meanwhile, the mage in the party raised her staff up high, ting something under her breath. Several spikes of ice again formed above her, ung themselves straight towards the twons in the distance.

  Arkrana raised one arm to eye level. Layers of metal grew out of her limb to form a web-like barrier, shielding her ael from the spell.

  In the gaps of the expanded metal, the elder dragon’s furious eyes gred into the figures attag her kin.

  “Humans…do you realize what you’re doing?”

  A hulking man stepped forth in respohreateningly pointing his halberd at the steel dragon.

  “Ours is but to sy all evil that pgues the star! That, is the holy missiorusted to us heroes!””

  The steel drago out a sarcastiort. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  ‘Evil? Us? You would call the dragonkin evil?’

  But before she could answer, a volley of arrows rained down upoal dragon, each emitting a fiery glow. One by ohey began to burst upon impact, c the elder in a series of small explosions.

  Arkrana walked forth, ign the smoke and fire. Mere arrows coated in fmes weren’t of any threat to the steel dragon. The web-like metal that had grown out of her limb retreated back, ref into a bde-like shape with a deathly screech.

  An ominous gaze swept the field as Arkrana approached the party of heroes. Each step was apanied by an eg thud as the steel dragon’s weight beared down on the earth beh.

  “…You damned is.”

  ? ? ?

  The woman’s desperate cries echoed throughout the valley.

  “Betel…Betel!”

  Arkrana turned away from the motionless bck dragon. Her eyes fell on another elder dragon on his knees, busily running their hand over Betel’s breathless body.

  “Pals…couldn’t you do something?”

  The elder dragon frowned as his eyes met Arkrana’s. He slowly rose back to his feet, shaking his head in dismay.

  “I’m sorry, Arkrana. The ice has pierced both his ned heart. There’s nothing I do.”

  Arkrana bit her lips. If their eldest healer deemed one beyond saving, that was the end of it.

  Meanwhile, the woman’s tiny hands desperately cwed against the bck dragon’s face. She couldn’t evehe elder dragons versing behind her.

  Before, Betel would easily awake when she rubbed him between his eyes and snout. He’d pin about being ticklish, and drench her from head to toe with one lick.

  Now, the dragon remained motionless. His eyes refused to open as they would before.

  “Betel, please…you promised you’d be here forever. How could you leave like this? How could you leave before me…”

  Pals, too, turned his eyes away from the grieving woman. Times like these, he cursed his own hearing.

  “…Arkrana, was it the griffins again? We’ve quarreled from time to time, but this is…”

  “They were humans.”

  “…Humans?”

  “Yes. All four of them.”

  “Humans attacked us? What reason could they possibly have to attack us?”

  “I do not know. They screamed of a holy mission of some sort.”

  “…”

  A heavy shadow crept up Pals’ face. One hand csped his lips as he began to recall a few ret events.

  “A holy mission…? If this is the war Eden warned us of…”

  “Silence, Pals.”

  Arkrana’s gaze sharpened into a gre as she cut off Pals’ words.

  “Do not make unfound assumptions. The war between humans and demons have naught to do with us; the lord has spoken to us of this on multiple occasions. Humans have no reason to attack us.”

  “But…if the war is expanding into our , then perhaps we should also…”

  “There is no ‘but.’”

  The steel dragon pletely turned her back as she began to walk away from the se. She spat her few words relutly, repressing the urge to rush to their lord’s side.

  “We will remairal. Lord Serenis herself has ordered thus.”

  We will maintain our peace.

  Just as we always have.

  ? ? ?

  tless heroes challenged your kin, dragonlord. tless heroes fell to your kin.

  However, the same could be said for your children. Heroes tio emerge, and in their ued might, tless dragonkio their bdes.

  To you, we were doubtlessly the evil that pgued your home. We were the antagonists that destroyed the peace you struggled to build.

  But these records will forever mourn the fallen heroes. These records will forever celebrate the heroes chosen by the divihey will be remembered as the brave and the honorable who risked their lives to sy the evil dragons.

  For history, is always written by the victors.